The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  CANTERBURY

  The French ambassador upon that instant

  Craved audience—and the hour I think is come

  To give him hearing. Is it four o’clock?

  ELY It is. 95

  CANTERBURY

  Then go we in, to know his embassy—

  Which I could with a ready guess declare

  Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.

  ELY

  I’ll wait upon you, and I long to hear it. Exeunt

  1.2 Enter King Harry, the Dukes of Gloucester, ⌈Clarence⌉, and Exeter, and the Earls of Warwick and Westmorland

  KING HARRY

  Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury?

  EXETER

  Not here in presence.

  KING HARRY Send for him, good uncle.

  WESTMORLAND

  Shall we call in th’ambassador, my liege?

  KING HARRY

  Not yet, my cousin. We would be resolved,

  Before we hear him, of some things of weight

  That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely

  CANTERBURY

  God and his angels guard your sacred throne,

  And make you long become it.

  KING HARRY Sure we thank you.

  My learnèd lord, we pray you to proceed,

  And justly and religiously unfold

  Why the law Salic that they have in France

  Or should or should not bar us in our claim.

  And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,

  That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,

  Or nicely charge your understanding soul

  With opening titles miscreate, whose right

  Suits not in native colours with the truth;

  For God doth know how many now in health

  Shall drop their blood in approbation

  Of what your reverence shall incite us to.

  Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,

  How you awake our sleeping sword of war;

  We charge you in the name of God take heed.

  For never two such kingdoms did contend

  Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops

  Are every one a woe, a sore complaint

  ’Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords

  That makes such waste in brief mortality.

  Under this conjuration speak, my lord,

  For we will hear, note, and believe in heart

  That what you speak is in your conscience washed

  As pure as sin with baptism.

  CANTERBURY

  Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers

  That owe your selves, your lives, and services

  To this imperial throne. There is no bar

  To make against your highness’ claim to France

  But this, which they produce from Pharamond:

  ‘In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant’—

  ’No woman shall succeed in Salic land’—

  Which ‘Salic land’ the French unjustly gloss

  To be the realm of France, and Pharamond

  The founder of this law and female bar.

  Yet their own authors faithfully affirm

  That the land Salic is in Germany,

  Between the floods of Saale and of Elbe,

  Where, Charles the Great having subdued the Saxons,

  There left behind and settled certain French

  Who, holding in disdain the German women

  For some dishonest manners of their life,

  Established there this law: to wit, no female

  Should be inheritrix in Salic land—

  Which Salic, as I said, ’twixt Elbe and Saale,

  Is at this day in Germany called Meissen.

  Then doth it well appear the Salic Law

  Was not devised for the realm of France.

  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

  Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great

  Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French

  Beyond the river Saale, in the year

  Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,

  King Pépin, which deposed Childéric,

  Did, as heir general—being descended

  Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clotaire—

  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

  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 Charlemain, who was the son

  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

  That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,

  Was lineal of the Lady Ermengarde,

  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.

  So that, as clear as is the summer’s sun,

  King Pépin’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,

  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 embar their crooked titles,

  Usurped from you and your progenitors.

  KING HARRY

  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 son dies, let the inheritance

  Descend unto the daughter.’ Gracious lord,

  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,

  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. no

  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 those valiant dead,

  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,

  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,

  So hath 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,

  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.

  KING HARRY

  We must not only arm t’invade the French,

  But lay down our proportions to defend

  Against the Scot, who will make raid upon us

  With all advantages.

  CANTERBURY

  They of those marches, gracious sovereign,

  Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

  Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

  KING HARRY

  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.

  For you shall read that my great-grandfather

  Never unmasked his power unto 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

  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 the bruit thereof.

  CANTERBURY

  She hath been then more feared than harmed, my

  liege. 155

  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

  The King of Scots, whom she did send to France

  To fill King Edward’s fame with prisoner kings

  And make your chronicle as rich with praise

  As is the ooze and bottom of the sea

  With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.

  ⌈A LORD⌉

  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

  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,

  Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries

  And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.

  While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,

  Th’advisèd head defends itself at home.

  For government, though high and low and lower,

  Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,

  Congreeing in a full and natural close,

  Like music.

  CANTERBURY True. Therefore doth heaven divide

  The state of man in divers functions,

  Setting endeavour in continual motion;

  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,

  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

  To the tent royal of their emperor,

  Who busied in his majesty surveys

  The singing masons building roofs of gold,

  The civil citizens lading up the honey,

  The poor mechanic porters crowding in

  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

  To one consent, may work contrariously.

  As many arrows, loosed several ways,

  Fly to one mark, as many ways meet in one town,

  As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,

  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 defect. Therefore to France, my liege.

  Divide your happy England into four,

  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

  The name of hardiness and policy.

  KING HARRY

  Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.

  Exit one or more

  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,

  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.

  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 a tun

  Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure

  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

  The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?

  KING HARRY

  We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,

  Unto whose grace our passion is as subject

  As is our wretches fettered in our prisons.

  Therefore with frank and with uncurbèd plainness

  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

  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,

  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 HARRY

  What treasure, uncle?

  EXETER (opening the tun) Tennis balls, my liege.

  KING HARRY

  We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.

  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

  That all the courts of France will be disturbed

  With chases. And we understand him well,

  How he comes o‘er us with our wilder days,

  Not measuring what use we made of them.

  We never valued this poor seat of England,

  And therefore, living hence, did give ourself

  To barbarous licence—as ’tis ever common

  That men are merriest when they are from home.

  But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,

  Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness

  When I do rouse me in my throne of France.

  For that have I laid by my majesty

  And plodded like a man for working days,

  But I will rise there with so full a glory

  That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,

  Yea strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.

  And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his

  Hath turned his balls to gunstones, and his soul

  Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance

  That shall fly from them—for many a thousand

  widows

  Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,

  Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;

  Ay, some are yet ungotten and unborn

  That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.

  But this lies all within the will of God,

  To whom I do appeal, and in whose name

  Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on

  To venge me as I may, and to put forth

  My rightful hand in a well-hallowed cause.

  So get you hence in peace. And tell the Dauphin

  His jest will savour but of shallow wit

  When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.—

  Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well.

  Exeunt Ambassadors

  EXETER This was a merry message.

  KING HARRY

  We hope to make the sender blush at it.

  Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour

  That may give furth’rance to our expedition;

  For we have now no thought in us but France,

  Save those to God, that run before our business.

  Therefore let our proportions for these wars

  Be soon collected, and all things thought upon

  That may with reasonable swiftness add

  More feathers to our wings; for, God before,

  We’ll chide this Dauphin at his father’s door.

  Therefore let every man now task his thought,

  That this fair action may on foot be brought.⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt

  2.0 Enter Chorus

  CHORUS

  Now all the youth of England are on fire,

  And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;