HOSTESS Nay, sure, he’s not in hell; he’s in Arthur’s
bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. ’A made
10
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’th’ tide. For after I saw him
fumble with the sheets and play wi’th’ flowers, and
smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was but one
15
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
20
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.
25
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.
30
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;
35
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?
40
BARDOLPH Well, the fuel is gone that maintained 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.
45
[Kisses her.]
Look to my chattels and my moveables.
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;
50
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.
55
PISTOL Touch her soft mouth, and march.
BARDOLPH Farewell, hostess. [Kisses her.]
NYM I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.
PISTOL Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee
command.
60
HOSTESS Farewell. Adieu. Exeunt.
2.4 Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the Constable and the Dukes of Berry and Britain.
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 Berry and of Britain,
Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,
5
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.
10
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,
15
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.
20
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.
25
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.
30
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,
35
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.
40
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,
45
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 fleshed upon us,
50
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 captived, by the hand
55
Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
Whiles that his mountain 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
60
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.
65
FRENCH KING
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
70
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, with attendants.
F
RENCH KING From our brother England?
75
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
80
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,
85
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 overlook this pedigree.
90
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.
95
[Gives the French King a paper.]
FRENCH KING Or else what follows?
EXETER Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
Even in your heart, there will he rake for it.
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
100
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
105
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 threatening, and my message –
110
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
To whom expressly I bring greeting too.
FRENCH KING For us, we will consider of this further.
Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother England.
DAUPHIN For the Dauphin,
115
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
120
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
125
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,
130
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 difference,
As we his subjects have in wonder found,
135
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
Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full. [Flourish.]
140
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 dispatched with fair conditions.
A night is but small breath and little pause
145
To answer matters of this consequence.
Flourish. Exeunt.
3.0 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 Hampton pier
Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet
5
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
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 188
