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 smil'd 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'd
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,

But all my mother came into mine eyes,
And gave me up to tears.

K. Hen. I blame you not;

[Alarum.

For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.—
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.

SCENE VII.

[Exeunt.

Another Part of the Field. Alarums. Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER.

Flu. Kill the poys and the luggage! 'tis expressly against the law of arms: 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offered in the 'orld: In your conscience now, is it not?

Gow. 'Tis certain, there's not a boy left alive; and the cowardly rascals, that ran from the battle, have done this slaughter: besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the king's tent; wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a gallant king!

Flu. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, captain Gower: what call you the town's name, where Alexander the pig was born?

[5] The king gives one reason for his order to kill the prisoners, and Gower another. The king killed his prisoners because be expected another battle, and he had not men sufficient to guard one army and fight another. Gower declares that the gallant king has worthily ordered the prisoners to be destroyed, because the luggage was plundered, and the boys were slain JOH. Our author has here, as in all his historical plays, followed Holinshed; in whose Chronicle both these reasons are assigned. MAL

Gow. Alexander the Great.

Flu. Why, I pray you, is not pig, great? the pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.

Gow. I think, Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it. Flu. I think,it is in Macedon, where Alexander is porn. I tell you, captain,-If you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant, you shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye, at Monmouth; but it is out of my prains, what is the name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis so like as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things. Alexander (God knows, and you know,) in his rages and his furies, and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his pest friend, Clytus. 6 Gow. Our king is not like him in that; he never killed any of his friends.

Flu. It is not well done, mark you now, to take tales out of my mouth, ere it is made an end and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it: As Alexander is kill his friend Clytus, being in his ales and his cups, so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his goot judgments, is turn away the fat knight with the great belly-doublet: He was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I am forget his name.

Gow. Sir John Falstaff."

Flu. That is he. I can tell you, there is goot men born at Monmouth.

Gow. Here comes his majesty.

[6] I should suspect that Shakspeare, who was well read in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, meant these speeches of Fluellen as a ridicule on the parallels of the Greek author; in which, circumstances common to all men, are assembled in opposition, and one great action is forced into comparison with another, though as totally different in themselves as was the behaviour of Harry Monmouth, from that of Alexander the Great. STELV. [7] This is the last time that Falstaff can make sport The poet was lo th to part with him, and has continued his memory as long as he could. JOHN»

Alarum. Enter King HENRY, with a part of the English Forces; WARWICK, GLOSTER, EXETER, and

others.

K.Hen. I was not angry since I came to France
Until this instant.-Take a trumpet, herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill;
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight:
If they'll do neither, we will come to them;
And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:
Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have ;
And not a man of them, that we shall take,
Shall taste our mercy :-Go, and tell them so.
Enter MONTJOY.

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 fin'd these bones of mine for ransome?
Com'st thou again for ransome?

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,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,
To view the field in safety, and dispose
Of their dead bodies.

K.Hen. I tell thee truly, herald,

I know not, if the day be ours, or no ;
For yet a many of your horsemen peer,
And gallop o'er the field.

Mont. The day is yours.

K.Hen. Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!
-What is this castle call'd, that stands hard by?
Mont. They call it-Agincourt.

K.Hen. Then call we this-the field of Agincourt,

Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

Flu. Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your majesty, and your great uncle Edward the plack prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.

K.Hen. They did, Fluellen.

Flu. Your majesty says very true: If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshman did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty knows, to this hour is an honourable padge of the service; and, I do believe, your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day.

K Hen. I wear it for a memorable honour:

For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

Flu. All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that: Got pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace and his majesty too!

K.Hen. Thanks, good my countryman.

Flu. By Cheshu, I am your majesty's countryman, I care not who know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I need not be ashamed of your majesty, praised be God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

K.Hen. God keep me so!-Our heralds go with him; Bring me just notice of the numbers dead

On both our parts.- Call yonder fellow hither.

[Points to WILLIAMS. Exe.MONTJOY, and others. Exe. Soldier, you must come to the king.

K.Hen. Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy cap? Wil. An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive.

K.Hen. An Englishman?

Will. An't please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered with me last night; who, if 'a live, and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o'the ear: or, if I can see my glove in his cap, (which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear, if alive,) I will strike it out soundly.

K.Hen. What think you, captain Fluellen? is it fit this soldier keep his oath ?

Flu. He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your majesty, in my conscience.

K. Hen. It may be, his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, quite from the answer of his degree.'

Flu. Though he be as goot a gentleman as the tevil is, as Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain, and a Jack-sauce, as ever his plack shoe trod upon Got's ground and his earth, in my conscience, la.

K.Hen. Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet'st the fellow.

Will. So I will, my liege, as I live.
K.Hen. Who servest thou under?

Will. Under captain Gower, my liege.

Flu. Gower is a goot captain; and is goot knowledge and literature in the wars.

K.Hen. Call him hither to me, soldier.
Will. I will, my liege.

[Exit:

K.Hen. Here, Fluellen ; wear thou this favour for me, and stick it in thy cap: When Alençon and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm : if any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon and an enemy to our person; if thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost love me.

Flu. Your grace does me as great honours, as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain see the man, that has but two legs, that shall find himself aggriefed at this glove, that is all; but I would fain see it once; an please Got of his grace, that I might see it. K.Hen. Know'st thou Gower?

Flu. He is my dear friend, an please you.

K.Hen. Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my

tent.

Flu. I will fetch him.

[Exit

K. Hen. My lord of Warwick,-and my brother

Gloster,

Follow Fluellen closely at the heels:

The glove, which I have given him for a favour,

May, haply, purchase him a box o' the ear;

It is the soldier's; I, by bargain, should

Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick;

[9] Great sort-high rank. JOHNS.

A man of such station as is not bound to hazard his person to answer

to a challenge from one of the soldier's low degree. JOHNS.

[2] This circumstance is not an invention of Shakspeare's. Henry was felled to the ground at the battle of Agincourt, by the duke of Alencon, but recovered and slew two of the duke's attendants. MAL.