cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery. Now if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle, war is his vengeance: so that here men are punished for before-breach of the King's laws, in now the King's quarrel. Where they feared the death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they perish. Then if they die unprovided, no more is the King guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's duty is the King's, but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote

out of his conscience: and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained. And in him that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him outlive that day to see His greatness, and to teach others how they should prepare.

Will. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his own head; the King is not to answer for it.

Bates. I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to fight lustily for him. K. Hen. I myself heard the King say he would not be ransomed.

Will. Ay, he said so to make us fight cheerfully: but when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed and we ne'er the wiser.

K. Hen. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

Will. 'Mass, you'll pay him then! That's a perilous shot out of an elder gun that a poor and private displeasure can do against a monarch! You may as well go about to turn the sun to ice,

with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word after! Come, 't is a foolish saying.

K. Hen. Your reproof is something too round: I should be angry with you if the time were convenient.

Will. Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

K. Hen. I embrace it.

Will. How shall I know thee again?

K. Hen. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel. Will. Here's my glove: give me another of thine.

K. Hen. There.

Will. This will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou come to me and say, after to-morrow, "This is my glove," by this hand, I will take thee a box

on the ear.

K. Hen. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
Will. Thou darest as well be hanged.

K. Hen. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King's company.

Will. Keep thy word; fare thee well.

Bates. Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have French quarrels enough, if you could tell how to reckon.

K. Hen. Indeed the French may lay twenty French crowns to one they will beat us; for they bear them on their shoulders. But it is no English treason to cut French crowns; and to-morrow the King himself will be a clipper.-[Exeunt Soldiers. "Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls, Our debts, our careful wives,

Our children, and our sins, lay on the King:"
We must bear all.

O hard condition! twinborn with greatness,
Subject to the breath of every fool, whose sense
No more can feel but his own wringing!
What infinite heart's-ease must kings neglect
That private men enjoy!

And what have kings that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony;
What kind of God art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents; what are thy comings-in?
O ceremony, shew me but thy worth:

What is the soul of adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being feared
Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poisoned flattery?—O be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!

Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending? Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,

Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream
That play'st so subtly with a king's repose:
I am a king that find thee: and I know
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farcéd title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,-
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who, with a body filled and vacant mind,
Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread:
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell;
But like a lackey, from the rise to set,
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
Sleeps in Elysium: next day, after dawn,
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse;
And follows so the ever-running year,
With profitable labour, to his grave :-
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up his days with toil, and nights with
sleep,

Had the forehand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it: but, in gross brain, little wots
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

Mess. The English are embattled, you French peers.

Con. To horse, you gallant princes; straight to horse!

Do but behold yon poor and starvéd band,
And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men,
There is not work enough for all our hands;
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins
To give each naked curtle-ax a stain,
That our French gallants shall to day draw out,
And sheath for lack of sport. Let us but blow
on them,

The
vapour of our valour will o'er turn them.
'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,
That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants,

Who in unnecessary action swarm
About our squares of battle, were enough
To purge this field of such a hilding foe,
Though we upon this mountain's basis by
Took stand for idle speculation:
But that our honours must not. What's to say?
A very little little let us do,
And all is done. Then let the trumpet sound
The tucket-sonuance and the note to mount:
For our approach shall so much dare the field,
That England shall couch down in fear, and yield.

Enter GRANDPRE.

Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of
France?

Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,
Ill-favouredly become the morning field:
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggared host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
Their horsemen sit like fixéd candlesticks,
With torchstaves in their hand: and their poor
jades

Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips;
The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes;
And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chewed grass, still and motionless:
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o'er them all, impatient for their hour.
Description cannot suit itself in words
To demonstrate the life of such a battle,
In life so lifeless as it shews itself.

Con. They have said their prayers, and they
stay for death.

Dau. Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits,

And give their fasting horses provender,
And after fight with them?

Con. I stay but for my guard. On to the field:
I will the banner from a trumpet take,
And use it for my haste. Come, come away:
The sun is high, and we outwear the day.

SCENE III.-The English Camp.

[Exeunt.

Enter the English host; GLOSTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, SALISBURY, and WESTMORLAND. Glo. Where is the King?

Bed. The King himself is rode to view their battle.

West. Of fighting men they have full threescore thousand.

Exe. There's five to one: besides, they all are

fresh.

Sal. 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 Gloster, and my good lord Exeter,
And my kind kinsman,-warriors all, adieu!
Bed. Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck
go with thee.

Exe. Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly today:

And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,
For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour.
[Exit SALISBURY.
Bed. He is as full of valour as of kindness:
Princely in both.

West.
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

O that we now had here

Enter KING HENRY.

K. Hen. My cousin Westmorland!—No, my fair cousin : If we are marked to die, we are enough To do our country loss: and if to live, The fewer men the greater share of honour. 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: 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 a honour

What's he that wishes so?

As one man more methinks would share from me,

For the best hope I have. O do not wish one

more:

Rather proclaim it, Westmorland, through my host,

That he who hath no stomach to this fight
Let him depart: his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
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 tiptoe when this day is named,
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 friends,
And say, “To-morrow is Saint Crispian :"
Then will he strip his sleeve and shew his scars,
And say,
"These wounds I had on Crispian'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 their mouths as household words,-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,-
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberéd :
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,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now abed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not
here,

And hold their manhoods cheap while any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispian's day.

K. Hen. I pray thee bear my former answer back:

Bid them achieve me, and then sell my bones. 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, 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; Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime, The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.

Mark then a bounding valour in our English;
That, being dead, like to the bullet's grazing,
Break out into a second course of mischief,
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 besmirched
With rainy marching in the painful field;
There's not a piece of feather in our host
(Good argument, I hope, we shall 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
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;

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 to them, Shall yield them little, tell the Constable.

Mont. I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee

well:

Thou never shalt hear herald any more. [Exit. K. Hen. I fear thou 'lt once more come again for ransom.

Enter the DUKE OF YORK. York. My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg The leading of the vaward.

K. Hen. Take it, brave York.-Now, soldiers, march away: :

And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day! [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.-The Field of Battle.

Alarums. Excursions. Enter French Soldier, PISTOL, and Boy.

Pist. Yield, cur.

Fr. Sol. Je pense que vous estes le gentilhomme de bonne qualité.

Pist. Quality!" Callino, castore me.”—Art thou a gentleman? What is thy name? discuss. Fr. Sol. O Seigneur Dieu!

Pist. O Signior Dew should be a gentleman.— Perpend my words, O Signior Dew, and mark: O Signior Dew, thou diest on point of fox, Except, O signior, thou do give to me Egregious ransom.

Fr. Sol. O prennez misericorde! ayez pitié de moy!

Pist. Moy shall not serve; I will have forty

moys:

For I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat,
In drops of crimson blood.

Fr. Sol. Est il impossible d'eschapper la force

de ton bras?

Pist. Brass, cur!

Thou damnéd and luxurious mountain goat,
Offer'st me brass?

Fr. Sol. O pardonnez moy!

Pist. Sayst thou me so? is that a ton of moys? Come hither, boy: ask me this slave, in French, What is his name.

Boy. Escoutez: comment estes vous appellé ?
Fr. Sol. Monsieur le Fer.

Boy. He says, his name is Master Fer. Pist. Master Fer! I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him :-discuss the same in French unto him.

Boy. I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk.

Pist. Bid him prepare, for I will cut his throat.
Fr. Sol. Que dit-il, monsieur?

Boy. Il me commande de vous dire que vous faites vous prest: car ce soldat icy est disposé tout à cette heure de couper vostre gorge.

Pist. Ouy, couper gorge, par ma foy, pesant, Unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns; Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.

Fr. Sol. O, je vous supplie pour l'amour de Dieu, me pardonner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison: gardez ma vie, et je vous donneray deux cents escus.

Pist. What are his words?

Boy. He prays you to save his life: he is a gentleman of a good house, and for his ransom he will give you two hundred crowns.

Pist. Tell him my fury shall abate, and I The crowns will take.

Fr. Sol. Petit monsieur, que dit-il?