HENRY V
HENRY V
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Dramatis Personae
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King Henry V
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Duke of Gloucester, brother to the King
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Duke of Bedford, brother to the King
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Duke of Exeter, uncle to the King
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Duke of York, cousin to the King
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Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, and Warwick
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Archbishop of Canterbury
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Bishop of Ely
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Earl of Cambridge
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Lord Scroop
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Sir Thomas Grey
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Sir Thomas Erpingham, Gower, Fluellen, Macmorris, Jamy, officers in King Henry’s army
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John Bates, Alexander Court, Michael Williams, soldiers in the same
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Pistol, Nym, Bardolph
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Boy
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A herald
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Charles VI, King of France
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Lewis, the Dauphin
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Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, Bourbon
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The Constable of France
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Rambures and Grandpré, French lords
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Governor of Harfleur
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Montjoy, a French herald
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Ambassadors to the King of England
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Isabel, Queen of France
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Katharine, daughter to Charles and Isabel
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Alice, a lady attending on her
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Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mistress Nell Quickly, and now married to Pistol
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Lords, ladies, officers, soldiers, citizens, messengers, and attendants
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Chorus
Scene: England; afterwards France.
Henry V
Prologue
Enter Chorus. | |
Chorus |
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
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Act I
Scene I
London. An antechamber in the King’s palace.
Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Ely. | |
Canterbury |
My lord, I’ll tell you; that self bill is urged,
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Ely | But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? |
Canterbury |
It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
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Ely | This would drink deep. |
Canterbury | ’Twould drink the cup and all. |
Ely | But what prevention? |
Canterbury | The King is full of grace and fair regard. |
Ely | And a true lover of the holy church. |
Canterbury |
The courses of his youth promised it not.
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Ely | We are blessed in the change. |
Canterbury |
Hear him but reason in divinity,
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Ely |
The strawberry grows underneath the nettle
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Canterbury |
It must be so; for miracles are ceased;
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Ely |
But, my good lord,
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Canterbury |
He seems indifferent,
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Ely | How did this offer seem received, my lord? |
Canterbury |
With good acceptance of his majesty;
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Ely | What was the impediment that broke this off? |
Canterbury |
The French ambassador upon that instant
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Ely | It is. |
Canterbury |
Then go we in, to know his embassy;
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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, Exeter, Warwick, Westmoreland, and Attendants. | |
King Henry | Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury? |
Exeter | Not here in presence. |
King Henry | Send for him, good uncle. |
Westmoreland | Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege? |
King Henry |
Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved,
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Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely. | |
Canterbury |
God and his angels guard your sacred throne
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King Henry |
Sure, we thank you.
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Canterbury |
Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
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King Henry | May I with right and conscience make this claim? |
Canterbury |
The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
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Ely |
Awake remembrance of these valiant dead
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Exeter |
Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
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Westmoreland |
They know your grace hath cause and means and might;
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Canterbury |
O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
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King Henry |
We must not only arm to invade the French,
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Canterbury |
They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
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King Henry |
We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
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Canterbury |
She hath been then more fear’d than harm’d, my liege;
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Westmoreland |
But there’s a saying very old and true,
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Exeter |
It follows then the cat must stay at home:
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Canterbury |
Therefore doth heaven divide
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King Henry |
Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin. Exeunt some Attendants.
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Enter Ambassadors of France. | |
Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure
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First Ambassador |
May’t please your majesty to give us leave
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King Henry |
We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;
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Ambassador |
Thus, then, in few.
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King Henry | What treasure, uncle? |
Exeter | Tennis-balls, my liege. |
King Henry |
We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
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Exeter | This was a merry message. |
King Henry |
We hope to make the sender blush at it.
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Act II
Prologue
Flourish. Enter Chorus. | |
Chorus |
Now all the youth of England are on fire,
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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?
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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!
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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!
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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.
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Nym | I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair terms: that is the humour of it. |
Pistol |
“Couple a gorge!”
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Enter the Boy. | |
Boy | Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and you, hostess: he is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan. Faith, he’s very ill. |
Bardolph | Away, you rogue! |
Hostess | By my troth, he’ll yield the crow a pudding one of these days. The king has killed his heart. Good husband, come home presently. Exeunt Hostess and Boy. |
Bardolph | Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together: why the devil should we keep knives to cut one another’s throats? |
Pistol | Let floods o’erswell, and fiends for food howl on! |
Nym | You’ll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting? |
Pistol | Base is the slave that pays. |
Nym | That now I will have: that’s the humour of it. |
Pistol | As manhood shall compound: push home.They draw. |
Bardolph | By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I’ll kill him; by this sword, I will. |
Pistol | Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course. |
Bardolph | Corporal Nym, 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;
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Nym | I shall have my noble? |
Pistol | In cash most justly paid. |
Nym | Well, then, that’s the humour of’t. |
Re-enter Hostess. | |
Hostess | As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John. Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him. |
Nym | The king hath run bad humours on the knight; that’s the even of it. |
Pistol |
Nym, thou hast spoke the right;
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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 Westmoreland. | |
Bedford | ’Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors. |
Exeter | They shall be apprehended by and by. |
Westmoreland |
How smooth and even they do bear themselves!
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Bedford |
The king hath note of all that they intend,
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Exeter |
Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
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Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Scroop, Cambridge, Grey, and Attendants. | |
King Henry |
Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.
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Scroop | No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best. |
King Henry |
I doubt not that; since we are well persuaded
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Cambridge |
Never was monarch better fear’d and loved
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Grey |
True: those that were your father’s enemies
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King Henry |
We therefore have great cause of thankfulness;
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Scroop |
So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
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King Henry |
We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
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Scroop |
That’s mercy, but too much security:
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King Henry | O, let us yet be merciful. |
Cambridge | So may your highness, and yet punish too. |
Grey |
Sir,
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King Henry |
Alas, your too much love and care of me
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Cambridge |
I one, my lord:
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Scroop | So did you me, my liege. |
Grey | And I, my royal sovereign. |
King Henry |
Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;
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Cambridge |
I do confess my fault;
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Grey and Scroop | To which we all appeal. |
King Henry |
The mercy that was quick in us but late,
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Exeter |
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl of Cambridge.
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Scroop |
Our purposes God justly hath discover’d;
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Cambridge |
For me, the gold of France did not seduce;
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Grey |
Never did faithful subject more rejoice
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King Henry |
God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
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Scene III
London. Before a tavern.
Enter Pistol, Hostess, Nym, Bardolph and Boy. | |
Hostess | Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines. |
Pistol |
No; for my manly heart doth yearn.
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Bardolph | Would I were with him, wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or in hell! |
Hostess | Nay, sure, he’s not in hell: he’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. A’ made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child; a’ parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o’ the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields. “How now, Sir John!” quoth I: “what, man! be o’ good cheer.” So a’ cried out, “God, God, God!” three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a’ should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So a’ bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and they were as cold as any stone, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone. |
Nym | They say he cried out of sack. |
Hostess | Ay, that a’ did. |
Bardolph | And of women. |
Hostess | Nay, that a’ did not. |
Boy | Yes, that a’ did; and said they were devils incarnate. |
Hostess | A’ could never abide carnation; ’twas a colour he never liked. |
Boy | A’ said once, the devil would have him about women. |
Hostess | A’ did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was rheumatic, and 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 hellfire? |
Bardolph | Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire: that’s all the riches I got in his service. |
Nym | Shall we shog? the king will be gone from Southampton. |
Pistol |
Come, let’s away. My love, give me thy lips.
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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 Berri and Brittagne, the Constable, and others. | |
French King |
Thus comes the English with full power upon us;
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Dauphin |
My most redoubted father,
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Constable |
O peace, Prince Dauphin!
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Dauphin |
Well, ’tis not so, my lord high constable;
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French King |
Think we King Harry strong;
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Enter a Messenger. | |
Messenger |
Ambassadors from Harry King of England
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French King |
We’ll give them present audience. Go, and bring them. Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords.
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Dauphin |
Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
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Re-enter Lords, with Exeter and train. | |
French King | From our brother England? |
Exeter |
From him; and thus he greets your majesty.
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French King | Or else what follows? |
Exeter |
Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
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French King |
For us, we will consider of this further:
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Dauphin |
For the Dauphin,
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Exeter |
Scorn and defiance: slight regard, contempt,
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Dauphin |
Say, if my father render fair return,
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Exeter |
He’ll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
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French King | Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full. |
Exeter |
Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king
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French King |
You shall be soon dispatch’d with fair conditions:
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Act III
Prologue
Enter Chorus. | |
Chorus |
Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies
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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;
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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 plainsong of it. |
Pistol |
The plain-song is most just; for humours do abound:
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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:
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Boy |
As duly, but not as truly,
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Enter Fluellen. | |
Fluellen | Up to the breach, you dogs! avaunt, you cullions! Driving them forward. |
Pistol |
Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould.
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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-livered and red-faced; by the means whereof a’ faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the means whereof a’ breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, he hath heard that men of few words are the best men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest a’ should be thought a coward: but his few bad words are matched with as few good deeds; for a’ never broke any man’s head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal 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. |
Re-enter Fluellen, Gower following. | |
Gower | Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines; the Duke of Gloucester would speak with you. |
Fluellen | To the mines! tell you the duke, it is not so good to come to the mines; for, look you, the mines is not according to the disciplines of the war: the concavities of it is not sufficient; for, look you, th’ 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 th’ aunchient wars, upon my particular knowledge of his directions: by Cheshu, he will maintain his argument as well as any military man in the world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans. |
Jamy | I say gud-day, Captain Fluellen. |
Fluellen | God-den to your worship, good Captain James. |
Gower | How now, Captain Macmorris! have you quit the mines? have the pioneers given o’er? |
MacMorris | By Chrish, la! tish ill done: the work ish give over, the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand, I swear, and my father’s soul, the work ish ill done; it ish give over: I would have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la! in an hour: O, tish ill done, tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done! |
Fluellen | Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you voutsafe me, look you, a few disputations with you, as partly touching or concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way of argument, look you, and friendly communication; partly to satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline; that is the point. |
Jamy | It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath: and I sall quit you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion; that sall I, marry. |
MacMorris | It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me: the day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the king, and the dukes: it is no time to discourse. The town is beseeched, and the trumpet call us to the breach; and we talk, and, be Chrish, do nothing: ’tis shame for us all: so God sa’ me, ’tis shame to stand still; it is shame, by my hand: and there is throats to be cut, and works to be done; and there ish nothing done, so Chrish sa’ me, la! |
Jamy | By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to slomber, ay’ll de gud service, or ay’ll lig i’ the grund for it; ay, or go to death; and ay’ll pay’t as 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 | A! that’s a foul fault. A parley sounded. |
Gower | The town sounds a parley. |
Fluellen | Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of war; and there is an end. Exeunt. |
Scene III
The same. Before the gates.
The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the English forces below. Enter King Henry and his train. | |
King Henry |
How yet resolves the governor of the town?
|
Governor |
Our expectation hath this day an end:
|
King Henry |
Open your gates. Come, uncle Exeter,
|
Scene IV
The French King’s palace.
Enter Katharine and Alice. | |
Katherine | Alice, tu as été en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage. |
Alice | Un peu, madame. |
Katherine | Je te prie, m’enseignez; il faut que j’apprenne à parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglois? |
Alice | La main? elle est appelée de hand. |
Katherine | 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. |
Katherine | La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que je suis le bon écolier; j’ai gagné deux mots d’Anglois vîtement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles? |
Alice | Les ongles? Nous les appelons de nails. |
Katherine | 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 Anglois. |
Katherine | Dites-moi l’Anglois pour le bras. |
Alice | De arm, madame. |
Katherine | Et le coude? |
Alice | De elbow. |
Katherine | De 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. |
Katherine | Excusez-moi, Alice; écoutez: de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arm, de bilbow. |
Alice | De elbow, madame. |
Katherine | O Seigneur Dieu, je m’en oublie! de elbow. Comment appelez-vous le col? |
Alice | De neck, madame. |
Katherine | De nick. Et le menton? |
Alice | De chin. |
Katherine | 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. |
Katherine | 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? |
Katherine | Non, je réciterai à vous promptement: d’hand, de fingres, de mails— |
Alice | De nails, madame. |
Katherine | De nails, de arm, de ilbow. |
Alice | Sauf votre honneur, de elbow. |
Katherine | Ainsi dis-je; de elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe? |
Alice | De foot, madame; et de coun. |
Katherine | De foot et de coun! O Seigneur Dieu! ce sont mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames d’honneur d’user: je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le coun! Néanmoins, je réciterai une autre fois ma leçon ensemble: d’hand, de fingres, de nails, de arm, de elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, de coun. |
Alice | Excellent, madame! |
Katherine | 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,
|
Dauphin |
O Dieu vivant! shall a few sprays of us,
|
Bourbon |
Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!
|
Constable |
Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?
|
Dauphin |
By faith and honour,
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Bourbon |
They bid us to the English dancing-schools,
|
French King |
Where is Montjoy the herald? speed him hence:
|
Constable |
This becomes the great.
|
French King |
Therefore, lord constable, haste on Montjoy,
|
Dauphin | Not so, I do beseech your majesty. |
French King |
Be patient, for you shall remain with us.
|
Scene VI
The English camp in Picardy.
Enter Gower and Fluellen, meeting. | |
Gower | How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge? |
Fluellen | I assure you, there is very excellent services committed at the bridge. |
Gower | Is the Duke of Exeter safe? |
Fluellen | The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a man that I love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my life, and my living, and my uttermost power: he is not—God be praised and blessed!—any hurt in the world; but keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the pridge, I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is a man of no estimation in the world; but I did see him do as gallant service. |
Gower | What do you call him? |
Fluellen | He is call’d Aunchient Pistol. |
Gower | I know him not. |
Enter Pistol. | |
Fluellen | Here is the man. |
Pistol |
Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours:
|
Fluellen | Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at his hands. |
Pistol |
Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,
|
Fluellen | By your patience, Aunchient 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;
|
Fluellen | Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning. |
Pistol | Why then, rejoice therefore. |
Fluellen | Certainly, aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at: for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the duke to use his good pleasure, and put him to execution; for discipline ought to be used. |
Pistol | Die and be damned! and figo for thy friendship! |
Fluellen | It is well. |
Pistol | The fig of Spain! |
Exit. | |
Fluellen | Very good. |
Gower | Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I remember him now; a bawd, a cutpurse. |
Fluellen | I’ll assure you, a’ uttered as 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, ’tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then goes to the wars, to grace himself at his return into London under the form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in the great commanders’ names: and they will learn you by rote where services were done; at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: and what a beard of the general’s cut and a horrid suit of the camp will do among foaming bottles and ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you may be marvellously mistook. |
Fluellen | I tell you what, Captain Gower; I do perceive he is not the man that he would gladly make show to the world he is: if I find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind. Drum heard. Hark you, the king is coming, and I must speak with him from the pridge. |
Drum and colours. Enter King Henry, Gloucester and Soldiers. | |
God bless your majesty! | |
King Henry | How now, Fluellen! camest thou from the bridge? |
Fluellen | Ay, so please your majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very gallantly maintained the pridge: the French is gone off, look you; and there is gallant and most prave passages; marry, th’ athversary was have possession of the pridge; but he is enforced to retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge: I can tell your majesty, the duke is a prave man. |
King Henry | What men have you lost, Fluellen? |
Fluellen | The perdition of th’ athversary hath been very great, reasonable great: marry, for my part, I think the duke hath lost never a man, but one that is like to be executed for robbing a church, one Bardolph, if your majesty know the man: his face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o’ fire: and his lips blows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red; but his nose is executed, and his fire’s out. |
King Henry | We would have all such offenders so cut off: and we give express charge, that in our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner. |
Tucket. Enter Montjoy. | |
Montjoy | You know me by my habit. |
King Henry | Well then I know thee: what shall I know of thee? |
Montjoy | My master’s mind. |
King Henry | Unfold it. |
Montjoy | Thus says my king: Say thou to Harry of England: Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his ransom; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance: and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far my king and master; so much my office. |
King Henry | What is thy name? I know thy quality. |
Montjoy | Montjoy. |
King Henry |
Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,
|
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.
|
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. Ça, 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 composed to my courser, for my horse is my mistress. |
Orleans | Your mistress bears well. |
Dauphin | Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress. |
Constable | Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back. |
Dauphin | So perhaps did yours. |
Constable | Mine was not bridled. |
Dauphin | O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode, like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait strossers. |
Constable | You have good judgment in horsemanship. |
Dauphin | Be warned by me, then: they that ride so and ride not warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have my horse to my mistress. |
Constable | I had as lief have my mistress a jade. |
Dauphin | I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair. |
Constable | I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress. |
Dauphin | “Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier:” thou makest 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 faced out of my way: but I would it were morning; for I would fain be about the ears of the English. |
Rambures | Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners? |
Constable | You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them. |
Dauphin | ’Tis midnight; I’ll go arm myself. Exit. |
Orleans | The Dauphin longs for morning. |
Rambures | He longs to eat the English. |
Constable | I think he will eat all he kills. |
Orleans | By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince. |
Constable | Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath. |
Orleans | He is simply the most active gentleman of France. |
Constable | Doing is activity; and he will still be doing. |
Orleans | He never did harm, that I heard of. |
Constable | Nor will do none 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 cared not who knew it. |
Orleans | He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him. |
Constable | By my faith, sir, but it is; never 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 placed: there stands your friend for the devil: have at the very eye of that proverb with “A pox of the devil.” |
Orleans | You are the better at proverbs, by how much “A fool’s bolt is soon shot.” |
Constable | You have shot over. |
Orleans | ’Tis not the first time you were overshot. |
Enter a Messenger. | |
Messenger | My lord high constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of your tents. |
Constable | Who hath measured the ground? |
Messenger | The Lord 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-brained followers so far out of his knowledge! |
Constable | If the English had any apprehension, they would run away. |
Orleans | That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy headpieces. |
Rambures | That island of England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage. |
Orleans | Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear and have their heads crushed like rotten apples! You may as well say, that’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion. |
Constable | Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their wives: and then give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils. |
Orleans | Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef. |
Constable | Then shall we find 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
|
Act IV
Prologue
Enter Chorus. | |
Chorus |
Now entertain conjecture of a time
|
Scene I
The English camp at Agincourt.
Enter King Henry, Bedford, and Gloucester. | |
King Henry |
Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger;
|
Enter Erpingham. | |
Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:
|
|
Erpingham |
Not so, my liege: this lodging likes me better,
|
King Henry |
’Tis good for men to love their present pains
|
Gloucester | We shall, my liege. |
Erpingham | Shall I attend your grace? |
King Henry |
No, my good knight;
|
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 vas là? |
King Henry | A friend. |
Pistol |
Discuss unto me; art thou officer?
|
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,
|
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
|
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 figo 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 aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept: if you would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle 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,
|
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 wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide. |
Bates | He hath not told his thought to the king? |
King Henry | 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, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all “We died at such a place;” some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor 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 punished for before-breach of the king’s laws in now the king’s quarrel: where they feared the death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they perish: then if they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained: and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare. |
Williams | ’Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head, the king is not to answer 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 ransomed. |
Williams | Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we ne’er the wiser. |
King Henry | 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 darest 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 darest as well be hane’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 enow, 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,
|
|
Enter Erpingham. | |
Erpingham |
My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
|
King Henry |
Good old knight,
|
Erpingham | I shall do’t, my lord. Exit. |
King Henry |
O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts;
|
Enter Gloucester. | |
Gloucester | My liege! |
King Henry |
My brother Gloucester’s voice? Ay;
|
Scene II
The French camp.
Enter the Dauphin, Orleans, Rambures, and others. | |
Orleans | The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords! |
Dauphin | Monte à cheval! My horse! varlet! laquais! ha! |
Orleans | O brave spirit! |
Dauphin | Via! les eaux et la terre. |
Orleans | Rien puis? l’air et le feu. |
Dauphin | Ciel, cousin Orleans. |
Enter Constable. | |
Now, my lord constable! | |
Constable | Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh! |
Dauphin |
Mount them, and make incision in their hides,
|
Rambures |
What, will you have them weep our horses’ blood?
|
Enter a Messenger. | |
Messenger | The English are embattled, you French peers. |
Constable |
To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse!
|
Enter Grandpré. | |
Grandpré |
Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?
|
Constable | They have said their prayers, and they stay for death. |
Dauphin |
Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits
|
Constable |
I stay but for my guidon: to the field!
|
Scene III
The English camp.
Enter Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter, Erpingham, with all his host: Salisbury and Westmoreland. | |
Gloucester | Where is the king? |
Bedford | The king himself is rode to view their battle. |
Westmoreland | Of fighting men they have full threescore thousand. |
Exeter | There’s five to one; besides, they all are fresh. |
Salisbury |
God’s arm strike with us! ’tis a fearful odds.
|
Bedford | Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee! |
Exeter |
Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly today:
|
Bedford |
He is as full of valour as of kindness;
|
Enter the King. | |
Westmoreland |
O that we now had here
|
King Henry |
What’s he that wishes so?
|
Enter Salisbury. | |
Salisbury |
My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed:
|
King Henry | All things are ready, if our minds be so. |
Westmoreland | Perish the man whose mind is backward now! |
King Henry | Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz? |
Westmoreland |
God’s will! my liege, would you and I alone,
|
King Henry |
Why, now thou hast unwish’d five thousand men;
|
Tucket. Enter Montjoy. | |
Montjoy |
Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,
|
King Henry | Who hath sent thee now? |
Montjoy | The Constable of France. |
King Henry |
I pray thee, bear my former answer back:
|
Montjoy |
I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well:
|
King Henry | I fear thou’lt once more come again for ransom. |
Enter York. | |
York |
My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg
|
King Henry |
Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away:
|
Scene IV
The field of battle.
Alarum. Excursions. Enter Pistol, French Soldier, and Boy. | |
Pistol | Yield, cur! |
French Soldier | Je pense que vous êtes le gentilhomme de bonne qualité. |
Pistol | Qualité calmie custore me! Art thou a gentleman? What is thy name? Discuss. |
French Soldier | O Seigneur Dieu! |
Pistol |
O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman:
|
French Soldier | O, prenez miséricorde! ayez pitié de moi! |
Pistol |
Moy shall not serve; I will have forty moys;
|
French Soldier | Est-il impossible d’échapper la force de ton bras? |
Pistol |
Brass, cur!
|
French Soldier | O pardonnez-moi! |
Pistol |
Say’st thou me so? is that a ton of moys?
|
Boy | Écoutez: comment êtes-vous appelé? |
French Soldier | Monsieur le Fer. |
Boy | He says his name is Master Fer. |
Pistol | Master Fer! I’ll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him: discuss the same in French unto him. |
Boy | I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk. |
Pistol | Bid him prepare; for I will cut his throat. |
French Soldier | Que dit-il, monsieur? |
Boy | Il me commande de vous dire que vous faites vous prêt; car ce soldat ici est disposé tout à cette heure de couper votre gorge. |
Pistol |
Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy,
|
French Soldier | O, je vous supplie, pour l’amour de Dieu, me pardonner! Je suis le gentilhomme de bonne maison: gardez ma vie, et je vous donnerai deux cents écus. |
Pistol | What are his words? |
Boy | He prays you to save his life: he is a gentleman of a good house; and for his ransom he will give you two hundred crowns. |
Pistol |
Tell him my fury shall abate, and I
|
French Soldier | Petit monsieur, que dit-il? |
Boy | Encore qu’il est contre son jurement de pardonner aucun prisonnier, néanmoins, pour les écus que vous l’avez promis, il est content de vous donner la liberté, le franchisement. |
French Soldier | Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercîments; et je m’estime heureux que je suis tombé entre les mains d’un chevalier, je pense, le plus brave, vaillant, et très distingué seigneur d’Angleterre. |
Pistol | Expound unto me, boy. |
Boy | He gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks; and he esteems himself happy that he hath fallen into the hands of one, as he thinks, the most brave, valorous, and thrice-worthy seigneur of England. |
Pistol | As I suck blood, I will some mercy show. Follow me! |
Boy | Suivez-vous le grand capitaine. Exeunt Pistol and French Soldier. I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true, “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.” Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring devil i’ the old play, that everyone may pare his nails with a wooden dagger; and they are both hanged; and so would this be, if he durst steal anything adventurously. I must stay with the lackeys, with the luggage of our camp: the French might have a good prey of us, if he knew of it; for there is none to guard it but boys. Exit. |
Scene V
Another part of the field of battle.
Enter Constable, Orleans, Bourbon, Dauphin, and Rambures. | |
Constable | O diable! |
Orleans | O seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu! |
Dauphin |
Mort de ma vie! all is confounded, all!
|
Constable | Why, all our ranks are broke. |
Dauphin |
O perdurable shame! let’s stab ourselves.
|
Orleans | Is this the king we sent to for his ransom? |
Bourbon |
Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!
|
Constable |
Disorder, that hath spoil’d us, friend us now!
|
Orleans |
We are enough yet living in the field
|
Bourbon |
The devil take order now! I’ll to the throng;
|
Scene VI
Another part of the field.
Alarums. Enter King Henry, and forces, Exeter, and others. | |
King Henry |
Well have we done, thrice valiant countrymen:
|
Exeter | The Duke of York commends him to your majesty. |
King Henry |
Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour
|
Exeter |
In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie,
|
King Henry |
I blame you not;
|
Scene VII
Another part of the field.
Enter Fluellen and Gower. | |
Fluellen | Kill the poys and the luggage! ’tis expressly against the law of arms: ’tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offer’t; in your conscience, now, is it not? |
Gower | ’Tis certain there’s not a boy left alive; and the cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha’ done this slaughter: besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the king’s tent; wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner’s throat. O, ’tis a gallant king! |
Fluellen | Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you the town’s name where Alexander the Pig was born! |
Gower | Alexander the Great. |
Fluellen | Why, I pray you, is not pig great? the pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations. |
Gower | I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon: his father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it. |
Fluellen | I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the ’orld, I warrant you sall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but ’tis all one, ’tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you mark Alexander’s life well, Harry of Monmouth’s life is come after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things. Alexander, God knows, and you know, in his rages, and his furies, and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his best friend, Cleitus. |
Gower | Our king is not like him in that: he never killed any of his friends. |
Fluellen | It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it: as Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgements, turned away the fat knight with the great belly doublet: he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I have forgot his name. |
Gower | Sir John Falstaff. |
Fluellen | That is he: I’ll tell you there is good men porn at Monmouth. |
Gower | Here comes his majesty. |
Alarum. Enter King Henry and forces; Warwick, Gloucester, Exeter, and others. | |
King Henry |
I was not angry since I came to France
|
Enter Montjoy. | |
Exeter | Here comes the herald of the French, my liege. |
Gloucester | His eyes are humbler than they used to be. |
King Henry |
How now! what means this, herald? know’st thou not
|
Montjoy |
No, great king:
|
King Henry |
I tell thee truly, herald,
|
Montjoy | The day is yours. |
King Henry |
Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!
|
Montjoy | They call it Agincourt. |
King Henry |
Then call we this the field of Agincourt.
|
Fluellen | Your grandfather of famous memory, an’t please your majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France. |
King Henry | They did, Fluellen. |
Fluellen | Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day. |
King Henry |
I wear it for a memorable honour;
|
Fluellen | All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty’s Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that: Got pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace, and his majesty too! |
King Henry | Thanks, good my countryman. |
Fluellen | By Jeshu, I am your majesty’s countryman, I care not who know it; I will confess it to all the ’orld: I need not be ashamed of your majesty, praised be God, so long as your majesty is an honest man. |
King Henry |
God keep me so! Our heralds go with him:
|
Exeter | Soldier, you must come to the king. |
King Henry | Soldier, why wearest thou that glove in thy cap? |
Williams | An’t please your majesty, ’tis the gage of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive. |
King Henry | An Englishman? |
Williams | An’t please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered with me last night; who, if alive and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o’ th’ ear: or if I can see my glove in his cap, which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear if alive, I will strike it out soundly. |
King Henry | What think you, Captain Fluellen? is it fit this soldier keep his oath? |
Fluellen | He is a craven and a villain else, an’t please your majesty, in my conscience. |
King Henry | It may be his enemy is a gentlemen of great sort, quite from the answer of his degree. |
Fluellen | Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as Lucifier and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jacksauce, as ever his black shoe trod upon God’s ground and his earth, in my conscience, la! |
King Henry | Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meetest the fellow. |
Williams | So I will, my liege, as I live. |
King Henry | Who servest thou under? |
Williams | Under Captain Gower, my liege. |
Fluellen | Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and literatured in the wars. |
King Henry | Call him hither to me, soldier. |
Williams | I will, my liege. Exit. |
King Henry | Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me and stick it in thy cap: when Alençon and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm: if any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon, and an enemy to our person; if thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love. |
Fluellen | Your grace doo’s me as great honours as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain see the man, that has but two legs, that shall find himself aggriefed at this glove; that is all; but I would fain see it once, an please God of his grace that I might see. |
King Henry | Knowest thou Gower? |
Fluellen | He is my dear friend, an please you. |
King Henry | Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent. |
Fluellen | I will fetch him. Exit. |
King Henry |
My Lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloucester,
|
Scene VIII
Before King Henry’s pavilion.
Enter Gower and Williams. | |
Williams | I warrant it is to knight you, captain. |
Enter Fluellen. | |
Fluellen | God’s will and his pleasure, captain, I beseech you now, come apace to the King. There is more good toward you peradventure than is in your knowledge to dream of. |
Williams | Sir, know you this glove? |
Fluellen | Know the glove! I know the glove is a glove. |
Williams | I know this; and thus I challenge it. Strikes him. |
Fluellen | ’Sblood! an arrant traitor as any is in the universal world, or in France, or in England! |
Gower | How now, sir! you villain! |
Williams | Do you think I’ll be forsworn? |
Fluellen | Stand away, Captain Gower; I will give treason his payment into plows, I warrant you. |
Williams | I am no traitor. |
Fluellen | That’s a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his majesty’s name, apprehend him: he’s a friend of the Duke Alençon’s. |
Enter Warwick and Gloucester. | |
Warwick | How now, how now! what’s the matter? |
Fluellen | My lord of Warwick, here is—praised be God for it!—a most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall desire in a summer’s day. Here is his majesty. |
Enter King Henry and Exeter. | |
King Henry | How now! what’s the matter? |
Fluellen | My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that, look your grace, has struck the glove which your majesty is take out of the helmet of Alençon. |
Williams | My liege, this was my glove; here is the fellow of it; and he that I gave it to in change promised to wear it in his cap: I promised to strike him, if he did: I met this man with my glove in his cap, and I have been as good as my word. |
Fluellen | Your majesty hear now, saving your majesty’s manhood, what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy knave it is: I hope your majesty is pear me testimony and witness, and will avouchment, that this is the glove of Alençon, that your majesty is give me; in your conscience, now. |
King Henry |
Give me thy glove, soldier: look, here is the fellow of it.
|
Fluellen | An it please your majesty, let his neck answer for it, if there is any martial law in the world. |
King Henry | How canst thou make me satisfaction? |
Williams | All offences, my lord, come from the heart: never came any from mine that might offend your majesty. |
King Henry | It was ourself thou didst abuse. |
Williams | Your majesty came not like yourself: you appeared to me but as a common man; witness the night, your garments, your lowliness; and what your highness suffered under that shape, I beseech you take it for your own fault and not mine: for had you been as I took you for, I made no offence; therefore, I beseech your highness, pardon me. |
King Henry |
Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns,
|
Fluellen | By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough in his belly. Hold, there is twelve pence for you; and I pray you to serve God, and keep you out of prawls, and prabbles, and quarrels, and dissensions, and, I warrant you, it is the better for you. |
Williams | I will none of your money. |
Fluellen | It is with a good will; I can tell you, it will serve you to mend your shoes: come, wherefore should you be so pashful? your shoes is not so good: ’tis a good silling, I warrant you, or I will change it. |
Enter an English Herald. | |
King Henry | Now, herald, are the dead number’d? |
Herald | Here is the number of the slaughter’d French. |
King Henry | What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle? |
Exeter |
Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the king;
|
King Henry |
This note doth tell me of ten thousand French
|
Exeter | ’Tis wonderful! |
King Henry |
Come, go we in procession to the village:
|
Fluellen | Is it not lawful, an please your majesty, to tell how many is killed? |
King Henry |
Yes, captain; but with this acknowledgment,
|
Fluellen | Yes, my conscience, he did us great good. |
King Henry |
Do we all holy rites;
|
Act V
Prologue
Enter Chorus. | |
Chorus |
Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story,
|
Scene I
France. The English camp.
Enter Fluellen and Gower. | |
Gower | Nay, that’s right; but why wear you your leek today? Saint Davy’s day is past. |
Fluellen | There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things: I will tell you, asse my friend, Captain Gower: the rascally, scauld, beggarly, lousy, pragging knave, Pistol, which you and yourself and all the world know to be no petter than a fellow, look you now, of no merits, he is come to me and prings me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek: it was in a place where I could not breed no contention with him; but I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires. |
Enter Pistol. | |
Gower | Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock. |
Fluellen | ’Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks. God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you! |
Pistol |
Ha! art thou bedlam? dost thou thirst, base Trojan,
|
Fluellen | I peseech you heartily, scurfy, lousy knave, at my desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you, this leek: because, look you, you do not love it, nor your affections and your appetites and your digestions doo’s not agree with it, I would desire you to eat it. |
Pistol | Not for Cadwallader and all his goats. |
Fluellen | There is one goat for you. Strikes him. Will you be so good, scauld knave, as eat it? |
Pistol | Base Trojan, thou shalt die. |
Fluellen | You say very true, scauld knave, when God’s will is: I will desire you to live in the meantime, and eat your victuals: come, there is sauce for it. Strikes him. You called me yesterday mountain-squire; but I will make you today a squire of low degree. I pray you, fall to: if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek. |
Gower | Enough, captain: you have astonished him. |
Fluellen | I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you; it is good for your green wound and your ploody coxcomb. |
Pistol | Must I bite? |
Fluellen | Yes, certainly, and out of doubt and out of question too, and ambiguities. |
Pistol | By this leek, I will most horribly revenge: I eat and eat, I swear— |
Fluellen | Eat, I pray you: will you have some more sauce to your leek? there is not enough leek to swear by. |
Pistol | Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see I eat. |
Fluellen | Much good do you, scauld knave, heartily. Nay, pray you, throw none away; the skin is good for your broken coxcomb. When you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you, mock at ’em; that is all. |
Pistol | Good. |
Fluellen | Ay, leeks is good: hold you, there is a groat to heal your pate. |
Pistol | Me a groat! |
Fluellen | Yes, verily and in truth you, shall take it; or I have another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat. |
Pistol | I take thy groat in earnest of revenge. |
Fluellen | If I owe you anything I will pay you in cudgels: you shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God b’ wi’ you, and keep you, and heal your pate. Exit. |
Pistol | All hell shall stir for this. |
Gower | Go, go; you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour and dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel: you find it otherwise; and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition. Fare ye well. Exit. |
Pistol |
Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?
|
Scene II
France. A royal palace.
Enter, at one door, King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Gloucester, Warwick, Westmoreland, and other Lords; at another, the French King, Queen Isabel, the Princess Katharine, Alice, and other Ladies; the Duke of Burgundy, and his train. | |
King Henry |
Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!
|
French King |
Right joyous are we to behold your face,
|
Queen Isabel |
So happy be the issue, brother England,
|
King Henry | To cry amen to that, thus we appear. |
Queen Isabel | You English princes all, I do salute you. |
Burgundy |
My duty to you both, on equal love,
|
King Henry |
If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace,
|
Burgundy |
The king hath heard them; to the which as yet
|
King Henry |
Well, then, the peace,
|
French King |
I have but with a cursorary eye
|
King Henry |
Brother, we shall. Go, uncle Exeter,
|
Queen Isabel |
Our gracious brother, I will go with them:
|
King Henry |
Yet leave our cousin Katharine here with us:
|
Queen Isabel | She hath good leave. Exeunt all except Henry, Katharine, and Alice. |
King Henry |
Fair Katharine, and most fair,
|
Katherine | Your majesty shall mock me; I cannot speak your England. |
King Henry | O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate? |
Katherine | Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is “like me.” |
King Henry | An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel. |
Katherine | Que dit-il? Que je suis semblable à les anges? |
Alice | Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grâce, ainsi dit-il. |
King Henry | I said so, dear Katharine; and I must not blush to affirm it. |
Katherine | O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de tromperies. |
King Henry | What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men are full of deceits? |
Alice | Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits: dat is de princess. |
King Henry | The princess is the better Englishwoman. I’ faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say “I love you:” then if you urge me farther than to say “do you in faith?” I wear out my suit. Give me your answer; i’ faith, do: and so clap hands and a bargain: how say you, lady? |
Katherine | Sauf votre honneur, me understand vell. |
King Henry | Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me: for the one, I have neither words nor measure, and for the other, I have no strength in measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour on my back, under the correction of bragging be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife. Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for love of anything he sees there, let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: if thou canst love me for this, take me; if not, to say to thee that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love thee too. And while thou livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favours, they do always reason themselves out again. What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love? speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee. |
Katherine | Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France? |
King Henry | No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of France, Kate: but, in loving me, you should love the friend of France; for I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it; I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine. |
Katherine | I cannot tell vat is dat. |
King Henry | No, Kate? I will tell thee in French; which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband’s neck, hardly to be shook off. Je quand sur le possession de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi—let me see, what then? Saint Denis be my speed!—donc votre est France et vous êtes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French: I shall never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me. |
Katherine | Sauf votre honneur, le françois que vous parlez, il est meilleur que l’Anglois lequel je parle. |
King Henry | No, faith, is’t not, Kate: but thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely, must needs be granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English, canst thou love me? |
Katherine | I cannot tell. |
King Henry | Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I’ll ask them. Come, I know thou lovest me: and at night, when you come into your closet, you’ll question this gentlewoman about me; and I know, Kate, you will to her dispraise those parts in me that you love with your heart: but, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the rather, gentle princess, because I love thee cruelly. If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder: shall not thou and I, between Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard? shall we not? what sayest thou, my fair flower-de-luce? |
Katherine | I do not know dat. |
King Henry | No; ’tis hereafter to know, but now to promise: do but now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your French part of such a boy; and for my English moiety take the word of a king and a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon très cher et divin déesse? |
Katherine | Your majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle dat is en France. |
King Henry | Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honour I dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now, beshrew my father’s ambition! he was thinking of civil wars when he got me: therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that, when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear: my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face: thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better: and therefore tell me, most fair Katharine, will you have me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand, and say “Harry of England, I am thine:” which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud “England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine;” who, though I speak it before his face, if he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is music and thy English broken; therefore, queen of all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in broken English; wilt thou have me? |
Katherine | Dat is as it shall please le roi mon père. |
King Henry | Nay, it will please him well, Kate; it shall please him, Kate. |
Katherine | Den it sall also content me. |
King Henry | Upon that I kiss your hand, and call you my queen. |
Katherine | Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez: ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant la main d’une votre seigneurie indigne serviteur: excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon très-puissant seigneur. |
King Henry | Then I will kiss your lips, Kate. |
Katherine | Les dames et demoiselles pour être baisées devant leurs noces, il n’est pas la coutume de France. |
King Henry | Madame my interpreter, what says she? |
Alice | Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of France—I cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish. |
King Henry | To kiss. |
Alice | Your majestee entend bettre que moi. |
King Henry | It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say? |
Alice | Oui, vraiment. |
King Henry | O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country’s fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently and yielding. Kissing her. You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father. |
Re-enter the French King and his Queen, Burgundy, and other Lords. | |
Burgundy | God save your majesty! my royal cousin, teach you our princess English? |
King Henry | I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her; and that is good English. |
Burgundy | Is she not apt? |
King Henry | Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in his true likeness. |
Burgundy | Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you blame her then, being a maid yet ros’d over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to. |
King Henry | Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces. |
Burgundy | They are then excused, my lord, when they see not what they do. |
King Henry | Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking. |
Burgundy | I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach her to know my meaning: for maids, well summered and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on. |
King Henry | This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end and she must be blind too. |
Burgundy | As love is, my lord, before it loves. |
King Henry | It is so: and you may, some of you, thank love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair French maid that stands in my way. |
French King | Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls that no war hath entered. |
King Henry | Shall Kate be my wife? |
French King | So please you. |
King Henry | I am content; so the maiden cities you talk of may wait on her: so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will. |
French King | We have consented to all terms of reason. |
King Henry | Is’t so, my lords of England? |
Westmoreland |
The king hath granted every article:
|
Exeter | Only he hath not yet subscribed this: Where your majesty demands, that the King of France, having any occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your highness in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre très-cher fils Henri, Roi d’Angleterre, Héritier de France; and thus in Latin, Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae, et Haeres Franciae. |
French King |
Nor this I have not, brother, so denied
|
King Henry |
I pray you then, in love and dear alliance,
|
French King |
Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up
|
All | Amen! |
King Henry |
Now, welcome, Kate: and bear me witness all,
|
Queen Isabel |
God, the best maker of all marriages,
|
All | Amen! |
King Henry |
Prepare we for our marriage: on which day,
|
Epilogue
Enter Chorus. | |
Chorus |
Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
|
Henry V
was published in 1620 by
William Shakespeare.
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