On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale, [people Our madams mock at us; and plainly say, And teach lavoltas high, and swift corantos; Fr. King. Where is Montjoy, the herald? speed Let him greet England with our sharp defiance. For your great seats, now quit you of great shames. Con. This becomes the great. And let him say to England, that we send SCENE VI.-The English Camp in Picardy. Enter GOWER and FLUELLEN. Gow. How now, captain Fluellen? come you from the bridge? Flu. I assure you, there is very excellent service committed at the pridge. Gow. Is the duke of Exeter safe? Flu. The duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a man, that I love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my life, and my livings, and my uttermost powers: he is not (God be praised, and plessed!) any hurt in the 'orld; but keeps the pridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There is an ensign there at the pridge,-I think, in my very conscience, he is as valiant as Mark Antony; and he is a man of no estimation in the 'orld: but I did see him do gallant service. Gow. What do you call him? Pist. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of Of buxom valour, hath,-by cruel fate, And giddy fortune's furious fickle wheel, That goddess blind, That stands upon the rolling restless stone, Flu. By your patience, ancient Pistol. Fortune is painted plind, with a muffler before her eyes, to signify to you, that fortune is plind: 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 variations, and mutabilities: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls;-In good truth, the poet is make a most excellent description of fortune: fortune, look you, is an excellent moral. [him; Pist. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free; Therefore, go speak, the duke will hear thy voice; Pist. Why then rejoice therefore. Flu. Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at: for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the duke to use his goot pleasure, and put him to executions; for disciplines ought to be used. Pist. Die and be damn'd; and figo for thy friendFlu. It is well. [ship! [Exit Pistol. Pist. The fig of Spain! Flu. Very goot. Gow. Why this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I remember him now; a bawd; a cutpurse. Flu. I'll assure you, 'a utter'd as prave 'ords 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. Gow. 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 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 newtuned 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 marvellous mistook. Flu. I tell you what, captain Gower;-I do perceive, he is not the man that he would gladly make show to the 'orld he is; if I find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind. (Drum heard.) Hark you, the king is coming; and I must speak with him from the pridge. Enter King HENRY, GLOSTER, and Soldiers. K. Hen. How now, Fluellen? camest thou from the bridge? Flu. 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 gal lant 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. K. Hen. What men have you lost, Fluellen? Flu. The perdition of th'athversary hath been very great, very 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 bubuckles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames of fire; and his lips plows 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. K. Hen. 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 sounds. Enter MONTJOY. Mont. You know me by my habit. K. Hen. Well then, I know thee; What shall I Mont. My master's mind. [know of thee? K. Hen. Unfold it. Mont. 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 ransome; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which, in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the 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. K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality. Mont. Montjoy. [back, K. Hen. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee 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 lessen'd; 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 ransome, 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 neighbour, 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. March to the bridge; it now draws toward night :- Orl. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due. Con. It is the best horse of Europe. Orl. Will it never be morning? 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. 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. 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,— [mistress. Orl. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's Dau. Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser; for my horse is my mistress. Orl. Your mistress bears well. Dau. Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress. Con. Ma foy! the other day, methought, your mistress shrewdly shook your back. Dau. So, perhaps, did yours. Con. Mine was not bridled. Dau. O! then, belike, she was old and gentle; and you rodę, like a Kerne of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait trossers. Con. You have good judgment in horsemanship. Dau. 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. Con. I had as lief have my mistress a jade. Dan. I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears. her own hair. 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 vomisse ment, et la truie lavée au bourbier: thou makest use of any thing. Con. Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress; or any such proverb, so little kin to the purpose. Ram. My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars, or suns, upon Con. Stars, my lord. [it? 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. 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 to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces. Con. I will not say so, for fear I should be faced Orl. By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant Orl. I know him to be valiant. Con. I was told that, by one that knows him Orl. What's he? [better than you. Con. Marry, he told me so himself: and he said, Orl. He needs not, it is no hidden virtue in him. Con. By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it, but his lackey: 'tis a hooded valour; and, when it appears, it will bate. he cared not who knew it. Orl. Ill will never said well. Con. I will cap that proverb with-There is flattery in friendship. [devil his due. Orl. And I will take up that with-Give the Con. Well placed; there stands your friend for the devil: have at the very eye of that proverb, with-A pox of the devil. Orl. You are the better at proverbs, by how much-A fool's bolt is soon shot. Con. You have shot over. Orl. 'Tis not the first time you were overshot. within fifteen hundred Would it were day!--Alas, poor Harry of England! Con. A valiant and most expert gentleman. he longs not for the dawning, as we do. Orl. What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so far out of his knowledge! Con. If the English had any apprehension, they would run away. Orl. That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces. Ram. That island of England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage. Orl. 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. Con. Then we shall find to-morrow-they have Chor. Now entertain conjecture of a time, His liberal eye doth give to every one, [Exit. SCENE I.-The English Camp at Agincourt. Enter King HENRY, BEDFORD, and GLOSTER. K. Hen. Gloster, 'tis true, that we are in great danger; The greater therefore should our courage be.- Besides, they are our outward consciences, should also, look you, be an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb; in your own conscience now? Gow. I will speak lower. Flu. I pray you, and beseech 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 BATES, COURT, and WILLIAMS. Court. Brother John Bates, is not that the mornwhich breaks yonder? Good-morrow, old sir Thomas Erpingham: [pains, [ter, Glo. We shall, my liege. [Exeunt Glos, and Bedf. No, my good knight; Pist. Qui va lá? Enter PISTOL. K. Hen. A friend. Pist. Discuss unto me; Art thou officer? Of parents good, of fist most valiant: I kiss his dirty shoe, and from my heart-strings Pist. Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou K. Hen. No, I am a Welshman. Pist. Knowest thou Fluellen? K. Hen. Yes. of K. Hen. It sorts well with your fierceness. [Exit. Flu. So! in the name of Cheshu Christ, speak lower. It is the greatest admiration in the universal 'orld, when the true and auncient 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, or 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. [all night. Gow. Why, the enemy is loud; you heard him Flu. If the enemy is an ass and a fool, and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we 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. Will. A good old commander, and a most kind gentleman: I pray you, what thinks he of our estate? K. Hen. Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide. 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 the Thames up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here. of the king; I think, he would not wish himself K. Hen. By my troth, I will speak my conscience any where but where he is. Bates. Then, '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. 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. 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 allWe died at such 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 battle; for how is their argument? Now, if these men do not die can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood well, it will be a black matter for the king, that led them to it; whom to disobey, were against all proportion of subjection. 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. Will. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his own head, the king is not to answer for 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. [word after. K. Hen. If I live to see it, I will never trust his Will. 'Mass, you'll pay him then! That's a perilous shot out of an elder gun, that a poor and 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. K. Hen, Your reproof is something too round; I should be angry with you, if the time were convenient. Will. Let it be a quarre! between us, if you live. Will. How shall I know thee again? K. Hen. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel. Will. Here's my glove; give me another of thine. Will. This will I also wear in my cap; if ever thou come to me and say, after to-morrow, This is my glove, by this hand, I will take thee a box on the Our debts, our careful wives, our children, and What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, hearts! Possess them not with fear; take from them now |