Let us to France! like horse-leeches, my boys;
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

Boy. And that is but unwholesome food, they say. Pist. Touch her soft mouth, and march.

Bard. Farewell, hostess.

[Kissing her. Nym. I cannot kiss, that is the humor of it; but adieu.

Pist. Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee command.

Quick. Farewell; adieu.

[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. France. A Room in the French King's Palace.

Enter the French King, attended; the Dauphin, the DUKE of BURGUNDY, the Constable, and others.

Fr. King. Thus come 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 Bretagne,
Of Brabant, and of Orleans, shall make forth,-
And you, prince dauphin,-with all swift despatch,
To line, and new repair, our towns of war,

With men of courage, and with means defendant,
For England his approaches makes as fierce,
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

It fits us, then, to be as provident

As fear may teach us, out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.

Dau.

My most redoubted father,

It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;

For peace itself should not so dull1 a kingdom,

(Though war, nor no known quarrel, were in question,) But that defences, musters, preparations,

1 To dull is to render torpid, insensible, or inactive.

Should be maintained, assembled, and collected,
As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all

go forth, To view the sick and feeble parts of France:

And let us do it with no show of fear;

No, with no more, than if we heard that England

Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance;

For, my good liege, she is so idly kinged,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.

Con. O peace, prince dauphin! You are too much mistaken in this king. Question your grace the late ambassadors,With what great state he heard their embassy, How well supplied with noble counsellors, How modest in exception,' and, withal, How terrible in constant resolution,And you shall find, his vanities fore-spent 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. Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable, But though we think it so, it is no matter. In cases of defence, 'tis best to weigh The enemy more mighty than he seems, So the proportions of defence are filled; Which, of a weak and niggardly projection, Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat, with scanting A little cloth.

Fr. King.

Think we king Harry strong; And, princes, look, you strongly arm to meet him. The kindred of him hath been fleshed upon us; And he is bred out of that bloody strain,

That haunted us in our familiar paths.

Witness our too much memorable shame,

1 "How modest in exception;" how diffident and decent in making objections.

2 Strain is lineage.

When Cressy battle fatally was struck,

And all our princes captived, by the hand

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

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.

Mess. Ambassadors from Henry, king of England, Do crave admittance to your majesty.

Fr. King. We'll give them present audience. Go, and bring them.

[Exeunt Mess. and certain Lords. You see, this chase is hotly followed, friends.

Dau. Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs Most spend their mouths, when what they seem to

threaten,

2

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.

Re-enter Lords, with EXETER and Train.

Fr. King.

From our brother England?

Exe. 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, 'long

1 i. e. what is allotted him by destiny.

2 i. e. bark; the sportsman's term.

To him, and to his heirs; namely, the crown,
And all wide-stretched honors that pertain,
By custom and the ordinance of times,

Unto the crown of France. That you may know,
'Tis no sinister, nor no awkward claim,

Picked from the worm-holes of long-vanished days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,
He sends you this most memorable line,'

[Gives a paper.

In every branch truly demonstrative;
Willing you overlook this pedigree;
And, when you find him evenly derived
From his most famed of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him, the native and true challenger.
Fr. King. Or else what follows?

Exe. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it;
And, therefore, in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder, and in earthquake, like a Jove;
(That, if requiring fail, he will compel ;)
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown; and to take mercy
On the poor souls, for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
Turns he the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
The dead men's blood, the pining maidens' groans,
For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
That shall be swallowed in this controversy.
This is his claim, his threatening, and my message;
Unless the dauphin be in presence here,

To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

Fr. King. For us, we will consider of this further. To-morrow shall you bear our full intent

Back to our brother England.

Dau.

For the dauphin,

I stand here for him. What to him from England?

Memorable line;" this genealogy, this deduction of his lineage.

Exe. Scorn, and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

Thus says my king-and, if your father's highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He'll call you to so hot an answer for it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass, and return your mock
In second accent of his ordnance.

Dau. Say, if my father render fair reply,
It is against my will; for I desire

Nothing but odds with England: to that end,
As matching to his youth and vanity,

I did present him with those Paris balls.

Exe. 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)
Between the promise of his greener days,

And these he masters now: now he weighs time,
Even to the utmost grain; which you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.

Fr. King. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.

Exe. Despatch us with all speed, lest that our king Come here himself to question our delay;

For he is footed in this land already.

Fr. King. You shall be soon despatched, with fair

conditions.

A night is but small breath, and little pause,
To answer matters of this consequence.

1 To chide is to resound, to echo.

[Exeunt.