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

Orl. He is, simply, the most active gentleman of France.

Con. Doing is activity: and he will still be doing.
Orl. He never did harm, that I heard of.
Con. Nor will do none to-morrow; he will keep
that good name still.

Orl. I know him to be valiant.

Now is it

only stomachs to eat, and none to fight.
time to arm: Come, shall we about it?
Orl. It is now two o'clock: but, let me see,-by
ten,

We shall have each a hundred Englishmen. [Exe.

ACT IV.

Enter Chorus.

Chor. 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 stilly3 sounds,
That the fix'd sentinels almost receive

Con. I was told that, by one that knows him The secret whispers of each other's watch: better than you.

Orl. What's he?

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

Orl. He needs not, it is no hidden virtue in him. Con. By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it, but his lackey: 'tis a hooded valour; and, when it appears, it will bate.!

Orl. I will never said well. Con. I will cap that proverb with-There is flattery in friendship.

Orl. And I will take up that with-Give the devil his due.

Con. Well placed; there stands your friend for the devil: have at the very eye of that proverb, with-A pox of the devil.

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

Con. You have shot over.

Orl. 'Tis not the first time you were overshot.

Enter a Messenger.

Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd4 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-lusty5 French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night,
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently, and inly ruminate

The morning's danger; and their gesture sad,
Investing lank-lean cheeks, and war-worn coats,
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon

So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin'd band,

Mess. My lord high constable, the English lie Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent, within fifteen hundred

paces of your tent.

Con. Who hath measured the ground?
Mess. The lord Grandpré.

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

Orl. What a wretched and peevish2 fellow is this king of England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so far out of his knowledge!

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

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

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

Con. 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.

beef.

Orl. Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of
Con. Then we shall find to-morrow-they have

(1) An equivoque in terms in falconry: he means,
nis valour is hid from every body but his lackey,
and when it appears it will fall off.

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 overbears attaint,
With cheerful semblance, and sweet majesty ;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largess universal, like the sun,
His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear. Then, 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;
[Exit.
Minding true things, by what their mockeries be.

SCENE I-The English camp at Agincourt.
Enter King Henry, Bedford, and Gloster.
K. Hen. Gloster, 'tis true, that we are in great
danger;

(2) Foolish. (3) Gently, lowly.
(4) Discoloured by the gleam of the fires.
(5) Over-saucy. (6) Calling to remembrance.

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.

K. Hen. It sorts well with your fierceness.

Enter Fluellen and Gower, severally.
Gow. Captain Fluellen!

Flu. So! in the name of Cheshu Christ, speak lower. It is the greatest admiration in the universal 'orld, when the true and auncient 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, or 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.

Gow. Why, the enemy is loud; you heard him

Erp. Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me all night. better,

Since I may say-now lie I like a king.

Flu. If the enemy is an ass and a fool, and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we

K. Hen. 'Tis good for men to love their present should also, look you, be an ass, and a fool, and a

Pist. Discuss unto me; Art thou officer;
Or art thou base, common, and popular?

K. Hen. I am a gentleman of a company.
Pist. Trailest thou the puissant pike?
K. Hen. Even so: What are you?
Pist. As good a gentleman as the emperor.
K. Hen. Then you are better than the king.
Pist. The king's a bawcock, and a heart of gold,
A lad of life, an imp3 of fame;
Of parents good, of fist most valiant :
I kiss his dirty shoe, and from my heart-strings
I love the lovely bully. What's thy name?
K. Hen. Harry le Roy.

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

K. Hen. No, I am a Welshman.
Pist. Knowest thou Fluellen ?

K. Hen. Yes.

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

K. Hen. Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that about yours. Pist. Art thou his friend?

K. Hen. And his kinsman too.

Pist. The figo for thee then!

K. Hen. I thank you: God be with you!
Pist. My name is Pistol called.

prating coxcomb; in your own conscience now? Gow. I will speak lower.

Flu. I pray you, and beseech you, that you will. [Exeunt Gower and Fluellen. K. Hen. Though it appear a little out of fashion, There is much care and valour in this Welshman.

Enter Bates, Court, and 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.

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

K. Hen. A friend.

Will. Under what captain serve you? K. Hen. Under sir Thomas Erpingham. Will. A good old commander, and a most kind gentleman: I pray you, what thinks he of our estate? K. Hen. 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?

:

K. Hen 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 the Thames up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, So we were quit here.

K. Hen. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king; I think, he would not wish himself any where but where he is.

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

K. Hen. I dare say, you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone; howsoever you speak this, to [Exit.feel other men's minds: Methinks, I could not die

(1) Slough is the skin which serpents annually throw off.

(2) Lightness, nimbleness.
(3) Son. (4) Agrees.

(5) Qualities.

any where so contented, as in the king's company; his cause being just, and his quarrel honourable. Will. 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.

K. Hen. I myself heard the king say, he would not be ransomed.

Will. 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.

K. Hen. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

Will. But, if the cause be not good, the king Will. 'Mass, you'll pay4 him then! That's a perilhimself hath a heavy reckoning to make; when allous shot out of an elder gun, that a poor and prithose legs, and arms, and heads, chopped off in a vate displeasure can do against a monarch! you may battle, shall join together at the latter day, and as well go about to turn the sun to ice, with fancry all-We died at such a place; some, swearing;ning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll nesome, crying for a surgeon; some, upon their wives ver trust his word after! come, 'tis a foolish saying! left poor behind them; some, upon the debts they K Hen. Your reproof is something too round;$ owe; some, upon their children rawly? left. I am I should be angry with you, if the time were conafeard there are few die well, that die in battle;venient. for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey, were against all proportion of subjection.

Will. Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.
K. Hen. I embrace it.

Will. How shall I know thee again?

K. Hen. 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.

Will. Here's my glove; give me another of thine.
K. Hen. There.

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

K. Hen. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
Will Thou darest as well be hanged.
K. Hen. Well, I will do it, though I take thee
in the king's company.

Will. 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.

K. Hen. So, if a son, that is by his father sent about merchandise, do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a servant, under his master's command, transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers, and die in many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's damnation:-But this is not so: the king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some, peradventure, have on K. Hen. Indeed, the French may lay twenty them the guilt of premeditated and contrived mur-French crowns to one, they will beat us; for they der; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken bear them on their shoulders: But it is no English seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bul- treason, to cut French crowns; and, to-morrow, wark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of the king himself will be a clipper. [Exe. Soldiers. peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls, have defeated the law, and out-run native punish-Our debts, our careful wives, our children, and ment, 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.

:

Will. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill is 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.

(1) The last day, the day of judgment.

(2) Suddenly.

(3) i. e. Punishment in their native country. (4) To pay here signifies to bring to account, to punish.

Our sins, lay on the king-we must bear all.
hard condition! twin-born with greatness,
Subjected 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
ay?
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?
ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is the soul of adoration ?6
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 inter-tissued 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 Hyperion2 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.

Erp. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,

Seek through your camp to find you.

K. Hen.

Do but behold yon poor and starved band,
And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
There is not work enough for all our hands;
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins,
To give each naked curtle-axe a stain,
That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,
And sheath for lack of sport: let us but blow on
them,

The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.
'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,
Good old knight, That our superfluous lackeys, and our peasants,--
Who, in unnecessary action, swarm
About our squares of battle,-were enough
To purge this field of such a hildings foe;
Though we, upon this mountain's basis by,
Took stand for idle speculation:

Collect them all together at my tent:
I'll be before thee.

Erp.
I shall do't, my lord. [Exit.
K. Hen. O God of battles! steel my soldiers'
hearts!

Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them!--Not to-day, O Lord,
O not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard's body have interred 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
Towards 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.

Glo. My liege!

Enter Gloster.

K. Hen. My brother Gloster's voice?-Ay;
I know thy errand, I will go with thee :-
The day, my friends, and all things, stay for me.

[Exeunt.

phin, Orleans, Rambures, and others.

But that our honours must not. What's to say?
A very little little let us do,

And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound
The tucket-sonuance,6 and the note to mount:
For our approach shall so much dare the field,
That England shall couch down in fear, and yield.
Enter Grandpré.

Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of

France?

Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,
Il-favour'dly become the morning field:
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
Their horsemen set like fixed candlesticks,
With torch-staves in their hand: and their poor jades
Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips;
The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes;
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless;
And their executors, the knavish crows,

SCENE II-The French camp. Enter Dau-Fly o'er them all, impatient for their hour.
Description cannot suit itself in words,
To démonstrate the life of such a battle
In life so lifeless as it shows itself.

Orl. The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords.
Dau. Montez à cheval:-My horse! valet!
lacquay! ha!

Orl. O brave spirit!

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

Dau. Shall we go send them dinners, and fresh suits,