K. Hen. V. My lord chief justice, speak to that vain man. Ch. Just. Have you your wits? know you what 'tis you speak? Fal. My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart! K. Hen. V. I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers; 51 60 How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! 70 To see perform'd the tenour of our word. Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. Fal. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this: I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard was but a colour. Shal. A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John. 91 Fal. Fear no colours: go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph: I shall be sent for soon at night. Re-enter JOHN OF LANCASTER, the Lord Chief Justice; Officers with them. Ch. Just. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Take all his company along with him. First my fear; then my courtesy; last my speech. My fear is your displeasure, my courtesy my duty, and my speech to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me; for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a better. I did mean indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some; and as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. 129 If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen. 147 THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. } DRAMATIS PERSONE. DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, Brothers to the King. DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King. DUKE OF YORK, Cousin to the King. EARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORELAND, and ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. BISHOP OF ELY. EARL OF CAMBRIDGE. LORD SCROOP. SIR THOMAS GREY. SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER, FLUELLEN, BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, Soldiers in the same. PISTOL, NYM, Bardolph. A Herald. CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France. DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURBON. RAMBURES and GRANDPRÉ, French Lords. MONTJOY, a French Herald. Governor of Harfleur. Ambassadors to the King of England. ISABEL, Queen of France. KATHARINE, Daughter to Charles and Isabel. ALICE, a Lady attending on the Princess. Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mis tress Quickly, and now married to Pistol. Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, and Attendants. O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all, And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, On Suppose within the girdle of these walls 10 Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times, Who prologue-like your humble patience pray, 30 Exit. London. An Antechamber in the Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and Cant. My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign But that the scambling and unquiet time Did push it out of further question. Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? against us, If it pass We lose the better half of our possession; For all the temporal lands which men devout 20 By testament have given to the church Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them 10 Would they strip from us; being valued thus: A thousand pounds by the year. Thus runs the bill. Ely. This would drink deep. "Twould drink the cup and all. 20 And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him, To envelop and contain celestial spirits. So soon did lose his seat and all at once As in this king. 30 41 Ely. We are blessed in the change. Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity, And, all-admiring, with an inward wish You would desire the king were made a prelate: Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs, You would say it hath been all in all his study : List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle render'd you in 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 charter'd libertine, is still, 50 And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality: And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt, Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty. 60 SCENE II.-The Same. The Presence Chamber. Enter King HENRY, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants. K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury? Exe. Not here in presence. K. Hen. Before we hear him, of some things of weight Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and the Bishop of ELY. Cant. God and his angels guard your sacred throne, 10 And make you long become it! Or nicely charge your understanding soul drops 20 Are every one a woe, a sore complaint 'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the swords That make such waste in brief mortality. And we will hear, note, and believe in heart Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers, That owe yourselves, your lives, and services There left behind and settled certain French; Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say, 69 Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair, 80 By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great 90 Was re-united to the crown of France. this claim? Cant. 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, 100 110 Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, And with your puissant arm renew their feats: You are their heir, you sit upon their throne, The blood and courage that renowned them Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege Is in the very May-morn of his youth, Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises. Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, As did the former lions of your blood. 120 Cant. 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. K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the French, But lay down our proportions to defend Against the Scot, who will make road upon us With all advantages. Cant. They of those marches, gracious sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend 140 K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only, But fear the main intendment of the Scot, 150 Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege; For hear her but exampled by herself: 160 To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings, 230 Tombless, with no remembrance over them : Enter Ambassadors of France. Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure 170 Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear Your greeting is from him, not from the king. First Amb. May 't please your majesty to give us leave Exe. It follows then the cat must stay at home: Yet that is but a crush'd necessity, Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves. While that the armed hand doth fight abroad The advised head defends itself at home: For government, though high and low and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one consent, Congreeing in a full and natural close, Like music. Cant. 181 190 Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, Obedience: for so work the honey-bees, Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king and officers of sorts; Where some, like magistrates, correct at home, Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad, Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; Which pillage they with merry march bring home 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-ey'd justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy yawning drone. I this infer, That many things, having full reference To one consent, may work contrariously; As many arrows, loosed several ways, Tell us the Dauphin's mind. In answer of which claim, the prince our master Tennis-balls, my liege. K. Hen. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us; 259 200 His present and your pains we thank you for : When we have match'd 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 Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town; 210 As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea; 220 O'er France and all her almost kiugly dukedoms, Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, That all the courts of France will be disturb'd 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; |