40

scorn.

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yet ?

300

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21

And some are yet ungotten and unborn

To give you gentle pass ; for if we may, That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's We'll not offend one stomach with our play.

But, till the king come forth and not till then, But this lies all within the will of God,

Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.

Exit. 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

SCENE I.-London. Eastcheap.
My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.

Enter Nym and BARDOLPH.
So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin Bard. Well met, Corporal Nym.
His jest will savour but of shallow wit

Nym. Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph. When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.

Bard. What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.

Exeunt Ambassadors.

Nym. For my part, I care not : I say little ; Exe. This was a merry message.

but when time shall serve there shall be smiles ; K. Hen. We hope to make the sender blush at it. but that shall be as it may. I dare not fight; Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour

but I will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a That may give furtherance to our expedition ;

simple one; but what though ? it will toast For we have now no thought in us but France,

cheese, and it will endure cold as another man's Save those to God, that run before our business. sword will: and there's an end. Therefore let our proportions for these wars Bard. I will bestow a breakfast to make you Be soon collected, and all things thought upon

friends, and we'll be all three sworn brothers to That may with reasonable swiftness add

France: let it be so, good Corporal Nym. More feathers to our wings; for, God before,

Nym. Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.

the certain of it; and when I cannot live any Therefore let every man now task his thought,

longer, I will do as I may: that is my rest, that That this fair action may on foot be brought.

is the rendezvous of it. E.reunt. Flourish.

Bard. It is certain, corporal, that he is married

to Nell Quickly; and certainly she did you wrong, ACT II.

for you were troth-plight to her.

Nym. I cannot tell; things must be as they Enter CHORUS.

may : men may sleep, and they may have their

throats about them at that time, and some say Now all the youth of England are on fire

knives have edges. It must be as it may: though And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies ;

patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod. There Nou thrive the armourers, and honour's thought

must be conclusions. Well, I cannot tell. Reigns solely in the breast of every man: They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,

Enter PISTOL and Hostess. Pollowing the mirror of all Christian kings,

Bard. Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. With winged heels, as English Mercuries.

Good corporal, be patient here. How now, mine Por now sits Expectation in the air,

host Pistol ! And hides a sword from hilts unto the point

Pist. Base tike, call'st thou me host ? With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets, 10 Now, by this hand I swear, I scorn the term ; Promised to Harry and his followers.

Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers. The French, advis'd by good intelligence

Host. No, by my troth, not long ; for we can. Of this most dreadful preparation,

not lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentleShake in their fear, and with pale policy

women that live honestly by the prick of their Seek to divert the English purposes.

needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdy. O England! model to thy inward greatness, house straight.

NYM and PISTOL draw. Like little body with a mighty heart,

O well-a-day, Lady ! if he be not drawn now : we What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do, shall see wilful adultery and murder committed. Were all thy children kind and natural !

Bard. Good lieutenant ! good corporall offer But see thy fault! Prance hath in thee found out nothing here. A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills

Nym. Pish! With treacherous crowns ; and three corrupted men, Pist. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prickOne, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second, ear'd cur of Iceland ! Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third, Host. Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland, and put up your sword. Have, for the guilt of France, - guilt indeed !- Nym. Will you shog off? I would have you solus. Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful Prance ;

Pist. Solus, egregious dog? O viper vile ! And by their hands this grace of kings must die, The solus in thy most mervailous face ; If hell and treason hold their promises,

The solus in thy teeth, and in thy throat,
Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton. And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy;
Linger your patience on; and well digest 31 And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
The abuse of distance while we force a play. I do retort the solus in thy bowels ;
The sum is paid ; the traitors are agreed ;

For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,
The king is set from London ; and the scene And flashing fire will follow.
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton :

Nym. I am not Barbason ; you cannot conjure There is the playhouse now,

there must you sit : me. I have an humour to knock you indifferently And thence to France shall we convey you safe, well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I will And bring you back, charming the narrow seas scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms :

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:

21

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;

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79

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if you would walk off, I would prick your guts a quickly to Sir John. Ah! poor heart, he is 80 little, in good terms, as I may; and that's the shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is humour of it.

most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come Pist. O braggart vile and damned furious wight! | to him. The grave doth gape, and doting death is near ; Nym. The king hath run bad humours on the Therefore exhale.

knight; that's the even of it. Bard. Hear me, hear me what I say: he that Pist. Nym, thou hast spoke the right; strikes the first stroke, I'll run him up to the hilts, His heart is fracted and corroborate. as I am a soldier.

Draws. Nym. The king is a good king : but it must be Pist. An oath of mickle might; and fury shall as it may; he passes some humours and careers. abate.

Pist. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give;

we will live.

Exeunt. Thy spirits are most tall. Nym. I will cut thy throat, one time or other,

SCENE II. —Southampton. A Council Chamber. in fair terms; that is the humour of it. Pist. Coupe la gorge !

Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND. That is the word. Í thee defy again.

Bed. 'Fore God, his grace is bold to trust O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get? these traitors. No; to the spital go,

Exe. They shall be apprehended by and by. And from the powdering-tub of infamy

West. How smooth and even they do bear Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,

themselves !
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse: As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.
For the only she; and-pauca, there's enough.

Bed. The king hath note of all that they intend, Go to.

By interception which they dream not of.
Enter the Boy.

E.ce. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow, Boy. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious master, and your hostess : he is very sick, and favours, would to bed. Good Bardolph, put thy face That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell between his sheets and do the office of a warm- His sovereign's life to death and treachery! ing-pan. Faith, he 's very ill. Bard. Away, you rogue !

Trumpets sound. Enter King HENRY, SCROOP, Host. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a

CAMBRIDGE, GREY, Lords, and Attendants. pudding one of these days. The king has killed

K. Hen. Now sits the wind fair, and we will his heart. Good husband, come home presently.

aboard. Exeunt Hostess and Boy. My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Bard. Come, shall I make you two friends? We

Masham, must to France together. Why the devil should And you, my gentle knight, give me your we keep knives to cut one another's throats ? thoughts : Pist. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food Think you not that the powers we bear with us howl on!

Will cut their passage through the force of Nym. You 'll pay me the eight shillings I won

France, of you at betting ?

Doing the execution and the act Pist. Base is the slave that pays.

For which we have in head assembled them ? Nym. That now I will have; that's the Scroop. No doubt, my liege, if each man do humour of it.

his best. Pist. As manhood shall compound: push

K. Hen. I doubt not that ; since we are well home.

They draw. persuaded Bard. By this sword, he that makes the first We carry not a heart with us from hence thrust, I'll kill him ; by this sword, I will.

That grows not in a fair consent with ours; Pist. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish their course.

Success and conquest to attend on us. Bard. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends,

Cam. Never was monarch better fear'd and be friends : an thou wilt not, why then, be

lov'd enemies with me too. Prithee, put up.

Than is your majesty: there's not, I think, a Nym. I shall have my eight shillings I won of

subject you at betting ?

That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness Pist. A noble shalt thou have, and present pay ; Under the sweet shade of your government. And liquor likewise will I give to thee,

Grey. True: those that were your father's And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood :

enemies I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me.

Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve Is not this just ? for I shall sutler be

you Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.

With hearts create of duty and of zeal. Give me thy hand.

K. Hen. We therefore have great cause of Nym. I shall have my noble ?

thankfulness, Pist. In cash most justly paid.

And shall forget the office of our hand,
Nym. Well then, that's the humour of ’t. 120

Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
Re-enter Hostess.

According to the weight and worthiness.

Scroop. So service shall with steeled sinews Host. As ever you came of women, come in toil,

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110

And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
To do your grace incessant services.

40

K. Hen. We judge no less.
Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday
That rail'd against our person we consider
It was excess of wine that set him on ;
And on his more advice we pardon him.

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 might'st have coin'd me into gold
Would'st thou have practis'd 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

100

Scroop. That's mercy, but too much security: Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind. K. Hen. O let us yet be merciful.

Cam. So may your highness, and yet punish 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,

too. Grey. Sir,

110

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, colours, and with forms, being
fetch'd

You show great mercy, if you give him life,
After the taste of much correction.

K. Hen. Alas! your too much love and care
of me

50

Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our

eye

When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, 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 punish'd.

French causes :

Who are the late commissioners?

From glistering semblances of piety;
But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,
And now to our Gave thee no instance why thou should'st do

60

Cam. I one, my lord:

Your highness bade me ask for it to-day.
Scroop. So did you me, my liege.
Grey. And I, my royal sovereign.

K. Hen. 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 to-night. Why, how now, gentle-

men !

71

What see you in those papers that you lose
So much complexion? Look ye, how they
change!

Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you
there,
That hath so cowarded and chas'd your blood
Out of appearance ?

Cam.
I do confess my fault,
And do submit me to your highness' mercy.
Grey, Scroop. To which we all appeal.

K. Hen. The mercy that was quick in us but
late

By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd: 80
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 appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,
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,

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treason,

Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor. 120
If that same demon that hath gull'd 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
learned?

130

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,
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment,
Not working with the eye without the ear,
And but in purged 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 indued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee; 140
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!

Ere. 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.

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Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath dis-
cover'd,

And I repent my fault more than my death;
Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not | for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled seduce,

of green fields. How now, Sir John?' quoth I: 'what, man! be o' good cheer.' So a' cried out God, God, God!' three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him a' should not think of God, I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So a' 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.

Although I did admit it as a motive
The sooner to effect what I intended :
But God be thanked for prevention ;
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

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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 damned enterprise.
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy! Hear
your sentence.

You have conspir'd against our royal person,
Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, and from his

coffers

Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death; Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,

170

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 180
Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence.
Exeunt CAMBRIDGE, SCROOP, and
GREY, guarded.
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 smoothed 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.

:

Exeunt.

Nym. They say he cried out of sack.

Host. Ay, that a' did.

Bard. And of women.

And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck:
Therefore, caveto be thy counsellor.

190

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.

Bard. 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.

Pist. Come, let's away. My love, give me thy
lips.

Look to my chattels and my moveables:
Let senses rule, the word is 'Pitch and pay;'
Trust none;

For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafercakes,

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0

90

As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

Dau. Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward It fits us then to be as provident

dogs As fear may teach us out of late examples Most spend their mouths when what they seem Left by the fatal and neglected English

to threaten Upon our fields.

Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
Dau.

My most redoubted father, Take up the English short, and let them know
It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe; Of what a monarchy you are the head :
For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom, Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
Though war nor no known quarrel were in As self-neglecting.

question,
But that defences, musters, preparations,

Re-enter Lords, with EXETER and Train.
Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,

Pr. King. From our brother England ? As were a war in expectation.

Exe. From him; and thus he greets your Therefore, I say 'tis meet we all go forth

majesty.
To view the sick and feeble parts of France : He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,
And let us do it with no show of fear ;

That you divest yourself, and lay apart
No, with no more than if we heard that England The borrow'd glories that by gift of heaven,
Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance : By law of nature and of nations, 'long
For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd, To him and to his heirs ; namely, the crown
Her sceptre so fantastically borne

And all wide-stretched honours that pertain
By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth, By custom and the ordinance of times
That fear attends her not.

Unto the crown of France. That you may know
Con,

O peace, Prince Dauphin! | 'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,
You are too much mistaken in this king. 30 Pick'd from the worm-holds of long-vanish'd
Question your grace the late ambassadors,

days,
With what great state he heard their embassy, Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd,
How well supplied with noble counsellors, He sends you this most memorable line,
How modest in exception, and withal

Gives a pedigree.
How terrible in constant resolution,

In every branch truly demonstrative;
And you shall find his vanities forespent Willing you overlook this pedigree ;
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus, And when you find him evenly deriv'd
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;

From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
That shall first spring and be most delicate. 40 Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held

Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable; From him the native and true challenger.
But though we think it so, it is no matter : Fr. K’ing. Or else what follows ?
In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh

Exe. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the
The enemy more mighty than he seems :
So the proportions of defence are fill'd; Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it :
Which of a weak and niggardly projection Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting In thunder and in earthquake like a Jove,
A little cloth.

That, if requiring fail, he will compel;
Pr. King. Think we King Harry strong ; And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him. Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us, On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
And he is bred out of that bloody strain 51 Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
That haunted us in our familiar paths :

Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
Witness our too much memorable shame

The dead men's blood, the pining maidens'
When Cressy battle fatally was struck,

groans,
And all our princes captiv'd by the hand For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.
Wales ;

This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my
Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain message ;
standing,

Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun, To whom expressly I bring greeting too.
Saw his heroical seed, and smil'd to see him, Fr. King. For us, we will consider of this
Mangle the work of nature, and deface

further :
The patterns that by God and by French fathers To-morrow shall you bear our full intent
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem Back to our brother England.
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear

Dau.

For the Dauphin, The native mightiness and fate of him.

I stand here for him : what to him from England ?

E.ce. Scorn and defiance; slight regard, con-
Enter a Messenger.

tempt,
Mess. Ambassadors from Harry King of Eng. And any thing that may not misbecome
land

The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Do crave admittance to your majesty.

Thus says my king: an if your father's bighness
Pr. Kiny. We'll give them present audience. Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Go, and bring them.

Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords. He'll call you to so hot an answer of it,
You see this chase is hotly follow'd, friends. That caves and womby vaultages of France

crown

a

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60

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