King Henry V
What is thy name? I know thy quality.
Montjoy
Montjoy.
King Henry V
Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back.
And tell thy king I do not seek him now;
But could be willing to march on to Calais
Without impeachment: for, to say the sooth,
Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
My numbers lessened, and those few I have
Almost no better than so many French;
Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus! This your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me: I must repent.
Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,
My army but a weak and sickly guard;
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself and such another neighbour
Stand in our way. There’s for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder’d,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour: and so Montjoy, fare you well.
The sum of all our answer is but this:
We would not seek a battle, as we are;
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it:
So tell your master.
Montjoy
I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness.
Exit
Gloucester
I hope they will not come upon us now.
King Henry V
We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs.
March to the bridge; it now draws toward night:
Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,
And on to-morrow, bid them march away.
Exeunt
SCENE VII. THE FRENCH CAMP, NEAR AGINCOURT:
Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orleans, Dauphin, with others
Constable
Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!
Orleans
You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.
Constable
It is the best horse of Europe.
Orleans
Will it never be morning?
Dauphin
My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you talk of horse and armour?
Orleans
You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.
Dauphin
What a long night is this! I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ca, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
Orleans
He’s of the colour of the nutmeg.
Dauphin
And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in Patient stillness while his rider mounts him: he is indeed a horse; and all other jades you may call beasts.
Constable
Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.
Dauphin
It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage.
Orleans
No more, cousin.
Dauphin
Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea: turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: ’tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign’s sovereign to ride on; and for the world, familiar to us and unknown to lay apart their particular functions and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus: ‘Wonder of nature,’—
Orleans
I have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.
Dauphin
Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser, for my horse is my mistress.
Orleans
Your mistress bears well.
Dauphin
Me well; which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.
Constable
Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back.
Dauphin
So perhaps did yours.
Constable
Mine was not bridled.
Dauphin
O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode, like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your straight strossers.
Constable
You have good judgment in horsemanship.
Dauphin
Be warned by me, then: they that ride so and ride not warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have my horse to my mistress.
Constable
I had as lief have my mistress a jade.
Dauphin
I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.
Constable
I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to my mistress.
Dauphin
‘Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et la truie lavee au bourbier;’ thou makest use of any thing.
Constable
Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any such proverb so little kin to the purpose.
Rambures
My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?
Constable
Stars, my lord.
Dauphin
Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.
Constable
And yet my sky shall not want.
Dauphin
That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and
’twere more honour some were away.
Constable
Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.
Dauphin
Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces.
Constable
I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of my way: but I would it were morning; for I would fain be about the ears of the English.
Rambures
Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?
Constable
You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.
Dauphin
’Tis midnight; I’ll go arm myself.
Exit
Orleans
The Dauphin longs for morning.
Rambures
He longs to eat the English.
Constable
I think he will eat all he kills.
Orleans
By the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince.
Constable
Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.
Orleans
He is simply the most active gentleman of France.
Constable
Doing is activity; and he will still be doing.
Orleans
He never did harm, that I heard of.
Constable
Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name still.
Orleans
I know him to be valiant.
Constable
I was told that by one that knows him better than you.
/> Orleans
What’s he?
Constable
Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared not who knew it
Orleans
He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.
Constable
By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it but his lackey: ’tis a hooded valour; and when it appears, it will bate.
Orleans
Ill will never said well.
Constable
I will cap that proverb with ‘There is flattery in friendship.’
Orleans
And I will take up that with ‘Give the devil his due.’
Constable
Well placed: there stands your friend for the devil: have at the very eye of that proverb with ‘A pox of the devil.’
Orleans
You are the better at proverbs, by how much ‘A fool’s bolt is soon shot.’
Constable
You have shot over.
Orleans
’Tis not the first time you were overshot.
Enter a Messenger
Messenger
My lord high constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of your tents.
Constable
Who hath measured the ground?
Messenger
The Lord Grandpre.
Constable
A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for the dawning as we do.
Orleans
What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so far out of his knowledge!
Constable
If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.
Orleans
That they lack; for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces.
Rambures
That island of England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.
Orleans
Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a Russian bear and have their heads crushed like rotten apples! You may as well say, that’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
Constable
Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving their wits with their wives: and then give them great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.
Orleans
Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.
Constable
Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm: come, shall we about it?
Orleans
It is now two o’clock: but, let me see, by ten
We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.
Exeunt
ACT IV
PROLOGUE
Enter Chorus
Chorus
Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other’s watch:
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other’s umber’d face;
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night’s dull ear, and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation:
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger, and their gesture sad
Investing lank-lean; cheeks and war-worn coats
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin’d band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry ‘Praise and glory on his head!’
For forth he goes and visits all his host.
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile
And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night,
But freshly looks and over-bears attaint
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largess universal like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all,
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.
And so our scene must to the battle fly;
Where — O for pity!— we shall much disgrace
With four or five most vile and ragged foils,
Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous,
The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,
Minding true things by what their mockeries be.
Exit
SCENE I. THE ENGLISH CAMP AT AGINCOURT.
Enter King Henry, Bedford, and Gloucester
King Henry V
Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger;
The greater therefore should our courage be.
Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
Which is both healthful and good husbandry:
Besides, they are our outward consciences,
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.
Thus may we gather honey from the weed,
And make a moral of the devil himself.
Enter Erpingham
Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:
A good soft pillow for that good white head
Were better than a churlish turf of France.
Erpingham
Not so, my liege: this lodging likes me better,
Since I may say ‘Now lie I like a king.’
King Henry V
’Tis good for men to love their present pains
Upon example; so the spirit is eased:
And when the mind is quicken’d, out of doubt,
The organs, though defunct and dead before,
Break up their drowsy grave and newly move,
With casted slough and fresh legerity.
Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,
Commend me to the princes in our camp;
Do my good morrow to them, and anon
Desire them an to my pavilion.
Gloucester
We shall, my liege.
Erpingham
Shall I attend your grace?
King Henry V
No, my good knight;
Go with my brothers to my lords of England:
I and my bosom must debate awhile,
And then I would no other company.
Erpingham
The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Har
ry!
Exeunt all but King Henry
King Henry V
God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak’st cheerfully.
Enter Pistol
Pistol
Qui va la?
King Henry V
A friend.
Pistol
Discuss unto me; art thou officer?
Or art thou base, common and popular?
King Henry V
I am a gentleman of a company.
Pistol
Trail’st thou the puissant pike?
King Henry V
Even so. What are you?
Pistol
As good a gentleman as the emperor.
King Henry V
Then you are a better than the king.
Pistol
The king’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold,
A lad of life, an imp of fame;
Of parents good, of fist most valiant.
I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string
I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?
King Henry V
Harry le Roy.
Pistol
Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of Cornish crew?
King Henry V
No, I am a Welshman.
Pistol
Know’st thou Fluellen?
King Henry V
Yes.
Pistol
Tell him, I’ll knock his leek about his pate
Upon Saint Davy’s day.
King Henry V
Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that about yours.
Pistol
Art thou his friend?
King Henry V
And his kinsman too.
Pistol
The figo for thee, then!
King Henry V
I thank you: God be with you!
Pistol
My name is Pistol call’d.
Exit
King Henry V
It sorts well with your fierceness.
Enter Fluellen and Gower
Gower
Captain Fluellen!
Fluellen
So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is the greatest admiration of the universal world, when the true and aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept: if you would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle toddle nor pibble pabble in Pompey’s camp; I warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.
Gower
Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.
Complete Plays, The Page 191