K. Hen

Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed!
And justly and religiously unfold,
Why the law Salique, 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, rest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours 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 the 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 give edge unto the swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
And we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, - and

you peers,

--

That owe your lives, your faith, and services,
To this imperial throne; There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France,
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,
In terram Salicam mulieres nè succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Salique land :
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze,
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:
Where Charles the great, having subdued the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women,
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd there this law, -to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd― Meisen.
Thus doth it well appear, the Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France;
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of king Pharamond,
Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did, as heir general, being descended

To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the great. Also king Lewis the tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,

Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the lady Ermengare,

Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorain :
By the which marriage, the line of Charles the great
Was re-united to the crown of France.

So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law,
To bar your highness claiming from the female;
And rather choose to hide them in a net,
Than amply to imbare their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.
K. Hen. May I, with right and conscience, make
this claim?

Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
When the son dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back unto your mighty ancestors:

Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's tomb,
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great uncle's, Edward the black prince;
Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France;
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.

O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action!

;

Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, And with your puissant arm renew their feats : You are their heir, you sit upon their throne; The blood and courage, that renowned them, Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege Is in the very May-morn of his youth, Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprizes.

Ere. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, As did the former lions of your blood.

West. They know, your grace hath cause, and means, and might;

So hath your highness; never king of England
Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects;
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England,
And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.
Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my
dear liege,
With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your right:
In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
As never did the clergy at one time

Bring in to any of your ancestors.

K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the

French;

But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.

Cant. They of those marches, gracious sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers
only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read, that my great grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot essays:
Girding with grievous siege, castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook, and trembled at the ill-neighbourhood.
Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than
harm'd, my liege:

For hear her but exampled by herself, -
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,

The king of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill king Edward's fame with prisoner kings;
And make your chronicle as rich with praise,
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
West. But there's a saying, very old and true,
If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin;

For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To spoil and havock more than she can eat.

Exe. It follows then, the cat must stay at home:
Yet that is but a curs'd necessity;
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home :

For government, though high, and low, and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent;
Congruing in a full and natural close,
Like musick.

Cant.

:

True therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, Obedience: for so work the honey bees; Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king, and officers of sorts: Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor : Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold; The civil citizens kneading up the honey; The poor mechanick porters crouding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate; The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum, Delivering o'er to éxecutors pale

As many fresh streams run in one self sea;
As many lines close in the dial's center;
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne
Without defeat. Therefore to France, my licge.
Divide your happy England into four;
Whereof take you one quarter into France,
And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
If we, with thrice that power left at home,
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be worried; and our nation lose
The name of hardiness, and policy.

K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the
Dauphin.

[Exit an Attendant. throne.

The KING ascends lis

Now are we well resolv'd; and, by God's help;
And yours, the nolle 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 worship'd with a waxen epitaph.

Enter Ambassadors of France.

Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure
Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for, we hear,
Your greeting is from him, not from the king.
Amb. May it please your majesty, to give us leave
Freely to render what we have in charge;
Or shall we sparingly show you far off
The Dauphin's meaning, and our embassy?

K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;
Unto whose grace our passion is as subject,
As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons:
Therefore, with frank and with uncurbed plainness
Tell us the Dauphin's mind.

Amb. Thus then, in few. Your highness, lately sending into France, Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right Of your great predecessor, king Edward the third. In answer of which claim, the prince our master Says, that you savour too much of your youth; And bids you be advis'd, there's nought in France, That can be with a nimble galliard won; You cannot revel into dukedoms there. He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit, This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this, Desires you, let the dukedoms, that you claim, Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks. K. Hen. What treasure, uncle?

Exe.

Tennis-balls, my liege.

K. Hen. We are glad, the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;

His present, and your pains, we thank you for :
When we have matcl:'d 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 disturb'd
With chaces. 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 valu'd this poor seat of England;
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
G g

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 turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged 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,

Ere. This was a merry message.
K. Hen. We hope to make the sender blush at it.
[Descends from his throne.

Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour,
That may give furtherance 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.

[Exeunt.

Enter Chorus.

Chor. 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 might'st 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

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 well digest
The abuse of distance, while we 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

Nym. Good morrow, lieutenant Bardolph. Bard. 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 the humour of it.

Bard. 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.

Bard. 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.

:

Quick. 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 bawdyhouse straight. [NYм draws his sword.] O well-aday, Lady, if he be not drawn now! O Lord! here's corporal Nym's — now shall we have wilful adultery and murder committed. Good lieutenant Bardolph, good corporal, offer nothing here.

Nym. Pish!

Pist. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prickeared cur of Iceland.

Quick. Good corporal Nym, show the valour of a man, and put up thy sword.

Nym. Will you shog off? I would have you solus.
[Sheathing his sword.
Pist. Solus, egregious dog? O viper vile!
The solus in thy most marvellous 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.

Pist. O braggard, vile, and damned furious wight!

The grave doth gape, and doting death is near; Therefore exhale. [PISTOL and NYм draw.

Bard. 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.

Pist. 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.

Pist. Coupe le gorge, that's the word? defy again.

I thee

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 Tear-sheet she by name, and her espouse:
I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly
For the only she and - Pauca, there's enough.

Enter the Boy.

-

Nym. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

Pist. Base is the slave that pays.

Nym. That now I will have; that's the humour of it.

Pist. As manhood shall compound; Push home. Bard. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust I'll kill him; by this sword, I will.

Pist. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.

Bard. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends an thou wilt not, why then be enemies with me too. Pr'ythee, put up.

Nym. I shall have my eight shillings, I won of you at betting?

Pist. 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?
Pist. In cash most justly paid.
Nym. Well then, that's the humour of it.

Re-enter Mrs. QUICKLY.

Quick. As ever you came of women, come in quickly to sir John: Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked 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.

Pist. 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. Pist. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live. [Exeunt.

SCENE II. Southampton. A Council Chamber. Enter EXETER, Bedford, and WESTMORELAND. Bed. 'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors.

Exe. They shall be apprehended by and by.
West. How smooth and even they do bear them-
selves!

As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith, and constant loyalty.

Bed. The king hath note of all that they intend, By interception which they dream not of.

Exe. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow, Whom he hath cloy'd and grac'd with princely favours,

That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign's life to death and treachery!

Bard. Away, you rogue.

Quick. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these days; the king has killed his Good husband, come home presently. [Exeunt Mrs. QUICKLY and Boy. Bard. 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?

Pist. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!

Enter KING HENRY, SCROOP, CAMBRIDGE, GREY, Lords, and Attendants. K. Hen. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard. My lord of Cambridge, and my kind lord of Masham, And you, my gentle knight,

thoughts:

give me your

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?