Small time, but, in that small, most greatly liv'd, That they lost France, and made his England bleed : Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake, In your fair minds let this acceptance take. [Exit. This play has many scenes of high dignity, and many of easy merriment. The character of the king (1) France. is well supported, except in his courtship, where he has neither the vivacity of Hal, nor the grandeur of Henry. The humour of Pistol is very happily continued: his character has perhaps been the model of all the bullies that have yet appeared on the English stage. The lines given to the Chorus have many admirers; but the truth is, that in them a little may be praised, and much must be forgiven; nor can it be easily discovered, why the intelligence given by the Chorus is more necessary in this play, than in many others where it is omitted. The great defect of this play is, the emptiness and narrowness of the last act, which a very little diligence might have easily avoided. JOHNSON. 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. Now is it only stomachs to eat, and none to fight. We shall have each a hundred Englishmen. [Exe. ACT IV. Enter Chorus. Chor. Now entertain conjecture of a time, From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night, 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 The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll, 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? 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 (1) An equivoque in terms in falconry: he means, Let him cry-Praise and glory on his head! SCENE I-The English camp at Agincourt. (2) Foolish. (3) Gently, lowly. The greater therefore should our courage be.- Good-morrow, old sir Thomas Erpingham: K. Hen. It sorts well with your fierceness. Enter Fluellen and Gower, severally. 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; K. Hen. I am a gentleman of a company. Pist. Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of K. Hen. No, I am a Welshman. 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! 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. (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. 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. 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. 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. 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; 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, The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them. Collect them all together at my tent: Erp. Possess them not with fear; take from them now Glo. My liege! Enter Gloster. K. Hen. My brother Gloster's voice?-Ay; [Exeunt. phin, Orleans, Rambures, and others. But that our honours must not. What's to say? And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France? Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones, SCENE II-The French camp. Enter Dau-Fly o'er them all, impatient for their hour. Orl. The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords. 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, |