King Henry V

King Henry V was first published in 1600 as The Cronicle History of Henry the fift. The printed play is about half the length of the one that would appear as the fifth of the histories in the Folio in 1623, lacking the choruses and omitting many passages and three entire scenes (1.1, 3.1 and 4.2). Possibly it is a ‘reported’ text, compiled by some process of recollection, probably by actors in a production; perhaps one based on a script abridged for performance on tour. The Folio text derives not from this early Quarto but from a manuscript, just possibly one in Shakespeare’s own hand. Thus it serves as the basis of all modern editions, though the Quarto may well reflect an early staging of the play.

Apparently written about 1599, King Henry V could have been the first play performed at the Globe. The Chorus’s apology for the limited resources of the ‘wooden O’ in which the action must be performed is perhaps an ironic reference to the fine new playhouse that had opened that year. The play contains Shakespeare’s only unquestionable reference to a current event, which allows us to date it with some precision. Speaking of King Henry’s triumphant re-entry into London after Agincourt, the Chorus compares the excitement that greets Henry to the enthusiastic response that would occur ‘Were now the General of our gracious Empress, / As in good time he may, from Ireland coming, / Bringing rebellion broached on his sword’. These lines probably refer to the Earl of Essex, who had been sent by Elizabeth to Ireland in late March of 1599 to put down the rebellion led by Hugh O’Neill. Essex, however, failed in his charge and returned to London in late September. He was put under house arrest for leaving his command and was tried and sentenced in June of 1600. If the Chorus’s lines are indeed a reference to Essex, the play must have been acted between March and September of 1599, between his optimistic departure and the ignominy of his return.

Essex’s adventure could not have provided the impetus for the play itself, which is the foreseen conclusion of Hal’s Bildungsspiel in the two parts of King Henry IV, though Henry V is the charismatic national hero that Essex aspired to be. Shakespeare’s play can indeed be seen as an examination of the claims of heroic achievement, imparting a mythic shape and significance to the history of Henry’s reign by organizing the historical material he found in Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587) along the lines mapped out earlier by Edward Hall in his chronicle with the heading ‘The Victorious Reign of King Henry V’. Henry leads a band of brave and loyal soldiers against a much larger force of arrogant Frenchmen, and the astounding victory at Agincourt confirms England’s military and moral superiority. If this does not exactly conform to the facts of history, it does conform to the poetic logic of giant killing.

But if the play allows us to see and enjoy the great military and political achievements of Henry, it enables us also to see their costs. Shakespeare allows alternative angles of vision to the heroic. While the Chorus speaks the language of heroic idealization, the comic plot that parallels and comments on the historical action shows us a world of baser motive. The very structure of the play depends upon such ironic contrasts; the promises of the Chorus introducing each act are inevitably frustrated by the action that follows, as when at the beginning we are told that we shall see the confrontation of ‘two mighty monarchies’ but see instead the political manoeuvrings of worldly churchmen urging the French war to avoid a confiscatory bill.

The lustre of the celebrated war will certainly be tarnished if it is seen to be motivated not by a principled desire to regain lost rights but by the self-interest of a Church desperate to retain its wealth. Indeed, it is precisely by allowing an audience to see the uncertain genesis of the famous victories that Shakespeare begins his exploration of the necessarily imperfect man who must play the King. Performances on stage and on the screen have not always wished to see this qualification of Henry’s heroic achievements; Laurence Olivier’s film version, completed during World War II, understandably ignored all the play’s darker tones. But Shakespeare’s play, though not cynical about heroic action, is always aware of the matrix of human falliblity in which it is grounded. ‘The king is a good king’, as Pistol says, ‘but it must be as it may’.

The 1995 Arden text is based on the 1623 First Folio.

LIST OF ROLES

CHORUS
KING Henry the Fifth
		his brothers
Duke of EXETER		his uncle
Duke of YORK
Earl of HUNTINGDON
Earl of SALISBURY
Earl of WARWICK
Earl of WESTMORLAND
		conspirators against the King
Archbishop of CANTERBURY
Bishop of ELY
		officers in the King’s army
		soldiers in the King’s army
		associates of Sir John Falstaff
BOY		Falstaff’s page
Nell, HOSTESS		of an Eastcheap tavern, formerly Mistress Quickly, now married to Pistol
Charles the Sixth, the FRENCH KING
QUEEN ISABEL		the French Queen
Louis, the DAUPHIN		their son
Princess KATHERINE		their daughter
ALICE		a lady attending on Princess Katherine
Duke of BERRY
Duke of BOURBON
Duke of BRITAIN
Duke of BURGUNDY
Duke of ORLEANS
Charles Delabreth, the CONSTABLE		of France
Earl of GRANDPRÉ
Lord RAMBURES
GOVERNOR		of Harfleur
MONTJOY		the French herald
Two French Ambassadors to the King of England
Monsier Le Fer, a FRENCH SOLDIER
A French Messenger

Attendants, Lords, Soldiers, Citizens of Harfleur

PROLOGUE

Enter CHORUS.
CHORUS     O for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,	5
Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth	10
So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O pardon, since a crooked figure may	15
Attest in little place a million,
And let us, ciphers to this great account,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,	20
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts.
Into a thousand parts divide one man
And make imaginary puissance.	25
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i’th’ receiving earth.
For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times,
Turning th’accomplishment of many years	30
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history,
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge our play. Exit.

1.1 Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and the Bishop of ELY.

CANTERBURY
My lord, I’ll tell you, that self bill is urged
Which in th’eleventh year of the last king’s reign
Was like and had indeed against us passed
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther question.	5
ELY     But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
CANTERBURY
It must be thought on. If it pass against us
We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands which men devout
By testament have given to the Church	10
Would they strip from us, being valued thus:
As much as would maintain, to the King’s honour,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires,
And to relief of lazars and weak age,	15
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied,
And to the coffers of the King beside,
A thousand pounds by th’ year. Thus runs the bill.
ELY     This would drink deep.
CANTERBURY     ’Twould drink the cup and all.	20
ELY     But what prevention?
CANTERBURY     The King is full of grace and fair regard.
ELY     And a true lover of the holy Church.
CANTERBURY
The courses of his youth promised it not.
The breath no sooner left his father’s body	25
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seemed to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came
And whipped th’offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise	30
T’envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made,
Never came reformation in a flood
With such a heady currence scouring faults,
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness	35
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.
ELY     We are blessed in the change.
CANTERBURY     Hear him but reason in divinity
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire the King were made a prelate.	40
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say it hath been all in all his study.
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music.
Turn him to any cause of policy,	45
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter, that when he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences.	50
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric:
Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain,
His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow,	55
His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.
ELY     The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,	60
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighboured by fruit of baser quality.
And so the Prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,	65
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
CANTERBURY     It must be so, for miracles are ceased,
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
ELY     But my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill	70
Urged by the Commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?
CANTERBURY     He seems indifferent,
Or rather swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing th’exhibitors against us.
For I have made an offer to his majesty,	75
Upon our spiritual convocation,
And in regard of causes now in hand
Which I have opened to his grace at large,
As touching France, to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet	80
Did to his predecessors part withal.
ELY     How did this offer seem received, my lord?
CANTERBURY     With good acceptance of his majesty,
Save that there was not time enough to hear,
As I perceived his grace would fain have done,	85
The severals and unhidden passages
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms,
And generally to the crown and seat of France,
Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
ELY     What was th’impediment that broke this off?	90
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.
CANTERBURY     Then go we in, to know his embassy,	95
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 the KING, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, CLARENCE, WARWICK, WESTMORLAND and EXETER and attendants.

KING     Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury?
EXETER     Not here in presence.
KING                                   Send for him, good uncle.
Exit an attendant.
WESTMORLAND
Shall we call in th’ambassador, my liege?
KING     Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight	5
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     Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold	10
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	15
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.	20
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	25
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	30
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	35
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 gloze	40
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 Sala and of Elbe,	45
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 then this law, to wit, no female	50
Should be inheritrix in Salic land;
Which Salic (as I said, ’twixt Elbe and Sala)
Is at this day in Germany called Meissen.
Then doth it well appear the Salic law
Was not devised for the realm of France.	55
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	60
Four hundred twenty-six, and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala in the year
Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,	65
Did as heir general, being descended
Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
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	70
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 Charlemagne, who was the son	75
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	80
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengard,
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.	85
So that, as clear as is the summer’s sun,
King Pepin’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,	90
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 embare their crooked titles
Usurped from you and your progenitors.	95
KING
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 man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter.’ Gracious lord,	100
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,	105
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.	110
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 these valiant dead,	115
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,	120
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;	125
So doth 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,	130
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.	135
KING     We must not only arm t’invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.
CANTERBURY
They of those marches, gracious sovereign,	140
Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
KING     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.	145
For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into 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,	150
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 th’ill neighbourhood.
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	160
The King of Scots, whom she did send to France,
To fill King Edward’s fame with prisoner kings
And make her chronicle as rich with praise
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.	165
WESTMORLAND     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	170
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,	175
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad
Th’advised head defends itself at home.
For government, though high and low and lower	180
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent,
Congreeing in a full and natural close
Like music.
CANTERBURY     True. Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in diverse functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion,	185
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,	190
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	195
To the tent-royal of their emperor,
Who busied in his majesty surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in	200
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	205
To one consent may work contrariously,
As many arrows loosed several ways
Come to one mark,
As many several ways meet in one town,
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,	210
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 defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
Divide your happy England into four,	215
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	220
The name of hardiness and policy.
KING     Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
Exeunt some attendants.
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	225
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.	230
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 attendants carrying a tun.
Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure	235
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	240
The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?
KING     We are no tyrant but a Christian king,
Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
As are our wretches fettered in our prisons:
Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness	245
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	250
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,	255
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     What treasure, uncle?
EXETER     Tennis-balls, my liege.
KING     We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.	260
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	265
That all the courts of France shall 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,	270
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,	275
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,	280
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant Prince this mock of his
Hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows	285
Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down,
And 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,	290
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	295
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 and attendants.
EXETER     This was a merry message.
KING     We hope to make the sender blush at it.	300
Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
That may give furtherance 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	305
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,	310
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.
Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man.
They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,	5
Following the mirror of all Christian kings
With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
For now sits expectation in the air
And hides a sword from hilts unto the point
With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,	10
Promised to Harry and his followers.
The French, advised by good intelligence
Of this most dreadful preparation,
Shake in their fear, and with pale policy
Seek to divert the English purposes.	15
O England, model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,
What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural!
But see, thy fault France hath in thee found out,	20
A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills
With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men,
One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,
Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,
Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,	25
Have, for the gilt of France, – O guilt indeed! –
Confirmed conspiracy with fearful France,
And by their hands this grace of kings must die,
If hell and treason hold their promises,
Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.	30
Linger your patience on and well digest
Th’abuse of distance, and we’ll force our play.
The sum is paid, the traitors are agreed,
The King is set from London, and the scene
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton.	35
There is the playhouse now, there must you sit,
And thence to France shall we convey you safe
And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
To give you gentle pass; for if we may,
We’ll not offend one stomach with our play.	40
But till the King come forth and not till then
Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.     Exit.

2.1 Enter Corporal NYM and Lieutenant BARDOLPH, meeting.

BARDOLPH     Well met, Corporal Nym.
NYM     Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.
BARDOLPH
What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?
NYM     For my part I care not. I say little; but when time
shall serve there shall be smiles; but that shall be as it	5
may. I dare not fight, but I will wink and hold out mine
iron. It is a simple one, but what though? It will toast
cheese, and it will endure cold as another man’s sword
will, and there’s an end.
BARDOLPH     I will bestow a breakfast to make you	10
friends, and we’ll be all three sworn brothers to
France. Let’t be so, good Corporal Nym.
NYM     Faith, I will live so long as I may, that’s the certain
of it, and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I
may. That is my rest, that is the rendezvous of it.	15
BARDOLPH     It is certain, Corporal, that he is married to
Nell Quickly, and certainly she did you wrong, for you
were troth-plight to her.
NYM     I cannot tell. Things must be as they may. Men
may sleep, and they may have their throats about them	20
at that time, and some say knives have edges. It must
be as it may. Though patience be a tired mare, yet she
will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I cannot
tell.
Enter PISTOL and Hostess.
BARDOLPH     Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife.	25
Good Corporal, be patient here.
NYM     How now, mine host Pistol?
PISTOL     Base tyke, call’st thou me host?
Now by this hand I swear I scorn the term;
Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.	30
HOSTESS     No, by my troth, not long. For we cannot
lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that
live honestly by the prick of their needles but it will be
thought we keep a bawdy-house straight. [Nym draws
his sword.] O well-a-day, Lady, if he be not drawn!	35
Now we shall see wilful adultery and murder
committed. [Pistol draws his sword.]
BARDOLPH
Good Lieutenant, good Corporal, offer nothing here.
NYM     Pish!
PISTOL     Pish for thee, Iceland dog, thou prick-eared cur	40
of Iceland!
HOSTESS     Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour and
put up your sword. [Nym and Pistol sheathe their swords]
NYM     [to Pistol] Will you shog off? I would have you
solus.	45
PISTOL     Solus, egregious dog? O viper vile!
The solus in thy most marvailous face,
The solus in thy teeth, and in thy throat,
And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy,
And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!	50
I do retort the solus in thy bowels,
For I can take, and Pistol’s cock is up,
And flashing fire will follow.
NYM     I am not Barbason, you cannot conjure me. I have
an humour to knock you indifferently well. If you	55
grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my
rapier, as I may, in fair terms. If you would walk off, I
would prick your guts a little, in good terms, as I may,
and that’s the humour of it.
PISTOL     O braggart vile and damned furious wight,	60
The grave doth gape, and doting death is near;
Therefore exhale. [Pistol and Nym draw their swords.]
BARDOLPH     [Draws his sword.] Hear me, hear me what I
say. He that strikes the first stroke, I’ll run him up to
the hilts, as I am a soldier.	65
PISTOL     An oath of mickle might, and fury shall abate.
[All sheathe their swords.]
Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give.
Thy spirits are most tall.
NYM     I will cut thy throat one time or other, in fair
terms, that is the humour of it.	70
PISTOL     ‘Couple a gorge’!
That is the word. I thee defy again.
O hound of Crete, think’st thou my spouse to get?
No, to the spital go,
And from the powdering-tub of infamy	75
Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid’s kind,
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse.
I have and I will hold the quondam Quickly
For the only she; and pauca, there’s enough.
Go to.	80
Enter the Boy.
BOY     Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and
you, hostess. He is very sick and would to bed. Good
Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets and do the
office of a warming-pan. Faith, he’s very ill.
BARDOLPH     Away, you rogue!	85
HOSTESS     By my troth, he’ll yield the crow a pudding
one of these days. The King has killed his heart. Good
husband, come home presently.
Exeunt Hostess and Boy.
BARDOLPH     Come, shall I make you two friends? We
must to France together. Why the devil should we	90
keep knives to cut one another’s throats?
PISTOL
Let floods o’erswell and fiends for food howl on!
NYM     You’ll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at
betting?
PISTOL     Base is the slave that pays.	95
NYM     That now I will have; that’s the humour of it.
PISTOL     As manhood shall compound: push home! [Pistol
and Nym draw their swords.]
BARDOLPH     [Draws his sword.] By this sword, he that
makes the first thrust, I’ll kill him. By this sword, I
will.	100
PISTOL
Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.
[He sheathes his sword.]
BARDOLPH     Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be
friends. An thou wilt not, why then, be enemies with
me too. Prithee, put up.
NYM     I shall have my eight shillings?	105
PISTOL     A noble shalt thou have, and present pay,
And liquor likewise will I give to thee,
And friendship shall combine and brotherhood.
I’ll live by Nym and Nym shall live by me.
Is not this just? For I shall sutler be	110
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
Give me thy hand.
NYM     I shall have my noble?
PISTOL     In cash, most justly paid.
NYM     Well, then, that’s the humour of ’t. [Nym and	115
Bardolph sheathe their swords. Pistol and Nym shake
hands.]
Enter Hostess.
HOSTESS     As ever you come of women, come in quickly
to Sir John. Ah, poor heart, he is so shaked of a
burning quotidian tertian that it is most lamentable to
behold. Sweet men, come to him.     Exit.
NYM     The King hath run bad humours on the knight,	120
that’s the even of it.
PISTOL     Nym, thou hast spoke the right;
His heart is fracted and corroborate.
NYM     The King is a good king, but it must be as it
may. He passes some humours and careers.	125
PISTOL     Let us condole the knight, for, lambkins, we will
live.     Exeunt.

2.2 Enter EXETER, BEDFORD and WESTMORLAND.

BEDFORD
’Fore God, his grace is bold to trust these traitors.
EXETER     They shall be apprehended by and by.
WESTMORLAND
How smooth and even they do bear themselves,
As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty!	5
BEDFORD     The King hath note of all that they intend,
By interception, which they dream not of.
EXETER     Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath dulled and cloyed with gracious favours,
That he should for a foreign purse so sell	10
His sovereign’s life to death and treachery!
Sound trumpets. Enter the KING, SCROOP,
CAMBRIDGE and GREY, lords and soldiers.
KING     Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard. –
My lord of Cambridge, and my kind lord of Masham,
And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:
Think you not that the powers we bear with us	15
Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution and the act
For which we have in head assembled them?
SCROOP     No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
KING     I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded	20
We carry not a heart with us from hence
That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.
CAMBRIDGE
Never was monarch better feared and loved	25
Than is your majesty; there’s not, I think, a subject
That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
Under the sweet shade of your government.
GREY     True: those that were your father’s enemies
Have steeped their galls in honey and do serve you	30
With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
KING     We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
And shall forget the office of our hand
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
According to their weight and worthiness.	35
SCROOP     So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
And labour shall refresh itself with hope
To do your grace incessant services.
KING     We judge no less. – Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday	40
That railed against our person. We consider
It was excess of wine that set him on,
And on his more advice we pardon him.
SCROOP     That’s mercy, but too much security.
Let him be punished, sovereign, lest example	45
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
KING     O let us yet be merciful.
CAMBRIDGE     So may your highness, and yet punish too.
GREY     Sir,
You show great mercy if you give him life,	50
After the taste of much correction.
KING     Alas, your too much love and care of me
Are heavy orisons ’gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults proceeding on distemper
Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye	55
When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested,
Appear before us? – We’ll yet enlarge that man,
Though Cambridge, Scroop and Grey, in their dear care
And tender preservation of our person,
Would have him punished. And now to our French causes.	60
Who are the late commissioners?
CAMBRIDGE     I one, my lord;
Your highness bade me ask for it today.
SCROOP     So did you me, my liege.
GREY     And me, my royal sovereign.	65
KING     [Gives papers.]
Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;
There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight,
Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours:
Read them, and know I know your worthiness.–My lord of Westmorland and uncle Exeter,	70
We will aboard tonight. – Why, how now, gentlemen!
What see you in those papers, that you lose
So much complexion? – Look ye how they change!
Their cheeks are paper. – Why, what read you there,
That hath so cowarded and chased your blood	75
Out of appearance?
[Cambridge, Scroop and Grey fall upon their knees.]
CAMBRIDGE     I do confess my fault
And do submit me to your highness’ mercy.
GREY, SCROOP     To which we all appeal.
KING     The mercy that was quick in us but late
By your own counsel is suppressed and killed:	80
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you. –
See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My lord of Cambridge here,	85
You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath for a few light crowns lightly conspired
And sworn unto the practices of France	90
To kill us here in Hampton. To the which
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. – But oh,
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature,	95
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knewst the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coined me into gold
Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use?
May it be possible that foreign hire	100
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? ’Tis so strange
That though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black on white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,	105
As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause
That admiration did not whoop at them.
But thou, ’gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder;	110
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence.
All other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation	115
With patches, colours and with forms being fetched
From glistering semblances of piety;
But he that tempered thee, bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.	120
If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus
Should with his lion-gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back
And tell the legions ‘I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman’s.’	125
O how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learned?
Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?	130
Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
Garnished and decked in modest complement,
Not working with the eye without the ear,	135
And but in purged judgement trusting neither?
Such and so finely boulted didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot
To mark the full-fraught man and best endued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee,	140
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. – Their faults are open.
Arrest them to the answer of the law,
And God acquit them of their practices!
[Cambridge, Scroop and Grey rise.]
EXETER     I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of	145
Richard Earl of Cambridge.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry
Lord Scroop of Masham.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas
Grey, knight, of Northumberland.	150
SCROOP     Our purposes God justly hath discovered,
And I repent my fault more than my death,
Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.
CAMBRIDGE     For me, the gold of France did not seduce,	155
Although I did admit it as a motive
The sooner to effect what I intended.
But God be thanked for prevention,
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.	160
GREY     Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason
Than I do at this hour joy o’er myself,
Prevented from a damned enterprise.
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.	165
KING     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;	170
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,	175
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	180
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences! – Bear them hence.
Exeunt Cambridge, Scroop and Grey, 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,	185
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	190
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 PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH, Boy and Hostess.

HOSTESS     Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring
thee to Staines.
PISTOL     No; for my manly heart doth earn.
Bardolph, be blithe. Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins.
Boy, bristle thy courage up;	5
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	10
a finer end, and went away an it had been any christom
child. ’A parted even just between twelve and one,
even at the turning o’th’ tide. For after I saw him
fumble with the sheets and play wi’th’ flowers, and
smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was but one	15
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	20
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.	25
NYM     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.	30
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;	35
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?	40
BARDOLPH     Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that
fire; that’s all the riches I got in his service.
NYM     Shall we shog? The King will be gone from
Southampton.
PISTOL     Come, let’s away. – My love, give me thy lips.	45
[Kisses her.]
Look to my chattels and my moveables.
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;	50
Therefore Caveto be thy counsellor.
Go, clear thy crystals. – Yoke-fellows in arms,
Let us to France, like horse-leeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!
BOY     And that’s but unwholesome food, they say.	55
PISTOL     Touch her soft mouth, and march.
BARDOLPH     Farewell, hostess. [Kisses her.]
NYM     I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.
PISTOL     Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee
command.	60
HOSTESS     Farewell. Adieu.     Exeunt.

2.4 Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the Constable and the Dukes of Berry and Britain.

FRENCH KING
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 Berry and of Britain,
Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,	5
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.	10
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,	15
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.	20
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.	25
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.	30
Question your grace the late ambassadors,
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception, and withal
How terrible in constant resolution,	35
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.	40
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,	45
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth.
FRENCH KING     Think we King Harry strong;
And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been fleshed upon us,	50
And he is bred out of that bloody strain
That haunted us in our familiar paths.
Witness our too much memorable shame
When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captived, by the hand	55
Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
Whiles that his mountain 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	60
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.	65
FRENCH KING
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	70
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 EXETER, with attendants.
FRENCH KING     From our brother England?	75
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	80
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,	85
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 overlook this pedigree.	90
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.	95
[Gives the French King a paper.]
FRENCH KING     Or else what follows?
EXETER     Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
Even in your heart, there will he rake for it.
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,	100
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	105
Turning 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 threatening, and my message –	110
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
To whom expressly I bring greeting too.
FRENCH KING     For us, we will consider of this further.
Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother England.
DAUPHIN     For the Dauphin,	115
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	120
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	125
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,	130
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 difference,
As we his subjects have in wonder found,	135
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.
FRENCH KING
Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full. [Flourish.]	140
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.
FRENCH KING
You shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions.
A night is but small breath and little pause	145
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 Hampton pier
Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet	5
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,	10
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,	15
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,	20
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;	25
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
Katherine his daughter and with her, to dowry,	30
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.	35

3.1 Alarum. Enter soldiers with scaling-ladders at Harfleur. Enter the KING, EXETER, BEDFORD and GLOUCESTER.

KING
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,	5
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	10
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,	15
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noble 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,	20
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,	25
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.	30
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!’
Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off.

3.2      Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL and Boy.

BARDOLPH     On, on, on, on, on, to the breach, to the
breach!
NYM     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 plain-song of	5
it.
PISTOL     The plain-song is most just, for humours do
abound.
Knocks go and come, God’s vassals drop and die,
And sword and shield	10
In bloody field
Doth 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     And I.	15
If wishes would prevail with me
My purpose should not fail with me,
But thither would I hie.
BOY     As duly –
But not as truly –	20
As bird doth sing on bough
Enter FLUELLEN.
FLUELLEN     [Beats them.]
Up to the breach, you dogs! Avaunt, you cullions!
PISTOL     Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould!
Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage,
Abate thy rage, great duke!	25
Good bawcock, bate thy rage! Use lenity, sweet chuck!
NYM     These be good humours! Your honour runs bad
humours! Exeunt all but Boy.
BOY     As young as I am, I have observed these three
swashers. I am boy to them all three, but all they three,	30
though they would serve me, could not be man to me,
for indeed three such antics do not amount to a man.
For Bardolph, he is white-livered and red-faced, by
the means whereof ’a faces it out but fights not. For
Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword, by	35
the means whereof a breaks words and keeps whole
weapons. For Nym, he hath heard that men of few
words are the best men, and therefore he scorns to say
his prayers lest ’a should be thought a coward: but his
few bad words are matched with as few good deeds, for	40
’a never broke any man’s head but his own, and that
was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal
anything, and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-
case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for three-
halfpence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in	45
filching, and in Calais they stole a fire-shovel. I knew
by that piece of service the men would carry coals.
They would have me as familiar with men’s pockets as
their gloves or their handkerchiefs, which makes much
against my manhood if I should take from another’s	50
pocket to put into mine, for it is plain pocketing up of
wrongs. I must leave them and seek some better
service; their villainy goes against my weak stomach,
and therefore I must cast it up. Exit.
Enter GOWER and FLUELLEN, meeting.
GOWER     Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to	55
the mines; the Duke of Gloucester would speak with
you.
FLUELLEN     To the mines? Tell you the Duke it is not so
good to come to the mines; for, look you, the mines is
not according to the disciplines of the wars; the	60
concavities of it is not sufficient; for, look you,
th’athversary, you may discuss unto the Duke, look
you, is digt himself four yard under the countermines.
By Cheshu, I think ’a will plow up all, if there is not
better directions.	65
GOWER     The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of
the siege is given, is altogether directed by an
Irishman, a very valiant gentleman, i’faith.
FLUELLEN     It is Captain Macmorris, is it not?
GOWER     I think it be.	70
FLUELLEN     By Cheshu, he is an ass, as any is in the
world. I will verify as much in his beard. He has no
more directions in the true disciplines of the wars,
look you, of the Roman disciplines, than is a puppy-
dog.	75
Enter MACMORRIS and JAMY.
GOWER     Here ’a comes, and the Scots captain, Captain
Jamy, with him.
FLUELLEN     Captain Jamy is a marvellous falorous
gentleman, that is certain, and of great expedition and
knowledge in th’anchient wars, upon my particular	80
knowledge of his directions. By Cheshu, he will
maintain his argument as well as any military man in
the world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the
Romans.
JAMY     I say guid day, Captain Fluellen.	85
FLUELLEN     God-den to your worship, good Captain
James.
GOWER     How now, Captain Macmorris, have you quit
the mines? Have the pioneers given o’er?
MACMORRIS     By Chrish, la, ’tish ill done; the work ish	90
give over, the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand
I swear, and my father’s soul, the work ish ill done; it
ish give over. I would have blowed up the town, so
Chrish save me, la, in an hour. Oh, ’tish ill done, ’tish
ill done; by my hand, ’tish ill done!	95
FLUELLEN     Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will
you vouchsafe me, look you, a few disputations with
you as partly touching or concerning the disciplines of
the wars, the Roman wars, in the way of argument,
look you, and friendly communication? Partly to	100
satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look
you, of my mind, as touching the direction of the
military discipline, that is the point.
JAMY     It sall be vara guid, guid feith, guid captains baith,
and I sall quit you, with guid leave, as I may pick	105
occasion; that sall I, marry.
MACMORRIS     It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save
me. The day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and
the King, and the Dukes. It is no time to discourse, the
town is besieched, and the trumpet call us to the	110
breach, and we talk, and, be Chrish, do nothing. ’Tis
shame for us all, so God sa’ me, ’tis shame to stand
still, it is shame, by my hand; and there is throats to be
cut, and works to be done, and there ish nothing done,
so Chrish sa’ me, la!	115
JAMY     By the mess, ere these eyes of mine take
themselves to slumber I’ll dae guid service, or I’ll lig
i’th’ grund for it. I owe God a death, and I’ll pay’t as
valorously as I may, that sall I surely do, that is the
breff and the long. Marry, I wad full fain heard some	120
question ’tween you twa.
FLUELLEN     Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under
your correction, there is not many of your nation –
MACMORRIS     Of my nation? What ish my nation? Ish a
villain, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal?	125
What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?
FLUELLEN     Look you, if you take the matter otherwise
than is meant, Captain Macmorris, peradventure I
shall think you do not use me with that affability as in
discretion you ought to use me, look you, being as	130
good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of war,
and in the derivation of my birth, and in other
particularities.
MACMORRIS     I do not know you so good a man as myself.
So Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.	135
GOWER     Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.
JAMY     Ah, that’s a foul fault. [A parley is sounded.]
GOWER     The town sounds a parley.
FLUELLEN     Captain Macmorris, when there is more
better opportunity to be required, look you, I will be	140
so bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of war, and
there is an end.     Exeunt.

3.3 The Governor and others upon the walls. Enter the KING and all his train before the gates.

KING     How yet resolves the Governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit.
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves,
Or like to men proud of destruction
Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier,	5
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,	10
And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh fair virgins and your flowering infants.
What is it then to me if impious war,	15
Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats
Enlinked to waste and desolation?
What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand	20
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon th’enraged soldiers in their spoil	25
As send precepts to the leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command,
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace	30
O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villainy.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters,	35
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry	40
At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? Will you yield and this avoid?
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroyed?
GOVERNOR     Our expectation hath this day an end.
The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,	45
Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, dread King,
We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
Enter our gates, dispose of us and ours,
For we no longer are defensible.	50
KING     Open your gates.     Exit Governor.
Come, uncle Exeter,
Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain
And fortify it strongly ’gainst the French.
Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,
The winter coming on and sickness growing	55
Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.
Tonight in Harfleur will we be your guest;
Tomorrow for the march are we addressed.
[Flourish, and enter the town.]

3.4    Enter KATHERINE and ALICE, an old gentlewoman.

KATHERINE     Alice, tu as été en Angleterre, et tu bien parles
le langage.
ALICE     Un peu, madame.
KATHERINE     Je te prie m’enseigner; il faut que j’apprenne à
parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en anglais?	5
ALICE     La main, elle est appelée de hand.
KATHERINE     De hand. Et les doigts?
ALICE     Les doigts? Ma foi, j’oublie les doigts, mais je me
souviendrai. Les doigts, je pense qu’ils sont appelés de
fingres; oui, de fingres.	10
KATHERINE     La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je
pense que je suis le bon écolier. J’ai gagné deux mots
d’anglais vitement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles?
ALICE     Les ongles, nous les appelons de nails.
KATHERINE     De nails. Écoutez; dites-moi si je parle	15
bien:de hand, de fingres, et de nails.
ALICE     C’est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon anglais.
KATHERINE     Dites-moi l’anglais pour le bras.
ALICE     De arm, madame.
KATHERINE     Et le coude?	20
ALICE     D’elbow.
KATHERINE     D’elbow. Je m’en fais la répétition de tous les
mots que vous m’avez appris dès à présent.
ALICE     Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.
KATHERINE     Excusez-moi, Alice. Écoutez: d’ hand, de	25
fingres, de nails, de arm, de bilbow.
ALICE     D’elbow, madame.
KATHERINE     O Seigneur Dieu, je m’en oublie! D’elbow.
Comment appelez-vous le col?
ALICE     De nick, madame.	30
KATHERINE     De nick. Et le menton?
ALICE     De chin.
KATHERINE     De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.
ALICE     Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en vérité, vous prononcez
les mots aussi droit que les natifs d’Angleterre.	35
KATHERINE     Je ne doute point d’apprendre, par la grâce de
Dieu, et en peu de temps.
ALICE     N’avez-vous déjà oublié ce que je vous ai enseigné?
KATHERINE     Non, je le réciterai à vous promptement:
d’hand, de fingres, de mails, –	40
ALICE     De nails, madame.
KATHERINE     De nails, de arm, de ilbow –
ALICE     Sauf votre honneur, d’elbow.
KATHERINE     Ainsi dis-je, d’elbow – de nick, et de sin.
Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe?	45
ALICE     De foot, madame, et de coun.
KATHERINE     De foot, et de coun? O Seigneur Dieu, ils sont
les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et
non pour les dames d’honneur d’user. Je ne voudrais
prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France pour	50
tout le monde. Foh! De foot et de coun! Néanmoins, je
réciterai une autre fois ma leçon ensemble: d’ hand, de
fingres, de nails, d’arm, d’elbow, de nick, de sin, de
foot, de coun.
ALICE     Excellent, madame!	55
KATHERINE     C’est assez pour une fois. Allons-nous à dîner.
Exeunt.

3.5 Enter the KING of France, the DAUPHIN, the DUKE OF BRITAIN, the Constable of France and others.

FRENCH KING
’Tis certain he hath passed the river Somme.
CONSTABLE     An if he be not fought withal, my lord,
Let us not live in France; let us quit all
And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.
DAUPHIN     O Dieu vivant! Shall a few sprays of us,	5
The emptying of our fathers’ luxury,
Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,
Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds
And overlook their grafters?
BRITAIN
Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!	10
Mort de ma vie, if they march along
Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom
To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm
In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.
CONSTABLE
Dieu de batailles, where have they this mettle?	15
Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,
A drench for sur-reined jades, their barley-broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?	20
And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,
Let us not hang like roping icicles
Upon our houses’ thatch, whiles a more frosty people
Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields!	25
Poor we may call them in their native lords.
DAUPHIN     By faith and honour,
Our madams mock at us and plainly say
Our mettle is bred out, and they will give
Their bodies to the lust of English youth,	30
To new-store France with bastard warriors.
BRITAIN     They bid us to the English dancing-schools
And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos,
Saying our grace is only in our heels,
And that we are most lofty runaways.	35
FRENCH KING
Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence:
Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
Up, princes, and with spirit of honour edged
More sharper than your swords hie to the field.
Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France,	40
You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon and of Berry,
Alençon, Brabant, Bar and Burgundy,
Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,
Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi and Fauconbridge,
Foix, Lestrelles, Boucicault and Charolais,	45
High dukes, great princes, barons, lords and knights,
For your great seats now quit you of great shames.
Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur.
Rush on his host as doth the melted snow	50
Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat
The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon.
Go down upon him, you have power enough,
And in a captive chariot into Rouen
Bring him our prisoner.
CONSTABLE     This becomes the great.	55
Sorry am I his numbers are so few,
His soldiers sick and famished in their march,
For I am sure when he shall see our army
He’ll drop his heart into the sink of fear
And for achievement offer us his ransom.	60
FRENCH KING
Therefore, Lord Constable, haste on Montjoy,
And let him say to England that we send
To know what willing ransom he will give. –
Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.
DAUPHIN     Not so, I do beseech your majesty.	65
FRENCH KING
Be patient, for you shall remain with us. –
Now forth, Lord Constable and princes all,
And quickly bring us word of England’s fall.     Exeunt.

3.6 Enter the English and Welsh captains GOWER and FLUELLEN, meeting.

GOWER     How now, Captain Fluellen, come you from the
bridge?
FLUELLEN     I assure you there is very excellent services
committed at the bridge.
GOWER     Is the Duke of Exeter safe?	5
FLUELLEN     The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as
Agamemnon, and a man that I love and honour with
my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my life, and
my living, and my uttermost power. He is not, God be
praised and blessed, any hurt in the world, but keeps	10
the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline.
There is an anchient lieutenant there at the pridge, I
think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as
Mark Antony, and he is a man of no estimation in the
world, but I did see him do as gallant service –	15
GOWER     What do you call him?
FLUELLEN     He is called Anchient Pistol.
GOWER     I know him not.
Enter PISTOL.
FLUELLEN     Here is the man.
PISTOL     Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.	20
The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.
FLUELLEN
Ay, I praise God, and I have merited some love at his
hands.
PISTOL     Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,
Of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate	25
And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind
That stands upon the rolling restless stone –
FLUELLEN     By your patience, Anchient Pistol. Fortune
is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to	30
signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is painted
also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral
of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and
mutability, and variation; and her foot, look you, is
fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls,	35
and rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most
excellent description of it: Fortune is an excellent
moral.
PISTOL     Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him,
For he hath stolen a pax,	40
And hanged must ’a be, a damned death!
Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free,
And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate!
But Exeter hath given the doom of death
For pax of little price.	45
Therefore go speak – the Duke will hear thy voice –
And let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut
With edge of penny cord and vile reproach.
Speak, Captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.
FLUELLEN     Anchient Pistol, I do partly understand your	50
meaning.
PISTOL     Why then, rejoice therefor.
FLUELLEN     Certainly, Anchient, it is not a thing to
rejoice at; for if, look you, he were my brother, I would
desire the Duke to use his good pleasure and put him	55
to execution; for discipline ought to be used.
PISTOL
Die and be damned, and fico for thy friendship!
FLUELLEN     It is well.
PISTOL     The fig of Spain!     Exit.
FLUELLEN     Very good.	60
GOWER     Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal, I
remember him now – a bawd, a cutpurse.
FLUELLEN     I’ll assure you ’a uttered as prave words at
the pridge as you shall see in a summer’s day. But it is
very well; what he has spoke to me, that is well, I	65
warrant you, when time is serve.
GOWER     Why, ’tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and
then goes to the wars to grace himself at his return
into London under the form of a soldier. And such
fellows are perfect in the great commanders’ names,	70
and they will learn you by rote where services were
done, at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at
such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot,
who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on. And
this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which	75
they trick up with new-tuned oaths; and what a beard
of the General’s cut and a horrid suit of the camp will
do among foaming bottles and ale-washed wits is
wonderful to be thought on. But you must learn to
know such slanders of the age, or else you may be	80
marvellously mistook.
FLUELLEN     I tell you what, Captain Gower: I do
perceive he is not the man that he would gladly make
show to the world he is. If I find a hole in his coat, I
will tell him my mind. [Drum within.]	85
Hark you, the King is coming, and I must speak with
him from the pridge.
Drum and colours. Enter the KING and GLOUCESTER and his poor soldiers.
God pless your majesty!
KING
How now, Fluellen, cam’st thou from the bridge?
FLUELLEN     Ay, so please your majesty. The Duke of	90
Exeter has very gallantly maintained the pridge; the
French is gone off, look you, and there is gallant and
most prave passages. Marry, th’athversary was have
possession of the pridge, but he is enforced to retire,
and the Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge. I can	95
tell your majesty, the Duke is a prave man.
KING     What men have you lost, Fluellen?
FLUELLEN     The perdition of th’athversary hath been
very great, reasonable great. Marry, for my part, I
think the Duke hath lost never a man, but one that is	100
like to be executed for robbing a church, one
Bardolph, if your majesty know the man. His face is all
bubuncles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o’ fire,
and his lips blows at his nose, and it is like a coal of
fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red; but his nose	105
is executed, and his fire’s out.
KING     We would have all such offenders so cut off; and
we give express charge that in our marches through
the country there be nothing compelled from the
villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the	110
French upbraided or abused in disdainful language;
for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the
gentler gamester is the soonest winner.
Tucket. Enter MONTJOY.
MONTJOY     You know me by my habit.
KING     Well then, I know thee: what shall I know of thee?	115
MONTJOY     My master’s mind.
KING     Unfold it.
MONTJOY     Thus says my king: ‘Say thou to Harry of
England, though we seemed dead, we did but sleep.
Advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him	120
we could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we
thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full
ripe. Now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is
imperial. England shall repent his folly, see his
weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him	125
therefore consider of his ransom, which must
proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we
have lost, the disgrace we have digested, which in
weight to reanswer, his pettiness would bow under.
For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for	130
th’effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom
too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own
person kneeling at our feet but a weak and worthless
satisfaction. To this add defiance, and tell him, for
conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose	135
condemnation is pronounced.’ So far my king and
master, so much my office.
KING     What is thy name? I know thy quality.
MONTJOY     Montjoy.
KING     Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,	140
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,	145
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	150
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,	155
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. [Gives a purse.]
There’s for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go, bid thy master well advise himself.	160
If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered,
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,	165
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     We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs. –	170
March to the bridge. – It now draws toward night.
Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,
And on tomorrow bid them march away.     Exeunt.