Printable version of this page

King Henry V: Act 4 Scene 1

PROLOGUE.

[Enter Chorus]

CHORUS

Now entertain conjecture of a time

When creeping murmur and the poring dark

Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

From camp to camp through the foul womb of night

The hum of either army stilly sounds,

That the fixed sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other's watch:

Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames

Each battle sees the other's umber'd face;

Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs

Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents

The armourers, accomplishing the knights,

With busy hammers closing rivets up,

Give dreadful note of preparation:

The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,

And the third hour of drowsy morning name.

Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,

The confident and over-lusty French

Do the low-rated English play at dice;

And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night

Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp

So tediously away. The poor condemned English,

Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires

Sit patiently and inly ruminate

The morning's danger, and their gesture sad

Investing lank-lean; cheeks and war-worn coats

Presenteth them unto the gazing moon

So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold

The royal captain of this ruin'd band

Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,

Let him cry 'Praise and glory on his head!'

For forth he goes and visits all his host.

Bids them good morrow with a modest smile

And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.

Upon his royal face there is no note

How dread an army hath enrounded him;

Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour

Unto the weary and all-watched night,

But freshly looks and over-bears attaint

With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;

That every wretch, pining and pale before,

Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:

A largess universal like the sun

His liberal eye doth give to every one,

Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all,

Behold, as may unworthiness define,

A little touch of Harry in the night.

And so our scene must to the battle fly;

Where--O for pity!--we shall much disgrace

With four or five most vile and ragged foils,

Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous,

The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,

Minding true things by what their mockeries be.

[Exit]

Scene I The English camp at Agincourt.

[Enter KING HENRY, BEDFORD, and GLOUCESTER]

KING HENRY V

Gloucester, 'tis true that we are in great danger;

The greater therefore should our courage be.

Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,

Would men observingly distil it out.

For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,

Which is both healthful and good husbandry:

Besides, they are our outward consciences,

And preachers to us all, admonishing

That we should dress us fairly for our end.

Thus may we gather honey from the weed,

And make a moral of the devil himself.

[Enter ERPINGHAM]

Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:

A good soft pillow for that good white head

Were better than a churlish turf of France.

ERPINGHAM

Not so, my liege: this lodging likes me better,

Since I may say 'Now lie I like a king.'

KING HENRY V

'Tis good for men to love their present pains

Upon example; so the spirit is eased:

And when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt,

The organs, though defunct and dead before,

Break up their drowsy grave and newly move,

With casted slough and fresh legerity.

Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,

Commend me to the princes in our camp;

Do my good morrow to them, and anon

Desire them an to my pavilion.

GLOUCESTER

We shall, my liege.

ERPINGHAM

Shall I attend your grace?

KING HENRY V

No, my good knight;

Go with my brothers to my lords of England:

I and my bosom must debate awhile,

And then I would no other company.

ERPINGHAM

The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!

[Exeunt all but KING HENRY]

KING HENRY V

God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully.

[Enter PISTOL]

PISTOL

Qui va la?

KING HENRY V

A friend.

PISTOL

Discuss unto me; art thou officer?

Or art thou base, common and popular?

KING HENRY V

I am a gentleman of a company.

PISTOL

Trail'st thou the puissant pike?

KING HENRY V

Even so. What are you?

PISTOL

As good a gentleman as the emperor.

KING HENRY V

Then you are a better than the king.

PISTOL

The king's a bawcock, and a heart of gold,

A lad of life, an imp of fame;

Of parents good, of fist most valiant.

I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string

I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?

KING HENRY V

Harry le Roy.

PISTOL

Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of Cornish crew?

KING HENRY V

No, I am a Welshman.

PISTOL

Know'st thou Fluellen?

KING HENRY V

Yes.

PISTOL

Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate

Upon Saint Davy's day.

KING HENRY V

Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day,

lest he knock that about yours.

PISTOL

Art thou his friend?

KING HENRY V

And his kinsman too.

PISTOL

The figo for thee, then!

KING HENRY V

I thank you: God be with you!

PISTOL

My name is Pistol call'd.

[Exit]

KING HENRY V

It sorts well with your fierceness.

[Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER]

GOWER

Captain Fluellen!

FLUELLEN

So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is

the greatest admiration of the universal world, when

the true and aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the

wars is not kept: if you would take the pains but to

examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall

find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle toddle

nor pibble pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you,

you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and the

cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety

of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.

GOWER

Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.

FLUELLEN

If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating

coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also,

look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating

coxcomb? in your own conscience, now?

GOWER

I will speak lower.

FLUELLEN

I pray you and beseech you that you will.

[Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN]

KING HENRY V

Though it appear a little out of fashion,

There is much care and valour in this Welshman.

[Enter three soldiers, JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT,

and MICHAEL WILLIAMS]

COURT

Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which

breaks yonder?

BATES

I think it be: but we have no great cause to desire

the approach of day.

WILLIAMS

We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think

we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?

KING HENRY V

A friend.

WILLIAMS

Under what captain serve you?

KING HENRY V

Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

WILLIAMS

A good old commander and a most kind gentleman: I

pray you, what thinks he of our estate?

KING HENRY V

Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be

washed off the next tide.

BATES

He hath not told his thought to the king?

KING HENRY V

No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I

speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I

am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the

element shows to him as it doth to me; all his

senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies

laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and

though his affections are higher mounted than ours,

yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like

wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we

do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish

as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess

him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing

it, should dishearten his army.

BATES

He may show what outward courage he will; but I

believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish

himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he

were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

KING HENRY V

By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king:

I think he would not wish himself any where but

where he is.

BATES

Then I would he were here alone; so should he be

sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.

KING HENRY V

I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here

alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's

minds: methinks I could not die any where so

contented as in the king's company; his cause being

just and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMS

That's more than we know.

BATES

Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know

enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if

his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes

the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath

a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and

arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join

together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at

such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a

surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind

them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their

children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die

well that die in a battle; for how can they

charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their

argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it

will be a black matter for the king that led them to

it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of

subjection.

KING HENRY V

So, if a son that is by his father sent about

merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the

imputation of his wickedness by your rule, should be

imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a

servant, under his master's command transporting a

sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in

many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the

business of the master the author of the servant's

damnation: but this is not so: the king is not

bound to answer the particular endings of his

soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of

his servant; for they purpose not their death, when

they purpose their services. Besides, there is no

king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to

the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all

unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them

the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder;

some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of

perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that

have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with

pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have

defeated the law and outrun native punishment,

though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to

fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance;

so that here men are punished for before-breach of

the king's laws in now the king's quarrel: where

they feared the death, they have borne life away;

and where they would be safe, they perish: then if

they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of

their damnation than he was before guilty of those

impieties for the which they are now visited. Every

subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's

soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in

the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every

mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death

is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was

blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:

and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think

that, making God so free an offer, He let him

outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach

others how they should prepare.

WILLIAMS

'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon

his own head, the king is not to answer it.

BATES

But I do not desire he should answer for me; and

yet I determine to fight lustily for him.

KING HENRY V

I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.

WILLIAMS

Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but

when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we

ne'er the wiser.

KING HENRY V

If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

WILLIAMS

You 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.

KING HENRY V

Your reproof is something too round: I should be

angry with you, if the time were convenient.

WILLIAMS

Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

KING HENRY V

I embrace it.

WILLIAMS

How shall I know thee again?

KING HENRY V

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.

WILLIAMS

Here's my glove: give me another of thine.

KING HENRY V

There.

WILLIAMS

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.

KING HENRY V

If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

WILLIAMS

Thou darest as well be hanged.

KING HENRY V

Well. I will do it, though I take thee in the

king's company.

WILLIAMS

Keep thy word: fare thee well.

BATES

Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have

French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.

KING HENRY V

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 himself 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, subject 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 idle 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 thy 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 intertissued 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,

Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind

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]

ERPINGHAM

My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,

Seek through your camp to find you.

KING HENRY V

Good old knight,

Collect them all together at my tent:

I'll be before thee.

ERPINGHAM

I shall do't, my lord.

[Exit]

KING HENRY V

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!

I Richard's body have interred anew;

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.

[Enter GLOUCESTER]

GLOUCESTER

My liege!

KING HENRY V

My brother Gloucester's voice? Ay;

I know thy errand, I will go with thee:

The day, my friends and all things stay for me.

[Exeunt]