網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版
[graphic]

If we no more meet, till we meet in heaven,
Then, joyfully,-my noble lord of Bedford,-
My dear lord Gloster,-and my good lord Exeter,
And my kind kinsman!,-warriors all, adieu!
Bed. Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck
go with thee!

Exe. Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly to-day:
And yet I do thee wrong, to mind thee of it,
For thou art fram'd of the firm truth of valour.
[Exit SALISBURY.
Bed. He is as full of valour, as of kindness;
Princely in both.

West.

O that we now had here

Enter KING HENRY.

[graphic]

But one ten thousand of those men in England, That do no work to-day!

K. Hen.

What's he, that wishes so? My cousin Westmoreland2?-No, my fair cousin: If we are mark'd to die, we are enough

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold;

Nor care I, who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not, if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
But, if it be a sin to covet honour,

[graphic]

1 And my kind kinsman.' This is addressed to Westmoreland by the speaker, who was Thomas Montacute, earl of Salisbury: he was not in point of fact related to Westmoreland, there was only a kind of connection by marriage between their families.

2 In the quarto this speech is addressed to Warwick. The incongruity of praying like a Christian and swearing like a heathen, which Johnson objects against, arose from the necessary con formation to the statute 3 James I. c. xxi. against introducing the sacred name on the stage. The players omitted it where they could, and where the metre would not allow of the omission they substituted some other word in its place.

3 To yearn is to grieve or vex. Thus in The Merry Wives of Windsor She laments for it that it would yearn your heart to see it.'

*

I am the most offending soul alive.

No, 'faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour,
As one man more, methinks, would share from me,
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more:
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my
host,

That he, which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd-the feast of Crispian1:
He, that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He, that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends,
And say-to-morrow is Saint Crispian:

Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,
And say, these wounds I had on Crispin's day.
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages",

What feats he did that day; Then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,-
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,-
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd:

4 "The feast of Crispian. The battle of Agincourt was fought upon the 25th of October, 1415. The saints who gave name to the day were Crispin and Crispianus, brethren, born at Rome, from whence they travelled to Soissons, in France, about the year 303, to propagate Christianity, but because they would not be chargeable to others for their maintenance, they exercised the trade of shoemakers; the governor of the town discovering them to be Christians, ordered them to be beheaded. Hence they have become the patron saints of shoemakers. The vigil is the evening before the festival.

natural

With advantages.' Old men, notwithstanding forgetfulness of old age, shall remember their feats of this day, and remember to tell them with advantage. Age is commonly boastful, and inclined to magnify past Cts and past times.

[graphic]

K. Hen. Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thou

sand men10;

Which likes me better, than to wish us one.
You know your places: God be with you all!

Tucket. Enter MONTJOY.

Mont. Once more I come to know of thee, King
Harry,

If for thy ransome thou wilt now compound,
Before thy most assured overthrow:

For, certainly, thou art so near the gulf,

Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,
The Constable desires thee-thou wilt mind
Thy followers of repentance; that their souls
May make a peaceful and a sweet retire

From off these fields, where (wretches) their poor bodies

Must lie and fester.

K. Hen.

Who hath sent thee now? Mont. The Constable of France.

K. Hen. I pray thee, bear my former answer back; Bid them achieve me, and then sell my bones. Good God!, why should they mock poor fellows thus?

The man, that once did sell the lion's skin
While the beast liv'd, was kill'd with hunting him.
A many of our bodies shall, no doubt,
Find native graves; upon the which, I trust,
Shall witness live in brass11 of this day's work:
And those that leave their valiant bones in France,
Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
They shall be fam'd; for there the sun shall greet

them,

10-thou hast unwished five thousand men. By wishing only thyself and me, thou hast wished five thousand men away. The poet, inattentive to numbers, puts five thousand, but in the last scene the French are said to be full three score thousand, which Exeter declares to be five to one; the numbers of the English are variously stated, Holinshed makes them fifteen thousand, others but nine thousand.

1 i. e. in brazen plates anciently let into tombstones. Vol. V.

20*

[graphic]
« 上一頁繼續 »