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And when the mind is quicken'd, 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. Brothers both,
Commend me to the princes in our camp;

Do my good morrow to them, and anon
Desire them all to my pavilion.

GLOU. We shall, my liege.

ERP. Shall I attend your grace?

K. HEN.

No, my good knight;

Go with my brothers to my lords of England:

I and my bosom must debate a while,
And then I would no other company.

ERP. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!

[Exeunt all but King. K. HEN. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully.

PIST. Qui va là?

K. HEN. A friend.

Enter PISTOL

PIST. Discuss unto me; art thou officer?
Or art thou base, common, and popular?
K. HEN. I am a gentleman of a company.
PIST. Trail'st thou the puissant pike?
K. HEN. Even so. What are you
?
PIST. As good a gentleman as the emperor.
K. HEN. Then you are a better than the king.

23 legerity] nimbleness.

20

30

40

PIST. 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 heart-string

I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?

K. HEN. Harry le Roy.

PIST. Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of Cornish

crew?

K. HEN. No, I am a Welshman.

PIST. Know'st thou Fluellen ?

K. HEN. Yes.

PIST. Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate Upon Saint Davy's day.

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

PIST. Art thou his friend?

K. HEN. And his kinsman too.

PIST. The figo for thee, then!

K. HEN. I thank you: God be with you!

PIST. My name is Pistol call'd.

K. HEN. It sorts well with your fierceness.

Enter FLUELLEN and GoWER

Gow. Captain Fluellen!

[Exit.

FLU. SO! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower.

44 bawcock] See III, ii, 24, supra, and note.

45 imp] scion, sprout. Cf. 2 Hen. IV, V, v, 42-43, "most royal imp

of fame."

60 figo] a scornful gesticulation with the fingers. See note on III, vi, 55,

supra.

65 lower] The Folios read fewer. Malone restored lower from the Quarto.

Cf. line 81, infra.

50

60

It is the greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true and aunchient prerogatifes 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 70 pibble pabble 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.

Gow. Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.

FLU. 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?

Gow. I will speak lower.
FLU. I pray you and beseech

you that you will. [Exeunt Gower and Fluellen. K. HEN. 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.

80

WILL. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see the end of it. Who goes 90 there?

K. HEN. A friend.

WILL. Under what captain serve you ?
K. HEN. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

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

K. HEN. 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? 99 K. HEN. 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 't is, 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.

K. HEN. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king: I think he would not wish himself any where but where he is.

96 our estate] our situation. 103 the element] the sky.

106 are higher mounted] soar higher. 115 at all adventures] at all hazards.

111

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

K. HEN. 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 any where so contented as in the king's company; his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.

WILL. 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.

WILL. 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 place;" 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 any thing, 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; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

136 at the latter day] at the last day, at the day of judgment. 139-140 rawly left] left young and helpless.

142 when blood . . . argument] when shedding of blood is the subject of their thought, their business in hand.

122

132

145

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