Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.

:

Go, bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour 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.

Mont. I shall deliver so.
highness.

Thanks to your Exit. Glou. I hope they will not come upon us now. K. Hen. We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.

180

March to the bridge; it now draws toward night:
Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,
And on to-morrow bid them march away. Exeunt.

170

SCENE VII.-The French Camp, near Agincourt. Enter the Constable of France, the Lord RAMBURES, the Duke of ORLEANS, the DAUPHIN,

and Others.

Dau. My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you talk of horse and armour

Orl. You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.

10

Dau. What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, 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.

Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg. 20 Dau. 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.

Con. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.

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

Orl. No more, cousin.

Dau. 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! '-Orl. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.

!

Dau. Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser; for my horse is my mistress. Orl. Your mistress bears well.

31

Dau. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress. Con. Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back. Dau. So perhaps did yours.

52

Con. Mine was not bridled.

Con. I could make as true a boast as that if I had a sow to my mistress.

Dau. Le chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier: thou makest use of any thing.

70

Con. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress; or any such proverb so little kin to the

Ram. My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?

Con. Stars, my lord.

Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope. Con. And yet my sky shall not want.

Dau. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and 'twere more honour some were away.

82

Con. Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well were some of your brags dismounted.

Dau. 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.

Con. 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.

93

Ram. Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?

Con. You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.

Dau. "Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.

Exit.

Orl. The Dauphin longs for morning.

Ram. He longs to eat the English.
Con. I think he will eat all he kills.

Orl. By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.

Con. Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.

Orl. He is simply the most active gentleman of France.

Con. Doing is activity, and he will still be doing. Orl. He never did harm, that I heard of. Con. Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name still.

111

Orl. I know him to be valiant.

Con. I was told that by one that knows him better than you.

100

Erp. Not so, my liege: this lodging likes me better,

Since I may say 'Now lie I like a king.'

K. Hen. 'Tis good for men to love their present pains

19

Upon example; so the spirit is eased:
And when the mind is quicken'd, 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. Brothers both,
Commend me to the princes in our camp;
Do my good-morrow to them; and anon
Desire them all to my pavilion.

Glou. We shall, my liege.

Exeunt GLOUCESTER and BEDFORD. Erp. Shall I attend your grace? K. Hen. No, my good knight; Go with my brothers to my lords of England: 30 I and my bosom must debate awhile, And then I would no other company.

Erp. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!

Exit. K. Ilen. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speakest cheerfully.

Enter PISTOL.

Pist. Qui va là?

K. Hen. A friend.

40

Pist. Discuss unto me; art thou officer? Or art thou base, common and popular? K. Hen. I am a gentleman of a company. Pist. Trail'st thou the puissant pike? K. Hen. Even so. What are you? Pist. As good a gentleman as the emperor. K. Hen. Then you are a better than the king. Pist. 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 heart-string

I love the lovely bully. What's thy name?
K. Hen. Harry le Roy.

Pist. Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou
Cornish crew?

K. Hen. No, I am a Welshman.
Pist. Know'st thou Fluellen ?

K. Hen. Yes.

of

50

Pist. Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate Upon Saint Davy's day.

K. Hen. Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that about yours. Pist. Art thou his friend?

K. Hen. And his kinsman too. Pist. The figo for thee then!

K. Hen. I thank you. God be with you! Pist. My name is Pistol called.

60

Exit.

K. Hen. It sorts well with your fierceness.
Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER severally.
Gow. Captain Fluellen!

Flu. So in the name of Cheshu Christ, speak lower. 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 pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and the

cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise. Gow. Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.

Flu. 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? Gow. I will speak lower.

82

Flu. I pray you and peseech you that you will. Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN.

K. Hen. Though it appear a little out of fashion, There is much care and valour in this Welshman.

Enter JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT, and MICHAEL WILLIAMS.

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

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

Will. We see yonder the beginning of the day but I think we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?

K. Hen. A friend.

Will. Under what captain serve you? K. Hen. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

92

Bates. He hath not told his thought to the king? K. Hen. No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.

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

120

K. Hen. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king: I think he would not wish himself any where but where he is.

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

K. Hen. I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds. Methinks I could not die any where so contented as in the king's company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.

Will. That's more than we know.

132

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 ont of us.

Will. 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 any thing when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it, whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

153

K. Hen. So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him or if a servant, under his master's command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's damnation. But this is

not so the king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death when they purpose their services. Besides there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some, peradventure, have on 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.

197

Will. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head; the king is not to answer it. Bates. I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to fight lustily for him. K. Hen. I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.

Will. Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our throats are cut he may be ransomed, and we ne'er the wiser.

K. Hen. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

208

Will. You pay him then. That's a perilous

K. Hen. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it. Will. Thou darest as well be hanged. K. Ilen. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the king's company.

Will. Keep thy word: fare thee well. Bates. Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.

239

K. Hen. 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 to-morrow the king himself will be a clipper. Exeunt Soldiers.

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 250
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 worshippers?
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 fear'd,
Than they in fearing.

290

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, But poison'd 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,

271

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 sceptre and the ball,

The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced 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,

282

290

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, cramm'd 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 labour to his grave:
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand 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,

Orl. Rien puis? l'air et le feu !

Dau. Ciel cousin Orleans.

Enter Constable.

Now, my lord constable !

Con. Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh!

Dau. Mount them, and make incision in their hides,

That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, And dout them with superfluous courage, ha! 11 Ram. What! will you have them weep our horses' blood?

How shall we then behold their natural tears? Enter a Messenger.

Mess. The English are embattail'd, you French peers.

Con. To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse!

Do but behold yon poor and starved 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 20
To give each naked curtal-axe a stain,

Seek through your camp to find you. K. Hen.

300

Collect them all together at my tent:
I'll be before thee.
Erp.
I shall do 't, my lord. Exit.
K. Hen. O God of battles! steel my soldiers'
hearts;

Possess them not with fear; take from them now The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord!

310

O! not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown.
I Richard's body have interred new,
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a day their wither'd 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.

Glou. My liege!

30

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.

Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?

40

K. Hen. 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.

SCENE II.-The French Camp.

Exeunt.

Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips,