King Henry

How yet resolves the governor of the town? This is the latest parle we will admit: Therefore, to our best mercy give yourselves, Or, like to men proud of destruction,

Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier,
A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,
If I begin the battery once again,

I will not leave the half-achieved Harfwur,
Till in her ashes she lie buried.

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up;
And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range

With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass
Your fresh-fair virgins, and your flowering
What is it then to me, if impious war, [infants.
Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?

What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause, If your pure maidens fall into the hand

Of hot and forcing violation?

What rein can hold licentious wickedness, When down the hill he holds his fierce career? We may as bootless spend our vain command th' enraged soldiers in their spoil,

Upon th

As send precepts to the Leviathan
[Aeur,
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Har.
Take pity of your town, and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my cominand;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.
If not, why in a moment look to see

The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daugh-
Your fathers taken by the silver beards, [ters;
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the

walls;

Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,

[fus'd

Whiles the mad mothers with their howls con-
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid?
Or, guilty in

in defence, be thus destroy'd ?
Governor.

Our expectation hath this day an end.
The Dauphin, whom of succour we entreated,
Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king,
We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
Enter our gates; dispose of us, and ours,
For we no longer are defensible.

King Henry.

Open your gates! Come, uncle Exeter, Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain, And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French: Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle, The winter coming on, and sickness growing Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais. To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest; To-morrow for the march are we addrest.

[Flourish The King, &c. enter the town. SCENE IV. Rouen. A Room in the Palace. Enter Katharine and Alice.

Katharine.

Alice, tu as esté en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage.

Gower.

1 know him not.

Enter Pistol. Fluellen.

Here is the man.

Pistol.

Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours: The duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

Fluellen.

And such fellows are perfect in the great com. manders' names, and they will learn you by rote where services were done; -at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on: and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: and what a beard of the general's cut, and a horrid suit of the camp, will do among foaming bottles, and ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be thought on.

love at his hands.

Pistol.

Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart, And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate And giddy fortune's furious fickle wheel, That goddess blind,

That stands upon the rolling restless stone,

Fluellen.

By your patience, ancient Pistol. Fortune is painted plind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to signify to you that fortune is plind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it: fortune, is an excellent moral.

Pistol

Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him; For he hath stol'n a pax, and hanged must'a be. A damned death!

Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free,
And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate.
But Exeter hath given the doom of death,
For par of little price:
[voice,
Therefore, go speak, the duke will hear thy
And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut
With edge of penny cord, and vile reproach:
Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee
requite.

Fluellen.

Ancient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.

Pistol. Why then, rejoice therefore. Fluellen.

Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at; for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the duke to use his goot pleasure, and put him to execution, for discipline ought to be used.

Pistol.

the age, or else you may be marvellously mistook.

The perdition of th' athversary hath been very great, reasonable great: marry, for my part, I think the duke hath lost never a man, but one that is like to be executed for robbing a church; one Bardolph, if your majesty know the mau: his face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames of fire; and his lips plows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes plue, and sometimes red; but his nose is executed, and his fire's out.

King Henry.

ship!

ness. Tell him, we could have rebuked him at Harfleur; but that we thought not good to bruise an injury, till it were full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial. England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him, therefore, consider of his ransom; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which, in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance; and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far my king and master: so much my office.

King Henry.

What is thy name? I know thy quality.

Montjoy.

Montjoy.

King Henry.

Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back, And tell thy king,-I do not seek him now, But could be willing to march on to Calais Without impeachment; for, to say the sooth, Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much Unto an enemy of craft and vantage, My people are with sickness much enfeebled; My numbers lessen'd, and those few I have, Almost no better than so many French: Who, when they were in health, I tell thee, herald, I thought upon one pair of English legs [God, Did march three Frenchmen. - Yet, forgive me, That I do brag thus! this your air of France Hath blown that vice in me: I must repent. Go, therefore, tell thy master, here I am: My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk, My army but a weak and sickly guard; Yet, God before, tell him we will come on, Though France himself, and such another neigh. [Montjoy. Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Go, bid thy master well advise himself: If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd, We shall your tawny ground with your red blood Discolour: and so, Montjoy, fare you well. The sum of all our answer is but this: We would not seek a battle, as we are, Nor, as we are, we say, we will not shun it: So tell your master.

bour,

Dauphin

Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all. 'Tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the world (familiar to us, and unknown) to lay apart their particular functions, and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise, and began thus: "Wonder of Nature !"

Orleans.

I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.

Dauphin.
Then did they imitate that which I composed
to my courser; for my horse is my mistress.
Orleans.

Your mistress bears well.
Dauphin.

Me well; which is the prescript praise, and

others.

Constable. Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Woold it were day 1

Dauphin. So, perhaps, did yours. Constable. Mine was not bridled.

Dauphin.