ERPINGHAM I shall do’t, my lord. Exit.
KING [Kneels.]
O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts;
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Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if th’opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord,
O not today, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown.
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I Richard’s body have interred new,
And on it have bestowed more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a day their withered hands hold up
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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,
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Imploring pardon.
GLOUCESTER [within] My liege!
KING [Rises.] My brother Gloucester’s voice?
Enter GLOUCESTER.
I know thy errand, I will go with thee.
The day, my friends and all things stay for me.
Exeunt.
4.2 Enter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS and RAMBURES.
ORLEANS The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords!
DAUPHIN Monte à cheval! My horse, varlet laquais, ha!
ORLEANS O brave spirit!
DAUPHIN Via, les eaux et terre!
ORLEANS Rien puis? L’air et feu?
5
DAUPHIN Cieux, cousin Orleans!
Enter Constable.
DAUPHIN Now, my lord Constable!
CONSTABLE
Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh!
DAUPHIN
Mount them and make incision in their hides,
That their hot blood may spin in English eyes
And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!
10
RAMBURES
What, will you have them weep our horses’ blood?
How shall we then behold their natural tears?
Enter Messenger.
MESSENGER
The English are embattled, you French peers. Exit.
CONSTABLE
To horse, you gallant princes, straight to horse!
Do but behold yon poor and starved band,
15
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
To give each naked curtle-axe a stain
20
That our French gallants shall today draw out
And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on them,
The vapour of our valour will o’erturn them.
’Tis positive ’gainst all exceptions, lords,
That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants
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Who in unnecessary action swarm
About our squares of battle were enough
To purge this field of such a hilding foe,
Though we upon this mountain’s basis by
Took stand for idle speculation:
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But that our honours must not. What’s to say?
A very little little let us do,
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
35
That England shall couch down in fear and yield.
Enter GRANDPRÉ.
GRANDPRÉ
Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?
Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,
Ill-favouredly become the morning field.
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
40
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggared host
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks
With torch-staves in their hand, and their poor jades
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Lob down their heads, drooping the hides and hips,
The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes,
And in their palled dull mouths the gimmaled bit
Lies foul with chewed grass, still and motionless.
And their executors, the knavish crows,
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Fly o’er them all, impatient for their hour.
Description cannot suit itself in words
To demonstrate the life of such a battle
In life so lifeless as it shows itself.
CONSTABLE
They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.
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DAUPHIN
Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits
And give their fasting horses provender,
And after fight with them?
CONSTABLE I stay but for my guidon. To the field!
I will the banner from a trumpet take
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And use it for my haste. Come, come away!
The sun is high and we outwear the day. Exeunt.
4.3 Enter GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, ERPINGHAM with all his host, SALISBURY and WESTMORLAND.
GLOUCESTER Where is the King?
BEDFORD
The King himself is rode to view their battle.
WESTMORLAND
Of fighting men they have full threescore thousand.
EXETER There’s five to one; besides, they all are fresh.
SALISBURY
God’s arm strike with us! ’Tis a fearful odds.
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God bye you, princes all; I’ll to my charge.
If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,
Then joyfully, my noble lord of Bedford,
My dear lord Gloucester, and my good lord Exeter,
And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu.
10
BEDFORD
Farewell, good Salisbury, and good luck go with thee.
EXETER Farewell, kind lord. Fight valiantly today.
And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,
For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour.
Exit Salisbury.
BEDFORD He is as full of valour as of kindness,
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Princely in both.
Enter the KING.
WESTMORLAND O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work today!
KING What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmorland? No, my fair cousin:
If we are marked to die, we are enough
20
To do our country loss, and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will, I pray thee wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
25
It earns me not if men my garments wear:
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
30
God’s peace, I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me,
For the best hope I have. O do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
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Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And
crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian.
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He that outlives this day and comes safe home
Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day and live old age
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
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And say ‘Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
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What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
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This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by
From this day to the ending of the world
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
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For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
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And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Enter SALISBURY.
SALISBURY
My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed.
The French are bravely in their battles set
And will with all expedience charge on us.
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KING All things are ready, if our minds be so.
WESTMORLAND
Perish the man whose mind is backward now!
KING
Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?
WESTMORLAND
God’s will, my liege, would you and I alone,
Without more help, could fight this royal battle!
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KING
Why, now thou hast unwished five thousand men,
Which likes me better than to wish us one.
You know your places. God be with you all!
Tucket. Enter MONTJOY.
MONTJOY
Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,
If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,
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Before thy most assured overthrow:
For certainly thou art so near the gulf
Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,
The Constable desires thee thou wilt mind
Thy followers of repentance, that their souls
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May make a peaceful and a sweet retire
From off these fields where, wretches, their poor bodies
Must lie and fester.
KING Who hath sent thee now?
MONTJOY The Constable of France.
KING I pray thee bear my former answer back:
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Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones.
Good God, why should they mock poor fellows thus?
The man that once did sell the lion’s skin
While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.
A many of our bodies shall no doubt
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Find native graves, upon the which, I trust,
Shall witness live in brass of this day’s work.
And those that leave their valiant bones in France,
Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
They shall be famed, for there the sun shall greet them,
And draw their honours reeking up to heaven,
Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,
The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.
Mark then abounding valour in our English,
That being dead, like to the bullets crazing,
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Break out into a second course of mischief,
Killing in relapse of mortality.
Let me speak proudly. Tell the Constable
We are but warriors for the working-day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched
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With rainy marching in the painful field.
There’s not a piece of feather in our host
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 194