William Shakespeare
-
Tragedies
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
-
Histories
- King Henry IV Part 1
- King Henry IV Part 2
- King Henry V
- King Henry VI Part 1
- King Henry VI Part 2
- King Henry VI Part 3
- King Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III
-
Comedies
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Measure for Measure
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Comedy of Errors
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
-
Poetry
- A Lover's Complaint
- Sonnets 1 to 50
- Sonnets 50 to 100
- Sonnets 100 to 154
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Venus and Adonis
King Henry V (1599)
PROLOGUE
[Flourish. Enter Chorus.]
CHORUS.
- Now all the youth of England are on fire,
- And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies.
- Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought
- Reigns solely in the breast of every man.
- They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,
- Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
- With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
- For now sits Expectation in the air,
- And hides a sword from hilts unto the point
- With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,
- Promis'd to Harry and his followers.
- The French, advis'd by good intelligence
- Of this most dreadful preparation,
- Shake in their fear, and with pale policy
- Seek to divert the English purposes.
- O England! model to thy inward greatness,
- Like little body with a mighty heart,
- What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
- Were all thy children kind and natural!
- But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out
- A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills
- With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men,
- One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,
- Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,
- Sir Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland,
- Have, for the gilt of France,—O guilt indeed!—
- Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France;
- And by their hands this grace of kings must die,
- If hell and treason hold their promises,
- Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.
- Linger your patience on, and we'll digest
- The abuse of distance, force a play.
- The sum is paid; the traitors are agreed;
- The King is set from London; and the scene
- Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton.
- There is the playhouse now, there must you sit;
- And thence to France shall we convey you safe,
- And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
- To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,
- We'll not offend one stomach with our play.
- But, till the King come forth, and not till then,
- Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.
[Exit.]
ACT TWO
[Enter Corporal Nym and Lieutenant Bardolph.]
BARDOLPH.
- Well met, Corporal Nym.
NYM.
- Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.
BARDOLPH.
- What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?
NYM.
- For my part, I care not. I say little; but when time shall
- serve, there shall be smiles; but that shall be as it may. I dare
- not fight, but I will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a simple
- one, but what though? It will toast cheese, and it will endure
- cold as another man's sword will; and there's an end.
BARDOLPH.
- I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends; and we'll
- be all three sworn brothers to France. Let it be so, good
- Corporal Nym.
NYM.
- Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the certain of it; and
- when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my rest,
- that is the rendezvous of it.
BARDOLPH.
- It is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell Quickly; and
- certainly she did you wrong, for you were troth-plight to her.
NYM.
- I cannot tell. Things must be as they may. Men may sleep, and
- they may have their throats about them at that time; and some say
- knives have edges. It must be as it may. Though patience be a
- tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I
- cannot tell.
[Enter Pistol and Hostess.]
BARDOLPH.
- Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good Corporal, be
- patient here. How now, mine host Pistol!
- PISTOL.
- Base tike, call'st thou me host?
- Now, by this hand, I swear I scorn the term;
- Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.
HOSTESS.
- No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a
- dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of
- their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdy house
- straight. [Nym and Pistol draw.] O well a day, Lady, if he be not
- drawn now! We shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.
BARDOLPH.
- Good Lieutenant! good corporal! offer nothing here.
NYM.
- Pish!
PISTOL.
- Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear'd cur of Iceland!
HOSTESS.
- Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.
NYM.
- Will you shog off? I would have you solus.
PISTOL.
- "Solus," egregious dog! O viper vile!
- The "solus" in thy most mervailous face;
- The "solus" in thy teeth, and in thy throat,
- And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy,
- And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
- I do retort the "solus" in thy bowels;
- For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,
- And flashing fire will follow.
NYM.
- I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to
- knock you indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I
- will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms. If you
- would walk off, I would prick your guts a little, in good terms,
- as I may; and that's the humour of it.
PISTOL.
- O braggart vile and damned furious wight!
- The grave doth gape, and doting death is near,
- Therefore exhale.
BARDOLPH.
- Hear me, hear me what I say. He that strikes the first
- stroke I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.
[Draws.]
PISTOL.
- An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.
- Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give.
- Thy spirits are most tall.
NYM.
- I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair terms:
- that is the humour of it.
PISTOL.
- "Couple a gorge!"
- That is the word. I thee defy again.
- O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get?
- No! to the spital go,
- And from the powdering tub of infamy
- Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,
- Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse.
- I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly
- For the only she; and—pauca, there's enough.
- Go to.
[Enter the Boy.]
BOY.
- Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and you,
- hostess. He is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put
- thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan.
- Faith, he's very ill.
BARDOLPH.
- Away, you rogue!
HOSTESS.
- By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these days.
- The King has kill'd his heart.
- Good husband, come home presently.
[Exeunt Hostess and Boy.]
BARDOLPH.
- Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France
- together; why the devil should we keep knives to cut one
- another's throats?
PISTOL.
- Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!
NYM.
- You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?
PISTOL.
- Base is the slave that pays.
NYM.
- That now I will have: that's the humour of it.
PISTOL.
- As manhood shall compound. Push home.
[They draw.]
BARDOLPH.
- By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I'll kill
- him; by this sword, I will.
PISTOL.
- Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.
BARDOLPH.
- Corporal Nym, and thou wilt be friends, be friends; an
- thou wilt not, why, then, be enemies with me too. Prithee,
- put up.
NYM.
- I shall have my eight shillings I won from you at betting?
PISTOL.
- A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;
- And liquor likewise will I give to thee,
- And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.
- I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me.
- Is not this just? For I shall sutler be
- Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
- Give me thy hand.
NYM.
- I shall have my noble?
PISTOL.
- In cash most justly paid.
NYM.
- Well, then, that's the humour of't.
[Re-enter Hostess.]
HOSTESS.
- As ever you come of women, come in quickly to Sir John.
- Ah, poor heart! he is so shak'd of a burning quotidian tertian,
- that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.
NYM.
- The King hath run bad humours on the knight; that's the even
- of it.
PISTOL.
- Nym, thou hast spoke the right.
- His heart is fracted and corroborate.
NYM.
- The King is a good king; but it must be as it may; he
- passes some humours and careers.
PISTOL.
- Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 2. Southampton. A council chamber.
[Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmoreland.]
BEDFORD.
- 'Fore God, his Grace is bold, to trust these traitors.
EXETER.
- They shall be apprehended by and by.
WESTMORELAND.
- How smooth and even they do bear themselves!
- As if allegiance in their bosoms sat
- Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.
BEDFORD.
- The King hath note of all that they intend,
- By interception which they dream not of.
EXETER.
- Nay, but the man that was his bed-fellow,
- Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,
- That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
- His sovereign's life to death and treachery.
[Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Scroop, Cambridge, and Grey.]
KING HENRY.
- 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?
SCROOP.
- No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
KING HENRY.
- 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.
CAMBRIDGE.
- Never was monarch better fear'd and lov'd
- Than is your Majesty. There's not, I think, a subject
- That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
- Under the sweet shade of your government.
GREY.
- True; those that were your father's enemies
- Have steep'd their galls in honey, and do serve you
- With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
KING HENRY.
- 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.
SCROOP.
- So service shall with steeled sinews toil,
- And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
- To do your Grace incessant services.
KING HENRY.
- We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
- Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
- That rail'd against our person. We consider
- It was excess of wine that set him on,
- And on his more advice we pardon him.
SCROOP.
- That's mercy, but too much security.
- Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example
- Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
KING HENRY.
- O, let us yet be merciful.
CAMBRIDGE.
- So may your Highness, and yet punish too.
GREY.
- Sir,
- You show great mercy if you give him life
- After the taste of much correction.
KING HENRY.
- 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 wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye
- When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, 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 punish'd. And now to our French causes.
- Who are the late commissioners?
CAMBRIDGE.
- I one, my lord.
- Your Highness bade me ask for it to-day.
SCROOP.
- So did you me, my liege.
GREY.
- And I, my royal sovereign.
KING HENRY.
- 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 to-night.—Why, how now, gentlemen!
- What see you in those papers that you lose
- So much complexion?—Look ye, how they change!
- Their cheeks are paper.—Why, what read you there,
- That have so cowarded and chas'd your blood
- Out of appearance?
CAMBRIDGE.
- I do confess my fault,
- And do submit me to your Highness' mercy.
GREY, SCROOP.
- To which we all appeal.
KING HENRY.
- The mercy that was quick in us but late,
- By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd.
- 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 an appertinents
- Belonging to his honour; and this man
- Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd
- 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 coin'd me into gold,
- Wouldst thou have practis'd 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;
- And other devils that suggest by treasons
- Do botch and bungle up damnation
- With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd
- From glist'ring semblances of piety.
- But he that temper'd 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 gull'd 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 learned?
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,
- Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,
- Not working with the eye without the ear,
- And but in purged judgement 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 indued
- 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!
EXETER.
- I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl of
- Cambridge. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry
- Lord Scroop of Masham. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name
- of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.
SCROOP.
- Our purposes God justly hath discover'd,
- And I repent my fault more than my death,
- Which I beseech your Highness to forgive,
- Although my body pay the price of it.
CAMBRIDGE.
- For me, the gold of France did not seduce,
- Although I did admit it as a motive
- The sooner to effect what I intended.
- But God be thanked for prevention,
- Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
- Beseeching God and you to pardon me.
GREY.
- Never did faithful subject more rejoice
- At the discovery of most dangerous treason
- Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
- Prevented from a damned enterprise.
- My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
KING HENRY.
- God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
- You have conspir'd against our royal person,
- Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd, 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 offences! Bear them hence.
[Exeunt Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, guarded.]
- 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 smoothed 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.]
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 3. London. Before a tavern.
[Enter Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, Boy, and Hostess.]
HOSTESS.
- Prithee, honey, sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.
PISTOL.
- No; for my manly heart doth yearn.
- Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;
- Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,
- And we must yearn therefore.
BARDOLPH.
- Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in
- heaven or in hell!
HOSTESS.
- Nay, sure, he's not in hell. He's in Arthur's bosom, if ever
- man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end and went
- away an it had been any christom child. 'A parted even just
- between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for
- after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers,
- and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way;
- for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green
- fields. "How now, Sir John!" quoth I; "what, man! be o' good
- cheer." So 'a cried out, "God, God, God!" three or four times.
- Now I, to comfort him, bid him 'a should not think of God; I
- hop'd there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts
- yet. So 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet. I put my hand
- into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone;
- then I felt to his knees, [and they were as cold as any stone;]
- and so upward and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.
NYM.
- They say he cried out of sack.
HOSTESS.
- Ay, that 'a did.
BARDOLPH.
- And of women.
HOSTESS.
- Nay, that 'a did not.
BOY.
- Yes, that 'a did; and said they were devils incarnate.
HOSTESS.
- 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he never liked.
BOY.
- 'A said once, the devil would have him about women.
HOSTESS.
- 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then he was
- rheumatic, and talk'd of the whore of Babylon.
BOY.
- Do you not remember, 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose,
- and 'a said it was a black soul burning in hell-fire?
BARDOLPH.
- Well, the fuel is gone that maintain'd that fire. That's all the
- riches I got in his service.
NYM.
- Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.
PISTOL.
- Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips.
- Look to my chattels and my movables.
- Let senses rule; the word is "Pitch and Pay."
- Trust none;
- For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes
- And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck;
- Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.
- Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,
- Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys,
- To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!
BOY.
- And that's but unwholesome food, they say.
PISTOL.
- Touch her soft mouth, and march.
BARDOLPH.
- Farewell, hostess.
[Kissing her.]
NYM.
- I cannot kiss; that is the humour of it; but, adieu.
PISTOL.
Let housewifery appear. Keep close, I thee command.
HOSTESS.
- Farewell; adieu.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE 4. France. The King's palace.
[Flourish. Enter the French King, the Dauphin, the Dukes of Berri and Bretagne [the Constable, and others.]
FRENCH KING.
- Thus comes the English with full power upon us,
- And more than carefully it us concerns
- To answer royally in our defences.
- Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bretagne,
- Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,
- And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,
- To line and new repair our towns of war
- With men of courage and with means defendant;
- For England his approaches makes as fierce
- As waters to the sucking of a gulf.
- It fits us then to be as provident
- As fears may teach us out of late examples
- Left by the fatal and neglected English
- Upon our fields.
DAUPHIN.
- My most redoubted father,
- It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;
- For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,
- Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,
- But that defences, musters, preparations,
- Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,
- As were a war in expectation.
- Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth
- To view the sick and feeble parts of France.
- And let us do it with no show of fear;
- No, with no more than if we heard that England
- Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance;
- For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
- Her sceptre so fantastically borne
- By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
- That fear attends her not.
CONSTABLE.
- O peace, Prince Dauphin!
- You are too much mistaken in this king.
- Question your Grace the late ambassadors
- With what great state he heard their embassy,
- How well supplied with noble counsellors,
- How modest in exception, and withal
- How terrible in constant resolution,
- And you shall find his vanities forespent
- Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
- Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
- As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
- That shall first spring and be most delicate.
DAUPHIN.
- Well, 'tis not so, my Lord High Constable;
- But though we think it so, it is no matter.
- In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh
- The enemy more mighty than he seems,
- So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
- Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
- Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting
- A little cloth.
FRENCH KING.
- Think we King Harry strong;
- And, Princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
- The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
- And he is bred out of that bloody strain
- That haunted us in our familiar paths.
- Witness our too much memorable shame
- When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
- And all our princes captiv'd by the hand
- Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
- Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing,
- Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,
- Saw his heroical seed, and smil'd to see him,
- Mangle the work of nature and deface
- The patterns that by God and by French fathers
- Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
- Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
- The native mightiness and fate of him.
[Enter a Messenger.]
MESSENGER.
- Ambassadors from Harry King of England
- Do crave admittance to your Majesty.
FRENCH KING.
- We'll give them present audience. Go, and bring them.
[Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords.]
- You see this chase is hotly follow'd, friends.
DAUPHIN.
- Turn head and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
- Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten
- Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
- Take up the English short, and let them know
- Of what a monarchy you are the head.
- Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
- As self-neglecting.
[Enter EXETER.]
FRENCH KING.
- From our brother of England?
EXETER.
- From him; and thus he greets your Majesty:
- He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,
- That you divest yourself, and lay apart
- The borrowed glories that by gift of heaven,
- By law of nature and of nations, longs
- To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown
- And all wide-stretched honours that pertain
- By custom and the ordinance of times
- Unto the crown of France. That you may know
- 'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim
- Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
- Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd,
- He sends you this most memorable line,
- In every branch truly demonstrative;
- Willing you overlook this pedigree;
- And when you find him evenly deriv'd
From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,
- Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
- Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
- From him, the native and true challenger.
FRENCH KING.
- Or else what follows?
EXETER.
- Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
- Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it.
- Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
- In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
- That, if requiring fail, he will compel;
- And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
- Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
- On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
- Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
- Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
- The dead men's blood, the pining maidens' groans,
- For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
- That shall be swallowed in this controversy.
- This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my message;
- Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
- To whom expressly I bring greeting too.
FRENCH KING.
- For us, we will consider of this further.
- To-morrow shall you bear our full intent
- Back to our brother of England.
DAUPHIN.
- For the Dauphin,
- I stand here for him. What to him from England?
EXETER.
- Scorn and defiance. Slight regard, contempt,
- And anything that may not misbecome
- The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
- Thus says my king: an if your father's Highness
- Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
- Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty,
- He'll call you to so hot an answer of it
- That caves and womby vaultages of France
- Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
- In second accent of his ordinance.
DAUPHIN.
- Say, if my father render fair return,
- It is against my will; for I desire
- Nothing but odds with England. To that end,
- As matching to his youth and vanity,
- I did present him with the Paris balls.
EXETER.
- He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
- Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe;
- And, be assur'd, you'll find a difference,
- As we his subjects have in wonder found,
- Between the promise of his greener days
- And these he masters now. Now he weighs time
- Even to the utmost grain. That you shall read
- In your own losses, if he stay in France.
FRENCH KING.
- To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.
[Flourish.]
EXETER.
- Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king
- Come here himself to question our delay;
- For he is footed in this land already.
FRENCH KING.
- You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair conditions.
- A night is but small breath and little pause
- To answer matters of this consequence.
[Exeunt.]