K. Hen. If I live to see it, I will never trust his | Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind, word after.

Will. 'Mass, you'll pay him then! That's a perilous shot out of an elder gun, that a poor and private displeasure can do against a monarch! you may as well go about to turn the sun to ice, with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word after! come, 'tis a foolish saying. K. Hen. Your reproof is something too round; I should be angry with you, if the time were convenient. Will. Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live. K. Hen. I embrace it.

Will. How shall I know thee again?

K. Hen. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel.

Will. Here's my glove; give me another of thine.
K. Hen. There.

Will. This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou
come to me and say, after to-morrow, This is my
glove, by this hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.
K. Ilen. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
Will. Thou darest as well be hanged.

K. Hen. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the king's company.

Will. Keep thy word: fare thee well!
Bates. Be friends, you English fools, be friends:
we have French quarrels enough, if you could tell

how to reckon.

K. Hen. Indeed, the French may lay twenty French
crowns to one, they will beat us; for they bear them
on their shoulders: but it is no English treason, to
cut French crowns; and, to-morrow, the king him-
self will be a clipper.
[Exeunt Soldiers.
Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives, our children, and
Our sins, lay on the king;
;- we must bear all.
O hard condition! twin-born with greatness,
Subjected to the breath of every fool,
Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing!
What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect,
That private men enjoy?

And what have kings, that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs, than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? what are thy comings-in?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is the soul of adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
Think'st thou, the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play'st so subtly with a king's repose;
I am a king, that find thee; and I know,
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The enter-tissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave;

Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell;
But, like a lackey, from the rise to set,
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium: next day, after dawn,
Doth rise, and help Hyperion to his horse;
And follows so the ever-running year
With profitable labour, to his
grave:
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots,
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
Enter ERPINGHAM.

Erp. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
Seek through your camp to find you.
K. Hen. Good old knight,
Collect them all together at my tent:
i'll be before thee.

Erp. I shall do't, my lord.

[Exit.

K. Hen. O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts!
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them!- Not to-day, O Lord,
O not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
Richard's body have interred new ;'

And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears,
Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do:
Though all that I can do, is nothing worth;
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.

Glo. My liege!

Enter GLOSter.

K. Hen. My brother Gloster's voice? - Ay;
I know thy errand, I will go with thee:
The day, my friends, and all things stay for mc.
[Exeunt.

Orl. O brave spirit!

Dau. Via!- les eaux et la terre-
Orl. Rien plus? l'air et le feu-----
Dau. Ciel! cousin Orleans.
Enter Constable.

Now, my lord Constable!

Con. Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh!
Dau. Mount them, and make incision in their hides;
That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,
And dout them with superfluous courage: ha!
Ram. What, will you have them weep our horses'
blood?

How shall we then behold their natural tears?
Enter a Messenger.

Mess. The English are embattled, you French peers.
Con, To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse!
Do but behold yon poor and starved band,
And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
There is not work enough for all our hands;
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins,

K. Hen. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin :
If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will; I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold;
Nor care-I, who doth feed upon my cost:
It yearns me not, if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But, if it be a sin to covet honour,

Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,
Ill-favour'dly become the morning field:
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
Their horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,
With torch-staves in their hand: and their poor jades
Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips;
The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes;
And in their pale-dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless;
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o'er them all, impatient for their hour.
Description cannot suit itself in words,
To démonstrate the life of such a battle
In life so lifeless as it shows itself.

Con. They have said their prayers, and they stay

Dau. Shall we go send them dinners, and fresh suits,
And give their fasting horses provender,
And after fight with them?

Con. I stay but for my guard. On, to the field!
I will the banner from a trumpet take,
And use it for my haste. Come, come away!

The sun is high, and we outwear the day. [Exeunt.

SCENE III. The English camp.

Enter the English Host; GLOSTER, BEDFORD, EXE- And hold their manhoods cheap, while any speaks,

TER, SALISBURY, and WESTMORELAND. Glo. Where is the king?

Bed. The king himself is rode to view their battle.
West. Of fighting men they have full threescore
thousand,

Exe. There's five to one; besides, they all are fresh.
Sal. God's arm strike with us! 'tis a fearful odds.
God be wi' you, princes all; I'll to my charge:
If we no more meet, till we meet in heaven,
Then, joyfully, my noble lord of Bedford, -
My dear lord Gloster, and my good lord Exeter,
And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu!
Bed. Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go

From off these fields, where (wretches) their poor| Pist. Brass, cur!

Dau. Mort de ma vie! all is confounded ball!

Fr. Sol. Est il impossible d'echapper la force de Reproach and everlasting shame

Do not run away.

[A short alarum.

Con. Why, all our ranks are broke.

Dau. O perdurable shame! - let's stab ourselves.
Be these the wretches that we play'd at dice for?
Orl. Is this the king we sent to for his ransome?
Bour, Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame!
Let us die instant! Once more back again;
And he that will not follow Bourbon now,
Let him go hence, and, with his cap in hand,
Like a base pander, hold the chamber-door,
Whilst by a slave, no gentler than my dog,
His fairest daughter is contaminate.

Gow. 'Tis certain, there's not a boy left alive; and
the cowardly rascals, that ran from the battle, have
done this slaughter: besides, they have burned and
carried away all that was in the king's tent; wherefore
the king, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to
cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a gallant king!

Flu. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, captain Gower:
What call you the town's name, where Alexander the
pig was porn?

Gow. Alexander the Great.

Flu. Why, I pray you, is not pig, great? The pig,
or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the ma→

Gow. Disorder, that hath spoil'd us, friend us now! gnanimous, are all one ereckonings, save the phrase is

Let us, in heaps, go oiler up our lives
Unto these English, or else die with. fame.
Orl. We are enough, yet living in the field,
To smother up the English in our throngs,
If any order might be thought upon.
Bour. The devil take order now! I'll to the throng;
Let life be short; else, shame will be too long.
[Exeunt.
Another part of the field.
Alarums. Enter King HENRY and Forces;
EXETER, and Others.

SCENE VI.

K. Hen. Well have we done, thrice-valiant coun

trymen:

But all's, not done, yet keep the French the field. Exe. The duke of York commends him to your majesty.

K. Hen. Lives he, good uncle? thrice, within this
hour,

I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;
From helmet to the spur, all blood he was.

Exe. In which array, (brave soldier,) doth he lie,
Larding the plain and by his bloody side,
(Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds,)
The noble earl of Suffolk also lies.

Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled over,
Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep'd,
And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes,
That bloodily did yawn upon his face;

a little variations.

Gow. I think, Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.

Flu. I think, it is in Macedon, where Alexander is porn. I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant, you shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon, and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye, at Monmouth; but it is out of my prains, what is the name of the other river: but 'tis all one, 'tis so like as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmous in both. If you mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come after it indifl'erent well; for there is figures in all things. Alexander (God knows, and you know,) in his rages, and his furies, and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his pest friend Clytus.

And cries aloud-Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!
My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly a-breast;
As, in this glorious and well-foughten field,
We kept together in our chivalry!
Upon these words I came, and cheer'd him
up:
He smil'd me in the face, raught me his hand,
And, with a feeble gripe, says Dear my lord,
Commend my service to my sovereign.
So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck
He threw his wounded arm, and kiss'd his lips;
And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd
A testament of noble-ending love.
The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd
Those waters from me, which I would have stopp'd;
But I had not so much of man in me,
But all my mother came into mine eyes,
And gave me up to tears.

K. Hen. I blame you not;

Gow. Our king is not like him in that; he never killed any of his friends.

[Alarum,

For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.
But, hark! what new alarum is this same? -
The French have reinforc'd their scatter'd men: -
Then every soldier kill his prisoners;
Give the wordthrough.

Flu. It is not well done, mark you now, to take tales out of my mouth, ere it is made an end and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it. As Alexander is kill his friend Clytus, being in his ales and his cups: so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his goot judgments, is turn away the fat knight with the great pelly doublet: he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I am forget his name.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VII. — Another part of the field.
Alarums. Enter FLUELLEN and GoWER.

Gow. Sir John Falstaff.

Flu. That is he: I can tell you, there is goot men porn at Monmouth.

Flu. Kill the poys and the luggage! 'tis expressly against the law of arms: 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offered in the 'orld. In your conscience now, is it not?

Gow. Here comes his majesty.

Alarum. Enter King HENRY, with a part of the En-
glish forces; WARWICK, Gloster, EXETER, and Others.
K. Hen. I was not angry since I came to France,
Until this instant. - Take a trumpet, herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill;
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight:
If they'll do neither, we will come to them;
And make them skir away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:
Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have;
And not a man of them that we shall take,
Shall taste our mercy: - go, and tell them so.
Enter MONTJOY.

Exe. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.
Glo. His eyes are humbler than they us'd to be.
K. Hen. How now! what means this, herald? know'st

thou not,

That I have fin'd these bones of mine for ransome?
Com'st thou again for ransome?
Mont. No, great king:

I

come to thee for charitable licence,
That we may wander o'er this bloody field,

T

T

F

F

Y

T

To book our dead, and then to bury them;
To sort our nobles from our common men ;
For many of our princes (woe the while!)
Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood;
(So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes;) and their wounded steeds
Fret fetlock deep in gore, and, with wild rage,
Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,
To view the field in safety, and dispose
Of their dead bodies.

K. Hen. I tell thee truly, herald,

I know not, if the day be ours, or no;

For yet a many of your horsemen peer,

And gallop o'er the field.

Mont. The day is yours.

K. Hen. Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me, and stick it in thy cap: when Alençon and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm: if any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon and an enemy to our person; if thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost love me. Flu. Your grace does me as great honours, as can be

K.Hen. Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!- desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain see the
What is this castle call'd, that stands hard by?
Mont. They call it - Agincourt.

K. Hen. Then call we this - the field of Agincourt, Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

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

K. Hen. They did, Fluellen.

Flu. Your majesty says very true. If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshman did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty knows, to this hour is an honourable padge of the service; and, I do believe, your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day.

H. Hen. I wear it for a memorable honour: for I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

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

K. Hen. Thanks, good my countryman.

Flu. By Cheshu, I am your majesty's countryman, I
care not who know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld:
I need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be
God, so long as our majesty is an honest man.

K. Hen. God keep me so !— Our heralds go with him;
Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
On both our parts. - Call yonder fellow hither.
[Points to Williams. Exeunt Montjoy and
Others.

Exe. Soldier, you must come to the king.
K. Hen. Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy
cap?

Will. An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one
that I should fight withal, if he be alive.
K. Hen. An Englishman?

Will. An't please your majesty, a rascal, that swag-
gered with me last night; who, if 'a live, and ever dare
to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box
o'the ear: or, if I can see my glove in his cap, (which
he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear, if alive,)
I will strike it out soundly.

K. Hen. What think you, captain Fluellen? is it fit this soldier keep his oath?

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

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

Flu. Though he be as goot a gentleman as the tevil is, as Lucifer and Beelzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain, and a Jack-sauce, as ever his plack shoe trod upon God's ground and his earth, in my conscience, la.

man, that has but two legs, that shall find himself aggriefed at this glove, that is all; but I would fain see it once; an please Got of his grace, that I might see it.

K. Hen. Knowest thou Gower?

Flu. He is my dear friend, an please you.
K. Hen. Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to
my tent.

Flu. I will fetch him.

[Exit.

K.Hen. My lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloster,
Follow Fluellen closely at the heels:
The glove, which I have given him for a favour,
May, haply, purchase him a box o'the ear;
It is the soldier's; I, by bargain, should
Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick:
If that the soldier strike him, (as, I judge
By his blunt bearing, he will keep his word,)
Some sudden mischief may arise of it;
For I do know Fluellen valiant,
And, touch'd with choler, hot as gunpowder,
And quickly will return an injury:
Follow, and see there be no harm between them.—
Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.
[Exeunt.

SCENE VIII. Before King Henry's pavilion.
Enter GoWER and WILLIAMS.
Will. I warrant, it is to knight you, captain.
Enter FLUELLEN.

Flu. Got's will and his pleasure, captain, I peseech you now, come apace to the king: there is more goot toward you, peradventure, than is in your knowledge to dream of.

Will. Sir, know you this glove?

Flu. Know the glove? I know, the glove is a glove.
Will.I know this;and thus I challenge it.[Strikes him.
Flu. 'Sblud, an arrant traitor, as any's in the universal
'orld, or in France, or in England.

Gow. How now, sir? you villain!
Will. Do you think I'll be fors worn?
Flu. Stand away, captain Gower; I will give treason
his payment into plows, I warrant you.
Will. I am no traitor.

Flu. That's a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his majesty's name, apprehend him; he's a friend of the duke Alençon's.

Enter WARWICK and GLOSTER. War. How now, how now what's the matter? Flu. My lord of Warwick, here is (praised be Got for it!) a most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall desire in a summer's day. Here is his majesty.

Enter King HENRY and EXETter. K. Hen. How now! what's the matter? Flu. My liege, here is a villain, and a traitor, that, look your grace, has struck the glove, which your majesty is take out of the helmet of Alençon. Will. My liege, this was my glove; here is the fel