you, the king is coming; and I must speak with him Enter KING HENRY, GLOSTER, and Soldiers. K. Hen. How now, Fluellen? camest thou from the bridge? Flu. 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. K. Hen. What men have you lost, Fluellen? Flu. The perdition of th'athversary hath been very great, very 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 of fire; and his lips plows 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. K. Hen. 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 win ner. Tucket sounds. Enter MONTJOY. Mont. You know me by my habit.3 K. Hen. Well then, I know thee; What shall I Mont. My master's mind. K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality. K. Hen. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn the And tell thy king,-I do not seek him now; I That I do brag thus!-this your air of France ness. Mont. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your high- theirs. March to the bridge; it now draws toward night :- [Exeunt. SCENE VII. The French Camp, near Agincourt. Con. Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Mont. 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 ran-Would, it were day! som; 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. 1 'From the pridge. These words are not in the quarto. If not a mistake of the compositor, who may have caught them from the king's speech, they must mean about the bridge, or concerning it. 2 His face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs.' Whelks are not stripes, as Mr. Nares interprets the word; but pimples, or blotches: Papula. A pimple, a whelke; Bourion ou bubbe qui vient en face. Mr. Steevens remarks that Chaucer's Sompnour may have afforded Shakspeare a hint for Bardolph's face. He also had knobbes sitting on his 'A fire red cherubimes face,' with welkes white,' and cheekes.'-Cant. Tales, v. 629. 3 You know me by my habit. That is, by his herald's coat. The person of a herald being inviolable was distinguished by a richly emblazoned dress. Montjoie is the title of the first king at arms in France, as Garter is in this country. 4 i. e. in our turn. This theatrical phrase has been already noticed. 51.6. without impediment. Empechement, Fr. See Cotgrave's Dictionary. borse have his due. Con. It is the best horse of Europe. constable, you talk of horse and armour, prince in the world. Dau. What a long night is this!--I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the 6 God before was then used for God being my guide 7 We shall your tawny ground with your red blood Discolour.' This is from Holinshed. My desire is, that none of 8He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs. Alluding to the bounding of tennis-balls, which were stuffed with hair earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg. Dau. 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.2 Con. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse. Dau. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage. Orl. No more, cousin. Dau. 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 en, 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 wrote a sonnet in his praise, and began thus: Wonder of nature, Orl. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress. Dau. Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser; for my horse is my mistress. Orl. Your mistress bears well. Dau. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress. Con. Ma foy! the other day, methought, your mistress shrewdly shook your back. Dau. So, perhaps, did yours. Dau. O! then, belike, she was old and gentle; and you rode like a Kerne of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait trossers. Con. You have good judgment in horsemanship. Dau. 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. Con. I had as lief have my mistress a jade. Dau. I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears her own hair. Con. I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress. Dau. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously! and 'twere more honour, some were away. Con. Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted. Dau. 'Would, I were able to load him with his desert! Will it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces. Con. I will not say so, for fear I should be faced Con. You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them. [Exit. Dau. 'Tis midnight, I'll go arm myself. 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. Con. Nor will do none to-morrow; he will keep that good name still. Orl. I know him to be valiant. Con. I was told that, by one that knows him 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. Ill will never said well. Con. I will cap that proverb with-There is flattery in friendship. Örl. 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 Con. You have shot over. Dau. Le chien est retourné à son propre vomisse--a fool's bolt is soon shot. ment, et la truie lavée au bourbier 4 thou makest use of any thing. Con. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress; or any such proverb, so little kin to the purpose. Ram. My lord constable, the armour, that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars, or suns, upon it? Con. Stars, my lord. Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope. 1 He is pure air and fire.' Thus Cleopatra, ing of herself: 'I am air and fire; my other elements Orl. "Tis not the first time you were overshot. Enter a Messenger. Mess. My lord high constable, the English lie Con. A valiant and most expert_gentleman.'Would, it were day!-Alas, poor Harry of Engspeak-land!-He longs not for the dawning, as we do. 2 He is, indeed, a horse; and all other jades you may call-beasts.' There has been much foolish contention about this passage; the sense of which is plain enough. I have elsewhere observed that jade is not always used for a tired or contemptible horse. The Dauphin means that his charger is indeed a horse, and alone worthy of that name; all others may be called beasts in comparison of him.' Beast is here used in the sense of the Latin jumentum, contemptuously to signify" an animal only fit for the cart or packsaddle. 3 Like a Kerne of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait trossers. This expression is here merely figurative, as Theobald long since observed, for femoribus denudatis. But it is certain that the Irish trossers, or trowsers, were anciently the direct contrary to the modern garments of that name. Their trouses, commonly spelt trossers, were long pantaloons exactly fitted to the shape.' Bulwer, in his Pedigree of the English Gallant, 1653, says, 'Now our hose are made so close to our breeches that, like the Irish trossers, they too manifestly discover the dimensions of every part.' I will add that Spenser says Chaucer's description of Sir Thopas gives the very manner and fashion of the Irish horseman,-in his long hose, his riding shoes of costly cordwaine, his hacqueton, and his habergeon,' &c.-State of Ireland, p. 115; Ed. Dublin, 1809. 4 It has been remarked that Shakspeare was habitually conversant with his bible: we have here a strong presumptive proof that he read it, at least occasionally, in French. This passage will be found almost literally in the Genera Bible, 1589. 2 Peter ii. 22. 5 Tisa hooded valour; and, when it appears, it will bate. This poor pun depends upon the equivocal use of bate. When a hawk is unhooded, her first action is to bate (i. e. beat her wings, or flutter.) The hawk wants no courage, but invariably bates upon the remo val of her hood. The Constable would insinuate by his double entendre that the Dauphin's courage, when it appears (i. e. when he prepares for encounter,) will bate; i. e. soon diminish or evaporate. 6 Instead of this and the succeeding speeches, the quartos conclude this scene with a couplet :Come, come away; The sun is high, and we wear out the day.' Orl. What a wretched and peevish' 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 sympathise 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, Orl. Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef. Con. Then we shall find to-morrow-they have only stomachs to eat, and none to fight. Now is it 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. ACT IV. Enter CHORUS. [Exeunt. Chor. Now entertain conjecture of a time, When creeping murmur, and the poring dark, Fills the wide vessel of the universe,2 From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, The hum of either army stilly sounds,3 3 The hum of either army stilly sounds.' This expression applied to sound is not peculiar to Shakspeare; we have a still small voice' in the sacred writings, and Florio's Dictionary in the word sussura, has a buzzing, a murmuring, a charming, a humming, a soft, gentle, still noise, as of running water falling with a gentle stream, or as trees make with the wind, &c.' It is the murmure tacito' of Ovid. 4 The secret whispers of each other's watch. Holinshed says that the distance between the two armies was but two hundred and fifty paces: and again, at their coming into the village, fires were made (by the English) to give light on every side, as there were likewise by the French hoste.' The confident and over-lusty" French His liberal eye doth give to every one, SCENE I. The English Camp at Agincourt. danger; The greater therefore should our courage be.- For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,. 7 The confident and over-lusty French 8 Do the low-rated English play at dice.' Over-lusty, i. e. over-saucy. Thus in North's Plutarch:- Cassius's soldiers did shewe themselves verie stubborn and lustie in the camp. This is Steevens's explanation; the word lusty, however, was synonymous with lively. To be lively or lustie, to be in his force or strength, Vigeo.' It is also meant in good plight, jolly. By 'Do the low-rated English play at dice' is meant do play them away, or play for them at dice." The circumstance is from Holinshed. their gestures sad, Investing lank-lean cheeks.' Thus Sidney, in Astrophel, song 2, has:5 It has been said that the distant visages of the sol- 'Anger invests the face with a lovely grace." diers would appear of an umber colour when teheld 9 Minding true things. To mind is the same as to through the light of midnight fires. I suspect that no-call to remembrance. Thus Baret:- I minde this mat thing more is meant than shadow'd face. The epither ter, and thinke still that it is before my eyes; in oculis paly flames' is against the other interpretation. Um-animoque versatur mihi hæc res.' bre for shadow is common in our elder writers. 6 'The armourers, accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up.' This does not solely refer to the riveting the plate armour before it was put on, but as to part when it was on. The top of the cuirass had a little projecting bit of 10 That we should dress us fairly for our end.' Ma lone took this for an abbreviation of address us, and printed it thus, 'dress us. Steevens very reasonably doubted the propriety of the elision, but would take dress in its ordinary acceptation. To dress is to make ready, to prepare. Paro, Lat.' Thus may we gather honey from the weed, Enter ERPINGHAM.1 Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham: 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 all night. Flu. If the enemy is an ass, and a fool, and a Erp. Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we better, Since I may say-now lie I like a king. K. Hen. 'Tis good for men to love their present pains, Upon example; so the spirit is eased; And, when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt, Glo. We shall, my liege. [Exeunt GLOSTER and BEDford. Erp. Shall I attend your grace? should also, look you, be an ass, and a fool, and a 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 there? K. Hen. A friend. Will. Under what captain serve you? K. Hen. goes No, my good knight; Go with my brothers to my lords of England: I and my bosom must debate awhile, And then I would no other company. Erp. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry! [Exit ERPINGHAM. K. Hen. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speakest cheerfully. Enter PISTOL. Pist. Qui va la ? K. Hen. A friend. Pist. Discuss unto me; Art thou officer; K. Hen. I am a gentleman of a company. Of parents good, of fist most valiant : I kiss his dirty shoe, and from my heart-strings Pist. Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou K. Hen. No, I am a Welshman. Pist. Knowest thou Fluellen. K. Hen. Yes. K. Hen. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham. gentleman: I pray you, what thinks he of our estate? Will. A good old commander, and a most kind 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 of I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here. 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. thank you: God be with you! [Exit. 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 wer. 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 piddle paddle, in Pompey's camp; I 1 Sir Thomas Erpingham came over with BolingLoke from Bretagne, and was one of the commissioners to receive King Richard's abdication. He was at this time warden of Dover Castle, and his arms are still visible on the side of the Roman Pharos. 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 feel other men's minds: Methinks, I could not die any where so contented, as in the king's company; his cause being just, and his quarrel honourable. 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. himself hath a heavy reckoning to make; when all Will. But, if the cause be not good, the king 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 3 An imp of fame.' See Second Part of King Henry IV. Act v. Sc. 5. 4 i. e. agrees, accords. 5 i. e. but human qualities. 2 With casted slough and fresh legerity. The allu. 6 though his affections are higher mounted than sion is to the casting of the slough or skin of the snake ours, when they stoop, they stoop with like wing.' This annually, by which act he is supposed to regain new passage alludes to the ancient sport of falconry. When vigour and fresh youth. Legerity is lightness, nimble-the hawk, after soaring aloft, or mounting high, descended in its flight, it was said to stoop. ness. owe; some, upon their children rawly1 left. I am afeard there are few die well, that die in battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection. K. Hen. Your reproof is something too round;" Will. How shall I know thee again? K. Hen. Give me any gage of thine, and I wil 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. 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. 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 them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder ; K. Hen. Indeed, the French may lay twenty some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of French crowns to one, they will beat us; for they perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that bear them on their shoulders: But it is no English have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with treason to cut French crowns; and, to-morrow, the pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have de-king himself will be a clipper. [Exeunt Soldiers. feated the law, and outrun native punishment, Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings Our debts, our careful wives, our children, and to fly from God: war is his beadle, war is his ven- Our sins, lay on the king;-we must bear all, geance; so that here men are punished, for before- O hard condition! twin-born with greatness, breach of the king's laws, in now the king's quarrel: Subjected to the breath of every fool, where they feared the death, they have borne life Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing! away; and where they would be safe, they perish: What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect, Then if they die unprovided, no more is the king That private men enjoy? guilty of their damnation, than he was before guilty And what have kings, that privates have not too, of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Save ceremony, save general ceremony? Every subject's duty is the king's; but every sub- And what art thou, thou idol ceremony? ject's soul is his own. Therefore should every sol- What kind of god art thou, that suffer st more dier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers? wash every mote out of his conscience: and dying What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the ceremony, show me but thy worth! time was blessedly lost, wherein such preparation What is thy soul of adoration?" was gained: and, in him that escapes, it were not Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, sin to think, that making God so free an offer, he let Creating awe and fear in other men? him outlive that day to see his greatness, and to teach Wherein thou art less happy, being fear'd, others how they should prepare. Than they in fearing. 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. 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. 'Mass, you'll pay him then! That's a perilous shot out of an elder gun, that a poor and private displeasure can do against a monarch! you may as well go about to turn the sun to ice, with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word after! come, 'tis a foolish saying. 1. e. their children left immaturely, left young and helpless. 2- beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury. Thus in the song at the beginning of the fourth act of Measure for Measure: 'That so sweetly were forswornSeals of love, but seal'd in vain.' 3 i. e. the punishment they are born to. 4'Every subject's duty is the king's.' This is a very just distinction, and the whole argument is well followed and properly concluded.-Johnson. What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, 8 Upon the king.' There is something very striking and solemn in the soliloquy into which the king breaks immediately as soon as he is left alone. Something like this every breast has felt. Reflection and seriousness rush upon the mind upon the separation of gay company, and especially after forced and unwilling merriment.Johnson. This beautiful speech was added after the first edition. 9 What is thy soul of adoration? This is the reading of the old copy, which Malone changed to: "What is the soul of adoration?" I think erroneously. The present reading is sufficiently intelligible, 'O ceremony, show me what value thou art 5 To pay here signifies to bring to account, to punish. of? What is thy soul or essence of external worship or 6That's a perilous shot out of an elder gun. In the adoration? Art thou,' &c. If Malone's reading is adoptquarto the thought is more opened-It is a great dis-ed, it would be necessary to read Are they,' &c. bepleasure that an elder gun can do against a cannon, or a subject against a monarch. 7 'Too round' is too rough, too unceremonious. cause ceremony and adoration are then both personified 10 Forced is stuffed. The tumid puffy titles with which a king's name is introduced. |