THE LIFE OF KING HENRY V
by William Shakespeare
Contents
ACT I
Prologue.
Scene I. London. An ante-chamber in the King’s palace.
Scene II. The same. The presence chamber.
ACT II
Chorus.
Scene I. London. A street.
Scene II. Southampton. A council-chamber.
Scene III. London. Before a tavern.
Scene IV. France. The King’s palace.
ACT III
Chorus.
Scene I. France. Before Harfleur.
Scene II. The same.
Scene III. Before the gates.
Scene IV. The French King’s palace.
Scene V. The same.
Scene VI. The English camp in Picardy.
Scene VII. The French camp, near Agincourt.
ACT IV
Chorus.
Scene I. The English camp at Agincourt.
Scene II. The French camp.
Scene III. The English camp.
Scene IV. The field of battle.
Scene V. Another part of the field.
Scene VI. Another part of the field.
Scene VII. Another part of the field.
Scene VIII. Before King Henry’s pavilion.
ACT V
Chorus.
Scene I. France. The English camp.
Scene II. France. A royal palace.
Epilogue.
Dramatis Personæ
KING HENRY V.
DUKE OF CLARENCE, brother to the King.
DUKE OF BEDFORD, brother to the King.
DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, brother to the King.
DUKE OF EXETER, uncle to the King.
DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King.
EARL OF SALISBURY.
EARL OF HUNTINGDON.
EARL OF WESTMORLAND.
EARL OF WARWICK.
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
BISHOP OF ELY.
EARL OF CAMBRIDGE.
LORD SCROOP.
SIR THOMAS GREY.
SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, officer in King Henry’s army.
GOWER, officer in King Henry’s army.
FLUELLEN, officer in King Henry’s army.
MACMORRIS, officer in King Henry’s army.
JAMY, officer in King Henry’s army.
BATES, soldier in the same.
COURT, soldier in the same.
WILLIAMS, soldier in the same.
PISTOL.
NYM.
BARDOLPH.
BOY.
A Herald.
CHARLES VI, king of France.
LEWIS, the Dauphin.
DUKE OF BERRY.
DUKE OF BRITTANY.
DUKE OF BURGUNDY.
DUKE OF ORLEANS.
DUKE OF BOURBON.
The Constable of France.
RAMBURES, French Lord.
GRANDPRÉ, French Lord.
Governor of Harfleur
MONTJOY, a French herald.
Ambassadors to the King of England.
ISABEL, queen of France.
KATHARINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel.
ALICE, a lady attending on her.
HOSTESS of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mistress Nell Quickly, and
now married to Pistol.
CHORUS.
Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, and
Attendants.
SCENE: England; afterwards France.
PROLOGUE.
Enter Chorus.
CHORUS.
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels,
Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that hath dar’d
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million,
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin’d two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder;
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance.
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i’ th’ receiving earth.
For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
[_Exit._]
ACT I
SCENE I. London. An ante-chamber in the King’s palace.
Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely.
CANTERBURY.
My lord, I’ll tell you, that self bill is urg’d
Which in the eleventh year of the last king’s reign
Was like, and had indeed against us passed
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther question.
ELY.
But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
CANTERBURY.
It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By testament have given to the Church,
Would they strip from us; being valu’d thus:
As much as would maintain, to the King’s honour,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the King beside,
A thousand pounds by th’ year. Thus runs the bill.
ELY.
This would drink deep.
CANTERBURY.
’Twould drink the cup and all.
ELY.
But what prevention?
CANTERBURY.
The King is full of grace and fair regard.
ELY.
And a true lover of the holy Church.
CANTERBURY.
The courses of his youth promis’d 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
And whipped th’ offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise
T’ envelope and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made,
Never came reformation in a flood
With such a heady currance scouring faults,
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.
ELY.
We are blessed in the change.
CANTERBURY.
Hear him but reason in divinity
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire the King were made a prelate;
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say it hath been all in all his study;
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle 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,
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,
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
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
Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
CANTERBURY.
It must be so, for miracles are ceased,
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
ELY.
But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
Urged by the Commons? Doth his Majesty
Incline to it, or no?
CANTERBURY.
He seems indifferent,
Or rather swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing th’ exhibitors 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,
As touching France, to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.
ELY.
How did this offer seem received, my lord?
CANTERBURY.
With good acceptance of his Majesty;
Save that there was not time enough to hear,
As I perceived his Grace would fain have done,
The severals and unhidden passages
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms,
And generally to the crown and seat of France,
Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
ELY.
What was 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.
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._]
SCENE II. The same. The presence chamber.
Enter King Henry, Gloucester, Bedford, Clarence, Warwick, Westmorland,
Exeter and 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 th’ ambassador, my liege?
KING HENRY.
Not yet, my cousin. We would be resolved,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight
That task our thoughts concerning us and France.
Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely.
CANTERBURY.
God and his angels guard your sacred throne
And make you long become it!
KING HENRY.
Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
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,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake our sleeping sword of war.
We charge you in the name of God, take heed;
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
’Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords
That makes such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration speak, my lord,
For we will hear, note, and believe in heart
That what you speak is in your conscience washed
As pure as sin with baptism.
CANTERBURY.
Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
That owe yourselves, your lives, and services
To this imperial throne. There is no bar
To make against your Highness’ claim to France
But this, which they produce from Pharamond:
_In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant_,
“No woman shall succeed in Salic land;”
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,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
Where Charles the Great, having subdu’d the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish’d then this law, to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salic land;
Which Salic, as I said, ’twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call’d Meissen.
Then doth it well appear the Salic law
Was not devised 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 suppos’d the founder of this law,
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
Subdu’d the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year
Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,
Did, as heir general, being descended
Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also, who usurp’d the crown
Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
To find his title with some shows of truth,
Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,
Convey’d himself as the heir to the Lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the Emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the Great. Also, King Lewis the Tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
Daughter to Charles, the foresaid Duke of Lorraine;
By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
Was re-united to the crown of France.
So that, as clear as is the summer’s sun,
King Pepin’s title and Hugh Capet’s claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female.
So do the kings of France unto this day,
Howbeit they would hold up this 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
Usurp’d 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
Descend unto the daughter.” Gracious lord,
Stand for your own! Unwind your bloody flag!
Look back into your mighty ancestors!
Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire’s tomb,
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great-uncle’s, Edward the Black Prince,
Who on the French ground play’d a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France,
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling to behold his lion’s whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.
O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work and cold for action!
ELY.
Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
And with your puissant arm renew their feats.
You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage that renowned them
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
EXETER.
Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.
WESTMORLAND.
They know your Grace hath cause and means and might;
So hath your Highness. Never King of England
Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects,
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England
And lie pavilion’d in the fields of France.
CANTERBURY.
O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
With blood and sword and fire to win your right;
In aid whereof we of the spiritualty
Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors.
KING HENRY.
We must not only arm to invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.
CANTERBURY.
They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
KING HENRY.
We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France
But that the Scot on his unfurnish’d kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fullness of his force,
Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,
Girdling with grievous siege castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.
CANTERBURY.
She hath been then more fear’d than harm’d, my liege;
For hear her but exampl’d by herself:
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended
But taken and impounded as a stray
The King of Scots; whom she did send to France
To fill King Edward’s fame with prisoner kings,
And make her chronicle as rich with praise
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
WESTMORLAND.
But there’s a saying very old and true,
“If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin.”
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,
Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
To tear and havoc more than she can eat.
EXETER.
It follows then the cat must stay at home;
Yet that is but a crush’d necessity,
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home;
For government, though high and low and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
Congreeing in a full and natural close,
Like music.
CANTERBURY.
Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion,
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience; for so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts,
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
Others like merchants, venture trade abroad,
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
That many things, having full reference
To one consent, may work contrariously.
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;
As many lines close in the dial’s centre;
So many a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege!
Divide your happy England into four,
Whereof take you one quarter into France,
And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
If we, with thrice such powers left at home,
Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,
Let us be worried and our nation lose
The name of hardiness and policy.
KING HENRY.
Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
[_Exeunt some Attendants._]
Now are we well resolv’d; and, by God’s help,
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
France being ours, we’ll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces. Or there we’ll sit,
Ruling in large and ample empery
O’er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Tombless, with no remembrance over them.
Either our history shall with full mouth
Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
Not worshipp’d with a waxen epitaph.
Enter Ambassadors of France.
Now are we well prepar’d to know the pleasure
Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear
Your greeting is from him, not from the King.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
May’t please your Majesty to give us leave
Freely to render what we have in charge,
Or shall we sparingly show you far off
The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?
KING HENRY.
We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,
Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
As is our wretches fett’red in our prisons;
Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness
Tell us the Dauphin’s mind.
AMBASSADOR.
Thus, then, in few.
Your Highness, lately sending into France,
Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.
In answer of which claim, the prince our master
Says that you savour too much of your youth,
And bids you be advis’d there’s nought in France
That can be with a nimble galliard won.
You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
KING HENRY.
What treasure, uncle?
EXETER.
Tennis-balls, my liege.
KING HENRY.
We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.
His present and your pains we thank you for.
When we have match’d our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
That all the courts of France will be disturb’d
With chaces. And we understand him well,
How he comes o’er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.
We never valu’d this poor seat of England;
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous licence; as ’tis ever common
That men are merriest when they are from home.
But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness
When I do rouse me in my throne of France.
For that I have laid by my majesty
And plodded like a man for working days,
But I will rise there with so full a glory
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows
Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
And some are yet ungotten and unborn
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.
But this lies all within the will of God,
To whom I do appeal; and in whose name
Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on
To venge me as I may, and to put forth
My rightful hand in a well-hallow’d cause.
So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.—
Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well.
[_Exeunt Ambassadors._]
EXETER.
This was a merry message.
KING HENRY.
We hope to make the sender blush at it.
Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
That may give furtherance to our expedition;
For we have now no thought in us but France,
Save those to God, that run before our business.
Therefore, let our proportions for these wars
Be soon collected, and all things thought upon
That may with reasonable swiftness add
More feathers to our wings; for, God before,
We’ll chide this Dauphin at his father’s door.
Therefore let every man now task his thought,
That this fair action may on foot be brought.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT II
Flourish. Enter Chorus.
CHORUS.
Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies.
Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man.
They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,
Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
For now sits Expectation in the air,
And hides a sword from hilts unto the point
With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,
Promis’d to Harry and his followers.
The French, advis’d by good intelligence
Of this most dreadful preparation,
Shake in their fear, and with pale policy
Seek to divert the English purposes.
O England! model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,
What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural!
But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out
A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills
With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men,
One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,
Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,
Sir Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland,
Have, for the gilt of France,—O guilt indeed!—
Confirm’d conspiracy with fearful France;
And by their hands this grace of kings must die,
If hell and treason hold their promises,
Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.
Linger your patience on, and we’ll digest
The abuse of distance, force a play.
The sum is paid; the traitors are agreed;
The King is set from London; and the scene
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton.
There is the playhouse now, there must you sit;
And thence to France shall we convey you safe,
And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,
We’ll not offend one stomach with our play.
But, till the King come forth, and not till then,
Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.
[_Exit._]
SCENE I. London. A street.
Enter Corporal Nym and Lieutenant Bardolph.
BARDOLPH.
Well met, Corporal Nym.
NYM.
Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.
BARDOLPH.
What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?
NYM.
For my part, I care not. I say little; but when time shall serve, there
shall be smiles; but that shall be as it may. I dare not fight, but I
will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a simple one, but what though?
It will toast cheese, and it will endure cold as another man’s sword
will; and there’s an end.
BARDOLPH.
I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends; and we’ll be all three
sworn brothers to France. Let it be so, good Corporal Nym.
NYM.
Faith, I will live so long as I may, that’s the certain of it; and when
I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my rest, that is
the rendezvous of it.
BARDOLPH.
It is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell Quickly; and
certainly she did you wrong, for you were troth-plight to her.
NYM.
I cannot tell. Things must be as they may. Men may sleep, and they may
have their throats about them at that time; and some say knives have
edges. It must be as it may. Though patience be a tired mare, yet she
will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I cannot tell.
Enter Pistol and Hostess.
BARDOLPH.
Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good Corporal, be patient here.
How now, mine host Pistol!
PISTOL.
Base tike, call’st thou me host?
Now, by this hand, I swear I scorn the term;
Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.
HOSTESS.
No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a dozen or
fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of their needles,
but it will be thought we keep a bawdy house straight. [_Nym and Pistol
draw._] O well a day, Lady, if he be not drawn now! We shall see wilful
adultery and murder committed.
BARDOLPH.
Good Lieutenant! good corporal! offer nothing here.
NYM.
Pish!
PISTOL.
Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear’d cur of Iceland!
HOSTESS.
Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.
NYM.
Will you shog off? I would have you _solus_.
PISTOL.
_Solus_, egregious dog! O viper vile!
The _solus_ in thy most mervailous face;
The _solus_ in thy teeth, and in thy throat,
And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy,
And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
I do retort the _solus_ in thy bowels;
For I can take, and Pistol’s cock is up,
And flashing fire will follow.
NYM.
I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to knock you
indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you
with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms. If you would walk off, I would
prick your guts a little, in good terms, as I may; and that’s the
humour of it.
PISTOL.
O braggart vile and damned furious wight!
The grave doth gape, and doting death is near,
Therefore exhale.
BARDOLPH.
Hear me, hear me what I say. He that strikes the first stroke I’ll run
him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.
[_Draws._]
PISTOL.
An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.
Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give.
Thy spirits are most tall.
NYM.
I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair terms: that is the
humour of it.
PISTOL.
“Couple a gorge!”
That is the word. I thee defy again.
O hound of Crete, think’st thou my spouse to get?
No! to the spital go,
And from the powdering tub of infamy
Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid’s kind,
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse.
I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly
For the only she; and _pauca_, there’s enough.
Go to.
Enter the Boy.
BOY.
Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and you, hostess. He is
very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put thy face between his
sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan. Faith, he’s very ill.
BARDOLPH.
Away, you rogue!
HOSTESS.
By my troth, he’ll yield the crow a pudding one of these days.
The King has kill’d his heart.
Good husband, come home presently.
[_Exeunt Hostess and Boy._]
BARDOLPH.
Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together; why the
devil should we keep knives to cut one another’s throats?
PISTOL.
Let floods o’erswell, and fiends for food howl on!
NYM.
You’ll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?
PISTOL.
Base is the slave that pays.
NYM.
That now I will have: that’s the humour of it.
PISTOL.
As manhood shall compound. Push home.
[_They draw._]
BARDOLPH.
By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I’ll kill him; by this
sword, I will.
PISTOL.
Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.
BARDOLPH.
Corporal Nym, and thou wilt be friends, be friends; an thou wilt not,
why, then, be enemies with me too. Prithee, put up.
NYM.
I shall have my eight shillings I won from you at betting?
PISTOL.
A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;
And liquor likewise will I give to thee,
And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.
I’ll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me.
Is not this just? For I shall sutler be
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
Give me thy hand.
NYM.
I shall have my noble?
PISTOL.
In cash most justly paid.
NYM.
Well, then, that’s the humour of’t.
Enter Hostess.
HOSTESS.
As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John.
Ah, poor heart! he is so shak’d of a burning quotidian tertian,
that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.
NYM.
The King hath run bad humours on the knight; that’s the even of it.
PISTOL.
Nym, thou hast spoke the right.
His heart is fracted and corroborate.
NYM.
The King is a good king; but it must be as it may; he passes some
humours and careers.
PISTOL.
Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE II. Southampton. A council-chamber.
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
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.
BEDFORD.
The King hath note of all that they intend,
By interception which they dream not of.
EXETER.
Nay, but the man that was his bed-fellow,
Whom he hath dull’d and cloy’d with gracious favours,
That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign’s life to death and treachery.
Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Scroop, Cambridge and Grey.
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.
Think you not that the powers we bear with us
Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution and the act
For which we have in head assembled them?
SCROOP.
No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
KING HENRY.
I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded
We carry not a heart with us from hence
That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.
CAMBRIDGE.
Never was monarch better fear’d and lov’d
Than is your Majesty. There’s not, I think, a subject
That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
Under the sweet shade of your government.
GREY.
True; those that were your father’s enemies
Have steep’d their galls in honey, and do serve you
With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
KING HENRY.
We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
And shall forget the office of our hand
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
According to the weight and worthiness.
SCROOP.
So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
To do your Grace incessant services.
KING HENRY.
We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That rail’d against our person. We consider
It was excess of wine that set him on,
And on his more advice we pardon him.
SCROOP.
That’s mercy, but too much security.
Let him be punish’d, sovereign, lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
KING HENRY.
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,
Shall not be wink’d at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chew’d, swallow’d, and digested,
Appear before us? We’ll yet enlarge that man,
Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care
And tender preservation of our person,
Would have him punish’d. 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.
And I, my royal sovereign.
KING HENRY.
Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;
There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight,
Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.
Read them, and know I know your worthiness.
My Lord of 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,
That have so cowarded and chas’d 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,
By your own counsel is suppress’d and kill’d.
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,
You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with an appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir’d
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,
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew’st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coin’d me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practis’d on me for thy use,—
May it be possible that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? ’Tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause
That admiration did not whoop at them;
But thou, ’gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;
And other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation
With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch’d
From glist’ring semblances of piety.
But he that temper’d thee bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same demon that hath gull’d thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions, “I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman’s.”
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?
Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
Garnish’d and deck’d in modest complement,
Not working with the eye without the ear,
And but in purged judgement trusting neither?
Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. Their faults are open.
Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practices!
EXETER.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl of
Cambridge.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop of
Masham.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight, of
Northumberland.
SCROOP.
Our purposes God justly hath discover’d,
And I repent my fault more than my death,
Which I beseech your Highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.
CAMBRIDGE.
For me, the gold of France did not seduce,
Although I did admit it as a motive
The sooner to effect what I intended.
But God be thanked for prevention,
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.
GREY.
Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason
Than I do at this hour joy o’er myself,
Prevented from a damned enterprise.
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
KING HENRY.
God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
You have conspir’d against our royal person,
Join’d with an enemy proclaim’d, and from his coffers
Received the golden earnest of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death,
The taste whereof God of his mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence.
[_Exeunt Cambridge, Scroop and Grey, guarded._]
Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason lurking in our way
To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then forth, dear countrymen! Let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea! The signs of war advance!
No king of England, if not king of France!
[_Flourish. Exeunt._]
SCENE III. London. Before a tavern.
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 yearn.
Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;
Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,
And we must yearn therefore.
BARDOLPH.
Would I were with him, wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or in hell!
HOSTESS.
Nay, sure, he’s not in hell. He’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went
to Arthur’s bosom. ’A made a finer end and went away an it had been any
christom child. ’A parted even just between twelve and one, even at the
turning o’ the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and
play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was
but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and ’a babbled of
green fields. “How now, Sir John!” quoth I; “what, man! be o’ good
cheer.” So ’a cried out, “God, God, God!” three or four times. Now I,
to comfort him, bid him ’a should not think of God; I hop’d 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 and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.
NYM.
They say he cried out of sack.
HOSTESS.
Ay, that ’a did.
BARDOLPH.
And of women.
HOSTESS.
Nay, that ’a did not.
BOY.
Yes, that ’a did; and said they were devils incarnate.
HOSTESS.
’A could never abide carnation; ’twas a colour he never liked.
BOY.
’A said once, the devil would have him about women.
HOSTESS.
’A did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was rheumatic,
and talk’d of the whore of Babylon.
BOY.
Do you not remember, ’a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph’s nose, and ’a
said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?
BARDOLPH.
Well, the fuel is gone that maintain’d that fire. That’s all the riches
I got in his service.
NYM.
Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.
PISTOL.
Come, let’s away. My love, give me thy lips.
Look to my chattels and my movables.
Let senses rule; the word is “Pitch and Pay.”
Trust none;
For oaths are straws, men’s faiths are wafer-cakes
And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck;
Therefore, _Caveto_ be thy counsellor.
Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,
Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!
BOY.
And that’s but unwholesome food, they say.
PISTOL.
Touch her soft mouth, and march.
BARDOLPH.
Farewell, hostess.
[_Kissing her._]
NYM.
I cannot kiss; that is the humour of it; but, adieu.
PISTOL.
Let housewifery appear. Keep close, I thee command.
HOSTESS.
Farewell; adieu.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE IV. France. The King’s palace.
Flourish. Enter the French King, the Dauphin, the Dukes of Berry 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 defences.
Therefore the Dukes of Berry and of Brittany,
Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,
And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,
To line and new repair our towns of war
With men of courage and with means defendant;
For England his approaches makes as fierce
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.
It fits us then to be as provident
As fears may teach us out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.
DAUPHIN.
My most redoubted father,
It is most meet we arm us ’gainst the foe;
For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,
Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,
But that defences, musters, preparations,
Should be maintain’d, assembled, and collected,
As were a war in expectation.
Therefore, I say, ’tis meet we all go forth
To view the sick and feeble parts of France.
And let us do it with no show of fear;
No, with no more than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance;
For, my good liege, she is so idly king’d,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne
By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.
CONSTABLE.
O peace, Prince Dauphin!
You are too much mistaken in this king.
Question your Grace the late ambassadors
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception, and withal
How terrible in constant resolution,
And you shall find his vanities forespent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring and be most delicate.
DAUPHIN.
Well, ’tis not so, my Lord High Constable;
But though we think it so, it is no matter.
In cases of defence ’tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems,
So the proportions of defence are fill’d;
Which, of a weak 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.
The kindred of him hath been flesh’d upon us;
And he is bred out of that bloody strain
That haunted us in our familiar paths.
Witness our too much memorable shame
When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captiv’d by the hand
Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing,
Up in the air, crown’d with the golden sun,
Saw his heroical seed, and smil’d to see him,
Mangle the work of nature and deface
The patterns that by God and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
The native mightiness and fate of him.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER.
Ambassadors from Harry King of England
Do crave admittance to your Majesty.
FRENCH KING.
We’ll give them present audience. Go, and bring them.
[_Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords._]
You see this chase is hotly follow’d, friends.
DAUPHIN.
Turn head and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten
Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
Take up the English short, and let them know
Of what a monarchy you are the head.
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting.
Enter Exeter.
FRENCH KING.
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,
By law of nature and of nations, ’longs
To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown
And all wide-stretched honours that pertain
By custom and the ordinance of times
Unto the crown of France. That you may know
’Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim
Pick’d from the worm-holes of long-vanish’d days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak’d,
He sends you this most memorable line,
In every branch truly demonstrative;
Willing you overlook this pedigree;
And when you find him evenly deriv’d
From his most fam’d of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
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,
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
That, if requiring fail, he will compel;
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
Turning the widows’ tears, the orphans’ cries,
The dead men’s blood, the pining maidens’ groans,
For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
That shall be swallowed in this controversy.
This is his claim, his threat’ning, 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
Back to our brother of England.
DAUPHIN.
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.
Thus says my king: an if your father’s Highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty,
He’ll call you to so hot an answer of it
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
In second accent of his 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,
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 assur’d, you’ll find a difference,
As we his subjects have in wonder found,
Between the promise of his greener days
And these he masters now. Now he weighs time
Even to the utmost grain. That you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.
FRENCH KING.
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 dispatch’d with fair conditions.
A night is but small breath and little pause
To answer matters of this consequence.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT III
Flourish. Enter Chorus.
CHORUS.
Thus with imagin’d wing our swift scene flies,
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning.
Play with your fancies; and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confus’d; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow’d sea,
Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
Either past or not arriv’d to pith and puissance.
For who is he, whose chin is but enrich’d
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These cull’d and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back,
Tells Harry that the King doth offer him
Katharine his daughter, and with her, to dowry,
Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
The offer likes not; and the nimble gunner
With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,
[_Alarum, and chambers go off._]
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.
[_Exit._]
SCENE I. France. Before Harfleur.
Alarum. Enter King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Gloucester and Soldiers,
with scaling-ladders.
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;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as does a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheath’d their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good 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,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot!
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry, “God for Harry! England and Saint George!”
[_Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off._]
SCENE II. The same.
Enter Nym, Bardolph, Pistol and Boy.
BARDOLPH.
On, on, on, on, on! To the breach, to the breach!
NYM.
Pray thee, corporal, stay. The knocks are too hot; and, for mine own
part, I have not a case of lives. The humour of it is too hot; that is
the very plain-song of it.
PISTOL.
The plain-song is most just, for humours do abound.
Knocks go and come; God’s vassals drop and die;
And sword and shield,
In bloody field,
Doth win immortal fame.
BOY.
Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for a
pot of ale and safety.
PISTOL.
And I.
If wishes would prevail with me,
My purpose should not fail with me,
But thither would I hie.
BOY.
As duly,
But not as truly,
As bird doth sing on bough.
Enter Fluellen.
FLUELLEN.
Up to the breach, you dogs! Avaunt, you cullions!
[_Driving them forward._]
PISTOL.
Be merciful, great Duke, to men of mould.
Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage,
Abate thy rage, great Duke!
Good bawcock, bate thy rage; use lenity, sweet chuck!
NYM.
These be good humours! Your honour wins bad humours.
[_Exeunt all but Boy._]
BOY.
As young as I am, I have observ’d these three swashers. I am boy to
them all three; but all they three, though they would serve me, could
not be man to me; for indeed three such antics do not amount to a man.
For Bardolph, he is white-liver’d and red-fac’d; by the means whereof
’a faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue
and a quiet sword; by the means whereof ’a breaks words, and keeps
whole weapons. For Nym, he hath heard that men of few words are the
best men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest ’a should be
thought a coward. But his few bad words are match’d with as few good
deeds; for ’a never broke any man’s head but his own, and that was
against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything, and call it
purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold
it for three half-pence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in
filching, and in Calais they stole a fire-shovel. I knew by that piece
of service the men would carry coals. They would have me as familiar
with men’s pockets as their gloves or their handkerchers; which makes
much against my manhood, if I should take from another’s pocket to put
into mine; for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them,
and seek some better service. Their villainy goes against my weak
stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.
[_Exit._]
Enter Gower and Fluellen.
GOWER.
Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines.
The Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.
FLUELLEN.
To the mines! Tell you the Duke, it is not so good to come to the
mines; for, look you, the mines is not according to the disciplines of
the war. The concavities of it is not sufficient; for, look you, the
athversary, you may discuss unto the Duke, look you, is digt himself
four yard under the countermines. By Cheshu, I think ’a will plow up
all, if there is not better directions.
GOWER.
The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the siege is given, is
altogether directed by an Irishman, a very valiant gentleman, i’ faith.
FLUELLEN.
It is Captain Macmorris, is it not?
GOWER.
I think it be.
FLUELLEN.
By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the world. I will verify as much in his
beard. He has no more directions in the true disciplines of the wars,
look you, of the Roman disciplines, than is a puppy-dog.
Enter Macmorris and Captain Jamy.
GOWER.
Here ’a comes; and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with him.
FLUELLEN.
Captain Jamy is a marvellous falorous gentleman, that is certain; and
of great expedition and knowledge in the anchient wars, upon my
particular knowledge of his directions. By Cheshu, he will maintain his
argument as well as any military man in the world, in the disciplines
of the pristine wars of the Romans.
JAMY.
I say gud-day, Captain Fluellen.
FLUELLEN.
God-den to your worship, good Captain James.
GOWER.
How now, Captain Macmorris! have you quit the mines?
Have the pioneers given o’er?
MACMORRIS.
By Chrish, la! ’tish ill done! The work ish give over, the trompet
sound the retreat. By my hand I swear, and my father’s soul, the work
ish ill done; it ish give over. I would have blowed up the town, so
Chrish save me, la! in an hour. O, ’tish ill done, ’tish ill done; by
my hand, ’tish ill done!
FLUELLEN.
Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you voutsafe me, look you, a
few disputations with you, as partly touching or concerning the
disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way of argument, look
you, and friendly communication; partly to satisfy my opinion, and
partly for the satisfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the
direction of the military discipline; that is the point.
JAMY.
It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath: and I sall quit you
with gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I, marry.
MACMORRIS.
It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me. The day is hot, and the
weather, and the wars, and the King, and the Dukes. It is no time to
discourse. The town is beseech’d, and the trumpet call us to the
breach, and we talk, and, be Chrish, do nothing. ’Tis shame for us all.
So God sa’ me, ’tis shame to stand still; it is shame, by my hand; and
there is throats to be cut, and works to be done; and there ish nothing
done, so Chrish sa’ me, la!
JAMY.
By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to slomber, I’ll
de gud service, or I’ll lig i’ 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 tway.
FLUELLEN.
Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your correction, there is
not many of your nation—
MACMORRIS.
Of my nation! What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a bastard, and a
knave, and a rascal? What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?
FLUELLEN.
Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant, Captain
Macmorris, peradventure I shall think you do not use me with that
affability as in discretion you ought to use me, look you, being as
good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of war, and in the
derivation of my birth, and in other particularities.
MACMORRIS.
I do not know you so good a man as myself. So Chrish save me,
I will cut off your head.
GOWER.
Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.
JAMY.
Ah! that’s a foul fault.
[_A parley sounded._]
GOWER.
The town sounds a parley.
FLUELLEN.
Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity to be
required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know the
disciplines of war; and there is an end.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE III. Before the gates.
The Governor and some citizens on the walls; the English forces below.
Enter King Henry and his train.
KING HENRY.
How yet resolves the governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit;
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves,
Or like to men proud of destruction
Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the flesh’d soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring infants.
What is it then to me, if impious War,
Array’d in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do with his smirch’d complexion all fell feats
Enlink’d to waste and desolation?
What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command,
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash’d to the walls;
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus’d
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? Will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy’d?
GOVERNOR.
Our expectation hath this day an end.
The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,
Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great King,
We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;
For we no longer are defensible.
KING HENRY.
Open your gates. Come, uncle Exeter,
Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,
And fortify it strongly ’gainst the French.
Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,
The winter coming on, and sickness growing
Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.
Tonight in Harfleur will we be your guest;
Tomorrow for the march are we addrest.
Flourish. The King and his train enter the town.
SCENE IV. The French King’s palace.
Enter Katharine and Alice, an old Gentlewoman.
KATHARINE.
_Alice, tu as été en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage._
ALICE.
_Un peu, madame._
KATHARINE.
_Je te prie, m’enseignez; il faut que 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 souviendrai. Les
doigts? Je pense qu’ils sont appelés_ 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 ongles?_
ALICE.
_Les ongles? Nous les appelons_ 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.
_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 les mots que vous m’avez
appris dès à présent._
ALICE.
_Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense._
KATHARINE.
_Excusez-moi, Alice. Écoutez:_ d’hand, de fingres, de nails, d’arm, de
bilbow.
ALICE.
D’elbow, _madame._
KATHARINE.
_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.
De sin. _Le col_, de nick; _le menton_, de sin.
ALICE.
_Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en vérité, vous prononcez 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.
_N’avez-vous pas déjà oublié ce que je vous ai enseigné?_
KATHARINE.
_Non, je réciterai à vous promptement:_ d’hand, de fingres, de mails,—
ALICE.
De nails, _madame._
KATHARINE.
De nails, de arm, de ilbow.
ALICE.
_Sauf votre honneur_, de elbow.
KATHARINE.
_Ainsi dis-je_, d’elbow, de nick, _et_ de sin. _Comment appelez-vous le
pied et la robe?_
ALICE.
De foot, _madame; et_ de coun.
KATHARINE.
De foot _et_ de coun! _O Seigneur Dieu! ils sont les mots de son
mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames
d’honneur d’user. Je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant les
seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh!_ le foot _et_ le coun!
_Néanmoins, je réciterai une autre fois ma leçon ensemble:_ d’hand, de
fingres, de nails, d’arm, d’elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, de coun.
ALICE.
_Excellent, madame!_
KATHARINE.
_C’est assez pour une fois. Allons-nous à dîner._
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE V. The same.
Enter the King of France, the Dauphin, the Duke of Bourbon, the
Constable of France and others.
FRENCH KING.
’Tis certain he hath pass’d the river Somme.
CONSTABLE.
And if he be not fought withal, my lord,
Let us not live in France; let us quit all
And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.
DAUPHIN.
_O Dieu vivant_! shall a few sprays of us,
The emptying of our fathers’ luxury,
Our scions put in wild and savage stock,
Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,
And overlook their grafters?
BOURBON.
Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!
_Mort de ma vie_, if they march along
Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom,
To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm
In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.
CONSTABLE.
_Dieu de batailles_, where have they this mettle?
Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,
A drench for sur-rein’d jades, their barley-broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,
Let us not hang like roping icicles
Upon our houses’ thatch, whiles a more frosty people
Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields!
Poor we may call them in their native lords.
DAUPHIN.
By faith and honour,
Our madams mock at us, and plainly say
Our mettle is bred out, and they will give
Their bodies to the lust of English youth
To new-store France with bastard warriors.
BOURBON.
They bid us to the English dancing-schools,
And teach lavoltas high, and swift corantos;
Saying our grace is only in our heels,
And that we are most lofty runaways.
FRENCH KING.
Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence.
Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
Up, princes! and, with spirit of honour edged
More sharper than your swords, hie to the field!
Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;
You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berry,
Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;
Jacques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,
Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi, and Fauconbridge,
Foix, Lestrale, Boucicault, and Charolois;
High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights,
For your great seats now quit you of great shames.
Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur.
Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow
Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat
The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon.
Go down upon him, you have power enough,
And in a captive chariot into Rouen
Bring him our prisoner.
CONSTABLE.
This becomes the great.
Sorry am I his numbers are so few,
His soldiers sick and famish’d in their march;
For I am sure, when he shall see our army,
He’ll drop his heart into the sink of fear
And for achievement offer us his ransom.
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.
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._]
SCENE VI. The English camp in Picardy.
Enter Gower and Fluellen, meeting.
GOWER.
How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge?
FLUELLEN.
I assure you, there is very excellent services committed at the bridge.
GOWER.
Is the Duke of Exeter safe?
FLUELLEN.
The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a man that I
love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my life,
and my living, and my uttermost power. He is not—God be praised and
blessed!—any hurt in the world; but keeps the bridge most valiantly,
with excellent discipline. There is an anchient lieutenant there at the
pridge, I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark
Antony; and he is a man of no estimation in the world, but I did see
him do as gallant service.
GOWER.
What do you call him?
FLUELLEN.
He is call’d Anchient Pistol.
GOWER.
I know him not.
Enter Pistol.
FLUELLEN.
Here is the man.
PISTOL.
Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.
The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.
FLUELLEN.
Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his hands.
PISTOL.
Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,
And of buxom valour, hath by cruel fate
And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind,
That stands upon the rolling restless stone—
FLUELLEN.
By your patience, Anchient Pistol. Fortune is painted blind, with a
muffler afore his eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind; and
she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral
of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and
variation; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone,
which rolls, and rolls, and rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most
excellent description of it. Fortune is an excellent moral.
PISTOL.
Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him;
For he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must ’a be,—
A damned death!
Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free,
And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.
But Exeter hath given the doom of death
For pax of little price.
Therefore, go speak; the Duke will hear thy voice;
And let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut
With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.
Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.
FLUELLEN.
Anchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.
PISTOL.
Why then, rejoice therefore.
FLUELLEN.
Certainly, anchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at; for if, look you,
he were my brother, I would desire the Duke to use his good pleasure,
and put him to execution; for discipline ought to be used.
PISTOL.
Die and be damn’d! and _fico_ for thy friendship!
FLUELLEN.
It is well.
PISTOL.
The fig of Spain.
[_Exit._]
FLUELLEN.
Very good.
GOWER.
Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal. I remember him now; a bawd,
a cutpurse.
FLUELLEN.
I’ll assure you, ’a uttered as prave words at the pridge as you shall
see in a summer’s day. But it is very well; what he has spoke to me,
that is well, I warrant you, when time is serve.
GOWER.
Why, ’t is a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then goes to the wars,
to grace himself at his return into London under the form of a soldier.
And such fellows are perfect in the great commanders’ names; and they
will learn you by rote where services were done; at such and such a
sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who
was shot, who disgrac’d, what terms the enemy stood on; and this they
con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned
oaths: and what a beard of the general’s cut and a horrid suit of the
camp will do among foaming bottles and ale-wash’d wits, is wonderful to
be thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or
else you may be marvellously mistook.
FLUELLEN.
I tell you what, Captain Gower; I do perceive he is not the man that he
would gladly make show to the world he is. If I find a hole in his
coat, I will tell him my mind. [_Drum heard._] Hark you, the King is
coming, and I must speak with him from the pridge.
Drum and colours. Enter King Henry, Gloucester and his poor soldiers.
God bless your Majesty!
KING HENRY.
How now, Fluellen! cam’st thou from the bridge?
FLUELLEN.
Ay, so please your Majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very gallantly
maintain’d the pridge. The French is gone off, look you; and there is
gallant and most prave passages. Marry, th’ athversary was have
possession of the pridge; but he is enforced to retire, and the Duke of
Exeter is master of the pridge. I can tell your Majesty, the Duke is a
prave man.
KING HENRY.
What men have you lost, Fluellen?
FLUELLEN.
The perdition of the athversary hath been very great, reasonable great.
Marry, for my part, I think the Duke hath lost never a man, but one
that is like to be executed for robbing a church, one Bardolph, if your
Majesty know the man. His face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs,
and flames o’ fire; and his lips blows at his nose, and it is like a
coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red; but his nose is
executed, and his fire’s out.
KING HENRY.
We would have all such offenders so cut off; and we give express
charge, that in our marches through the country, there be nothing
compell’d from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the
French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and
cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.
Tucket. Enter Montjoy.
MONTJOY.
You know me by my habit.
KING HENRY.
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 seem’d dead,
we did but sleep; advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him
we could have rebuk’d him at Harfleur, but that we thought not good to
bruise an injury till it were full ripe. Now we speak upon our cue, and
our voice is imperial. England shall repent his folly, see his
weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his
ransom; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we
have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in weight to re-answer,
his pettishness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too
poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too
faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our
feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance; and
tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose
condemnation is pronounc’d. 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,
And tell thy King I do not seek him now,
But could be willing to march on to Calais
Without impeachment; for, to say the sooth,
Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
My numbers lessen’d, and those few I have
Almost no better than so many French;
Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus! This your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me. I must repent.
Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,
My army but a weak and sickly guard;
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself and such another neighbour
Stand in our way. There’s for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go, bid thy master well advise himself.
If we may pass, we will; if we be hind’red,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
The sum of all our answer is but this:
We would not seek a battle, as we are;
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.
So tell your master.
MONTJOY.
I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness.
[_Exit._]
GLOUCESTER.
I hope they will not come upon us now.
KING HENRY.
We are in God’s hands, brother, not in theirs.
March to the bridge; it now draws toward night.
Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,
And on tomorrow bid them march away.
[_Exeunt._]
SCENE VII. The French camp, near Agincourt.
Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orleans, Dauphin
with others.
CONSTABLE.
Tut! I have the best armour of the world.
Would it were day!
ORLEANS.
You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.
CONSTABLE.
It is the best horse of Europe.
ORLEANS.
Will it never be morning?
DAUPHIN.
My Lord of Orleans, and my Lord High Constable, you talk of horse and
armour?
ORLEANS.
You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.
DAUPHIN.
What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with any that
treads but on four pasterns. Ch’ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his
entrails were hairs; _le cheval volant_, the Pegasus, _qui a les
narines de feu!_ When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk. He trots the
air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is
more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
ORLEANS.
He’s of the colour of the nutmeg.
DAUPHIN.
And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus. He is pure
air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in
him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him. He is
indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.
CONSTABLE.
Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
DAUPHIN.
It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a
monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.
ORLEANS.
No more, cousin.
DAUPHIN.
Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of the lark to
the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey. It is a
theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and
my horse is argument for them all. ’Tis a subject for a sovereign to
reason on, and for a sovereign’s sovereign to ride on; and for the
world, familiar to us and unknown, to lay apart their particular
functions and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise and
began thus: “Wonder of nature,”—
ORLEANS.
I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.
DAUPHIN.
Then did they imitate that which I compos’d to my courser, for my horse
is my mistress.
ORLEANS.
Your mistress bears well.
DAUPHIN.
Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and
particular mistress.
CONSTABLE.
Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back.
DAUPHIN.
So perhaps did yours.
CONSTABLE.
Mine was not bridled.
DAUPHIN.
O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode, like a kern of
Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait strossers.
CONSTABLE.
You have good judgment in horsemanship.
DAUPHIN.
Be warn’d by me, then; they that ride so and ride not warily, fall into
foul bogs. I had rather have my horse to my mistress.
CONSTABLE.
I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
DAUPHIN.
I tell thee, Constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
CONSTABLE.
I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress.
DAUPHIN.
“_Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et 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 armour that I saw in 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 may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and ’twere more honour
some were away.
CONSTABLE.
Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were
some of your brags dismounted.
DAUPHIN.
Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it never be day? I
will trot tomorrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English
faces.
CONSTABLE.
I will not say so, for fear I should be fac’d out of my way. But I
would it were morning; for I would fain be about the ears of the
English.
RAMBURES.
Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
CONSTABLE.
You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.
DAUPHIN.
’Tis midnight; I’ll go arm myself.
[_Exit._]
ORLEANS.
The Dauphin longs for morning.
RAMBURES.
He longs to eat the English.
CONSTABLE.
I think he will eat all he kills.
ORLEANS.
By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince.
CONSTABLE.
Swear by her foot that she may tread out the oath.
ORLEANS.
He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
CONSTABLE.
Doing is activity; and he will still be doing.
ORLEANS.
He never did harm, that I heard of.
CONSTABLE.
Nor will do none 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 better than you.
ORLEANS.
What’s he?
CONSTABLE.
Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he car’d not who knew it.
ORLEANS.
He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.
CONSTABLE.
By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but his lackey. ’Tis
a hooded valour; and when it appears, it will bate.
ORLEANS.
“Ill will never said well.”
CONSTABLE.
I will cap that proverb with “There is flattery in friendship.”
ORLEANS.
And I will take up that with “Give the devil his due.”
CONSTABLE.
Well plac’d. There stands your friend for the devil; have at the very
eye of that proverb with “A pox of the devil.”
ORLEANS.
You are the better at proverbs, by how much “A fool’s bolt is soon
shot.”
CONSTABLE.
You have shot over.
ORLEANS.
’Tis not the first time you were overshot.
Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER.
My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of
your tents.
CONSTABLE.
Who hath measur’d the ground?
MESSENGER.
The Lord Grandpré.
CONSTABLE.
A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day! Alas, poor
Harry of England, he longs not for the dawning as we do.
ORLEANS.
What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King of England, to mope
with his fat-brain’d followers so far out of his knowledge!
CONSTABLE.
If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.
ORLEANS.
That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they
could never wear such heavy head-pieces.
RAMBURES.
That island of England breeds very valiant creatures. Their mastiffs
are of unmatchable courage.
ORLEANS.
Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear and
have their heads crush’d like rotten apples! You may as well say,
that’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
CONSTABLE.
Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the mastiffs in robustious
and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their wives; and then,
give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like
wolves and fight like devils.
ORLEANS.
Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
CONSTABLE.
Then shall we find tomorrow they have only stomachs to eat and none to
fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we about it?
ORLEANS.
It is now two o’clock; but, let me see, by ten
We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.
[_Exeunt._]
ACT IV
Enter Chorus.
CHORUS.
Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fix’d sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other’s watch;
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other’s umber’d face;
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited Night
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger; and their gesture sad,
Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats,
Presented them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin’d band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry, “Praise and glory on his head!”
For forth he goes and visits all his host,
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,
And calls them brothers, friends, and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night,
But freshly looks, and over-bears attaint
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks.
A largess universal like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to everyone,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.
And so our scene must to the battle fly,
Where—O for pity!—we shall much disgrace
With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
Right ill-dispos’d in brawl ridiculous,
The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,
Minding true things by what their mock’ries be.
[_Exit._]
SCENE I. The English camp at Agincourt.
Enter King Henry, 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,
Would men observingly distil it out;
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
Besides, they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.
Thus may we gather honey from the weed,
And make a moral of the devil himself.
Enter Erpingham.
Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:
A good soft pillow for that good white head
Were better than a churlish turf of France.
ERPINGHAM.
Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better,
Since I may say, “Now lie I like a king.”
KING HENRY.
’Tis good for men to love their present pains
Upon example; so the spirit is eased;
And when the mind is quick’ned, out of doubt,
The organs, though defunct and dead before,
Break up their drowsy grave and newly move,
With casted slough and fresh legerity.
Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,
Commend me to the princes in our camp;
Do my good morrow to them, and anon
Desire them all to my pavilion.
GLOUCESTER.
We shall, my liege.
ERPINGHAM.
Shall I attend your Grace?
KING HENRY.
No, my good knight;
Go with my brothers to my lords of England.
I and my bosom must debate a while,
And then I would no other company.
ERPINGHAM.
The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!
[_Exeunt all but King._]
KING HENRY.
God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak’st cheerfully.
Enter Pistol.
PISTOL.
_Qui vous là?_
KING HENRY.
A friend.
PISTOL.
Discuss unto me; art thou officer?
Or art thou base, common, and popular?
KING HENRY.
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.
The King’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold,
A lad of life, an imp of fame;
Of parents good, of fist most valiant.
I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string
I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?
KING HENRY.
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.
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.
And his kinsman too.
PISTOL.
The _fico_ for thee, then!
KING HENRY.
I thank you. God be with you!
PISTOL.
My name is Pistol call’d.
[_Exit._]
KING HENRY.
It sorts well with your fierceness.
Enter Fluellen and Gower.
GOWER.
Captain Fluellen!
FLUELLEN.
So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is the greatest
admiration in the universal world, when the true and anchient
prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept. If you would take the
pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall find, I
warrant you, that there is no tiddle 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 modesty of it, to be otherwise.
GOWER.
Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.
FLUELLEN.
If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet,
think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a
prating coxcomb? In your own conscience, now?
GOWER.
I will speak lower.
FLUELLEN.
I pray you and beseech you that you will.
[_Exeunt Gower and Fluellen._]
KING HENRY.
Though it appear a little out of fashion,
There is much care and valour in this Welshman.
Enter three soldiers, John Bates, Alexander Court and Michael
Williams.
COURT.
Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?
BATES.
I think it be; but we have no great cause to desire the approach of
day.
WILLIAMS.
We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see
the end of it. Who goes there?
KING HENRY.
A friend.
WILLIAMS.
Under what captain serve you?
KING HENRY.
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 wreck’d upon a sand, that look to be wash’d off the next
tide.
BATES.
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
human conditions. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears
but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet,
when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees
reason of fears as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same
relish as ours are; yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any
appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.
BATES.
He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a
night as ’tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I
would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.
KING HENRY.
By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I think he would
not wish himself anywhere but where he is.
BATES.
Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed,
and a many poor men’s lives saved.
KING HENRY.
I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone, howsoever
you speak this to feel other men’s minds. Methinks I could not die
anywhere so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just
and his quarrel honourable.
WILLIAMS.
That’s more than we know.
BATES.
Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know
we are the 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 himself hath a heavy reckoning
to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp’d 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 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 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 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 irreconcil’d iniquities, you may call the
business of the master the author of the servant’s damnation. But this
is not so. The King is not bound to answer the particular endings of
his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for
they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services.
Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come
to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted
soldiers. Some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and
contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of
perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored
the gentle bosom of Peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men
have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can
outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle,
war is his vengeance; so that here men are punish’d for before-breach
of the King’s laws in now the King’s quarrel. Where they feared the
death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they
perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King guilty of
their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the
which they are now visited. Every subject’s duty is the King’s; but
every subject’s soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the
wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his
conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the
time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him
that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an
offer, He let him outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach
others how they should prepare.
WILLIAMS.
’Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head, the
King is not to answer for it.
BATES.
I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to fight
lustily for him.
KING HENRY.
I myself heard the King say he would not be ransom’d.
WILLIAMS.
Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our throats are
cut, he may be ransom’d, and we ne’er the wiser.
KING HENRY.
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
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.
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.
Here’s my glove; give me another of thine.
KING HENRY.
There.
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.
If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
WILLIAMS.
Thou dar’st as well be hang’d.
KING HENRY.
Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King’s company.
WILLIAMS.
Keep thy word; fare thee well.
BATES.
Be friends, you English fools, be friends. We have French quarrels
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 shoulders; but it is no English treason
to cut French crowns, and tomorrow the King himself will be a clipper.
[_Exeunt soldiers._]
Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children, and our sins lay on the King!
We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s ease
Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
And what have kings, that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? What are thy comings in?
O Ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is thy soul of adoration?
Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being fear’d
Than they in fearing.
What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison’d flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy Ceremony give thee cure!
Think’st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know
’Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running ’fore the King,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous Ceremony,—
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill’d and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread,
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But, like a lackey, from the rise to set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year,
With profitable labour, to his grave:
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country’s peace,
Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots
What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
Enter Erpingham.
ERPINGHAM.
My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
Seek through your camp to find you.
KING HENRY.
Good old knight,
Collect them all together at my tent.
I’ll be before thee.
ERPINGHAM.
I shall do’t, my lord.
[_Exit._]
KING HENRY.
O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts.
Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord,
O, not today, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard’s body have interred new,
And on it have bestow’d more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a day their wither’d hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard’s soul. More will I do;
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.
Enter Gloucester.
GLOUCESTER.
My liege!
KING HENRY.
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._]