The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  Prevented from a damned enterprise.

  My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.

  KING HARRY

  God ’quit you in his mercy. Hear your sentence.

  You have conspired against our royal person,

  Joined with an enemy proclaimed and fixed,

  And from his coffers

  Received the golden earnest of our death,

  Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,

  His princes and his peers to servitude,

  His subjects to oppression and contempt,

  And his whole kingdom into desolation.

  Touching our person seek we no revenge,

  But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,

  Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws

  We do deliver you. Get ye therefore hence,

  Poor miserable wretches, to your death;

  The taste whereof, God of his mercy give

  You patience to endure, and true repentance

  Of all your dear offences.—Bear them hence.

  Exeunt the traitors, guarded

  Now lords for France, the enterprise whereof

  Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.

  We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,

  Since God so graciously hath brought to light

  This dangerous treason lurking in our way

  To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now

  But every rub is smoothed on our way.

  Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver

  Our puissance into the hand of God,

  Putting it straight in expedition.

  Cheerly to sea, the signs of war advance:

  No king of England, if not king of France.

  Flourish. Exeunt

  2.3 Enter Ensign Pistol, Corporal Nim, Lieutenant Bardolph, Boy, and Hostess Quickly

  HOSTESS Prithee, honey, sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

  PISTOL

  No, for my manly heart doth erne. Bardolph,

  Be blithe; Nim, rouse thy vaunting veins; boy, bristle

  Thy courage up. For Falstaff he is dead,

  And we must earn therefore.

  BARDOLPH Would I were with him, wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or in hell.

  HOSTESS Nay, sure he’s not in hell. He’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. A made a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom child. A parted ev’n just between twelve and one, ev’n at the turning o‘th’ tide—for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his finger’s end, I knew there was but one 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 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.

  NIM 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.

  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—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.

  BARDOLPH Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire. That’s all the riches I got in his service.

  NIM Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.

  PISTOL

  Come, let’s away.—My love, give me thy lips.He kisses her

  Look to my chattels and my movables.

  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.

  Therefore caveto be thy counsellor.

  Go, clear thy crystals.—Yokefellows in arms,

  Let us to France, like horseleeches, my boys,

  To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

  BOY (aside) And that’s but unwholesome food, they say.

  PISTOL Touch her soft mouth, and march.

  BARDOLPH Farewell, hostess. He kisses her

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

  PISTOL (to Hostess) Let housewifery appear. Keep close, I thee command.

  HOSTESS Farewell! Adieu! Exeunt severally

  2.4 Flourish. Enter King Charles the Sixth of France, the Dauphin, the Constable, and the Dukes of Berri and ⌈Bourbon⌉

  KING CHARLES

  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 Berri and of Bourbon,

  Of Brabant and of Orléans shall make forth,

  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.

  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,

  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.

  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.

  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.

  Question your grace the late ambassadors

  With what great state he heard their embassy,

  How well supplied with aged counsellors,

  How modest in exception, and withal

  How terrible in constant resolution,

  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.

  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—

  Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,

  Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting

  A little cloth.

  KING CHARLES Think we King Harry strong.

  And princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.

  The kindred of him hath been fleshed upon us,

  And he is bred out of that bloody strain

  That haunted us in our familiar paths.


  Witness our too-much-memorable shame

  When Crécy battle fatally was struck,

  And all our princes captived by the hand

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

  Whiles that his mountant 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

  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.

  KING CHARLES

  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

  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 the Duke of Exeter, ⌈attended⌉

  KING CHARLES From our brother England?

  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

  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,

  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 over-look this pedigree,

  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.

  KING CHARLES Or else what follows?

  EXETER

  Bloody constraint. For if you hide the crown

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

  Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,

  In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,

  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

  Turns he 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 threat’ning, and my message—

  Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,

  To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

  KING CHARLES

  For us, we will consider of this further.

  Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent

  Back to our brother England.

  DAUPHIN For the Dauphin,

  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

  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

  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,

  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 diff’rence,

  As we his subjects have in wonder found,

  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.

  KING CHARLES ⌈rising⌉

  Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full.Flourish

  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.

  KING CHARLES

  You shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions.

  A night is but small breath and little pause

  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 Dover pier

  Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet

  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

  To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,

  Borne with th‘invisible and creeping wind,

  Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,

  Breasting the lofty surge. O do but think

  You stand upon the rivage and behold

  A city on th’inconstant billows dancing—

  For so appears this fleet majestical,

  Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!

  Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,

  And leave your England, as dead midnight still,

  Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,

  Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance.

  For who is he, whose chin is but enriched

  With one appearing hair, that will not follow

  These culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?

  Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege.

  Behold the ordnance on their carriages,

  With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.

  Suppose th’ambassador from the French comes back,

  Tells Harry that the King doth offer him

  Catherine his daughter, and with her, to dowry,

  Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.

  The offer likes not, and the nimble gunner

  With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,

  Alarum, and chambers go off

  And down goes all before them. Still be kind,

  And eke out our performance with your mind. Exit

  3.1 Alarum. Enter King Harry ⌈and the English army, with⌉ scaling ladders

  KING HARRY

  Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,

  Or close the wall up with our English dead.

 
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man

  As modest stillness and humility,

  But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

  Then imitate the action of the tiger.

  Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,

  Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage.

  Then lend the eye a terrible aspect,

  Let it pry through the portage of the head

  Like the brass cannon, let the brow o‘erwhelm it

  As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock

  O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,

  Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.

  Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

  Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit

  To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,

  Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof,

  Fathers that like so many Alexanders

  Have in these parts from morn till even fought,

  And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.

  Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

  That those whom you called fathers did beget you.

  Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

  And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,

  Whose limbs were made in England, show us here

  The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

  That you are worth your breeding—which I doubt not,

  For there is none of you so mean and base

  That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

  I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

  Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot.

  Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

  Cry, ‘God for Harry! England and Saint George!’

  Alarum, and chambers go off. Exeunt

  3.2 Enter Nim, Bardolph, Ensign Pistol, and Boy

  BARDOLPH On, on, on, on, oh! To the breach, to the breach!

  NIM Pray thee corporal, stay. The knocks are too hot, and for mine own part I have not a case of lives. The humour of it is too hot, that is the very plainsong of it. 6

  PISTOL

  ’The plainsong’ is most just, for humours do abound.

  Knocks go and come, God’s vassals drop and die,

  ⌈sings⌉ And sword and shield

  In bloody fieldDoth win immortal fame.

  BOY Would I were in an alehouse in London. I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.

  PISTOL ⌈sings⌉ And I.

  If wishes would prevail with me