Henry V
ACT II SCENE IV | France. The KING’S palace. | |
Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the DUKES of BERRI and BRETAGNE, the Constable, and others | ||
KING OF FRANCE | Thus comes the English with full power upon us; | |
And more than carefully it us concerns | ||
To answer royally in our defences. | ||
Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bretagne, | 5 | |
Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth, | ||
And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch, | ||
To line and new repair our towns of war | ||
With men of courage and with means defendant; | ||
For England his approaches makes as fierce | 10 | |
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. | 15 | |
DAUPHIN | My most redoubted father, | |
It is most meet we arm us ‘gainst the foe; | ||
For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom, | ||
Though war nor no known quarrel were in question, | ||
But that defences, musters, preparations, | 20 | |
Should be maintain’d, assembled and collected, | ||
As were a war in expectation. | ||
Therefore, I say ’tis meet we all go forth | ||
To view the sick and feeble parts of France: | ||
And let us do it with no show of fear; | 25 | |
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, | 30 | |
That fear attends her not. | ||
Constable | 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, | 35 | |
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, | 40 | |
Covering discretion with a coat of folly; | ||
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots | ||
That shall first spring and be most delicate. | ||
DAUPHIN | Well, ’tis not so, my lord high constable; | |
But though we think it so, it is no matter: | 45 | |
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 or niggardly projection | ||
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting | 50 | |
A little cloth. | ||
KING OF FRANCE | 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 | 55 | |
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; | 60 | |
Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing, | ||
Up in the air, crown’d with the golden sun, | ||
Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him, | ||
Mangle the work of nature and deface | ||
The patterns that by God and by French fathers | 65 | |
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 | ||
Messenger | Ambassadors from Harry King of England | |
Do crave admittance to your majesty. | 70 | |
KING OF FRANCE | We’ll give them present audience. Go, and bring them. | |
Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords | ||
You see this chase is hotly follow’d, friends. | ||
DAUPHIN | Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs | |
Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten | ||
Runs far before them. Good my sovereign, | 75 | |
Take up the English short, and let them know | ||
Of what a monarchy you are the head: | ||
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin | ||
As self-neglecting. | ||
Re-enter Lords, with EXETER and train | ||
KING OF FRANCE | From our brother England? | 80 |
EXETER | From him; and thus he greets your majesty. | |
He wills you, in the name of God Almighty, | ||
That you divest yourself, and lay apart | ||
The borrow’d glories that by gift of heaven, | ||
By law of nature and of nations, ‘long | 85 | |
To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown | ||
And all wide-stretched honours that pertain | ||
By custom and the ordinance of times | ||
Unto the crown of France. That you may know | ||
‘Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim, | 90 | |
Pick’d from the worm-holes of long-vanish’d days, | ||
Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked, | ||
He sends you this most memorable line, | ||
In every branch truly demonstrative; | ||
Willing to overlook this pedigree: | 95 | |
And when you find him evenly derived | ||
From his most famed of famous ancestors, | ||
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign | ||
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held | ||
From him the native and true challenger. | 100 | |
KING OF FRANCE | Or else what follows? | |
EXETER | Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown | |
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, | 105 | |
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 | 110 | |
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 threatening and my message; | 115 | |
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here, | ||
To whom expressly I bring greeting too. | ||
KING OF FRANCE | For us, we will consider of this further: | |
To-morrow shall you bear our full intent | ||
Back to our brother England. | 120 | |
DAUPHIN | For the Dauphin, | |
I stand here for him: what to him from England? | ||
EXETER | Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt, | |
And any thing that may not misbecome | ||
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at. | 125 | |
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 | 130 | |
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock | ||
In second accent of his ordnance. | ||
DAUPHIN | Say, if my father render fair return, | |
It is against my will; for I desire | ||
Nothing but odds with England: to that end, | 135 | |
As matching to his youth and vanity, | ||
I did present him with the Paris balls. | ||
EXETER | He’ll make your Paris Louvre shake for it, | |
Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe: | ||
And, be assured, you’ll find a difference, | 140 | |
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. | 145 | |
KING OF FRANCE | To-morrow shall you know our mind at full. | |
EXETER | Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king | |
Come here himself to question our delay; | ||
For he is footed in this land already. | ||
KING OF FRANCE | You shall be soon dispatch’s with fair conditions: | 150 |
A night is but small breath and little pause | ||
To answer matters of this consequence. | ||
Flourish. Exeunt |
Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1