KING HENRY V. 453 Con. You must first go fourself to hazard, ere only stomachs to eat, and none to fight. Now is it you have them. time to arm: Come, shall we about it? Orl. It is now two o'clock: but, let me see,-by ten, Dau. "Tis midnight, I'll go arm myself. [Exit. Orl. By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince. 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. I know him to be valiant. We shall have each a hundred Englishmen. [Exe. ACT IV. Enter Chorus. When creeping murmur, and the poring dark, 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.1 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. Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames Con. Well placed; there stands your friend for the devil: have at the very eye of that proverb, So tediously away. The poor condemned English, with-A pox of the devil. Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires Orl. You are the better at proverbs, by how Sit patiently, and inly ruminate 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. The morning's danger; and their gesture sad, So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who will behold 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 ilarry of England! -he longs not for the dawning, as we do. 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. Let him cry-Praise and glory on his head! For forth he goes, and visits all his host; And calls them-brothers, friends, and countrymen. Bids them good-morrow, with a modest smile; Upon his royal face there is no note, Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour How dread an army hath enrounded him; Unto the weary and all-watched night: With cheerful semblance, and sweet majesty; But freshly looks, and overbears attaint, Orl. That they lack; for if their heads had any Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks: That every wretch, pining and pale before, intellectual armour, they could never wear such A largess universal, like the sun, heavy head-pieces. His liberal eye doth give to every one, Ram. That island of England breeds very valiant Thawing cold fear. Then, mean and gentle all, creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage. Behold, as may unworthiness define, Orl. Foolish curs! that run winking into the A little touch of Harry in the night: mouth of a Russian bear, and have their heads And so our scene must to the battle fly; crushed like rotten apples: You may as well say,-Where (O for pity!) we shall much disgracethat's a valiant flea, that dare eat his breakfast on With four or five most vile and ragged foils, the lip of a lion. Con. Just, just; and the men do sympathize with The name of Agincourt: Yet, sit and see; Right ill-dispos'd, in brawl ridiculous,the mastiffs, in robustious and rough coming on, Minding true things, by what their mockeries bc. leaving their wits with their wives: and then give them great meals of beef, and iron, and steel, they SCENE 1.-The English camp at Agincourt. [Exit. 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 (1) An equivoque in terms in falconry: he means, his valour is hid from every body but his lackey, and when it appears it will fall off. Enter King Henry, Bedford, and Gloster. K. Hen. Gloster, 'tis truc, that we are in great danger; (2) Foolish. (3) Gently, lowly. (4) Discoloured by the gleam of the fires. The greater therefore should our courage be.- For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers, Enter Erpingham. ̧ K. Hen. It sorts well with your fierceness. 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 taddic, 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. Good-morrow, old sir Thomas Erpingham: Since I may say-now lie I like a king. Gow. Why, the enemy is loud; you heard him 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 pains, Upon example; so the spirit is eased: And, when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt, Glo. We shall, my liege. [Exe. Glo. and Bed. K. Hen. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speakest cheerfully. Pist. Qui va là? Enter Pistol. K. Hen. A friend. 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 I love the lovely bully. What's thy name? K. Hen. Harry le Roy. Pist. Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou K. Hen. No, I am a Welshman. Pist. Knowest thou Flucllen? K. Hen. Yes. of 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 morn ing 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 ro ill, to wish him here alone; howsoever you speak this, to feel other men's minds: Methinks, I could not die (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 pay him then! That's a pehimself hath a heavy reckoning to make; when all rilous 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 fanning cry all-We died at such a place; some, swearing; in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never some, crying for a surgeon; some, upon their wives 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. Will. How shall I know thee again? 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 car. K. Hen. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it. K. Hen. Well, I will do it, though I take thee Will. Keep thy word: fare thee well. 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 in the king's company. servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services. Besides, there is no Bates. Be friends, you English fools, be friends; king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to we have French quarrels enough, if you could tell the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all how to reckon. 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 Our sins, lay on the king;-we must bear all. wings to fly from God: war is his beadle, war is O hard condition! twin-born with greatness, his vengeance; so that here men are punished, for Subjected to the breath of every fool, before-breach of the king's laws, in now the king's Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing! quarrel where they feared the death, they have What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect, borne life away; and where they would be safe, That private men enjoy? 3 they perish: Then if they die unprovided, no more And what have kings, that privates have not too, is the king guilty of their damnation, than he was Save ceremony, save general ceremony? before guilty of those impieties for the which they And what art thou, thou idol ceremony? are now visited. Every subject's duty is the king's; What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers? should every soldier in the wars do as every sick What are thy rents? what are thy comings-in? man in his bed, wash every mote out of his con- O ceremony, show me but thy worth! science and dying so, death is to him advantage; What is the soul of adoration? or not dying, the time was blessedly lost, wherein Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, such preparation was gained: and, in him that Creating awe and fear in other men? cscapes, it were not sin to think, that making God Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd so free an offer, he let him outlive that day to see Than they in fearing. 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 What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, That play'st so subtly with a king's repose; Can sicop so soundly as the wretched slave; Erp. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your ab sence, Seek through your camp to find you. K. Hen. them, The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them. 'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords, Good old knight, That our superfluous lackey's, and our peasants,— Who, in unnecessary action, swarm About our squares of battle,-were enough [Exit. To purge this field of such a hildings foc; Though we, upon this mountain's basis by, Took stand for idle speculation: Collect them all together at my tent: soldiers' 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, and the note to mount: For our approach shall so much dare the field, That England shall crouch down in fear, and yield. Enter Grandpré. Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France? You island carrions, desperate of their bones, Con. They have said their prayers, and they stay for death. Dau. Shall we go send them dinners, and fresh suits, Harry the king, Bedford, and Exeter, SCENE III-The English camp. Enter the We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; English host; Gloster, Bedford, Exeter, Salisbury, and Westmoreland. Glo. Where is the king? Bed. The king himself is rode to view their battle. West. Of fighting men they have full threescore thousand. Exe. There's five to one: besides, they all are fresh. For he, to-day that sheds his blood with me, Sal. My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed: Sal. God's arm strike with us! 'tis a fearful odds. Bed. Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck Ere. Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly to-day: [Exit Salisbury. Bed. He is as full of valour, as of kindness: Princely in both. West. O that we now had here Enter King Henry. But one ten thousand of those men in England, That do no work to-day! K. Hen. What's he that wishes so? It yearns me not, if men my garments wear; No, 'faith, my coz, wish not a man from England: The French are bravely in their battles set, will with all expedience charge on us. K. Hen. All things are ready, if our minds be so. West. Perish the man, whose mind is backward now! K. Hen. Thou dost not wish more help from England, cousin? West. God's will, my liege, 'would you and I alone, Without more' help, might fight this battle out! K. Hen. Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thousand men; Which likes me better, than to wish us one.- Mont. Once more I come to know of thee, king If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound, K. Hen. I pray thee, bear my former answer back; Bid them achieve me, and then sell my bones. Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus? The man, that once did sell the lion's skin them, And draw their honours reeking up to heaven; (3) Gallantly. (4) Expedition. (5) Remind. (6) i. e. In brazen plates anciently let into tombIstones. |