Up, princes; and, with spirit of honour edged,
More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:
Charles De-la-bret, high constable of France;
You dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berry,
Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;
Jaques Chatillion, Rambures, Vaudemont,
Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi, and Fauconberg,
Foix, Lestrale, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;
High dukes, great princes, barons, lords, and knights,
For your great seats, now quit you of great shames.
Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
With pennons* painted in the blood of Harfleur:
Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow
Upon the valleys; whose low vassal seat

The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon :
Go down upon him,-you have power enough,—
And in a captive chariot, into Roüen

Bring him our prisoner.

Con. This becomes the great.

Sorry am I, his numbers are so few,

His soldiers sick, and famish'd in their march;
For, I am sure, when he shall see our army,
He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear,
And, for achievement, offer us his ransom.

Fr. King. Therefore, lord constable, haste on Montjoy:
And let him say to England, that we send

To know what willing ransom he will give.

Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Roüen.
Dau. Not so, I do beseech your majesty.

Fr. King. Be patient, for you shall remain with us.—
Now, forth, lord constable, and princes all;
And quickly bring us word of England's fall.

SCENE VI.-The English Camp in Picardy.

Enter GOWER and FLUELLEN.

[Exeunt.

Gow. How now, captain Fluellen ? come you from the bridge? Flu. I assure you, there is very excellent service committed at the pridge.

Gow. Is the duke of Exeter safe?

Flu. The duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon; and a man that I love and honour with my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my life, and my livings, and my uttermost powers: he is not (God be praised and plessed!) any hurt in the orld; but keeps the pridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There is an ancient there at the pridge,-I think, in my very conscience, he is as valiant as Mark Antony; and he is a man of no estimation in the 'orld: but I did see him do gallant service. Gow. What do you call him?

Flu. He is called-ancient Pistol.
Gow. I know him not.

* Pendants, small flags.

Enter PISTOL.

Flu. Do you not know him? Here comes the man.
Pist. Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours:

The duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

Flu. Ay, I praise Got; and I have merited some love at his hands.

Pist. Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,

Of buxom valour,* hath,—by cruel fate

And giddy fortune's furious fickle wheel,

That goddess blind,

That stands upon the rolling restless stone,

Flu. By your patience, ancient Pistol, Fortune is painted plind, with a muffler before her eyes, to signify to you that fortune is plind: And she is painted also with a wheel; to signify to you, which is the moral of it, that she is turning, and inconstant, and variations, and mutabilities: and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls;-In good truth, the poet is make a most excellent description of fortune: fortune, look you, is an excellent moral.

Pist. Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;
For he hath stol'n a pix, and hanged must 'a be.
A damned death!

Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free,
And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate:
But Exeter hath given the doom of death,
For pix of little price.

Therefore, go speak, the duke will hear thy voice;
And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut

With edge of penny cord, and vile reproach:

Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.

Flu. Ancient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning. Pist. Why then rejoice therefore.

Flu. Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at: for if, look you, he were my brother, I would desire the duke to use his good pleasure, and put him to executions; for disciplines ought to be used.

Pist. Die and be damn'd; and figo† for thy friendship!

Flu. It is well.

Pist. The fig of Spain !

Flu. Very good.

[Exit PISTOL.

Gow. Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I remember him now; a bawd; a cut-purse.

Flu. I'll assure you, 'a utter'd as prave 'ords at the pridge, as you shall see in a summer's day: But it is very well; what he has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant you, when time is serve.

Gow. Why, 'tis a gull, a fool, a rogue; that now and then goes to the wars, to grace himself, at his return into London, under the form of a soldier. And such fellows are perfect in great commander's names: and they will learn you by rote, where services were done:-at such and such a sconce,‡ at such a breach, at such * Valour under good command.

✦ An intrenchment hastily thrown up.

+ Fig.

a convoy; who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on; and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: And what a beard of the general's cut, and a horrid suit of the camp, will do among foaming bottles, and ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be thought on! but you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or else you may be marvellous mistook.

Flu. I tell you what, captain Gower;-I do perceive, he is not the man that he would gladly make show to the 'orld he is; if I find a hole in his coat, I will tell him my mind. [Drum heard.] Hark you, the king is coming; and I must speak with him from the pridge.

Enter KING HENRY, GLOSTER, and Soldiers.

Flu. Got pless your majesty!

K. Hen. How now, Fluellen? camest thou from the bridge? Flu. Ay, so please your majesty. The duke of Exeter has very gallantly maintained the pridge: the French is gone off, look you; and there is gallant and most prave passages: Marry, th' athversary was have possession of the pridge; but he is enforced to retire, and the duke of Exeter is master of the pridge: I can tell your majesty, the duke is a prave man.

K. Hen. What men have you lost, Fluellen?

Flu. The perdition of th' athversary hath been very great, very reasonable great: marry, for my part, I think the duke hath lost never a man, but one that is like to be executed for robbing a church, one Bardolph, if your majesty know the man: his face is all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames of fire; and his lips plows at his nose, and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes plue, and sometimes red; but his nose is executed, and his fire's out.

K. Hen. We would have all such offenders so cut off:-and we give express charge, that in our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for; none of the French upbraided, or abused in disdainful language: For when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

Tucket sounds. Enter MONTJOY.

Mont. You know me by my habit.*

K. Hen. Well then, I know thee; What shall I know of thee? Mont. My master's mind.

K. Hen. Unfold it.

Mont. Thus says my king:-Say thou to Harry of England, Though we seem'd dead, we did but sleep; Advantage is a better soldier, than rashness. Tell him, we could have rebuked him at Harfleur; but that we thought not good to bruise an injury, till it were full ripe:-now we speak upon our cue,t and our voice is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him, therefore, consider of his ransom; which must proportion the losses we have borne, the + In our turn.

VOL. III.

*His herald's coat.

D

subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which, in weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add-defiance: and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far my king and master; so much my office. K. Hen. What is thy name? I know thy quality.

Mont. Montjoy.

K. Hen. Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back;
And tell thy king, I do not seek him now;

But could be willing to march on to Calais
Without impeachment:* for, to say the sooth
(Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage),
My people are with sickness much enfeebled;
My numbers lessen'd; and those few I have,
Almost no better than so many French;
Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought upon one pair of English legs

Did march three Frenchmen.-Yet, forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus !-this your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
Go, therefore, tell thy master, here I am;
My ransom, is this frail and worthless trunk;
My army, but a weak and sickly guard;
Yet, God before,t tell him we will come on,

Though France himself, and such another neighbour,
Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go, bid thy master well advise himself:

If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd,

We will your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour: and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
The sum of all our answer is but this:
We would not seek a battle, as we are;
Nor, as we are, we say, we will not shun it;
So tell your master.

Mont. I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness.

[Exit MONTJOY.

Glo. I hope they will not come upon us now.
K. Hen. We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.
March to the bridge; it now draws toward night:-
Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves;

And on to-morrow bid them march away.

* Hinderance.

[Exeunt.

† God for my guide.

SCENE VII-The French camp, near Agincourt.

Enter the CONSTABLE of France, the Lord RAMBURES,
the Duke of ORLEANS, DAUPHIN, and others.

Con. Tut! I have the best armour of the world.-'Would, it were day!

Orl. You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.

Con. It is the best horse of Europe.

Orl. Will it never be morning?

Dau. My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you talk of horse and armour,

Orl. You are as well provided of both, as any prince in the world.

Dau. What a long night is this!- -I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns, Ca ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs;* le cheval volant, the Pegasus, qui a les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.

Orl. He's of the colour of the nutmeg.

Dau. And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness, while his rider mounts him; he is, indeed, a horse; and all other jades you may call-beasts.

Con. Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse. Dau. It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the bidding of a monarch, and his countenance enforces homage. Orl. No more, cousin.

Dau. Nay, the man hath no wit, that cannot, from the rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as fluent as the sea; turn the sands into eloquent tongues, and my horse is argument for them all: 'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the world (familiar to us, and unknown), to lay apart their particular functions, and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise, and began thus: Wonder of nature,—

Orl. I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.

Dau. Then did they imitate that which I composed to my courser; for my horse is my mistress.

Orl. Your mistress bears well.

Dau. Me well: which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular mistress.

Con. Mafoy! the other day, methought, your mistress shrewdly shook your back.

Dau. So, perhaps did yours.
Con. Mine was not bridled.

* As if he were a tennis-ball.