Henry V
Act V, Scene 1
France. The English Court of Guard.
Quiet thy cudgel, thou dost see I eat.
1901
- Enter Fluellen and Gower.
Gower
1 - 2- Nay, that’s right; but why wear you your leek today? Saint
- Davy’s day is past.
Fluellen
3 - 12- There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all
- things. I will tell you asse my friend, Captain Gower: the
- rascally, scald, beggarly, lousy, pragging knave, Pistol,
- which you and yourself, and all the world, know to be no
- petter than a fellow, look you now, of no merits, he is come
- to me, and prings me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and
- bid me eat my leek. It was in a place where I could not
- breed no contention with him; but I will be so bold as to
- wear it in my cap till I see him once again, and then I will
- tell him a little piece of my desires.
- Enter Pistol.
Gower
13- Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.
Fluellen
14 - 16- ’Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks. God
- pless you, Aunchient Pistol! You scurvy, lousy knave, God
- pless you!
Pistol
17 - 19- Ha, art thou bedlam? Dost thou thirst, base Troyan,
- To have me fold up Parca’s fatal web?
- Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.
Fluellen
20 - 24- I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my desires,
- and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you, this
- leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor your
- affections, and your appetites, and your digestions doo’s
- not agree with it, I would desire you to eat it.
Pistol
25- Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.
Fluellen
26 - 27- There is one goat for you.
- Strikes him.
- Will you be so good, scald knave, as eat it?
Pistol
28- Base Troyan, thou shalt die.
Fluellen
29 - 34- You say very true, scald knave, when God’s will is. I will
- desire you to live in the mean time, and eat your victuals.
- Come, there is sauce for it.
- Strikes him.
- You call’d me yesterday mountain-squire, but I will make you
- today a squire of low degree. I pray you fall to; if you can
- mock a leek, you can eat a leek.
Gower
35- Enough, captain, you have astonish’d him.
Fluellen
36 - 38- I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will
- peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you, it is good for
- your green wound and your ploody coxcomb.
Pistol
39- Must I bite?
Fluellen
40 - 41- Yes, certainly, and out of doubt and out of question too,
- and ambiguities.
Pistol
42 - 43- By this leek, I will most horribly revenge—I eat and eat—I
- swear—
I pray you fall to; if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.
John Masey Wright, George Cattermole, Robert Smirke, circa 1900
Fluellen
44 - 45- Eat, I pray you. Will you have some more sauce to your leek?
- There is not enough leek to swear by.
Pistol
46- Quiet thy cudgel, thou dost see I eat.
Fluellen
47 - 50- Much good do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, pray you throw
- none away, the skin is good for your broken coxcomb. When
- you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you mock
- at ’em, that is all.
Pistol
51- Good.
Fluellen
52 - 53- Ay, leeks is good. Hold you, there is a groat to heal your
- pate.
Pistol
54- Me a groat?
Fluellen
55 - 56- Yes, verily, and in truth you shall take it, or I have
- another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat.
Pistol
57- I take thy groat in earnest of revenge.
Fluellen
58 - 60- If I owe you any thing, I will pay you in cudgels; you shall
- be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God buy
- you, and keep you, and heal your pate.
- Exit.
Pistol
61- All hell shall stir for this.
Gower
62 - 70- Go, go, you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock
- at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honorable respect,
- and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceas’d valor, and
- dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen
- you gleeking and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice.
- You thought, because he could not speak English in the
- native garb, he could not therefore handle an English
- cudgel. You find it otherwise, and henceforth let a Welsh
- correction teach you a good English condition. Fare ye well.
- Exit.
Pistol
71 - 80- Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?
- News have I that my Doll is dead i’ th’ spittle
- Of a malady of France,
- And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
- Old I do wax, and from my weary limbs
- Honor is cudgell’d. Well, bawd I’ll turn,
- And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.
- To England will I steal, and there I’ll steal;
- And patches will I get unto these cudgell’d scars,
- And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.
- Exit.
Will you have some more sauce to your leek?
Joseph Noel Paton, circa 1850