Should be inheritrix in Salic land;
Which Salic (as I said, ’twixt Elbe and Sala)
Is at this day in Germany called Meissen.
Then doth it well appear the Salic law
Was not devised for the realm of France.
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Nor did the French possess the Salic land
Until four hundred one-and-twenty years
After defunction of King Pharamond,
Idly supposed the founder of this law,
Who died within the year of our redemption
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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,
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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 usurped the crown
Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
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Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
To fine his title with some shows of truth,
Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught,
Conveyed himself as heir to th’ Lady Lingard,
Daughter to Charlemagne, who was the son
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To Louis the Emperor, and Louis the son
Of Charles the Great. Also King Louis the Ninth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
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That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengard,
Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine,
By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
Was reunited to the crown of France.
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So that, as clear as is the summer’s sun,
King Pepin’s title, and Hugh Capet’s claim,
King Louis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female.
So do the kings of France unto this day,
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Howbeit they would hold up this Salic law
To bar your highness claiming from the female,
And rather choose to hide them in a net
Than amply to embare their crooked titles
Usurped from you and your progenitors.
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KING
May I with right and conscience make this claim?
CANTERBURY 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,
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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 warlike spirit,
And your great-uncle’s, Edward the Black Prince,
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Who on the French ground played 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.
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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!
ELY Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
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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,
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Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
EXETER Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself
As did the former lions of your blood.
WESTMORLAND
They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might;
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So doth your highness. Never king of England
Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England
And lie pavilioned in the fields of France.
CANTERBURY O let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
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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.
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KING We must not only arm t’invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.
CANTERBURY
They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
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Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
KING 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.
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For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France
But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom
Came pouring like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fullness of his force,
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Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns,
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at th’ill neighbourhood.
CANTERBURY She hath been then more feared than harmed, my liege.
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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 wrack and sumless treasuries.
165
WESTMORLAND But there’s a saying very old and true,
If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin.
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
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Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,
Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
To ’tame and havoc more than she can eat.
EXETER It follows then the cat must stay at home;
Yet that is but a crushed necessity,
175
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad
Th’advised head defends itself at home.
For government, though high and low and lower
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Put into parts, doth keep in one concent,
Congreeing in a full and natural close
Like music.
CANTERBURY True. Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in di
verse functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion,
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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,
190
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
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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
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Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
That many things having full reference
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To one consent may work contrariously,
As many arrows loosed several ways
Come to one mark,
As many several ways meet in one town,
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,
210
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,
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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
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The name of hardiness and policy.
KING Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
Exeunt some attendants.
Now are we well resolved; and by God’s help
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
France being ours, we’ll bend it to our awe
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Or break it all to pieces. Or there we’ll sit,
Ruling in large and ample empery
O’er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Tombless, with no remembrance over them.
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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 worshipped with a waxen epitaph.
Enter Ambassadors of France, with attendants carrying a tun.
Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure
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Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear
Your greeting is from him, not from the King.
AMBASSADOR
May’t please your majesty to give us leave
Freely to render what we have in charge,
Or shall we sparingly show you far off
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The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?
KING We are no tyrant but a Christian king,
Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
As are our wretches fettered in our prisons:
Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness
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Tell us the Dauphin’s mind.
AMBASSADOR 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
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Says that you savour too much of your youth
And bids you be advised. There’s naught in France
That can be with a nimble galliard won;
You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
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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.
KING What treasure, uncle?
EXETER Tennis-balls, my liege.
KING We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.
260
His present and your pains we thank you for.
When we have matched 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
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 185