William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition (278 page)
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Authors: William Shakespeare
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BOOK: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition
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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 ev’n just between twelve and one, ev’n at the turning o‘th’ tide—for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his finger’s end, 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 hoped 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 so up’ard and up’ard, and all was as cold as any stone.
NIM 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 talked 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 maintained that fire. That’s all the riches I got in his service.
NIM Shall we shog? The King will be gone from Southampton.
PISTOL
Come, let’s away.—My love, give me thy lips.
He kisses her
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 Holdfast is the only dog, my duck.
Therefore
caveto
be thy counsellor.
Go, clear thy crystals.—Yokefellows in arms,
Let us to France, like horseleeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!
Let senses rule. The word is ‘Pitch and pay’.
Trust none, for oaths are straws, men’s faiths are
wafer-cakes,
And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck.
Therefore
caveto
be thy counsellor.
Go, clear thy crystals.—Yokefellows in arms,
Let us to France, like horseleeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!
BOY (
aside
) And that’s but unwholesome food, they say.
aside
) And that’s but unwholesome food, they say.
PISTOL Touch her soft mouth, and march.
BARDOLPH Farewell, hostess.
He kisses her
He kisses her
NIM I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it, but adieu.
PISTOL
(to Hostess
) Let housewifery appear. Keep close, I thee command.
(to Hostess
) Let housewifery appear. Keep close, I thee command.
HOSTESS Farewell! Adieu!
Exeunt severally
2.4Exeunt severally
Flourish. Enter King Charles the Sixth of France, the Dauphin, the Constable, and the Dukes of Berri and
⌈
Bourbon
⌉
KING CHARLES
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 Bourbon,
Of Brabant and of Orléans 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 fear may teach us, out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.
And more than carefully it us concerns
To answer royally in our defences.
Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bourbon,
Of Brabant and of Orléans 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 fear 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 maintained, 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 kinged,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne
By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.
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 maintained, 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 kinged,
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 aged 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.
Question your grace the late ambassadors
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with aged 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 filled—
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth.
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 filled—
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth.
KING CHARLES Think we King Harry strong.
And princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been fleshed 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 Crécy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captived by the hand
Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales,
Whiles that his mountant sire, on mountain standing,
Up in the air, crowned with the golden sun,
Saw his heroical seed and smiled 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
The kindred of him hath been fleshed 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 Crécy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captived by the hand
Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales,
Whiles that his mountant sire, on mountain standing,
Up in the air, crowned with the golden sun,
Saw his heroical seed and smiled 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.
Do crave admittance to your majesty.
KING CHARLES
We’ll give them present audience. Go and bring them.
Exit Messenger
You see this chase is hotly followed, 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.
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 the Duke of Exeter
, ⌈
attended
⌉
KING CHARLES From our brother 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,
Picked from the worm-holes of long-vanished days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,
He sends you this most memorable line,
In every branch truly demonstrative,
Willing you over-look this pedigree,
And when you find him evenly derived
From his most famed of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him, the native and true challenger.
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,
Picked from the worm-holes of long-vanished days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,
He sends you this most memorable line,
In every branch truly demonstrative,
Willing you over-look this pedigree,
And when you find him evenly derived
From his most famed of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him, the native and true challenger.
KING CHARLES 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
Turns he 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.
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
Turns he 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.
KING CHARLES
For us, we will consider of this further.
Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother England.
Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother 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 for it
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
In second accent of his ordinance.
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 for 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.
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 assured, you’ll find a diff’rence,
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.
Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe.
And be assured, you’ll find a diff’rence,
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.
KING CHARLES ⌈
rising
⌉
rising
⌉
Tomorrow 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.
Come here himself to question our delay—
For he is footed in this land already.
KING CHARLES
You shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions.
A night is but small breath and little pause
To answer matters of this consequence.
A night is but small breath and little pause
To answer matters of this consequence.
⌈
Flourish.
⌉
Exeunt
3.0
Enter Chorus
Enter Chorus
CHORUS
Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Dover pier
Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning.
Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with th‘invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,
Breasting the lofty surge. O do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on th’inconstant billows dancing—
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance.
For who is he, whose chin is but enriched
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege.
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose th’ambassador from the French comes back,
Tells Harry that the King doth offer him
Catherine his daughter, and with her, to dowry,
Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
The offer likes not, and the nimble gunner
With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,
Alarum, and chambers go off
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.
Exit
3.1In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Dover pier
Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning.
Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with th‘invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,
Breasting the lofty surge. O do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on th’inconstant billows dancing—
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance.
For who is he, whose chin is but enriched
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege.
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose th’ambassador from the French comes back,
Tells Harry that the King doth offer him
Catherine his daughter, and with her, to dowry,
Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
The offer likes not, and the nimble gunner
With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,
Alarum, and chambers go off
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.
Exit
Alarum. Enter King Harry
⌈
and the English army, with
⌉
scaling ladders
KING HARRY
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, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured 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.
Dishonour 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 lustre 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!’
Alarum, and chambers go off. Exeunt
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, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured 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.
Dishonour 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 lustre 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!’
Alarum, and chambers go off. Exeunt
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