Henry V
| ACT IV SCENE III | The English camp. | |
| Enter GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, ERPINGHAM, with all his host: SALISBURY and WESTMORELAND. | ||
| GLOUCESTER | Where is the king? | |
| BEDFORD | The king himself is rode to view their battle. | |
| WESTMORELAND | Of fighting men they have full three score thousand. | |
| EXETER | There’s five to one; besides, they all are fresh. | 5 |
| SALISBURY | God’s arm strike with us! ’tis a fearful odds. | |
| God be wi’ you, princes all; I’ll to my charge: | ||
| If we no more meet till we meet in heaven, | ||
| Then, joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford, | ||
| My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter, | 10 | |
| And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu! | ||
| BEDFORD | Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee! | |
| EXETER | Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly to-day: | |
| And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it, | ||
| For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour. | 15 | |
| Exit SALISBURY | ||
| BEDFORD | He is full of valour as of kindness; | |
| Princely in both. | ||
| Enter the KING | ||
| WESTMORELAND | O that we now had here | |
| But one ten thousand of those men in England | ||
| That do no work to-day! | 20 | |
| KING HENRY V | What’s he that wishes so? | |
| My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin: | ||
| If we are mark’d to die, we are enow | ||
| To do our country loss; and if to live, | ||
| The fewer men, the greater share of honour. | 25 | |
| God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. | ||
| By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, | ||
| Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; | ||
| It yearns me not if men my garments wear; | ||
| Such outward things dwell not in my desires: | 30 | |
| But if it be a sin to covet honour, | ||
| I am the most offending soul alive. | ||
| No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England: | ||
| God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour | ||
| As one man more, methinks, would share from me | 35 | |
| For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! | ||
| Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, | ||
| That he which hath no stomach to this fight, | ||
| Let him depart; his passport shall be made | ||
| And crowns for convoy put into his purse: | 40 | |
| We would not die in that man’s company | ||
| That fears his fellowship to die with us. | ||
| This day is called the feast of Crispian: | ||
| He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, | ||
| Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named, | 45 | |
| And rouse him at the name of Crispian. | ||
| He that shall live this day, and see old age, | ||
| Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, | ||
| And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’ | ||
| Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars. | 50 | |
| And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’ | ||
| Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, | ||
| But he’ll remember with advantages | ||
| What feats he did that day: then shall our names. | ||
| Familiar in his mouth as household words | 55 | |
| Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, | ||
| Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, | ||
| Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d. | ||
| This story shall the good man teach his son; | ||
| And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, | 60 | |
| From this day to the ending of the world, | ||
| But we in it shall be remember’d; | ||
| We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; | ||
| For he to-day that sheds his blood with me | ||
| Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, | 65 | |
| This day shall gentle his condition: | ||
| And gentlemen in England now a-bed | ||
| Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, | ||
| And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks | ||
| That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. | 70 | |
| Re-enter SALISBURY | ||
| SALISBURY | My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed: | |
| The French are bravely in their battles set, | ||
| And will with all expedience charge on us. | ||
| KING HENRY V | All things are ready, if our minds be so. | |
| WESTMORELAND | Perish the man whose mind is backward now! | 75 |
| KING HENRY V | Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz? | |
| WESTMORELAND | God’s will! my liege, would you and I alone, | |
| Without more help, could fight this royal battle! | ||
| KING HENRY V | Why, now thou hast unwish’d five thousand men; | |
| Which likes me better than to wish us one. | 80 | |
| You know your places: God be with you all! | ||
| Tucket. Enter MONTJOY | ||
| MONTJOY | Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry, | |
| If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound, | ||
| Before thy most assured overthrow: | ||
| For certainly thou art so near the gulf, | 85 | |
| Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy, | ||
| The constable desires thee thou wilt mind | ||
| Thy followers of repentance; that their souls | ||
| May make a peaceful and a sweet retire | ||
| From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies | 90 | |
| Must lie and fester. | ||
| KING HENRY V | Who hath sent thee now? | |
| MONTJOY | The Constable of France. | |
| KING HENRY V | I pray thee, bear my former answer back: | |
| Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones. | 95 | |
| Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus? | ||
| The man that once did sell the lion’s skin | ||
| While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him. | ||
| A many of our bodies shall no doubt | ||
| Find native graves; upon the which, I trust, | 100 | |
| Shall witness live in brass of this day’s work: | ||
| And those that leave their valiant bones in France, | ||
| Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills, | ||
| They shall be famed; for there the sun shall greet them, | ||
| And draw their honours reeking up to heaven; | 105 | |
| Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime, | ||
| The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France. | ||
| Mark then abounding valour in our English, | ||
| That being dead, like to the bullet’s grazing, | ||
| Break out into a second course of mischief, | 110 | |
| Killing in relapse of mortality. | ||
| Let me speak proudly: tell the constable | ||
| We are but warriors for the working-day; | ||
| Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch’d | ||
| With rainy marching in the painful field; | 115 | |
| There’s not a piece of feather in our host– | ||
| Good argument, I hope, we will not fly– | ||
| And time hath worn us into slovenry: | ||
| But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim; | ||
| And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night | 120 | |
| They’ll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck | ||
| The gay new coats o’er the French soldiers’ heads | ||
| And turn them out of service. If they do this,– | ||
| As, if God please, they shall,–my ransom then | ||
| Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labour; | 125 | |
| Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald: | ||
| They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints; | ||
| Which if they have as I will leave ’em them, | ||
| Shall yield them little, tell the constable. | ||
| MONTJOY | I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well: | 130 |
| Thou never shalt hear herald any more. | ||
| Exit. | ||
| KING HENRY V | I fear thou’lt once more come again for ransom. | |
| Enter YORK. | ||
| YORK | My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg | |
| The leading of the vaward. | ||
| KING HENRY V | Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away: | 135 |
| And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day! | ||
| Exeunt |
Henry V, Act 4, Scene 4