Will. Keep thy word: fare thee well.

Bates. Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have French quarrels enow, 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! twin-born 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, show me but thy worth!

What is thy soul of adoration3?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form?
Creating awe and fear in other men,

Wherein thou art less happy, being fear'd,

Than they in fearing.

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

Think'st thou, the fiery fever will go out

5 What is THY soul of ADORATION?] In the folio, where alone the speech is found, this line stands exactly thus :- "What? is thy soul of odoration?" Odoration is an evident misprint; and it may be questioned whether we ought not to read" What is the soul of adoration?" or what is the essence or worth of adoration? but we prefer adhering to the original. Johnson recommended, "What is thy soul, O adoration?"

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 inter-tissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced 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 fill'd, and vacant mind,
Gets him to rest, cramm'd 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 days with toil, and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand 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.

Enter ERPINGHAM.

Erp. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,

6 The FARCED title running 'fore the king,] i. e. the stuffed, tumid, or inflated title. The use of "farced " for stuffed is common. It has been plausibly suggested by Mr. Knight, in his "Pictorial Shakspere," that "the farced title running 'fore the king," refers to the herald who preceded the king on some state occasions to proclaim his title.

K. Hen. O, God of battles! steel my soldiers'

hearts:

Possess them not with fear: take from them now

The sense of reckoning, if th' opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them!-Not to-day, O Lord!
O! not to-day, think not upon the fault

My father made in compassing the crown.

I Richard's body have interred new,
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears,
Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,

Who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do;
Though all that I can do, is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.

Glo. My liege!

K. Hen.

Enter GLOSTER.

My brother Gloster's voice?-Ay;

I know thy errand, I will go with thee.

The day, my friend, and all things stay for me.

[Exeunt.

Pluck their hearts from them.] The folio has of for “if,” an easy misprint, the correction of which seems necessary to the intelligibility of the passage; unless we were to read, "Pluck their hearts from them not to-day, O Lord!" which would be an awkward inversion, and would injure the emphasis of the imprecation, that the manner in which Henry IV. came by the crown should not that day be remembered.

SCENE II.

The French Camp.

Enter DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and Others. Orl. The sun doth gild our armour: up, my lords! Dau. Montez à cheval:-My horse! valet! lacquay! ha!

Orl. O brave spirit!

Dau. Via!-les eaux et la terres!

Orl. Rien puis? l'air et le feu!

Dau. Ciel! cousin Orleans.

Enter CONSTABLE.

Now, my lord Constable !

Con. Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh. Dau. Mount them, and make incision in their hides, That their hot blood may spin in English eyes, And doubt them with superfluous courage': Ha!

Ram. What, will you have them weep our horses' blood?

How shall we then behold their natural tears?

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. The English are embattled, you French peers. Con. To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse!

Do but behold yon poor and starved band,

Via! les eaux et la terre !] "Via!" is an exclamation, signifying away! often met with: it is not easy to understand what the dauphin means by les eaux et la terre, or his cousin by l'air et le feu, unless they are to be taken as exhortatory exclamations, or have reference to the four elements, which, in a previous scene (p. 520), the Dauphin had spoken of in connection with his horse.

9 And DOUBT them with superfluous courage :] This is the old reading, and taking" doubt them " in the sense of making them doubt, or alarming them for the issue, is quite as intelligible as dout or do out, extinguish, which some modern editors would substitute. Pope read daunt.

And your fair show shall suck away their souls;
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men 1o.
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'erturn them.

'Tis positive against all exceptions, lords,
That our superfluous lackeys, and our peasants,
Who in unnecessary action swarm

About our squares of battle, were enow
To purge this field of such a hilding foe,
Though we, upon this mountain's basis by
Took stand for idle speculation:

What's to say?

But that our honours must not.
A very little little let us do,
And all is done. Then, let the trumpets sound
The tucket-sonnance', and the note to mount:
For our approach shall so much dare the field,
That England shall couch down in fear, and yield.

Enter GRANDPRÉ.

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

Yond' island carrions, desperate of their bones,
Ill-favour'dly become the morning field:
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,

10 the SHALES and husks of men.] "Shale" was the old form of shell; from the Sax. schale.

1 The TUCKET-SONNANCE,] i. e. The sounding of the tucket. A tucket, as is explained in a note to "The Merchant of Venice," Vol. ii. p. 557, note 7, was properly not a trumpet, but the sound produced by a trumpet. This is what the constable of France calls "the tucket-sonnance."