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Ere you with grief had spoke, and I had heard
The course of it so far. There is your crown:
And He that wears the crown immortally,
Long guard it yours! If I affect it more,
Than as your honour, and as your renown,
Let me no more from this obedience rise,-
(Which my most true and inward duteous spirit
Teacheth,)—this prostrate and exterior bending!
Heaven witness with me, when I here came in
And found no course of breath within your
majesty,

How cold it struck my heart! If I do feign,
O, let me in my present wildness die ;

And never live to show th' incredulous world
The noble change that I have purposed!
Coming to look on you, thinking you dead
(And dead almost, my liege, to think you were),
I spake unto the crown as having sense,
And thus upbraided it:-"The care on thee
depending

Hath fed upon the body of my father; Therefore, thou, best of gold, art worst of gold. Other, less fine in carat,* is more precious, Preserving life in medicine potable;†

But thou, most fine, most honour'd, most renown'd, Hast eat thy bearer up."-Thus, my most royal liege,

Accusing it, I put it on my head,

To try with it,- -as with an enemy,
That had before my face murther'd my father,
The quarrel of a true inheritor.

But if it did infect my blood with joy,
Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride;
If any rebel or vain spirit of mine
Did, with the least affection of a welcome,
Give entertainment to the might of it,
Let Heaven for ever keep it from my head,
And make me as the poorest vassal is,
That doth with awe and terror kneel to it.
K. Hen. O my son !

Heaven put it in thy mind to take it hence,
That thou mightst win the more thy father's love,
Pleading so wisely in excuse of it.
Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed;
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel

* Carat means weight.

↑ Potable means to be taken,

That ever I shall breathe. Heaven knows, my

son,

By what by-paths, and indirect crook'd ways,
I met this crown; and I myself know well
How troublesome it sat upon my head:
To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
Better opinion, better confirmation;
For all the soil of the achievement goes
With me into the earth. It seem'd in me
But as an honour snatch'd with boisterous hand;
And I had many living, to upbraid

My gain of it by their assistances;
Which daily grew to quarrel, and to bloodshed,
Wounding supposed peace: all these bold fears,
Thou seest, with peril I have answered:
For all my reign hath been but as a scene
Acting that argument; and now my death
Changes the mood for what in me was purchas'd,*
Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort;

So thou the garland wear'st successively.
Yet, though thou stand'st more sure than I could do,
Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green;
And all thy friends, which thou must make thy
friends,

Have but their stings and teeth newly ta'en out;
By whose fell working I was first advanc'd,
And by whose power I well might lodge a fear
To be again displac'd: which to avoid,
I cut them off; and had a purpose now
To lead out many to the Holy Land;
Lest rest, and lying still, might make them look
Too near unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,
Be it thy course, to busy giddy minds

With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne

out,

May waste the memory of the former days.
More would I, but my lungs are wasted so,
That strength of speech is utterly denied me.
How I came by the crown, O Heaven forgive!
And grant it may with thee in true peace live!
P. Hen. My gracious liege,

You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me;
Then plain and right must my possession be:
Which I, with more than with a common pain,
'Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

[Exeunt.

Purchased in Shakespeare frequently means stolen goods,

ACT V.

SCENE.-The Palace. Present the Princes and That I will deeply put the fashion on, others, with the CHIEF JUSTICE.

Enter HENRY V.

Ch. Just. Good morrow; and Heaven save your majesty !

King. This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
Sits not so easy on me as you think.
Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear:
This is the English, not the Turkish court:
Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,

But Harry, Harry: Yet be sad, good brothers,
For, to speak truth, it very well becomes you;
Sorrow so royally in you appears,

And wear it in my heart. Why, then, be sad:
But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
Than a joint burthen laid upon us all.
For me, by Heaven, I bid you be assur❜d,
I'll be your father and your brother too;
Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares.
Yet weep that Harry's dead; and so will I ;
But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears,
By number, into hours of hapiness.

P. John, &c. We hope no other from your majesty.

King. You all look strangely on me:-and you most; [To the Chief Justice.

You are, I think, assur'd I love you not.
Ch. Just. I am assur'd, if I be measur'd rightly,
Your majesty hath no just cause to hate me.
King. No!
How might a prince of my great
hope forget

?

So great indignities you laid upon me?
What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
Th' immediate heir of England! Was this easy
May this be wash'd in Lethe, and forgotten?
Ch. Just. I then did use the person of your father;
The image of his power lay then in me.

King. You are right, justice, and you weigh this well;

Therefore still bear the balance and the sword:
And I do wish your honours may increase,
Till you do live to see a son of mine
Offend you, and obey you, as I did.
So shall I live to speak my father's words:-
Happy am I, that have a man so bold,
That dares do justice to my proper son;
And not less happy, having such a son,
That would deliver up his greatness so
Into the hands of justice. There is my hand;
You shall be as a father to my youth;

My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear,
And I will stoop and humble my intents
To your well-practis'd, wise directions.

And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you ;-
My father is gone wild into his grave,
For in his tomb lie my affections;
And with his spirit sadly I survive,
To mock the expectation of the world;
To frustrate prophecies; and to raze out
Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
Hath proudly flow'd in vanity, till now:
Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea;
Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
Now call we our high court of parliament:
And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
That the great body of our state may go
In equal rank with the best govern❜d nation
That war, or peace, or both at once, may be
As things acquainted and familiar to us;-
In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.
[To the Lord Chief Justice.
Our coronation done, we will accite,
As I before remember'd, all our state:
And (Heaven consigning to my good intents)
No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,
Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day.

;

[Exeunt.

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SCENE.-The Palace at Westminster. Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, and the Bishop of ELY.

Cant. 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 :
Never came reformation in a flood,

With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.

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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 honey'd sentences;

So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric:

Which is a wonder, how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain :
His companies, unlettered, rude, and shallow;

M

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SCENE. A Room of State in the Palace. Present the KING and his Councillors, and the French Ambassadors,

Amb. May't please your majesty to give us leave
Freely to render what we have in charge;
Or shall we sparingly show you far off
The dauphin's meaning, and our embassy?
K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;
Unto whose grace our passion is as subject,
As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons;
Therefore, with frank and with uncurb'd plainness
Tell us the dauphin's mind.
Amb.
Thus, then, in few.
Your highness, lately sending into France,
Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
Of your great predecessor, King Edward the
Third.

In answer of which claim, the prince our master
Says, that you savour too much of your youth;
And bids you be advis'd, there's nought in France
That can be with a nimble galliard won:
You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
Desires you, let the dukedoms that you claim
Hear no more of you. This the dauphin speaks.
K. Hen. What treasure, uncle?
Exe.

Tennis-balls, my liege. K. Hen, We are glad the dauphin is so pleasant with us;

His present, and your pains, we thank you for:
When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard:
Tell him, he hath made a match with such a
wrangler,

That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
With chaces. And we understand him well,
How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.
We never valued this poor seat of England;
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common,
That men are merriest when they are from home.
But tell the dauphin,—I will keep my state;
Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness,
When I do rouse me in my throne of France,
For that I have laid by my majesty,
And plodded like a man for working-days;
But I will rise there with so full a glory,
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant princes, this mock of his
Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them: for many a thousand
widows
[bands;

Shall this his mock mock out of their dear bus-
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down:
And some are yet ungotten and unborn,
That shall have cause to curse the dauphin's

scorn.

But this lies all within the will of God,
To whom I do appeal; and in whose name,
Tell you the dauphin, I am coming on
To venge me as I may, and to put forth
My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
So, get you hence in peace; and tell the dauphin,
His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it.
Convey them with safe conduct.--Fare you well.
[Exeunt Ambassadors.

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SCENE. Before the gates of Harfleur, Governor | Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit and Citizens on the wall. Enter KING HENRY and his Army.

K. Hen. Once more unto the breach, dear friends,

once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,

To his full height!-On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is got from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war!-And you, good
yeomen,

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I
doubt not;

For there is none of you so mean and base
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it, I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'er hang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot;
Follow your spirit: and upon this charge,
Cry-God for Harry! England! and Saint George!
[Exeunt. Flourish of trumpets.

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This is the latest parle we will admit;
Therefore, to our best mercy give yourselves;
Or, like to men of proud destruction,

Defy us to the worst: for, as I am a soldier,

(A name that, in my thoughts, becomes me best), If I begin the battery once again,

I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur

Till in her ashes she lie buried.

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up;

O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of deadly murther, spoil, and villainy.
If not, why, in a moment, look to see
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls;
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes;
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confus'd
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid?
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd ?

Gov. Our expectation hath this day an end:
The dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,

And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart, Returns us-that his powers are yet not ready

In liberty of bloody hand shall range.
What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array'd in flames, like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil,
As send precepts to the Leviathan
To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town, and of your people,
Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;
Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace

To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king,
We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy:
Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;
For we no longer are defensible.

K. Hen. Open your gates.-Come, uncle Exeter,
Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,
And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French:
Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,-
The winter coming on, and sickness growing
Upon our soldiers,- -we will retire to Calais.
To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest;
To-morrow for the march are we address'd.

[Flourish. The KING, &c. enter the town.

ACT IV.

SCENE.-The English camp at Agincourt.
King HENRY alone.

O hard condition! twin-born with greatness,
Subject to the breath of every fool, whose sense
No more can feel but his own wringing!
What infinite hearts ease must kings neglect
That private men enjey?

And what have kings that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? what are thy comings in?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth?
What is thy soul of adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure.
Think'st thou, the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's
knee,

Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play'st so subtly with a king's repose;
I am a king that find thee; and I know,
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The inter-tissued robe of gold and pearl,

The farced title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave;
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep,
Had the forehand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

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Toward Heaven, to pardon blood; and I have SCENE.-Part of the field of Battle at Agin

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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 Westmoreland?-No, my fair cousin: If we are mark'd to die, we are enow To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men the greater share of honour. God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. By Jove, I am not covetous for gold; Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost: It yearns me not if men my garments wear; Such outward things dwell not in my desires: But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive. No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England: God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour, As one man more, methinks, would share from me, For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one

more:

Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse :
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian;
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, To-morrow is Saint Crispian :
Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars:
And say, these wounds I had on Crispin's day.
Old men forget; yet shall not all forget,
But he'll remember with advantages,
What feats he did that day: Then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,-
Harry the king, Bedford, and Exeter,
Warwick, and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,-
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd;
This story shall the good man teach his son ;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition :
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not
here;

And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon St. Crispin's day.

court.

Enter King HENRY and Forces; EXETER, and others.

K. Hen. Well have we done, thrice valiant countrymen :

But all's not done, yet keep the French the field. Exe. The Duke of York commends him to your majesty.

K. Hen. Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour

I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;
From helmet to the spur, all blood he was.
Exe. In which array (brave soldier!) doth he
lie,

Larding the plain: and by his bloody side
(Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds)
The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.

Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled over,
Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep'd,
And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes,
That bloodily did yawn upon his face;
And cries aloud,-" Tarry, my cousin Suffolk!
My soul shall thine keep company to heaven:
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast;
As, in this glorious and well-foughten field,
We kept together in our chivalry!"
Upon these words I came, and cheer'd him up:
He smiled me in the face, raught me his hand,
And with a feeble gripe, says,—“Dear my lord,
Commend my service to my sovereign."
So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck
He threw his wounded arm, and kiss'd his lips:
And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'ð
A testament of noble-ending love.

The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd
Those waters from me, which I would have
stopp'd;

But I had not so much of man in me,
And all my mother came into mine eyes,
And gave me up to tears.
K. Hen.
I blame you not;
For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.

[Alarum.

But, hark; what new alarum is this same ?-
The French have reinforc'd their scatter'd men:-
Then every soldier kill his prisoners;
Give the word through.

Exe. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.

Glo. His eyes are humbler than they us'd to be. K. Hen. How now! what means this, herald?

know'st thou not

That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom? Com'st thou again for ransom?

Mont.

No, great king, I come to thee for charitable licence, That we may wander o'er this bloody field, To book our dead, and then to bury them; To sort our nobles from our common men: For many of our princes (woe the while!) Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood (So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs in blood of princes); and their wounded steeds Fret fetlock deep in gore, and, with wild rage, Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,

* Reached.

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