The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  GOWER Our King is not like him in that. He never killed any of his friends.

  FLUELLEN It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth ere it is made an end and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it. As Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups, so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgements, turned away the fat knight with the great-belly doublet—he was full of jests and gipes and knaveries and mocks—I have forgot his name.

  GOWER Sir John Falstaff.

  FLUELLEN That is he. I’ll tell you, there is good men porn at Monmouth.

  GOWER Here comes his majesty.Alarum. Enter King Harry ⌈and the English army⌉, with the Duke of Bourbon, ⌈the Duke of Orléans,⌉ and other prisoners. Flourish

  KING HARRY

  I was not angry since I came to France

  Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;

  Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill.

  If they will fight with us, bid them come down,

  Or void the field: they do offend our sight.

  If they’ll do neither, we will come to them,

  And make them skirr away as swift as stones

  Enforced from the old Assyrian slings.

  Besides, we’ll cut the throats of those we have,

  And not a man of them that we shall take

  Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.Enter Montjoy

  EXETER

  Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.

  GLOUCESTER

  His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

  KING HARRY

  How now, what means this, herald? Know‘st thou

  not

  That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?

  Com’st thou again for ransom?

  MONTJOY No, great King.

  I come to thee for charitable licence,

  That we may wander o’er this bloody field

  To book our dead and then to bury them,

  To sort our nobles from our common men—

  For many of our princes, woe the while,

  Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood.

  So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs

  In blood of princes, and our wounded steeds

  Fret fetlock-deep in gore, and with wild rage

  Jerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,

  Killing them twice. O give us leave, great King,

  To view the field in safety, and dispose

  Of their dead bodies.

  KING HARRY I tell thee truly, herald,

  I know not if the day be ours or no,

  For yet a many of your horsemen peer

  And gallop o’er the field.

  MONTJOY The day is yours.

  KING HARRY

  Praised be God, and not our strength, for it.

  What is this castle called that stands hard by?

  MONTJOY They call it Agincourt.

  KING HARRY

  Then call we this the field of Agincourt,

  Fought on the day of Crispin Crispian.

  FLUELLEN Your grandfather of famous memory, an’t please your majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.

  KING HARRY They did, Fluellen.

  FLUELLEN Your majesty says very true. If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps, which your majesty know to this hour is an honourable badge of the service. And I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.

  KING HARRY

  I wear it for a memorable honour,

  For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

  FLUELLEN All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty’s Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that. God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace, and his majesty too.

  KING HARRY Thanks, good my countryman.

  FLUELLEN By Jeshu, I am your majesty’s countryman. I care not who know it, I will confess it to all the world. I need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

  KING HARRY

  God keep me so.Enter Williams with a glove in his cap

  Our heralds go with him.

  Bring me just notice of the numbers dead On both our parts.Exeunt Montjoy, ⌈Gower,⌉and an English herald

  Call yonder fellow hither.

  EXETER (to Williams) Soldier, you must come to the King.

  KING HARRY Soldier, why wearest thou that glove in thy cap?

  WILLIAM An’t please your majesty, ’tis the gage of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive.

  KING HARRY An Englishman?

  WILLIAMS An’t please your majesty, a rascal, that swaggered with me last night—who, if a live, and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o’th’ ear; or if I can see my glove in his cap—which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear if a lived—I will strike it out soundly.

  KING HARRY What think you, Captain Fluellen? Is it fit this soldier keep his oath?

  FLUELLEN He is a craven and a villain else, an’t please your majesty, in my conscience.

  KING HARRY It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, quite from the answer of his degree.

  FLUELLEN Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as Lucifer and Beelzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath. If he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jack-sauce as ever his black shoe trod upon God’s ground and his earth, in my conscience, law.

  KING HARRY Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meetest the fellow.

  WILLIAMS So I will, my liege, as I live.

  KING HARRY Who serv’st thou under?

  WILLIAM Under Captain Gower, my liege.

  FLUELLEN Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and literatured in the wars.

  KING HARRY Call him hither to me, soldier.

  WILLIAM I will, my liege. Exit

  KING HARRY (giving him Williams’s other glove) Here, Fluellen, wear thou this favour for me and stick it in thy cap. When Alençon and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm. If any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon and an enemy to our person. If thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.

  FLUELLEN Your grace does me as great honours as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects. I would fain see the man that has but two legs that shall find himself aggriefed at this glove, that is all; but I would fain see it once. An’t please God of his grace, that I would see.

  KING HARRY Know’st thou Gower?

  FLUELLEN He is my dear friend, an’t please you.

  KING HARRY Pray thee, go seek him and bring him to my tent. 165

  FLUELLEN I will fetch him. Exit

  KING HARRY

  My lord of Warwick and my brother Gloucester,

  Follow Fluellen closely at the heels.

  The glove which I have given him for a favour

  May haply purchase him a box o’th’ ear.

  It is the soldier’s. I by bargain should

  Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick.

  If that the soldier strike him, as I judge

  By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,

  Some sudden mischief may arise of it,

  For I do know Fluellen valiant

  And touched with choler, hot as gunpowder,

  And quickly will return an injury.

  Follow, and see there be no harm between them.

  Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.

  Exeunt severally

  4.8 Enter Captain Gower and Williams

  WILLIAMS I warrant it is to knight you, captain. Enter Captain Fluellen

  FLUELLEN God’s will and his pleasure, captain, I beseech you now, come apace to
the King. There is more good toward you, peradventure, than is in your knowledge to dream of.

  WILLIAM Sir, know you this glove?

  FLUELLEN Know the glove? I know the glove is a glove.

  WILLIAM Fplucking the glove from Fluellen’s cap] I know this, and thus I challenge it. He strikes Fluellen

  FLUELLEN God’s plood, and his! An arrant traitor as any’s in the universal world, or in France, or in England.

  GOWER (to Williams) How now, sir? You villain!

  WILLIAM Do you think I’ll be forsworn?

  FLUELLEN Stand away, Captain Gower. I will give treason his payment into plows, I warrant you.

  Williams I am no traitor.

  FLUELLEN That’s a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his majesty’s name, apprehend him. He’s a friend of the Duke Alençon’s.Enter the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Gloucester

  WARWICK How now, how now, what’s the matter?

  FLUELLEN My lord of Warwick, here is—praised be God for it—a most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall desire in a summer’s day.Enter King Harry and the Duke of Exeter Here is his majesty.

  KING HARRY How now, what is the matter?

  FLUELLEN My liege, here is a villain and a traitor that, look your grace, has struck the glove which your majesty is take out of the helmet of Alençon.

  WILLIAMS My liege, this was my gtove—here is the fellow of it—and he that I gave it to in change promised to wear it in his cap. I promised to strike him, if he did. I met this man with my glove in his cap, and I have been as good as my word.

  FLUELLEN Your majesty hear now, saving your majesty’s manhood, what an arrant rascally beggarly lousy knave it is. I hope your majesty is pear me testimony and witness, and will avouchment that this is the glove of Alençon that your majesty is give me, in your conscience now.

  KING HARRY Give me thy glove, soldier. Look, here is the fellow of it.

  ‘Twas I indeed thou promisèd’st to strike,

  And thou hast given me most bitter terms.

  FLUELLEN An’t please your majesty, let his neck answer for it, if there is any martial law in the world.

  KING HARRY How canst thou make me satisfaction?

  WILLIAMS All offences, my lord, come from the heart. Never came any from mine that might offend your majesty.

  KING HARRY It was ourself thou didst abuse.

  WILLIAMS Your majesty came not like yourself. You appeared to me but as a common man. Witness the night, your garments, your lowliness. And what your highness suffered under that shape, I beseech you take it for your own fault, and not mine, for had you been as I took you for, I made no offence. Therefore I beseech your highness pardon me.

  KING HARRY

  Here, Uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns

  And give it to this fellow.—Keep it, fellow,

  And wear it for an honour in thy cap

  Till I do challenge it.—Give him the crowns.

  —And captain, you must needs be friends with him.

  FLUELLEN By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle enough in his betty.—Ho[d, there is twelve pence for you, and I pray you to serve God, and keep you out of prawls and prabbles and quarrels and dissensions, and I warrant you it is the better for you.

  WILLIAMS I will none of your money.

  FLUELLEN It is with a good will. I can tell you, it will

  serve you to mend your shoes. Come, wherefore should

  you be so pashful? Your shoes is not so good. ’Tis a

  good shilling, I warrant you, or I will change it.

  Enter ⌈an English⌉ Herald

  KING HARRY Now, herald, are the dead numbered?

  HERALD Here is the number of the slaughtered French.

  KING HARRY What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?

  EXETER

  Charles, Duke of Orléans, nephew to the King;

  Jean, Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Boucicault;

  Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,

  Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.

  KING HARRY

  This note doth tell me of ten thousand French

  That in the field lie slain. Of princes in this number

  And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead

  One hundred twenty-six; added to these,

  Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,

  Eight thousand and four hundred, of the which

  Five hundred were but yesterday dubbed knights.

  So that in these ten thousand they have lost

  There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries;

  The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,

  And gentlemen of blood and quality.

  The names of those their nobles that lie dead:

  Charles Delabret, High Constable of France;

  Jaques of Châtillon, Admiral of France;

  The Master of the Crossbows, Lord Rambures;

  Great-Master of France, the brave Sir Guiscard

  Dauphin;

  Jean, Duke of Alençon; Antony, Duke of Brabant,

  The brother to the Duke of Burgundy;

  And Édouard, Duke of Bar; of lusty earls,

  Grandpré and Roussi, Fauconbridge and Foix,

  Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrelles.

  Here was a royal fellowship of death.

  Where is the number of our English dead?He is given another paper

  Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,

  Sir Richard Keighley, Davy Gam Esquire;

  None else of name, and of all other men

  But five-and-twenty. O God, thy arm was here,

  And not to us, but to thy arm alone

  Ascribe we all. When, without stratagem,

  But in plain shock and even play of battle,

  Was ever known so great and little loss

  On one part and on th’other? Take it God,

  For it is none but thine.

  EXETER

  ’Tis wonderful.

  KING HARRY

  Come, go we in procession to the village,

  And be it death proclaimed through our host

  To boast of this, or take that praise from God

  Which is his only.

  FLUELLEN Is it not lawful, an’t please your majesty, to tell how many is killed?

  KING HARRY

  Yes, captain, but with this acknowledgement,

  That God fought for us.

  FLUELLEN Yes, in my conscience, he did us great good.

  KING HARRY Do we all holy rites:

  Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum,

  The dead with charity enclosed in clay;

  And then to Calais, and to England then,

  Where ne’er from France arrived more-happy men.

  Exeunt

  5.0 Enter Chorus

  CHORUS

  Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story

  That I may prompt them—and of such as have,

  I humbly pray them to admit th‘excuse

  Of time, of numbers, and due course of things,

  Which cannot in their huge and proper life

  Be here presented. Now we bear the King

  Toward Calais. Grant him there; there seen,

  Heave him away upon your winged thoughts

  Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach

  Pales-in the flood, with men, maids, wives, and boys,

  Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouthed

  sea,

  Which like a mighty whiffler fore the King

  Seems to prepare his way. So let him land,

  And solemnly see him set on to London.

  So swift a pace hath thought, that even now

  You may imagine him upon Blackheath,

  Where that his lords desire him to have borne

  His bruised helmet and his bended sword

  Before him through the city; he forbids it,

  Being free from vainness and self-glorious
pride,

  Giving full trophy, signal, and ostent

  Quite from himself, to God. But now behold,

  In the quick forge and working-house of thought,

  How London doth pour out her citizens.

  The Mayor and all his brethren, in best sort,

  Like to the senators of th’antique Rome

  With the plebeians swarming at their heels,

  Go forth and fetch their conqu’ring Caesar in—

  As, by a lower but high-loving likelihood,

  Were now the General of our gracious Empress—

  As in good time he may—from Ireland coming,

  Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,

  How many would the peaceful city quit

  To welcome him! Much more, and much more cause,

  Did they this Harry. Now in London place him;

  As yet the lamentation of the French

  Invites the King of England’s stay at home.

  The Emperor’s coming in behalf of France,

  To order peace between them ⌈

  ⌉ and omit

  All the occurrences, whatever chanced,

  Till Harry’s back-return again to France.

  There must we bring him, and myself have played

  The interim by rememb‘ring you ’tis past.

  Then brook abridgement, and your eyes advance,

  After your thoughts, straight back again to France.Exit

  5.1 Enter Captain Gower and Captain Fluellen, with a leek in his cap and a cudgel

  GOWER Nay, that’s right. But why wear you your leek today? Saint Davy’s day is past.

  FLUELLEN There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things. I will tell you, ass my friend, Captain Gower. The rascally scald beggarly lousy pragging knave Pistot—which you and yourself and all the world know to be no petter than a fellow, look you now, of no merits—he is come to me, and prings me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek. It was in a place where I could not breed no contention with him, but I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires.Enter Ensign Pistol

  GOWER Why, here a comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.