Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both, Do my good morrow to them, and anon Glou. We shall, my liege. Erp. Shall I attend your grace? K. Hen. No, my good knight; 30 Go with my brothers to my lords of England: I and my bosom must debate a while, And then I would no other company. Erp. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry! [Exeunt all but King. K. Hen. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully. Pist. Qui va là? K. Hen. A friend. Enter PISTOL. Pist. Discuss unto me; art thou officer? Pist. As good a gentleman as the Emperor. 40 K. Hen. Then you are a better than the King. Pist. The King's a bawcock, and a heart of gold, A lad of life, an imp of fame; Of parents good, of fist most valiant. I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string I love the lovely bully. What is thy name? K. Hen. Harry le Roy. Pist. Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of Corn ish crew? K. Hen. No, I am a Welshman. 50 38. popular = of the people. Pist. Know'st thou Fluellen ? K. Hen. Yes. Pist. Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate Upon Saint Davy's day. K. Hen. Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that about yours. Pist. Art thou his friend? K. Hen. And his kinsman too. K. Hen. I thank you: God be with you fierceness. Enter FLUELLEN and GoWER. Gow. Captain Fluellen! 60 [Exit. Flu. So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is the greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true and aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept: if you would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle taddle nor pibble pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sopriety of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise. 74 Gow. Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night. Flu. If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb? in your own conscience, now? Gow. I will speak lower. 80 66. admiration = wonder. Fluellen, rather pedantic, as usual, regrets that Henry does not keep up the discipline that he imagines in Pompey's camp. Flu. I pray you and peseech you that you will. [Exeunt Gower and Fluellen. K. Hen. Though it appear a little out of fashion, There is much care and valour in this Welshman. Enter three soldiers, JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT, and MICHAEL WILLIAMS. Court. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder? Bates. I think it be: but we have no great cause to desire the approach of day. 88 Will. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there? K. Hen. A friend. Will. Under what captain serve you? K. Hen. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham. Will. A good old commander and a most kind gentleman: I pray you, what thinks he of our estate? K. Hen. Even as men wrack'd upon a sand, that look to be wash'd off the next tide. 98 Bates. He hath not told his thought to the King? K. Hen. No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I speak it to you, I think the King is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man ; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore 83. Fluellen is old-fashioned. 96. estate = condition. 103. element = sky: really but one of what were held the four elements; earth, air, fire, water. Cf. III, vii, 21. 106. affections emotions. 99 when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, cut of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army. Bates. He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a night as 't is, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here. K. Hen. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I think he would not wish himself any where but where he is. 119 Bates. Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved. K. Hen. I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds: methinks I could not die any where so contented as in the King's company; his cause being just and his quarrel honourable. Will. That's more than we know. Bates. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the King's subjects if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us. 132 Will. But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, We died at such a place; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well 140. rawly lately, just. = that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection. 145 K. Hen. So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a ser vant, under his master's command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in many irreconcil'd iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant's damnation: but this is not so: the King is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services. Besides, there is no king, be his 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 punish'd for before-breach of the King's laws in now the King's quarrel where they feared 146. Henry eludes the point which he perfectly understands, and has determined in his own mind already, I, ii, 25-32, 96. He prefers to elaborate an idea more likely to give heart to his men. |