網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版
[blocks in formation]

Duke of York, cousin to the King.

Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, and Bourbon. The Constable of France.

Rambures, and Grandpre, French Lords.

Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, and Warwick.|| Governor of Harfleur. Montjoy, a French Herald.

[blocks in formation]

Ambassadors to the King of England.

Isabel, queen of France.

Katharine, daughter of Charles and Isabel.
Alice, a lady attending on the Princess Katharine.
Quickly, Pistol's wife, a hostess.

Lords, ladies, officers, French and English soldiers, messengers, and attendants.

The Scene, at the beginning of the play, lies in England; but afterwards, wholly in France.

Enter Chorus.

O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels,
Leash'd in, like hounds, should famine, sword, and
fire,

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirit, that hath dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden 0,1 the very casques,2
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest, in little place, a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work :
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high-upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance :

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see

them

Printing their proud hoofs i'the receiving earth: For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our

kings,

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times;
Turning the accomplishments of many years
Into an hour-glass; For the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

(1) An allusion to the circular form of the theatre.

ACT I.

SCENE I-London. An ante-chamber in the King's palace. Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely.

Canterbury.

MY lord, I'll tell you,-that self bill is urg'd, Which, in the eleventh year o'the last king's reign Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd, But that the scambling and unquiet time Did push it out of further question.4

Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against us, We lose the better half of our possession: For all the temporal lands, which men devout By testament have given to the church, Would they strip from us; being valued thus,As much as would maintain, to the king's honour, Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights; Six thousand and two hundred good esquires; And, to relief of lazars, and weak age, Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil, A hundred alms-houses, right well supplied; And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the bill. Ely. This would drink deep.

Cant.

'Twould drink the cup and all.
Ely. But what prevention?
Cant. The king is full of grace, and fair regard.
Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.
Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came,
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him:
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:

(2) Helmets. (3) Powers of fancy. (4) Debate.

Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady current, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.

Ely.
We are blessed in the change.
Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire, the king were made a prelate :
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say,-it hath been all-in-all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,

The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric :2

SCENE II-The same. A room of state in the same. Enter King Henry, Gloster, Bedford, Exeter, Warwick, Westmoreland and attend

ants.

K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury?

Exe. Not here in presence.

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle.

West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?
K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be
resolv'd,

Before we hear him, of some things of weight,
That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.
Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop
of Ely.

Cant. God, and his angels, guard your sacred
throne,

And make you long become it!

K. Hen.

Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed;

Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it,|| And justly and religiously unfold,
Since his addiction was to courses vain:
His companies3 unletter'd, rude, and shallow;
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the
nettle;

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best,
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;
And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive4 in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceas'd;
And therefore we must needs admit the means,
How things are perfected.
Ely.

But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
Urg'd by the commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?

Cant.

He seems indifferent;

Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us:
For I have made an offer to his majesty,-
Upon our spiritual convocation;

And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France,-to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty ;
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
(As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done,)
The severals, and unhidden passages,
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms;
And, generally, to the crown and seat of France,
Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.
Ely. What was the impediment that broke
this off?

Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant,
Crav'd audience: and the hour, I think, is come,
To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock?
Ely.

It is.
Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy;
Which I could, with a ready guess, declare,
Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
Ely. I'll wait upon you; and I long to hear it.
[Exeunt.

(1) Listen to. (2) Theory. (3) Companions.

Why the law Salique, that they have in France,
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know, how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation

Of what your reverence shall incite us to:
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake the sleeping sword of war;
We charge you in the name of God, take heed:
For never two such kingdoms did contend,
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a wo, a sore complaint,
'Gainst him, whose wrongs give edge unto the swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord:
And we will hear, note, and believe in heart,
That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
As pure as sin with baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,—and

you peers,

That owe your lives, your faith, and services,
To this imperial throne;-There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France,
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,-
In terram Salicam mulieres nè succedant,
No woman shall succeed in Salique land:
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze,6
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,
|| That the land Salique lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe:
Where Charles the great, having subdued the
Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women,
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd there this law,-to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd-Meisen.
Thus doth it well appear, the Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France:
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of king Pharamond,

(4) Increasing. (5) Spurious.

(6) Explain.

Idly suppos'd the founder of this law;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,
Did, as heir general, being descended

So hath your highness; never king of England
Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects;
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England,
And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your right:
In aid whereof, we of the spirituality
Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors.

Of Blithild, which was daughter to king Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also,-that usurp'd the crown
Of Charles the duke of Lorain, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the great,-But lay down our proportions to defend
To fine his title with some show of truth

(Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,)
Convey'd himself? as heir to the lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son

Of Charles the great. Also king Lewis the tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the lady Ermengare,
Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorain:
By the which marriage, the line of Charles the great
Was re-united to the crown of France.
So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law,
To bar your highness claiming from the female;
And rather choose to hide them in a net,
Than amply to imbare3 their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

K. Hen. May I, with right and conscience,
make this claim?

Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
For in the book of Numbers is it writ,-
When the son dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
Look back unto your mighty ancestors:
Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's tomb,
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great uncle's, Edward the black prince;
Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France;
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling; to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.4
O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France;
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action!

Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,
And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne;
The blood and courage, that renowned them,
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.

Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of the
earth

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of blood.
your

West. They know, your grace hath cause, and
means, and might;

(1) Make showy or specious. (2) Derived his title.
(3) Lay open.
(4) At the battle of Cressy.
(3) The borders of England and Scotland.

K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the
French;

Against the Scot, who will make road
With all advantages.

upon us Cant. They of those marches,5 gracious sovereign,

Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers

only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read, that my great grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot essays;
Girding with grievous siege, castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook, and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.
Cant. She hath been then more fear'd' than

harm'd, my liege:

For hear her but exampled by herself,-
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,
The king of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill king Edward's fame with prisoner kings;
And make your chronicle as rich with praise,
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
West. But there's a saying, very old and true,—
If that you will France win,

Then with Scotland first begin:
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To spoil and havoc more than she can eat.

Exe. It follows then, the cat must stay at home:
Yet that is but a curs'd necessity;
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home:
For government, though high, and low, and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent;8
Congruing in a full and natural close,
Like music.

Cant.

True: therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey-bees;
Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:10

(6) General disposition. (7) Frightened.
(8) Harmony. (9) Agreeing.
(10) Different degrees.

Bard. Away, you rogue. Quick. By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of these days: the king has killed his heart.-Good husband, come home presently.

[Exeunt Mrs. Quickly and Boy. Bard. Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together; Why, the devil, should we keep knives to cut one another's throats? Pist. Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!

Nym. You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

Pist. Base is the slave that pays.

Nym. That now I will have; that's the humour of it.

Pist. As manhood shall compound; Push home. Bard. By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I'll kill him; by this sword, I will.

My lord of Cambridge,--and my kind kướ đế
Masham,-

And you, my gentle knight,—give me your
thoughts:

Think you not, that the powers we bear with us,
Will cut their passage through the force of France;
Doing the execution, and the act,

For which we have in head? assembled them?
Scroop. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his
best.

K. Hen. I doubt not that: since we are well
persuaded,

We carry not a heart with us from hence,
That grows not in a fair consent with ours;
Nor leave not one behind, that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.

Cam. Never was monarch better fear'd, and lov'd,
Than is your majesty; there's not, I think, a subject,

Pist. Sword is an oath, and oaths must have. That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness

their course.

Bard. Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends: an thou wilt not, why then be enemies with me too. Pr'ythee, put up.

Nym. I shall have my eight shillings, I won of you at betting?

Pist. A noble! shalt thou have, and present pay;
And liquor likewise will I give to thee,

And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood:
I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me ;-
Is not this just?-for I shall sutler be
Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.
Give me thy hand.

Nym. I shall have my noble?
Pist. In cash most justly paid.

Nym. Well then, that's the humour of it.
Re-enter Mrs. Quickly.

Quick. As ever you came of women, come in quickly to sir John: Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian, that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him. Nym. The king hath run bad humours on the knight, that's the even of it.

Pist. Nym, thou hast spoke the right; His heart is fracted, and corroborate.

Nym. The king is a good king: but it must be as it may; he passes some humours, and careers. Pist. Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins, we will live. [Exeunt. SCENE II-Southampton. A council-chamber. Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmoreland. Bed. 'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these

traitors.

[ocr errors]

Exe. They shall be apprehended by and by.
West. How smooth and even they do bear
themselves!

As if allegiance in their bosom sat,
Crowned with faith, and constant loyalty.

Bed. The king hath note of all that they intend,
By interception which they dream not of.

Exe. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow, Whom he hath cloy'd and grac'd with princely favours,

That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign's life to death and treachery!
Trumpet sounds. Enter King Henry, Scroop,
Cambridge, Grey, Lords, and Attendants.
K. Hen. Now sits the wind fair, and we will
aboard.

(1) A coin, value six shillings and eight-pence. (2) Force. (3) Compounded. (4) Recompense.

Under the sweet shade of your government.

Grey. Even those, that were your father's enemies, Have steep'd their galls in honey; and do serve you With hearts create of duty and of zeal.

K. Hen. We therefore have great cause of
thankfulness;

And shall forget the office of our hand,
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit,
According to the weight and worthiness.

Scroop. So service shall with steeled sinews toil;
And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
To do your grace incessant services.

K. Hen. We judge no less.-Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday,
That rail'd against our person: we consider,
It was excess of wine that set him on ;
And, on his more advice, we pardon him.

Scroop. That's mercy, but too much security:
Let him be punish'd, sovereign; lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
K. Hen. O, let us yet be merciful.

Cam. So may your highness, and yet punish too.
Grey. Sir, you show great mercy, if you give him
life,

After the taste of much correction.

K. Hen. Alas, your too much love and care of me
Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye,
When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and
digested,

Appear before us?-We'll yet enlarge that man,
Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey,-in their
dear care,

And tender preservation of our person,—
Would have him punish'd. And now to our French

[blocks in formation]

So much complexion?-look ye, how they change! Their cheeks are paper.-Why, what read you there,

That hath so cowarded and chas'd your blood
Out of appearance?

Cam.
I do confess my fault;
And do submit me to your highness' mercy.
Grey. Scroop. To which we all appeal.
K. Hen. The mercy, that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying them.-
See you, my princes, and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My lord of Cambridge
here,-

You know, how apt our love was, to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,
And sworn unto the practices of France,
To kill us here in Hampton: to the which,
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn.-]
n.-But O!
What shall I say to thee, lord Scroop; thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!
Thou, that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost might'st have coin'd me into gold,
Would'st thou have practis'd on me for thy use?
May it be possible, that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil,
That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black from white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason, and murder, ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause,
That admiration did not whoop at them:
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder, to wait on treason, and on murder:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was,
That wrought upon thee so preposterously,
H'ath got the voice in hell for excellence:
And other devils, that suggest by treasons,
Do botch and bungle up damnation
With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd
From glistering semblances of piety;
But he, that temper'd thee, bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou should'st do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same dæmon, that hath gull'd thee thus,
Should with his lion gait3 walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar4 back,
And tell the legions-I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's.
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they grave and learned?
Why, so didst thou: Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: Seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou: Or are they spare in diet;
Free from gross passion, or of mirth, or anger;
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood;
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement ;5
Not working with the eye, without the ear,
And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither?
Such, and so finely bolted,6 didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man, and best indued,7
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;

[blocks in formation]

For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like Another fall of man.—Their faults are open, Arrest them to the answer of the law;And God acquit them of their practices!

Exe. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard earl of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry lord Scroop of Masham.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland.

Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discover'd; And I repent my fault, more than my death; Which I beseech your highness to forgive, Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not seduce; Although I did admit it as a motive, The sooner to effect what I intended: But God be thanked for prevention; Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice, Beseeching God, and you, to pardon me.

Grey. Never did faithful subject more rejoice At the discovery of most dangerous treason, Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself, Prevented from a damned enterprise: My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign. K. Hen. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your

[blocks in formation]

Receiv'd the golden earnest of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom unto desolation
Touching our person, seek we no revenge;
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you three sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God, of his mercy, give you
Patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences!-Bear them hence.
[Exeunt conspirators, guarded.
Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war;
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way,
To hinder our beginnings, we doubt not now,
But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then, forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance :
No king of England, if not king of France. [Exe.
SCENE III.-London. Mrs. Quickly's house
in Eastcheap. Enter Pistol, Mrs. Quickly,
Nym, Bardolph, and Boy.

Quick. Pr'ythee, honey-sweet husband, let me brings thee to Staines.

Pist. No; for my manly heart doth yearn.9— Bardolph, be blithe;-Nym, rouse thy vaunting

[blocks in formation]
« 上一頁繼續 »