Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

[Singing.

And a merry heart lives long-a.
Fal. Well said, master Silence.
Sil. And we shall be merry ;-now comes in the
sweet of the night.

Fal. Health and long life to you, master Silence.
Sil. Fill the cup, and let it come;
I'll pledge you a mile to the bottom.

Shal. Honest Bardolph, welcome: If thou wantest any thing, and wilt not call, beshrew thy heart. Welcome, my little tiny thief; [to the Page.] and welcome, indeed, too. I'll drink to master Bardolph, and to all the cavaleroes about London.

Davy. I hope to see London once ere I die. Bard. An I might see you there, Davy,— Shal. By the mass, you'll crack a quart together. Ha! will you not, master Bardolph ?

Bard. Yes, sir, in a pottle pot.

Shal. I thank thee:-The knave will stick by thee, I can assure thee that: he will not out; he is true bred.

Bard. And I'll stick by him, sir.

Shal. Why, there spoke a king. Lack nothing: be merry. [Knocking heard.] Look who's at door there: Ho! who knocks? [Exit Davy. Fal. Why, now you have done me right. [To Silence, who drinks a bumper. Sil. Do me right, [Singing.

And dub me knight:

[blocks in formation]

Re-enter Davy.

[blocks in formation]

Shal. Harry the fourth. Pist.

A foutra for thine office!-Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king; Harry the fifth's the man. I speak the truth: When Pistol lies, do this; and fig me, like The bragging Spaniard.

Fal. What is the old king dead?

Pist. As nail in door: the things I speak, are just.

Fal. Away, Bardolph; saddle my horse.- Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine.-Pistol, I will double-charge thee with dignities.

Bard. O joyful day!-I would not take a knighthood for my fortune.

Pist. What? I do bring good news?

Fal. Carry master Silence to bed.-Master Shallow, my lord Shallow, be what thou wilt, I am fortune's steward. Get on thy boots: we'll ride all night:-0, sweet Pistol:-Away, Bardolph. [Exit Bard.]-Come, Pistol, utter more to me; and, withal, devise something, to do thyself good. Boot, boot, master Shallow: I know the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man's horses; the laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends; and woe to my lord chief justice!

Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also' Where is the life that late I led, say they ; Why, here it is; Welcome these pleasant days. [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-London. A Street.

Enter Beadles, dragging in Hostess Quickly, and Doll Tear-sheet.

Hort. No, thou arrant knave; I would I might die, that I might have thee hanged: thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint.

1 Bead. The constables have delivered her over to me and she shall have whipping-cheer enough, Davy. An it please your worship there's one I warrant her; there hath been a man or two Pistol come from the court with news.

Fal. From the court, let him come in.

Enter Pistol.

How now, Pistol ?

Pist. God save you, sir John!

Fal. What wind blew you hither, Pistol? Pist. Not the ill wind which blows no man to good.-Sweet knight, thou art now one of the greatest men in the realm.

Sil. By'r lady, I think 'a be; but goodman Puff of Barson.

Pist. Puff?

Puff in thy teeth, most recreant coward base!-
Sir John, I am thy Pistol, and thy friend,
And helter-skelter have I rode to thee;

And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys,
And golden times, and happy news of price.
Fal. I pr'ythee now, deliver them like a man of
this world.

Pist. A foutra for the world, and worldlings base!
I speak of Africa, and golden joys.
Fal. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?
Let king Cophetua know the truth thereof.
Sil. And Robin Hood, Scarlet, and John.
Pist. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons ?
And shall good news be baffled ?
Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.
Shal. Honest gentleman, I know not your breed-

ing

[Sings.

lately killed about her.

Doll. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on; I'll tell thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged rascal; an the child I now go with, do miscarry, thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain.

Host. O the Lord, that sir John were come! he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry!

1 Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come,

I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat among you.

Doll. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer! I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you blue-bottle rogue! you filthy famished correctioner: if you be not swinged, I'll forswear half-kirtles.

1 Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant,

[blocks in formation]

Approach me; and thou shalt be as thou wast,

SCENE V.-A public Place near Westminster The tutor and the feeder of my riots:

Abbey.

Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes.

1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes.

2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. 1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: Despatch, despatch. [Exeunt Grooms. Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph, and the Page.

Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me.

Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me.-0, :f I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. [To Shallow.] But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him.

Shal. It doth so.

Fal. It shows my earnestness of affection.
Shal. It doth so.

Fal. My devotion.

Shal. It doth, it doth, it doth.

Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me.

Shal. It is most certain.

Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,—
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life, I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil :
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strength, and quali
ties,-

lord,

Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, my
To see perform'd the tenor of our word.
Set on.
[Exeunt King and his Train.
Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand
pound.

Shal. Ay, marry, sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me.

Fal. That can hardly be, master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him: look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement; I will be the man yet, that shall make you great.

Shal. I cannot perceive how; unless you give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand.

Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard, was but a colour.

Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, sir John.

Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol ;-come, Bardolph-I

Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and sweat-shall be sent for soon at night. ing with desire to see him thinking of nothing else; putting all affairs else in oblivion; as if there were nothing else to be done, but to see him.

Re-enter Prince John, the Chief Justice, Officers, &c.

Pist. 'Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est : 'Tis all in every part.

Shal. 'Tis so, indeed.

Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,
And make thee rage.

Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance, and contagious prison;
Haul'd thither

By most mechanical and dirty hand :

Rouze up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's
snake,

For Doll is in; Pistol speaks nought but truth.
Fal. I will deliver her.

[Shouts within, and the trumpets sound. Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor sounds.

Enter the King and his Train, the Chief Justice among them.

Fal. God save thy grace, king Hal! my royal

Hal!

[blocks in formation]

prayers;

thy

How ill white hairs become a fool, and jester !
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;
But, being awake, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body, hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know, the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men :-
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest ;
Presume not, that I am the thing I was:
For heaven doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,

Ch. Just. Go, carry sir John Falstaff to the Fleet:
Take all his company along with him.
Fal. My lord, my lord,-

Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear you

[blocks in formation]

P. John. I will lay odds,-that, ere this year
expire,

We bear our civil swords, and native fire,
As far as France: I heard a bird so sing,
Whose musick, to my thinking, pleas'd the king.
Come, will you hence ?
[Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.-Spoken by a Dancer.

First, my fear; then, my court'sy last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say, is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say, will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, indeed, to pay you with this; which, if, like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some, and I will pay you some, and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,-to dance out of your deb

But a good conscience will make any possible satis- make you merry with fair Katharine of France: faction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here where, for any thing know, Falstaff shall die of have forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is which was never seen before in such an assembly. not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs One word more, I beseech you. If you be not are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author down before you ;-but, indeed, to pray for the will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and queen.

King Henry the rifth.

Duke of Gloster,

KING HENRY V.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

Duke of Bedford, brothers to the King.

Duke of Exeter, uncle to the King.

Duke of York, cousin to the King.

Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, and War

wick.

Archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop of Ely.

Earl of Cambridge,
Lord Scroop,

Sir Thomas Grey,

conspirators against the King.

Sir Thomas Erpingham, Gower, Fluellen, Macmorris, Jamy, officers in King Henry's

army.

Bates, Court, Williams, soldiers in the same.
Nyın, Bardolph, Pistol, formerly servants to Fal-
staff, now soldiers in the same.

Boy, servant to them.

A Herald.
Chorus.

Charles the Sixth, King of France.
Lewis, the Dauphin.

Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, and Bourbon.
The Constable of France.

Rambures and Grandpree, French lords.
Governor of Harfleur.
Montjoy, a French herald.
Ambassadors to the King of England.

Isabel, Queen of France.

Katharine, daughter of Charles and Isabel.
Alice, a lady attending on the Princess Katharine
Quickly, Pistol's mife, an hostess.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Solders,
Messengers, and Attendants.

The SCENE, at the beginning of the Play, lies in England; but afterwards wholly in France.

Enter Chorus.

O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention !

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and
fire,

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirit, that hath dared,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O, the very casques,
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work:

Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance:

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i'the receiving earth:
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our
kings,

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass; For the which supply,
Admit me chorus to this history;

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

ACT I.

SCENE L.-London. An Ante-chamber in the
King's Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely.

Cant. My lord, I'll tell you,-that self bill is
urg'd,

Which, in the eleventh year o'the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of further question.
Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against

us,

We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
By testament have given to the church,
Would they strip from us: being valued thus,-
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour
Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights;
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars, and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil,
A hundred alms-houses, right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the

bill.

Ely. This would drink deep.
Cant.

'Twould drink the cup and all.
Ely. But what prevention?
Cant. The king is full of grace, and fair regard.
Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.
Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came,

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him;
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:

Never came reformation in a flood,

With such a heady current, scouring faults;

Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.

Ely.
We are blessed in the change.
Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire, the king were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,

You would say,-it hath been all-in-all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in musick :
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;
So that the art and practick part of life
Must be the mistress to this theorick:

[blocks in formation]

Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed!
And justly and religiously unfold,
Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, rest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;

Shall drop their blood in approbation

Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it, For God doth know, how many, now in health,
Since his addiction was to courses vain :
His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the

nettle :

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd;
And therefore we must needs admit the means,
How things are perfected.

Ely.

But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?

Cant.
He seems indifferent;
Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us:
For I have made an offer to his majesty,-
Upon our spiritual convocation;
And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,-to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty ;
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
(As I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done,)
The severals, and unhidden passages,

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms;
And, generally, to the crown and seat of France,
Deriv'd from Edward, his great grandfather.
Ely. What was the impediment that broke this
off?

Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant,
Crav'd audience: and the hour, I think, is come,
To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock ?
Ely.
It is.
Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy;
Which I could, with a ready guess, declare,
Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.-The came. A Room of State in the

same.

Of what your reverence shall incite us to:
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake the sleeping sword of war:
We charge you in the name of God, take heed:
For never two such kingdoms did contend,
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drop.
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,
'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the
swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
And we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,- and
you peers,

That owe your lives, your faith, and services,
To this imperial throne ;-There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France,
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,-
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,

No woman shall succeed in Salique land :
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze,
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:
Where Charles the great, having subdued the
Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women,
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd there this law,-to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd-Meisen.
Thus doth it well appear, the Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France;
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of king Pharamond,
Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did, as heir general, being descended

Of Blithild, which was daughter to king Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Exeter,Of Charles the duke of Lorain, sole heir male
Hugh Capet also,-that usurp'd the crown
Of the true line and stock of Charles the great,-

Enter King Henry, Gloster, Bedford,
Warwick, Westmoreland, and Attendants.
K. Hen. Where is my gracious Lord of Canter-To fine his title with some show of truth,
bury?

Ere. Not here in presence.

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle.
West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?
K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be re-
solv'd,

Before we hear him, of some things of weight,
That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

(Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,
Convey'd himself as heir to the lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the great. Also king Lewis the tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied

That fair queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the lady Ermengare,

Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorain : By the which marriage, the line of Charles the great

Was re-united to the crown of France.
So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law,
To bar your highness claiming from the female;
And rather choose to hide them in a net,
Than amply to imbare their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

K. Hen. May I, with right and conscience, make this claim ?

Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign! For in the book of Numbers is it writ,When the son dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord, Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag; Look back unto your mighty ancestors: Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's tomb, From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit, And your great uncle's, Edward the black prince; Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, Making defeat on the full power of France; Whiles his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp Forage in blood of French nobility. O noble English, that could entertain With half their forces the full pride of France; And let another half stand laughing by, All out of work, and cold for action!

Cant. She hath been then more fear'd tnan harm'd, my liege:

For hear her but exampled by herself,-
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of ner nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,

The king of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill king Edward's fame with prisoner kings;
And make your chronicle as rich with praise,
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
West. But there's a saying, very old and true,-
If that you will France win,

Then with Scotland first begin;
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To spoil and havock more than she can eat.

Exe. It follows then, the cat must stay at home: Yet that is but a curs'd necessity; Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries, And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves. While that the armed hand doth fight abroad, The advised head defends itself at home: For government, though high, and low, and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one concent; Congruing in a full and natural close, Like musick.

Cant.

True: therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they with merry march bring home

Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage, that renowned them,
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprizes.
Ere. Your brother kings and monarchs of the To the tent-royal of their emperor :

earth

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.

West. They know, your grace hath cause, and means, and might;

So hath your highness; never king of England Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects; Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England,

And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

[right:

Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your
In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty
Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors.

K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade
French;

But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.

Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanick porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,-
That many things, having full reference
To one concent, may work contrariously;
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Fly to one mark;

As many several ways meet in one town;
As many fresh streams run in one self sea;
As many lines close in the dial's center;
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
the End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
Divide your happy England into four;
Whereof take you one quarter into France,
And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
If we, with thrice that power left at home,
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be worried; and our nation lose
The name of hardiness, and policy.
K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the
Dauphin.

Cant. They of those marches, gracious sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read, that my great grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot essays:
Girding with grievous siege, castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,

Hath shook, and trembled at the ill-neignbourhood.

[Exit an Attendant. The King ascends his
throne.

Now are we well resolv'd ;-and-by God's help;
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,-
France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces: Or there we'll sit,
Ruling, in large and ample empery,
O'er France, and all her almost kingly dukedoms
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Tombless, with no remembrance over them
Either our history shall, with full mouth,

« PředchozíPokračovat »