Making defeat on the full power of France;
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility.(3)
O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France,
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work, and cold for action! a

upon

ELY. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, And with your puissant arm renew their feats: You are their heir, you sit their throne; The blood and courage, that renowned them, Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege Is in the very May-morn of his youth, Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprizes.

EXE. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.

WEST. They know your grace hath cause and means and might;

So hath your highness; never king of England
Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects;
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in

England,

And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

CANT. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, With blood* and sword and fire to win your

right:

In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty
Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
As never did the clergy at one time,
Bring in to any of your ancestors.

K. HEN. We must not only arm to invade the
French;

But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.

CANT. They of those marches, gracious sove-
reign,

Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

K. HEN. We do not mean the coursing
snatchers only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,

Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
For you shall read, that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France,
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot assays;
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns;.
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook, and trembled at the ill neighbourhood."
CANT. She hath been then more fear'd than
harm'd, my liege:

For hear her but exampled by herself,--
When all her chivalry hath been in France,
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken, and impounded as a stray,
The king of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill king Edward's fame with prisoner kings;
And make your chronicle as rich with praise,
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
WEST. But there's a saying, very old and true,―

d

If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin:

For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs;
Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat,
To spoil and havoc more than she can eat.

EXE. It follows then, the cat must stay at home?
Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home;

For government, though high, and low, and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one concent,(4)
Congreeing in a full and natural close,
Like music.

CANT. Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

Obedience: for so work the honey bees,
Creatures that, by a rule in nature, teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king, and officers of sorts:
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
the summer's velvet buds;

Make boot upon
Which pillage they with merry march bring
home

To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading-up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to éxecutors pale

The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,-
That many things, having full reference
To one concent, may work contrariously;

As

many arrows, loosed several ways,

Fly to one mark; as many ways meet in one

town;

fresh streams runt in one salt sea;

lines close in the dial's centre;

may a thousand actions, once afoot,

End‡ in one purpose, and be all well borne

Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
Divide your happy England into four;
Whereof take you one quarter into France,
withal shall make all Gallia shake.

And

you

If we, with thrice such powers left at home,
Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,
Let us be worried, and our nation lose

The name of hardiness and policy.

K. HEN. Call in the messengers. sent from the [Exit an Attendant.

Dauphin.

Now are we well resolv'd: and, by God's help,
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
Or break it all to pieces. Or there we'll sit,
Ruling, in large and ample empery,

Enter Ambassadors of France.

Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure
Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for, we hear,
Your greeting is from him, not from the king.
AMB. May't please your majesty to give us
leave,

Freely to render what we have in charge;
Or shall we, sparingly, show you far off
The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?

O'er France, and all her almost kingly dukedoms, Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn, Tombless, with no remembrance over them: Either our history shall, with full mouth, Speak freely of our acts; or else our grave, Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,

Not worshipp'd with a waxen § epitaph.

K. HEN. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;

Unto whose grace our passion is as subject,
As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons:
Therefore, with frank and with uncurbed plainness,
Tell us the Dauphin's mind.
AMB.
Thus then, in few.
Your highness, lately sending into France,
Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
Of your great predecessor, king Edward the

third.

(*) First folic, is.

Since she her selfe is fiery and divine:
Oft doth she make her body upward fline;
With lofty turnes and cap riols in the ayre,
Which with the lusty tunes accordeth faire."

b Chases.] Hazard, courts, and chases, are terms borrowed from the game of tennis.

But I will rise there with so full a glory,
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince,-this mock of his
Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; (5) and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them: for many a thousand
widows

Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,

Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down,
And some are yet ungotten and unborn,
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.
But this lies all within the will of God,

To whom I do appeal; and in whose name,
Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on,

Το

venge me as I may, and to put forth

My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.

So, get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin,

His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it.-
Convey them with safe conduct.-Fare well.
you
[Exeunt Ambassadors.

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.