The Complete Works of William Shakespeare/The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.iso/shakespr/henry5.txt

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    KING HENRY V


    DRAMATIS PERSONAE


KING HENRY    the Fifth. (KING HENRY V)

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER    (GLOUCESTER:)    |
        |  brothers to the King.
DUKE OF BEDFORD    (BEDFORD:)    |


DUKE OF EXETER    uncle to the King. (EXETER:)

DUKE OF YORK    cousin to the King. (YORK:)

EARL OF SALISBURY    (SALISBURY:)

EARL OF
WESTMORELAND    (WESTMORELAND:)

EARL OF WARWICK    (WARWICK:)

BISHOP OF
CANTERBURY    (CANTERBURY:)

BISHOP OF ELY    (ELY:)

EARL OF CAMBRIDGE    (CAMBRIDGE:)

LORD SCROOP    (SCROOP:)

SIR THOMAS GREY    (GREY:)


SIR
THOMAS ERPINGHAM    (ERPINGHAM:)    |
        |
GOWER        |
        |
FLUELLEN        |  Officers in King Henry's army.
        |
MACMORRIS        |
        |
JAMY        |


BATES    |
    |
COURT    |  soldiers in the same.
    |
WILLIAMS    |


PISTOL:

NYM:

BARDOLPH:

    Boy
    A Herald.

CHARLES the Sixth    King of France. (KING OF FRANCE:) (FRENCH KING:)

LEWIS    the Dauphin. (DAUPHIN:)

DUKE OF BURGUNDY    (BURGUNDY:)

DUKE OF ORLEANS    (ORLEANS:)

DUKE OF BOURBON    (BOURBON:)

    The Constable of France. (Constable:)


RAMBURES    |
    |  French Lords.
GRANDPRE    |


GOVERNOR    of Harfleur.

MONTJOY    a French Herald.

    Ambassadors to the King of England.

ISABEL    Queen of France. (QUEEN ISABEL:)

KATHARINE    daughter to Charles and Isabel.

ALICE    a lady attending on her.

    Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap formerly
    Mistress Quickly, and now married to Pistol.
    Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Citizens,
    Messengers, and Attendants. Chorus.
    (Hostess:)
    (First Ambassador:)
    (Messenger:)
    (French Soldier:)

SCENE    England; afterwards France.




    KING HENRY V

    PROLOGUE


    [Enter Chorus]

Chorus    O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
    The brightest heaven of invention,
    A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
    And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
    Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
    Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
    Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
    Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
    The flat unraised spirits that have dared
    On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
    So great an object: can this cockpit hold
    The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
    Within this wooden O the very casques
    That did affright the air at Agincourt?
    O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
    Attest in little place a million;
    And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
    On your imaginary forces work.
    Suppose within the girdle of these walls
    Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
    Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
    The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
    Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
    Into a thousand parts divide on man,
    And make imaginary puissance;
    Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
    Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
    For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
    Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
    Turning the accomplishment of many years
    Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
    Admit me Chorus to this history;
    Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
    Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

    [Exit]




    KING HENRY V


ACT I



SCENE I    London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace.


    [Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP OF ELY]

CANTERBURY    My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is urged,
    Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign
    Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
    But that the scambling and unquiet time
    Did push it out of farther question.

ELY    But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?

CANTERBURY    It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
    We lose the better half of our possession:
    For all the temporal lands which men devout
    By testament have given to the church
    Would they strip from us; being valued thus:
    As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
    Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
    Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
    And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
    Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil.
    A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
    And to the coffers of the king beside,
    A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill.

ELY    This would drink deep.

CANTERBURY    'Twould drink the cup and all.

ELY    But what prevention?

CANTERBURY    The king is full of grace and fair regard.

ELY    And a true lover of the holy church.

CANTERBURY    The courses of his youth promised it not.
    The breath no sooner left his father's body,
    But that his wildness, mortified in him,
    Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment
    Consideration, like an angel, came
    And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,
    Leaving his body as a paradise,
    To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
    Never was such a sudden scholar made;
    Never came reformation in a flood,
    With such a heady currance, scouring faults
    Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
    So soon did lose his seat and all at once
    As in this king.

ELY                      We are blessed in the change.

CANTERBURY    Hear him but reason in divinity,
    And all-admiring with an inward wish
    You would desire the king were made a prelate:
    Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
    You would say it hath been all in all his study:
    List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
    A fearful battle render'd you in music:
    Turn him to any cause of policy,
    The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
    Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks,
    The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
    And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
    To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;
    So that the art and practic part of life
    Must be the mistress to this theoric:
    Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,
    Since his addiction was to courses vain,
    His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow,
    His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports,
    And never noted in him any study,
    Any retirement, any sequestration
    From open haunts and popularity.

ELY    The strawberry grows underneath the nettle
    And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
    Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
    And so the prince obscured his contemplation
    Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
    Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
    Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

CANTERBURY    It must be so; for miracles are ceased;
    And therefore we must needs admit the means
    How things are perfected.

ELY    But, my good lord,
    How now for mitigation of this bill
    Urged by the commons? Doth his majesty
    Incline to it, or no?

CANTERBURY    He seems indifferent,
    Or rather swaying more upon our part
    Than cherishing the exhibiters against us;
    For I have made an offer to his majesty,
    Upon our spiritual convocation
    And in regard of causes now in hand,
    Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
    As touching France, to give a greater sum
    Than ever at one time the clergy yet
    Did to his predecessors part withal.

ELY    How did this offer seem received, my lord?

CANTERBURY    With good acceptance of his majesty;
    Save that there was not time enough to hear,
    As I perceived his grace would fain have done,
    The severals and unhidden passages
    Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms
    And generally to the crown and seat of France
    Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.

ELY    What was the impediment that broke this off?

CANTERBURY    The French ambassador upon that instant
    Craved audience; and the hour, I think, is come
    To give him hearing: is it four o'clock?

ELY    It is.

CANTERBURY    Then go we in, to know his embassy;
    Which I could with a ready guess declare,
    Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.

ELY    I'll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT I



SCENE II    The same. The Presence chamber.


    [Enter KING HENRY V, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER,
    WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants]

KING HENRY V    Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?

EXETER    Not here in presence.

KING HENRY V    Send for him, good uncle.

WESTMORELAND    Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?

KING HENRY V    Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved,
    Before we hear him, of some things of weight
    That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

    [Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP of ELY]

CANTERBURY    God and his angels guard your sacred throne
    And make you long become it!

KING HENRY V    Sure, we thank you.
    My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
    And justly and religiously unfold
    Why the law Salique that they have in France
    Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim:
    And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
    That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
    Or nicely charge your understanding soul
    With opening titles miscreate, whose right
    Suits not in native colours with the truth;
    For God doth know how many now in health
    Shall drop their blood in approbation
    Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
    Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
    How you awake our sleeping sword of war:
    We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;
    For never two such kingdoms did contend
    Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
    Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
    'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords
    That make such waste in brief mortality.
    Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;
    For we will hear, note and believe in heart
    That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
    As pure as sin with baptism.

CANTERBURY    Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
    That owe yourselves, your lives and services
    To this imperial throne. There is no bar
    To make against your highness' claim to France
    But this, which they produce from Pharamond,
    'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant:'
    'No woman shall succeed in Salique land:'
    Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
    To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
    The founder of this law and female bar.
    Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
    That the land Salique is in Germany,
    Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
    Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,
    There left behind and settled certain French;
    Who, holding in disdain the German women
    For some dishonest manners of their life,
    Establish'd then this law; to wit, no female
    Should be inheritrix in Salique land:
    Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
    Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.
    Then doth it well appear that Salique law
    Was not devised for the realm of France:
    Nor did the French possess the Salique land
    Until four hundred one and twenty years
    After defunction of King Pharamond,
    Idly supposed the founder of this law;
    Who died within the year of our redemption
    Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
    Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
    Beyond the river Sala, in the year
    Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
    King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,
    Did, as heir general, being descended
    Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
    Make claim and title to the crown of France.
    Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown
    Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
    Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
    To find his title with some shows of truth,
    'Through, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,
    Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,
    Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
    To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
    Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,
    Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
    Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
    Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
    That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
    Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
    Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorraine:
    By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
    Was re-united to the crown of France.
    So that, as clear as is the summer's sun.
    King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim,
    King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
    To hold in right and title of the female:
    So do the kings of France unto this day;
    Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
    To bar your highness claiming from the female,
    And rather choose to hide them in a net
    Than amply to imbar their crooked titles
    Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

KING HENRY V    May I with right and conscience make this claim?

CANTERBURY    The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
    For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
    When the man dies, let the inheritance
    Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
    Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
    Look back into your mighty ancestors:
    Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,
    From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
    And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
    Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
    Making defeat on the full power of France,
    Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
    Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp
    Forage in blood of French nobility.
    O noble English. that could entertain
    With half their forces the full Pride of France
    And let another half stand laughing by,
    All out of work and cold for action!

ELY    Awake remembrance of these valiant dead
    And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
    You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;
    The blood and courage that renowned them
    Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
    Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
    Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.

EXETER    Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
    Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
    As did the former lions of your blood.

WESTMORELAND    They know your grace hath cause and means and might;
    So hath your highness; never king of England
    Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,
    Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England
    And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

CANTERBURY    O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
    With blood and sword and fire to win your right;
    In aid whereof we of the spiritualty
    Will raise your highness such a mighty sum
    As never did the clergy at one time
    Bring in to any of your ancestors.

KING HENRY V    We must not only arm to invade the French,
    But lay down our proportions to defend
    Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
    With all advantages.

CANTERBURY    They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
    Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
    Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

KING HENRY V    We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
    But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
    Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
    For you shall read that my great-grandfather
    Never went with his forces into France
    But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
    Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
    With ample and brim fulness of his force,
    Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,
    Girding with grievous siege castles and towns;
    That England, being empty of defence,
    Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.

CANTERBURY    She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;
    For hear her but exampled by herself:
    When all her chivalry hath been in France
    And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
    She hath herself not only well defended
    But taken and impounded as a stray
    The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,
    To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings
    And make her chronicle as rich with praise
    As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
    With sunken wreck and sunless treasuries.

WESTMORELAND    But there's a saying very old and true,
    'If that you will France win,
    Then with Scotland first begin:'
    For once the eagle England being in prey,
    To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
    Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,
    Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
    To tear and havoc more than she can eat.

EXETER    It follows then the cat must stay at home:
    Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,
    Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
    And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
    While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
    The advised head defends itself at home;
    For government, though high and low and lower,
    Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
    Congreeing in a full and natural close,
    Like music.

CANTERBURY              Therefore doth heaven divide
    The state of man in divers functions,
    Setting endeavour in continual motion;
    To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
    Obedience: for so work the honey-bees,
    Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
    The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
    They have a king and officers of sorts;
    Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
    Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,
    Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
    Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
    Which pillage they with merry march bring home
    To the tent-royal of their emperor;
    Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
    The singing masons building roofs of gold,
    The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
    The poor mechanic porters crowding in
    Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
    The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
    Delivering o'er to executors pale
    The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
    That many things, having full reference
    To one consent, may work contrariously:
    As many arrows, loosed several ways,
    Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
    As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;
    As many lines close in the dial's centre;
    So may a thousand actions, once afoot.
    End in one purpose, and be all well borne
    Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
    Divide your happy England into four;
    Whereof take you one quarter into France,
    And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
    If we, with thrice such powers left at home,
    Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,
    Let us be worried and our nation lose
    The name of hardiness and policy.

KING HENRY V    Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.

    [Exeunt some Attendants]

    Now are we well resolved; and, by God's help,
    And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
    France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
    Or break it all to pieces: or there we'll sit,
    Ruling in large and ample empery
    O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
    Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
    Tombless, with no remembrance over them:
    Either our history shall with full mouth
    Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
    Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
    Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.

    [Enter Ambassadors of France]

    Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure
    Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear
    Your greeting is from him, not from the king.

First Ambassador    May't please your majesty to give us leave
    Freely to render what we have in charge;
    Or shall we sparingly show you far off
    The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?

KING HENRY V    We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;
    Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
    As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons:
    Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness
    Tell us the Dauphin's mind.

First Ambassador    Thus, then, in few.
    Your highness, lately sending into France,
    Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
    Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.
    In answer of which claim, the prince our master
    Says that you savour too much of your youth,
    And bids you be advised there's nought in France
    That can be with a nimble galliard won;
    You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
    He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
    This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
    Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
    Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.

KING HENRY V    What treasure, uncle?

EXETER    Tennis-balls, my liege.

KING HENRY V    We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
    His present and your pains we thank you for:
    When we have march'd our rackets to these balls,
    We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
    Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
    Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
    That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
    With chaces. And we understand him well,
    How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
    Not measuring what use we made of them.
    We never valued this poor seat of England;
    And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
    To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common
    That men are merriest when they are from home.
    But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
    Be like a king and show my sail of greatness
    When I do rouse me in my throne of France:
    For that I have laid by my majesty
    And plodded like a man for working-days,
    But I will rise there with so full a glory
    That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
    Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
    And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
    Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
    Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
    That shall fly with them: for many a thousand widows
    Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands;
    Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
    And some are yet ungotten and unborn
    That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.
    But this lies all within the will of God,
    To whom I do appeal; and in whose name
    Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on,
    To venge me as I may and to put forth
    My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
    So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
    His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
    When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.
    Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.

    [Exeunt Ambassadors]

EXETER    This was a merry message.

KING HENRY V    We hope to make the sender blush at it.
    Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
    That may give furtherance to our expedition;
    For we have now no thought in us but France,
    Save those to God, that run before our business.
    Therefore let our proportions for these wars
    Be soon collected and all things thought upon
    That may with reasonable swiftness add
    More feathers to our wings; for, God before,
    We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.
    Therefore let every man now task his thought,
    That this fair action may on foot be brought.

    [Exeunt. Flourish]




    KING HENRY V


ACT II


    PROLOGUE


    [Enter Chorus]

Chorus    Now all the youth of England are on fire,
    And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies:
    Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought
    Reigns solely in the breast of every man:
    They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,
    Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
    With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
    For now sits Expectation in the air,
    And hides a sword from hilts unto the point
    With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,
    Promised to Harry and his followers.
    The French, advised by good intelligence
    Of this most dreadful preparation,
    Shake in their fear and with pale policy
    Seek to divert the English purposes.
    O England! model to thy inward greatness,
    Like little body with a mighty heart,
    What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
    Were all thy children kind and natural!
    But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out
    A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills
    With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men,
    One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,
    Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,
    Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,
    Have, for the gilt of France,--O guilt indeed!
    Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France;
    And by their hands this grace of kings must die,
    If hell and treason hold their promises,
    Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.
    Linger your patience on; and we'll digest
    The abuse of distance; force a play:
    The sum is paid; the traitors are agreed;
    The king is set from London; and the scene
    Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton;
    There is the playhouse now, there must you sit:
    And thence to France shall we convey you safe,
    And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
    To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,
    We'll not offend one stomach with our play.
    But, till the king come forth, and not till then,
    Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.

    [Exit]




    KING HENRY V


ACT II



SCENE I    London. A street.


    [Enter Corporal NYM and Lieutenant BARDOLPH]

BARDOLPH    Well met, Corporal Nym.

NYM    Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.

BARDOLPH    What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?

NYM    For my part, I care not: I say little; but when
    time shall serve, there shall be smiles; but that
    shall be as it may. I dare not fight; but I will
    wink and hold out mine iron: it is a simple one; but
    what though? it will toast cheese, and it will
    endure cold as another man's sword will: and
    there's an end.

BARDOLPH    I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends; and
    we'll be all three sworn brothers to France: let it
    be so, good Corporal Nym.

NYM    Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the
    certain of it; and when I cannot live any longer, I
    will do as I may: that is my rest, that is the
    rendezvous of it.

BARDOLPH    It is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell
    Quickly: and certainly she did you wrong; for you
    were troth-plight to her.

NYM    I cannot tell: things must be as they may: men may
    sleep, and they may have their throats about them at
    that time; and some say knives have edges. It must
    be as it may: though patience be a tired mare, yet
    she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I
    cannot tell.

    [Enter PISTOL and Hostess]

BARDOLPH    Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife: good
    corporal, be patient here. How now, mine host Pistol!

PISTOL    Base tike, call'st thou me host? Now, by this hand,
    I swear, I scorn the term; Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.

Hostess    No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and
    board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live
    honestly by the prick of their needles, but it will
    be thought we keep a bawdy house straight.

    [NYM and PISTOL draw]

    O well a day, Lady, if he be not drawn now! we
    shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.

BARDOLPH    Good lieutenant! good corporal! offer nothing here.

NYM    Pish!

PISTOL    Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear'd cur of Iceland!

Hostess    Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.

NYM    Will you shog off? I would have you solus.

PISTOL    'Solus,' egregious dog? O viper vile!
    The 'solus' in thy most mervailous face;
    The 'solus' in thy teeth, and in thy throat,
    And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy,
    And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
    I do retort the 'solus' in thy bowels;
    For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,
    And flashing fire will follow.

NYM    I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me. I have an
    humour to knock you indifferently well. If you grow
    foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my
    rapier, as I may, in fair terms: if you would walk
    off, I would prick your guts a little, in good
    terms, as I may: and that's the humour of it.

PISTOL    O braggart vile and damned furious wight!
    The grave doth gape, and doting death is near;
    Therefore exhale.

BARDOLPH    Hear me, hear me what I say: he that strikes the
    first stroke, I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.

    [Draws]

PISTOL    An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.
    Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give:
    Thy spirits are most tall.

NYM    I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair
    terms: that is the humour of it.

PISTOL    'Couple a gorge!'
    That is the word. I thee defy again.
    O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get?
    No; to the spital go,
    And from the powdering tub of infamy
    Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,
    Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse:
    I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly
    For the only she; and--pauca, there's enough. Go to.

    [Enter the Boy]

Boy    Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and
    you, hostess: he is very sick, and would to bed.
    Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and
    do the office of a warming-pan. Faith, he's very ill.

BARDOLPH    Away, you rogue!

Hostess    By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of
    these days. The king has killed his heart. Good
    husband, come home presently.

    [Exeunt Hostess and Boy]

BARDOLPH    Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to
    France together: why the devil should we keep
    knives to cut one another's throats?

PISTOL    Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!

NYM    You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

PISTOL    Base is the slave that pays.

NYM    That now I will have: that's the humour of it.

PISTOL    As manhood shall compound: push home.

    [They draw]

BARDOLPH    By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I'll
    kill him; by this sword, I will.

PISTOL    Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.

BARDOLPH    Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends:
    an thou wilt not, why, then, be enemies with me too.
    Prithee, put up.

NYM    I shall have my eight shillings I won of you at betting?

PISTOL    A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;
    And liquor likewise will I give to thee,
    And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood:
    I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me;
    Is not this just? for I shall sutler be
    Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
    Give me thy hand.

NYM    I shall have my noble?

PISTOL    In cash most justly paid.

NYM    Well, then, that's the humour of't.

    [Re-enter Hostess]

Hostess    As ever you came of women, come in quickly to Sir
    John. Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked of a burning
    quotidian tertian, that it is most lamentable to
    behold. Sweet men, come to him.

NYM    The king hath run bad humours on the knight; that's
    the even of it.

PISTOL    Nym, thou hast spoke the right;
    His heart is fracted and corroborate.

NYM    The king is a good king: but it must be as it may;
    he passes some humours and careers.

PISTOL    Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins we will live.




    KING HENRY V


ACT II



SCENE II    Southampton. A council-chamber.


    [Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND]

BEDFORD    'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors.

EXETER    They shall be apprehended by and by.

WESTMORELAND    How smooth and even they do bear themselves!
    As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
    Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.

BEDFORD    The king hath note of all that they intend,
    By interception which they dream not of.

EXETER    Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
    Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,
    That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
    His sovereign's life to death and treachery.

    [Trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY V, SCROOP,
    CAMBRIDGE, GREY, and Attendants]

KING HENRY V    Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
    My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham,
    And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:
    Think you not that the powers we bear with us
    Will cut their passage through the force of France,
    Doing the execution and the act
    For which we have in head assembled them?

SCROOP    No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.

KING HENRY V    I doubt not that; since we are well persuaded
    We carry not a heart with us from hence
    That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
    Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
    Success and conquest to attend on us.

CAMBRIDGE    Never was monarch better fear'd and loved
    Than is your majesty: there's not, I think, a subject
    That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
    Under the sweet shade of your government.

GREY    True: those that were your father's enemies
    Have steep'd their galls in honey and do serve you
    With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

KING HENRY V    We therefore have great cause of thankfulness;
    And shall forget the office of our hand,
    Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
    According to the weight and worthiness.

SCROOP    So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
    And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
    To do your grace incessant services.

KING HENRY V    We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
    Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
    That rail'd against our person: we consider
    it was excess of wine that set him on;
    And on his more advice we pardon him.

SCROOP    That's mercy, but too much security:
    Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
    Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.

KING HENRY V    O, let us yet be merciful.

CAMBRIDGE    So may your highness, and yet punish too.

GREY    Sir,
    You show great mercy, if you give him life,
    After the taste of much correction.

KING HENRY V    Alas, your too much love and care of me
    Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!
    If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
    Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye
    When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd and digested,
    Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,
    Though Cambridge, Scroop and Grey, in their dear care
    And tender preservation of our person,
    Would have him punished. And now to our French causes:
    Who are the late commissioners?

CAMBRIDGE    I one, my lord:
    Your highness bade me ask for it to-day.

SCROOP    So did you me, my liege.

GREY    And I, my royal sovereign.

KING HENRY V    Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;
    There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight,
    Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours:
    Read them; and know, I know your worthiness.
    My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,
    We will aboard to night. Why, how now, gentlemen!
    What see you in those papers that you lose
    So much complexion? Look ye, how they change!
    Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there
    That hath so cowarded and chased your blood
    Out of appearance?

CAMBRIDGE                      I do confess my fault;
    And do submit me to your highness' mercy.


GREY    |
    |  To which we all appeal.
SCROOP    |


KING HENRY V    The mercy that was quick in us but late,
    By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
    You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
    For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
    As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
    See you, my princes, and my noble peers,
    These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,
    You know how apt our love was to accord
    To furnish him with all appertinents
    Belonging to his honour; and this man
    Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,
    And sworn unto the practises of France,
    To kill us here in Hampton: to the which
    This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
    Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O,
    What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel,
    Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature!
    Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
    That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
    That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
    Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use,
    May it be possible, that foreign hire
    Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
    That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange,
    That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
    As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
    Treason and murder ever kept together,
    As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
    Working so grossly in a natural cause,
    That admiration did not whoop at them:
    But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
    Wonder to wait on treason and on murder:
    And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
    That wrought upon thee so preposterously
    Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:
    All other devils that suggest by treasons
    Do botch and bungle up damnation
    With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd
    From glistering semblances of piety;
    But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,
    Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
    Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
    If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus
    Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
    He might return to vasty Tartar back,
    And tell the legions 'I can never win
    A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'
    O, how hast thou with 'jealousy infected
    The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
    Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and learned?
    Why, so didst thou: come they of noble family?
    Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?
    Why, so didst thou: or are they spare in diet,
    Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
    Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
    Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,
    Not working with the eye without the ear,
    And but in purged judgment trusting neither?
    Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem:
    And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
    To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
    With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
    For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
    Another fall of man. Their faults are open:
    Arrest them to the answer of the law;
    And God acquit them of their practises!

EXETER       I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
    Richard Earl of Cambridge.
    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
    Henry Lord Scroop of Masham.
    I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
    Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.

SCROOP    Our purposes God justly hath discover'd;
    And I repent my fault more than my death;
    Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
    Although my body pay the price of it.

CAMBRIDGE    For me, the gold of France did not seduce;
    Although I did admit it as a motive
    The sooner to effect what I intended:
    But God be thanked for prevention;
    Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
    Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

GREY    Never did faithful subject more rejoice
    At the discovery of most dangerous treason
    Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself.
    Prevented from a damned enterprise:
    My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.

KING HENRY V    God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
    You have conspired against our royal person,
    Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd and from his coffers
    Received the golden earnest of our death;
    Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
    His princes and his peers to servitude,
    His subjects to oppression and contempt
    And his whole kingdom into desolation.
    Touching our person seek we no revenge;
    But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
    Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
    We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
    Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
    The taste whereof, God of his mercy give
    You patience to endure, and true repentance
    Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence.

    [Exeunt CAMBRIDGE, SCROOP and GREY, guarded]

    Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
    Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
    We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
    Since God so graciously hath brought to light
    This dangerous treason lurking in our way
    To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
    But every rub is smoothed on our way.
    Then forth, dear countrymen: let us deliver
    Our puissance into the hand of God,
    Putting it straight in expedition.
    Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:
    No king of England, if not king of France.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT II



SCENE III    London. Before a tavern.


    [Enter PISTOL, Hostess, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy]

Hostess    Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

PISTOL    No; for my manly heart doth yearn.
    Bardolph, be blithe: Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins:
    Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,
    And we must yearn therefore.

BARDOLPH    Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in
    heaven or in hell!

Hostess    Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's
    bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A' made
    a finer end and went away an it had been any
    christom child; a' parted even just between twelve
    and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after
    I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with
    flowers and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew
    there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as
    a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. 'How now,
    sir John!' quoth I    'what, man! be o' good
    cheer.' So a' cried out 'God, God, God!' three or
    four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a'
    should not think of God; I hoped there was no need
    to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So
    a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my
    hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as
    cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and
    they were as cold as any stone, and so upward and
    upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

NYM    They say he cried out of sack.

Hostess    Ay, that a' did.

BARDOLPH    And of women.

Hostess    Nay, that a' did not.

Boy    Yes, that a' did; and said they were devils
    incarnate.

Hostess    A' could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he
    never liked.

Boy    A' said once, the devil would have him about women.

Hostess    A' did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then
    he was rheumatic, and talked of the whore of Babylon.

Boy    Do you not remember, a' saw a flea stick upon
    Bardolph's nose, and a' said it was a black soul
    burning in hell-fire?

BARDOLPH    Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire:
    that's all the riches I got in his service.

NYM    Shall we shog? the king will be gone from
    Southampton.

PISTOL    Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips.
    Look to my chattels and my movables:
    Let senses rule; the word is 'Pitch and Pay:'
    Trust none;
    For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
    And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck:
    Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.
    Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,
    Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys,
    To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

Boy    And that's but unwholesome food they say.

PISTOL    Touch her soft mouth, and march.

BARDOLPH    Farewell, hostess.

    [Kissing her]

NYM    I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but, adieu.

PISTOL    Let housewifery appear: keep close, I thee command.

Hostess    Farewell; adieu.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT II



SCENE IV    France. The KING'S palace.


    [Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the
    DUKES of BERRI and BRETAGNE, the Constable, and others]

KING OF FRANCE    Thus comes the English with full power upon us;
    And more than carefully it us concerns
    To answer royally in our defences.
    Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bretagne,
    Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,
    And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,
    To line and new repair our towns of war
    With men of courage and with means defendant;
    For England his approaches makes as fierce
    As waters to the sucking of a gulf.
    It fits us then to be as provident
    As fear may teach us out of late examples
    Left by the fatal and neglected English
    Upon our fields.

DAUPHIN                      My most redoubted father,
    It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;
    For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,
    Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,
    But that defences, musters, preparations,
    Should be maintain'd, assembled and collected,
    As were a war in expectation.
    Therefore, I say 'tis meet we all go forth
    To view the sick and feeble parts of France:
    And let us do it with no show of fear;
    No, with no more than if we heard that England
    Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance:
    For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
    Her sceptre so fantastically borne
    By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
    That fear attends her not.

Constable    O peace, Prince Dauphin!
    You are too much mistaken in this king:
    Question your grace the late ambassadors,
    With what great state he heard their embassy,
    How well supplied with noble counsellors,
    How modest in exception, and withal
    How terrible in constant resolution,
    And you shall find his vanities forespent
    Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
    Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
    As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
    That shall first spring and be most delicate.

DAUPHIN    Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable;
    But though we think it so, it is no matter:
    In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh
    The enemy more mighty than he seems:
    So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
    Which of a weak or niggardly projection
    Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting
    A little cloth.

KING OF FRANCE                      Think we King Harry strong;
    And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
    The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
    And he is bred out of that bloody strain
    That haunted us in our familiar paths:
    Witness our too much memorable shame
    When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
    And all our princes captiv'd by the hand
    Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
    Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing,
    Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,
    Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him,
    Mangle the work of nature and deface
    The patterns that by God and by French fathers
    Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
    Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
    The native mightiness and fate of him.

    [Enter a Messenger]

Messenger    Ambassadors from Harry King of England
    Do crave admittance to your majesty.

KING OF FRANCE    We'll give them present audience. Go, and bring them.

    [Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords]

    You see this chase is hotly follow'd, friends.

DAUPHIN    Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
    Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten
    Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
    Take up the English short, and let them know
    Of what a monarchy you are the head:
    Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
    As self-neglecting.

    [Re-enter Lords, with EXETER and train]

KING OF FRANCE    From our brother England?

EXETER    From him; and thus he greets your majesty.
    He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,
    That you divest yourself, and lay apart
    The borrow'd glories that by gift of heaven,
    By law of nature and of nations, 'long
    To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown
    And all wide-stretched honours that pertain
    By custom and the ordinance of times
    Unto the crown of France. That you may know
    'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,
    Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
    Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,
    He sends you this most memorable line,
    In every branch truly demonstrative;
    Willing to overlook this pedigree:
    And when you find him evenly derived
    From his most famed of famous ancestors,
    Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
    Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
    From him the native and true challenger.

KING OF FRANCE    Or else what follows?

EXETER    Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
    Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:
    Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
    In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
    That, if requiring fail, he will compel;
    And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
    Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
    On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
    Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
    Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries
    The dead men's blood, the pining maidens groans,
    For husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers,
    That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.
    This is his claim, his threatening and my message;
    Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
    To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

KING OF FRANCE    For us, we will consider of this further:
    To-morrow shall you bear our full intent
    Back to our brother England.

DAUPHIN    For the Dauphin,
    I stand here for him: what to him from England?

EXETER    Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
    And any thing that may not misbecome
    The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
    Thus says my king; an' if your father's highness
    Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
    Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
    He'll call you to so hot an answer of it,
    That caves and womby vaultages of France
    Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
    In second accent of his ordnance.

DAUPHIN    Say, if my father render fair return,
    It is against my will; for I desire
    Nothing but odds with England: to that end,
    As matching to his youth and vanity,
    I did present him with the Paris balls.

EXETER    He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
    Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe:
    And, be assured, you'll find a difference,
    As we his subjects have in wonder found,
    Between the promise of his greener days
    And these he masters now: now he weighs time
    Even to the utmost grain: that you shall read
    In your own losses, if he stay in France.

KING OF FRANCE    To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.

EXETER    Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king
    Come here himself to question our delay;
    For he is footed in this land already.

KING OF FRANCE    You shall be soon dispatch's with fair conditions:
    A night is but small breath and little pause
    To answer matters of this consequence.

    [Flourish. Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT III


    PROLOGUE.


    [Enter Chorus]

Chorus    Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies
    In motion of no less celerity
    Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
    The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
    Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
    With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning:
    Play with your fancies, and in them behold
    Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
    Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
    To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
    Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
    Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
    Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think
    You stand upon the ravage and behold
    A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
    For so appears this fleet majestical,
    Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow:
    Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,
    And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
    Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women,
    Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance;
    For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd
    With one appearing hair, that will not follow
    These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
    Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;
    Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
    With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
    Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back;
    Tells Harry that the king doth offer him
    Katharine his daughter, and with her, to dowry,
    Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
    The offer likes not: and the nimble gunner
    With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,

    [Alarum, and chambers go off]

    And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
    And eke out our performance with your mind.

    [Exit]




    KING HENRY V


ACT III



SCENE I    France. Before Harfleur.


    [Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD,
    GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers, with scaling-ladders]

KING HENRY V    Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
    Or close the wall up with our English dead.
    In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
    As modest stillness and humility:
    But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
    Then imitate the action of the tiger;
    Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
    Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
    Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
    Let pry through the portage of the head
    Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
    As fearfully as doth a galled rock
    O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
    Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
    Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
    Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
    To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
    Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
    Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
    Have in these parts from morn till even fought
    And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
    Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
    That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
    Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
    And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
    Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
    The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
    That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
    For there is none of you so mean and base,
    That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
    I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
    Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
    Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
    Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

    [Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off]




    KING HENRY V


ACT III



SCENE II    The same.


    [Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and Boy]

BARDOLPH    On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach!

NYM    Pray thee, corporal, stay: the knocks are too hot;
    and, for mine own part, I have not a case of lives:
    the humour of it is too hot, that is the very
    plain-song of it.

PISTOL    The plain-song is most just: for humours do abound:
    Knocks go and come; God's vassals drop and die;
    And sword and shield,
    In bloody field,
    Doth win immortal fame.

Boy    Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give
    all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.

PISTOL    And I:
    If wishes would prevail with me,
    My purpose should not fail with me,
    But thither would I hie.

Boy              As duly, but not as truly,
    As bird doth sing on bough.

    [Enter FLUELLEN]

FLUELLEN    Up to the breach, you dogs! avaunt, you cullions!

    [Driving them forward]

PISTOL    Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould.
    Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage,
    Abate thy rage, great duke!
    Good bawcock, bate thy rage; use lenity, sweet chuck!

NYM    These be good humours! your honour wins bad humours.

    [Exeunt all but Boy]

Boy    As young as I am, I have observed these three
    swashers. I am boy to them all three: but all they
    three, though they would serve me, could not be man
    to me; for indeed three such antics do not amount to
    a man. For Bardolph, he is white-livered and
    red-faced; by the means whereof a' faces it out, but
    fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue
    and a quiet sword; by the means whereof a' breaks
    words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, he hath
    heard that men of few words are the best men; and
    therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest a'
    should be thought a coward: but his few bad words
    are matched with as few good deeds; for a' never
    broke any man's head but his own, and that was
    against a post when he was drunk. They will steal
    any thing, and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a
    lute-case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for
    three half pence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn
    brothers in filching, and in Calais they stole a
    fire-shovel: I knew by that piece of service the
    men would carry coals. They would have me as
    familiar with men's pockets as their gloves or their
    handkerchers: which makes much against my manhood,
    if I should take from another's pocket to put into
    mine; for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I
    must leave them, and seek some better service:
    their villany goes against my weak stomach, and
    therefore I must cast it up.

    [Exit]

    [Re-enter FLUELLEN, GOWER following]

GOWER    Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the
    mines; the Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.

FLUELLEN    To the mines! tell you the duke, it is not so good
    to come to the mines; for, look you, the mines is
    not according to the disciplines of the war: the
    concavities of it is not sufficient; for, look you,
    the athversary, you may discuss unto the duke, look
    you, is digt himself four yard under the
    countermines: by Cheshu, I think a' will plough up
    all, if there is not better directions.

GOWER    The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the
    siege is given, is altogether directed by an
    Irishman, a very valiant gentleman, i' faith.

FLUELLEN    It is Captain Macmorris, is it not?

GOWER    I think it be.

FLUELLEN    By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the world: I will
    verify as much in his beard: be has no more
    directions in the true disciplines of the wars, look
    you, of the Roman disciplines, than is a puppy-dog.

    [Enter MACMORRIS and Captain JAMY]

GOWER    Here a' comes; and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with him.

FLUELLEN    Captain Jamy is a marvellous falourous gentleman,
    that is certain; and of great expedition and
    knowledge in th' aunchient wars, upon my particular
    knowledge of his directions: by Cheshu, he will
    maintain his argument as well as any military man in
    the world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars
    of the Romans.

JAMY    I say gud-day, Captain Fluellen.

FLUELLEN    God-den to your worship, good Captain James.

GOWER    How now, Captain Macmorris! have you quit the
    mines? have the pioneers given o'er?

MACMORRIS    By Chrish, la! tish ill done: the work ish give
    over, the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand, I
    swear, and my father's soul, the work ish ill done;
    it ish give over: I would have blowed up the town, so
    Chrish save me, la! in an hour: O, tish ill done,
    tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done!

FLUELLEN    Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you
    voutsafe me, look you, a few disputations with you,
    as partly touching or concerning the disciplines of
    the war, the Roman wars, in the way of argument,
    look you, and friendly communication; partly to
    satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction,
    look you, of my mind, as touching the direction of
    the military discipline; that is the point.

JAMY    It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath:
    and I sall quit you with gud leve, as I may pick
    occasion; that sall I, marry.

MACMORRIS    It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me: the
    day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the
    king, and the dukes: it is no time to discourse. The
    town is beseeched, and the trumpet call us to the
    breach; and we talk, and, be Chrish, do nothing:
    'tis shame for us all: so God sa' me, 'tis shame to
    stand still; it is shame, by my hand: and there is
    throats to be cut, and works to be done; and there
    ish nothing done, so Chrish sa' me, la!

JAMY    By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves
    to slomber, ay'll de gud service, or ay'll lig i'
    the grund for it; ay, or go to death; and ay'll pay
    't as valourously as I may, that sall I suerly do,
    that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad full
    fain hear some question 'tween you tway.

FLUELLEN    Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your
    correction, there is not many of your nation--

MACMORRIS    Of my nation! What ish my nation? Ish a villain,
    and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal. What ish
    my nation? Who talks of my nation?

FLUELLEN    Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is
    meant, Captain Macmorris, peradventure I shall think
    you do not use me with that affability as in
    discretion you ought to use me, look you: being as
    good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of
    war, and in the derivation of my birth, and in
    other particularities.

MACMORRIS    I do not know you so good a man as myself: so
    Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.

GOWER    Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.

JAMY    A! that's a foul fault.

    [A parley sounded]

GOWER    The town sounds a parley.

FLUELLEN    Captain Macmorris, when there is more better
    opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so
    bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of war;
    and there is an end.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT III



SCENE III    The same. Before the gates.


    [The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the
    English forces below. Enter KING HENRY and his train]

KING HENRY V    How yet resolves the governor of the town?
    This is the latest parle we will admit;
    Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;
    Or like to men proud of destruction
    Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,
    A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
    If I begin the battery once again,
    I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
    Till in her ashes she lie buried.
    The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
    And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
    In liberty of bloody hand shall range
    With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
    Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.
    What is it then to me, if impious war,
    Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,
    Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
    Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
    What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
    If your pure maidens fall into the hand
    Of hot and forcing violation?
    What rein can hold licentious wickedness
    When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
    We may as bootless spend our vain command
    Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
    As send precepts to the leviathan
    To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
    Take pity of your town and of your people,
    Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
    Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
    O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
    Of heady murder, spoil and villany.
    If not, why, in a moment look to see
    The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
    Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
    Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
    And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,
    Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
    Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
    Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
    At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
    What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
    Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

GOVERNOR    Our expectation hath this day an end:
    The Dauphin, whom of succors we entreated,
    Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
    To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king,
    We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
    Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;
    For we no longer are defensible.

KING HENRY V    Open your gates. Come, uncle Exeter,
    Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,
    And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French:
    Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,
    The winter coming on and sickness growing
    Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.
    To-night in Harfleur we will be your guest;
    To-morrow for the march are we addrest.

    [Flourish. The King and his train enter the town]




    KING HENRY V


ACT III



SCENE IV    The FRENCH KING's palace.


    [Enter KATHARINE and ALICE]

KATHARINE    Alice, tu as ete en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage.

ALICE    Un peu, madame.

KATHARINE    Je te prie, m'enseignez: il faut que j'apprenne a
    parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglois?

ALICE    La main? elle est appelee de hand.

KATHARINE    De hand. Et les doigts?

ALICE    Les doigts? ma foi, j'oublie les doigts; mais je me
    souviendrai. Les doigts? je pense qu'ils sont
    appeles de fingres; oui, de fingres.

KATHARINE    La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense
    que je suis le bon ecolier; j'ai gagne deux mots
    d'Anglois vitement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles?

ALICE    Les ongles? nous les appelons de nails.

KATHARINE    De nails. Ecoutez; dites-moi, si je parle bien: de
    hand, de fingres, et de nails.

ALICE    C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglois.

KATHARINE    Dites-moi l'Anglois pour le bras.

ALICE    De arm, madame.

KATHARINE    Et le coude?

ALICE    De elbow.

KATHARINE    De elbow. Je m'en fais la repetition de tous les
    mots que vous m'avez appris des a present.

ALICE    Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.

KATHARINE    Excusez-moi, Alice; ecoutez: de hand, de fingres,
    de nails, de arma, de bilbow.

ALICE    De elbow, madame.

KATHARINE    O Seigneur Dieu, je m'en oublie! de elbow. Comment
    appelez-vous le col?

ALICE    De neck, madame.

KATHARINE    De nick. Et le menton?

ALICE    De chin.

KATHARINE    De sin. Le col, de nick; de menton, de sin.

ALICE    Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en verite, vous prononcez
    les mots aussi droit que les natifs d'Angleterre.

KATHARINE    Je ne doute point d'apprendre, par la grace de Dieu,
    et en peu de temps.

ALICE    N'avez vous pas deja oublie ce que je vous ai enseigne?

KATHARINE    Non, je reciterai a vous promptement: de hand, de
    fingres, de mails--

ALICE    De nails, madame.

KATHARINE    De nails, de arm, de ilbow.

ALICE    Sauf votre honneur, de elbow.

KATHARINE    Ainsi dis-je; de elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment
    appelez-vous le pied et la robe?

ALICE    De foot, madame; et de coun.

KATHARINE    De foot et de coun! O Seigneur Dieu! ce sont mots
    de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et
    non pour les dames d'honneur d'user: je ne voudrais
    prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France
    pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le coun!
    Neanmoins, je reciterai une autre fois ma lecon
    ensemble: de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arm, de
    elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, de coun.

ALICE    Excellent, madame!

KATHARINE    C'est assez pour une fois: allons-nous a diner.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT III



SCENE V    The same.


    [Enter the KING OF FRANCE, the DAUPHIN, the DUKE oF
    BOURBON, the Constable Of France, and others]

KING OF FRANCE    'Tis certain he hath pass'd the river Somme.

Constable    And if he be not fought withal, my lord,
    Let us not live in France; let us quit all
    And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.

DAUPHIN    O Dieu vivant! shall a few sprays of us,
    The emptying of our fathers' luxury,
    Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,
    Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,
    And overlook their grafters?

BOURBON    Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!
    Mort de ma vie! if they march along
    Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom,
    To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm
    In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.

Constable    Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?
    Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull,
    On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
    Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,
    A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley-broth,
    Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
    And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
    Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,
    Let us not hang like roping icicles
    Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people
    Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields!
    Poor we may call them in their native lords.

DAUPHIN    By faith and honour,
    Our madams mock at us, and plainly say
    Our mettle is bred out and they will give
    Their bodies to the lust of English youth
    To new-store France with bastard warriors.

BOURBON    They bid us to the English dancing-schools,
    And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos;
    Saying our grace is only in our heels,
    And that we are most lofty runaways.

KING OF FRANCE    Where is Montjoy the herald? speed him hence:
    Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
    Up, princes! and, with spirit of honour edged
    More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:
    Charles Delabreth, high constable of France;
    You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,
    Alencon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;
    Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,
    Beaumont, Grandpre, Roussi, and Fauconberg,
    Foix, Lestrale, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;
    High dukes, great princes, barons, lords and knights,
    For your great seats now quit you of great shames.
    Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
    With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur:
    Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow
    Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat
    The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon:
    Go down upon him, you have power enough,
    And in a captive chariot into Rouen
    Bring him our prisoner.

Constable    This becomes the great.
    Sorry am I his numbers are so few,
    His soldiers sick and famish'd in their march,
    For I am sure, when he shall see our army,
    He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear
    And for achievement offer us his ransom.

KING OF FRANCE    Therefore, lord constable, haste on Montjoy.
    And let him say to England that we send
    To know what willing ransom he will give.
    Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.

DAUPHIN    Not so, I do beseech your majesty.

KING OF FRANCE    Be patient, for you shall remain with us.
    Now forth, lord constable and princes all,
    And quickly bring us word of England's fall.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT III



SCENE VI    The English camp in Picardy.


    [Enter GOWER and FLUELLEN, meeting]

GOWER    How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge?

FLUELLEN    I assure you, there is very excellent services
    committed at the bridge.

GOWER    Is the Duke of Exeter safe?

FLUELLEN    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
    blessed!--any hurt in the world; but keeps the
    bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline.
    There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the
    pridge, 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 did see him do as
    gallant service.

GOWER    What do you call him?

FLUELLEN    He is called Aunchient Pistol.

GOWER    I know him not.

    [Enter PISTOL]

FLUELLEN    Here is the man.

PISTOL    Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours:
    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,
    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 muffler afore her eyes, to
    signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is
    painted also with a wheel, to signify to 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 a most excellent description of it:
    Fortune is an excellent moral.

PISTOL    Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;
    For he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must a' be:
    A 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.

FLUELLEN    Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

PISTOL    Why then, rejoice therefore.

FLUELLEN    Certainly, aunchient, 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 execution; for discipline ought to be used.

PISTOL    Die and be damn'd! and figo for thy friendship!

FLUELLEN    It is well.

PISTOL    The fig of Spain!

    [Exit]

FLUELLEN    Very good.

GOWER    Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I
    remember him now; a bawd, a cutpurse.

FLUELLEN    I'll assure you, a' uttered as brave words at the
    bridge 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.

GOWER    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. And 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 disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on;
    and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war,
    which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: and what
    a beard of the general's cut and a horrid suit of
    the camp will do among foaming bottles and
    ale-washed 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.

FLUELLEN    I tell you what, Captain Gower; I do perceive he is
    not the man that he would gladly make show to the
    world he is: if I find a hole in his coat, I will
    tell him my mind.

    [Drum heard]

    Hark you, the king is coming, and I must speak with
    him from the pridge.

    [Drum and colours. Enter KING HENRY, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers]

    God pless your majesty!

KING HENRY V    How now, Fluellen! camest thou from the bridge?

FLUELLEN    Ay, so please your majesty. The Duke of Exeter has
    very gallantly maintained the pridge: the French is
    gone off, look you; and there is gallant and most
    prave passages; marry, th' athversary was have
    possession of the pridge; but he is enforced to
    retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the
    pridge: I can tell your majesty, the duke is a
    prave man.

KING HENRY V    What men have you lost, Fluellen?

FLUELLEN    The perdition of th' athversary hath been very
    great, reasonable great: marry, for my part, I
    think the duke hath lost never a man, but one that
    is like to be executed for robbing a church, one
    Bardolph, if your majesty know the man: his face is
    all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o'
    fire: and his lips blows at his nose, and it is like
    a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red;
    but his nose is executed and his fire's out.

KING HENRY V    We would have all such offenders so cut off: and we
    give express charge, that in our marches through the
    country, there be nothing compelled from the
    villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the
    French upbraided or abused in disdainful language;
    for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the
    gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

    [Tucket. Enter MONTJOY]

MONTJOY    You know me by my habit.

KING HENRY V    Well then I know thee: what shall I know of thee?

MONTJOY    My master's mind.

KING HENRY V    Unfold it.

MONTJOY    Thus says my king: Say thou to Harry of England:
    Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage
    is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we
    could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we
    thought not good to bruise an injury till it were
    full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice
    is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see
    his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him
    therefore consider of his ransom; which must
    proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we
    have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in
    weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under.
    For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the
    effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too
    faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own
    person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and
    worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance: and
    tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his
    followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far
    my king and master; so much my office.

KING HENRY V    What is thy name? I know thy quality.

MONTJOY    Montjoy.

KING HENRY V    Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back.
    And tell thy king I do not seek him now;
    But could be willing to march on to Calais
    Without impeachment: for, to say the sooth,
    Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
    Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
    My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
    My numbers lessened, and those few I have
    Almost no better than so many French;
    Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
    I thought upon one pair of English legs
    Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,
    That I do brag thus! This your air of France
    Hath blown that vice in me: I must repent.
    Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;
    My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,
    My army but a weak and sickly guard;
    Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
    Though France himself and such another neighbour
    Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
    Go bid thy master well advise himself:
    If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd,
    We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
    Discolour: and so Montjoy, fare you well.
    The sum of all our answer is but this:
    We would not seek a battle, as we are;
    Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it:
    So tell your master.

MONTJOY    I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness.

    [Exit]

GLOUCESTER    I hope they will not come upon us now.

KING HENRY V    We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.
    March to the bridge; it now draws toward night:
    Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,
    And on to-morrow, bid them march away.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT III



SCENE VII    The French camp, near Agincourt:


    [Enter the Constable of France, the LORD RAMBURES,
    ORLEANS, DAUPHIN, with others]

Constable    Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!

ORLEANS    You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.

Constable    It is the best horse of Europe.

ORLEANS    Will it never be morning?

DAUPHIN    My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you
    talk of horse and armour?

ORLEANS    You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.

DAUPHIN    What a long night is this! I will not change my
    horse with any that treads but on four pasterns.
    Ca, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his
    entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus,
    chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I
    soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth
    sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his
    hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

ORLEANS    He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

DAUPHIN    And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for
    Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull
    elements of earth and water never appear in him, but
    only in Patient stillness while his rider mounts
    him: he is indeed a horse; and all other jades you
    may call beasts.

Constable    Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.

DAUPHIN    It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the
    bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage.

ORLEANS    No more, cousin.

DAUPHIN    Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the
    rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary
    deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as
    fluent as the sea: turn the sands into eloquent
    tongues, and my horse is argument for them all:
    'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for
    a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the
    world, familiar to us and unknown to lay apart
    their particular functions and wonder at him. I
    once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus:
    'Wonder of nature,'--

ORLEANS    I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.

DAUPHIN    Then did they imitate that which I composed to my
    courser, for my horse is my mistress.

ORLEANS    Your mistress bears well.

DAUPHIN    Me well; which is the prescript praise and
    perfection of a good and particular mistress.

Constable    Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly
    shook your back.

DAUPHIN    So perhaps did yours.

Constable    Mine was not bridled.

DAUPHIN    O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode,
    like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in
    your straight strossers.

Constable    You have good judgment in horsemanship.

DAUPHIN    Be warned by me, then: they that ride so and ride
    not warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have
    my horse to my mistress.

Constable    I had as lief have my mistress a jade.

DAUPHIN    I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.

Constable    I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow
    to my mistress.

DAUPHIN    'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et
    la truie lavee au bourbier;' thou makest use of any thing.

Constable    Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any
    such proverb so little kin to the purpose.

RAMBURES    My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent
    to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?

Constable    Stars, my lord.

DAUPHIN    Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.

Constable    And yet my sky shall not want.

DAUPHIN    That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and
    'twere more honour some were away.

Constable    Even as your horse bears your praises; who would
    trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.

DAUPHIN    Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will
    it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and
    my way shall be paved with English faces.

Constable    I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of
    my way: but I would it were morning; for I would
    fain be about the ears of the English.

RAMBURES    Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?

Constable    You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.

DAUPHIN    'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.

    [Exit]

ORLEANS    The Dauphin longs for morning.

RAMBURES    He longs to eat the English.

Constable    I think he will eat all he kills.

ORLEANS    By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.

Constable    Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.

ORLEANS    He is simply the most active gentleman of France.

Constable    Doing is activity; and he will still be doing.

ORLEANS    He never did harm, that I heard of.

Constable    Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name still.

ORLEANS    I know him to be valiant.

Constable    I was told that by one that knows him better than
    you.

ORLEANS    What's he?

Constable    Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared
    not who knew it

ORLEANS    He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.

Constable    By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it
    but his lackey: 'tis a hooded valour; and when it
    appears, it will bate.

ORLEANS    Ill will never said well.

Constable    I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in friendship.'

ORLEANS    And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'

Constable    Well placed: there stands your friend for the
    devil: have at the very eye of that proverb with 'A
    pox of the devil.'

ORLEANS    You are the better at proverbs, by how much 'A
    fool's bolt is soon shot.'

Constable    You have shot over.

ORLEANS    'Tis not the first time you were overshot.

    [Enter a Messenger]

Messenger    My lord high constable, the English lie within
    fifteen hundred paces of your tents.

Constable    Who hath measured the ground?

Messenger    The Lord Grandpre.

Constable    A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were
    day! Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for
    the dawning as we do.

ORLEANS    What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of
    England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so
    far out of his knowledge!

Constable    If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.

ORLEANS    That they lack; for if their heads had any
    intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy
    head-pieces.

RAMBURES    That island of England breeds very valiant
    creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.

ORLEANS    Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a
    Russian bear and have their heads crushed like
    rotten apples! You may as well say, that's a
    valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

Constable    Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the
    mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving
    their wits with their wives: and then give them
    great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will
    eat like wolves and fight like devils.

ORLEANS    Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.

Constable    Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs
    to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm:
    come, shall we about it?

ORLEANS    It is now two o'clock: but, let me see, by ten
    We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT IV


    PROLOGUE.


    [Enter Chorus]

Chorus    Now entertain conjecture of a time
    When creeping murmur and the poring dark
    Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
    From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
    The hum of either army stilly sounds,
    That the fixed sentinels almost receive
    The secret whispers of each other's watch:
    Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
    Each battle sees the other's umber'd face;
    Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
    Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents
    The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
    With busy hammers closing rivets up,
    Give dreadful note of preparation:
    The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
    And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
    Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
    The confident and over-lusty French
    Do the low-rated English play at dice;
    And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night
    Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
    So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
    Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
    Sit patiently and inly ruminate
    The morning's danger, and their gesture sad
    Investing lank-lean; cheeks and war-worn coats
    Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
    So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold
    The royal captain of this ruin'd band
    Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
    Let him cry 'Praise and glory on his head!'
    For forth he goes and visits all his host.
    Bids them good morrow with a modest smile
    And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.
    Upon his royal face there is no note
    How dread an army hath enrounded him;
    Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
    Unto the weary and all-watched night,
    But freshly looks and over-bears attaint
    With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
    That every wretch, pining and pale before,
    Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
    A largess universal like the sun
    His liberal eye doth give to every one,
    Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all,
    Behold, as may unworthiness define,
    A little touch of Harry in the night.
    And so our scene must to the battle fly;
    Where--O for pity!--we shall much disgrace
    With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
    Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous,
    The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,
    Minding true things by what their mockeries be.

    [Exit]




    KING HENRY V


ACT IV



SCENE I    The English camp at Agincourt.


    [Enter KING HENRY, BEDFORD, and GLOUCESTER]

KING HENRY V    Gloucester, 'tis true that we are in great danger;
    The greater therefore should our courage be.
    Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!
    There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
    Would men observingly distil it out.
    For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
    Which is both healthful and good husbandry:
    Besides, they are our outward consciences,
    And preachers to us all, admonishing
    That we should dress us fairly for our end.
    Thus may we gather honey from the weed,
    And make a moral of the devil himself.

    [Enter ERPINGHAM]

    Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:
    A good soft pillow for that good white head
    Were better than a churlish turf of France.

ERPINGHAM    Not so, my liege: this lodging likes me better,
    Since I may say 'Now lie I like a king.'

KING HENRY V    'Tis good for men to love their present pains
    Upon example; so the spirit is eased:
    And when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt,
    The organs, though defunct and dead before,
    Break up their drowsy grave and newly move,
    With casted slough and fresh legerity.
    Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,
    Commend me to the princes in our camp;
    Do my good morrow to them, and anon
    Desire them an to my pavilion.

GLOUCESTER    We shall, my liege.

ERPINGHAM    Shall I attend your grace?

KING HENRY V    No, my good knight;
    Go with my brothers to my lords of England:
    I and my bosom must debate awhile,
    And then I would no other company.

ERPINGHAM    The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!

    [Exeunt all but KING HENRY]

KING HENRY V    God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully.

    [Enter PISTOL]

PISTOL    Qui va la?

KING HENRY V    A friend.

PISTOL    Discuss unto me; art thou officer?
    Or art thou base, common and popular?

KING HENRY V    I am a gentleman of a company.

PISTOL    Trail'st thou the puissant pike?

KING HENRY V    Even so. What are you?

PISTOL    As good a gentleman as the emperor.

KING HENRY V    Then you are a better than the king.

PISTOL    The king's a bawcock, and a heart of gold,
    A lad of life, an imp of fame;
    Of parents good, of fist most valiant.
    I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string
    I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?

KING HENRY V    Harry le Roy.

PISTOL    Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of Cornish crew?

KING HENRY V    No, I am a Welshman.

PISTOL    Know'st thou Fluellen?

KING HENRY V    Yes.

PISTOL    Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate
    Upon Saint Davy's day.

KING HENRY V    Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day,
    lest he knock that about yours.

PISTOL    Art thou his friend?

KING HENRY V    And his kinsman too.

PISTOL    The figo for thee, then!

KING HENRY V    I thank you: God be with you!

PISTOL    My name is Pistol call'd.

    [Exit]

KING HENRY V    It sorts well with your fierceness.

    [Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER]

GOWER    Captain Fluellen!

FLUELLEN    So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is
    the greatest admiration of the universal world, when
    the true and aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the
    wars is not kept: if you would take the pains but to
    examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall
    find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle toddle
    nor pibble pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you,
    you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and the
    cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety
    of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.

GOWER    Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.

FLUELLEN    If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating
    coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also,
    look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating
    coxcomb? in your own conscience, now?

GOWER    I will speak lower.

FLUELLEN    I pray you and beseech you that you will.

    [Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN]

KING HENRY V    Though it appear a little out of fashion,
    There is much care and valour in this Welshman.

    [Enter three soldiers, JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT,
    and MICHAEL WILLIAMS]

COURT    Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which
    breaks yonder?

BATES    I think it be: but we have no great cause to desire
    the approach of day.

WILLIAMS    We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think
    we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?

KING HENRY V    A friend.

WILLIAMS    Under what captain serve you?

KING HENRY V    Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

WILLIAMS    A good old commander and a most kind gentleman: I
    pray you, what thinks he of our estate?

KING HENRY V    Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be
    washed off the next tide.

BATES    He hath not told his thought to the king?

KING HENRY V    No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I
    speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I
    am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the
    element shows to him as it doth to me; all his
    senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies
    laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and
    though his affections are higher mounted than ours,
    yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like
    wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we
    do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish
    as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess
    him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing
    it, should dishearten his army.

BATES    He may show what outward courage he will; but I
    believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish
    himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he
    were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

KING HENRY V    By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king:
    I think he would not wish himself any where but
    where he is.

BATES    Then I would he were here alone; so should he be
    sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.

KING HENRY V    I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here
    alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's
    minds: methinks I could not die any where so
    contented as in the king's company; his cause being
    just and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMS    That's more than we know.

BATES    Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know
    enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if
    his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes
    the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS    But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath
    a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
    arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join
    together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at
    such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a
    surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
    them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their
    children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
    well that die in a battle; for how can they
    charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their
    argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it
    will be a black matter for the king that led them to
    it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of
    subjection.

KING HENRY V    So, if a son that is by his father sent about
    merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the
    imputation of his wickedness by your rule, should be
    imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a
    servant, under his master's command transporting a
    sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in
    many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the
    business of the master the author of the servant's
    damnation: but this is not so: the king is not
    bound to answer the particular endings of his
    soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of
    his servant; for they purpose not their death, when
    they purpose their services. Besides, there is no
    king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to
    the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all
    unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them
    the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder;
    some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of
    perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that
    have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with
    pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have
    defeated the law and outrun native punishment,
    though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to
    fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance;
    so that here men are punished for before-breach of
    the king's laws in now the king's quarrel: where
    they feared the death, they have borne life away;
    and where they would be safe, they perish: then if
    they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of
    their damnation than he was before guilty of those
    impieties for the which they are now visited. Every
    subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's
    soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in
    the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every
    mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death
    is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was
    blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:
    and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think
    that, making God so free an offer, He let him
    outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach
    others how they should prepare.

WILLIAMS    'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon
    his own head, the king is not to answer it.

BATES    But I do not desire he should answer for me; and
    yet I determine to fight lustily for him.

KING HENRY V    I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.

WILLIAMS    Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but
    when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we
    ne'er the wiser.

KING HENRY V    If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

WILLIAMS    You pay him then. That's a perilous shot out of an
    elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can
    do against a monarch! you may as well go about to
    turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a
    peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word
    after! come, 'tis a foolish saying.

KING HENRY V    Your reproof is something too round: I should be
    angry with you, if the time were convenient.

WILLIAMS    Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

KING HENRY V    I embrace it.

WILLIAMS    How shall I know thee again?

KING HENRY V    Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my
    bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I
    will make it my quarrel.

WILLIAMS    Here's my glove: give me another of thine.

KING HENRY V    There.

WILLIAMS    This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou come
    to me and say, after to-morrow, 'This is my glove,'
    by this hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.

KING HENRY V    If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

WILLIAMS    Thou darest as well be hanged.

KING HENRY V    Well. I will do it, though I take thee in the
    king's company.

WILLIAMS    Keep thy word: fare thee well.

BATES    Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have
    French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.

KING HENRY V    Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to
    one, they will beat us; for they bear them on their
    shoulders: but it is no English treason to cut
    French crowns, and to-morrow the king himself will
    be a clipper.

    [Exeunt soldiers]

    Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,
    Our debts, our careful wives,
    Our children and our sins lay on the king!
    We must bear all. O hard condition,
    Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
    Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
    But his own wringing! What infinite heart's-ease
    Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
    And what have kings, that privates have not too,
    Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
    And what art thou, thou idle ceremony?
    What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
    Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
    What are thy rents? what are thy comings in?
    O ceremony, show me but thy worth!
    What is thy soul of adoration?
    Art thou aught else but place, degree and form,
    Creating awe and fear in other men?
    Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
    Than they in fearing.
    What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
    But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
    And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
    Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out
    With titles blown from adulation?
    Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
    Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,
    Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
    That play'st so subtly with a king's repose;
    I am a king that find thee, and I know
    'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
    The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
    The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
    The farced title running 'fore the king,
    The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
    That beats upon the high shore of this world,
    No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
    Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
    Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
    Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind
    Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;
    Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
    But, like a lackey, from the rise to set
    Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night
    Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
    Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
    And follows so the ever-running year,
    With profitable labour, to his grave:
    And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
    Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
    Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
    The slave, a member of the country's peace,
    Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots
    What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
    Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

    [Enter ERPINGHAM]

ERPINGHAM    My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
    Seek through your camp to find you.

KING HENRY V    Good old knight,
    Collect them all together at my tent:
    I'll be before thee.

ERPINGHAM    I shall do't, my lord.

    [Exit]

KING HENRY V    O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;
    Possess them not with fear; take from them now
    The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
    Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,
    O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
    My father made in compassing the crown!
    I Richard's body have interred anew;
    And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears
    Than from it issued forced drops of blood:
    Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
    Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up
    Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
    Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
    Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do;
    Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
    Since that my penitence comes after all,
    Imploring pardon.

    [Enter GLOUCESTER]

GLOUCESTER    My liege!

KING HENRY V    My brother Gloucester's voice? Ay;
    I know thy errand, I will go with thee:
    The day, my friends and all things stay for me.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT IV



SCENE II    The French camp.


    [Enter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and others]

ORLEANS    The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords!

DAUPHIN    Montez A cheval! My horse! varlet! laquais! ha!

ORLEANS    O brave spirit!

DAUPHIN    Via! les eaux et la terre.

ORLEANS    Rien puis? L'air et la feu.

DAUPHIN    Ciel, cousin Orleans.

    [Enter Constable]

    Now, my lord constable!

Constable    Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh!

DAUPHIN    Mount them, and make incision in their hides,
    That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,
    And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!

RAMBURES    What, will you have them weep our horses' blood?
    How shall we, then, behold their natural tears?

    [Enter Messenger]

Messenger    The English are embattled, you French peers.

Constable    To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse!
    Do but behold yon poor and starved band,
    And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
    Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
    There is not work enough for all our hands;
    Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins
    To give each naked curtle-axe a stain,
    That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,
    And sheathe for lack of sport: let us but blow on them,
    The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.
    'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,
    That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants,
    Who in unnecessary action swarm
    About our squares of battle, were enow
    To purge this field of such a hilding foe,
    Though we upon this mountain's basis by
    Took stand for idle speculation:
    But that our honours must not. What's to say?
    A very little little let us do.
    And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound
    The tucket sonance and the note to mount;
    For our approach shall so much dare the field
    That England shall couch down in fear and yield.

    [Enter GRANDPRE]

GRANDPRE    Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?
    Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,
    Ill-favouredly become the morning field:
    Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
    And our air shakes them passing scornfully:
    Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host
    And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps:
    The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,
    With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades
    Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips,
    The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes
    And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
    Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless;
    And their executors, the knavish crows,
    Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour.
    Description cannot suit itself in words
    To demonstrate the life of such a battle
    In life so lifeless as it shows itself.

Constable    They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.

DAUPHIN    Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits
    And give their fasting horses provender,
    And after fight with them?

Constable    I stay but for my guidon: to the field!
    I will the banner from a trumpet take,
    And use it for my haste. Come, come, away!
    The sun is high, and we outwear the day.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT IV



SCENE III    The English camp.


    [Enter GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, ERPINGHAM, with
    all his host: SALISBURY and WESTMORELAND]

GLOUCESTER    Where is the king?

BEDFORD    The king himself is rode to view their battle.

WESTMORELAND    Of fighting men they have full three score thousand.

EXETER    There's five to one; besides, they all are fresh.

SALISBURY    God's arm strike with us! 'tis a fearful odds.
    God be wi' you, princes all; I'll to my charge:
    If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,
    Then, joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford,
    My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter,
    And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu!

BEDFORD    Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee!

EXETER    Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly to-day:
    And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,
    For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour.

    [Exit SALISBURY]

BEDFORD    He is full of valour as of kindness;
    Princely in both.

    [Enter the KING]

WESTMORELAND                      O that we now had here
    But one ten thousand of those men in England
    That do no work to-day!

KING HENRY V    What's he that wishes so?
    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
    To do our country loss; and if to live,
    The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
    By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
    Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
    It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
    Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
    But if it be a sin to covet honour,
    I am the most offending soul alive.
    No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
    God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
    As one man more, methinks, would share from me
    For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
    That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
    Let him depart; his passport shall be made
    And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
    We would not die in that man's company
    That fears his fellowship to die with us.
    This day is called the feast of Crispian:
    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
    Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
    He that shall live this day, and see old age,
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
    Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
    But he'll remember with advantages
    What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
    Familiar in his mouth as household words
    Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
    Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
    This story shall the good man teach his son;
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remember'd;
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition:
    And gentlemen in England now a-bed
    Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

    [Re-enter SALISBURY]

SALISBURY    My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed:
    The French are bravely in their battles set,
    And will with all expedience charge on us.

KING HENRY V    All things are ready, if our minds be so.

WESTMORELAND    Perish the man whose mind is backward now!

KING HENRY V    Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?

WESTMORELAND    God's will! my liege, would you and I alone,
    Without more help, could fight this royal battle!

KING HENRY V    Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thousand men;
    Which likes me better than to wish us one.
    You know your places: God be with you all!

    [Tucket. Enter MONTJOY]

MONTJOY    Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,
    If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,
    Before thy most assured overthrow:
    For certainly thou art so near the gulf,
    Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,
    The constable desires thee thou wilt mind
    Thy followers of repentance; that their souls
    May make a peaceful and a sweet retire
    From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies
    Must lie and fester.

KING HENRY V    Who hath sent thee now?

MONTJOY    The Constable of France.

KING HENRY V    I pray thee, bear my former answer back:
    Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones.
    Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus?
    The man that once did sell the lion's skin
    While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.
    A many of our bodies shall no doubt
    Find native graves; upon the which, I trust,
    Shall witness live in brass of this day's work:
    And those that leave their valiant bones in France,
    Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
    They shall be famed; for there the sun shall greet them,
    And draw their honours reeking up to heaven;
    Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,
    The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.
    Mark then abounding valour in our English,
    That being dead, like to the bullet's grazing,
    Break out into a second course of mischief,
    Killing in relapse of mortality.
    Let me speak proudly: tell the constable
    We are but warriors for the working-day;
    Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd
    With rainy marching in the painful field;
    There's not a piece of feather in our host--
    Good argument, I hope, we will not fly--
    And time hath worn us into slovenry:
    But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim;
    And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night
    They'll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck
    The gay new coats o'er the French soldiers' heads
    And turn them out of service. If they do this,--
    As, if God please, they shall,--my ransom then
    Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labour;
    Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald:
    They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;
    Which if they have as I will leave 'em them,
    Shall yield them little, tell the constable.

MONTJOY    I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well:
    Thou never shalt hear herald any more.

    [Exit]

KING HENRY V    I fear thou'lt once more come again for ransom.

    [Enter YORK]

YORK    My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg
    The leading of the vaward.

KING HENRY V    Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away:
    And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT IV



SCENE IV    The field of battle.


    [Alarum. Excursions. Enter PISTOL, French Soldier, and Boy]

PISTOL    Yield, cur!

French Soldier    Je pense que vous etes gentilhomme de bonne qualite.

PISTOL    Qualtitie calmie custure me! Art thou a gentleman?
    what is thy name? discuss.

French Soldier    O Seigneur Dieu!

PISTOL    O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman:
    Perpend my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark;
    O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,
    Except, O signieur, thou do give to me
    Egregious ransom.

French Soldier    O, prenez misericorde! ayez pitie de moi!

PISTOL    Moy shall not serve; I will have forty moys;
    Or I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat
    In drops of crimson blood.

French Soldier    Est-il impossible d'echapper la force de ton bras?

PISTOL    Brass, cur!
    Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat,
    Offer'st me brass?

French Soldier    O pardonnez moi!

PISTOL    Say'st thou me so? is that a ton of moys?
    Come hither, boy: ask me this slave in French
    What is his name.

Boy    Ecoutez: comment etes-vous appele?

French Soldier    Monsieur le Fer.

Boy    He says his name is Master Fer.

PISTOL    Master Fer! I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret
    him: discuss the same in French unto him.

Boy    I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk.

PISTOL    Bid him prepare; for I will cut his throat.

French Soldier    Que dit-il, monsieur?

Boy    Il me commande de vous dire que vous faites vous
    pret; car ce soldat ici est dispose tout a cette
    heure de couper votre gorge.

PISTOL    Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy,
    Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns;
    Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.

French Soldier    O, je vous supplie, pour l'amour de Dieu, me
    pardonner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison:
    gardez ma vie, et je vous donnerai deux cents ecus.

PISTOL    What are his words?

Boy    He prays you to save his life: he is a gentleman of
    a good house; and for his ransom he will give you
    two hundred crowns.

PISTOL    Tell him my fury shall abate, and I the crowns will take.

French Soldier    Petit monsieur, que dit-il?

Boy    Encore qu'il est contre son jurement de pardonner
    aucun prisonnier, neanmoins, pour les ecus que vous
    l'avez promis, il est content de vous donner la
    liberte, le franchisement.

French Soldier    Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercimens; et
    je m'estime heureux que je suis tombe entre les
    mains d'un chevalier, je pense, le plus brave,
    vaillant, et tres distingue seigneur d'Angleterre.

PISTOL    Expound unto me, boy.

Boy    He gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks; and
    he esteems himself happy that he hath fallen into
    the hands of one, as he thinks, the most brave,
    valorous, and thrice-worthy signieur of England.

PISTOL    As I suck blood, I will some mercy show.
    Follow me!

Boy    Suivez-vous le grand capitaine.

    [Exeunt PISTOL, and French Soldier]

    I did never know so full a voice issue from so
    empty a heart: but the saying is true 'The empty
    vessel makes the greatest sound.' Bardolph and Nym
    had ten times more valour than this roaring devil i'
    the old play, that every one may pare his nails with
    a wooden dagger; and they are both hanged; and so
    would this be, if he durst steal any thing
    adventurously. I must stay with the lackeys, with
    the luggage of our camp: the French might have a
    good prey of us, if he knew of it; for there is
    none to guard it but boys.

    [Exit]




    KING HENRY V


ACT IV



SCENE V    Another part of the field.


    [Enter Constable, ORLEANS, BOURBON, DAUPHIN, and RAMBURES]

Constable    O diable!

ORLEANS    O seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!

DAUPHIN    Mort de ma vie! all is confounded, all!
    Reproach and everlasting shame
    Sits mocking in our plumes. O merchante fortune!
    Do not run away.

    [A short alarum]

Constable                      Why, all our ranks are broke.

DAUPHIN    O perdurable shame! let's stab ourselves.
    Be these the wretches that we play'd at dice for?

ORLEANS    Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?

BOURBON    Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!
    Let us die in honour: once more back again;
    And he that will not follow Bourbon now,
    Let him go hence, and with his cap in hand,
    Like a base pander, hold the chamber-door
    Whilst by a slave, no gentler than my dog,
    His fairest daughter is contaminated.

Constable    Disorder, that hath spoil'd us, friend us now!
    Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.

ORLEANS    We are enow yet living in the field
    To smother up the English in our throngs,
    If any order might be thought upon.

BOURBON    The devil take order now! I'll to the throng:
    Let life be short; else shame will be too long.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT IV



SCENE VI    Another part of the field.


    [Alarums. Enter KING HENRY and forces, EXETER, and others]

KING HENRY V    Well have we done, thrice valiant countrymen:
    But all's not done; yet keep the French the field.

EXETER    The Duke of York commends him to your majesty.

KING HENRY V    Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour
    I saw him down; thrice up again and fighting;
    From helmet to the spur all blood he was.

EXETER    In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie,
    Larding the plain; and by his bloody side,
    Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds,
    The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.
    Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled over,
    Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep'd,
    And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes
    That bloodily did spawn upon his face;
    And cries aloud 'Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!
    My soul shall thine keep company to heaven;
    Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast,
    As in this glorious and well-foughten field
    We kept together in our chivalry!'
    Upon these words I came and cheer'd him up:
    He smiled me in the face, raught me his hand,
    And, with a feeble gripe, says 'Dear my lord,
    Commend my service to me sovereign.'
    So did he turn and over Suffolk's neck
    He threw his wounded arm and kiss'd his lips;
    And so espoused to death, with blood he seal'd
    A testament of noble-ending love.
    The pretty and sweet manner of it forced
    Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd;
    But I had not so much of man in me,
    And all my mother came into mine eyes
    And gave me up to tears.

KING HENRY V    I blame you not;
    For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
    With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.

    [Alarum]

    But, hark! what new alarum is this same?
    The French have reinforced their scatter'd men:
    Then every soldier kill his prisoners:
    Give the word through.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT IV



SCENE VII    Another part of the field.


    [Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER]

FLUELLEN    Kill the poys and the luggage! 'tis expressly
    against the law of arms: 'tis as arrant a piece of
    knavery, mark you now, as can be offer't; in your
    conscience, now, is it not?

GOWER    'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive; and the
    cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha' done
    this slaughter: besides, they have burned and
    carried away all that was in the king's tent;
    wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every
    soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a
    gallant king!

FLUELLEN    Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What
    call you the town's name where Alexander the Pig was born!

GOWER    Alexander the Great.

FLUELLEN    Why, I pray you, is not pig great? the pig, or the
    great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the
    magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase
    is a little variations.

GOWER    I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his
    father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.

FLUELLEN    I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I
    tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the
    'orld, I warrant you sall find, in the comparisons
    between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations,
    look you, is both alike. There is a river in
    Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at
    Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is
    out of my prains what is the name of the other
    river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as my fingers is
    to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you
    mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life
    is come after it indifferent well; for there is
    figures in all things. Alexander, God knows, and
    you know, in his rages, and his furies, and his
    wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his
    displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a
    little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and
    his angers, look you, kill his best friend, Cleitus.

GOWER    Our king is not like him in that: he never killed
    any of his friends.

FLUELLEN    It is not well done, mark you now take the tales out
    of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak
    but in the figures and comparisons of it: as
    Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his
    ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in
    his right wits and his good judgments, turned away
    the fat knight with the great belly-doublet: he
    was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and
    mocks; I have forgot his name.

GOWER    Sir John Falstaff.

FLUELLEN    That is he: I'll tell you there is good men porn at Monmouth.

GOWER    Here comes his majesty.

    [Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, and forces; WARWICK,
    GLOUCESTER, EXETER, and others]

KING HENRY V    I was not angry since I came to France
    Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;
    Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:
    If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
    Or void the field; they do offend our sight:
    If they'll do neither, we will come to them,
    And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
    Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:
    Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have,
    And not a man of them that we shall take
    Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

    [Enter MONTJOY]

EXETER    Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.

GLOUCESTER    His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

KING HENRY V    How now! what means this, herald? know'st thou not
    That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?
    Comest thou again for ransom?

MONTJOY    No, great king:
    I come to thee for charitable licence,
    That we may wander o'er this bloody field
    To look our dead, and then to bury them;
    To sort our nobles from our common men.
    For many of our princes--woe the while!--
    Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood;
    So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
    In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds
    Fret fetlock deep in gore and with wild rage
    Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
    Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,
    To view the field in safety and dispose
    Of their dead bodies!

KING HENRY V    I tell thee truly, herald,
    I know not if the day be ours or no;
    For yet a many of your horsemen peer
    And gallop o'er the field.

MONTJOY    The day is yours.

KING HENRY V    Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!
    What is this castle call'd that stands hard by?

MONTJOY    They call it Agincourt.

KING HENRY V    Then call we this the field of Agincourt,
    Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

FLUELLEN    Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your
    majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack
    Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles,
    fought a most prave pattle here in France.

KING HENRY V    They did, Fluellen.

FLUELLEN    Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is
    remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a
    garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their
    Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this
    hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do
    believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek
    upon Saint Tavy's day.

KING HENRY V    I wear it for a memorable honour;
    For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

FLUELLEN    All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's
    Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that:
    God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases
    his grace, and his majesty too!

KING HENRY V    Thanks, good my countryman.

FLUELLEN    By Jeshu, I am your majesty's countryman, I care not
    who know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I
    need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be
    God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

KING HENRY V    God keep me so! Our heralds go with him:
    Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
    On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.

    [Points to WILLIAMS. Exeunt Heralds with Montjoy]

EXETER    Soldier, you must come to the king.

KING HENRY V    Soldier, why wearest thou that glove in thy cap?

WILLIAMS    An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one that
    I should fight withal, if he be alive.

KING HENRY V    An Englishman?

WILLIAMS    An't please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered
    with me last night; who, if alive and ever dare to
    challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box
    o' th' ear: or if I can see my glove in his cap,
    which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear
    if alive, I will strike it out soundly.

KING HENRY V    What think you, Captain Fluellen? is it fit this
    soldier keep his oath?

FLUELLEN    He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your
    majesty, in my conscience.

KING HENRY V    It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort,
    quite from the answer of his degree.

FLUELLEN    Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as
    Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look
    your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if
    he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as
    arrant a villain and a Jacksauce, as ever his black
    shoe trod upon God's ground and his earth, in my
    conscience, la!

KING HENRY V    Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meetest the fellow.

WILLIAMS    So I will, my liege, as I live.

KING HENRY V    Who servest thou under?

WILLIAMS    Under Captain Gower, my liege.

FLUELLEN    Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and
    literatured in the wars.

KING HENRY V    Call him hither to me, soldier.

WILLIAMS    I will, my liege.

    [Exit]

KING HENRY V    Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me and
    stick it in thy cap: when Alencon and myself were
    down together, I plucked this glove from his helm:
    if any man challenge this, he is a friend to
    Alencon, and an enemy to our person; if thou
    encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.

FLUELLEN    Your grace doo's me as great honours as can be
    desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain
    see the man, that has but two legs, that shall find
    himself aggrieved at this glove; that is all; but I
    would fain see it once, an please God of his grace
    that I might see.

KING HENRY V    Knowest thou Gower?

FLUELLEN    He is my dear friend, an please you.

KING HENRY V    Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.

FLUELLEN    I will fetch him.

    [Exit]

KING HENRY V    My Lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloucester,
    Follow Fluellen closely at the heels:
    The glove which I have given him for a favour
    May haply purchase him a box o' th' ear;
    It is the soldier's; I by bargain should
    Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick:
    If that the soldier strike him, as I judge
    By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,
    Some sudden mischief may arise of it;
    For I do know Fluellen valiant
    And, touched with choler, hot as gunpowder,
    And quickly will return an injury:
    Follow and see there be no harm between them.
    Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT IV



SCENE VIII    Before KING HENRY'S pavilion.


    [Enter GOWER and WILLIAMS]

WILLIAMS    I warrant it is to knight you, captain.

    [Enter FLUELLEN]

FLUELLEN    God's will and his pleasure, captain, I beseech you
    now, come apace to the king: there is more good
    toward you peradventure than is in your knowledge to dream of.

WILLIAMS    Sir, know you this glove?

FLUELLEN    Know the glove! I know the glove is glove.

WILLIAMS    I know this; and thus I challenge it.

    [Strikes him]

FLUELLEN    'Sblood! an arrant traitor as any is in the
    universal world, or in France, or in England!

GOWER    How now, sir! you villain!

WILLIAMS    Do you think I'll be forsworn?

FLUELLEN    Stand away, Captain Gower; I will give treason his
    payment into ploughs, I warrant you.

WILLIAMS    I am no traitor.

FLUELLEN    That's a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his
    majesty's name, apprehend him: he's a friend of the
    Duke Alencon's.

    [Enter WARWICK and GLOUCESTER]

WARWICK    How now, how now! what's the matter?

FLUELLEN    My Lord of Warwick, here is--praised be God for it!
    --a most contagious treason come to light, look
    you, as you shall desire in a summer's day. Here is
    his majesty.

    [Enter KING HENRY and EXETER]

KING HENRY V    How now! what's the matter?

FLUELLEN    My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that,
    look your grace, has struck the glove which your
    majesty is take out of the helmet of Alencon.

WILLIAMS    My liege, this was my glove; here is the fellow of
    it; and he that I gave it to in change promised to
    wear it in his cap: I promised to strike him, if he
    did: I met this man with my glove in his cap, and I
    have been as good as my word.

FLUELLEN    Your majesty hear now, saving your majesty's
    manhood, what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy
    knave it is: I hope your majesty is pear me
    testimony and witness, and will avouchment, that
    this is the glove of Alencon, that your majesty is
    give me; in your conscience, now?

KING HENRY V    Give me thy glove, soldier: look, here is the
    fellow of it.
    'Twas I, indeed, thou promised'st to strike;
    And thou hast given me most bitter terms.

FLUELLEN    An please your majesty, let his neck answer for it,
    if there is any martial law in the world.

KING HENRY V    How canst thou make me satisfaction?

WILLIAMS    All offences, my lord, come from the heart: never
    came any from mine that might offend your majesty.

KING HENRY V    It was ourself thou didst abuse.

WILLIAMS    Your majesty came not like yourself: you appeared to
    me but as a common man; witness the night, your
    garments, your lowliness; and what your highness
    suffered under that shape, I beseech you take it for
    your own fault and not mine: for had you been as I
    took you for, I made no offence; therefore, I
    beseech your highness, pardon me.

KING HENRY V    Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns,
    And give it to this fellow. Keep it, fellow;
    And wear it for an honour in thy cap
    Till I do challenge it. Give him the crowns:
    And, captain, you must needs be friends with him.

FLUELLEN    By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle
    enough in his belly. Hold, there is twelve pence
    for you; and I pray you to serve Got, and keep you
    out of prawls, and prabbles' and quarrels, and
    dissensions, and, I warrant you, it is the better for you.

WILLIAMS    I will none of your money.

FLUELLEN    It is with a good will; I can tell you, it will
    serve you to mend your shoes: come, wherefore should
    you be so pashful? your shoes is not so good: 'tis
    a good silling, I warrant you, or I will change it.

    [Enter an English Herald]

KING HENRY V    Now, herald, are the dead number'd?

Herald    Here is the number of the slaughter'd French.

KING HENRY V    What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?

EXETER    Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the king;
    John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt:
    Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,
    Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.

KING HENRY V    This note doth tell me of ten thousand French
    That in the field lie slain: of princes, in this number,
    And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead
    One hundred twenty six: added to these,
    Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,
    Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which,
    Five hundred were but yesterday dubb'd knights:
    So that, in these ten thousand they have lost,
    There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries;
    The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,
    And gentlemen of blood and quality.
    The names of those their nobles that lie dead:
    Charles Delabreth, high constable of France;
    Jaques of Chatillon, admiral of France;
    The master of the cross-bows, Lord Rambures;
    Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dolphin,
    John Duke of Alencon, Anthony Duke of Brabant,
    The brother of the Duke of Burgundy,
    And Edward Duke of Bar: of lusty earls,
    Grandpre and Roussi, Fauconberg and Foix,
    Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrale.
    Here was a royal fellowship of death!
    Where is the number of our English dead?

    [Herald shews him another paper]

    Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
    Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire:
    None else of name; and of all other men
    But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here;
    And not to us, but to thy arm alone,
    Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem,
    But in plain shock and even play of battle,
    Was ever known so great and little loss
    On one part and on the other? Take it, God,
    For it is none but thine!

EXETER    'Tis wonderful!

KING HENRY V    Come, go we in procession to the village.
    And be it death proclaimed through our host
    To boast of this or take the praise from God
    Which is his only.

FLUELLEN    Is it not lawful, an please your majesty, to tell
    how many is killed?

KING HENRY V    Yes, captain; but with this acknowledgement,
    That God fought for us.

FLUELLEN    Yes, my conscience, he did us great good.

KING HENRY V    Do we all holy rites;
    Let there be sung 'Non nobis' and 'Te Deum;'
    The dead with charity enclosed in clay:
    And then to Calais; and to England then:
    Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men.

    [Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V


ACT V


    PROLOGUE.


    [Enter Chorus]

Chorus    Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story,
    That I may prompt them: and of such as have,
    I humbly pray them to admit the excuse
    Of time, of numbers and due course of things,
    Which cannot in their huge and proper life
    Be here presented. Now we bear the king
    Toward Calais: grant him there; there seen,
    Heave him away upon your winged thoughts
    Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach
    Pales in the flood with men, with wives and boys,
    Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep mouth'd sea,
    Which like a mighty whiffler 'fore the king
    Seems to prepare his way: so let him land,
    And solemnly see him set on to London.
    So swift a pace hath thought that even now
    You may imagine him upon Blackheath;
    Where that his lords desire him to have borne
    His bruised helmet and his bended sword
    Before him through the city: he forbids it,
    Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;
    Giving full trophy, signal and ostent
    Quite from himself to God. But now behold,
    In the quick forge and working-house of thought,
    How London doth pour out her citizens!
    The mayor and all his brethren in best sort,
    Like to the senators of the antique Rome,
    With the plebeians swarming at their heels,
    Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in:
    As, by a lower but loving likelihood,
    Were now the general of our gracious empress,
    As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,
    Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,
    How many would the peaceful city quit,
    To welcome him! much more, and much more cause,
    Did they this Harry. Now in London place him;
    As yet the lamentation of the French
    Invites the King of England's stay at home;
    The emperor's coming in behalf of France,
    To order peace between them; and omit
    All the occurrences, whatever chanced,
    Till Harry's back-return again to France:
    There must we bring him; and myself have play'd
    The interim, by remembering you 'tis past.
    Then brook abridgment, and your eyes advance,
    After your thoughts, straight back again to France.

    [Exit]




    KING HENRY V


ACT V



SCENE I    France. The English camp.


    [Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER]

GOWER    Nay, that's right; but why wear you your leek today?
    Saint Davy's day is past.

FLUELLEN    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 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    Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.

FLUELLEN    'Tis no matter for his swellings nor his
    turkey-cocks. God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you
    scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you!

PISTOL    Ha! art thou bedlam? dost thou thirst, base Trojan,
    To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?
    Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.

FLUELLEN    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    Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.

FLUELLEN    There is one goat for you.

    [Strikes him]

    Will you be so good, scauld knave, as eat it?

PISTOL    Base Trojan, thou shalt die.

FLUELLEN    You say very true, scauld 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 called me yesterday mountain-squire; but I will
    make you to-day a squire of low degree. I pray you,
    fall to: if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.

GOWER    Enough, captain: you have astonished him.

FLUELLEN    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    Must I bite?

FLUELLEN    Yes, certainly, and out of doubt and out of question
    too, and ambiguities.

PISTOL    By this leek, I will most horribly revenge: I eat
    and eat, I swear--

FLUELLEN    Eat, I pray you: will you have some more sauce to
    your leek? there is not enough leek to swear by.

PISTOL    Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see I eat.

FLUELLEN    Much good do you, scauld 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    Good.

FLUELLEN    Ay, leeks is good: hold you, there is a groat to
    heal your pate.

PISTOL    Me a groat!

FLUELLEN    Yes, verily and in truth, you shall take it; or I
    have another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat.

PISTOL    I take thy groat in earnest of revenge.

FLUELLEN    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 b' wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate.

    [Exit]

PISTOL    All hell shall stir for this.

GOWER    Go, go; you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will
    you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an
    honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of
    predeceased valour 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    Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?
    News have I, that my Nell is dead i' the spital
    Of malady of France;
    And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
    Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs
    Honour is cudgelled. 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]




    KING HENRY V


ACT V



SCENE II    France. A royal palace.


    [Enter, at one door KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD,
    GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and other Lords;
    at another, the FRENCH KING, QUEEN ISABEL, the
    PRINCESS KATHARINE, ALICE and other Ladies; the
    DUKE of BURGUNDY, and his train]

KING HENRY V    Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!
    Unto our brother France, and to our sister,
    Health and fair time of day; joy and good wishes
    To our most fair and princely cousin Katharine;
    And, as a branch and member of this royalty,
    By whom this great assembly is contrived,
    We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy;
    And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!

KING OF FRANCE    Right joyous are we to behold your face,
    Most worthy brother England; fairly met:
    So are you, princes English, every one.

QUEEN ISABEL    So happy be the issue, brother England,
    Of this good day and of this gracious meeting,
    As we are now glad to behold your eyes;
    Your eyes, which hitherto have borne in them
    Against the French, that met them in their bent,
    The fatal balls of murdering basilisks:
    The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
    Have lost their quality, and that this day
    Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.

KING HENRY V    To cry amen to that, thus we appear.

QUEEN ISABEL    You English princes all, I do salute you.

BURGUNDY    My duty to you both, on equal love,
    Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour'd,
    With all my wits, my pains and strong endeavours,
    To bring your most imperial majesties
    Unto this bar and royal interview,
    Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.
    Since then my office hath so far prevail'd
    That, face to face and royal eye to eye,
    You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me,
    If I demand, before this royal view,
    What rub or what impediment there is,
    Why that the naked, poor and mangled Peace,
    Dear nurse of arts and joyful births,
    Should not in this best garden of the world
    Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
    Alas, she hath from France too long been chased,
    And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
    Corrupting in its own fertility.
    Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
    Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach'd,
    Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
    Put forth disorder'd twigs; her fallow leas
    The darnel, hemlock and rank fumitory
    Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts
    That should deracinate such savagery;
    The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
    The freckled cowslip, burnet and green clover,
    Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
    Conceives by idleness and nothing teems
    But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
    Losing both beauty and utility.
    And as our vineyards, fallows, meads and hedges,
    Defective in their natures, grow to wildness,
    Even so our houses and ourselves and children
    Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,
    The sciences that should become our country;
    But grow like savages,--as soldiers will
    That nothing do but meditate on blood,--
    To swearing and stern looks, diffused attire
    And every thing that seems unnatural.
    Which to reduce into our former favour
    You are assembled: and my speech entreats
    That I may know the let, why gentle Peace
    Should not expel these inconveniences
    And bless us with her former qualities.

KING HENRY V    If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace,
    Whose want gives growth to the imperfections
    Which you have cited, you must buy that peace
    With full accord to all our just demands;
    Whose tenors and particular effects
    You have enscheduled briefly in your hands.

BURGUNDY    The king hath heard them; to the which as yet
    There is no answer made.

KING HENRY V    Well then the peace,
    Which you before so urged, lies in his answer.

KING OF FRANCE    I have but with a cursorary eye
    O'erglanced the articles: pleaseth your grace
    To appoint some of your council presently
    To sit with us once more, with better heed
    To re-survey them, we will suddenly
    Pass our accept and peremptory answer.

KING HENRY V    Brother, we shall. Go, uncle Exeter,
    And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,
    Warwick and Huntingdon, go with the king;
    And take with you free power to ratify,
    Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best
    Shall see advantageable for our dignity,
    Any thing in or out of our demands,
    And we'll consign thereto. Will you, fair sister,
    Go with the princes, or stay here with us?

QUEEN ISABEL    Our gracious brother, I will go with them:
    Haply a woman's voice may do some good,
    When articles too nicely urged be stood on.

KING HENRY V    Yet leave our cousin Katharine here with us:
    She is our capital demand, comprised
    Within the fore-rank of our articles.

QUEEN ISABEL    She hath good leave.

    [Exeunt all except HENRY, KATHARINE, and ALICE]

KING HENRY V    Fair Katharine, and most fair,
    Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms
    Such as will enter at a lady's ear
    And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?

KATHARINE    Your majesty shall mock at me; I cannot speak your England.

KING HENRY V    O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with
    your French heart, I will be glad to hear you
    confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do
    you like me, Kate?

KATHARINE    Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is 'like me.'

KING HENRY V    An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.

KATHARINE    Que dit-il? que je suis semblable a les anges?

ALICE    Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.

KING HENRY V    I said so, dear Katharine; and I must not blush to
    affirm it.

KATHARINE    O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de
    tromperies.

KING HENRY V    What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men
    are full of deceits?

ALICE    Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of
    deceits: dat is de princess.

KING HENRY V    The princess is the better Englishwoman. I' faith,
    Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am
    glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if
    thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king
    that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my
    crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but
    directly to say 'I love you:' then if you urge me
    farther than to say 'do you in faith?' I wear out
    my suit. Give me your answer; i' faith, do: and so
    clap hands and a bargain: how say you, lady?

KATHARINE    Sauf votre honneur, me understand vell.

KING HENRY V    Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for
    your sake, Kate, why you undid me: for the one, I
    have neither words nor measure, and for the other, I
    have no strength in measure, yet a reasonable
    measure in strength. If I could win a lady at
    leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my
    armour on my back, under the correction of bragging
    be it spoken. I should quickly leap into a wife.
    Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse
    for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and
    sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God,
    Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my
    eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation;
    only downright oaths, which I never use till urged,
    nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a
    fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth
    sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for love
    of any thing he sees there, let thine eye be thy
    cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: If thou canst
    love me for this, take me: if not, to say to thee
    that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the
    Lord, no; yet I love thee too. And while thou
    livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and
    uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee
    right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other
    places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that
    can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours, they do
    always reason themselves out again. What! a
    speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A
    good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a
    black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow
    bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax
    hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the
    moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it
    shines bright and never changes, but keeps his
    course truly. If thou would have such a one, take
    me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier,
    take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love?
    speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.

KATHARINE    Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?

KING HENRY V    No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of
    France, Kate: but, in loving me, you should love
    the friend of France; for I love France so well that
    I will not part with a village of it; I will have it
    all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine and I am
    yours, then yours is France and you are mine.

KATHARINE    I cannot tell vat is dat.

KING HENRY V    No, Kate? I will tell thee in French; which I am
    sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married
    wife about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook
    off. Je quand sur le possession de France, et quand
    vous avez le possession de moi,--let me see, what
    then? Saint Denis be my speed!--donc votre est
    France et vous etes mienne. It is as easy for me,
    Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much
    more French: I shall never move thee in French,
    unless it be to laugh at me.

KATHARINE    Sauf votre honneur, le Francois que vous parlez, il
    est meilleur que l'Anglois lequel je parle.

KING HENRY V    No, faith, is't not, Kate: but thy speaking of my
    tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely, must needs
    be granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou
    understand thus much English, canst thou love me?

KATHARINE    I cannot tell.

KING HENRY V    Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask
    them. Come, I know thou lovest me: and at night,
    when you come into your closet, you'll question this
    gentlewoman about me; and I know, Kate, you will to
    her dispraise those parts in me that you love with
    your heart: but, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the
    rather, gentle princess, because I love thee
    cruelly. If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a
    saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I get
    thee with scambling, and thou must therefore needs
    prove a good soldier-breeder: shall not thou and I,
    between Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a
    boy, half French, half English, that shall go to
    Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard?
    shall we not? what sayest thou, my fair
    flower-de-luce?

KATHARINE    I do not know dat

KING HENRY V    No; 'tis hereafter to know, but now to promise: do
    but now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your
    French part of such a boy; and for my English moiety
    take the word of a king and a bachelor. How answer
    you, la plus belle Katharine du monde, mon tres cher
    et devin deesse?

KATHARINE    Your majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de
    most sage demoiselle dat is en France.

KING HENRY V    Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in
    true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honour I
    dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to
    flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor
    and untempering effect of my visage. Now, beshrew
    my father's ambition! he was thinking of civil wars
    when he got me: therefore was I created with a
    stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that, when
    I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith,
    Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear:
    my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer up of
    beauty, can do no more, spoil upon my face: thou
    hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou
    shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better:
    and therefore tell me, most fair Katharine, will you
    have me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the
    thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress;
    take me by the hand, and say 'Harry of England I am
    thine:' which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine
    ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud 'England is
    thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Harry
    Plantagenet is thine;' who though I speak it before
    his face, if he be not fellow with the best king,
    thou shalt find the best king of good fellows.
    Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is
    music and thy English broken; therefore, queen of
    all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in broken
    English; wilt thou have me?

KATHARINE    Dat is as it sall please de roi mon pere.

KING HENRY V    Nay, it will please him well, Kate it shall please
    him, Kate.

KATHARINE    Den it sall also content me.

KING HENRY V    Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my queen.

KATHARINE    Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez: ma foi, je
    ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en
    baisant la main d'une de votre seigeurie indigne
    serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon
    tres-puissant seigneur.

KING HENRY V    Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.

KATHARINE    Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees devant
    leur noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France.

KING HENRY V    Madam my interpreter, what says she?

ALICE    Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of
    France,--I cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.

KING HENRY V    To kiss.

ALICE    Your majesty entendre bettre que moi.

KING HENRY V    It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss
    before they are married, would she say?

ALICE    Oui, vraiment.

KING HENRY V    O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear
    Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak
    list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of
    manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our
    places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will
    do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your
    country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently
    and yielding.

    [Kissing her]

    You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is
    more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the
    tongues of the French council; and they should
    sooner persuade Harry of England than a general
    petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.

    [Re-enter the FRENCH KING and his QUEEN, BURGUNDY,
    and other Lords]

BURGUNDY    God save your majesty! my royal cousin, teach you
    our princess English?

KING HENRY V    I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how
    perfectly I love her; and that is good English.

BURGUNDY    Is she not apt?

KING HENRY V    Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not
    smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the
    heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up
    the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in
    his true likeness.

BURGUNDY    Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you
    for that. If you would conjure in her, you must
    make a circle; if conjure up love in her in his true
    likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you
    blame her then, being a maid yet rosed over with the
    virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the
    appearance of a naked blind boy in her naked seeing
    self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid
    to consign to.

KING HENRY V    Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.

BURGUNDY    They are then excused, my lord, when they see not
    what they do.

KING HENRY V    Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.

BURGUNDY    I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will
    teach her to know my meaning: for maids, well
    summered and warm kept, are like flies at
    Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their
    eyes; and then they will endure handling, which
    before would not abide looking on.

KING HENRY V    This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer;
    and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the
    latter end and she must be blind too.

BURGUNDY    As love is, my lord, before it loves.

KING HENRY V    It is so: and you may, some of you, thank love for
    my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city
    for one fair French maid that stands in my way.

FRENCH KING    Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities
    turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with
    maiden walls that war hath never entered.

KING HENRY V    Shall Kate be my wife?

FRENCH KING    So please you.

KING HENRY V    I am content; so the maiden cities you talk of may
    wait on her: so the maid that stood in the way for
    my wish shall show me the way to my will.

FRENCH KING    We have consented to all terms of reason.

KING HENRY V    Is't so, my lords of England?

WESTMORELAND    The king hath granted every article:
    His daughter first, and then in sequel all,
    According to their firm proposed natures.

EXETER    Only he hath not yet subscribed this:
    Where your majesty demands, that the King of France,
    having any occasion to write for matter of grant,
    shall name your highness in this form and with this
    addition in French, Notre trescher fils Henri, Roi
    d'Angleterre, Heritier de France; and thus in
    Latin, Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex
    Angliae, et Haeres Franciae.

FRENCH KING    Nor this I have not, brother, so denied,
    But your request shall make me let it pass.

KING HENRY V    I pray you then, in love and dear alliance,
    Let that one article rank with the rest;
    And thereupon give me your daughter.

FRENCH KING    Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up
    Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms
    Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
    With envy of each other's happiness,
    May cease their hatred, and this dear conjunction
    Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord
    In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance
    His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.

ALL    Amen!

KING HENRY V    Now, welcome, Kate: and bear me witness all,
    That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.

    [Flourish]

QUEEN ISABEL    God, the best maker of all marriages,
    Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!
    As man and wife, being two, are one in love,
    So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal,
    That never may ill office, or fell jealousy,
    Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,
    Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,
    To make divorce of their incorporate league;
    That English may as French, French Englishmen,
    Receive each other. God speak this Amen!

ALL    Amen!

KING HENRY V    Prepare we for our marriage--on which day,
    My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,
    And all the peers', for surety of our leagues.
    Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me;
    And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be!

    [Sennet. Exeunt]




    KING HENRY V

    EPILOGUE


    [Enter Chorus]

Chorus    Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
    Our bending author hath pursued the story,
    In little room confining mighty men,
    Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
    Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
    This star of England: Fortune made his sword;
    By which the world's best garden be achieved,
    And of it left his son imperial lord.
    Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King
    Of France and England, did this king succeed;
    Whose state so many had the managing,
    That they lost France and made his England bleed:
    Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
    In your fair minds let this acceptance take.

    [Exit]