KATH. Dat is as it sall please de roi mon père.

K. HEN. Nay, it will please him well, Kate; it shall please him, Kate.

KATH. Den it sall also content me.

K. HEN. Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my queen.

KATH. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez: ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant la main d'une de votre seigneurie indigne serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon très-puissant seigneur.

K. HEN. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.

KATH. Les dames et demoiselles pour être baisées devant leur noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France. K. HEN. Madam, my interpreter, what says she? ALICE. Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of France, I cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish. K. HEN. To kiss.

ALICE. Your majesty entendre bettre que moi. K. HEN. It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say?

ALICE. Oui, vraiment.

K. HEN. O Kate, nice customs courtesy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will do 252-253 d'une de votre... serviteur] The Folio reads less intelligibly d'une nostre Seigneur indignie serviteur.

266 nice] prudish.

268 weak list] feeble bounds.

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yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently and yielding. [Kissing her.] You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.

Re-enter the FRENCH KING and his QUEEN, BURGUNDY, and other Lords

BUR. God save your majesty! my royal cousin, teach you our princess English?

K. HEN. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her; and that is good English.

BUR. Is she not apt?

K. HEN. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in his true likeness.

BUR. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you blame her then, being a maid yet rosed over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to.

288-289 conjure . . . make a circle] Magicians traced a circle within which they summoned the spirits they conjured up to appear. There is a quibble here on circle in the sense of crown."

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K. HEN. Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.

BUR. They are then excused, my lord, when they see not what they do.

K. HEN. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.

BUR. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach her to know my meaning: for maids, well summered and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomewtide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on.

K. HEN. This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she must be blind too.

BUR. As love is, my lord, before it loves.

K. HEN. It is so: and you may, some of you, thank love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair French maid that stands in my

way.

FR. KING. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls that war hath never entered.

302-303 well summered] well looked after, well nurtured by summer heat.

303-304 Bartholomew-tide] St. Bartholomew's Day, 24 August. 307 This moral] The interpretation or application of this fable. 314 perspectively] as in a perspective glass, which was contrived so as

to produce optical illusions of various kinds. Cf. Rich. II, II, ii, 18-20: "Like perspectives, which, rightly gazed upon, Show nothing but confusion, eyed awry, Distinguish form."

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K. HEN. Shall Kate be my wife?

FR. KING. So please you.

K. HEN. I am content; so the maiden cities you talk of may wait on her: so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will.

FR. KING. We have consented to all terms of reason. K. HEN. Is't so, my lords of England? WEST. The king hath granted every article: His daughter first, and then in sequel all, According to their firm proposed natures.

EXE. Only he hath not yet subscribed this: Where your majesty demands, that the King of France, having any occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your highness in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre très-cher fils Henri, Roi d'Angleterre, Héritier de France; and thus in Latin, Præclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliæ, et Hæres Franciæ. FR. KING. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied, But your request shall make me let it pass.

K. HEN. I pray you then, in love and dear alliance, Let that one article rank with the rest;

And thereupon give me your daughter.

FR. KING. Take her, fair son, and from her blood

raise up

Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms
Of France and England, whose very shores look pale

321

332 Præclarissimus] Shakespeare copies both the French and Latin of this speech from Holinshed, who wrote Præclarissimus by mistake for Præcharissimus. In the preamble of the original treaty of Troyes, the conclusion of which the text here describes, Henry is called "præcarissimus."

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With envy of each other's happiness,

May cease their hatred, and this dear conjunction
Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord

In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance
His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.
ALL. Amen!

K. HEN. Now, welcome, Kate: and bear me witness

all,

That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen. [Flourish.
Q. ISA. God, the best maker of all marriages,
Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!
As man and wife, being two, are one in love,
So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal,
That never may ill office, or fell jealousy,
Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,
Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,
To make divorce of their incorporate league;
That English may as French, French Englishmen,
Receive each other. God speak this Amen!
ALL. Amen!

K. HEN. Prepare we for our marriage: on which day,
My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,
And all the peers', for surety of our leagues.
Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me;
And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be!

[Sennet. Exeunt.

356 paction] compact, league. Theobald's correction of the First Folio reading pation.

(stage direction) Sennet] Flourish on trumpets. Thus the First Folio. The later Folios read Sonet, which Rowe interpreted as an announcement that the chorus's speech which follows was in sonnet form.

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