Whose ruin you have* sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God, of his mercy, give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences!-Bear them hence.
[Exeunt Conspirators, guarded.
Now, lords, for France; the enterprize whereof
Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason, lurking in our way,
To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now,
But every rub is smoothed on our way:
Then forth, dear countrymen; let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:
No king of England, if not king of France.

SCENE III.-London.

Eastcheap.

[Exeunt.

Pistol's House in

Enter PISTOL, Hostess, BARDOLPH, NYм, and

Boy.

HOST. Pr'ythee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.

PIST. No; for my manly heart doth yearn.— Bardolph, be blithe;-Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins ;[dead,

Boy, bristle thy courage up ;-for Falstaff he is And we must yearn therefore.

BARD. Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell!

HOST. Nay, sure, he's not in hell; he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. 'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child ;(2) 'a parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o'the tide:(3) for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields. How now, sir John? quoth I: what, man! be o' good cheer. So 'a cried out-God,

a And 'a babbled of green fields.] In the folio,-"his nose was as sharpe as a Pen, and a Table of greene fields." The quartos have simply, "His nose was as sharp as a pen." Theobald's famous emendation of "'a babbled of green fields," has now become so completely a part of the text, that no editor will ever have the temerity to displace it. The conjecture of Pope, therefore, that "a table of green fields," was a stage-direction for the property-man, (whom he supposed to be named Greenfield,) to have a table ready on the stage-"a table of Greenfield's;" and the equally atrocious sophistication of Mr. Collier's annotator

God, God! three or four times: now I, to comfort him, bid him, 'a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet so, 'a bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed, and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and so upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any stone.

NYм. They say, he cried out of sack.
HOST. Ay, that 'a did.

BARD. And of women.

HOST. Nay, that 'a did not.

Boy. Yes, that 'a did; and said, they were devils incarnate.

HOST. 'A could never abide carnation: 'twas a colour he never liked.

Boy. 'A said once, the devil would have him about women.

HOST. 'A did in some sort, indeed, handle women but then he was rheumatic; and talked of the whore of Babylon.

Boy. Do you not remember, 'a saw a flea stick upon Bardolph's nose, and 'a said, it was a black soul burning in hell?

BARD. Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire that's all the riches I got in his service. NYM. Shall we shog? the king will be gone from Southampton.

PIST. Come, let's away.-My love, give me thy

lips,

Look to my chattels, and my movables:

Let senses rule; the word is, Pitch and pay; Trust none, for oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,

And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck;
Therefore, caveto be thy counsellor.

Go, clear thy crystals.-Yoke-fellows in arms,
Let us to France! like horse-leeches, my boys;
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!
Boy. And that is but unwholesome food, they
say.

PIST. Touch her soft mouth, and march.
BARD.
Farewell, hostess. [Kissing her.
NYM. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it;
but adieu.

PIST. Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee command.

K. CHA. Thus come the English with full power upon us,

And more than carefully it us concerns,
To answer royally in our defences.

Therefore the dukes of Berry, and of Bretagne,
Of Brabant, and of Orleans, shall make forth,-
And you, prince Dauphin,-with all swift despatch,
To line and new repair our towns of war,
With men of courage, and with means defendant:
For England his approaches makes as fierce,
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

It fits us then to be as provident

As fear may teach us, out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English,
Upon our fields.

question,)

But that defences, musters, preparations,
Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,
As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say, 't is meet we all go forth,
To view the sick and feeble parts of France;
And let us do it with no show of fear,

No, with no more, than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance:
For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.

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, 't is not so, my lord high constable ;
But though we think it so, it is no matter:
In cases of defence, 't is best to weigh

a Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,-] We should, perhaps, read, "Which if," or Which oft."

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.

K. CHA. 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
Of that black name, Edward, black prince of Wales;
Whiles that his mountain sire,-on mountain

Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
Take up the English short, and let them know
Of what a monarchy you are the head;
Self-love, my licge, is not so vile a sin,
As self-neglecting.

By custom and the ordinance of times,
Unto the crown of France. That you may know,
'Tis no sinister, nor no awkward claim,
Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd,
He sends you this most memorable line,"

[Gives a paper.

In every branch truly demonstrative;
Willing you, overlook this pedigree,
And, when you find him evenly deriv'd
From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,
Edward the third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.
K. CHA. Or else what follows? [crown
EXE. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder, and in earthquake, like a Jove;
(That, if requiring fail, he will compel ;)
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
On the poor souls, for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws: and on your head
Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
The dead men's blood, the pining maidens' groans,
For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers,
That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.
This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my message;
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,

To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

K. CHA. For us, we will consider of this further:

To-morrow shall you bear our full intent

Back to our brother of England.

DAU.

a Awkward-] Distorted.

For the Dauphin,

b Memorable line,-] Line is lineage, genealogy.

e Pining-] So the quartos; the folio has "privy."

d Greeting too.] Thus the quartos; the folio reads, "greeting

lo."

e Shall chide your trespass,-] Chide is here employed in its

I stand here for him; what to him from England? EXE. Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,

And any thing that may not misbecome
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
Shall chide your trespass, and return your mock
In second accent of his ordinance.f

DAU. Say, if my father render fair return,
It is against my will: for I desire
Nothing but odds with England; to that end,
As matching to his youth and vanity,

I did present him with the Paris balls.

EXE. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for
it,

Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe:
And, be assur'd, you'll find a difference,
(As we, his subjects, have in wonder found,)
Between the promise of his greener days,
And these he masters now; now he weighs time,
Even to the utmost grain; that you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.

K. CHA. To-morrow shall you know our mind
at full.

EXE. Despatch us with all speed, lest that our king

Come here himself to question our delay;

For he is footed in this land already.

K. CHA. You shall be soon despatch'd, with
fair conditions:

A night is but small breath, and little pause,
To answer matters of this consequence. [Exeunt.

double sense of rebuke and resound, or echo.

f Ordinance.] This was anciently spelt indifferently, ordnance, or ordinance. Here the metre requires it to be pronounced as a trisyllable.

g Small breath,-] Short breathing time.

Thus with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies, In motion of no less celerity

Than that of thought. Suppose, that you have

seen

The well-appointed king at Hampton* pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning.†
Play with your fancies; and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle, ship-boys climbing:
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confus'd: behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think,
You stand upon the rivage, and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy;
And leave your England, as dead midnight, still,

Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
Either past, or not arriv'd to, pith and puissance:
For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work, your thoughts, and therein see a
siege:

Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose the ambassador from the French comes
back;

Tells Harry-that the king doth offer him
Katharine his daughter; and with her, to dowry,
Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
The offer likes not: and the nimble gunner
With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,
[Alarum; and chambers go off.
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.
[Exit.

with our old writers, although this is the only instance of its occurrence in Shakespeare.

b Tosternage of this navy;] To the steerage, or course, of the fleet. G

SCENE I.-France. Before Harfleur.

Alarums. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers, with scaling ladders.

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 aspéct ;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide:

(*) Old copy, commune.

a Portage-] The port-holes.

b Jutty-] Project, jut out.

Confounded base,-] Demolished base.

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height !-On, on, you noble* English,
Whose blood is fet 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:-
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest,
That those, whom you call'd fathers, did beget you!
Be copy now to ment of grosser blood, [yeomen,
And teach them how to war!-And you, good
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
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

[not;

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot;
Follow your spirit: and, upon this charge,
Cry God for Harry! England and saint
George!