ACT 1
Scene 2

...to hear it.
Enter the King of England, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, Bedford, Clarence, Warwick, Westmoreland, and Exeter, with other Attendants.
Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?

...here in presence.
Send for him, good uncle.

...Ambassador, my liege?
Not yet, my cousin. We would be resolved,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight
That task our thoughts concerning us and France.

...long become it.
Sure we thank you.
My learnèd lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold
Why the law Salic that they have in France
Or should or should not bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colors with the truth;
For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake our sleeping sword of war.
We charge you in the name of God, take heed,
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
’Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords
That makes such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord,
For we will hear, note, and believe in heart
That what you speak is in your conscience washed
As pure as sin with baptism.

...and your progenitors.
May I with right and conscience make this claim?

...of your ancestors.
We must not only arm t’ invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.

...the pilfering borderers.
We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbor to us.
For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France
But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom
Came pouring like the tide into a breach
With ample and brim fullness of his force,
Galling the gleanèd land with hot assays,
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns,
That England, being empty of defense,
Hath shook and trembled at th’ ill neighborhood.

...hardiness and policy.
Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
Now are we well resolved, and by God’s help
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
France being ours, we’ll bend it to our awe
Or break it all to pieces. Or there we’ll sit,
Ruling in large and ample empery
O’er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Tombless, with no remembrance over them.
Either our history shall with full mouth
Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
Not worshiped with a waxen epitaph.

Enter Ambassadors of France, with Attendants.
Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure
Of our fair cousin Dauphin, for we hear
Your greeting is from him, not from the King.

...and our embassy?
We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,
Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
As is our wretches fettered in our prisons.
Therefore with frank and with uncurbèd plainness
Tell us the Dauphin’s mind.

...the Dauphin speaks.
What treasure, uncle?

... my liege.
We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.
His present and your pains we thank you for.
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
That all the courts of France will be disturbed
With chases. And we understand him well,
How he comes o’er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.
We never valued this poor seat of England,
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous license, as ’tis ever common
That men are merriest when they are from home.
But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness
When I do rouse me in my throne of France,
For that I have laid by my majesty
And plodded like a man for working days;
But I will rise there with so full a glory
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
Shall stand sore chargèd for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows
Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
And some are yet ungotten and unborn
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.
But this lies all within the will of God,
To whom I do appeal, and in whose name
Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on,
To venge me as I may and to put forth
My rightful hand in a well-hallowed cause.
So get you hence in peace. And tell the Dauphin
His jest will savor but of shallow wit
When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.—
Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well.

...a merry message.
We hope to make the sender blush at it.
Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
That may give furth’rance to our expedition;
For we have now no thought in us but France,
Save those to God, that run before our business.
Therefore let our proportions for these wars
Be soon collected, and all things thought upon
That may with reasonable swiftness add
More feathers to our wings. For, God before,
We’ll chide this Dauphin at his father’s door.
Therefore let every man now task his thought,
That this fair action may on foot be brought.
Flourish. They exit.

ACT 2
Scene 2

...death and treachery!
Sound Trumpets. Enter the King of England, Scroop, Cambridge, and Grey, with Attendants.
Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.—
My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham,
And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts.
Think you not that the powers we bear with us
Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution and the act
For which we have in head assembled them?

...do his best.
I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded
We carry not a heart with us from hence
That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.

...and of zeal.
We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
And shall forget the office of our hand
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
According to the weight and worthiness.

...Grace incessant services.
We judge no less.—Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday
That railed against our person. We consider
It was excess of wine that set him on,
And on his more advice we pardon him.

...such a kind.
O, let us yet be merciful.

...of much correction.
Alas, your too much love and care of me
Are heavy orisons ’gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults proceeding on distemper
Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested,
Appear before us? We’ll yet enlarge that man,
Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care
And tender preservation of our person,
Would have him punished. And now to our French causes.
Who are the late commissioners?

...my royal sovereign.
giving them papers
Then Richard, Earl of Cambridge, there is yours—
There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham.—And, sir knight,
Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.—
Read them, and know I know your worthiness.—
My Lord of Westmoreland and uncle Exeter,
We will aboard tonight.—Why how now, gentlemen?
What see you in those papers, that you lose
So much complexion?—Look you, how they change.
Their cheeks are paper.—Why, what read you there
That have so cowarded and chased your blood
Out of appearance?

...we all appeal.
The mercy that was quick in us but late
By your own counsel is suppressed and killed.
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.—
See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters. My Lord of Cambridge here,
You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appurtenants
Belonging to his honor, and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired
And sworn unto the practices of France
To kill us here in Hampton; to the which
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn.—But O,
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature?
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew’st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coined me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practiced on me for thy use—
May it be possible that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? ’Tis so strange
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause
That admiration did not whoop at them.
But thou, ’gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder,
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence.
All other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation
With patches, colors, and with forms being fetched
From glist’ring semblances of piety;
But he that tempered thee bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back
And tell the legions “I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman’s.”
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learnèd?
Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
Garnished and decked in modest complement,
Not working with the eye without the ear,
And but in purgèd judgment trusting neither?
Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot
To mark the full-fraught man and best endued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee,
For this revolt of thine methinks is like
Another fall of man.—Their faults are open.
Arrest them to the answer of the law,
And God acquit them of their practices.

...body, pardon, sovereign.
God quit you in His mercy. Hear your sentence:
You have conspired against our royal person,
Joined with an enemy proclaimed, and from his coffers
Received the golden earnest of our death,
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person, seek we no revenge,
But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death,
The taste whereof God of His mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offenses.—Bear them hence.
Now, lords, for France, the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason lurking in our way
To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
But every rub is smoothèd on our way.
Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea. The signs of war advance.
No king of England if not king of France.
Flourish. They exit.

ACT 3
Scene 1

...with your mind.
Enter the King of England, Exeter, Bedford, and Gloucester. Alarum. Enter Soldiers with scaling ladders at Harfleur.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility,
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage,
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect,
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon, let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base
Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof,
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonor not your mothers. Now attest
That those whom you called fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture. Let us swear
That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not,
For there is none of you so mean and base
That hath not noble luster in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot.
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry “God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”

...chambers go off.
They exit.

Scene 3

...is an end.
Enter the King of England and all his train before the gates.
to the men of Harfleur
How yet resolves the Governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit.
Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves
Or, like to men proud of destruction,
Defy us to our worst. For, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the batt’ry once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie burièd.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand, shall range
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring infants.
What is it then to me if impious war,
Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats
Enlinked to waste and desolation?
What is ’t to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon th’ enragèd soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the Leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command,
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Desire the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters,
Your fathers taken by the silver beards
And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? Will you yield and this avoid
Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed?

...longer are defensible.
Open your gates. Come, uncle Exeter,
Go you and enter Harfleur. There remain,
And fortify it strongly ’gainst the French.
Use mercy to them all for us, dear uncle.
The winter coming on and sickness growing
Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.
Tonight in Harfleur will we be your guest.
Tomorrow for the march are we addressed.
Flourish, and enter the town.

Scene 6

...him my mind.
Drum and Colors. Enter the King of England and his poor Soldiers, and Gloucester.

...pless your Majesty.
How now, Fluellen, cam’st thou from the
bridge?

...a prave man.
What men have you lost, Fluellen?

...his fire’s out.
We would have all such offenders so cut
off; and we give express charge that in our marches
through the country there be nothing compelled
from the villages, nothing taken but paid for,
none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful
language; for when lenity and cruelty play
for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest
winner.

...by my habit.
Well then, I know thee. What shall I know
of thee?

...My master’s mind.
Unfold it.

...much my office.
What is thy name? I know thy quality.

... Montjoy.
Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,
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 much
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,
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.
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 neighbor
Stand in our way. There’s for thy labor, Montjoy. Gives money.
Go bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolor. And so, Montjoy, fare you well.
The sum of all our answer is but this:
We would not seek a battle as we are,
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.
So tell your master.

...upon us now.
We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs.
March to the bridge. It now draws toward night.
Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,
And on tomorrow bid them march away.
They exit.

ACT 4
Scene 1

...their mock’ries be.
Enter the King of England, Bedford, and Gloucester.
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 distill it out.
For our bad neighbor 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.

...like a king.”
’Tis good for men to love their present pains
Upon example. So the spirit is eased;
And when the mind is quickened, 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. He puts on Erpingham’s cloak.
Brothers both,
Commend me to the princes in our camp,
Do my good morrow to them, and anon
Desire them all to my pavilion.

...attend your Grace?
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.

...thee, noble Harry.
God-a-mercy, old heart, thou speak’st cheerfully.

...Qui vous là?
A friend.

...common, and popular?
I am a gentleman of a company.

...the puissant pike?
Even so. What are you?

...as the Emperor.
Then you are a better than the King.

...is thy name?
Harry le Roy.

...of Cornish crew?
No, I am a Welshman.

...Know’st thou Fluellen?
Yes.

...Saint Davy’s day.
Do not you wear your dagger in your cap
that day, lest he knock that about yours.

...thou his friend?
And his kinsman too.

...for thee then!
I thank you. God be with you.

...is Pistol called.
It sorts well with your fierceness.
He steps aside.

...that you will.
Though it appear a little out of fashion,
There is much care and valor in this Welshman.

...it.—Who goes there?
A friend.

...captain serve you?
Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

...of our estate?
Even as men wracked upon a sand, that
look to be washed off the next tide.

...to the King?
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.

...were quit here.
By my troth, I will speak my conscience
of the King. I think he would not wish himself
anywhere but where he is.

...men’s lives saved.
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 anywhere
so contented as in the King’s company, his
cause being just and his quarrel honorable.

...proportion of subjection.
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 arbitrament 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 His 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.

...lustily for him.
I myself heard the King say he would not
be ransomed.

...ne’er the wiser.
If I live to see it, I will never trust his
word after.

...a foolish saying.
Your reproof is something too round. I
should be angry with you if the time were
convenient.

...if you live.
I embrace it.

...know thee again?
Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear
it in my bonnet. Then, if ever thou dar’st acknowledge
it, I will make it my quarrel.

...another of thine.
There.
They exchange gloves.

...on the ear.
If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

...well be hanged.
Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the
King’s company.

...how to reckon.
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 tomorrow the
King himself will be a clipper.
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 idol ceremony?
What kind of god art thou that suffer’st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshipers?
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 feared,
Than they in fearing?
What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poisoned 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 scepter, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farcèd 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 filled and vacant mind,
Gets him to rest, crammed 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 labor to his grave.
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the forehand 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.

...to find you.
Good old knight,
Collect them all together at my tent.
I’ll be before thee.

...’t, my lord.
O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts.
Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reck’ning or th’ opposèd numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord,
O, not today, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown.
I Richard’s body have interrèd new
And on it have bestowed more contrite tears
Than from it issued forcèd drops of blood.
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay
Who twice a day their withered 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.

... My liege.
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.
They exit.

Scene 3

...Princely in both.
Enter the King of England.

...no work today.
What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin.
If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honor.
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 honor,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, ’faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace, I would not lose so great an honor
As one man more, methinks, would share from me,
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart. His passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home
Will stand o’ tiptoe when this day is named
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day, and live old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors
And say “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

...charge on us.
All things are ready if our minds be so.

...is backward now!
Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?

...this royal battle!
Why, now thou hast unwished five thousand men,
Which likes me better than to wish us one.—
You know your places. God be with you all.

...lie and fester.
Who hath sent thee now?

...Constable of France.
I pray thee bear my former answer back.
Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones.
Good God, why should they mock poor fellows thus?
The man that once did sell the lion’s skin
While the beast lived was killed with hunting him.
A many of our bodies shall no doubt
Find native graves, upon the which, I trust,
Shall witness live in brass of this day’s work.
And those that leave their valiant bones in France,
Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
They shall be famed; for there the sun shall greet them
And draw their honors reeking up to heaven,
Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,
The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.
Mark, then, abounding valor in our English,
That being dead, like to the bullet’s crazing,
Break out into a second course of mischief,
Killing in relapse of mortality.
Let me speak proudly: tell the Constable
We are but warriors for the working day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched
With rainy marching in the painful field.
There’s not a piece of feather in our host—
Good argument, I hope, we will not fly—
And time hath worn us into slovenry.
But, by the Mass, our hearts are in the trim,
And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night
They’ll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck
The gay new coats o’er the French soldiers’ heads
And turn them out of service. If they do this,
As, if God please, they shall, my ransom then
Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labor.
Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald.
They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints,
Which, if they have, as I will leave ’em them,
Shall yield them little, tell the Constable.

...hear herald anymore.
I fear thou wilt once more come again
for a ransom.

...of the vaward.
Take it, brave York.

York rises.
Now, soldiers, march away,
And how Thou pleasest, God, dispose the day.
They exit.

Scene 6

...be too long.
Alarum. Enter the King of England and his train, with prisoners.
Well have we done, thrice-valiant countrymen,
But all’s not done. Yet keep the French the field.

...to your Majesty.
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.

...up to tears.
I blame you not,
For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With my full eyes, or they will issue too.

Alarum.
But hark, what new alarum is this same?
The French have reinforced their scattered men.
Then every soldier kill his prisoners.
Give the word through.
They exit.

Scene 7

...comes his Majesty.
Alarum. Enter King Harry, Exeter, Warwick, Gloucester, Heralds and Bourbon with other prisoners. Flourish.
I was not angry since I came to France
Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald.
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond 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 skirr away as swift as stones
Enforcèd 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.

...used to be.
How now, what means this, herald? Know’st thou not
That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?
Com’st thou again for ransom?

...their dead bodies.
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.

...day is yours.
Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!
What is this castle called that stands hard by?

...call it Agincourt.
Then call we this the field of Agincourt,
Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

...here in France.
They did, Fluellen.

...Saint Tavy’s day.
I wear it for a memorable honor,
For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

...his Majesty too.
Thanks, good my countryman.

...an honest man.
God keep me so.—Our heralds, go with him.
Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
On both our parts.

Enter Williams.
Call yonder fellow hither.

...to the King.
Soldier, why wear’st thou that glove in thy
cap?

...he be alive.
An Englishman?

...it out soundly.
What think you, Captain Fluellen, is it fit
this soldier keep his oath?

...in my conscience.
It may be his enemy is a gentleman of
great sort, quite from the answer of his degree.

...my conscience, la.
Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou
meet’st the fellow.

...as I live.
Who serv’st thou under?

...in the wars.
Call him hither to me, soldier.

...will, my liege.
giving Fluellen Williams’s glove
Here,
Fluellen, wear thou this favor 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 me love.

...I might see.
Know’st thou Gower?

...an please you.
Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to
my tent.

...will fetch him.
My Lord of Warwick and my brother Gloucester,
Follow Fluellen closely at the heels.
The glove which I have given him for a favor
May haply purchase him a box o’ th’ 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, touched 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.
They exit.

Scene 8

...a summer’s day.
Enter King of England and Exeter.

...is his Majesty.
How now, what’s the matter?

...your conscience now.
to Williams
Give me thy glove, soldier.
Look, here is the fellow of it.
’Twas I indeed thou promised’st to strike,
And thou hast given me most bitter terms.

...in the world.
to Williams
How canst thou make me
satisfaction?

...offend your Majesty.
It was ourself thou didst abuse.

...Highness pardon me.
Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns
And give it to this fellow.—Keep it, fellow,
And wear it for an honor in thy cap
Till I do challenge it.—Give him the crowns.—
And, captain, you must needs be friends with him.

...an English Herald.
Now, herald, are the dead numbered?
HERALD, giving the King a paper

...the slaughtered French.
to Exeter
What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?

...besides common men.
This note doth tell me of ten thousand French
That in the field lie slain. Of princes in this number
And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead
One hundred twenty-six. Added to these,
Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,
Eight thousand and four hundred, of the which
Five hundred were but yesterday dubbed knights.
So that in these ten thousand they have lost,
There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries.
The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,
And gentlemen of blood and quality.
The names of those their nobles that lie dead:
Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France;
Jacques of Chatillon, Admiral of France;
The Master of the Crossbows, Lord Rambures;
Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dauphin;
John, Duke of Alençon; Anthony, Duke of Brabant,
The brother to the Duke of Burgundy;
And Edward, Duke of Bar. Of lusty earls:
Grandpré and Roussi, Faulconbridge and Foix,
Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrale.
Here was a royal fellowship of death.
Where is the number of our English dead? Herald gives him another paper.
Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire;
None else of name, and of all other men
But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here,
And not to us, but to thy arm alone
Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem,
But in plain shock and even play of battle,
Was ever known so great and little loss
On one part and on th’ other? Take it, God,
For it is none but thine.

... ’Tis wonderful.
Come, go we in procession to the village,
And be it death proclaimèd through our host
To boast of this or take that praise from God
Which is His only.

...many is killed?
Yes, captain, but with this acknowledgment:
That God fought for us.

...us great good.
Do we all holy rites.
Let there be sung Non nobis, and Te Deum,
The dead with charity enclosed in clay,
And then to Calais, and to England then,
Where ne’er from France arrived more happy men.
They exit.

ACT 5
Scene 2

...the Gallia wars.
Enter at one door, King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Warwick, Westmoreland, and other Lords. At another, Queen Isabel of France, the King of France, the Princess Katherine and Alice, the Duke of Burgundy, and other French.
Peace to this meeting wherefor we are met.
Unto our brother France and to our sister,
Health and fair time of day.—Joy and good wishes
To our most fair and princely cousin Katherine.—
And, as a branch and member of this royalty,
By whom this great assembly is contrived,
We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy.—
And princes French, and peers, health to you all.

...quarrels into love.
To cry “Amen” to that, thus we appear.

...her former qualities.
If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace,
Whose want gives growth to th’ imperfections
Which you have cited, you must buy that peace
With full accord to all our just demands,
Whose tenors and particular effects
You have, enscheduled briefly, in your hands.

...no answer made.
Well then, the peace which you before so urged
Lies in his answer.

...and peremptory answer.
Brother, we shall.—Go, uncle Exeter,
And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,
Warwick, and Huntington, go with the King,
And take with you free power to ratify,
Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best
Shall see advantageable for our dignity,
Anything in or out of our demands,
And we’ll consign thereto.—Will you, fair sister,
Go with the princes or stay here with us?

...be stood on.
Yet leave our cousin Katherine here with us.
She is our capital demand, comprised
Within the forerank of our articles.

...hath good leave.
Fair Katherine, and most fair,
Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms
Such as will enter at a lady’s ear
And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?

...speak your England.
O fair Katherine, if you will love me
soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to
hear you confess it brokenly with your English
tongue. Do you like me, Kate?

...is “like me.”
An angel is like you, Kate, and you are
like an angel.

...Grâce, ainsi dit-il.
I said so, dear Katherine, and I must not
blush to affirm it.

...pleines de tromperies.
to Alice
What says she, fair one? That the
tongues of men are full of deceits?

...is de Princess.
The Princess is the better Englishwoman.—
I’ faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy
understanding. I am glad thou canst speak no
better English, for if thou couldst, thou wouldst
find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I
had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways
to mince it in love, but directly to say “I love you.”
Then if you urge me farther than to say “Do you, in
faith?” I wear out my suit. Give me your answer, i’
faith, do; and so clap hands and a bargain. How say
you, lady?

...me understand well.
Marry, if you would put me to verses or
to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me.
For the one, I have neither words nor measure; and
for the other, I have no strength in measure, yet a
reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a
lady at leapfrog or by vaulting into my saddle with
my armor on my back, under the correction of
bragging be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a
wife. Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my
horse for her favors, I could lay on like a butcher
and sit like a jackanapes, never off. But, before God,
Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my eloquence,
nor I have no cunning in protestation, only
downright oaths, which I never use till urged, nor
never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of
this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sun-burning,
that never looks in his glass for love of
anything he sees there, let thine eye be thy cook. I
speak to thee plain soldier. If thou canst love me for
this, take me. If not, to say to thee that I shall die is
true, but for thy love, by the Lord, no. Yet I love thee
too. And while thou liv’st, dear Kate, take a fellow of
plain and uncoined constancy, for he perforce must
do thee right because he hath not the gift to woo in
other places. For these fellows of infinite tongue,
that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favors, they
do always reason themselves out again. What? A
speaker is but a prater, a rhyme is but a ballad, a
good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black
beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald,
a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, but
a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, or
rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright
and never changes but keeps his course truly. If
thou would have such a one, take me. And take me,
take a soldier. Take a soldier, take a king. And what
say’st thou then to my love? Speak, my fair, and
fairly, I pray thee.

...enemy of France?
No, it is not possible you should love the
enemy of France, Kate. But, in loving me, you
should love the friend of France, for I love France
so well that I will not part with a village of it. I will
have it all mine. And, Kate, when France is mine
and I am yours, then yours is France and you are
mine.

...wat is dat.
No, Kate? I will tell thee in French,
which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a
new-married wife about her husband’s neck, hardly
to be shook off. Je quand sur le possession de
France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi—let
me see, what then? Saint Denis be my speed!—donc
vôtre est France, et vous êtes mienne. It is as easy for
me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so
much more French. I shall never move thee in
French, unless it be to laugh at me.

...lequel je parle.
No, faith, is ’t not, Kate, but thy speaking
of my tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely must
needs be granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost
thou understand thus much English? Canst thou
love me?

...I cannot tell.
Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I’ll
ask them. Come, I know thou lovest me; and at
night, when you come into your closet, you’ll question
this gentlewoman about me, and, I know, Kate,
you will, to her, dispraise those parts in me that you
love with your heart. But, good Kate, mock me
mercifully, the rather, gentle princess, because I
love thee cruelly. If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I
have a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I
get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore
needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall not thou
and I, between Saint Denis and Saint George, compound
a boy, half French, half English, that shall go
to Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard?
Shall we not? What say’st thou, my fair flower de
luce?

...not know dat.
No, ’tis hereafter to know, but now to
promise. Do but now promise, Kate, you will
endeavor for your French part of such a boy; and
for my English moiety, take the word of a king and
a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine
du monde, mon très cher et divin déesse?

...is en France.
Now fie upon my false French. By mine
honor, in true English, I love thee, Kate. By which
honor I dare not swear thou lovest me, yet my blood
begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding
the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now
beshrew my father’s ambition! He was thinking of
civil wars when he got me; therefore was I created
with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that
when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in
faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear.
My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of
beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face. Thou
hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst, and thou shalt
wear me, if thou wear me, better and better. And
therefore tell me, most fair Katherine, will you have
me? Put off your maiden blushes, avouch the
thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress,
take me by the hand, and say “Harry of England, I
am thine,” which word thou shalt no sooner bless
mine ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud “England
is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry
Plantagenet is thine,” who, though I speak it before
his face, if he be not fellow with the best king, thou
shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your
answer in broken music, for thy voice is music, and
thy English broken. Therefore, queen of all, Katherine,
break thy mind to me in broken English. Wilt
thou have me?

...roi mon père.
Nay, it will please him well, Kate; it shall
please him, Kate.

...also content me.
Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you
my queen.

...très puissant seigneur.
Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.

...coutume de France.
Madam my interpreter, what says she?

...baiser en Anglish.
To kiss.

...bettre que moi.
It is not a fashion for the maids in France
to kiss before they are married, would she say?

... Oui, vraiment.
O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great
kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined
within the weak list of a country’s fashion. We are
the makers of manners, Kate, and the liberty that
follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults,
as I will do yours for upholding the nice fashion of
your country in denying me a kiss. Therefore,
patiently and yielding. He kisses her.
You have
witchcraft in your lips, Kate. There is more eloquence
in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues
of the French council, and they should sooner
persuade Harry of England than a general petition
of monarchs.

Enter the French power, the French King and Queen and Burgundy, and the English Lords Westmoreland and Exeter.
Here comes your father.

...our princess English?
I would have her learn, my fair cousin,
how perfectly I love her, and that is good English.

...she not apt?
Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition
is not smooth, so that, having neither the voice
nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so
conjure up the spirit of love in her that he will
appear in his true likeness.

...to consign to.
Yet they do wink and yield, as love is
blind and enforces.

...what they do.
Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to
consent winking.

...abide looking on.
This moral ties me over to time and a hot
summer. And so I shall catch the fly, your cousin,
in the latter end, and she must be blind too.

...before it loves.
It is so. And you may, some of you, thank
love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair
French city for one fair French maid that stands in
my way.

...hath never entered.
Shall Kate be my wife?

...So please you.
I am content, so the maiden cities you
talk of may wait on her. So the maid that stood in
the way for my wish shall show me the way to my
will.

...terms of reason.
Is ’t so, my lords of England?

...let it pass.
I pray you, then, in love and dear alliance,
Let that one article rank with the rest,
And thereupon give me your daughter.

...fair France. Amen.
Now welcome, Kate, and bear me witness all
That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.
He kisses her. Flourish.

...speak this Amen!
Amen.
Prepare we for our marriage; on which day,
My Lord of Burgundy, we’ll take your oath,
And all the peers’, for surety of our leagues.
Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me,
And may our oaths well kept and prosp’rous be.
Sennet. They exit.