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Henry V

by William Shakespeare

Dramatis Personae

Act 1

Scene 1

Enter the two Bishops of Canterbury and Ely.

Bishop of Canterbury:My lord, I’ll tell you that self bill is urged Which in th’ eleventh year of the last king’s reign Was like, and had indeed against us passed But that the scambling and unquiet time Did push it out of farther question.

Bishop of Ely:But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?

Bishop of Canterbury: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 honor, 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 almshouses right well supplied; And to the coffers of the King besides, A thousand pounds by th’ year." Thus runs the bill.

Bishop of Ely:This would drink deep.

Bishop of Canterbury:’Twould drink the cup and all.

Bishop of Ely:But what prevention?

Bishop of Canterbury:The King is full of grace and fair regard.

Bishop of Ely:And a true lover of the holy Church.

Bishop of Canterbury:The courses of his youth promised it not. The breath no sooner left his father’s body But that his wildness, mortified in him, Seemed to die too. Yea, at that very moment Consideration like an angel came And whipped th’ offending Adam out of him, Leaving his body as a paradise T’ envelop and contain celestial spirits. Never was such a sudden scholar made, Never came reformation in a flood With such a heady currance scouring faults, Nor never Hydra-headed willfulness So soon did lose his seat, and all at once, As in this king.

Bishop of Ely:We are blessèd in the change.

Bishop of Canterbury: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 rendered you in music; 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 chartered libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences; So that the art and practic part of life Must be the mistress to this theoric; Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it, Since his addiction was to courses vain, His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow, His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports, And never noted in him any study, Any retirement, any sequestration From open haunts and popularity.

Bishop of Ely:The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Neighbored by fruit of baser quality; And so the Prince obscured his contemplation Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt, Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, Unseen yet crescive in his faculty.

Bishop of Canterbury:It must be so, for miracles are ceased, And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected.

Bishop of Ely:But, my good lord, How now for mitigation of this bill Urged by the Commons? Doth his Majesty Incline to it or no?

Bishop of Canterbury:He seems indifferent, Or rather swaying more upon our part Than cherishing th’ exhibitors 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 opened 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.

Bishop of Ely:How did this offer seem received, my lord?

Bishop of Canterbury:With good acceptance of his Majesty— Save that there was not time enough to hear, As I perceived 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, Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.

Bishop of Ely:What was th’ impediment that broke this off?

Bishop of Canterbury:The French ambassador upon that instant Craved audience. And the hour, I think, is come To give him hearing. Is it four o’clock?

Bishop of Ely:It is.

Bishop of Canterbury:Then go we in to know his embassy, Which I could with a ready guess declare Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.

Bishop of Ely:I’ll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter the King of England, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, Bedford, Clarence, Warwick, Westmoreland, and Exeter, with other Attendants.

Henry V, King of England:Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Not here in presence.

Henry V, King of England:Send for him, good uncle.

Earl of Westmoreland:Shall we call in th’ Ambassador, my liege?

Henry V, King of England:Not yet, my cousin. We would be resolved, Before we hear him, of some things of weight That task our thoughts concerning us and France.

Enter the two Bishops of Canterbury and Ely.

Bishop of Canterbury:God and his angels guard your sacred throne And make you long become it.

Henry V, King of England:Sure we thank you. My learnèd lord, we pray you to proceed And justly and religiously unfold Why the law Salic 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, wrest, or bow your reading, Or nicely charge your understanding soul With opening titles miscreate, whose right Suits not in native colors with the truth; For God doth know how many now in health Shall drop their blood in approbation Of what your reverence shall incite us to. Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, How you awake our 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 drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint ’Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords That makes such waste in brief mortality. Under this conjuration, speak, my lord, For we will hear, note, and believe in heart That what you speak is in your conscience washed As pure as sin with baptism.

Bishop of Canterbury:Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers That owe yourselves, your lives, 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 Salic land), Which Salic 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 Salic is 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, Established then this law: to wit, no female Should be inheritrix in Salic land, Which "Salic," as I said, ’twixt Elbe and Sala Is at this day in Germany called Meissen. Then doth it well appear the Salic law Was not devisèd for the realm of France, Nor did the French possess the Salic land Until four hundred one and twenty years After defunction of King Pharamond, Idly supposed 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 deposèd Childeric, Did, as heir general, being descended Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair, Make claim and title to the crown of France. Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great, To find his title with some shows of truth, Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught, Conveyed himself as th’ heir to th’ Lady Lingare, Daughter to Charlemagne, 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 Lorraine: By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great Was reunited 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 Salic law To bar your Highness claiming from the female, And rather choose to hide them in a net Than amply to imbar their crooked titles Usurped from you and your progenitors.

Henry V, King of England:May I with right and conscience make this claim?

Bishop of Canterbury:The sin upon my head, dread sovereign, For in the Book of Numbers is it writ: "When the man dies, let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter." Gracious lord, Stand for your own, unwind your bloody flag, Look back into 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 played 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!

Bishop of 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 renownèd them Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege Is in the very May-morn of his youth, Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Your brother kings and monarchs of the Earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself As did the former lions of your blood.

Earl of Westmoreland: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 pavilioned in the fields of France.

Bishop of Canterbury:O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, With blood and sword and fire to win your right, 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.

Henry V, King of England:We must not only arm t’ invade the French, But lay down our proportions to defend Against the Scot, who will make road upon us With all advantages.

Bishop of Canterbury:They of those marches, gracious sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

Henry V, King of England:We do not mean the coursing snatchers only, But fear the main intendment of the Scot, Who hath been still a giddy neighbor to us. For you shall read that my great-grandfather Never went with his forces into France But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom Came pouring like the tide into a breach With ample and brim fullness of his force, Galling the gleanèd land with hot assays, Girding with grievous siege castles and towns, That England, being empty of defense, Hath shook and trembled at th’ ill neighborhood.

Bishop of Canterbury:She hath been then more feared than harmed, my liege, For hear her but exampled by herself: When all her chivalry hath been in France And she a mourning widow of her 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 her chronicle as rich with praise As is the ooze and bottom of the sea With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.

Bishop of Ely: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 ’tame and havoc more than she can eat.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:It follows, then, the cat must stay at home. Yet that is but a crushed necessity, Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves. While that the armèd hand doth fight abroad, Th’ advisèd head defends itself at home. For government, though high and low and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, Congreeing in a full and natural close, Like music.

Bishop of Canterbury:Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavor in continual motion, To which is fixèd as an aim or butt Obedience; for so work the honeybees, 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 armèd in their stings Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds, Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent royal of their emperor, Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold, The civil citizens kneading up the honey, The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate, The sad-eyed 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 consent, may work contrariously, As many arrows loosèd several ways Come to one mark, as many ways meet in one town, As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea, As many lines close in the dial’s center, So may a thousand actions, once afoot, 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 such powers left at home, Cannot defend our own doors from the dog, Let us be worried, and our nation lose The name of hardiness and policy.

Henry V, King of England:Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin. [Attendants exit.] Now are we well resolved, 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 Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave, Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth, Not worshiped with a waxen epitaph. [Enter Ambassadors of France, with Attendants.] Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure Of our fair cousin Dauphin, for we hear Your greeting is from him, not from the King.

Ambassador:May ’t please your Majesty to give us leave Freely to render what we have in charge, Or shall we sparingly show you far off The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?

Henry V, King of England:We are no tyrant, but a Christian king, Unto whose grace our passion is as subject As is our wretches fettered in our prisons. Therefore with frank and with uncurbèd plainness Tell us the Dauphin’s mind.

Ambassador:Thus, then, in few: Your Highness, lately sending into France, Did claim some certain dukedoms in the right Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third; In answer of which claim, the Prince our master Says that you savor too much of your youth And bids you be advised there’s naught in France That can be with a nimble galliard won; You cannot revel into dukedoms there. He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit, This tun of treasure and, in lieu of this, Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.

Henry V, King of England:What treasure, uncle?

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Tennis balls, my liege.

Henry V, King of England:We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us. His present and your pains we thank you for. When we have matched our rackets to these balls, We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard. Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler That all the courts of France will be disturbed With chases. And we understand him well, How he comes o’er us with our wilder days, Not measuring what use we made of them. We never valued this poor seat of England, And therefore, living hence, did give ourself To barbarous license, as ’tis ever common That men are merriest when they are from home. But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state, Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness When I do rouse me in my throne of France, For that I have laid by my majesty And plodded like a man for working days; But I will rise there with so full a glory That I will dazzle all the eyes of France, Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us. And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his Hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul Shall stand sore chargèd for the wasteful vengeance That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands, Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down; And some are yet ungotten and unborn That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn. But this lies all within the will of God, To whom I do appeal, and in whose name Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on, To venge me as I may and to put forth My rightful hand in a well-hallowed cause. So get you hence in peace. And tell the Dauphin His jest will savor but of shallow wit When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.— Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well.

Ambassadors exit, with Attendants.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:This was a merry message.

Henry V, King of England:We hope to make the sender blush at it. Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour That may give furth’rance to our expedition; For we have now no thought in us but France, Save those to God, that run before our business. Therefore let our proportions for these wars Be soon collected, and all things thought upon That may with reasonable swiftness add More feathers to our wings. For, God before, We’ll chide this Dauphin at his father’s door. Therefore let every man now task his thought, That this fair action may on foot be brought.

Flourish. They exit.

Act 2

Scene 1

Enter Corporal Nym and Lieutenant Bardolph.

Bardolph:Well met, Corporal Nym.

Nym:Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.

Bardolph:What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?

Nym:For my part, I care not. I say little, but when time shall serve, there shall be smiles; but that shall be as it may. I dare not fight, but I will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a simple one, but what though? It will toast cheese, and it will endure cold as another man’s sword will, and there’s an end.

Bardolph:I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends, and we’ll be all three sworn brothers to France. Let ’t be so, good Corporal Nym.

Nym:Faith, I will live so long as I may, that’s the certain of it; and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my rest, that is the rendezvous of it.

Bardolph:It is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell Quickly, and certainly she did you wrong, for you were troth-plight to her.

Nym:I cannot tell. Things must be as they may. Men may sleep, and they may have their throats about them at that time, and some say knives have edges. It must be as it may. Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I cannot tell.

Enter Pistol and Hostess Quickly.

Bardolph:Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good corporal, be patient here.—How now, mine host Pistol?

Pistol:Base tyke, call’st thou me host? Now, by this hand, I swear I scorn the term, nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.

Hostess Quickly:No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of their needles but it will be thought we keep a bawdy house straight. [Nym and Pistol draw their swords.] O well-a-day, Lady! If he be not hewn now, we shall see willful adultery and murder committed.

Bardolph:Good lieutenant, good corporal, offer nothing here.

Nym:Pish!

Pistol:Pish for thee, Iceland dog, thou prick-eared cur of Iceland!

Hostess Quickly:Good Corporal Nym, show thy valor, and put up your sword.

Nym:Will you shog off? [To Pistol.] I would have you solus.

Pistol:"Solus," egregious dog? O viper vile, the solus in thy most marvelous face, the solus in thy teeth and in thy throat and in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy, and, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth! I do retort the solus in thy bowels, for I can take, and Pistol’s cock is up, and flashing fire will follow.

Nym:I am not Barbason, you cannot conjure me. I have an humor to knock you indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms. If you would walk off, I would prick your guts a little in good terms, as I may, and that’s the humor of it.

Pistol:O braggart vile and damnèd furious wight, The grave doth gape, and doting death is near. Therefore exhale.

Bardolph:Hear me, hear me what I say: he that strikes the first stroke, I’ll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.

He draws.

Pistol:An oath of mickle might, and fury shall abate. [Pistol and Nym and then Bardolph sheathe their swords.] Give me thy fist, thy forefoot to me give. Thy spirits are most tall.

Nym:[to Pistol] I will cut thy throat one time or other in fair terms, that is the humor of it.

Pistol:Couple à gorge, that is the word. I defy thee again. O hound of Crete, think’st thou my spouse to get? No, to the spital go, and from the powd’ring tub of infamy fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid’s kind, Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse. I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly for the only she: and pauca, there’s enough too! Go to.

Enter the Boy.

Boy:Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and your hostess. He is very sick and would to bed.—Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan. Faith, he’s very ill.

Bardolph:Away, you rogue!

Hostess Quickly:By my troth, he’ll yield the crow a pudding one of these days. The King has killed his heart. Good husband, come home presently.

She exits with the Boy.

Bardolph:Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together. Why the devil should we keep knives to cut one another’s throats?

Pistol:Let floods o’erswell and fiends for food howl on!

Nym:You’ll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

Pistol:Base is the slave that pays.

Nym:That now I will have, that’s the humor of it.

Pistol:As manhood shall compound. Push home.

They draw.

Bardolph:[drawing his sword] By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I’ll kill him. By this sword, I will.

Pistol:[sheathing his sword] "Sword" is an oath, and oaths must have their course.

Bardolph:Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends; an thou wilt not, why then be enemies with me too. Prithee, put up.

Pistol:[to Nym] A noble shalt thou have, and present pay, and liquor likewise will I give to thee, and friendship shall combine, and brotherhood. I’ll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me. Is not this just? For I shall sutler be unto the camp, and profits will accrue. Give me thy hand.

Nym:I shall have my noble?

Pistol:In cash, most justly paid.

Nym:Well, then, that’s the humor of ’t.

Nym and Bardolph sheathe their swords.

Enter Hostess.

Hostess Quickly:As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John. Ah, poor heart, he is so shaked of a burning quotidian-tertian that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.

Nym:The King hath run bad humors on the knight, that’s the even of it.

Pistol:Nym, thou hast spoke the right. His heart is fracted and corroborate.

Nym:The King is a good king, but it must be as it may; he passes some humors and careers.

Pistol:Let us condole the knight, for, lambkins, we will live.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmoreland.

John, Duke of Bedford:’Fore God, his Grace is bold to trust these traitors.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:They shall be apprehended by and by.

Earl of Westmoreland:How smooth and even they do bear themselves, As if allegiance in their bosoms sat Crownèd with faith and constant loyalty.

John, Duke of Bedford:The King hath note of all that they intend, By interception which they dream not of.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow, Whom he hath dulled and cloyed with gracious favors— That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell His sovereign’s life to death and treachery!

Sound Trumpets. Enter the King of England, Scroop, Cambridge, and Grey, with Attendants.

Henry V, King of England:Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.— My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham, And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts. Think you not that the powers we bear with us Will cut their passage through the force of France, Doing the execution and the act For which we have in head assembled them?

Lord Scroop of Masham:No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.

Henry V, King of England:I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded We carry not a heart with us from hence That grows not in a fair consent with ours, Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish Success and conquest to attend on us.

Earl of Cambridge:Never was monarch better feared and loved Than is your Majesty. There’s not, I think, a subject That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness Under the sweet shade of your government.

Sir Thomas Grey:True. Those that were your father’s enemies Have steeped their galls in honey, and do serve you With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

Henry V, King of England:We therefore have great cause of thankfulness, And shall forget the office of our hand Sooner than quittance of desert and merit According to the weight and worthiness.

Lord Scroop of Masham:So service shall with steelèd sinews toil, And labor shall refresh itself with hope To do your Grace incessant services.

Henry V, King of England:We judge no less.—Uncle of Exeter, Enlarge the man committed yesterday That railed against our person. We consider It was excess of wine that set him on, And on his more advice we pardon him.

Lord Scroop of Masham:That’s mercy, but too much security. Let him be punished, sovereign, lest example Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.

Henry V, King of England:O, let us yet be merciful.

Earl of Cambridge:So may your Highness, and yet punish too.

Sir Thomas Grey:Sir, you show great mercy if you give him life After the taste of much correction.

Henry V, King of England:Alas, your too much love and care of me Are heavy orisons ’gainst this poor wretch. If little faults proceeding on distemper Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested, Appear before us? We’ll yet enlarge that man, Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care And tender preservation of our person, Would have him punished. And now to our French causes. Who are the late commissioners?

Earl of Cambridge:I one, my lord. Your Highness bade me ask for it today.

Lord Scroop of Masham:So did you me, my liege.

Sir Thomas Grey:And I, my royal sovereign.

Henry V, King of England:[giving them papers] Then Richard, Earl of Cambridge, there is yours— There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham.—And, sir knight, Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.— Read them, and know I know your worthiness.— My Lord of Westmoreland and uncle Exeter, We will aboard tonight.—Why how now, gentlemen? What see you in those papers, that you lose So much complexion?—Look you, how they change. Their cheeks are paper.—Why, what read you there That have so cowarded and chased your blood Out of appearance?

Earl of Cambridge:I do confess my fault, And do submit me to your Highness’ mercy.

Sir Thomas Grey, Lord Scroop of Masham:To which we all appeal.

Henry V, King of England:The mercy that was quick in us but late By your own counsel is suppressed and killed. You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy, For your own reasons turn into your bosoms As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.— See you, my princes and my noble peers, These English monsters. My Lord of Cambridge here, You know how apt our love was to accord To furnish him with all appurtenants Belonging to his honor, and this man Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired And sworn unto the practices of France To kill us here in Hampton; to the which This knight, no less for bounty bound to us Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn.—But O, What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel, Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature? Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels, That knew’st the very bottom of my soul, That almost mightst have coined me into gold, Wouldst thou have practiced on me for thy use— May it be possible that foreign hire Could out of thee extract one spark of evil That might annoy my finger? ’Tis so strange That, though the truth of it stands off as gross As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it. Treason and murder ever kept together, As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose, Working so grossly in a natural cause That admiration did not whoop at them. But thou, ’gainst all proportion, didst bring in Wonder to wait on treason and on murder, And whatsoever cunning fiend it was That wrought upon thee so preposterously Hath got the voice in hell for excellence. All other devils that suggest by treasons Do botch and bungle up damnation With patches, colors, and with forms being fetched From glist’ring semblances of piety; But he that tempered thee bade thee stand up, Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason, Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor. If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus Should with his lion gait walk the whole world, He might return to vasty Tartar back And tell the legions "I can never win A soul so easy as that Englishman’s." O, how hast thou with jealousy infected The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful? Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learnèd? Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family? Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious? Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet, Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger, Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, Garnished and decked in modest complement, Not working with the eye without the ear, And but in purgèd judgment trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem. And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot To mark the full-fraught man and best endued With some suspicion. I will weep for thee, For this revolt of thine methinks is like Another fall of man.—Their faults are open. Arrest them to the answer of the law, And God acquit them of their practices.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard, Earl of Cambridge.— I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham.— I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.

Lord Scroop of Masham:Our purposes God justly hath discovered, And I repent my fault more than my death, Which I beseech your Highness to forgive, Although my body pay the price of it.

Earl of Cambridge:For me, the gold of France did not seduce, Although I did admit it as a motive The sooner to effect what I intended; But God be thankèd for prevention, Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice, Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

Sir Thomas Grey:Never did faithful subject more rejoice At the discovery of most dangerous treason Than I do at this hour joy o’er myself, Prevented from a damnèd enterprise. My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.

Henry V, King of England:God quit you in His mercy. Hear your sentence: You have conspired against our royal person, Joined with an enemy proclaimed, and from his coffers Received the golden earnest of our death, Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter, His princes and his peers to servitude, His subjects to oppression and contempt, And his whole kingdom into desolation. Touching our person, seek we no revenge, But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender, Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence, Poor miserable wretches, to your death, The taste whereof God of His mercy give You patience to endure, and true repentance Of all your dear offenses.—Bear them hence. [They exit under guard.] Now, lords, for France, the enterprise whereof Shall be to you as us, like glorious. We doubt not of a fair and lucky war, Since God so graciously hath brought to light This dangerous treason lurking in our way To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now But every rub is smoothèd on our way. Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver Our puissance into the hand of God, Putting it straight in expedition. Cheerly to sea. The signs of war advance. No king of England if not king of France.

Flourish. They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, Boy, and Hostess.

Hostess Quickly:Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

Pistol:No; for my manly heart doth earn.—Bardolph, be blithe.—Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins.— Boy, bristle thy courage up. For Falstaff, he is dead, and we must earn therefore.

Bardolph:Would I were with him, wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or in hell.

Hostess Quickly:Nay, sure, he’s not in hell! He’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. He made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child. He parted ev’n just between twelve and one, ev’n at the turning o’ th’ tide; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and smile upon his finger’s end, I knew there was but one way, for his nose was as sharp as a pen and he talked of green fields. "How now, Sir John?" quoth I. "What, man, be o’ good cheer!" So he cried out "God, God, God!" three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him he should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So he bade me lay more clothes on his feet. I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone. Then I felt to his knees, and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

Nym:They say he cried out of sack.

Hostess Quickly:Ay, that he did.

Bardolph:And of women.

Hostess Quickly:Nay, that he did not.

Boy:Yes, that he did, and said they were devils incarnate.

Hostess Quickly:He could never abide carnation. ’Twas a color he never liked.

Boy:He said once, the devil would have him about women.

Hostess Quickly:He did in some sort, indeed, handle women, but then he was rheumatic and talked of the Whore of Babylon.

Boy:Do you not remember he saw a flea stick upon Bardolph’s nose, and he said it was a black soul burning in hell?

Bardolph:Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire. That’s all the riches I got in his service.

Nym:Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.

Pistol:Come, let’s away.—My love, give me thy lips. [They kiss.] Look to my chattels and my movables. Let senses rule. The word is "Pitch and pay." Trust none, for oaths are straws, men’s faiths are wafer-cakes, and Holdfast is the only dog, my duck. Therefore, Caveto be thy counselor. Go, clear thy crystals.—Yoke-fellows in arms, let us to France, like horse-leeches, my boys, to suck, to suck, the very blood to suck.

Boy:And that’s but unwholesome food, they say.

Pistol:Touch her soft mouth, and march.

Bardolph:[kissing the Hostess] Farewell, hostess.

Nym:I cannot kiss, that is the humor of it. But adieu.

Pistol:[to the Hostess] Let huswifery appear. Keep close, I thee command.

Hostess Quickly:Farewell. Adieu.

They exit.

Scene 4

Flourish. Enter the French King, the Dauphin, the Dukes of Berri and Brittany, the Constable, and others.

King of France:Thus comes the English with full power upon us, And more than carefully it us concerns To answer royally in our defenses. Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Brittany, Of Brabant and of Orléans, shall make forth, And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch, To line and new-repair our towns of war With men of courage and with means defendant. For England his approaches makes as fierce As waters to the sucking of a gulf. It fits us then to be as provident As fear may teach us out of late examples Left by the fatal and neglected English Upon our fields.

Dauphin:My most redoubted father, It is most meet we arm us ’gainst the foe, For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom, Though war nor no known quarrel were in question But that defenses, musters, preparations Should be maintained, assembled, and collected As were a war in expectation. Therefore I say ’tis meet we all go forth To view the sick and feeble parts of France. And let us do it with no show of fear, No, with no more than if we heard that England Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance. For, my good liege, she is so idly kinged, Her scepter so fantastically borne By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth, That fear attends her not.

Constable of France:O peace, Prince Dauphin! You are too much mistaken in this king. Question your Grace the late ambassadors With what great state he heard their embassy, How well supplied with noble councillors, How modest in exception, and withal How terrible in constant resolution, And you shall find his vanities forespent Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus, Covering discretion with a coat of folly, As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots That shall first spring and be most delicate.

Dauphin:Well, ’tis not so, my Lord High Constable. But though we think it so, it is no matter. In cases of defense, ’tis best to weigh The enemy more mighty than he seems. So the proportions of defense are filled, Which of a weak and niggardly projection Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting A little cloth.

King of France:Think we King Harry strong, And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him. The kindred of him hath been fleshed upon us, And he is bred out of that bloody strain That haunted us in our familiar paths. Witness our too-much-memorable shame When Cressy battle fatally was struck And all our princes captived by the hand Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales, Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing Up in the air, crowned with the golden sun, Saw his heroical seed and smiled to see him Mangle the work of nature and deface The patterns that by God and by French fathers Had twenty years been made. This is a stem Of that victorious stock, and let us fear The native mightiness and fate of him.

Enter a Messenger.

Messenger:Ambassadors from Harry King of England Do crave admittance to your Majesty.

King of France:We’ll give them present audience. Go, and bring them. [Messenger exits.] You see this chase is hotly followed, friends.

Dauphin:Turn head and stop pursuit, for coward dogs Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten Runs far before them. Good my sovereign, Take up the English short, and let them know Of what a monarchy you are the head. Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin As self-neglecting.

Enter Exeter, with Lords and Attendants.

King of France:From our brother of England?

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:From him, and thus he greets your Majesty: He wills you, in the name of God almighty, That you divest yourself and lay apart The borrowed glories that, by gift of heaven, By law of nature and of nations, ’longs To him and to his heirs—namely, the crown And all wide-stretchèd honors that pertain By custom and the ordinance of times Unto the crown of France. That you may know ’Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim Picked from the wormholes of long-vanished days Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked, He sends you this most memorable line, [He offers a paper.] In every branch truly demonstrative, Willing you overlook this pedigree, And when you find him evenly derived From his most famed of famous ancestors, Edward the Third, he bids you then resign Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held From him, the native and true challenger.

King of France:Or else what follows?

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Bloody constraint, for if you hide the crown Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it. Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming, In thunder and in earthquake like a Jove, That, if requiring fail, he will compel, And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord, Deliver up the crown and to take mercy On the poor souls for whom this hungry war Opens his vasty jaws, and on your head Turning the widows’ tears, the orphans’ cries, The dead men’s blood, the privèd maidens’ groans, For husbands, fathers, and betrothèd lovers That shall be swallowed in this controversy. This is his claim, his threat’ning, and my message— Unless the Dauphin be in presence here, To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

King of France:For us, we will consider of this further. Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent Back to our brother of England.

Dauphin:[to Exeter] For the Dauphin, I stand here for him. What to him from England?

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt, And anything that may not misbecome The mighty sender, doth he prize you at. Thus says my king: an if your father’s Highness Do not, in grant of all demands at large, Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty, He’ll call you to so hot an answer of it That caves and womby vaultages of France Shall chide your trespass and return your mock In second accent of his ordinance.

Dauphin:Say, if my father render fair return, It is against my will, for I desire Nothing but odds with England. To that end, As matching to his youth and vanity, I did present him with the Paris balls.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:He’ll make your Paris Louvre shake for it, Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe. And be assured you’ll find a difference, As we his subjects have in wonder found, Between the promise of his greener days And these he masters now. Now he weighs time Even to the utmost grain. That you shall read In your own losses, if he stay in France.

King of France:Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full.

Flourish.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king Come here himself to question our delay, For he is footed in this land already.

King of France:You shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions. A night is but small breath and little pause To answer matters of this consequence.

Flourish. They exit.

Act 3

Scene 1

Enter the King of England, Exeter, Bedford, and Gloucester. Alarum. Enter Soldiers with scaling ladders at Harfleur.

Henry V, King of England:Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility, But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage, Then lend the eye a terrible aspect, Let it pry through the portage of the head Like the brass cannon, let the brow o’erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock O’erhang and jutty his confounded base Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit To his full height. On, on, you noblest English, Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof, Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, Have in these parts from morn till even fought, And sheathed their swords for lack of argument. Dishonor not your mothers. Now attest That those whom you called fathers did beget you. Be copy now to men of grosser blood And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture. Let us swear That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not, For there is none of you so mean and base That hath not noble luster in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot. Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry "God for Harry, England, and Saint George!"

Alarum, and chambers go off.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter Nym, Bardolph, Pistol, and Boy.

Bardolph:On, on, on, on, on! To the breach, to the breach!

Nym:Pray thee, corporal, stay. The knocks are too hot, and, for mine own part, I have not a case of lives. The humor of it is too hot; that is the very plainsong of it.

Pistol:"The plainsong" is most just, for humors do abound. Knocks go and come. God’s vassals drop and die, [Sings] And sword and shield, In bloody field, Doth win immortal fame.

Boy:Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.

Pistol:And I. [Sings] If wishes would prevail with me, My purpose should not fail with me, But thither would I hie.

Boy:[sings] As duly, But not as truly, As bird doth sing on bough.

Enter Fluellen.

Captain Fluellen:Up to the breach, you dogs! Avaunt, you cullions!

Pistol:Be merciful, great duke, to men of mold. Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage, abate thy rage, great duke. Good bawcock, ’bate thy rage. Use lenity, sweet chuck.

Nym:[to Fluellen] These be good humors. Your Honor wins bad humors. [All but the Boy exit.]

Boy:As young as I am, I have observed these three swashers. I am boy to them all three, but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man to me. For indeed three such antics do not amount to a man: for Bardolph, he is white-livered and red-faced, by the means whereof he faces it out but fights not; for Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword, by the means whereof he breaks words and keeps whole weapons; for Nym, he hath heard that men of few words are the best men, and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest he should be thought a coward, but his few bad words are matched with as few good deeds, for he never broke any man’s head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a lute case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for three halfpence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in filching, and in Calais they stole a fire shovel. I knew by that piece of service the men would carry coals. They would have me as familiar with men’s pockets as their gloves or their handkerchers, which makes much against my manhood, if I should take from another’s pocket to put into mine, for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them and seek some better service. Their villainy goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.

He exits.

Enter Fluellen and Gower.

Captain Gower:Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines; the Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.

Captain Fluellen:To the mines? Tell you the Duke it is not so good to come to the mines, for, look you, the mines is not according to the disciplines of the war. The concavities of it is not sufficient, for, look you, th’ athversary, you may discuss unto the Duke, look you, is digt himself four yard under the countermines. By Cheshu, I think he will plow up all if there is not better directions.

Captain Gower:The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the siege is given, is altogether directed by an Irishman, a very valiant gentleman, i’ faith.

Captain Fluellen:It is Captain Macmorris, is it not?

Captain Gower:I think it be.

Captain Fluellen:By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the world. I will verify as much in his beard. He has no more directions in the true disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines, than is a puppy dog.

Enter Captain Macmorris, and Captain Jamy.

Captain Gower:Here he comes, and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with him.

Captain Fluellen:Captain Jamy is a marvelous falorous gentleman, that is certain, and of great expedition and knowledge in th’ aunchient wars, upon my particular knowledge of his directions. By Cheshu, he will maintain his argument as well as any military man in the world in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans.

Captain Jamy:I say gudday, Captain Fluellen.

Captain Fluellen:Godden to your Worship, good Captain James.

Captain Gower:How now, Captain Macmorris, have you quit the mines? Have the pioners given o’er?

Captain MacMorris:By Chrish, la, ’tish ill done. The work ish give over. The trompet sound the retreat. By my hand I swear, and my father’s soul, the work ish ill done. It ish give over. I would have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la, in an hour. O, ’tish ill done, ’tish ill done, by my hand, ’tish ill done.

Captain Fluellen:Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you voutsafe me, look you, a few disputations with you as partly touching or concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars? In the way of argument, look you, and friendly communication, partly to satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline, that is the point.

Captain Jamy:It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captens bath, and I sall quit you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion, that sall I, marry.

Captain MacMorris:It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me. The day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the King, and the dukes. It is no time to discourse. The town is beseeched. An the trumpet call us to the breach and we talk and, be Chrish, do nothing, ’tis shame for us all. So God sa’ me, ’tis shame to stand still. It is shame, by my hand. And there is throats to be cut, and works to be done, and there ish nothing done, so Christ sa’ me, la.

Captain Jamy:By the Mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves to slomber, ay’ll de gud service, or I’ll lig i’ th’ grund for it, ay, or go to death. And I’ll pay ’t as valorously as I may, that sall I suerly do, that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad full fain heard some question ’tween you tway.

Captain Fluellen:Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your correction, there is not many of your nation—

Captain MacMorris:Of my nation? What ish my nation? Ish a villain and a basterd and a knave and a rascal. What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?

Captain Fluellen:Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant, Captain Macmorris, peradventure I shall think you do not use me with that affability as, in discretion, you ought to use me, look you, being as good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of war and in the derivation of my birth, and in other particularities.

Captain MacMorris:I do not know you so good a man as myself. So Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.

Captain Gower:Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.

Captain Jamy:Ah, that’s a foul fault.

A parley sounds.

Captain Gower:The town sounds a parley.

Captain Fluellen:Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of war, and there is an end.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter the King of England and all his train before the gates.

Henry V, King of England:[to the men of Harfleur] How yet resolves the Governor of the town? This is the latest parle we will admit. Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves Or, like to men proud of destruction, Defy us to our worst. For, as I am a soldier, A name that in my thoughts becomes me best, If I begin the batt’ry once again, I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur Till in her ashes she lie burièd. The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand, shall range With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass Your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring infants. What is it then to me if impious war, Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends, Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats Enlinked to waste and desolation? What is ’t to me, when you yourselves are cause, If your pure maidens fall into the hand Of hot and forcing violation? What rein can hold licentious wickedness When down the hill he holds his fierce career? We may as bootless spend our vain command Upon th’ enragèd soldiers in their spoil As send precepts to the Leviathan To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, Take pity of your town and of your people Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command, Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy. If not, why, in a moment look to see The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand Desire the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters, Your fathers taken by the silver beards And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls, Your naked infants spitted upon pikes Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen. What say you? Will you yield and this avoid Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed?

Enter Governor.

Governor:Our expectation hath this day an end. The Dauphin, whom of succors we entreated, Returns us that his powers are yet not ready To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king, We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy. Enter our gates, dispose of us and ours, For we no longer are defensible.

Henry V, King of England:Open your gates. [Governor exits.] Come, uncle Exeter, Go you and enter Harfleur. There remain, And fortify it strongly ’gainst the French. Use mercy to them all for us, dear uncle. The winter coming on and sickness growing Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais. Tonight in Harfleur will we be your guest. Tomorrow for the march are we addressed.

Flourish, and enter the town.

Scene 4

Enter Katherine and Alice, an old Gentlewoman.

Katherine:Alice, tu as été en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage.

Alice:Un peu, madame.

Katherine:Je te prie, m’enseignez. Il faut que j’apprenne à parler. Comment appelez-vous "la main" en anglais?

Alice:La main? Elle est appelée "de hand."

Katherine:De hand. Et "les doigts"?

Alice:Les doigts? Ma foi, j’oublie les doigts; mais je me souviendrai. Les doigts? Je pense qu’ils sont appelés "de fingres"; oui, de fingres.

Katherine:La main, de hand. Les doigts, le fingres. Je pense que je suis le bon écolier. J’ai gagné deux mots d’anglais vitement. Comment appelez-vous "les ongles"?

Alice:Les ongles? Nous les appelons "de nailes."

Katherine:De nailes. Écoutez. Dites-moi si je parle bien: de hand, de fingres, et de nailes.

Alice:C’est bien dit, madame. Il est fort bon anglais.

Katherine:Dites-moi l’anglais pour "le bras."

Alice:"De arme," madame.

Katherine:Et "le coude"?

Alice:"D’ elbow."

Katherine:D’ elbow. Je m’en fais la répétition de tous les mots que vous m’avez appris dès à présent.

Alice:Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.

Katherine:Excusez-moi, Alice. Écoutez: d’ hand, de fingre, de nailes, d’ arma, de bilbow.

Alice:D’ elbow, madame.

Katherine:Ô Seigneur Dieu! Je m’en oublie; d’ elbow. Comment appelez-vous "le col"?

Alice:"De nick," madame.

Katherine:De nick. Et "le menton"?

Alice:"De chin."

Katherine:De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.

Alice:Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en vérité vous prononcez les mots aussi droit que les natifs d’Angleterre.

Katherine:Je ne doute point d’apprendre, par le grâce de Dieu, et en peu de temps.

Alice:N’avez-vous pas déjà oublié ce que je vous ai enseigné?

Katherine:Non. Je réciterai à vous promptement: d’ hand, de fingre, de mailes—

Alice:De nailes, madame.

Katherine:De nailes, de arme, de ilbow—

Alice:Sauf votre honneur, d’ elbow.

Katherine:Ainsi dis-je: d’ elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment appelez-vous "le pied" et "la robe"?

Alice:"Le foot," madame, et "le count."

Katherine:Le foot, et le count. Ô Seigneur Dieu! Ils sont les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames d’honneur d’user. Je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France, pour tout le monde. Foh! Le foot et le count! Néanmoins, je réciterai une autre fois ma leçon ensemble: d’ hand, de fingre, de nailes, d’ arme, d’ elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, le count.

Alice:Excellent, madame.

Katherine:C’est assez pour une fois. Allons-nous à dîner.

They exit.

Scene 5

Enter the King of France, the Dauphin, the Duke of Brittany, the Constable of France, and others.

King of France:’Tis certain he hath passed the river Somme.

Constable of France:An if he be not fought withal, my lord, Let us not live in France. Let us quit all, And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.

Dauphin:Ô Dieu vivant, shall a few sprays of us, The emptying of our fathers’ luxury, Our scions, put in wild and savage stock, Spurt up so suddenly into the clouds And overlook their grafters?

Duke of Brittany:Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards! Mort de ma vie, if they march along Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom To buy a slobb’ry and a dirty farm In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.

Constable of France:Dieu de batailles, where have they this mettle? Is not their climate foggy, raw, and dull, On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale, Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water, A drench for sur-reined jades, their barley broth, Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat? And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine, Seem frosty? O, for honor of our land, Let us not hang like roping icicles Upon our houses’ thatch, whiles a more frosty people Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields! "Poor" we may call them in their native lords.

Dauphin:By faith and honor, Our madams mock at us and plainly say Our mettle is bred out, and they will give Their bodies to the lust of English youth To new-store France with bastard warriors.

Duke of Brittany:They bid us to the English dancing-schools, And teach lavoltas high, and swift corantos, Saying our grace is only in our heels And that we are most lofty runaways.

King of France:Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence. Let him greet England with our sharp defiance. Up, princes, and, with spirit of honor edged More sharper than your swords, hie to the field: Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France; You Dukes of Orléans, Bourbon, and of Berri, Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy; Jacques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont, Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi, and Faulconbridge, Foix, Lestrale, Bouciquault, and Charolois; High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights, For your great seats now quit you of great shames. Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur. Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon. Go down upon him—you have power enough— And in a captive chariot into Rouen Bring him our prisoner.

Constable of France:This becomes the great! Sorry am I his numbers are so few, His soldiers sick and famished in their march, For, I am sure, when he shall see our army, He’ll drop his heart into the sink of fear And for achievement offer us his ransom.

King of France:Therefore, Lord Constable, haste on Montjoy, And let him say to England that we send To know what willing ransom he will give.— Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.

Dauphin:Not so, I do beseech your Majesty.

King of France:Be patient, for you shall remain with us.— Now forth, Lord Constable and princes all, And quickly bring us word of England’s fall.

They exit.

Scene 6

Enter Captains, English and Welsh, Gower and Fluellen.

Captain Gower:How now, Captain Fluellen? Come you from the bridge?

Captain Fluellen:I assure you there is very excellent services committed at the bridge.

Captain Gower:Is the Duke of Exeter safe?

Captain Fluellen:The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon, and a man that I love and honor with my soul and my heart and my duty and my life and my living and my uttermost power. He is not, God be praised and blessed, any hurt in the world, but keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the pridge; I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony, and he is a man of no estimation in the world, but I did see him do as gallant service.

Captain Gower:What do you call him?

Captain Fluellen:He is called Aunchient Pistol.

Captain Gower:I know him not.

Enter Pistol.

Captain Fluellen:Here is the man.

Pistol:Captain, I thee beseech to do me favors. The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

Captain Fluellen:Ay, I praise God, and I have merited some love at his hands.

Pistol:Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart and of buxom valor, hath, by cruel Fate and giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel, that goddess blind, that stands upon the rolling restless stone—

Captain Fluellen:By your patience, Aunchient Pistol, Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning and inconstant, and mutability and variation; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls and rolls and rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it. Fortune is an excellent moral.

Pistol:Fortune is Bardolph’s foe and frowns on him, for he hath stolen a pax and hangèd must he be. A damnèd death! Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free, and let not hemp his windpipe suffocate. But Exeter hath given the doom of death for pax of little price. Therefore go speak; the Duke will hear thy voice, and let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut with edge of penny cord and vile reproach. Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.

Captain Fluellen:Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

Pistol:Why then, rejoice therefore.

Captain Fluellen:Certainly, aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at, for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the Duke to use his good pleasure and put him to execution, for discipline ought to be used.

Pistol:Die and be damned, and figo for thy friendship!

Captain Fluellen:It is well.

Pistol:The fig of Spain!

He exits.

Captain Fluellen:Very good.

Captain Gower:Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal. I remember him now, a bawd, a cutpurse.

Captain Fluellen:I’ll assure you he uttered as prave words at the pridge as you shall see in a summer’s day. But it is very well; what he has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant you, when time is serve.

Captain Gower:Why, ’tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then goes to the wars to grace himself at his return into London under the form of a soldier; and such fellows are perfect in the great commanders’ names, and they will learn you by rote where services were done—at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths; and what a beard of the general’s cut and a horrid suit of the camp will do among foaming bottles and ale-washed wits is wonderful to be thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you may be marvelously mistook.

Captain Fluellen:I tell you what, Captain Gower. I do perceive he is not the man that he would gladly make show to the world he is. If I find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind. [Drum and Colors. Enter the King of England and his poor Soldiers, and Gloucester.] Hark you, the King is coming, and I must speak with him from the pridge.—God pless your Majesty.

Henry V, King of England:How now, Fluellen, cam’st thou from the bridge?

Captain Fluellen: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.

Henry V, King of England:What men have you lost, Fluellen?

Captain Fluellen:The perdition of th’ athversary hath been very great, 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 o’ fire; and his lips blows 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.

Henry V, King of England: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 winner.

Tucket. Enter Montjoy.

Montjoy:You know me by my habit.

Henry V, King of England:Well then, I know thee. What shall I know of thee?

Montjoy:My master’s mind.

Henry V, King of England:Unfold it.

Montjoy: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 ransom, which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested, which, in weight to reanswer, his pettiness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for th’ 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.

Henry V, King of England:What is thy name? I know thy quality.

Montjoy:Montjoy.

Henry V, King of England:Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back, And tell thy king I do not seek him now But could be willing to march on to Calais Without impeachment, for, to say the sooth, Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much Unto an enemy of craft and vantage, My people are with sickness much enfeebled, My numbers lessened, and those few I have Almost no better than so many French, Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald, I thought upon one pair of English legs Did march three Frenchmen. Yet forgive me, God, That I do brag thus. This your air of France Hath blown that vice in me. I must repent. Go therefore, tell thy master: here I am. My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk, My army but a weak and sickly guard, Yet, God before, tell him we will come on Though France himself and such another neighbor Stand in our way. There’s for thy labor, Montjoy. [Gives money.] Go bid thy master well advise himself: If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered, We shall your tawny ground with your red blood Discolor. And so, Montjoy, fare you well. The sum of all our answer is but this: We would not seek a battle as we are, Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it. So tell your master.

Montjoy:I shall deliver so. Thanks to your Highness.

He exits.

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester:I hope they will not come upon us now.

Henry V, King of England:We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs. March to the bridge. It now draws toward night. Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves, And on tomorrow bid them march away.

They exit.

Scene 7

Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orléans, Dauphin, with others.

Constable of France:Tut, I have the best armor of the world. Would it were day!

Duke of Orléans:You have an excellent armor, but let my horse have his due.

Constable of France:It is the best horse of Europe.

Duke of Orléans:Will it never be morning?

Dauphin:My Lord of Orléans and my Lord High Constable, you talk of horse and armor?

Duke of Orléans:You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.

Dauphin:What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Çà, 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 earth sings when he touches it. The basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

Duke of Orléans:He’s of the color of the nutmeg.

Dauphin: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.

Constable of France:Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.

Dauphin:It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage.

Duke of Orléans:No more, cousin.

Dauphin: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 on, 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 writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus: "Wonder of nature—"

Duke of Orléans:I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.

Dauphin:Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser, for my horse is my mistress.

Duke of Orléans:Your mistress bears well.

Dauphin:Me well—which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.

Constable of France:Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back.

Dauphin:So perhaps did yours.

Constable of France:Mine was not bridled.

Dauphin:O, then belike she was old and gentle, and you rode like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait strossers.

Constable of France:You have good judgment in horsemanship.

Dauphin: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.

Constable of France:I had as lief have my mistress a jade.

Dauphin:I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.

Constable of France:I could make as true a boast as that if I had a sow to my mistress.

Dauphin:"Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier." Thou mak’st use of anything.

Constable of France:Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such proverb so little kin to the purpose.

Lord Rambures:My Lord Constable, the armor that I saw in your tent tonight, are those stars or suns upon it?

Constable of France:Stars, my lord.

Dauphin:Some of them will fall tomorrow, I hope.

Constable of France:And yet my sky shall not want.

Dauphin:That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and ’twere more honor some were away.

Constable of France:Ev’n as your horse bears your praises— who would trot as well were some of your brags dismounted.

Dauphin:Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it never be day? I will trot tomorrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces.

Constable of France:I will not say so for fear I should be faced out of my way. But I would it were morning, for I would fain be about the ears of the English.

Lord Rambures:Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?

Constable of France:You must first go yourself to hazard ere you have them.

Dauphin:’Tis midnight. I’ll go arm myself.

He exits.

Duke of Orléans:The Dauphin longs for morning.

Lord Rambures:He longs to eat the English.

Constable of France:I think he will eat all he kills.

Duke of Orléans:By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince.

Constable of France:Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.

Duke of Orléans:He is simply the most active gentleman of France.

Constable of France:Doing is activity, and he will still be doing.

Duke of Orléans:He never did harm, that I heard of.

Constable of France:Nor will do none tomorrow. He will keep that good name still.

Duke of Orléans:I know him to be valiant.

Constable of France:I was told that by one that knows him better than you.

Duke of Orléans:What’s he?

Constable of France:Marry, he told me so himself, and he said he cared not who knew it.

Duke of Orléans:He needs not. It is no hidden virtue in him.

Constable of France:By my faith, sir, but it is; never anybody saw it but his lackey. ’Tis a hooded valor, and when it appears, it will bate.

Duke of Orléans:Ill will never said well.

Constable of France:I will cap that proverb with "There is flattery in friendship."

Duke of Orléans:And I will take up that with "Give the devil his due."

Constable of France:Well placed; there stands your friend for the devil. Have at the very eye of that proverb with "A pox of the devil."

Duke of Orléans:You are the better at proverbs, by how much "A fool’s bolt is soon shot."

Constable of France:You have shot over.

Duke of Orléans:’Tis not the first time you were overshot.

Enter a Messenger.

Messenger:My Lord High Constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of your tents.

Constable of France:Who hath measured the ground?

Messenger:The Lord Grandpré.

Constable of France:A valiant and most expert gentleman.— Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England! He longs not for the dawning as we do.

Duke of Orléans:What a wretched and peevish fellow is this King of England to mope with his fat-brained followers so far out of his knowledge.

Constable of France:If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.

Duke of Orléans:That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armor, they could never wear such heavy headpieces.

Lord Rambures:That island of England breeds very valiant creatures. Their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.

Duke of Orléans: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.

Constable of France: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.

Duke of Orléans:Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.

Constable of France:Then shall we find tomorrow they have only stomachs to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we about it?

Duke of Orléans:It is now two o’clock. But, let me see, by ten We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.

They exit.

Act 4

Scene 1

Enter the King of England, Bedford, and Gloucester.

Henry V, King of England:Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger. 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 distill it out. For our bad neighbor 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.

Sir Thomas Erpingham:Not so, my liege, this lodging likes me better, Since I may say "Now lie I like a king."

Henry V, King of England:’Tis good for men to love their present pains Upon example. So the spirit is eased; And when the mind is quickened, out of doubt, The organs, though defunct and dead before, Break up their drowsy grave and newly move With casted slough and fresh legerity. Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. [He puts on Erpingham’s cloak.] Brothers both, Commend me to the princes in our camp, Do my good morrow to them, and anon Desire them all to my pavilion.

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester:We shall, my liege.

Sir Thomas Erpingham:Shall I attend your Grace?

Henry V, King of England: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.

Sir Thomas Erpingham:The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry.

All but the King exit.

Henry V, King of England:God-a-mercy, old heart, thou speak’st cheerfully.

Enter Pistol.

Pistol:Qui vous là?

Henry V, King of England:A friend.

Pistol:Discuss unto me: art thou officer or art thou base, common, and popular?

Henry V, King of England:I am a gentleman of a company.

Pistol:Trail’st thou the puissant pike?

Henry V, King of England:Even so. What are you?

Pistol:As good a gentleman as the Emperor.

Henry V, King of England:Then you are a better than the King.

Pistol:The King’s a bawcock and a heart of gold, a lad of life, an imp of fame, of parents good, of fist most valiant. I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heartstring I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?

Henry V, King of England:Harry le Roy.

Pistol:Le Roy? A Cornish name. Art thou of Cornish crew?

Henry V, King of England:No, I am a Welshman.

Pistol:Know’st thou Fluellen?

Henry V, King of England:Yes.

Pistol:Tell him I’ll knock his leek about his pate upon Saint Davy’s day.

Henry V, King of England:Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that about yours.

Pistol:Art thou his friend?

Henry V, King of England:And his kinsman too.

Pistol:The figo for thee then!

Henry V, King of England:I thank you. God be with you.

Pistol:My name is Pistol called.

He exits.

Henry V, King of England:It sorts well with your fierceness.

He steps aside.

Enter Fluellen and Gower.

Captain Gower:Captain Fluellen.

Captain Fluellen:So. In the name of Jesu Christ, speak fewer. It is the greatest admiration in the universal world when the true and aunchient 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 nor pibble babble 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.

Captain Gower:Why, the enemy is loud. You hear him all night.

Captain Fluellen:If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, in your own conscience now?

Captain Gower:I will speak lower.

Captain Fluellen:I pray you and beseech you that you will.

Gower and Fluellen exit.

Henry V, King of England:Though it appear a little out of fashion, There is much care and valor in this Welshman.

Enter three Soldiers, John Bates, Alexander Court, and Michael Williams.

Alexander Court:Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?

John Bates:I think it be, but we have no great cause to desire the approach of day.

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

Henry V, King of England:A friend.

Michael Williams:Under what captain serve you?

Henry V, King of England:Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

Michael Williams:A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray you, what thinks he of our estate?

Henry V, King of England:Even as men wracked upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide.

John Bates:He hath not told his thought to the King?

Henry V, King of England: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.

John Bates:He may show what outward courage he will, but I believe, as cold a night as ’tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

Henry V, King of England:By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King. I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.

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

Henry V, King of England: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 anywhere so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just and his quarrel honorable.

Michael Williams:That’s more than we know.

John 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.

Michael Williams:But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all 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 owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything 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, who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

Henry V, King of England: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 arbitrament of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, 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.

Michael Williams:’Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head; the King is not to answer it.

John Bates:I do not desire he should answer for me, and yet I determine to fight lustily for him.

Henry V, King of England:I myself heard the King say he would not be ransomed.

Michael Williams: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.

Henry V, King of England:If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

Michael Williams:You pay him then. That’s a perilous shot out of an elder gun, that a poor and a 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.

Henry V, King of England:Your reproof is something too round. I should be angry with you if the time were convenient.

Michael Williams:Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

Henry V, King of England:I embrace it.

Michael Williams:How shall I know thee again?

Henry V, King of England:Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet. Then, if ever thou dar’st acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel.

Michael Williams:Here’s my glove. Give me another of thine.

Henry V, King of England:There.

They exchange gloves.

Michael Williams:This will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou come to me and say, after tomorrow, "This is my glove," by this hand I will take thee a box on the ear.

Henry V, King of England:If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

Michael Williams:Thou dar’st as well be hanged.

Henry V, King of England:Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King’s company.

Michael Williams:Keep thy word. Fare thee well.

John Bates:Be friends, you English fools, be friends. We have French quarrels enough, if you could tell how to reckon.

Henry V, King of England:Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one they will beat us, for they bear them on their shoulders. But it is no English treason to cut French crowns, and tomorrow the King himself will be a clipper. [Soldiers exit.] Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls, our debts, our careful wives, our children, and our sins, lay on the King! We must bear all. O hard condition, Twin-born with greatness, subject 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? What kind of god art thou that suffer’st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshipers? What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth! What is thy soul of adoration? Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form, Creating awe and fear in other men, Wherein thou art less happy, being feared, Than they in fearing? What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poisoned 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 scepter, and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farcèd 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 filled and vacant mind, Gets him to rest, crammed 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 Hyperion to his horse, And follows so the ever-running year With profitable labor to his grave. And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, Had the forehand 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.

Sir Thomas Erpingham:My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence, Seek through your camp to find you.

Henry V, King of England:Good old knight, Collect them all together at my tent. I’ll be before thee.

Sir Thomas Erpingham:I shall do ’t, my lord.

He exits.

Henry V, King of England:O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts. Possess them not with fear. Take from them now The sense of reck’ning or th’ opposèd numbers Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord, O, not today, think not upon the fault My father made in compassing the crown. I Richard’s body have interrèd new And on it have bestowed more contrite tears Than from it issued forcèd drops of blood. Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay Who twice a day their withered hands hold up Toward 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.

Enter Gloucester.

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester:My liege.

Henry V, King of England:My brother Gloucester’s voice.—Ay, I know thy errand. I will go with thee. The day, my friends, and all things stay for me.

They exit.

Scene 2

Enter the Dauphin, Orléans, Rambures, and Beaumont.

Duke of Orléans:The sun doth gild our armor. Up, my lords.

Dauphin:Montez à cheval! My horse, varlet! Lackey! Ha!

Duke of Orléans:O brave spirit!

Dauphin:Via les eaux et terre.

Duke of Orléans:Rien puis? L’air et feu?

Dauphin:Cieux, cousin Orléans. [Enter Constable.] Now, my Lord Constable?

Constable of France:Hark how our steeds for present service neigh.

Dauphin:Mount them, and make incision in their hides, That their hot blood may spin in English eyes And dout them with superfluous courage. Ha!

Lord Rambures:What, will you have them weep our horses’ blood? How shall we then behold their natural tears?

Enter Messenger.

Messenger:The English are embattled, you French peers.

Constable of France:To horse, you gallant princes, straight to horse. Do but behold yond poor and starvèd 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 curtal ax a stain, That our French gallants shall today draw out And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on them, The vapor of our valor will o’erturn them. ’Tis positive against all exceptions, lords, 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 hilding foe, Though we upon this mountain’s basis by Took stand for idle speculation, But that our honors must not. What’s to say? A very little little let us do, And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound The tucket sonance 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.

Lord Grandpré:Why do you stay so long, my lords of France? Yond island carrions, desperate of their bones, Ill-favoredly become the morning field. Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose, And our air shakes them passing scornfully. Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggared host And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps. The horsemen sit like fixèd candlesticks With torch staves in their hand, and their poor jades Lob down their heads, drooping the hides and hips, The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes, And in their pale dull mouths the gemeled bit Lies foul with chawed grass, still and motionless. And their executors, the knavish crows, Fly o’er them all, impatient for their hour. Description cannot suit itself in words To demonstrate the life of such a battle In life so lifeless, as it shows itself.

Constable of France:They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.

Dauphin:Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits, And give their fasting horses provender, And after fight with them?

Constable of France:I stay but for my guard. On, to the field! I will the banner from a trumpet take And use it for my haste. Come, come away. The sun is high, and we outwear the day.

They exit.

Scene 3

Enter Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter, Erpingham with all his host, Salisbury, and Westmoreland.

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester:Where is the King?

John, Duke of Bedford:The King himself is rode to view their battle.

Earl of Westmoreland:Of fighting men they have full threescore thousand.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:There’s five to one. Besides, they all are fresh.

Earl of Salisbury:God’s arm strike with us! ’Tis a fearful odds. God be wi’ you, princes all. I’ll to my charge. If we no more meet till we meet in heaven, Then joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford, My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter, And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu.

John, Duke of Bedford:Farewell, good Salisbury, and good luck go with thee. And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it, For thou art framed of the firm truth of valor.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Farewell, kind lord. Fight valiantly today.

Salisbury exits.

John, Duke of Bedford:He is as full of valor as of kindness, Princely in both.

Enter the King of England.

Earl of Westmoreland:O, that we now had here But one ten thousand of those men in England That do no work today.

Henry V, King of England:What’s he that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin. If we are marked to die, we are enough To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honor. God’s will, I pray thee wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires. But if it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive. No, ’faith, my coz, wish not a man from England. God’s peace, I would not lose so great an honor As one man more, methinks, would share from me, For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, That he which hath no stomach to this fight, Let him depart. His passport shall be made, And crowns for convoy put into his purse. We would not die in that man’s company That fears his fellowship to die with us. This day is called the feast of Crispian. He that outlives this day and comes safe home Will stand o’ tiptoe when this day is named And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall see this day, and live old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors And say "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian." Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember with advantages What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words, Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. This story shall the good man teach his son, And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be rememberèd— We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now abed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Enter Salisbury.

Earl of Salisbury:My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed. The French are bravely in their battles set, And will with all expedience charge on us.

Henry V, King of England:All things are ready if our minds be so.

Earl of Westmoreland:Perish the man whose mind is backward now!

Henry V, King of England:Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?

Earl of Westmoreland:God’s will, my liege, would you and I alone, Without more help, could fight this royal battle!

Henry V, King of England:Why, now thou hast unwished five thousand men, Which likes me better than to wish us one.— You know your places. God be with you all.

Tucket. Enter Montjoy.

Montjoy:Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry, If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound, Before thy most assurèd overthrow. For certainly thou art so near the gulf Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy, The Constable desires thee thou wilt mind Thy followers of repentance, that their souls May make a peaceful and a sweet retire From off these fields where, wretches, their poor bodies Must lie and fester.

Henry V, King of England:Who hath sent thee now?

Montjoy:The Constable of France.

Henry V, King of England: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 While the beast lived was killed with hunting him. A many of our bodies shall no doubt Find native graves, upon the which, I trust, Shall witness live in brass of this day’s work. And those that leave their valiant bones in France, Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills, They shall be famed; for there the sun shall greet them And draw their honors reeking up to heaven, Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime, The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France. Mark, then, abounding valor in our English, That being dead, like to the bullet’s crazing, Break out into a second course of mischief, Killing in relapse of mortality. Let me speak proudly: tell the Constable We are but warriors for the working day; Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched With rainy marching in the painful field. There’s not a piece of feather in our host— Good argument, I hope, we will not fly— And time hath worn us into slovenry. But, by the Mass, our hearts are in the trim, And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night They’ll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck The gay new coats o’er the French soldiers’ heads And turn them out of service. If they do this, As, if God please, they shall, my ransom then Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labor. Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald. They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints, Which, if they have, as I will leave ’em them, Shall yield them little, tell the Constable.

Montjoy:I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well. Thou never shalt hear herald anymore.

Henry V, King of England:I fear thou wilt once more come again for a ransom.

Montjoy exits.

Enter York.

Duke of York:[kneeling] My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg The leading of the vaward.

Henry V, King of England:Take it, brave York. [York rises.] Now, soldiers, march away, And how Thou pleasest, God, dispose the day.

They exit.

Scene 4

Alarum. Excursions. Enter Pistol, French Soldier, and Boy.

Pistol:Yield, cur.

Monsieur Le Fer:Je pense que vous êtes le gentilhomme de bonne qualité.

Pistol:Qualtitie calmie custure me. Art thou a gentleman? What is thy name? Discuss.

Monsieur Le Fer:Ô Seigneur Dieu!

Pistol:O, Seigneur Dew should be a gentleman. Perpend my words, O Seigneur Dew, and mark: O Seigneur Dew, thou diest on point of fox, except, O Seigneur, thou do give to me egregious ransom.

Monsieur Le Fer:Ô, prenez miséricorde! Ayez pitié de moi!

Pistol:Moy shall not serve. I will have forty moys, or I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat in drops of crimson blood.

Monsieur Le Fer:Est-il impossible d’échapper la force de ton bras?

Pistol:Brass, cur? Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat, offer’st me brass?

Monsieur Le Fer:Ô, pardonnez-moi!

Pistol:Say’st thou me so? Is that a ton of moys?— Come hither, boy. Ask me this slave in French what is his name.

Boy:Écoutez. Comment êtes-vous appelé?

Monsieur Le Fer:Monsieur le Fer.

Boy:He says his name is Master Fer.

Pistol:Master Fer. I’ll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him. Discuss the same in French unto him.

Boy:I do not know the French for "fer," and "ferret," and "firk."

Pistol:Bid him prepare, for I will cut his throat.

Monsieur Le Fer:[to the Boy] Que dit-il, monsieur?

Boy:Il me commande à vous dire que vous faites vous prêt, car ce soldat ici est disposé tout à cette heure de couper votre gorge.

Pistol:Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy, peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns, or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.

Monsieur Le Fer:Ô, je vous supplie, pour l’amour de Dieu, me pardonner. Je suis le gentilhomme de bonne maison. Gardez ma vie, et je vous donnerai deux cents écus.

Pistol:What are his words?

Boy:He prays you to save his life. He is a gentleman of a good house, and for his ransom he will give you two hundred crowns.

Pistol:Tell him my fury shall abate, and I the crowns will take.

Monsieur Le Fer:[to the Boy] Petit monsieur, que dit-il?

Boy:Encore qu’il est contre son jurement de pardonner aucun prisonnier; néanmoins, pour les écus que vous lui avez promis, il est content à vous donner la liberté, le franchisement.

French soldier kneels.

Monsieur Le Fer:Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercîments, et je m’estime heureux que j’ai tombé entre les mains d’un chevalier, je pense, le plus brave, vaillant, et très distingué seigneur d’Angleterre.

Pistol:Expound unto me, boy.

Boy:He gives you upon his knees a thousand thanks, and he esteems himself happy that he hath fall’n into the hands of one, as he thinks, the most brave, valorous, and thrice-worthy seigneur of England.

Pistol:As I suck blood, I will some mercy show. Follow me.

Boy:Suivez-vous le grand capitaine. [The French Soldier stands up. He and Pistol exit.] I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart. But the saying is true: "The empty vessel makes the greatest sound." Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valor than this roaring devil i’ th’ old play, that everyone may pare his nails with a wooden dagger, and they are both hanged, and so would this be if he durst steal anything adventurously. I must stay with the lackeys with the luggage of our camp. The French might have a good prey of us if he knew of it, for there is none to guard it but boys.

He exits.

Scene 5

Enter Constable, Orléans, Bourbon, Dauphin, and Rambures.

Constable of France:Ô diable!

Duke of Orléans:Ô Seigneur! Le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!

Dauphin:Mort de ma vie, all is confounded, all! Reproach and everlasting shame Sits mocking in our plumes. [A short Alarum.] Ô méchante Fortune! Do not run away.

Constable of France:Why, all our ranks are broke.

Dauphin:O perdurable shame! Let’s stab ourselves. Be these the wretches that we played at dice for?

Duke of Orléans:Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?

Duke of Bourbon:Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame! Let us die. In once more! Back again! And he that will not follow Bourbon now, Let him go hence, and with his cap in hand Like a base pander hold the chamber door, Whilst by a slave, no gentler than my dog, His fairest daughter is contaminate.

Constable of France:Disorder, that hath spoiled us, friend us now. Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.

Duke of Orléans:We are enough yet living in the field To smother up the English in our throngs, If any order might be thought upon.

Duke of Bourbon:The devil take order now! I’ll to the throng. Let life be short, else shame will be too long.

They exit.

Scene 6

Alarum. Enter the King of England and his train, with prisoners.

Henry V, King of England:Well have we done, thrice-valiant countrymen, But all’s not done. Yet keep the French the field.

Enter Exeter.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:The Duke of York commends him to your Majesty.

Henry V, King of England:Lives he, good uncle? Thrice within this hour I saw him down, thrice up again and fighting. From helmet to the spur, all blood he was.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie, Larding the plain, and by his bloody side, Yoke-fellow to his honor-owing wounds, The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies. Suffolk first died, and York, all haggled over, Comes to him where in gore he lay insteeped, And takes him by the beard, kisses the gashes That bloodily did yawn upon his face. He cries aloud "Tarry, my cousin Suffolk. My soul shall thine keep company to heaven. Tarry, sweet soul, for mine; then fly abreast, As in this glorious and well-foughten field We kept together in our chivalry." Upon these words I came and cheered him up. He smiled me in the face, raught me his hand, And with a feeble grip, says "Dear my lord, Commend my service to my sovereign." So did he turn, and over Suffolk’s neck He threw his wounded arm and kissed his lips, And so, espoused to death, with blood he sealed A testament of noble-ending love. The pretty and sweet manner of it forced Those waters from me which I would have stopped, But I had not so much of man in me, And all my mother came into mine eyes And gave me up to tears.

Henry V, King of England:I blame you not, For, hearing this, I must perforce compound With my full eyes, or they will issue too. [Alarum.] But hark, what new alarum is this same? The French have reinforced their scattered men. Then every soldier kill his prisoners. Give the word through.

They exit.

Scene 7

Enter Fluellen and Gower.

Captain Fluellen:Kill the poys and the luggage! ’Tis expressly against the law of arms. ’Tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offert, in your conscience now, is it not?

Captain Gower:’Tis certain there’s not a boy left alive, and the cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha’ done this slaughter. Besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the King’s tent, wherefore the King, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner’s throat. O, ’tis a gallant king!

Captain Fluellen:Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you the town’s name where Alexander the Pig was born?

Captain Gower:Alexander the Great.

Captain Fluellen:Why, I pray you, is not "pig" great? The pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.

Captain Gower:I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon. His father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.

Captain Fluellen:I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the ’orld, I warrant you sall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon, and there is also, moreover, a river at Monmouth. It is called Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river. But ’tis all one; ’tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you mark Alexander’s life well, Harry of Monmouth’s life is come after it indifferent well, for there is figures in all things. Alexander, God knows and you know, in his rages and his furies and his wraths and his cholers and his moods and his displeasures and his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his best friend, Cleitus.

Captain Gower:Our king is not like him in that. He never killed any of his friends.

Captain Fluellen:It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it. As Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups, so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgments, turned away the fat knight with the great-belly doublet; he was full of jests and gipes and knaveries and mocks—I have forgot his name.

Captain Gower:Sir John Falstaff.

Captain Fluellen:That is he. I’ll tell you, there is good men porn at Monmouth.

Captain Gower:Here comes his Majesty.

Alarum. Enter King Harry, Exeter, Warwick, Gloucester, Heralds and Bourbon with other prisoners. Flourish.

Henry V, King of England:I was not angry since I came to France Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald. Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond hill. If they will fight with us, bid them come down, Or void the field. They do offend our sight. If they’ll do neither, we will come to them And make them skirr away as swift as stones Enforcèd from the old Assyrian slings. Besides, we’ll cut the throats of those we have, And not a man of them that we shall take Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

Enter Montjoy.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester:His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

Henry V, King of England:How now, what means this, herald? Know’st thou not That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom? Com’st thou again for ransom?

Montjoy:No, great king. I come to thee for charitable license, That we may wander o’er this bloody field To book our dead and then to bury them, To sort our nobles from our common men, For many of our princes—woe the while!— Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood. So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs In blood of princes, and the wounded steeds Fret fetlock deep in gore, and with wild rage Yerk out their armèd heels at their dead masters, Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king, To view the field in safety and dispose Of their dead bodies.

Henry V, King of England:I tell thee truly, herald, I know not if the day be ours or no, For yet a many of your horsemen peer And gallop o’er the field.

Montjoy:The day is yours.

Henry V, King of England:Praised be God, and not our strength, for it! What is this castle called that stands hard by?

Montjoy:They call it Agincourt.

Henry V, King of England:Then call we this the field of Agincourt, Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

Captain Fluellen:Your grandfather of famous memory, an ’t please your Majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.

Henry V, King of England:They did, Fluellen.

Captain Fluellen:Your Majesty says very true. If your Majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps, which, your Majesty know, to this hour is an honorable badge of the service. And I do believe your Majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.

Henry V, King of England:I wear it for a memorable honor, For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

Captain Fluellen:All the water in Wye cannot wash your Majesty’s Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that. God pless it and preserve it as long as it pleases his Grace and his Majesty too.

Henry V, King of England:Thanks, good my countryman.

Captain Fluellen:By Jeshu, I am your Majesty’s countryman, I care not who know it. I will confess it to all the ’orld. I need not to be ashamed of your Majesty, praised be God, so long as your Majesty is an honest man.

Henry V, King of England:God keep me so.—Our heralds, go with him. Bring me just notice of the numbers dead On both our parts. [Montjoy, English Heralds, and Gower exit.] [Enter Williams.] Call yonder fellow hither.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Soldier, you must come to the King.

Henry V, King of England:Soldier, why wear’st thou that glove in thy cap?

Michael Williams:An ’t please your Majesty, ’tis the gage of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive.

Henry V, King of England:An Englishman?

Michael Williams:An ’t please your Majesty, a rascal that swaggered with me last night, who, if alive and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o’ th’ ear, or if I can see my glove in his cap, which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear if alive, I will strike it out soundly.

Henry V, King of England:What think you, Captain Fluellen, is it fit this soldier keep his oath?

Captain Fluellen:He is a craven and a villain else, an ’t please your Majesty, in my conscience.

Henry V, King of England:It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, quite from the answer of his degree.

Captain Fluellen:Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as Lucifer and Beelzebub himself, it is necessary, look your Grace, that he keep his vow and his oath. If he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jack Sauce as ever his black shoe trod upon God’s ground and His earth, in my conscience, la.

Henry V, King of England:Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet’st the fellow.

Michael Williams:So I will, my liege, as I live.

Henry V, King of England:Who serv’st thou under?

Michael Williams:Under Captain Gower, my liege.

Captain Fluellen:Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and literatured in the wars.

Henry V, King of England:Call him hither to me, soldier.

Michael Williams:I will, my liege.

He exits.

Henry V, King of England:[giving Fluellen Williams’s glove] Here, Fluellen, wear thou this favor for me, and stick it in thy cap. When Alençon and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm. If any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon and an enemy to our person. If thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.

Captain Fluellen:[putting the glove in his cap] Your Grace does me as great honors as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects. I would fain see the man that has but two legs that shall find himself aggriefed at this glove, that is all; but I would fain see it once, an please God of His grace that I might see.

Henry V, King of England:Know’st thou Gower?

Captain Fluellen:He is my dear friend, an please you.

Henry V, King of England:Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.

Captain Fluellen:I will fetch him.

He exits.

Henry V, King of England:My Lord of Warwick and my brother Gloucester, Follow Fluellen closely at the heels. The glove which I have given him for a favor May haply purchase him a box o’ th’ ear. It is the soldier’s. I by bargain should Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick. If that the soldier strike him, as I judge By his blunt bearing he will keep his word, Some sudden mischief may arise of it, For I do know Fluellen valiant And, touched with choler, hot as gunpowder, And quickly will return an injury. Follow, and see there be no harm between them.— Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.

They exit.

Scene 8

Enter Gower and Williams.

Michael Williams:I warrant it is to knight you, captain.

Enter Fluellen, wearing Williams’s glove.

Captain Fluellen:[to Gower] God’s will and His pleasure, captain, I beseech you now, come apace to the King. There is more good toward you peradventure than is in your knowledge to dream of.

Michael Williams:[to Fluellen, pointing to the glove in his own hat] Sir, know you this glove?

Captain Fluellen:Know the glove? I know the glove is a glove.

Michael Williams:I know this, and thus I challenge it.

Strikes him.

Captain Fluellen:’Sblood, an arrant traitor as any ’s in the universal world, or in France, or in England!

Captain Gower:[to Williams] How now, sir? You villain!

Michael Williams:Do you think I’ll be forsworn?

Captain Fluellen:Stand away, Captain Gower. I will give treason his payment into plows, I warrant you.

Michael Williams:I am no traitor.

Captain Fluellen:That’s a lie in thy throat.—I charge you in his Majesty’s name, apprehend him. He’s a friend of the Duke Alençon’s.

Enter Warwick and Gloucester.

Earl of Warwick:How now, how now, what’s the matter?

Captain Fluellen:My Lord of Warwick, here is, praised be God for it, a most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall desire in a summer’s day. [Enter King of England and Exeter.] Here is his Majesty.

Henry V, King of England:How now, what’s the matter?

Captain Fluellen:My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that, look your Grace, has struck the glove which your Majesty is take out of the helmet of Alençon.

Michael Williams:My liege, this was my glove; here is the fellow of it. And he that I gave it to in change promised to wear it in his cap. I promised to strike him if he did. I met this man with my glove in his cap, and I have been as good as my word.

Captain Fluellen:Your Majesty, hear now, saving your Majesty’s manhood, what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy knave it is. I hope your Majesty is pear me testimony and witness and will avouchment that this is the glove of Alençon that your Majesty is give me, in your conscience now.

Henry V, King of England:[to Williams] Give me thy glove, soldier. Look, here is the fellow of it. ’Twas I indeed thou promised’st to strike, And thou hast given me most bitter terms.

Captain Fluellen:An please your Majesty, let his neck answer for it, if there is any martial law in the world.

Henry V, King of England:[to Williams] How canst thou make me satisfaction?

Michael Williams:All offenses, my lord, come from the heart. Never came any from mine that might offend your Majesty.

Henry V, King of England:It was ourself thou didst abuse.

Michael Williams:Your Majesty came not like yourself. You appeared to me but as a common man; witness the night, your garments, your lowliness. And what your Highness suffered under that shape, I beseech you take it for your own fault and not mine, for, had you been as I took you for, I made no offense. Therefore, I beseech your Highness pardon me.

Henry V, King of England:Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns And give it to this fellow.—Keep it, fellow, And wear it for an honor in thy cap Till I do challenge it.—Give him the crowns.— And, captain, you must needs be friends with him.

Captain Fluellen:By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough in his belly.—Hold, there is twelvepence for you, and I pray you to serve God and keep you out of prawls and prabbles and quarrels and dissensions, and I warrant you it is the better for you.

Michael Williams:I will none of your money.

Captain Fluellen:It is with a good will. I can tell you it will serve you to mend your shoes. Come, wherefore should you be so pashful? Your shoes is not so good. ’Tis a good silling, I warrant you, or I will change it.

Enter an English Herald.

Henry V, King of England:Now, herald, are the dead numbered?

Herald:[giving the King a paper] Here is the number of the slaughtered French.

Henry V, King of England:[to Exeter] What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Charles, Duke of Orléans, nephew to the King; John, Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt. Of other lords and barons, knights and squires, Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.

Henry V, King of England:This note doth tell me of ten thousand French That in the field lie slain. Of princes in this number And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead One hundred twenty-six. Added to these, Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen, Eight thousand and four hundred, of the which Five hundred were but yesterday dubbed knights. So that in these ten thousand they have lost, There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries. The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires, And gentlemen of blood and quality. The names of those their nobles that lie dead: Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France; Jacques of Chatillon, Admiral of France; The Master of the Crossbows, Lord Rambures; Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dauphin; John, Duke of Alençon; Anthony, Duke of Brabant, The brother to the Duke of Burgundy; And Edward, Duke of Bar. Of lusty earls: Grandpré and Roussi, Faulconbridge and Foix, Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrale. Here was a royal fellowship of death. Where is the number of our English dead? [Herald gives him another paper.] Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire; None else of name, and of all other men But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here, And not to us, but to thy arm alone Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem, But in plain shock and even play of battle, Was ever known so great and little loss On one part and on th’ other? Take it, God, For it is none but thine.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:’Tis wonderful.

Henry V, King of England:Come, go we in procession to the village, And be it death proclaimèd through our host To boast of this or take that praise from God Which is His only.

Captain Fluellen:Is it not lawful, an please your Majesty, to tell how many is killed?

Henry V, King of England:Yes, captain, but with this acknowledgment: That God fought for us.

Captain Fluellen:Yes, my conscience, He did us great good.

Henry V, King of England:Do we all holy rites. Let there be sung Non nobis, and Te Deum, The dead with charity enclosed in clay, And then to Calais, and to England then, Where ne’er from France arrived more happy men.

They exit.

Act 5

Scene 1

Enter Fluellen and Gower.

Captain Gower:Nay, that’s right. But why wear you your leek today? Saint Davy’s day is past.

Captain Fluellen:There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things. I will tell you ass my friend, Captain Gower. The rascally, scald, beggarly, lousy, pragging knave Pistol, which you and yourself and all the world know to be no petter than a fellow, look you now, of no merits, he is come to me and prings me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek. It was in a place where I could not breed no contention with him, but I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires.

Enter Pistol.

Captain Gower:Why here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.

Captain Fluellen:’Tis no matter for his swellings, nor his turkey-cocks.—God pless you, Aunchient Pistol, you scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you.

Pistol:Ha, art thou bedlam? Dost thou thirst, base Trojan, to have me fold up Parca’s fatal web? Hence. I am qualmish at the smell of leek.

Captain Fluellen:I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my desires and my requests and my petitions, to eat, look you, this leek. Because, look you, you do not love it, nor your affections and your appetites and your disgestions does not agree with it, I would desire you to eat it.

Pistol:Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.

Captain Fluellen:There is one goat for you. [(Strikes him with a cudgel.)] Will you be so good, scald knave, as eat it?

Pistol:Base Trojan, thou shalt die.

Captain Fluellen:You say very true, scald knave, when God’s will is. I will desire you to live in the meantime and eat your victuals. Come, there is sauce for it. [Strikes him.] You called me yesterday "mountain squire," but I will make you today a squire of low degree. I pray you, fall to. If you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.

Captain Gower:Enough, captain. You have astonished him.

Captain Fluellen:I say I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days.—Bite, I pray you. It is good for your green wound and your ploody coxcomb.

Pistol:Must I bite?

Captain Fluellen:Yes, certainly, and out of doubt and out of question, too, and ambiguities.

Pistol:By this leek, I will most horribly revenge. [Fluellen threatens him.] I eat and eat, I swear—

Captain Fluellen:Eat, I pray you. Will you have some more sauce to your leek? There is not enough leek to swear by.

Pistol:Quiet thy cudgel. Thou dost see I eat.

Captain Fluellen:Much good do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, pray you throw none away. The skin is good for your broken coxcomb. When you take occásions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you mock at ’em, that is all.

Pistol:Good.

Captain Fluellen:Ay, leeks is good. Hold you, there is a groat to heal your pate.

Pistol:Me, a groat?

Captain Fluellen:Yes, verily, and in truth you shall take it, or I have another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat.

Pistol:I take thy groat in earnest of revenge.

Captain Fluellen:If I owe you anything, I will pay you in cudgels. You shall be a woodmonger and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God be wi’ you and keep you and heal your pate.

He exits.

Pistol:All hell shall stir for this.

Captain Gower:Go, go. You are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock at an ancient tradition begun upon an honorable respect and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valor, and dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel. You find it otherwise, and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition. Fare you well.

He exits.

Pistol:Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now? News have I that my Doll is dead i’ th’ spital of a malady of France, and there my rendezvous is quite cut off. Old I do wax, and from my weary limbs honor is cudgeled. Well, bawd I’ll turn, and something lean to cutpurse of quick hand. To England will I steal, and there I’ll steal. And patches will I get unto these cudgeled scars, And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.

He exits.

Scene 2

Enter at one door, King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Warwick, Westmoreland, and other Lords. At another, Queen Isabel of France, the King of France, the Princess Katherine and Alice, the Duke of Burgundy, and other French.

Henry V, King of England:Peace to this meeting wherefor we are met. Unto our brother France and to our sister, Health and fair time of day.—Joy and good wishes To our most fair and princely cousin Katherine.— And, as a branch and member of this royalty, By whom this great assembly is contrived, We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy.— And princes French, and peers, health to you all.

King of France:Right joyous are we to behold your face, Most worthy brother England. Fairly met.— So are you, princes English, every one.

Queen Isabel of France:So happy be the issue, brother Ireland, Of this good day and of this gracious meeting, As we are now glad to behold your eyes— Your eyes which hitherto have borne in them Against the French that met them in their bent The fatal balls of murdering basilisks. The venom of such looks, we fairly hope, Have lost their quality, and that this day Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.

Henry V, King of England:To cry "Amen" to that, thus we appear.

Queen Isabel of France:You English princes all, I do salute you.

Duke of Burgundy:My duty to you both, on equal love, Great kings of France and England. That I have labored With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavors To bring your most imperial Majesties Unto this bar and royal interview, Your Mightiness on both parts best can witness. Since, then, my office hath so far prevailed That face to face and royal eye to eye You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me If I demand before this royal view What rub or what impediment there is Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace, Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births, Should not in this best garden of the world, Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage? Alas, she hath from France too long been chased, And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps, Corrupting in its own fertility. Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart, Unprunèd, dies. Her hedges, even-pleached, Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair, Put forth disordered twigs. Her fallow leas The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts That should deracinate such savagery. The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, Wanting the scythe, withal uncorrected, rank, Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burrs, Losing both beauty and utility. And all our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges, Defective in their natures, grow to wildness. Even so our houses and ourselves and children Have lost, or do not learn for want of time, The sciences that should become our country, But grow like savages, as soldiers will That nothing do but meditate on blood, To swearing and stern looks, diffused attire, And everything that seems unnatural. Which to reduce into our former favor You are assembled, and my speech entreats That I may know the let why gentle peace Should not expel these inconveniences And bless us with her former qualities.

Henry V, King of England:If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace, Whose want gives growth to th’ imperfections Which you have cited, you must buy that peace With full accord to all our just demands, Whose tenors and particular effects You have, enscheduled briefly, in your hands.

Duke of Burgundy:The King hath heard them, to the which as yet There is no answer made.

Henry V, King of England:Well then, the peace which you before so urged Lies in his answer.

King of France:I have but with a cursitory eye O’erglanced the articles. Pleaseth your Grace To appoint some of your council presently To sit with us once more with better heed To resurvey them, we will suddenly Pass our accept and peremptory answer.

Henry V, King of England:Brother, we shall.—Go, uncle Exeter, And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester, Warwick, and Huntington, go with the King, And take with you free power to ratify, Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best Shall see advantageable for our dignity, Anything in or out of our demands, And we’ll consign thereto.—Will you, fair sister, Go with the princes or stay here with us?

Queen Isabel of France:Our gracious brother, I will go with them. Haply a woman’s voice may do some good When articles too nicely urged be stood on.

Henry V, King of England:Yet leave our cousin Katherine here with us. She is our capital demand, comprised Within the forerank of our articles.

Queen Isabel of France:She hath good leave.

All but Katherine, and the King of England, and Alice exit.

Henry V, King of England:Fair Katherine, and most fair, Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms Such as will enter at a lady’s ear And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?

Katherine:Your Majesty shall mock at me. I cannot speak your England.

Henry V, King of England:O fair Katherine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?

Katherine:Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell wat is "like me."

Henry V, King of England:An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.

Katherine:[to Alice] Que dit-il? Que je suis semblable à les anges?

Alice:Oui, vraiment, sauf votre Grâce, ainsi dit-il.

Henry V, King of England:I said so, dear Katherine, and I must not blush to affirm it.

Katherine:Ô bon Dieu, les langues des hommes sont pleines de tromperies.

Henry V, King of England:[to Alice] What says she, fair one? That the tongues of men are full of deceits?

Alice:Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits; dat is de Princess.

Henry V, King of England:The Princess is the better Englishwoman.— I’ faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding. I am glad thou canst speak no better English, for if thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say "I love you." Then if you urge me farther than to say "Do you, in faith?" I wear out my suit. Give me your answer, i’ faith, do; and so clap hands and a bargain. How say you, lady?

Katherine:Sauf votre honneur, me understand well.

Henry V, King of England:Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me. For the one, I have neither words nor measure; and for the other, I have no strength in measure, yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a lady at leapfrog or by vaulting into my saddle with my armor on my back, under the correction of bragging be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife. Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favors, I could lay on like a butcher and sit like a jackanapes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation, only downright oaths, which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for love of anything he sees there, let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier. If thou canst love me for this, take me. If not, to say to thee that I shall die is true, but for thy love, by the Lord, no. Yet I love thee too. And while thou liv’st, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy, for he perforce must do thee right because he hath not the gift to woo in other places. For these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favors, they do always reason themselves out again. What? A speaker is but a prater, a rhyme is but a ballad, a good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me. And take me, take a soldier. Take a soldier, take a king. And what say’st thou then to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.

Katherine:Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?

Henry V, King of England:No, it is not possible you should love the enemy of France, Kate. But, in loving me, you should love the friend of France, for I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it. I will have it all mine. And, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.

Katherine:I cannot tell wat is dat.

Henry V, King of England:No, Kate? I will tell thee in French, which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband’s neck, hardly to be shook off. Je quand sur le possession de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi—let me see, what then? Saint Denis be my speed!—donc vôtre est France, et vous êtes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French. I shall never move thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me.

Katherine:Sauf votre honneur, le français que vous parlez, il est meilleur que l’anglais lequel je parle.

Henry V, King of England:No, faith, is ’t not, Kate, but thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely must needs be granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English? Canst thou love me?

Katherine:I cannot tell.

Henry V, King of England:Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I’ll ask them. Come, I know thou lovest me; and at night, when you come into your closet, you’ll question this gentlewoman about me, and, I know, Kate, you will, to her, dispraise those parts in me that you love with your heart. But, good Kate, mock me mercifully, the rather, gentle princess, because I love thee cruelly. If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall not thou and I, between Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard? Shall we not? What say’st thou, my fair flower de luce?

Katherine:I do not know dat.

Henry V, King of England:No, ’tis hereafter to know, but now to promise. Do but now promise, Kate, you will endeavor for your French part of such a boy; and for my English moiety, take the word of a king and a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon très cher et divin déesse?

Katherine:Your Majesté ’ave fausse French enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle dat is en France.

Henry V, King of England:Now fie upon my false French. By mine honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate. By which honor I dare not swear thou lovest me, yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now beshrew my father’s ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when he got me; therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear. My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face. Thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst, and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better. And therefore tell me, most fair Katherine, will you have me? Put off your maiden blushes, avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress, take me by the hand, and say "Harry of England, I am thine," which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud "England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet is thine," who, though I speak it before his face, if he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your answer in broken music, for thy voice is music, and thy English broken. Therefore, queen of all, Katherine, break thy mind to me in broken English. Wilt thou have me?

Katherine:Dat is as it shall please de roi mon père.

Henry V, King of England:Nay, it will please him well, Kate; it shall please him, Kate.

Katherine:Den it sall also content me.

Henry V, King of England:Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my queen.

Katherine:Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur, en baisant la main d’ une—Notre Seigneur!— indigne serviteur. Excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon très puissant seigneur.

Henry V, King of England:Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.

Katherine:Les dames et demoiselles, pour être baisées devant leurs noces, il n’est pas la coutume de France.

Henry V, King of England:Madam my interpreter, what says she?

Alice:Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of France—I cannot tell wat is baiser en Anglish.

Henry V, King of England:To kiss.

Alice:Your Majesté entendre bettre que moi.

Henry V, King of England:It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say?

Alice:Oui, vraiment.

Henry V, King of England:O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country’s fashion. We are the makers of manners, Kate, and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults, as I will do yours for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss. Therefore, patiently and yielding. [He kisses her.] You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate. There is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council, and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs. [Enter the French power, the French King and Queen and Burgundy, and the English Lords Westmoreland and Exeter.] Here comes your father.

Duke of Burgundy:God save your Majesty. My royal cousin, teach you our princess English?

Henry V, King of England:I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her, and that is good English.

Duke of Burgundy:Is she not apt?

Henry V, King of England:Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth, so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her that he will appear in his true likeness.

Duke of Burgundy:Pardon the frankness of my mirth if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if conjure up Love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you blame her, then, being a maid yet rosed over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to.

Henry V, King of England:Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.

Duke of Burgundy:They are then excused, my lord, when they see not what they do.

Henry V, King of England:Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.

Duke of Burgundy:I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach her to know my meaning, for maids well summered and warm kept are like flies at Bartholomew-tide: blind, though they have their eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on.

Henry V, King of England:This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer. And so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she must be blind too.

Duke of Burgundy:As love is, my lord, before it loves.

Henry V, King of England:It is so. And you may, some of you, thank love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair French maid that stands in my way.

King of France:Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid, for they are all girdled with maiden walls that war hath never entered.

Henry V, King of England:Shall Kate be my wife?

King of France:So please you.

Henry V, King of England:I am content, so the maiden cities you talk of may wait on her. So the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will.

King of France:We have consented to all terms of reason.

Henry V, King of England:Is ’t so, my lords of England?

Earl of Westmoreland:The King hath granted every article, His daughter first, and, in sequel, all, According to their firm proposèd natures.

Thomas, Duke of Exeter:Only he hath not yet subscribèd this: Where your Majesty demands that the King of France, having any occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your Highness in this form and with this addition, in French: Notre très cher fils Henri, roi d’ Angleterre, héritier de France; and thus in Latin: Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, rex Angliae et hœres Franciae.

King of France:Nor this I have not, brother, so denied But your request shall make me let it pass.

Henry V, King of England:I pray you, then, in love and dear alliance, Let that one article rank with the rest, And thereupon give me your daughter.

King of France:Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up Issue to me, that the contending kingdoms Of France and England, whose very shores look pale With envy of each other’s happiness, May cease their hatred, and this dear conjunction Plant neighborhood and Christian-like accord In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance His bleeding sword ’twixt England and fair France.

Earl of Huntington:Amen.

Henry V, King of England:Now welcome, Kate, and bear me witness all That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.

He kisses her. Flourish.

Queen Isabel of France:God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one. As man and wife, being two, are one in love, So be there ’twixt your kingdoms such a spousal That never may ill office or fell jealousy, Which troubles oft the bed of blessèd marriage, Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms To make divorce of their incorporate league, That English may as French, French Englishmen, Receive each other. God speak this Amen!

Henry V, King of England, Earl of Westmoreland, Thomas, Duke of Exeter, King of France, Duke of Burgundy, Katherine, Alice:Amen.

Henry V, King of England:Prepare we for our marriage; on which day, My Lord of Burgundy, we’ll take your oath, And all the peers’, for surety of our leagues. Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me, And may our oaths well kept and prosp’rous be.

Sennet. They exit.