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PROLOGUE

Enter [CHORUS as] Prologue

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!

005 Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,

The flat unraisèd spirits that have dared

010 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?

015 O, pardon! Since a crooked figure may

Attest in little place a million;

And let us, ciphers to this great account,

On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose within the girdle of these walls

020 Are now confined two mighty monarchies,

Whose high uprearèd and abutting fronts

The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:

Into a thousand parts divide one man,

025 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,

030 Turning th' accomplishment of many years

Into an hourglass -- 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

1-1

Enter the two bishops, [the Archbishop] of Canterbury and [the bishop of] Ely.

CANTERBURY

My lord, I'll tell you. That self bill is urged,

Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign

Was like, and had indeed against us passed,

But that the scrambling and unquiet time

005 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

010 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,

015 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 th' year. Thus runs the bill.

ELY

020 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

025 The courses of his youth promised it not.

The breath no sooner left his father's body

But that his wildness, mortified in him,

Seemed to die too; yea, at that very moment

Consideration like an angel came

030 And whipped th' offending Adam out of him,

Leaving his body as a paradise

T' envelop and contain celestial spirits.

Never was such a sudden scholar made;

Never came reformation in a flood

035 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,

040 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

045 A fearful battle rendered 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 chartered libertine, is still,

050 And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,

To steal his sweet and honeyed 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,

055 Since his addiction was to courses vain,

His companies unlettered, rude and shallow,

His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,

And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration

060 From open haunts and popularity.

ELY

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best

Neighboured by fruit of baser quality;

And so the Prince obscured his contemplation

065 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

070AHow things are perfected.

ELY

070B 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

075 Than cherishing th' 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 opened to His Grace at large,

080 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,

085 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,

090 Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.

ELY

What was th' 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

095 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

1-2

Enter the King, Humphrey [Duke of Gloucester], Bedford, Clarence, Warwick, Westmorland, and Exeter [with attendants].

KING HENRY

Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury?

EXETER

Not here in presence.

KING HENRY

Send for him, good uncle.

WESTMORLAND

Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?

KING HENRY

Not yet, my cousin. We would be resolved,

005 Before we hear him, of some things of weight

That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

Enter the two bishops, [the Archbiship of and the Bishop of Ely].

CANTERBURY

God and his angels guard your sacred throne,

And make you long become it!

KING HENRY

Sure, we thank you.

My learnèd lord, we pray you to proceed,

010 And justly and religiously unfold

Why the law Salic 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,

015 Or nicely charge your understanding soul

With opening titles miscreate, whose right

Suits not in native colors with the truth;

For God doth know how many now in health

Shall drop their blood in approbation

020 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

025 Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops

Are every one a woe, a sore complaint

'Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.

Under this conjuration speak, my lord;

030For we will hear, note and believe in heart

That what you speak is in your conscience washed

As pure as sin with baptism.

CANTERBURY

Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,

That owe yourselves, your lives, and services

035 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 Salic land."

040 Which Salic 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 Salic is in Germany,

045 Between the floods of Saale 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,

050 Established then this law: to wit, no female

Should be inheritrix in Salic land --

Which Salic, as I said, twixt Elbe and Saale,

Is at this day in Germany called Meissen.

Then doth it well appear the Salic law

055 Was not devisèd for the realm of France;

Nor did the French possess the Salic land

Until four hundred one-and-twenty years

After defunction of King Pharamond,

Idly supposed the founder of this law,

060Who 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 Saale, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,

065 King Pepin, which deposèd 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

070 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,

Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,

Conveyed himself as heir to the Lady Lingard,

075Daughter to Charlemange, 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,

080 Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied

That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,

Was lineal of the Lady Ermengard,

Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine;

By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great

085 Was reunited 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;

090 So do the kings of France unto this day,

Howbeit they would hold up this Salic 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

095 Usurped from you and your progenitors.

KING HENRY

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

100 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,

105 And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,

Who on the French ground played 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

110Forage 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

115 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 renownèd them

Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege

120Is 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.

WESTMORLAND

125 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 pavilioned in the fields of France.

CANTERBURY

130 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

135 Bring in to any of your ancestors.

KING HENRY

We must not only arm t' invade the French,

But lay down our proportions to defend

Against the Scot, who will make road upon us

With all advantages.

CANTERBURY

140They of those marches, gracious sovereign,

Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

KING HENRY

We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,

145Who hath been still a giddy neighbor to us.

For you shall read that my great-grandfather

Never went with his forces into France

But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom

Came pouring like the tide into a breach,

150With ample and brim fullness of his force,

Galling the gleanèd land with hot assays,

Girding with grievous siege castles and towns;

That England, being empty of defense,

Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighborhood.

CANTERBURY

155She hath been then more feared than harmed, 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

160But 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

165With sunken wreck and sunless treasuries.

A LORD

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,

170 To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot

Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs,

Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,

To 'tame and havoc more than she can eat.

EXETER

It follows then the cat must stay at home;

175 Yet that is but a crushed necessity,

Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries

And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.

While that the armèd hand doth fight abroad,

Th' advisèd head defends itself at home;

180 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,

185 Setting endeavour in continual motion,

To which is fixèd, as an aim or butt,

Obedience, for so work the honeybees,

Creatures that by a rule in nature teach

The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

190 They have a king, and officers of sorts,

Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;

Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;

Others, like soldiers, armèd in their stings,

Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,

195 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,

200 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,

205 That many things, having full reference

To one consent, may work contrariously.

As many arrows loosèd several ways

Come to one mark, as many ways meet in one town,

As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,

210As many lines close in the dial's center,

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,

215 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

220 The name of hardiness and policy.

KING HENRY

Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.

[Exeunt some.]

KING HENRY

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,

225 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.

230Either our history shall with full mouth

Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,

Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,

Not worshipped with a waxen epitaph.

Enter Ambassadors of France

KING HENRY

Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure

235 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

240 The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?

KING HENRY

We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,

Unto whose grace our passion is as subject

As is our wretches fettered in our prisons.

Therefore with frank and with uncurbèd plainness

245 Tell us the Dauphin's mind.

FIRST AMBASSADOR

245 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

250 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,

255 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

What treasure, uncle?

EXETER

Tennis balls, my liege.

KING HENRY

We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.

260 His present and your pains we thank you for.

When we have matched 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

265 That all the courts of France will be disturbed

With chases. 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,

270 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

275 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,

280 Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.

And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his

Hath turned his balls to gunstones, and his soul

Shall stand sore chargèd for the wasteful vengeance

That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows

285 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,

290 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-hallowed cause.

So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin

295 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

We hope to make the sender blush at it.

300 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

305 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,

310 That this fair action may on foot be brought.

Flourish. Exuent.

2-0

Enter Chorus.

CHORUS

Now all the youth of England are on fire,

And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies.

Now thrive the armorers, and honor's thought

Reigns solely in the breast of every man.

005 They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,

Following the mirror of all Christian kings,

With wingèd heels, as English Mercuries.

For now sits Expectation in the air

And hides a sword from hilts unto the point

010 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

015 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 honor would thee do,

Were all thy children kind and natural?

020 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,

025 Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,

Have, for the gilt of France, -- O guilt indeed! --

Confirmed conspiracy with fearful France,

And by their hands this grace of kings must die,

If hell and treason hold their promises,

030 Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.

Linger your patience on, and we'll digest

Th' abuse of distance, force a play.

The sum is paid, the traitors are agreed,

The King is set from London, and the scene

035 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,

040 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

2-1

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

005 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

010 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 't be so, good Corporal Nym.

NYM

Faith, I will live so long as l may, that's the certain

015 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 trothplight to her.

NYM

020 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,

025 I cannot tell.

Enter Pistol and [Hostess] Quickly.

BARDOLPH

Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife.

Good Corporal, be patient here.

NYM

How now, mine host Pistol?

PISTOL

Base tike, call'st thou me host?

030 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

035 thought we keep a bawdy house straight.

[Nym and Pistol draw.]

HOSTESS

O welladay, Lady! If he be not hewn

now, we shall see willful adultery and murder com-

mitted.

BARDOLPH

Good Lieutenant! Good Corporal! Offer

040 nothing here.

NYM

Pish!

PISTOL

Pish for thee, Iceland dog!

Thou prick-eared cur of Iceland!

HOSTESS

Good Corporal Nym, show thy valor, and

045 put up your sword.

[They sheathe their swords.]

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,

050And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, pardie,

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

055I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me. I have

an humor 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

060 that's the humor of it.

PISTOL

O braggart vile and damnèd furious wight!

The grave doth gape, and doting death is near.

Therefore exale!

[They draw.]

BARDOLPH

Hear me, hear me what I say. He that strikes

065 the first stroke, I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a

soldier.

[He draws.]

PISTOL

An oath of mickle might, and fury shall abate.

[Pistol and Nym sheathe their swords.]

PISTOL [To Nym.]

Give me thy fist, thy forefoot to me give.

Thy spirits are most tall.

NYM

070 I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair

terms. That is the humor 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?

075No, 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

080For 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

085 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.

Exit [with Boy].

BARDOLPH

090 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

095 betting?

PISTOL

Base is the slave that pays.

NYM

That now I will have. That's the humor of it.

PISTOL

As manhood shall compound. Push home.

[They] draw.

BARDOLPH [drawing]

By this sword, he that makes

100 the first thrust, I'll kill him! By this sword, I will.

PISTOL

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

[He sheathes his sword.]

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

105 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.

110 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

115 In cash most justly paid.

NYM

Well, then, that's the humor of 't.

[Nym and Bardolph sheathe their swords.]

Enter Hostess.

HOSTESS

As ever you come of women, come in quickly

to Sir John. Ah, poor heart, he is so shaked of a burn-

ing quotidian tertian that it is most lamentable to be-

120 hold. Sweet men, come to him.

Exit.

NYM

The King hath run bad humors on the knight,

that's the even of it.

PISTOL

Nym, thou hast spoke the right.

His heart is fracted and corroborate.

NYM

125 The King is a good king, but it must be as it may;

he passes some humors and careers.

PISTOL

Let us condole the knight, for, lambkins, we will

live.

[Exeunt.]

2-2

Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmorland.

BEDFORD

'Fore God, His Grace is bold to trust these traitors.

EXETER

They shall be apprehended by and by.

WESTMORLAND

How smooth and even they do bear themselves!

As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,

005 Crownèd 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 dulled and cloyed with gracious favors --

010 That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell

His sovereign's life to death and treachery!

Sound trumpets. Enter the King, Scroop, Cambridge, and Grey, [and attendants].

KING HENRY

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.

015 Think you not that the pow'rs 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

020 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

025 Never was monarch better feared 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

030 Have steeped their galls in honey, and do serve you

With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

KING HENRY

We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,

And shall forget the office of our hand

Sooner than quittance of desert and merit

035 According to the weight and worthiness.

SCROOP

So service shall with steelèd sinews toil,

And labor shall refresh itself with hope,

To do Your Grace incessant services.

KING HENRY

We judge no less. -- Uncle of Exeter,

040 Enlarge the man committed yesterday

That railed 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.

045 Let him be punished, sovereign, lest example

Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.

KING HENRY

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

Alas, your too much love and care of me

Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!

If little faults proceeding on distemper

055 Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye

When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, 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,

060 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 today.

SCROOP

So did you me, my liege.

GREY

065 And I, my royal sovereign.

KING HENRY [giving them papers]

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. --

070 My lord of Westmorland, and uncle Exeter,

We will aboard tonight. -- 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

075 That have so cowarded and chased your blood

Out of appearance?

CAMBRIDGE

I do confess my fault,

And do submit me to Your Highness' mercy.

GREY, SCROOP

To which we all appeal.

KING HENRY

The mercy that was quick in us but late

080 By your own counsel is suppressed and killed.

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 an my noble peers,

085 These English monsters! My lord of Cambridge here,

You know how apt our love was to accord

To furnish him with all appurtenants

Belonging to his honor; and this man

Hath for a few light crowns lightly conspired

090 And sworn unto the practices 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,

095 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 coined me into gold,

Wouldst thou have practiced on me for thy use:

100 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.

105Treason 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

110Wonder 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

115Do botch and bungle up damnation

With patches, colors, and with forms being fetched

From glistering semblances of piety;

But he that tempered thee bade thee stand up,

Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,

120Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.

If that same demon that hath gulled 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

125A 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 learnèd?

Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?

130 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,

Garnished and decked in modest complement,

135Not working with the eye without the ear,

And but in purgèd 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 endued

140 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 practices!

EXETER

145 I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of

Richard Earl of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name Henry Lord

Scroop of Masham.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name Thomas

150 Grey, knight, of Northumberland.

SCROOP

Our purposes God justly hath discovered,

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

155 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 thankèd for prevention,

Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,

160 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 damnèd enterprise.

165 My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.

KING HENRY

God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.

You have conspired against our royal person,

Joined with an enemy proclaimed, and from his coffers

Received the golden earnest of our death,

170 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,

175 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

180 You patience to endure, and true repentance

Of all your dear offenses! -- Bear them hence.

Exeunt [Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, guarded].

KING HENRY

Now, lords, for France, the enterprise whereof

Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.

Since doubt not of a fair and lucky war,

185 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 smoothèd on our way.

Then forth, dear countrymen! Let us deliver

190 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!

Flourish. [Exeunt.]

2-3

Enter Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, Boy, and Hostess.

HOSTESS

Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring

thee to Staines.

PISTOL

No, for my manly heart doth earn. Bardolph,be

blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins; Boy, bristle thy

005 courage up; for Falstaff he is dead, and we must earn

therefore.

BARDOLPH

Would I were with him, wheresoe'er he is,

either in heaven or in hell!

HOSTESS

Nay, sure he's not in hell. He's in Arthur's

010 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 ev'n just between twelve

and one, ev'n at the turning o' the tide. For after I saw

him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers,

015 and smile upon his finger's end, 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,

020 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 so upward

025 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

030 Yes, that 'a did, and said they were devils incar-

nate.

HOSTESS

'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a color

he never liked.

BOY

'A said once the devil would have him about

035 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

040 Bardolph's nose, and 'a said it was a black soul

burning in hell?

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 South-

045 ampton.

PISTOL

Come, let's away. - My love, give me thy lips.

[They kiss.]

PISTOL

Look to my chattels and my movables.

Let senses rule. The word is "Pitch and pay."

Trust none,

050For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer cakes,

And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck.

Therefore, caveto be thy counselor.

Go, clear thy crystals. -- Yokefellows in arms,

Let us to France, like horseleeches, my boys,

055 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 humor of it; but adieu.

PISTOL

060 Let huswifery appear. Keep close, I thee command.

HOSTESS

Farewell! Adieu!

Exeunt [separately]

2-4

Flourish. Enter the French King, the Dauphin, the Dukes of Berri and Brittany, [the Constable, and others].

FRENCH KING

Thus comes the English with full power upon us,

And more than carefully it us concerns

To answer royally in our defenses.

Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Brittany,

005 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

010As 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,

015 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 defenses, musters, preparations,

Should be maintained, assembled, and collected

020 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

025 Were busied with a Whitsun morris dance.

For, my good liege, she is so idly kinged,

Her scepter so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,

That fear attends her not.

CONSTABLE

O, peace, Prince Dauphin!

030 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 counselors,

How modest in exception, and withal

035 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

040 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 defense 'tis best to weigh

The enemy more mighty than he seems.

045 So the proportions of defense are filled,

Which of a weak and niggardly projection

Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting

A little cloth.

FRENCH KING

Think we King Harry strong;

And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.

050 The kindred of him hath been fleshed 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 Crécy battle fatally was struck,

055 And all our princes captived by the hand

Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;

Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing,

Up in the air, crowned with the golden sun,

Saw his heroical seed and smiled to see him

060Mangle 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

065 Ambassadors from Harry King of England

Do crave admittance to Your Majesty.

FRENCH KING

We'll give them present audience. Go and bring them.

[Exit Messenger.]

FRENCH KING

You see this chase is hotly followed, friends.

DAUPHIN

Turn head and stop pursuit; for coward dogs

070 Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten

Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,

Take up the English sort, and let them know

Of what a monarchy you are the head.

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin

075A As self-neglecting.

Enter Exeter [and others].

FRENCH KING

075B From our brother of 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 borrowed glories that by gift of heaven,

080 By law, of nature and of nations, 'longs

To him and to his heirs, namely, the crown

And all wide-stretchèd honors that pertain

By custom and the ordinance of times

Unto the crown of France. That you may know

085'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,

Picked from the wormholes of long-vanished days,

Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,

He sends you this most memorable line,

[giving a paper]

EXETER

In every branch truly demonstrative,

090 Willing you 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

095 From him the native and true challenger.

FRENCH KING

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,

100 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

105 Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head

Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,

The dead men's blood, the privy maidens' groans,

For husbands, fathers, and betrothèd lovers

That shall be swallowed in this controversy.

110 This is his claim, his threatening, and my message --

Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,

To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

FRENCH KING

For us, we will consider of this further.

Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent

115A Back to our brother of England.

DAUPHIN

115B For the Dauphin,

I stand here for him. What to him from England?

EXETER

Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,

And anything that may not misbecome

The mighty sender doth he prize you at.

120 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

125Shall chide your trespass and return your mock

In second accent of his ordinance.

DAUPHIN

Say if my father render fair return

It is against my will, for I desire

Nothing but odds with England. To that end,

130 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,

135 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.

FRENCH KING

140 Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full.

Flourish.

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.

FRENCH KING

You shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions.

145 A night is but small breath and little pause

To answer matters of this consequence.

Flourish. Exeunt.

3-0

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 Dover pier

005 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 shipboys climbing;

Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give

010 To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,

Borne with th' invisible and creeping wind,

Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,

Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think

You stand upon the rivage and behold

015 A city on th' 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,

020 Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,

Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance;

For who is he whose chin is but enriched

With one appearing hair that will not follow

These culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?

025 Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;

Behold the ordnance on their carriages,

With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.

Suppose th' ambassador from the French comes back,

Tells Harry that the King doth offer him

030 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.

CHORUS

And down goes all before them. Still be kind,

035 And eke out our performance with your mind.

Exit.

3-1

Enter the King, Exeter, Bedford, and Gloucester. Alarum, [with soldiers carrying] scaling ladders at Harfleur.

KING HENRY

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.

005 But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger:

Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage.

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect:

010 Let it pry through the portage of the head

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it

As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.

015 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,

020 Have in these parts from morn till even fought,

And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.

Dishonor not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you called fathers did beget you.

Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

025 And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,

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

030 That hath not noble luster 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!"

Alarum, and chambers go off. [Exeunt.]

3-2

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

005 humor of it is too hot, that is the very plainsong of it.

PISTOL

"The plainsong" is most just; for humors do abound.

Knocks go and come; God's vassals drop and die;

[He sings.]

PISTOL

"And sword and shield

In bloody field

010 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:

[He sings.]

PISTOL

"If wishes would prevail with me,

015 My purpose should not fail with me,

But thither would I hie."

BOY [sings]

"As duly, but not as truly,

As bird doth sing on bough."

Enter Fluellen.

FLUELLEN

Up to the breach, you dogs! Avaunt, you cul-

020 lions!

[Driving them forward.]

PISTOL

Be merciful, great duke, to men of mold.

Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage,

Abate thy rage, great duke!

Good bawcock, bate thy rage! Use lenity, sweet chuck!

NYM

025 These be good humors! Your honor runs bad

humors.

Exit [with 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;

030 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

035 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,

040 and that was against a post when he was drunk. They

will steal anything and call it purchase. Bardolph

stole a lute case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for

three halfpence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn broth-

ers in filching, and in Calais they stole a fire shovel. I

045 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 handkerchiefs, which

makes much against my manhood, if I should take

from another's pocket to put into mine, for it is plain

050 pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them and seek

some better service. Their villainy goes against my

weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.

Exit.

Enter Gower [and Fluellen, meeting].

GOWER

Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to

the mines. The Duke of Gloucester would speak with

055 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, th'

060 athversary, you may discuss unto the Duke, look you,

is digt himself four yard under the countermines. By

Cheshu, I think 'a will plow up all, if there is not better

directions.

GOWER

The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of

065 the siege is given, is altogether directed by an Irish-

man, 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

070 will verify as much in his beard. He has no more di-

rections 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

075 Captain Jamy is a marvelous falorous gen-

tleman, 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

080 the world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the

Romans.

JAMY

I say gud day, Captain Fluellen.

FLUELLEN

Good e'en to your worship, good Captain

James.

GOWER

085 How now, Captain Macmorris, have you quit

the mines? Have the pioners given o'er?

MACMORRIS

By Chrish, la, 'tish ill done! The work is ish

give over, the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand

I swear, and my father's soul, the work ish ill done; it

090 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

095 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 sat-

isfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look

you, of my mind, as touching the direction of the mil-

100 itary discipline, that is the point.

JAMY

It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captens bath,

and I sall quite you with gud leve, as I may pick

occasion. That sall I, marry.

MACMORRIS

It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save

105 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

110 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 I'll lig i,

115 the grund for it, ay, or go to death! And I'll pay 't as,

valorously as I may, that sall I suerly do, that is the,

breff and the long. Marry, I wad full fain heard some,

question 'tween you twae.

FLUELLEN

Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under

120 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

125 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 partic-

130 ularities.

MACMORRIS

I do not know you so good a man as my-

self. So Chrish save me, I will cut off your head!

GOWER

Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.

JAMY

Ah, that's a foul fault!

A parley [is sounded].

GOWER

135 The town sounds a parley.

FLUELLEN

Captain Macmorris, when there is more bet-

ter 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.

Exit [with others].

3-3

[Enter the Governor and some citizens on the walls.] Enter the King [Henry] and all his train before the gates.

KING HENRY

How yet resolves the Governor of the town?

This is the latest parle we admit.

Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves,

Or, like to men proud of destruction,

005 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-achievèd Harfleur

Till in her ashes she lie burièd.

010 The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,

And the fleshed 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.

015What is it then to me if impious war,

Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,

Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats

Enlinked to waste and desolation?

What is 't to me, when you yourselves are cause,

020If 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

025Upon th' enragèd 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,

030 Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace

O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds

Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.

If not, why, in a moment look to see

The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand

035 Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters,

Your fathers taken by the silver beards,

And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls;

Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,

Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused

040 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 defense, be thus destroyed?

GOVERNOR

Our expectation hath this day an end.

045 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,

050 For we no longer are defensible.

KING HENRY

Open your gates.

[Exit Governor.]

KING HENRY

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,

055 The winter coming on and sickness growing

Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.

Tonight in Harfleur will we be your guest;

Tomorrow for the march are we addressed.

Flourish, and enter the town.

3-4

Enter Katharine and [Alice,] an old gentlewoman

KATHARINE

Alice, tu as été en Angleterre, et tu bien

parles le langage.

ALICE

Un peu, madame.

KATHARINE

Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que

005 j'apprenne à parler. Comment appelez-vous la main

en anglais?

ALICE

La main? Elle est appelée de hand.

KATHARINE

De hand. Et les doigts?

ALICE

Les doigts? Ma foi, j'oublie les doigts; mais je me

010 souviendrai. Les doigts? Je pense qu'ils sont appellés

de fingres; oui, de fingres.

KATHARINE

La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je

pense que je suis le bon écolier; j'ai gagné deux

mots d'anglais vitement. Comment appelez-vous les

015 ongles?

ALICE

Les ongles? Nous les appellons de nails.

KATHARINE

De nails. Écoutez; dites-moi si je parle

bien: de hand, de fingres, et de nails.

ALICE

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

KATHARINE

020 Dites-moi l'anglais pour le bras.

ALICE

De arm, madame.

KATHARINE

Et le coude?

ALICE

D' elbow.

KATHARINE

D' elbow. Je m'en fais la répétition de tous

025 les mots que vous m'avez appris dès à présent.

ALICE

Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.

KATHARINE

Excusez-moi, Alice; écoutez; de hand, de

fingres, de nails, d' arma, de bilbow.

ALICE

D' elbow, madame.

KATHARINE

030 O Seigneur Dieu, je m'en oublie! D' elbow.

Comment appelez-vous le col?

ALICE

De nick, madame.

KATHARINE

De nick. Et le menton?

ALICE

De chin.

KATHARINE

035 De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.

ALICE

Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en vérité, vous pro-

noncez les mots aussi droit que les natifs d'Angleterre.

KATHARINE

Je ne doute point d'apprendre, par la grâce

de Dieu, et en peu de temps.

ALICE

040 N'avez-vous pas déjà oublié ce que je vous ai

enseigné?

KATHARINE

Non, je réciterai à vous promptement: d'

hand, de fingre, de mails -

ALICE

De nails, madame.

KATHARINE

045 De nails, de arm, de ilbow.

ALICE

Sauf votre honneur, d' elbow.

KATHARINE

Ainsi dis-je: d' elbow, de nick, et de sin.

Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe?

KATHARINE

Le foot, madame, et le count.

KATHARINE

050 Le foot et le count! O Seigneur Dieu! Ils

sont les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros et

impudique, et non pour les dames d'honneur d'user.

Je ne voudrais pronouncer ces mots devant les seig-

neurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! Le foot et le

055 count! Néanmoins, je réciterai une autre fois ma leçon

ensemble: d' hand, de fingre, de nails, de arm,

d' elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, le count.

ALICE

Excellent, madame!

KATHARINE

C'est assez pour une fois. Allons-nous a

060 dîner.

Exit [with Alice].

3-5

Enter the King of France, the Dauphin, [the Duke of Brittany,] the Constable of France, and others.

FRENCH KING

'Tis certain he hath passed 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

005 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?

BRITTANY

010 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

015 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-reined jades, their barley broth,

020Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?

And shall our quick blood, spirited With wine,

Seem frosty? O, for honor of our land,

Let us not hang like roping icicles

Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people

025Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields!

"Poor" may we call them in their native lords.

DAUPHIN

By faith and honor,

Our madams mock at us and plainly say

Our mettle is bred out, and they will give

030 Their bodies to the lust of English youth

To new-store France with bastard warriors.

BRITTANY

They bid us to the English dancing schools,

And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos,

Saying our grace is only in our heels

035And that we are most lofty runaways.

FRENCH KING

Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence.

Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.

Up, princes, and with spirit of honor edged

More sharper than your swords, hie to the field!

040Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France,

You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,

Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy,

Jaques Chatillion, Rambures, Vaudemont,

Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi, and Faulconbridge,

045Foix, Lestrelles, Boucicault, and Charolais,

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.

050Rush 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

055A Bring him our prisoner.

CONSTABLE

055B This becomes the great.

Sorry am I his numbers are so few,

His soldiers sick and famished in their march,

For I am sure, when he shall see our army,

He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear

060 And for achievement offer us his ransom.

FRENCH KING

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

065 Not so, I do beseech Your Majesty.

FRENCH KING

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.

3-6

Enter Captains, English and Welsh: 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

005 Is the Duke of Exeter safe?

FLUELLEN

The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as

Agamemnon, and a man that I love and honor with

my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my live,

and my living, and my uttermost power. He is not --

010 God be praised and blessed! -- any hurt in the world,

but keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent dis-

cipline. 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 esti-

015 mation in the world, but I 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

020 Here is the man.

PISTOL

Captain, I thee beseech to do me favors.

The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

FLUELLEN

Ay, I praise God, and I have merited some

love at his hands.

PISTOL

025 Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,

And of buxom valor, hath, by cruel fate

And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,

That goddess blind

That stands upon the rolling restless stone -

FLUELLEN

030 By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune

is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to sig-

nify 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 mutabil-

035 ity, and variation; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon

a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls. In

good truth, the poet is make a most excellent descrip-

tion of it. Fortune is an excellent moral.

PISTOL

Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;

040 For he hath stol'n a pax,

And hanged must'a be -- a damnèd death!

Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free,

And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.

But Exeter hath given the doom of death

045 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

050 Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand

your meaning.

PISTOL

Why then rejoice therefor.

FLUELLEN

Certainly, Aunchient, it is not a thing to re-

joice at. For if, look you, he were my brother, I would

055 desire the Duke to use his good pleasure and put him

to execution; for discipline ought to be used.

PISTOL

Die and be damned! And figo for thy friendship!

FLUELLEN

It is well.

PISTOL

The fig of Spain!

Exit.

FLUELLEN

060Very 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 prave words at

the pridge as you shall see in a summer's day. But it is

065very 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

070fellows 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

075this 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

080learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you

may be marvelously 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

085 him my mind. [Drum heard.] Hark you, the King is

coming, and I must speak with him from the pridge.

Drum and colors. Enter the King and his poor soldiers [and Gloucester].

FLUELLEN

God pless Your Majesty!

KING HENRY

How now, Fluellen, cam'st thou from the bridge?

FLUELLEN

Ay, so please Your Majesty. The Duke of

090 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,

095 and the Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge. I can

tell Your Majesty, the Duke is a prave man.

KING HENRY

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

100 Duke hath lost never a man, but one that is like to be ex-

ecuted for robbing a church, one Bardolph, if Your Maj-

esty 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

105 sometimes red; but his nose is executed, and his fire's

out.

KING HENRY

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,

110 nothing taken but paid for, none of the French up-

braided or abused in disdainful language; for when len-

ity 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

115 Well then, I know thee. What shall I know of thee?

MONTJOY

My master's mind.

KING HENRY

Unfold it.

MONTJOY

Thus says my King: "Say thou to Harry of

England, though we seemed dead, we did but sleep.

120 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

125 weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him there-

fore 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,

130 his exchequer is too poor; for th' 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 defi-

ance; and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his

135 followers, whose condemnation is pronounced." So far

my King and master; so much my office.

KING HENRY

What is thy name? I know thy quality.

MONTJOY

Montjoy.

KING HENRY

Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back

140 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,

145 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

150 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,

155 My army but a weak and sickly guard.

Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,

Though France himself and such another neighbor

Stand in our way. There's for thy labor, Montjoy.

[He gives a purse.]

KING HENRY

Go bid thy master well advise himself.

160 If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered,

We shall your tawny ground with your red blood

Discolor. And so, Montjoy, fare you well.

The sum of all our answer is but this:

We would not seek a battle as we are,

165 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

We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.

170 March to the bridge. It now draws toward night.

Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,

And on tomorrow bid them march away.

Exeunt.

3-7

[Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orleans, Dauphin, with others.

CONSTABLE

Tut, I have the best armor of the world.

Would it were day!

ORLEANS

You have an excellent armor; but let my

horse have his due.

CONSTABLE

005 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 armor?

ORLEANS

You are as well provided of both as any

010 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.

Ça, ha! He bounds from the earth as if his entrails

were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines

015 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 color of the nutmeg.

DAUPHIN

020 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 in-

deed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.

CONSTABLE

025 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

030 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

035 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 un-

known, to lay apart their particular functions and

wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise, and

040 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

045Your 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 mis-

tress shrewdly shook your back.

DAUPHIN

050So 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 strait strossers.

CONSTABLE

055You 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

060I 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 retourné à son propre vomissement,

065et la truie lavée au bourbier." Thou mak'st use of

anything.

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 armor that I saw in

070 your tent tonight, are those stars or suns upon it?

CONSTABLE

Stars, my lord.

DAUPHIN

Some of them will fall tomorrow, I hope.

CONSTABLE

And yet my sky shall not want.

DAUPHIN

That maybe, for you bear a many superflu-

075 ously, and 'twere more honor 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

080 desert! Will it never be day? I will trot tomorrow 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

085 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

090 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

095 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

100 He never did harm, that I heard of.

CONSTABLE

Nor will do none tomorrow. He will keep

that good name still.

ORLEANS

I know him to be valiant.

CONSTABLE

I was told that by one that knows him

105 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

110By my faith, sir, but it is. Never anybody

saw it but his lackey. 'Tis a hooded valor, and when it

appears it will bate.

ORLEANS

Ill will never said well.

CONSTABLE

I will cap that proverb with "There is

115flattery 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

120pox 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

125 My Lord High Constable, the English lie

within fifteen hundred paces of your tents.

CONSTABLE

Who hath measured the ground?

MESSENGER

The Lord Grandpré

CONSTABLE

A valiant and most expert gentleman.

[Exit Messenger.]

CONSTABLE

130 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 follow-

ers so far out of his knowledge!

CONSTABLE

135 If the English had any apprehension, they

would run away.

ORLEANS

That they lack; for if their heads had any

intellectual armor, they could never wear such heavy

headpieces.

RAMBURES

140 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

145 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, leav-

ing their wits with their wives; and then give them

great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like

150 wolves and fight like devils.

ORLEANS

Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of

beef.

CONSTABLE

Then shall we find tomorrow they have

stomachs to eat and none to fight. Now is it time

155 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.

4-0

[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,

005 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 umbered face.

010 Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs

Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents

The armorers, accomplishing the knights,

With busy hammers closing rivets up,

Give dreadful note of preparation

015 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 overlusty French

Do the low-rated English play at dice,

020 And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night,

Who like a foul an ungly witch doth limp

So tediously away. The poor condemnèd English,

Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires

Sit patiently and inly ruminate

025 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 ruined band

030 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.

035 Upon his royal face there is no note

How dread an army hath enrounded him.

Nor doth he dedicate one jot of color

Unto the weary and all-watchèd night,

But freshly looks and overbears attaint

040 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 everyone,

045 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

050 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.

4-1

Enter the King, Bedford, and Gloucester.

KING HENRY

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,

005 Would men observingly distill it out;

For our bad neighbor makes us early stirrers,

Which is both healthful and good husbandry.

Besides, they are our outward consciences,

And preachers to us all, admonishing

010 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.

KING HENRY

Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham.

A good soft pillow for that good white head

015 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

'Tis good for men to love their present pains

Upon example; so the spirit is eased.

020And when the mind is quickened, 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.

[The King puts on Erpingham's cloak.]

KING HENRY

Brothers both,

025 Commend me to the princes in our camp;

Do my good morrow to them, and anon

Desire them all to my pavilion.

GLOUCESTER

We shall, my liege.

ERPINGHAM

Shall I attend Your Grace?

KING HENRY

030 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 the King].

KING HENRY

035 God-a-mercy, old heart! Thou speak'st cheerfully.

Enter Pistol.

PISTOL

Che vous là?

KING HENRY

A friend.

PISTOL

Discuss unto me: art thou officer,

Or art thou base, common, and popular?

KING HENRY

040 I am a gentleman of a company.

PISTOL

Trail'st thou the puissant pike?

KING HENRY

Even so. What are you?

PISTOL

As good a gentleman as the Emperor.

KING HENRY

Then you are a better than the King.

PISTOL

045 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 heartstring

I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?

KING HENRY

050 Harry le Roy.

PISTOL

Le Roy? A Cornish name. Art thou of Cornish crew?

KING HENRY

No, I am a Welshman.

PISTOL

Know'st thou Fluellen?

KING HENRY

Yes.

PISTOL

055 Tell him I'll knock his leek about his pate

Upon Saint Davy's Day.

KING HENRY

Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that

day, lest he knock that about yours.

PISTOL

Art thou his friend?

KING HENRY

060 And his kinsman too.

PISTOL

The figo for thee, then!

KING HENRY

I thank you. God be with you!

PISTOL

My name is Pistol called.

Exit.

KING HENRY

It sorts well with your fierceness.

Manet King [standing apart].

Enter Fluellen and Gower [meeting].

GOWER

065 Captain Fluellen!

FLUELLEN

So, in the name of Jesu Christ, speak fewer,

It is the greatest admiration in the universal world,

when the true and auchient prerogatifes and laws of

the wars is not kept. If you would take the pains but

070 to examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall

find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle-taddle 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

075 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,

080 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.

Exit [with Gower].

KING HENRY

Though it appear a little out of fashion,

085 There is much care and valor 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

090 We see yonder the beginning of the day, but

I think we shall never see the end of it. -- Who goes

there?

KING HENRY

A friend.

WILLIAMS

Under what captain serve you?

KING HENRY

095 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

Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to

be washed off the next tide.

BATES

100 He hath not told his thought to the King?

KING HENRY

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

105 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

110 of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are. Yet, in

reason, no man should possess him with any appear-

ance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten

his army.

BATES

He may show what outward courage he will; but

115 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

By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the

King: I think he would not wish himself anywhere but

120 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

I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here

125 alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's

minds. Methinks I could not die anywhere so con-

tented as in the King's company, his cause being just

and his quarrel honorable.

WILLIAMS

That's more than we know.

BATES

130 Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we

know enough if we know we are the King's 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

135 himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all

those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a

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

140 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 anything, when blood is their

argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will

145 be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who

to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

KING HENRY

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

150 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

155 is not so. The King is not bound to answer the par-

ticular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor

the master of his servant; for they purpose not their

deaths when they propose their services. Besides,

there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it

160 come to the arbitrament 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

165 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 his vengeance; so that here

170 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 unpro-

vided, no more is the King guilty of their damnation

175 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

180 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

185 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

I do not desire he should answer for me, and yet

I determine to fight lustily for him.

KING HENRY

190 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 wise.

KING HENRY

195 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 a 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

200 peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word after!

Come, 'tis a foolish saying.

KING HENRY

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

205 I embrace it.

WILLIAMS

How shall I know thee again?

KING HENRY

Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in

my bonnet. Then if ever thou dar'st acknowledge it, I

will make it my quarrel.

WILLIAMS

210 Here's my glove. Give me another of thine.

KING HENRY

There.

[They exchange gloves.]

WILLIAMS

This will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou

come to me and say, after tomorrow, "This is my

glove," by this hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.

KING HENRY

215 If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

WILLIAMS

Thou dar'st as well be hanged.

KING HENRY

Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King's

company.

WILLIAMS

Keep thy word. Fare thee well.

BATES

220 Be friends, you English fools, be friends. We

have French quarrels enough, if you could tell how to

reckon.

KING HENRY

Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns

to one they will beat us, for they bear them on their

225 shoulders; but it is no English treason to cut French

crowns, and tomorrow the King himself will be a

clipper.

Exeunt soldiers.

KING HENRY

Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls,

Our debts, our careful wives,

230 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 heartsease

235 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 idol ceremony?

What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more

240 Of mortal griefs than do thy worshipers?

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,

245 Creating awe and fear in other men?

Wherein thou art less happy, being feared,

Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,

But poisoned flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,

250 And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!

Thinks 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,

255 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 scepter, and the ball,

The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,

260 The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,

The farcèd 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,

265 Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave

Who, with a body filled and vacant mind,

Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread;

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,

270 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

275 With profitable labor to his grave.

And but for ceremony, such a wretch,

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,

Had the forehand and vantage of a king.

The slave, a member of the country's peace,

280 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 you absence,

Seek through your camp to find you.

KING HENRY

Good old knight,

285 Collect them all together at my tent.

I'll be before thee.

ERPINGHAM

I shall do 't, my lord.

Exit.

KING HENRY

O God of battles, steel my soldiers' hearts;

Possess them not with fear! Take from them now

The sense of reckoning, ere th' opposèd numbers

290 Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord,

O, not today, think not upon the fault

My father made in compassing the crown!

I Richard's body have interrèd new,

And on it have bestowed more contrite tears

295 Than from it issued forcèd drops of blood.

Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay

Who twice a day their withered hands hold up

Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built

Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests

300 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

305 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.

4-2

Enter the Dauphin, Orleans, Rambures, and Beaumont.

ORLEANS

The sun doth gild our armor. Up, my lords!

DAUPHIN

Monte cheval! My horse! Varlet! Lacquais! Ha!

ORLEANS

O brave spirit!

DAUPHIN

Via, les eaux et terre!

ORLEANS

005 Rien puis? Lair et feu?

DAUPHIN

Cieux, cousin Orleans.

Enter Constable.

DAUPHIN

Now, my Lord Constable!

CONSTABLE

Hark, how our steeds, for present service neigh!

DAUPHIN

Mount them, and make incision in their hides,

010 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

015 To horse, you gallant princes, straight to horse!

Do but behold yond poor and starvèd 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,

020 Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins

To give each naked curtal ax a stain

That our French gallants shall today draw out

And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on them,

The vapor of our valor will o'erturn them.

025'Tis positive against all exceptions, lords,

That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants,

Who in unnecessary action swarm

About our squares of battle, were enough

To purge this field of such a hilding foe,

030Though we upon this mountain's basis by

Took stand for idle speculation --

But that our honors must not. What's to say?

A very little little let us do

And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound

035 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 Grandpré.

GRANDPRÉ

Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?

Yond island carrions, desperate of the bones,

040 Ill-favoredly become the morning field.

Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,

And our air shakes them passing scornfully.

Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggared host

And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.

045 The horsemen sit like fixèd candlesticks,

With torch staves in their hand, and their poor jades

Lob down their heads, drooping the hides and hips,

The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes,

And in their pale dull mouths the gimmaled bit

050 Lies foul with chewed 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

055In 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

060 I stay but for my guard. On 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

4-3

Enter Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter, Erpingham, with all his host, Salisbury, and Westmorland.

GLOUCESTER

Where is the King?

BEDFORD

The King himself is rode to view their battle.

WESTMORLAND

Of fighting men they have full threescore thousand.

EXETER

There's five to one. Besides, they all are fresh.

SALISBURY

005 Gods arm strike with us! Tis a fearful odds.

God b' 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,

010 And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu!

BEDFORD

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

EXETER

Farewell, kind lord. Fight valiantly today!

And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,

For thou art framed of the firm truth of valor.

[Exit Salisbury.]

BEDFORD

015 He is as full of valor as of kindness,

Princely in both.

Enter the King.

WESTMORLAND

O, that we now had here

But one ten thousand of those men in England

That do no work today!

KING HENRY

What's he that wishes so?

My cousin Westmorland? No, my fair cousin.

020 If we are marked to die, we are enough

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honor.

God's will, I pray thee, wish not one man more.

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,

025 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 honor

I am the most offending soul alive.

030 No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.

God's peace, I would not lose so great an honor

As one man more, methinks, would share from me

For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!

Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host

035 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 mans company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

040 This day is called the Feast of Crispian.

He that outlives this day and comes safe home

Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall see this day and live old age

045 Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors

And say, "Tomorrow 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,

050 But he'll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,

Familiar in mouth as household words --

Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester --

055 Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.

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 rememberèd --

060 We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

For he today 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 abed

065 Shall think themselves accurst they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's Day.

Enter Salisbury.

SALISBURY

My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed.

The French are bravely in their battles set,

070 And will with all expedience charge on us.

KING HENRY

All things are ready, if our minds be so.

WESTMORLAND

Perish the man whose mind is backward now!

KING HENRY

Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?

WESTMORLAND

God's will, my liege, would you and I alone,

075 Without more help, could fight this royal battle!

KING HENRY

Why, now thou hast unwished 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,

080 If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound

Before thy most assurèd overthrow;

For certainly thou art so near the gulf

Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy

The Constable desires thee thou wilt mind

085 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

Who hath sent thee now?

MONTJOY

The Constable of France.

KING HENRY

090 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.

095 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,

100 They shall be famed; for there the sun shall greet them

And draw their honors reeking up to heaven,

Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,

The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.

Mark then abounding valor in our English,

105That, being dead, like to the bullets crazing

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.

110 Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched

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.

115 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 --

120 As, if God please, they shall -- my ransom then

Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labor.

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,

125 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

I fear thou wilt once more come again for a ransom.

Enter York [and kneels].

YORK

My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg

130 The leading of the vaward.

KING HENRY

Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away.

And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!

Exeunt.

4-4

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

PISTOL

Yield, cur!

FRENCH SOLDIER

Je pense que vous êtes le gentilhomme de

bonne qualité.

PISTOL

Qualtitie calmie custure me!

005 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,

010 Except, O signieur, thou do give to me

Egregious ransom.

[He threatens him with his sword.]

FRENCH SOLDIER

O, prenez miséricorde! Ayez pitié de

moi!

PISTOL

"Moy" shall not serve. I will have forty moys,

015 Or I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat

In drops of crimson blood.

FRENCH SOLDIER

Est-il impossible d'échapper la force de ton

bras?

PISTOL

Brass, cur?

020 Thou damnèd and luxurious mountain goat,

Offer'st me brass?

FRENCH SOLDIER

O, pardonnez-moi!

PISTOL

Sayst thou me so? Is that a ton of moys?

Come hither, boy. Ask me this slave in French

025 What is his name.

BOY

Écoutez: comment êtes-vous appelé?

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

030 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

035 Il me commande à vous dire que vous faites vous

prêt; car ce soldat ici est disposé tout à cette heure de

couper votre gorge.

PISTOL

Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy.

Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns,

040 Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.

FRENCH SOLDIER

O, je vous supplie, pour l'amour de

Dieu, me pardonner! Je suis le gentilhomme de bonne

maison. Gardez ma vie, et je vous donnerai deux cents

écus.

PISTOL

045 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

050 The crowns will take:

FRENCH SOLDIER

Petit monsieur, que dit-il?

BOY

Encore qu'il est contre son jurement de pardonner

aucun prisonnier, néanmoins, pour les écus que vous

l'avez promis, il est content à vous donner la liberté,

055 le franchisement.

FRENCH SOLDIER [kneeling]

Sur mes genoux je vous

donne mille remercîments; et je m'estime heureux que

j'ai tombé entre les mains d'un chevalier, je pense,

le plus brave, vaillant, et très-distingué seigneur

060 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, valor-

065 ous, 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.]

BOY

I did never know so full a voice issue

070 from so empty a heart! But the saying is true, "The

empty vessel makes the greatest sound." Bardolph and

Nym had ten times more valor than this roaring devil

i' the old play, that everyone may pare his nails with

a wooden dagger, and they are both hanged; and so

075 would this be, if he durst steal anything adventur-

ously. 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.

4-5

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

005Sits mocking in our plumes.

A short alarum.

DAUPHIN

O méchante fortune! Do not run away.

CONSTABLE

Why, all our ranks are broke.

DAUPHIN

O perdurable shame! Let's stab ourselves.

Be these the wretches that we played at dice for?

ORLEANS

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

BOURBON

Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!

Let us die! In once more! Back again!

And he that will not follow Bourbon now,

Let him go hence, and with his cap in hand,

015 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 spoiled us, friend us now!

Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.

ORLEANS

020 We are enough 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.

The life be short, else shame will be too long.

Exeunt

4-6

Alarum. Enter the King and his train, [Exeter, and others,] with prisoners.

KING HENRY

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

Lives he, good uncle? Thrice within this hour

005 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,

Yokefellow to his honor-owing wounds,

010 The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.

Suffolk first died; and York, all haggled over,

Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteeped,

And takes him by the beard, kisses the gashes

That bloodily did yawn upon his face.

015 He cries aloud, "Tarry, my 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!"

020 Upon these words I came and cheered him up.

He smiled me in the face, raught me his hand,

And with a feeble grip says, "Dear my lord,

Commend my service to my sovereign."

So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck

025 He threw his wounded arm, and kissed his lips,

And so, espoused to death, with blood he sealed

A testament of noble-ending love.

The pretty and sweet manner of it forced

Those waters from me which I would have stopped;

030 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

I blame you not;

For, hearing this, I must perforce compound

With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.

Alarum.

KING HENRY

035 But, hark, what new alarum is this same?

The French have reinforced their scattered men.

Then every soldier kill his prisoners!

Give the word through.

Exeunt.

4-7

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 offert; in your

conscience, now, is it not?

GOWER

005 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

010 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 Alex-

ander the Pig was born?

GOWER

Alexander the Great.

FLUELLEN

015 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

020 Macedon. His father was called Philip of Macedon, as

I take it.

FLUELLEN

I think it is e'en 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 be

025 tween 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

030 alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is sal-

mons 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

035 wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his dis-

pleasures, and his indignations, and also being a little

intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his an-

gers, look you, kill his best friend, Cleitus.

GOWER

Our King is not like him in that. He never killed

040 any of his friends.

FLUELLEN

It is not well done, mark you now, to 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

045 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

050 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 Harry, [Warwick, Gloucester, Exeter, and others,] and Bourbon, with [other] prisoners. Flourish.

KING HENRY

I was not angry since I came to France

055 Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;

Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond 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,

060 And make them skirr away as swift as stones

Enforcèd 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

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

GLOUCESTER

His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

KING HENRY

How now, what means this, herald? Know'st thou not

That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?

Com'st thou again for ransom?

MONTJOY

No, great King.

070 I come to thee for charitable license,

That we may wander o'er this bloody field

To book our dead and then to bury them,

To sort our nobles from our common men.

For many of our princes - woe the while! -

075 Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood;

So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs

In blood of princes; and the wounded steeds

Fret fetlock-deep in gore and with wild rage

Yerk out their armèd heels at their dead masters,

080 Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great King;

To view the field in safety, and dispose

Of their dead bodies!

KING HENRY

I tell thee truly, herald,

I know not if the day be ours or no,

For yet a many of your horsemen peer

085A And gallop o'er the field.

MONTJOY

085B The day is yours.

KING HENRY

Praisèd be God, and not our strength, for it!

What is this castle called that stands hard by?

MONTJOY

They call it Agincourt.

KING HENRY

Then call we this the field of Agincourt,

090 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

095 They did, Fluellen.

FLUELLEN

Your Majesty says very true. If Your Majes-

ties 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

100 know, to this hour is an honorable badge of the

service; and I do believe Your Majesty takes no scorn

to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's Day.

KING HENRY

I wear it for a memorable honor,

For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

FLUELLEN

105 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

Thanks, good my countryman.

FLUELLEN

110 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

God keep me so!

Enter Williams [with a glove in his cap].

KING HENRY

Our heralds go with him.

115 Bring me just notice of the numbers dead

On both our parts.

[Exeunt Heralds and Gower with Montjoy.]

KING HENRY

Call yonder fellow hither.

EXETER

Soldier, you must come to the King.

KING HENRY

Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy cap?

WILLIAMS

An 't lease Your Majesty, 'tis the gage of

120 one that I show fight withal, if he be alive.

KING HENRY

An Englishman?

WILLIAMS

An't please Your Majesty, a rascal that swag-

gered with me last night, who, if 'a live and ever dare

to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box

125 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 'a lived, I

will strike it out soundly.

KING HENRY

What think you, Captain Fluellen, is it fit this

soldier keep his oath?

FLUELLEN

130 He is a craven and a villain else, an 't please

Your Majesty, in my conscience.

KING HENRY

It maybe 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

135devil is, as Lucifer and Beelzebub himself, it is

necessary, look Your Grace, that he keep his vow and

his oath. If he be perjured, see you now, his reputa-

tion is as arrant a villain and a Jack-sauce as ever his

black shoe trod upon God's ground and His earth, in

140my conscience, la!

KING HENRY

Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet'st

the fellow.

WILLIAMS

So I will, my liege, as I live.

KING HENRY

Who serv'st thou under?

WILLIAMS

145 Under Captain Gower, my liege.

FLUELLEN

Gower is a good captain, and is good

knowledge and literatured in the wars.

KING HENRY

Call him hither to me, soldier.

WILLIAMS

I will, my liege.

Exit.

KING HENRY

150 Here, Fluellen, wear thou this favor for me and

stick it in thy cap.

[He gives Fluellen Williams' glove.]

KING HENRY

When Alençon and myself were down together, I

plucked this glove from his helm. If any man challenge

this, he is a friend to Alençon and an enemy to our

155 person. If thou encounter any such, apprehend him,

an thou dost me love.

FLUELLEN [putting the glove in his cap]

Your Grace doo's

me as great honors as can be desired in the hearts of

his subjects. I would fain see the man that

160 has but two legs that shall find himself aggriefed at

this glove, that is all. But I would fain see it once, an

't please God of his grace that I might see.

KING HENRY

Know'st thou Gower?

FLUELLEN

He is my dear friend, an 't please you.

KING HENRY

165 Pray thee, go seek him and bring him to my tent.

FLUELLEN

I will fetch him.

Exit.

KING HENRY

My lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloucester,

Follow Fluellen closely at the heels.

The glove which I have given him for a favor

170May 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,

175Some 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.

180 Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.

Exeunt [separately].

4-8

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

005 knowledge to dream of.

WILLIAMS

Sir, know you this glove?

FLUELLEN

Know the glove? I know the glove is a glove.

WILLIAMS

I know this, and thus I challenge it.

Strikes him.

FLUELLEN

'Sblood, an arrant traitor as any 's in the

010 universal world, or in France, or in England!

GOWER [to Williams]

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 plows, I warrant you.

WILLIAMS

015 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 Alençon's.

Enter Warwick and Gloucester.

WARWICK

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

FLUELLEN

020 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

How now, what's the matter?

FLUELLEN

025 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 Alençon.

WILLIAMS

My liege, this was my glove; here is the fel-

low of it. [Showing his other glove.] And he that I gave it

030 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 Maj-

esty's manhood, what an arrant, rascally, beggarly,

035 lousy knave it is. I hope Your Majesty is pear me

testimony and witness, and will avouchment, that this

is the glove of Alençon that Your Majesty is give me,

in your conscience, now.

KING HENRY

Give me thy glove, soldier. Look, here , is the

040 fellow of it.

[He shows his other glove.]

KING HENRY

'Twas I indeed thou promisèd'st to strike,

And thou hast given me most bitter terms.

FLUELLEN

An 't please Your Majesty, let his neck

answer for it, if there is any martial law in the world.

KING HENRY

045 How canst thou make me satisfaction?

WILLIAMS

All offenses, my lord, come from the heart.

Never came any from mine that might offend Your

Majesty.

KING HENRY

It was ourself thou didst abuse.

WILLIAMS

050 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

055 as I took you for, I made no offense. Therefore I be-

seech Your Highness pardon me.

KING HENRY

Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns,

And give it to this fellow. -- Keep it, fellow,

And wear it for an honor in thy cap

060 Till I do challenge it. -- Give him the crowns.

[Exeter gives the glove and gold to Williams.]

KING HENRY

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. [He offers a coin.] And I pray you to

065 serve God, 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

070 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

Now, herald, are the dead numbered?

HERALD [giving a paper]

Here is the number of the slaughtered French.

KING HENRY

075 What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?

EXETER

Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the King;

John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Boucacault;

Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,

Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.

KING HENRY

080 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,

085 Eight thousand and four hundred, of the which

Five hundred were but yesterday dubbed knights.

So that in these ten thousand they have lost

There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries;

The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,

090 And gentlemen of blood and quality.

The names of those their nobles that lie dead:

Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;

Jaques of Chatillion, Admiral of France;

The Master of the Crossbows, Lord Rambures;

095 Great-Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dauphin;

John, Duke of Alençon; Anthony, Duke of Brabant,

The brother to the Duke of Burgundy;

And Edward, Duke of Bar; of lusty earls,

Grandpré and Roussi, Faulconbridge and Foix,

100 Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrelles.

Here was a royal fellowship of death!

Where is the number of our English dead?

[He is given another paper.]

KING HENRY

Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,

Sir Richard Keighley, Davy Gam, esquire;

105 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,

110 Was ever known so great and little loss

On one part and on th' other? Take it, God,

For it is none but thine.

EXETER

'Tis wonderful.

KING HENRY

Come, go we in procession to the village.

And be it death proclaimèd through our host

115 To boast of this or take that praise from God

Which is his only.

FLUELLEN

Is it not lawful, an't please Your Majesty, to

tell how many is killed?

KING HENRY

Yes, Captain, but with this acknowledgment,

120 That God fought for us.

FLUELLEN

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

KING HENRY

Do we all holy rites.

Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum,

The dead with charity enclosed in clay;

125 And then to Calais, and to England then,

Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men.

Exeunt.

5-0

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 th' excuse

Of time, of numbers, and due course of things,

005 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 wingèd thoughts

Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach

010 Pales in the flood with men, wives, and boys,

Whose shouts and claps outvoice the deep-mouthed 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.

015 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 bruisèd helmet and his bended sword

Before him through the city. He forbids it,

020 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!

025 The Mayor and all his brethren, in best sort,

Like to the senators of th' antique Rome

With the plebeians swarming at their heels,

Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in;

As by a lower but loving likelihood,

030 Were now the General of our gracious Empress,

As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,

Bringing rebellion broachèd on his sword,

How many would the peaceful city quit

To welcome him! Much more, and much more cause,

035 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

040 All the occurrences, whatever chanced,

Till Harry's back-return again to France.

There must we bring him; and myself have played

The interim by remembering you 'tis past.

Then brook abridgment, and your eyes advance,

045 After your thoughts, straight back again to France.

Exit.

5-1

Enter Fluellen [with a leek in his cap, and a cudgel], 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,

005 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

010 leek. It was in a place where I could not breed no con-

tention 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-

015 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,

020 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. [He offers the leek.] Because,

025 look you, you do not love it, nor your affections and

your appetites and your disgestions 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

030 so good, scald knave, as eat it?

PISTOL

Base Trojan, thou shalt die.

FLUELLEN

You say very true, scald knave, when God's

will is. I will desire you to live in the meantime and

eat your victuals. Come, there is sauce for it. [He strikes

035him.] You called me yesterday mountain squire, but I

will make you today a squire of low degree. I pray

you, fall to. If you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.

GOWER

Enough, Captain, you have astonished him.

FLUELLEN

By jesu, I will make him eat some part of my

040leek, 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

045 question too, and ambiguities.

PISTOL

By this leek, I will most horribly revenge --

[Fluellen threatens him.]

PISTOL

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

050 swear by.

PISTOL

Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see I eat.

FLUELLEN

Much good do you, scald knave, heartily.

Nay, pray you, throw none away; the skin is good for

your broken coxcomb. When you take occasions to see

055 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.

[He offers a coin.]

PISTOL

Me, a groat?

FLUELLEN

060 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 anything, I will pay you in

cudgels. You shall be a woodmonger and buy nothing

065of 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

070honorable respect and worn as a memorable trophy of

predeceased valor, and dare not avouch in your deeds

any of your words? I have seen you gleeking and

galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought

because he could not speak English in the native garb

075 he could not therefore handle an English cudgel. You

find it otherwise; and henceforth let a Welsh cor-

rection teach you a good English condition. Fare

ye well.

Exit.

PISTOL

Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?

080 News have I that my Doll is dead

I' th' spital of a malady of France,

And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.

Old I do wax, and from my weary limbs

Honor is cudgeled. Well, bawd I'll turn,

085 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 cudgeled scars,

And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.

Exit.

5-2

Enter, at one door, King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, [Gloucester, Clarence,] Warwick, [Westmorland,] and other lords; at another, Queen Isabel, the [French] King, the Duke of Burgundy, [the Princess Katharine, Alice,] and other French.

KING HENRY

Peace to this meeting, wherefor 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;

005 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!

FRENCH KING

Right joyous are we to behold your face,

010 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 --

015 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

020 Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.

KING HENRY

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 labored

025 With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavors

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 prevailed

030 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,

035 Dear nurse of arts, plenties, 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,

040 Corrupting in its own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,

Unprunèd dies; her hedges even-pleached,

Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,

Put forth disordered twigs; her fallow leas

045 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,

050 Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,

Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems

But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burrs,

Losing both beauty and utility.

And all our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,

055 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

060 That nothing do but meditate on blood --

To swearing and stern looks, diffused attire,

And everything that seems unnatural.

Which to reduce into our former favor

You are assembled, and my speech entreats

065 That I may know the let why gentle Peace

Should not expel these inconveniences

And bless us with her former qualities.

KING HENRY

If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace,

Whose want gives growth to th' imperfections

070 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

075A There is no answer made.

KING HENRY

075B Well then, the peace,

Which you before so urged, lies in his answer.

FRENCH KING

I have but with a cursitory eye

O'erglanced the articles. Pleaseth Your Grace

To appoint some of your council presently

080 To sit with us once more with better heed

To re-survey them, we will suddenly

Pass our accept and peremptory answer.

KING HENRY

Brother, we shall. Go, uncle Exeter,

And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,

085 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,

Anything in or out of our demands,

090 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

095 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 omnes. Manent King [Henry] and Katharine [with Alice].

KING HENRY

Fair Katharine, and most fair,

Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms.

100 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

O fair Katharine, if you will love me

105 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 wat is "like

me."

KING HENRY

110 An angel is like you, Kate, and you are

like an angel.

KATHARINE [to Alice]

Que dit-il? Que je suis semblable à

les anges?

ALICE

Oui, vraiment, sauf Votre Grace, ainsi dit-il.

KING HENRY

115 I said so, dear Katharine, and I must not

blush to affirn it.

KATHARINE

O bon Dieu! Les langues des hommes sont

pleines de tromperies.

KING HENRY

What says she, fair one? That the tongues

120 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

The Princess is the better Englishwoman.

I' faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding.

125 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

130 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 well.

KING HENRY

Marry, if you would put me to verses or

135 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 leapfrog,

or vaulting into my saddle with my armor on my

140 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 favors I could lay

on like a butcher and sit like a jackanapes, never off.

But before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly, nor gasp

145 out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protesta-

tion -- 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

sunburning, that never looks in his glass for love of

150 anything 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 liv'st, dear Kate, take a fellow of

155 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' favors, they do

always reason themselves out again. What? A speaker

160 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

165 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 sayst thou then to my

love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.

KATHARINE

170 Is it possible dat I sould love de ennemi of

France?

KING HENRY

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

175 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 wat is dat.

KING HENRY

No, Kate? I will tell thee in French, which

180 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

vou avez le possession de moi -- let me see, what then?

Saint Denis be my speed! -- dônc votre est France et vous

185 êtes 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 français que vous parlez,

190 il est meilleur que l' anglais lequel je parle.

KING HENRY

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

195 love me?

KATHARINE

I cannot tell.

KING HENRY

Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I'll

ask them. Come, I know thou lovest me. And at

night, when you come into your closet, you'll question

200 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

205 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

210 and take the Turk by the beard? Shall we not? What

sayst thou, my fair flower-de-luce?

KATHARINE

I do not know dat.

KING HENRY

No; 'tis hereafter to know, but now to

promise. Do but now promise, Kate, you will en-

215 deavor 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

très cher et devin déesse?

KATHARINE

Your Majestee 'ave fausse French enough

220 to deceive de most sage demoiselle dat is en France.

KING HENRY

Now, fie upon my false French! By mine

honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate; by which

honor I dare not swear thou lovest me, yet my blood

begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding

225 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

230 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

235 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

240 thee aloud, "England is thine, Ireland is thine, France

is thine, and Henry 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!

245 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 shall please de roi mon père.

KING HENRY

Nay, it will please him well, Kate. It shall

250 please him, Kate.

KATHARINE

Den it sall also content me.

KING HENRY

Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you

my queen.

[He attempts to kiss her hand. ]

KATHARINE

Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma

255 foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur

en baisant la main d'une - Notre Seigneur! - indigne

serviteur. Excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon très-

puissant seigneur.

KING HENRY

Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.

KATHARINE

260 Les dames et demoiselles pour être baisées

devant leur noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France.

KING HENRY [to Alice]

Madam my interpreter, what

says she?

ALICE

Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of

265 France -- I cannot tell wat is baiser en Anglish.

KING HENRY

To kiss.

ALICE

Your Majestee entend bettre que moi.

KING HENRY

It is not a fashion for the maids in France

to kiss before they are married, would she say?

ALICE

270 Oui, vraiment.

KING HENRY

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

275 stops the mouth of all find-faults, as I will do yours,

for upholding the nice fashion of your country in de-

nying me a kiss. Therefore, patiently and yielding, [He

kisses her.] You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate.

There is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than

280 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.

Enter the French power and the English lords.

BURGUNDY

God save Your Majesty! My royal cousin,

teach you our princess English?

KING HENRY

285 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

Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condi-

tion is not smooth; so that, having neither the voice

290nor 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

295must 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,

300my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to.

KING HENRY

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

305Then, 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 Bar-

310tholomew-tide: blind, though they have their eyes,

and then they will endure handling, which before

would not abide looking on.

KING HENRY

This moral ties me over to time and a hot

summer; and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in

315the latter end, and she must be blind too.

BURGUNDY

As love is, my lord, before it loves.

KING HENRY

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

320my 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

Shall Kate be my wife?

FRENCH KING

325So please you.

KING HENRY

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

330 Is 't so, my lords of England?

WESTMORLAND

The King hath granted every article:

His daughter first, and then in sequel all,

According to their firm proposèd natures.

EXETER

Only he hath not yet subscribèd this:

335Where 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 ad-

dition, in French, Notre très cher fils Henri, Roi

d'Angleterre, Héritier de France; and thus in Latin,

340Praeclarissimus 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

345I pray you then, in love and dear alliance,

And 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

350 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 neighborhood and Christian-like accord

In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance

355 His bleeding sword twixt England and fair France.

LORDS

Amen!

KING HENRY

Now, welcome, Kate; and bear me witness all,

That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.

[He kisses her.]

Flourish

QUEEN ISABEL

God, the best maker of all marriages,

Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!

360 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 blessèd marriage,

Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms

365 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

Prepare we for our marriage, on which day,

My lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,

370 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.

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.

005 Small time, but in that small most greatly lived

This star of England. Fortune made his sword,

By which the world's best garden he achieved,

And of it left his son imperial lord.

Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned King

010 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.]