The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works

by William Shakespeare

  For our bad neighbour 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 Sir Thomas Erpingham

  Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham.

  A good soft pillow for that good white head

  Were better than a churlish turf of France.

  ERPINGHAM

  Not so, my liege. This lodging likes me better,

  Since I may say, ‘Now lie I like a king.’

  KING HARRY

  ’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.

  GLOUCESTER We shall, my liege.

  ERPINGHAM Shall I attend your grace?

  KING HARRY 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.

  ERPINGHAM The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry.

  KING HARRY

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

  Exeunt all but King Harry

  Enter Pistol ⌈to him⌉

  PISTOL Qui vous là?

  KING HARRY A friend.

  PISTOL

  Discuss unto me: art thou officer,

  Or art thou base, common, and popular?

  KING HARRY I am a gentleman of a company.

  PISTOL Trail’st thou the puissant pike?

  KING HARRY Even so. What are you?

  PISTOL

  As good a gentleman as the Emperor.

  KING HARRY Then you are a better than the King.

  PISTOL

  The King’s a bawcock and a heart-of-gold,

  A lad of life, an imp of fame,

  Of parents good, of fist most valiant.

  I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heartstring

  I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?

  KING HARRY Harry le roi.

  PISTOL Leroi? A Cornish name. Art thou of Cornish crew?

  KING HARRY No, I am a Welshman.

  PISTOL Know’st thou Fluellen?

  KING HARRY Yes.

  PISTOL

  Tell him I’ll knock his leek about his pate

  Upon Saint Davy’s day.

  KING HARRY Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that about yours.

  PISTOL Art thou his friend?

  KING HARRY And his kinsman too.

  PISTOL The fico for thee then.

  KING HARRY I thank you. God be with you.

  PISTOL My name is Pistol called.

  KING HARRY It sorts well with your fierceness.

  Exit Pistol Enter Captains Fluellen and Gower ⌈severally⌉. King Harry stands apart

  GOWER Captain Fluellen!

  FLUELLEN So! In the name of Jesu Christ, speak fewer. It is the greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true and ancient prerogatifs and laws of the wars is not kept. If you would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle-taddle nor pibble-babble in Pompey’s camp. I warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.

  GOWER Why, the enemy is loud. You hear him all night.

  FLUELLEN If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb? In your own conscience now?

  GOWER I will speak lower.

  FLUELLEN I pray you and beseech you that you will.

  Exeunt Fluellen and Gower

  KING HARRY

  Though it appear a little out of fashion,

  There is much care and valour in this Welshman.Enter three soldiers: John Bates, Alexander Court, and Michael Williams

  COURT Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?

  BATES I think it be. But we have no great cause to desire the approach of day.

  WILLIAM We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see the end of it.—Who goes there?

  KING HARRY A friend.

  WILLIAM Under what captain serve you?

  KING HARRY Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

  WILLIAM A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray you, what thinks he of our estate?

  KING HARRY Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide.

  BATES He hath not told his thought to the King?

  KING HARRY 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.

  BATES He may show what outward courage he will, but I believe, as cold a night as ’tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck. And so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

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

  BATES Then I would he were here alone. So should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men’s lives saved.

  KING HARRY 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 honourable.

  WILLIAMS That’s more than we know.

  BATES Ay, or more than we should seek after. For we know enough if we know we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.

  WILLIAMS But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day, and cry all, ‘We died at such a ptace’—some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it—who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

  KING HARRY 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 deaths when they propose 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.

  ⌈BATES⌉ ’Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head. The King is not to answer it. I do not desire he should answer for me, and yet I determine to fight lustily for him.

  KING HARRY I myself heard the King say he would not be ransomed.

  WILLIAMS Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully, but when our throats are cut he may be ransomed, and we ne’er the wiser.

  KING HARRY If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

  WILLIAMS You pay him then! That’s a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, that a poor and a private displeasure can do against a monarch. You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock’s feather. You’ll never trust his word after! Come, ’tis a foolish saying.

  KING HARRY Your reproof is something too round. I should be angry with you, if the time were convenient.

  WILLIAMS Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

  KING HARRY I embrace it.

  WILLIAM How shall I know thee again?

  KING HARRY Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet. Then if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel.

  WILLIAMS Here’s my glove. Give me another of thine.

  KING HARRY There. They exchange gloves

  WILLIAM This will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou come to me and say, after tomorrow, ‘This is my glove’, by this hand I will take thee a box on the ear.

  KING HARRY If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

  WILLIAM Thou darest as well be hanged.

  KING HARRY Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King’s company.

  WILLIAMS Keep thy word. Fare thee well.

  BATES Be friends, you English fools, be friends. We have French quarrels enough, if you could tell how to reckon.

  KING HARRY 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. Exeunt soldiers Upon the King. ‘Let us our lives, our souls, our debts, our care-full 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 heartsease 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 worshippers? 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 sceptre, and the ball, The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, The farced 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 labour 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. Enter Sir Thomas Erpingham

  ERPINGHAM

  My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,

  Seek through your camp to find you.

  KING HARRY

  Good old knight,

  Collect them all together at my tent.

  I’ll be before thee.

  ERPINGHAM

  I shall do’t, my lord. Exit

  KING HARRY

  O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts.

  Possess them not with fear. Take from them now

  The sense of reck‘ning, ere 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 interred new,

  And on it have bestowed more contrite tears

  Than from it issued forced drops of blood.

  Five hundred poor have I 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 ill,

  Imploring pardon.

  Enter the Duke of Gloucester

  GLOUCESTER

  My liege.

  KING HARRY 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.Exeunt

  4.2 Enter the Dukes of ⌈Bourbon⌉and Orléans, and Lord Rambures

  ORLÉANS The sun doth gild our armour. Up, my lords!

  ⌈BOURBON⌉Monte cheval! My horse! Varlet, lacquais! Ha!

  ORLÉANS O brave spirit!

  ⌈BOURBON⌉ Via les eaux et terre!

  ORLÉANS Rien plus? L’air et feu!

  ⌈BOURBON⌉ Cieux, cousin Orléans!Enter the Constable

  Now, my Lord Constable!

  CONSTABLE Hark how our steeds for present service neigh.

  ⌈BOURBON⌉

  Mount them and make incision in their hides,

  That their hot blood may spin in English eyes

  And dout them with superfluous courage. Ha!

  RAMBURES

  What, will you have them weep our horses’ blood?

  How shall we then behold their natural tears?

  Enter a Messenger

  MESSENGER

  The English are embattled, you French peers.

  CONSTABLE

  To horse, you gallant princes, straight to horse!

  Do but behold yo
n poor and starved band,

  And your fair show shall suck away their souls,

  Leaving them but the shells and husks of men.

  There is not work enough for all our hands,

  Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins

  To give each naked curtal-axe a stain

  That our French gallants shall today draw out

  And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on

  them,

  The vapour of our valour will o‘erturn them.

  ’Tis positive ’gainst all exceptions, lords,

  That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants,

  Who in unnecessary action swarm

  About our squares of battle, were enough

  To purge this field of such a hilding foe,

  Though we upon this mountain’s basis by

  Took stand for idle speculation,

  But that our honours must not. What’s to say?

  A very little little let us do

  And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound

  The tucket sonance and the note to mount,

  For our approach shall so much dare the field

  That England shall couch down in fear and yield.Enter Lord Grandpré

  GRANDPRÉ

  Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?

  Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,

  Ill-favouredly become the morning field.

  Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose

  And our air shakes them passing scornfully.

  Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggared host

  And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.

  The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks

  With torchstaves in their hands, and their poor jades

  Lob down their heads, drooping the hides and hips,

  The gum down-roping from their pale dead eyes,

  And in their palled dull mouths the gimmaled bit

  Lies foul with chewed grass, still and motionless.

  And their executors, the knavish crows,

  Fly o’er them all impatient for their hour.

  Description cannot suit itself in words

  To demonstrate the life of such a battle