READ STUDY GUIDE: Act IV, Prologue and scenes i–ii |
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Act IV, Scene i:
The English camp at Agincourt.
The English camp at Agincourt.
| [Enter King Henry, Bedford, and Gloucester.] |
| KING HENRY: |
| Gloucester, 'tis true that we are in great danger; |
| The greater therefore should our courage be. |
| Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty! |
| There is some soul of goodness in things evil, |
| Would men observingly distil it out; |
| For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers, |
| Which is both healthful and good husbandry. |
| Besides, they are our outward consciences, |
| And preachers to us all, admonishing |
| That we should dress us fairly for our end. |
| Thus may we gather honey from the weed, |
| And make a moral of the devil himself. |
| [Enter Erpingham.] |
| Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham: |
| A good soft pillow for that good white head |
| Were better than a churlish turf of France. |
| ERPINGHAM: |
| Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better, |
| Since I may say, "Now lie I like a king." |
| KING HENRY: |
| 'Tis good for men to love their present pains |
| Upon example; so the spirit is eased; |
| And when the mind is quick'ned, 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. |
| GLOUCESTER: |
| We shall, my liege. |
| ERPINGHAM: |
| Shall I attend your Grace? |
| KING HENRY: |
| 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. |
| ERPINGHAM: |
| The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry! |
| [Exeunt [all but King.] |
| KING HENRY: |
| God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully. |
| [Enter Pistol.] |
| PISTOL: |
| Qui va la? |
| KING HENRY: |
| A friend. |
| PISTOL: |
| Discuss unto me; art thou officer? |
| Or art thou base, common, and popular? |
| KING HENRY: |
| I am a gentleman of a company. |
| PISTOL: |
| Trail'st thou the puissant pike? |
| KING HENRY: |
| Even so. What are you? |
| PISTOL: |
| As good a gentleman as the Emperor. |
| KING HENRY: |
| Then you are a better than the King. |
| PISTOL: |
| 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? |
| KING HENRY: |
| Harry le Roy. |
| PISTOL: |
| Le Roy! a Cornish name. Art thou of Cornish crew? |
| KING HENRY: |
| No, I am a Welshman. |
| PISTOL: |
| Know'st thou Fluellen? |
| KING HENRY: |
| Yes. |
| PISTOL: |
| Tell him I'll knock his leek about his pate |
| Upon Saint Davy's day. |
| KING HENRY: |
| Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest |
| he knock that about yours. |
| PISTOL: |
| Art thou his friend? |
| KING HENRY: |
| And his kinsman too. |
| PISTOL: |
| The figo for thee, then! |
| KING HENRY: |
| I thank you. God be with you! |
| PISTOL: |
| My name is Pistol call'd. |
| [Exit.] |
| KING HENRY: |
| It sorts well with your fierceness. |
| [Enter Fluellen and Gower.] |
| GOWER: |
| Captain Fluellen! |
| FLUELLEN: |
| So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. 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 |
| 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. |
| GOWER: |
| Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night. |
| FLUELLEN: |
| 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? |
| GOWER: |
| I will speak lower. |
| FLUELLEN: |
| I pray you and beseech you that you will. |
| [Exeunt [Gower and Fluellen.] |
| KING HENRY: |
| 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. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think |
| we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there? |
| KING HENRY: |
| A friend. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| Under what captain serve you? |
| KING HENRY: |
| Under Sir Thomas Erpingham. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I |
| pray you, what thinks he of our estate? |
| KING HENRY: |
| Even as men wreck'd upon a sand, that look to be |
| wash'd off the next tide. |
| BATES: |
| He hath not told his thought to the King? |
| KING HENRY: |
| 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 'tis, 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. |
| KING HENRY: |
| By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I think he |
| would not wish himself anywhere but where he is. |
| BATES: |
| Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be |
| ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved. |
| KING HENRY: |
| 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 anywhere so contented as in the King's company, |
| his cause being just and his quarrel honourable. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| 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. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy |
| reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd |
| 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 anything, 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; who to disobey were against |
| all proportion of subjection. |
| KING HENRY: |
| So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do |
| sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, |
| by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him; or |
| if a servant, under his master's command transporting a sum of |
| money, be assailed by robbers and die in many irreconcil'd |
| iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of |
| the servant's damnation. But this is not so. The King is not |
| bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father |
| of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not |
| their death, when they purpose their services. Besides, there is |
| no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the |
| arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. |
| Some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and |
| contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals |
| of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before |
| gored the gentle bosom of Peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if |
| these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, |
| though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. |
| War is his beadle, war is his vengeance; so that here men are |
| punish'd for before-breach of the King's laws in now the King's |
| quarrel. Where they feared the death, they have borne life away; |
| and where they would be safe, they perish. Then if they die |
| unprovided, no more is the King guilty of their damnation than he |
| was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now |
| visited. Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's |
| soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as |
| every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; |
| and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was |
| blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that |
| escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an |
| offer, He let him outlive that day to see His greatness and to |
| teach others how they should prepare. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head, |
| the King is not to answer for it. |
| BATES: |
| I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to |
| fight lustily for him. |
| KING HENRY: |
| I myself heard the King say he would not be ransom'd. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our |
| throats are cut, he may be ransom'd, and we ne'er the wiser. |
| KING HENRY: |
| If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| You pay him then. That's a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, |
| that a poor and a private displeasure can do against a monarch! |
| You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in |
| his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word |
| after! Come, 'tis a foolish saying. |
| KING HENRY: |
| Your reproof is something too round. I should be angry with |
| you, if the time were convenient. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| Let it be a quarrel between us if you live. |
| KING HENRY: |
| I embrace it. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| How shall I know thee again? |
| KING HENRY: |
| Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet; |
| then, if ever thou dar'st acknowledge it, I will make it my |
| quarrel. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| Here's my glove; give me another of thine. |
| KING HENRY: |
| There. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| This will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou come to me |
| and say, after to-morrow, "This is my glove," by this hand I |
| will take thee a box on the ear. |
| KING HENRY: |
| If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| Thou dar'st as well be hang'd. |
| KING HENRY: |
| Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King's company. |
| WILLIAMS: |
| Keep thy word; fare thee well. |
| BATES: |
| Be friends, you English fools, be friends. We have |
| French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon. |
| [Exeunt soldiers.] |
| KING HENRY: |
| Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one |
| they will beat us, for they bear them on their shoulders; but it |
| is no English treason to cut French crowns, and to-morrow the |
| King himself will be a clipper. |
| Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls, |
| Our debts, our careful wives, |
| Our children, and our sins lay on the King! |
| We must bear all. 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 heart's-ease |
| Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! |
| 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 intertissued 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, |
| Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind |
| Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread, |
| Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, |
| But, like a lackey, from the rise to set |
| Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night |
| Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn, |
| Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse, |
| And follows so the ever-running year, |
| With profitable labour, to his grave: |
| And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, |
| Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, |
| Had the fore-hand 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. |
| [Enter Erpingham.] |
| ERPINGHAM: |
| My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence, |
| Seek through your camp to find you. |
| KING HENRY: |
| Good old knight, |
| Collect them all together at my tent. |
| I'll be before thee. |
| ERPINGHAM: |
| I shall do't, my lord. |
| [Exit.] |
| KING HENRY: |
| O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts. |
| Possess them not with fear. Take from them now |
| The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers |
| Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord, |
| O, not to-day, think not upon the fault |
| My father made in compassing the crown! |
| I Richard's body have interred new, |
| And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears |
| Than from it issued forced drops of blood. |
| Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, |
| Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up |
| Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built |
| Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests |
| Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do; |
| Though all that I can do is nothing worth, |
| Since that my penitence comes after all, |
| Imploring pardon. |
| [Enter Gloucester.] |
| GLOUCESTER: |
| My liege! |
| KING HENRY: |
| My brother Gloucester's voice? Ay; |
| I know thy errand, I will go with thee. |
| The day, my friends, and all things stay for me. |
| [Exeunt.] |
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