The Life Of King Henry The Fifth

1 Enter King Henry, Bedford and Gloucester.
2 KING HENRY.
3 Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger;
4 The greater therefore should our courage be.
5 Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!
6 There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
7 Would men observingly distil it out;
8 For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,
9 Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
10 Besides, they are our outward consciences,
11 And preachers to us all, admonishing
12 That we should dress us fairly for our end.
13 Thus may we gather honey from the weed,
14 And make a moral of the devil himself.
15 Enter Erpingham.
16 Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:
17 A good soft pillow for that good white head
18 Were better than a churlish turf of France.
19 ERPINGHAM.
20 Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better,
21 Since I may say, “Now lie I like a king.”
22 KING HENRY.
23 ’Tis good for men to love their present pains
24 Upon example; so the spirit is eased;
25 And when the mind is quick’ned, out of doubt,
26 The organs, though defunct and dead before,
27 Break up their drowsy grave and newly move,
28 With casted slough and fresh legerity.
29 Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,
30 Commend me to the princes in our camp;
31 Do my good morrow to them, and anon
32 Desire them all to my pavilion.
33 GLOUCESTER.
34 We shall, my liege.
35 ERPINGHAM.
36 Shall I attend your Grace?
37 KING HENRY.
38 No, my good knight;
39 Go with my brothers to my lords of England.
40 I and my bosom must debate a while,
41 And then I would no other company.
42 ERPINGHAM.
43 The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!
44 [_Exeunt all but King._]
45 KING HENRY.
46 God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak’st cheerfully.
47 Enter Pistol.
48 PISTOL.
49 _Qui vous là?_
50 KING HENRY.
51 A friend.
52 PISTOL.
53 Discuss unto me; art thou officer?
54 Or art thou base, common, and popular?
55 KING HENRY.
56 I am a gentleman of a company.
57 PISTOL.
58 Trail’st thou the puissant pike?
59 KING HENRY.
60 Even so. What are you?
61 PISTOL.
62 As good a gentleman as the Emperor.
63 KING HENRY.
64 Then you are a better than the King.
65 PISTOL.
66 The King’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold,
67 A lad of life, an imp of fame;
68 Of parents good, of fist most valiant.
69 I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string
70 I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?
71 KING HENRY.
72 Harry le Roy.
73 PISTOL.
74 Le Roy! a Cornish name. Art thou of Cornish crew?
75 KING HENRY.
76 No, I am a Welshman.
77 PISTOL.
78 Know’st thou Fluellen?
79 KING HENRY.
80 Yes.
81 PISTOL.
82 Tell him I’ll knock his leek about his pate
83 Upon Saint Davy’s day.
84 KING HENRY.
85 Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that
86 about yours.
87 PISTOL.
88 Art thou his friend?
89 KING HENRY.
90 And his kinsman too.
91 PISTOL.
92 The _fico_ for thee, then!
93 KING HENRY.
94 I thank you. God be with you!
95 PISTOL.
96 My name is Pistol call’d.
97 [_Exit._]
98 KING HENRY.
99 It sorts well with your fierceness.
100 Enter Fluellen and Gower.
101 GOWER.
102 Captain Fluellen!
103 FLUELLEN.
104 So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is the greatest
105 admiration in the universal world, when the true and anchient
106 prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept. If you would take the
107 pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall find, I
108 warrant you, that there is no tiddle taddle nor pibble pabble in
109 Pompey’s camp. I warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies of the
110 wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety of it,
111 and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.
112 GOWER.
113 Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.
114 FLUELLEN.
115 If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet,
116 think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a
117 prating coxcomb? In your own conscience, now?
118 GOWER.
119 I will speak lower.
120 FLUELLEN.
121 I pray you and beseech you that you will.
122 [_Exeunt Gower and Fluellen._]
123 KING HENRY.
124 Though it appear a little out of fashion,
125 There is much care and valour in this Welshman.
126 Enter three soldiers, John Bates, Alexander Court and Michael
127 Williams.
128 COURT.
129 Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?
130 BATES.
131 I think it be; but we have no great cause to desire the approach of
132 day.
133 WILLIAMS.
134 We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see
135 the end of it. Who goes there?
136 KING HENRY.
137 A friend.
138 WILLIAMS.
139 Under what captain serve you?
140 KING HENRY.
141 Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.
142 WILLIAMS.
143 A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray you, what thinks
144 he of our estate?
145 KING HENRY.
146 Even as men wreck’d upon a sand, that look to be wash’d off the next
147 tide.
148 BATES.
149 He hath not told his thought to the King?
150 KING HENRY.
151 No; nor it is not meet he should. For though I speak it to you, I think
152 the King is but a man as I am. The violet smells to him as it doth to
153 me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but
154 human conditions. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears
155 but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet,
156 when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees
157 reason of fears as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same
158 relish as ours are; yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any
159 appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.
160 BATES.
161 He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a
162 night as ’tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I
163 would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.
164 KING HENRY.
165 By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I think he would
166 not wish himself anywhere but where he is.
167 BATES.
168 Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed,
169 and a many poor men’s lives saved.
170 KING HENRY.
171 I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone, howsoever
172 you speak this to feel other men’s minds. Methinks I could not die
173 anywhere so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just
174 and his quarrel honourable.
175 WILLIAMS.
176 That’s more than we know.
177 BATES.
178 Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know
179 we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the
180 King wipes the crime of it out of us.
181 WILLIAMS.
182 But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning
183 to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp’d off in a
184 battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, “We died at
185 such a place”; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon
186 their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some
187 upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that
188 die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when
189 blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be
190 a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were
191 against all proportion of subjection.
192 KING HENRY.
193 So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully
194 miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule,
195 should be imposed upon his father that sent him; or if a servant, under
196 his master’s command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by
197 robbers and die in many irreconcil’d iniquities, you may call the
198 business of the master the author of the servant’s damnation. But this
199 is not so. The King is not bound to answer the particular endings of
200 his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for
201 they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services.
202 Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come
203 to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted
204 soldiers. Some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and
205 contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of
206 perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored
207 the gentle bosom of Peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men
208 have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can
209 outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle,
210 war is his vengeance; so that here men are punish’d for before-breach
211 of the King’s laws in now the King’s quarrel. Where they feared the
212 death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they
213 perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King guilty of
214 their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the
215 which they are now visited. Every subject’s duty is the King’s; but
216 every subject’s soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the
217 wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his
218 conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the
219 time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him
220 that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an
221 offer, He let him outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach
222 others how they should prepare.
223 WILLIAMS.
224 ’Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head, the
225 King is not to answer for it.
226 BATES.
227 I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to fight
228 lustily for him.
229 KING HENRY.
230 I myself heard the King say he would not be ransom’d.
231 WILLIAMS.
232 Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our throats are
233 cut, he may be ransom’d, and we ne’er the wiser.
234 KING HENRY.
235 If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.
236 WILLIAMS.
237 You pay him then. That’s a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, that a
238 poor and a private displeasure can do against a monarch! You may as
239 well go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a
240 peacock’s feather. You’ll never trust his word after! Come, ’tis a
241 foolish saying.
242 KING HENRY.
243 Your reproof is something too round. I should be angry with you, if the
244 time were convenient.
245 WILLIAMS.
246 Let it be a quarrel between us if you live.
247 KING HENRY.
248 I embrace it.
249 WILLIAMS.
250 How shall I know thee again?
251 KING HENRY.
252 Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet; then, if
253 ever thou dar’st acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel.
254 WILLIAMS.
255 Here’s my glove; give me another of thine.
256 KING HENRY.
257 There.
258 WILLIAMS.
259 This will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou come to me and say, after
260 tomorrow, “This is my glove,” by this hand I will take thee a box on
261 the ear.
262 KING HENRY.
263 If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
264 WILLIAMS.
265 Thou dar’st as well be hang’d.
266 KING HENRY.
267 Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King’s company.
268 WILLIAMS.
269 Keep thy word; fare thee well.
270 BATES.
271 Be friends, you English fools, be friends. We have French quarrels
272 enough, if you could tell how to reckon.
273 KING HENRY.
274 Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one they will beat
275 us, for they bear them on their shoulders; but it is no English treason
276 to cut French crowns, and tomorrow the King himself will be a clipper.
277 [_Exeunt soldiers._]
278 Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls,
279 Our debts, our careful wives,
280 Our children, and our sins lay on the King!
281 We must bear all. O hard condition,
282 Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
283 Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
284 But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s ease
285 Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
286 And what have kings, that privates have not too,
287 Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
288 And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony?
289 What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more
290 Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
291 What are thy rents? What are thy comings in?
292 O Ceremony, show me but thy worth!
293 What is thy soul of adoration?
294 Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
295 Creating awe and fear in other men?
296 Wherein thou art less happy being fear’d
297 Than they in fearing.
298 What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
299 But poison’d flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
300 And bid thy Ceremony give thee cure!
301 Think’st thou the fiery fever will go out
302 With titles blown from adulation?
303 Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
304 Canst thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,
305 Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
306 That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose;
307 I am a king that find thee, and I know
308 ’Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
309 The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
310 The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
311 The farced title running ’fore the King,
312 The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
313 That beats upon the high shore of this world,
314 No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous Ceremony,—
315 Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
316 Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
317 Who with a body fill’d and vacant mind
318 Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread,
319 Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
320 But, like a lackey, from the rise to set
321 Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
322 Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
323 Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
324 And follows so the ever-running year,
325 With profitable labour, to his grave:
326 And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
327 Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
328 Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
329 The slave, a member of the country’s peace,
330 Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots
331 What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace,
332 Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
333 Enter Erpingham.
334 ERPINGHAM.
335 My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
336 Seek through your camp to find you.
337 KING HENRY.
338 Good old knight,
339 Collect them all together at my tent.
340 I’ll be before thee.
341 ERPINGHAM.
342 I shall do’t, my lord.
343 [_Exit._]
344 KING HENRY.
345 O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts.
346 Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
347 The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
348 Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord,
349 O, not today, think not upon the fault
350 My father made in compassing the crown!
351 I Richard’s body have interred new,
352 And on it have bestow’d more contrite tears
353 Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
354 Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
355 Who twice a day their wither’d hands hold up
356 Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
357 Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
358 Sing still for Richard’s soul. More will I do;
359 Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
360 Since that my penitence comes after all,
361 Imploring pardon.
362 Enter Gloucester.
363 GLOUCESTER.
364 My liege!
365 KING HENRY.
366 My brother Gloucester’s voice? Ay;
367 I know thy errand, I will go with thee.
368 The day, my friends, and all things stay for me.
369 [_Exeunt._]