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K. Hen. V. I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;

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Lanc. I like this fair proceeding of the king's.
He hath intent his wonted followers
Shall all be very well provided for;
But all are banish'd till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.
Ch. Just. And so they are.
Lanc. The king hath call'd his parliament, my
lord.

Ch. Just. He hath.

Lanc. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire,

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How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane;
But, being awak'd, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was ;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
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We will, according to your strength and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my
lord,

To see perform'd the tenour of our word.
Set on.

Exeunt King HENRY V. and his Train.
Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand

pound.

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

Fal. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this: I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your 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.

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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

Fleet;

Take all his company along with him.
Fal. My lord, my lord!

We bear our civil swords and native fire 110
As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleas'd the king.
Come, will you hence?

EPILOGUE

SPOKEN BY A DANCER.

Exeunt.

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. 19

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 you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, 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.

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Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, and Attendants.

ACT I.

Chorus.

SCENE.-England; afterwards France.

Enter CHORUS.

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

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.
Then should the war-like Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and

fire

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dar'd
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;

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

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20 By testament have given to the church
Would they strip from us; being valued thus:
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,

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

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Ely. This would drink deep.

Cant.

Thus runs the

'Twould drink the cup and all. 20
Ely. But what prevention?
Cant. The king is full of grace and fair regard.
Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.
Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came,

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

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

Never came reformation in a flood,

With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat and all at once

As in this king.
Ely.

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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,

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

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Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain;

His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the
nettle,

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

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

Ely.

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But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty

Incline to it, or no?

Cant.

He seems indifferent,

Or rather swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us;
For I have made an offer to his majesty,
Upon our spiritual convocation,
And in regard of causes now in hand,

Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France, to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

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Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?

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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 Canter.
bury?

Exe. Not here in presence.
K. Hen.
Send for him, good uncle.
West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege!
K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin: we would be
resolv'd,

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

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Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the

swords

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

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and

you peers,

Em

this

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 Salique land :'
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze 40
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique 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,
Establish'd then this law; to wit, no female 50
Should be inheritrix in Salique land:

Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.
Then doth it well appear the Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France;
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of King Pharamond,
Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;

Who died within the year of our redemption se
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year
Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed 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 usurp'd the crown

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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,
Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lor-
raine:

Descend unto the daughter.' Gracious lord, 100
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 war-likespirit,
And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France;
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.
O noble English! that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France,
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action.

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And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

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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 sove-
reign,

Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

80 Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

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

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France

So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
To bar your highness' claiming from the female;
And rather choose to hide them in a net

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That England, being empty of defence,

Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbour

hood.

Than amply to imbar their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;

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

Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!

For in the book of Numbers is it writ:
When the man dies, let the inheritance

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

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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 wreck and sumless treasuries.

West. But there's a saying very old and true;
If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin:

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 worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.

Enter Ambassadors of France.

For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs, Your greeting is from him, not from the king.

Playing the mouse in absence of the cat, To tear and havoc more than she can eat.

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Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear

First Amb. May 't please your majesty to give us leave

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Tell us the Dauphin's mind.
First Amb.

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 savour too much of your youth, 250
And bids you be advis'd there's nought 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.
K. Hen. What treasure, uncle?
Exe.

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:

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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

Tennis-balls, my liege.

K. Hen. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;

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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,

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

That many things, having full reference To one consent, may work contrariously; As many arrows, loosed several ways,

wrangler

!

Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one

town;

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As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;
As many lines close in the dial's centre;
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.

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That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
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 valu'd 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. 200
And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful

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