Fal.^ base Assyrian knight, what is thy news ?
Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof.
Sil. [Singing.]
And Robin Hood, Scarlet and John.
Pist. Shall dunghill curs confront the Helicons :
And shall good news be baffled ?
Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap.
Shal. Honest gentleman, I know not your
breeding.
Pist. Why, then, lament, therefore.
Shal. Give me pardon. If, sir, you come with
news from the court, I take it there is but two
ways, either to utter them, or to conceal them.
I ana, sir, under the king, in some authority.
Pist. Under which king, Bezonian? speak, or
die.
Shal. Under King Harry.
Pist . Harry the Fourth ? or Fifth ?
Shal. Harry the Fourth.
Pist. A foutra for thine office !
Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king :
Harry the Fifth 's the man. I speak the truth :
When Pistol lies, dp this ; and fig me, like
The bragging Spaniard.
Fal. What ! is the old king dead ?
Pist. As nail in door : the things I speak are
just.
Fal. Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse.
Master Egbert Shallow, choose what office thou
wilt in the land, 'tis thine. Pistol, I will double-
charge thee with dignities.
Bar. joyful day ! I would not take a knight-
hood for my fortune.
Pist. What ! I do bring good news.
Fal. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master
Shallow, my Lord Shallow, be what thou wilt;
I am fortune's steward. Get on thy boots : we '11
ride all night. O sweet Pistol ! Away, Bar-
dolph ! Come, Pistol, utter more to me ; and
withal, devise something to do thyself good.
Boot, boot, Master Shallow : I know the young
king is sick for me. Let us take any man's
horses ; the laws of England are at my command-
ment. Happy are they which have been my
friends ; and woe unto my Lord Chief Justice !
Pist . Let vultures vile seize on his lungs also !
Where is the life that late I led ? say they :
Why, here it is. Welcome these pleasant days !
Exeunt.
Scene IV. London. A Street.
Enter Beadles, dragging in Hostess Quickly and
DoUTearsheet.
Hos. No, thou arrant knave ; I would to God
I might die, that I might have thee hanged ; thou
hast drawn my shoulder out of joint.
1 Bea. The constables have delivered her over
to me ; and she shall have whipping-cheer enough,
I warrant her : there hath been a man or two
lately killed about her.
Doll. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on ;
I '11 tell thee what, thou damned tripe-visaged
rascal, an the child I now go with do miscarry,
thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother,
thou paper-faced villain.
Hos. the Lord, that Sir John would come !
he would make this a bloody day to somebody.
But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry.
1 Bea. If it do, you shall have a dozen of
cushions again ; you have but eleven now. Come,
I charge you both go with me ; for the man is
dead that you and Pistol beat amongst you.
Doll. I '11 tell thee what, thou thin man in a
censer, I will have you as soundly swinged for
this, you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy famished
correctioner ! If you be not swinged, I '11 for-
swear half-kirtles.
448
KING HENRY IV. PART II.
ACT V., Sc. 5.
1 Bea. Come, come, you she knight-errant,
come.
Hos. 0, that right should thus overcome might !
Well, of sufferance comes ease.
Doll. Come, you rogue, come ; bring me to
justice.
Hos. Ay, come, you starved blood-hound.
Doll. Goodman death ! goodman bones !
Hos. Thou atomy, thou !
Doll. Come, you thin thing ! come, you rascal !
1 Bea. Very well. Exeunt.
Scene V. A public Place near Westminster Abley.
Enter two Grooms, strewing rushes.
1 Gro. More rushes, more rushes.
2 Gro. The trumpets have sounded twice.
1 Gro. It will be two o'clock ere they come
from the coronation : dispatch, dispatch.
Exeunt.
Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph and
Page.
Fal. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow ;
I will make the king do you grace : I will leer
upon him, as a' comes by ; and do but mark the
countenance he will give me.
Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight !
Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O,
if I had had time to have made new liveries, I
would have bestowed the thousand pound I
borrowed of you. But 'tis no matter; this poor
show doth better : this doth infer the zeal I had
to see him.
Shal. It doth so.
Fal. It shows my earnestness of affection.
Shal. It doth so.
Fal. My devotion,
Shal. It doth, it doth,_it doth.
Fal. As it were, to ride day and night ; and
not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have
patience to shift me.
Shal. It is most certain.
Fal. But to stand stained with travel, and
sweating with desire to see him ; thinking of no-
thing else, putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if
there were nothing else to be done but to see him.
Pist. 'Tis semper idem, for absque hoc nihil est :
' Tis all in every part.
Shal. 'Tis so, indeed.
Pist. My knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,
And make thee rage.
Thy Doll, and Helen of thy noble thoughts,
Is in base durance and contagious prison ;
HauPd thither
By most mechanical and dirty hand :
Rouse up revenge from ebon den with fell Alecto's
For Doll is in : Pistol speaks nought but truth.
Fal. I will deliver her.
Shouts within and trumpets sound.
Pist. There roar'd the sea, and trumpet-clangor
sounds.
Enter the King and his train, the Chief Justice
among them.
Fal. .God save thy grace, King Hal ! my royal
Hal.
Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most
royal imp of fame !
Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy !
King. My Lord Chief Justice, speak to that
vain man.
Ch. Jus. Have you your wits ? know you what
'tis you speak ?
Fal. My king ! my Jove ! I speak to thee, my
heart !
King. I know thee not, old man : fall to thy
prayers ;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester !
I have long dream' d of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane ;
But, being awake, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace ;
Leave gormandising ; know, the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest :
Presume not that I am the thing I was ;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self ;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of rny riots ;
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil ;
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strength and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my
lord,
To see perform' d the tenor of our word.
Set on. Exeunt King and his train.
Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand
pound.
Shal. Ay, marry, Sir John ; which I beseech
you to let me have home with me.
Fal. That can hardly be, Master Shallow.
Do not you grieve at this ; I shall be sent for in
private to him : look you, he must sqem thus to
the world : fear not your advancement ; I will be
the man yet that shall make you great.
Shal. I cannot perceive how ; unless you should
give me your doublet, and stuff me out with straw.
I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five
hundred of my thousand.
Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word : this
that you heard was but a colour.
Shal. A colour I fear that you will die in, Sir
John.
Fal. Fear no colours : go with me to dinner :
Come, Lieutenant Pistol ; come, Bardolph : I
shall be sent for soon at night.
Re-enter John of Lancaster, the Chief Justice.
Officers, $*c.
Ch. Jus. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the
Fleet :
Take all his company along with him.
Fal. My lord, my lord,
Ch. Jus. I cannot now speak : I will hear you
soon.
Take them away.
Pist. Se fortuna me tormenta, spero me con-
tenta.
Exeunt all but John of Lancaster and
the Chief Justice.
ACT V., Sc. 5.
KING HENRY IV. PART II.
449
Lan. I like this fair proceeding of the king's :
He hath intent his wonted followers
Shall all be very well provided for ;
But all are banish' d, till their conversations
Appear more wise and modest to the world.
Ch. Jus. And so they are.
Lan. The king hath call'd his parliament, my
lord.
Ch. Jus. He hath.
Lan. I will lay odds, that, ere this year expire,
We bear our civil swords and native fire
As far as France : I heard a bird so sing,
Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.
Come, will you hence ? Exeunt.
EPILOGUE. Spoken by a Dancer.
First, .my fear ; then, my courtesy; last, my
speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my
courtesy, my duty : and my speech, to beg your
pardon. If you look for a good speech now, you
un do me : for what I have to say is of mine own
making ; and what indeed I should say, will, I
doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the
purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to
you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the
end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience
for it and to promise you a better. I did mean
indeed to pay you with this ; which, if like an
ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and
you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I promised
you I would be, and here I commit my body to
your mercies ; bate me some, and I will pay you
some ; and, as most debtors do, promise you
infinitely.
If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me,
will you command me to use my legs ? and yet
that were but light payment, to dance out of
your debt. But a good conscience will make any
possible satisfaction, and so would I. All the
gentlewomen here have forgiven me : if the
gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not
agree with the gentlewomen, which was never
seen before in such an assembly.
One word more, I beseech you. If you be not
too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble
author will continue the story, with Sir John in
it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of
France : ivhere, for anything I know, Falstajf
shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed
with your hard opinions ; for Oldcastle died a
martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is
weary ; when my legs are too, I will bid you
good night : and so kneel down before you ; but ,
indeed, to pray for the queen.
HENRY V.
NAMES OF THE ACTORS.
KING HENRY THE FIFTH.
DUKE OF EXETER, uncle to the King.
DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King.
EARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORELAND and WARWICK.
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
BISHOP OF ELY.
EARL OF CAMBRIDGE.
LORD SCROOP.
SIR THOMAS GREY.
SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER, FLUELLEN, MACMORRIS,
JAMY, officers in King Henry's army.
BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, soldiers in King Henry's army.
PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH.
Boy.
A Herald.
CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France.
LEWIS, the Dauphin.
DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS and BOURBON.
The Constable of France.
RAMBURES and GRANDPRE, French lords.
Governor of Harfleur.
MONTJOY, a French herald.
Ambassadors to the King of England.
ISABEL, Queen of France.
KATHARINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel.
ALICE, a lady attending on Katharine.
Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mistress Quickly,
and now married to Pistol.
Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers
and Attendants. Chorus.
This play appeared in quarto the same year, 1600, as Henry IV., Part II. It was printed
by Thomas Creede for Millington and Busby. The title ran- as follows : The
Chronicle History of Henry the fift. With his battel fought at Agin
Court in France. Togither with antient Pistoll. It was en-
tirely recast before it appeared in the folio, presumably
by Shakespeare himself, and the quarto is con-
sidered by Knight and others to have
been a piracy. The scene is laid
in England and sub-
sequently in
France.
KING HENRY Y.
PROLOGUE.
Enter Chorus.
Cho. for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene !
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars ; and at his heels,
Leash' d in like hounds, should famine, sword and
fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object : can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France ? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt ?
O, pardon ! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million ;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder :
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts ;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance ;
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth ;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our
kings,
Carry them here and there ; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass : for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history ;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play. Exit.
Act I.
Scene I. London. An Ante-chamber in the
King's Palace.
Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Bishop of Ely.
Can. My lord, I '11 tell you ; that self bill is
urged,
Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther question.
Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
Can. It must be thought on. If it pass against
us,
We lose the better half of our possession :
For all the temporal lands which men devout
By testament have given to the church
Would they strip from us ; being valued thus :
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires ;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,
A thousand pounds by the year : thus runs the bill.
Ely. This would drink deep.
Can. 'Twould drink the cup and all.
Ely. But what prevention ?
Can. The king is full of grace and fair regard.
Ely. And a true lover of the holy church.
Can. The courses of his youth promised it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too ; yea, at that very moment
Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,
To envelope and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made ;
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady currance, scouring faults ;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat and all at once
As in this king.
Ely. We are blessed in the change.
Can. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And all-admiring with an inward wish
You would desire the king were made a prelate :
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say it hath been all in all his study :
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music :
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter : that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey 'd sentences :
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric :
Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain,
His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow,
His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports,
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.
Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the
nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour' d by fruit of baser quality :
And so the prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness ; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
452
KING HENRY V.
ACT L, Sc. 2.
Can. It must be so ; for miracles are ceased ;
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
Ely. But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
Urged by the commons ? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no ?
Can. He seems indifferent,
Or rather swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing the exhibitors against us ;
For I have made an offer to his majesty,
Upon our spiritual convocation
And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open'd to his grace at large,
As touching France, to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.
Ely. How did this offer seem received, my lord?
Can. With good acceptance of his majesty ;
Save that there was not time enough to hear,
As I perceived his grace would fain have done,
The severals and unhidden passages
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms
And genei-ally to the crown and seat of France
Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
Ely. What was the impediment that broke this
Can. The French ambassador upon that instant
Craved audience ; and the hour, I think, is come
To give him hearing : is it four o'clock ?
Ely. It is.
Can. Then go we in, to know his embassy ;
Which I could with a ready guess declare,
Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
Ely. I '11 wait upon you, and I long to hear it.
Exeunt.
Scene II. The King's Palace.
Enter King Henry, Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter,
Warwick, Westmoreland and Attendants.
King. Where is my gracious Lord of Canter-
bury?
Exe. Not here in presence.
King. Send for him, good uncle.
Wes. Shall we call in the ambassador, my
liege ?
King. Not yet, my cousin : we would be re-
solved,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight
That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.
Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Bishop of Ely.
Can. God and his angels guard your sacred
throne,
And may you long become it !
King. Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold
Why the law Salique that they have in France
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim :
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your
reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth ;
For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake pur sleeping sword of war :
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed ;
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood ; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the
swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration speak, my lord ;
For we will hear, note and believe in heart
That what you speak is in your conscience wash' d
As pure as sin with baptism.
Can. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and
you peers,
That owe yourselves, your lives and services
To this imperial throne. There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,
In terrain Salicam mulieres ne succedant :
No woman shall succeed in Salique land :
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe ;
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the
Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French ;
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Established then this law ; to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land :
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.
Then doth it well appear the Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France ;
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of King Pharamond,
Idly supposed the founder of this law ;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six ; and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year
Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,
Did, as heir general, being descended
Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also, who usurp'd the crown
Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
To find his title with 'some shows of truth,
Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,
Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of
Lorraine :
ACT I., Sc. 2.
KING HENRY V.
453
By the which marriage the line of Charles the
Great
Was re -united to the crown of France.
So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female :
So do the kings of France unto this day ;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
To bar your highness claiming from the female,
And rather choose to hide them in a net
Than amply to imbar their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.
King. May I with right and conscience make
this claim ?
Can. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign !
For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
When the man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own ; unwind your bloody flag ;
Look back into your mighty ancestors :
Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,
From whom you claim ; invoke his warlike spirit,
And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
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.
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 !
Ely. Awake remembi-ance of these valiant dead,
And with your puissant arm renew the feats :
You are their heir ; you sit upon 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 enterprises.
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.
Wes. 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 Eng-
land
And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.
Can. 0, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
With blot)d and sword and fire to win your right ;
Inlaid whereof we of the spirituality
Will raise your highness such a mighty sum
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors.
King. 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.
Can. They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
King. 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,