Let us not live in France; let us quit all,
And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.
The emptying of our fathers' luxury,[4933]
Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,[4934]
Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,[4935]
And overlook their grafters?[4936]
Mort de ma vie! if they march along[4938]
Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom,
To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm[4939]
In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.[4940]
Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,[4942]
Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,
A drench for sur-rein'd 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[4943]
Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people[4944]
Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields!—[4945]25
Poor we may call them in their native lords.[4946]
Our madams mock at us, and plainly say
Our mettle is bred out and they will give
Their bodies to the lust of English youth30
To new-store France with bastard warriors.
And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos;[4947]
Saying our grace is only in our heels,
And that we are most lofty runaways.35
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:[4948]
Charles Delabreth, high constable of France;[4949]40
You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,
Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;
Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,
Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi, and Fauconberg,[4950]
Foix, Lestrale, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;[4951]45
High dukes, great princes, barons, lords and knights,[4952]
For your great seats now quit you of great shames.[4953]
Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur:
Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow50
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[4954]
Bring him our prisoner.
Sorry am I his numbers are so few,
His soldiers sick and famish'd 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.[4955]60
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.[4954]
Now forth, lord constable and princes all,
And quickly bring us word of England's fall. [Exeunt.
Scene VI. The English camp in Picardy.
Enter Gower and Fluellen, meeting.[4956]
committed at the bridge.
and a man that I love and honour with my soul,
and my heart, and my duty, and my life, and my living,[4958]
and my uttermost power: he is not—God be praised and[4959]
blessed!—any hurt in the world; but keeps the bridge most[4960]10
valiantly, with excellent discipline. There is an aunchient[4961]
lieutenant there at the pridge, I think in my very conscience[4961]
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.[4962]15
Enter Pistol.
The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.[4964]
at his hands.
And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate,[4965][4966]25
And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,[4965]
That goddess blind,[4965][4967]
That stands upon the rolling restless stone—[4965][4967][4968]
painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to[4969]30
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[4970]
her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls,
and rolls, and rolls: in good truth, the poet makes a most[4971]35
excellent description of it: Fortune is an excellent moral.[4971][4972]
For he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must a' be:[4973][4974]
A damned death![4973][4975]
Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free[4973]40
And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate:[4973]
But Exeter hath given the doom of death[4973]
For pax of little price.[4973][4974]
Therefore, go speak; the duke will hear thy voice;[4973]
And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut[4973]45
With edge of penny cord and vile reproach:[4973]
Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.[4973]
meaning.
for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the
duke to use his good pleasure, and put him to execution;[4976]
for discipline ought to be used.[4976]
him now; a bawd, a cutpurse.60
bridge as you shall see in a summer's day. But it is very
well; what he has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant
you, when time is serve.
then goes to the wars, to grace himself at his return into
London under the form of a soldier. And such fellows are[4979]
perfect in the great commanders' names: and they will learn[4980]
you by rote where services were done; at such and such a
sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off70
bravely, who was shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy
stood on; and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war,[4981]
which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: and what a[4982]
beard of the general's cut and a horrid suit of the camp[4983]
will do among foaming bottles and ale-washed wits, is wonderful75
to be thought on. But you must learn to know such
slanders of the age, or else you may be marvellously mistook.
Drum and Colours. Enter King Henry, Gloucester, and Soldiers.[4986]
bridge?
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 tell your majesty, the duke is a prave man.90
great, reasonable great: marry, for my part, I think the[4988]
duke hath lost never a man, but one that is like to be[4989]
executed for robbing a church, one Bardolph, if your majesty95
know the man: his face is all bubukles, and whelks, and[4990]
knobs, and flames o' fire: and his lips blows at his nose,[4991]
and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes
red; but his nose is executed, and his fire's out.
and we give express charge, that in our marches through[4992]
the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages,[4992]
nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided[4992]
or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and[4992][4993]
cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the[4992]105
soonest winner.[4992]
Tucket. Enter Montjoy.
England: Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep:[4994][4995]
advantage is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we could[4994]
have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we thought not[4994]
good to bruise an injury till it were full ripe: now we[4994]115
speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial: England[4994][4996]
shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our[4994]
sufferance. Bid him therefore consider of his ransom;[4994]
which must proportion the losses we have borne, the[4994]
subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which[4994]120
in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under.[4994]
For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the effusion[4994]
of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a[4994]
number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our[4994]
feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add[4994]125
defiance: and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his[4994]
followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far my[4994]
king and master; so much my office.[4994]
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 much135
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
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,[4997]140
I thought upon one pair of English legs
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;145
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,
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. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.[4998]150
Go, bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd,
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:155
We would not seek a battle, as we are;
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it:[4999]
So tell your master.
[Exit.[5000]
March to the bridge; it now draws toward night:
Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,
And on to-morrow bid them march away. [Exeunt.
Scene VII. The French camp, near Agincourt.[5001]
Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orleans, Dauphin, with others.
have his due.
you talk of horse and armour?[5003]
the world.10
horse with any that treads but on four pasterns. Ça, ha![5004]
he bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs; le[5005][5006]
cheval volant, the Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When[5006][5007]
I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the15
earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof
is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.
Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of20
earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient
stillness while his rider mounts him: he is indeed a horse;
and all other jades you may call beasts.[5009]
excellent horse.25
the bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces
homage.
rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved
praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea: turn[5010]
the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument
for them all: 'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and
for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the world,35
familiar to us and unknown to lay apart their particular[5011]
functions and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his
praise, and began thus: 'Wonder of nature,'—
my courser, for my horse is my mistress.
perfection of a good and particular mistress.
shrewdly shook your back.
rode, like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in50
your strait strossers.[5014]
ride not warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have my
horse to my mistress.55
hair.
sow to my mistress.60
et la truie lavée au bourbier:' thou makest use of any thing.[5016]
any such proverb so little kin to the purpose.
your tent to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?
and 'twere more honour some were away.
trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.
Will it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and75
my way shall be paved with English faces.
of my way: but I would it were morning; for I would
fain be about the ears of the English.
have them.
good name still.
than you.
cared not who knew it.100
but his lackey: 'tis a hooded valour; and when it appears,[5021]
it will bate.[5021]
have at the very eye of that proverb with 'A pox of[5021]110
the devil.'[5021]
Enter a Messenger.