The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

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The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 188

by William Shakespeare


  HOSTESS Nay, sure, he’s not in hell; he’s in Arthur’s

  bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. ’A made

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  a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom

  child. ’A parted even just between twelve and one,

  even at the turning o’th’ tide. For after I saw him

  fumble with the sheets and play wi’th’ flowers, and

  smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was but one

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  way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and ’a babbled

  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

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  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 up’ard and

  up’ard, and all was as cold as any stone.

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  NYM They say he cried out of sack.

  HOSTESS Ay, that ’a did.

  BARDOLPH And of women.

  HOSTESS Nay, that ’a did not.

  BOY Yes, that ’a did, and said they were devils incarnate.

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  HOSTESS ’A could never abide carnation, ’twas a colour

  he never liked.

  BOY ’A said once the devil would have him about

  women.

  HOSTESS ’A did in some sort, indeed, handle women;

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  but then he was rheumatic and talked of the Whore of

  Babylon.

  BOY Do you not remember ’a saw a flea stick upon

  Bardolph’s nose and ’a said it was a black soul burning

  in hell-fire?

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  BARDOLPH 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.

  PISTOL Come, let’s away. – My love, give me thy lips.

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  [Kisses her.]

  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 wafer-cakes,

  And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck;

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  Therefore Caveto be thy counsellor.

  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.

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  PISTOL Touch her soft mouth, and march.

  BARDOLPH Farewell, hostess. [Kisses her.]

  NYM I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.

  PISTOL Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee

  command.

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  HOSTESS Farewell. Adieu. Exeunt.

  2.4 Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the Constable and the Dukes of Berry and Britain.

  FRENCH KING

  Thus comes the English with full power upon us,

  And more than carefully it us concerns

  To answer royally in our defences.

  Therefore the Dukes of Berry and of Britain,

  Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,

  5

  And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,

  To line and new repair our towns of war

  With men of courage and with means defendant,

  For England his approaches makes as fierce

  As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

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  It fits us then to be as provident

  As fear may teach us, out of late examples

  Left by the fatal and neglected English

  Upon our fields.

  DAUPHIN My most redoubted father,

  It is most meet we arm us ’gainst the foe,

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  For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,

  Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,

  But that defences, musters, preparations,

  Should be maintained, assembled, and collected,

  As were a war in expectation.

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  Therefore, I say, ’tis meet we all go forth

  To view the sick and feeble parts of France.

  And let us do it with no show of fear,

  No, with no more than if we heard that England

  Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance.

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  For, my good liege, she is so idly kinged,

  Her sceptre so fantastically borne

  By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,

  That fear attends her not.

  CONSTABLE O peace, Prince Dauphin!

  You are too much mistaken in this king.

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  Question your grace the late ambassadors,

  With what great state he heard their embassy,

  How well supplied with noble counsellors,

  How modest in exception, and withal

  How terrible in constant resolution,

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  And you shall find his vanities forespent

  Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,

  Covering discretion with a coat of folly,

  As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots

  That shall first spring and be most delicate.

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  DAUPHIN Well, ’tis not so, my lord High Constable;

  But though we think it so, it is no matter.

  In cases of defence ’tis best to weigh

  The enemy more mighty than he seems.

  So the proportions of defence are filled,

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  Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,

  Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting

  A little cloth.

  FRENCH KING Think we King Harry strong;

  And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.

  The kindred of him hath been fleshed upon us,

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  And he is bred out of that bloody strain

  That haunted us in our familiar paths.

  Witness our too much memorable shame

  When Cressy battle fatally was struck,

  And all our princes captived, by the hand

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  Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;

  Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing

  Up in the air, crowned with the golden sun,

  Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him,

  Mangle the work of nature and deface

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  The patterns that by God and by French fathers

  Had twenty years been made. This is a stem

  Of that victorious stock, and let us fear

  The native mightiness and fate of him.

  Enter a Messenger.

  MESSENGER

  Ambassadors from Harry, King of England, Do crave admittance to your majesty.

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  FRENCH KING

  We’ll give them present audience. Go and bring them. Exit Messenger.

  You see this chase is hotly followed, friends.

  DAUPHIN Turn head and stop pursuit, for coward dogs

  Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten

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  Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,

  Take up the English short and let them know

  Of what a monarchy you are the head.

  Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin

  As self-neglecting.

  Enter EXETER, with attendants.

  F
RENCH KING From our brother England?

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  EXETER From him, and thus he greets your majesty:

  He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,

  That you divest yourself and lay apart

  The borrowed glories that by gift of heaven,

  By law of nature and of nations, longs

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  To him and to his heirs, namely the crown

  And all wide-stretched honours that pertain

  By custom and the ordinance of times

  Unto the crown of France. That you may know

  ’Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,

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  Picked from the worm-holes of long-vanished days,

  Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,

  He sends you this most memorable line,

  In every branch truly demonstrative,

  Willing you overlook this pedigree.

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  And when you find him evenly derived

  From his most famed of famous ancestors,

  Edward the Third, he bids you then resign

  Your crown and kingdom indirectly held

  From him the native and true challenger.

  95

  [Gives the French King a paper.]

  FRENCH KING Or else what follows?

  EXETER Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown

  Even in your heart, there will he rake for it.

  Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,

  In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,

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  That if requiring fail, he will compel.

  And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,

  Deliver up the crown and to take mercy

  On the poor souls for whom this hungry war

  Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head

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  Turning the widows’ tears, the orphans’ cries,

  The dead men’s blood, the pining maidens’ groans,

  For husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers

  That shall be swallowed in this controversy.

  This is his claim, his threatening, and my message –

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  Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,

  To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

  FRENCH KING For us, we will consider of this further.

  Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent

  Back to our brother England.

  DAUPHIN For the Dauphin,

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  I stand here for him. What to him from England?

  EXETER Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,

  And anything that may not misbecome

  The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

  Thus says my king: an if your father’s highness

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  Do not, in grant of all demands at large,

  Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,

  He’ll call you to so hot an answer for it

  That caves and womby vaultages of France

  Shall chide your trespass and return your mock

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  In second accent of his ordinance.

  DAUPHIN Say if my father render fair return

  It is against my will, for I desire

  Nothing but odds with England. To that end,

  As matching to his youth and vanity,

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  I did present him with the Paris-balls.

  EXETER He’ll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,

  Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe.

  And be assured you’ll find a difference,

  As we his subjects have in wonder found,

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  Between the promise of his greener days

  And these he masters now. Now he weighs time

  Even to the utmost grain. That you shall read

  In your own losses, if he stay in France.

  FRENCH KING

  Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full. [Flourish.]

  140

  EXETER Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king

  Come here himself to question our delay,

  For he is footed in this land already.

  FRENCH KING

  You shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions.

  A night is but small breath and little pause

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  To answer matters of this consequence.

  Flourish. Exeunt.

  3.0 Enter CHORUS.

  CHORUS Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies

  In motion of no less celerity

  Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen

  The well-appointed King at Hampton pier

  Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet

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  With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning.

  Play with your fancies, and in them behold

  Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;

  Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give

 

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