Complete Plays, The (242 page)

Pistol

As I suck blood, I will some mercy show.
Follow me!

Boy

Suivez-vous le grand capitaine.

Exeunt Pistol, and French Soldier

I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true ‘The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.’ Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring devil i’ the old play, that every one may pare his nails with a wooden dagger; and they are both hanged; and so would this be, if he durst steal any thing adventurously. I must stay with the lackeys, with the luggage of our camp: the French might have a good prey of us, if he knew of it; for there is none to guard it but boys.

Exit

S
CENE
V. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
FIELD
.

Enter Constable, Orleans, Bourbon, Dauphin, and Rambures

Constable

O diable!

Orleans

O seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!

Dauphin

Mort de ma vie! all is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sits mocking in our plumes. O merchante fortune!
Do not run away.

A short alarum

Constable

 
Why, all our ranks are broke.

Dauphin

O perdurable shame! let’s stab ourselves.
Be these the wretches that we play’d at dice for?

Orleans

Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?

Bourbon

Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!
Let us die in honour: once more back again;
And he that will not follow Bourbon now,
Let him go hence, and with his cap in hand,
Like a base pander, hold the chamber-door
Whilst by a slave, no gentler than my dog,
His fairest daughter is contaminated.

Constable

Disorder, that hath spoil’d us, friend us now!
Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.

Orleans

We are enow yet living in the field
To smother up the English in our throngs,
If any order might be thought upon.

Bourbon

The devil take order now! I’ll to the throng:
Let life be short; else shame will be too long.

Exeunt

S
CENE
VI. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
FIELD
.

Alarums. Enter King Henry and forces, Exeter, and others

King Henry V

Well have we done, thrice valiant countrymen:
But all’s not done; yet keep the French the field.

Exeter

The Duke of York commends him to your majesty.

King Henry V

Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour
I saw him down; thrice up again and fighting;
From helmet to the spur all blood he was.

Exeter

In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie,
Larding the plain; and by his bloody side,
Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds,
The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.
Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled over,
Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep’d,
And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes
That bloodily did spawn upon his face;
And cries aloud ‘Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!
My soul shall thine keep company to heaven;
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast,
As in this glorious and well-foughten field
We kept together in our chivalry!’
Upon these words I came and cheer’d him up:
He smiled me in the face, raught me his hand,
And, with a feeble gripe, says ‘Dear my lord,
Commend my service to me sovereign.’
So did he turn and over Suffolk’s neck
He threw his wounded arm and kiss’d his lips;
And so espoused to death, with blood he seal’d
A testament of noble-ending love.
The pretty and sweet manner of it forced
Those waters from me which I would have stopp’d;
But I had not so much of man in me,
And all my mother came into mine eyes
And gave me up to tears.

King Henry V

I blame you not;
For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.

Alarum

But, hark! what new alarum is this same?
The French have reinforced their scatter’d men:
Then every soldier kill his prisoners:
Give the word through.

Exeunt

S
CENE
VII. A
NOTHER
PART
OF
THE
FIELD
.

Enter Fluellen and Gower

Fluellen

Kill the poys and the luggage! ’tis expressly against the law of arms: ’tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offer’t; in your conscience, now, is it not?

Gower

’Tis certain there’s not a boy left alive; and the cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha’ done this slaughter: besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the king’s tent; wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner’s throat. O, ’tis a gallant king!

Fluellen

Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you the town’s name where Alexander the Pig was born!

Gower

Alexander the Great.

Fluellen

Why, I pray you, is not pig great? the pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.

Gower

I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.

Fluellen

I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the ’orld, I warrant you sall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but ’tis all one, ’tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you mark Alexander’s life well, Harry of Monmouth’s life is come after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things. Alexander, God knows, and you know, in his rages, and his furies, and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his best friend, Cleitus.

Gower

Our king is not like him in that: he never killed any of his friends.

Fluellen

It is not well done, mark you now take the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it: as Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgments, turned away the fat knight with the great belly-doublet: he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I have forgot his name.

Gower

Sir John Falstaff.

Fluellen

That is he: I’ll tell you there is good men porn at Monmouth.

Gower

Here comes his majesty.

Alarum. Enter King Henry, and forces; Warwick, Gloucester, Exeter, and others

King Henry V

I was not angry since I came to France
Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight:
If they’ll do neither, we will come to them,
And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:
Besides, we’ll cut the throats of those we have,
And not a man of them that we shall take
Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

Enter Montjoy

Exeter

Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.

Gloucester

His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

King Henry V

How now! what means this, herald? know’st thou not
That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?
Comest thou again for ransom?

Montjoy

No, great king:
I come to thee for charitable licence,
That we may wander o’er this bloody field
To look our dead, and then to bury them;
To sort our nobles from our common men.
For many of our princes — woe the while!—
Lie drown’d and soak’d in mercenary blood;
So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds
Fret fetlock deep in gore and with wild rage
Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,
To view the field in safety and dispose
Of their dead bodies!

King Henry V

I tell thee truly, herald,
I know not if the day be ours or no;
For yet a many of your horsemen peer
And gallop o’er the field.

Montjoy

The day is yours.

King Henry V

Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!
What is this castle call’d that stands hard by?

Montjoy

They call it Agincourt.

King Henry V

Then call we this the field of Agincourt,
Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

Fluellen

Your grandfather of famous memory, an’t please your majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.

King Henry V

They did, Fluellen.

Fluellen

Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.

King Henry V

I wear it for a memorable honour;
For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

Fluellen

All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty’s Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that: God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace, and his majesty too!

King Henry V

Thanks, good my countryman.

Fluellen

By Jeshu, I am your majesty’s countryman, I care not who know it; I will confess it to all the ’orld: I need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

King Henry V

God keep me so! Our heralds go with him:
Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.

Points to Williams. Exeunt Heralds with Montjoy

Exeter

Soldier, you must come to the king.

King Henry V

Soldier, why wearest thou that glove in thy cap?

Williams

An’t please your majesty, ’tis the gage of one that
I should fight withal, if he be alive.

King Henry V

An Englishman?

Williams

An’t please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered with me last night; who, if alive and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o’ th’ ear: or if I can see my glove in his cap, which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear if alive, I will strike it out soundly.

King Henry V

What think you, Captain Fluellen? is it fit this soldier keep his oath?

Fluellen

He is a craven and a villain else, an’t please your majesty, in my conscience.

King Henry V

It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, quite from the answer of his degree.

Fluellen

Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jacksauce, as ever his black shoe trod upon God’s ground and his earth, in my conscience, la!

King Henry V

Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meetest the fellow.

Williams

So I will, my liege, as I live.

King Henry V

Who servest thou under?

Williams

Under Captain Gower, my liege.

Fluellen

Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and literatured in the wars.

King Henry V

Call him hither to me, soldier.

Williams

I will, my liege.

Exit

King Henry V

Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me and stick it in thy cap: when Alencon and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm: if any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alencon, and an enemy to our person; if thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.

Fluellen

Your grace doo’s me as great honours as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain see the man, that has but two legs, that shall find himself aggrieved at this glove; that is all; but I would fain see it once, an please God of his grace that I might see.

King Henry V

Knowest thou Gower?

Fluellen

He is my dear friend, an please you.

King Henry V

Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.

Fluellen

I will fetch him.

Exit

King Henry V

My Lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloucester,
Follow Fluellen closely at the heels:
The glove which I have given him for a favour
May haply purchase him a box o’ th’ ear;
It is the soldier’s; I by bargain should
Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick:
If that the soldier strike him, as I judge
By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,
Some sudden mischief may arise of it;
For I do know Fluellen valiant
And, touched with choler, hot as gunpowder,
And quickly will return an injury:
Follow and see there be no harm between them.
Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.