Gow.

How now, captain Fluellen, come you from the bridge?

Flu.

I assure you there is very excellent services committed at the pridge.

Gow.

Is the Duke of Exeter safe?

Flu.

The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon, and a man that I love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my life, and my living, and my uttermost power. He is not, God be praised and plessed, any hurt in the world; he is maintain the pridge most valiantly with excellent discipline. There is an ancient lieutenant there, I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony, and he is a man of no estimation in the world, but I did see him do gallant services.

Gow.
What do you call him?

Flu.
He is call'd ancient Pistol.

Gow.
I know him not.

Enter Pistol.

Flu.
Here is the man.

Pist.
Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours:
The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

Flu.
I, I praise God, and I have merited some love at his hands.

Pist.
Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart
And buxom valour, hath by cruel fate
And giddy fortune's furious fickle wheel,
That Goddess blind that stands upon the rolling restless stone—

Flu.

By your patience, Ancient Pistol: Fortune is painted plind, with a muffler before her eyes, to signifie to you that fortune is plind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signifie to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning and inconstant, and mutabilities and variations; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rowles and rowles and rowles; in good truth, the Poet makes a most excellent description of it: fortune is an excellent moral.

Pist.
Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;
For † ^notehe hath stoln a Pax, and hanged must a be; damned death!
Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free,
And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate;
But Exeter hath given the doom of death
For Pax of little price. Therefore go speak,
The Duke will hear thy voice;
And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut
With edge of penny-cord, and vile reproach.
Speak captain for his life, and I will thee requite.

Flu.

Ancient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

Pist.
Why then rejoice therefore.

Flu.

Certainly ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at; for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the Duke to use

his good pleasure and put him to executions, for disciplines ought to be used.

Pist.

Die and be damn'd, and Figo for thy friendship.

Flu.

It is well.

Pist.

The fig of Spain—

Flu.

Very good.

Gow.

Why this is an arrant counterfeit rascal, I remember him now; a bawd, a cut-purse.

Flu.

I'll assure you, he utt'red as prave words at the pridge as you shall see in a summer's day; but it is very well; what he has spoke to me, that is well I warrant you, when time is serve.

Gow.

Why 'tis a gull, a fool, a rogue that now and then goes to the wars, to grace himself at his return into London, under the form of a soldier. Such fellows are perfect in the great commanders names, and they will learn you by rote where services were done; at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgrac'd, what terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-turned oaths: And what a beard of the general's cut, and a horrid sute of the camp, will do among foaming bottles and ale-wash'd wits, is wonderful to be thought on! But you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you may be marvellously mistook.

Flu.

I tell you what, captain Gower; I do perceive he is not the man that he would gladly make shew to the world he is; if I find a hole in his coat I will tell him my mind; hear you, the King is coming and I must ^{a note}speak with him.