Page 1662 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

What do you call him?

FLUELLEN
He is called Aunchient Pistol.

GOWER
I know him not.

Enter Pistol.

FLUELLEN
Here is the man.

PISTOL
Capitain, I thee beseech to do me favours: [20]

The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

FLUELLEN

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

PISTOL
Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,
And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate [25]
And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind,

That stands upon the rolling restless stone −

FLUELLEN
By your patience, Aunchient Pistol: Fortune is painted blind, with a muffle
afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is painted also
with a wheel, to signify to [30] you, which is the moral of it, that she is

turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation; and her foot, look you,
is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth,
the poet makes [35] a most excellent description of it: Fortune is an excellent
moral.

PISTOL