If we no more meet, till we meet in heaven, Exe. Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly to-day: West. O that we now had here Enter KING HENRY. 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. Nor care I, who doth feed upon my cost; 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: That he, which hath no stomach to this fight, Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars, What feats he did that day; Then shall our names, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,- 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. K. Hen. Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thou sand men10; Which likes me better, than to wish us one. Tucket. Enter MONTJOY. Mont. Once more I come to know of thee, King If for thy ransome thou wilt now compound, For, certainly, thou art so near the gulf, Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy, 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 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* |