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Exe. This was a merry message.
K. Hen. We hope to make the sender blush at it.
Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
That may give furtherance to our expedition;
For we have now no thought in us but France,
Save those to God, that run before our business.
Therefore let our proportions for these wars
Be soon collected, and all things thought upon
That may with reasonable swiftness add
More feathers to our wings; for, God before,
We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.
Therefore let every man now task his thought,
That this fair action may on foot be brought.
Exeunt. Flourish.

ACT II.

Enter CHORus.

Now all the youth of England are on fire
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;
Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man:
They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,
Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
For now sits Expectation in the air,

And hides a sword from hilts unto the point
With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,
Promised to Harry and his followers.
The French, advis'd by good intelligence
Of this most dreadful preparation,
Shake in their fear, and with pale policy
Seek to divert the English purposes.

O England! model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,

What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural!

Nym. Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph. Bard. What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?

Nym. For my part, I care not: I say little; but when time shall serve there shall be smiles; but that shall be as it may. I dare not fight; but I will wink and hold out mine iron. It is a simple one; but what though? it will toast cheese, and it will endure cold as another man's sword will: and there's an end.

11

Bard. I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends, and we'll be all three sworn brothers to France: let it be so, good Corporal Nym.

Nym. Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the certain of it; and when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may: that is my rest, that is the rendezvous of it.

Bard. It is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell Quickly; and certainly she did you wrong, for you were troth-plight to her.

21

Nym. I cannot tell; things must be as they may men may sleep, and they may have their throats about them at that time; and some say knives have edges. It must be as it may: though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I cannot tell.

Enter PISTOL and Hostess.

Bard. Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good corporal, be patient here. How now, mine host Pistol !

Pist. Base tike, call'st thou me host? 10 Now, by this hand I swear, I scorn the term; Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.

21

But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out
A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills
With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men,
One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,
Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,
Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,
Have, for the guilt of France,-O guilt indeed!—
Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France;
And by their hands this grace of kings must die,
If hell and treason hold their promises,
Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.
Linger your patience on; and well digest
The abuse of distance while we force a play.
The sum is paid; the traitors are agreed;
The king is set from London; and the scene
Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton:
There is the playhouse now, there must you sit :
And thence to France shall we convey you safe,
And bring you back, charming the narrow seas

31

30

Host. No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of their needles, but it will be thought we keep a bawdyhouse straight. NYM and PISTOL draw.

O well-a-day, Lady! if he be not drawn now: we shall see wilful adultery and murder committed. Bard. Good lieutenant! good corporal! offer nothing here.

Nym. Pish!

42

Pist. Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prickear'd cur of Iceland!

Host. Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour and put up your sword.

50

Nym. Will you shog off? I would have you solus.
Pist. Solus, egregious dog? O viper vile!
The solus in thy most mervailous face;
The solus in thy teeth, and in thy throat,
And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy;
And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!
I do retort the solus in thy bowels;
For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,
And flashing fire will follow.

Nym. I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me. I have an humour to knock you indifferently well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my rapier, as I may, in fair terms:

if you would walk off, I would prick your guts a little, in good terms, as I may; and that's the humour of it.

Pist. O braggart vile and damned furious wight! The grave doth gape, and doting death is near; Therefore exhale.

Bard. Hear me, hear me what I say: he that strikes the first stroke, I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier. Draws. Pist. An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.

Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give;
Thy spirits are most tall.

70

Nym. I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair terms; that is the humour of it.

Pist. Coupe la gorge!

That is the word. I thee defy again.

O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get?
No; to the spital go,

And from the powdering-tub of infamy
Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,
Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse:
I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly
For the only she; and-pauca, there's enough.
Go to.

79

Boy. Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and your hostess: he is very sick, and would to bed. Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets and do the office of a warming-pan. Faith, he 's very ill.

Bard. Away, you rogue!

K. Hen. We therefore have great cause of
thankfulness,

And shall forget the office of our hand,
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
According to the weight and worthiness.
Scroop. So service shall with steeled sinews
toil,

And labour shall refresh itself with hope,
To do your grace incessant services.

40

K. Hen. We judge no less.
Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday
That rail'd against our person we consider
It was excess of wine that set him on ;
And on his more advice we pardon him.

Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature!
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost might'st have coin'd me into gold
Would'st thou have practis'd on me for thy use !
May it be possible that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange

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Scroop. That's mercy, but too much security: Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind. K. Hen. O let us yet be merciful.

Cam. So may your highness, and yet punish That, though the truth of it stands off as gross As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it. Treason and murder ever kept together,

too. Grey. Sir,

110

As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause
That admiration did not whoop at them:
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:
All other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation
With patches, colours, and with forms, being
fetch'd

You show great mercy, if you give him life,
After the taste of much correction.

K. Hen. Alas! your too much love and care
of me

50

Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our

eye

When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd, and digested,

Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man, Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear care

And tender preservation of our person,
Would have him punish'd.

French causes :

Who are the late commissioners?

From glistering semblances of piety;
But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,
And now to our Gave thee no instance why thou should'st do

60

Cam. I one, my lord:

Your highness bade me ask for it to-day.
Scroop. So did you me, my liege.
Grey. And I, my royal sovereign.

K. Hen. Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge,
there is yours;

There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir
knight,

Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours:
Read them; and know, I know your worthiness.
My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,
We will aboard to-night. Why, how now, gentle-

men !

71

What see you in those papers that you lose
So much complexion? Look ye, how they
change!

Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you
there,
That hath so cowarded and chas'd your blood
Out of appearance ?

Cam.
I do confess my fault,
And do submit me to your highness' mercy.
Grey, Scroop. To which we all appeal.

K. Hen. The mercy that was quick in us but
late

By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd: 80
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge
here,

You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspir'd,
And sworn unto the practices of France.
To kill us here in Hampton: to the which
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us

Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But O! What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel,

90

treason,

Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor. 120
If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions: I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'
O! how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance. Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and
learned?

130

Why, so didst thou: come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou: or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
Garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment,
Not working with the eye without the ear,
And but in purged judgment trusting neither?
Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot.
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee; 140
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. Their faults are open:
Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practices!

Ere. I arrest thee of high treason, by the
name of

Richard Earl of Cambridge.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
Henry
Lord Scroop of Masham.

I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
Thomas

Grey, knight, of Northumberland.

150

Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath dis-
cover'd,

And I repent my fault more than my death;
Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.

Cam. For me, the gold of France did not for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled seduce,

76

30

Con.
O peace, Prince Dauphin!
You are too much mistaken in this king.
Question your grace the late ambassadors,
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception, and withal
How terrible in constant resolution,
And you shall find his vanities forespent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring and be most delicate.
Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable;
But though we think it so, it is no matter:
In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems:
So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
Which of a weak and niggardly projection
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth.

40

Fr. King. Think we King Harry strong;
And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us,
And he is bred out of that bloody strain
That haunted us in our familiar paths:
Witness our too much memorable shame

When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captiv'd by the hand

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Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.

The patterns that by God and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
The native mightiness and fate of him.

Enter a Messenger.

This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my

For the Dauphin,

I stand here for him: what to him from England?
Exe. Scorn and defiance; slight regard, con-
tempt,

Mess. Ambassadors from Harry King of Eng- And any thing that may not misbecome
land

Do crave admittance to your majesty.

Pr. King. We'll give them present audience.
Go, and bring them.

Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords.
You see this chase is hotly follow'd, friends.

The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my king: an if your father's highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He'll call you to so hot an answer of it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France