I should be angry with you, if the time were convenient. WILLIAMS Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live. KING HENRY V I embrace it. WILLIAMS How shall I know thee again? KING HENRY V Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, Iwill make it my quarrel. WILLIAMS Here's my glove: give me another of thine. KING HENRY V 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 V If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it. WILLIAMS Thou darest as well be hanged. KING HENRY V 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. KING HENRY V 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.
Exeunt soldiers 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 idle 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 V 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 V 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 anew;
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 V 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 SCENE II. The French camp. Enter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and others ORLEANS The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords! DAUPHIN Montez A cheval! My horse! varlet! laquais!
ha! ORLEANS O brave spirit! DAUPHIN Via! les eaux et la terre. ORLEANS Rien puis? L'air et la feu. DAUPHIN Ciel, cousin Orleans.
Enter Constable Now, my lord constable! Constable Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh! DAUPHIN Mount them, and make incision in their hides, That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, And dout them with superfluous courage, ha! RAMBURES What, will you have them weep our horses'
blood?
How shall we, then, behold their natural tears?
Enter Messenger Messenger The English are embattled, you French peers. Constable To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse!
Do but behold yon poor and starved band, And your fair show shall suck away their souls, Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
There is not work enough for all our hands;Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins To give each naked curtle-axe a stain, That our French gallants shall to-day draw out, And sheathe for lack of sport: let us but blow on them, The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.
'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords, That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants, Who in unnecessary action swarm About our squares of battle, were enow To purge this field of such a hilding foe, Though we upon this mountain's basis by Took stand for idle speculation:
