pardonner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison: gardez ma vie, et je vous donnerai deux cents écus.

PIST. What are his words?

4I

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?

Boy. Encore qu'il est contre son jurement de pardonner aucun prisonnier, néanmoins, pour les écus que vous l'avez promis, il est content de vous donner la liberté, le franchisement.

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FR. SOL. Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercimens ; et je m'estime heureux que je suis tombé entre les mains d'un chevalier, je pense, le plus brave, vaillant, et très distingué seigneur d'Angleterre.

PIST. Expound unto me, boy.

Boy. He gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks; and he esteems himself happy that he hath fallen into the hands of one, as he thinks, the most brave, valorous, and thrice-worthy signieur of England.

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

Boy. Suivez-vous le grand capitaine.

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[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.

SCENE V. Another part of the Field. Alarums. Enter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, BOURBON, Constabe, RAMBURES, and others.

CON. O diable !

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

DAU. Mort de ma vie ! all is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame

Sits mocking in our plumes. O méchante fortune!
Do not run away.

CON. Why, all our ranks are broke.

[A short Alarum.

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

9

ORL. Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?
BOUR. 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.

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

ORL. We are enow yet living in the field

To smother up the English in our throngs,

If any order might be thought upon.

20

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

SCENE VI. Another part of the field.

Alarums. Enter KING HENRY and Forces; EXETER, and others.

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

EXE. The Duke of York commends him to your majesty. K. HEN. 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.

EXE. 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 yawn upon his face;
And cries aloud 'Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk !

IO

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 my 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.

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30

K. HEN.
For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.

I blame you not;

[Alarum.

But, hark! what new alarum is this same?

The French have reinforced their scatter'd men:

Then every soldier kill his prisoners;

[Exeunt.

Give the word through.

SCENE VII.

Another Part of the Field.

Alarums. Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER.

FLU. 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?

Gow. '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!

FLU. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you the town's name where Alexander the Pig was porn?

Gow. Alexander the Great.

FLU. 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.

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

20

FLU. 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 so like 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 pest friend, Cleitus. Gow. Our king is not like him in that: he never killed any of his friends.

38 FLU. It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made an end and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it as Alexander is kill his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his goot judgments, is turn away the fat knight with the great pelly-doublet: he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks: I have forgot his name. Gow. Sir John Falstaff.

FLU. That is he: I'll tell you there is goot men porn at Monmouth.

Gow. Here comes his majesty.

50

Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, with a part of the English
Forces; WARWICK, GLOUCESTER, EXETER, and others.

K. HEN. 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.

60

EXE. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege. GLOU. His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

K. HEN. 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?

MONT.

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!

K. HEN.

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.

MONT.

The day is yours.

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80

K. HEN. Praised be God, and not our strength, for it ! What is this castle call'd that stands hard by? MONT. They call it Agincourt.

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

FLU. 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.

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