YORK Speak it in French, King. Say ‘pardonnez-moi’.
DUCHESS Dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?
Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord
That sets the word itself against the word
[to Bolingbroke] Speak ‘pardon’ as ’tis current in our land,
The chopping French we do not understand.
Thine eye begins to speak—set thy tongue there
Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear
That, hearing how our plaints and prayers do pierce,
Pity may move thee ‘pardon’ to rehearse. (5.3.118-127)
York’s line here will probably get a laugh because it seems absurd, as if he’s given up and is now just playing with words. Which he is, but more subtly than it might seem and (perhaps even more than the French scenes in Henry V, albeit only a single phrase), this attests both to Shakespeare’s ability to write wordplay in French and the fact that it would be intelligible to at least some in the audience. Pardonnez-moi doesn’t mean ‘pardon me’ in the sense of, grant me your pardon, have mercy, but rather it’s forgive me, excuse me, when one is refusing something, denying a request. York is, in fact, still arguing for Aumerle to be punished, or at least not let off the hook entirely. Turn down this request, he says to Bolingbroke, say ‘pardonnez-moi’. The Duchess knows exactly what he’s doing: dost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy, that is, tell him to say pardon only to deny it? And her description of York as sour and hard-hearted is apt enough, with his bitter wordplay, setting the word itself against the word (a phrase which will come up again shortly in another context), here suggesting that York is being sophistical as well as cruel, now arguing almost just for the sake of it. Stop it, you’re just being bloody-minded, old man.
And then back she goes to Bolingbroke: never mind him, she says, speak English, just speak pardon as ’tis current in our land, don’t mess around with this chopping French, chopping meaning slippery, duplicitous, as in chop-logic (which Capulet accuses Juliet of using when she refuses to marry Paris). And Bolingbroke perhaps can control himself no longer, can’t remain stern and stony countenanced, and she sees that she’s probably won (or else it’s a final strategic move, to tell him that she can already see that he’s capitulated to her pleas, a kind of positive reinforcement): Thine eye begins to speak (is Bolingbroke crying with laughter? Probably that would be going a bit far). (And really, Aumerle has been safe for some time.) Let your tongue follow your eye in speaking mercifully, or, perhaps, listen to your piteous heart. You know what you want to say and do. You’ve heard our prayers, our plaints, our laments, now have pity on us, and just say ‘pardon’.
