Henry V — Act 4, Scene 1 · Shakespeare for Bharat

KING HENRY V

Gloucester, 'tis true that we are in great danger;The greater therefore should our courage be.Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!There is some soul of goodness in things evil,Would men observingly distil it out.For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,Which is both healthful and good husbandry:Besides, they are our outward consciences,And preachers to us all, admonishingThat we should dress us fairly for our end.Thus may we gather honey from the weed,And make a moral of the devil himself.

KING HENRY V

Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:A good soft pillow for that good white headWere better than a churlish turf of France.

ERPINGHAM

Not so, my liege: this lodging likes me better,Since I may say 'Now lie I like a king.'

KING HENRY V

'Tis good for men to love their present painsUpon example; so the spirit is eased:And when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt,The organs, though defunct and dead before,Break up their drowsy grave and newly move,With casted slough and fresh legerity.Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,Commend me to the princes in our camp;Do my good morrow to them, and anonDesire them an to my pavilion.

GLOUCESTER

We shall, my liege.

ERPINGHAM

Shall I attend your grace?

KING HENRY V

No, my good knight;Go with my brothers to my lords of England:I and my bosom must debate awhile,And then I would no other company.

ERPINGHAM

The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!

KING HENRY V

God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully.

PISTOL

Qui va la?

KING HENRY V

A friend.

PISTOL

Discuss unto me; art thou officer?Or art thou base, common and popular?

KING HENRY V

I am a gentleman of a company.

PISTOL

Trail'st thou the puissant pike?

KING HENRY V

Even so. What are you?

PISTOL

As good a gentleman as the emperor.

KING HENRY V

Then you are a better than the king.

PISTOL

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-stringI love the lovely bully. What is thy name?

KING HENRY V

Harry le Roy.

PISTOL

Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of Cornish crew?

KING HENRY V

No, I am a Welshman.

PISTOL

Know'st thou Fluellen?

KING HENRY V

Yes.

PISTOL

Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pateUpon Saint Davy's day.

KING HENRY V

Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day,lest he knock that about yours.

PISTOL

Art thou his friend?

KING HENRY V

And his kinsman too.

PISTOL

The figo for thee, then!

KING HENRY V

I thank you: God be with you!

PISTOL

My name is Pistol call'd.

KING HENRY V

It sorts well with your fierceness.

GOWER

Captain Fluellen!

FLUELLEN

So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It isthe greatest admiration of the universal world, whenthe true and aunchient prerogatifes and laws of thewars is not kept: if you would take the pains but toexamine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shallfind, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle toddlenor pibble pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you,you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and thecares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobrietyof it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.

GOWER

Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.

FLUELLEN

If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a pratingcoxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also,look you, be an ass and a fool and a pratingcoxcomb? in your own conscience, now?

GOWER

I will speak lower.

FLUELLEN

I pray you and beseech you that you will.

KING HENRY V

Though it appear a little out of fashion,There is much care and valour in this Welshman.

COURT

Brother John Bates, is not that the morning whichbreaks yonder?

BATES

I think it be: but we have no great cause to desirethe approach of day.

WILLIAMS

We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I thinkwe shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?

KING HENRY V

A friend.

WILLIAMS

Under what captain serve you?

KING HENRY V

Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

WILLIAMS

A good old commander and a most kind gentleman: Ipray you, what thinks he of our estate?

KING HENRY V

Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to bewashed off the next tide.

BATES

He hath not told his thought to the king?

KING HENRY V

No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though Ispeak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as Iam: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: theelement shows to him as it doth to me; all hissenses have but human conditions: his ceremonieslaid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; andthough his affections are higher mounted than ours,yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the likewing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as wedo, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relishas ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possesshim with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showingit, should dishearten his army.

BATES

He may show what outward courage he will; but Ibelieve, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wishhimself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would hewere, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

KING HENRY V

By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king:I think he would not wish himself any where butwhere he is.

BATES

Then I would he were here alone; so should he besure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.

KING HENRY V

I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him herealone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men'sminds: methinks I could not die any where socontented as in the king's company; his cause beingjust and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMS

That's more than we know.

BATES

Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we knowenough, if we know we are the kings subjects: ifhis cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipesthe crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hatha heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs andarms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall jointogether at the latter day and cry all 'We died atsuch a place;' some swearing, some crying for asurgeon, some upon their wives left poor behindthem, some upon the debts they owe, some upon theirchildren rawly left. I am afeard there are few diewell that die in a battle; for how can theycharitably dispose of any thing, when blood is theirargument? Now, if these men do not die well, itwill be a black matter for the king that led them toit; whom to disobey were against all proportion ofsubjection.

KING HENRY V

So, if a son that is by his father sent aboutmerchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, theimputation of his wickedness by your rule, should beimposed upon his father that sent him: or if aservant, under his master's command transporting asum of money, be assailed by robbers and die inmany irreconciled iniquities, you may call thebusiness of the master the author of the servant'sdamnation: but this is not so: the king is notbound to answer the particular endings of hissoldiers, the father of his son, nor the master ofhis servant; for they purpose not their death, whenthey purpose their services. Besides, there is noking, be his cause never so spotless, if it come tothe arbitrement of swords, can try it out with allunspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on themthe guilt of premeditated and contrived murder;some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals ofperjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, thathave before gored the gentle bosom of peace withpillage and robbery. Now, if these men havedefeated the law and outrun native punishment,though they can outstrip men, they have no wings tofly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance;so that here men are punished for before-breach ofthe king's laws in now the king's quarrel: wherethey feared the death, they have borne life away;and where they would be safe, they perish: then ifthey die unprovided, no more is the king guilty oftheir damnation than he was before guilty of thoseimpieties for the which they are now visited. Everysubject's duty is the king's; but every subject'ssoul is his own. Therefore should every soldier inthe wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash everymote out of his conscience: and dying so, deathis to him advantage; or not dying, the time wasblessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:and in him that escapes, it were not sin to thinkthat, making God so free an offer, He let himoutlive that day to see His greatness and to teachothers how they should prepare.

WILLIAMS

'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill uponhis own head, the king is not to answer it.

BATES

But I do not desire he should answer for me; andyet I determine to fight lustily for him.

KING HENRY V

I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.

WILLIAMS

Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: butwhen our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and wene'er the wiser.

KING HENRY V

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

WILLIAMS

You pay him then. That's a perilous shot out of anelder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure cando against a monarch! you may as well go about toturn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with apeacock's feather. You'll never trust his wordafter! come, 'tis a foolish saying.

KING HENRY V

Your reproof is something too round: I should beangry with you, if the time were convenient.

WILLIAMS

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

KING HENRY V

I embrace it.

WILLIAMS

How shall I know thee again?

KING HENRY V

Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in mybonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, Iwill make it my quarrel.

WILLIAMS

Here's my glove: give me another of thine.

KING HENRY V

There.

WILLIAMS

This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou cometo me and say, after to-morrow, 'This is my glove,'by this hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.

KING HENRY V

If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

WILLIAMS

Thou darest as well be hanged.

KING HENRY V

Well. I will do it, though I take thee in theking's company.

WILLIAMS

Keep thy word: fare thee well.

BATES

Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we haveFrench quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.

KING HENRY V

Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns toone, they will beat us; for they bear them on theirshoulders: but it is no English treason to cutFrench crowns, and to-morrow the king himself willbe a clipper.

KING HENRY V

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 breathOf every fool, whose sense no more can feelBut his own wringing! What infinite heart's-easeMust 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 idle ceremony?What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st moreOf 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 adoration?Art thou aught else but place, degree and form,Creating awe and fear in other men?Wherein thou art less happy being fear'dThan 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 outWith 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 farced title running 'fore the king,The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pompThat 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 mindGets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,But, like a lackey, from the rise to setSweats in the eye of Phoebus and all nightSleeps 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 wotsWhat watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

ERPINGHAM

My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,Seek through your camp to find you.

KING HENRY V

Good old knight,Collect them all together at my tent:I'll be before thee.

ERPINGHAM

I shall do't, my lord.

KING HENRY V

O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;Possess them not with fear; take from them nowThe sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbersPluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,O, not to-day, think not upon the faultMy father made in compassing the crown!I Richard's body have interred anew;And on it have bestow'd more contrite tearsThan from it issued forced drops of blood:Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold upToward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have builtTwo chantries, where the sad and solemn priestsSing 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.

GLOUCESTER

My liege!

KING HENRY V

My brother Gloucester's voice? Ay;I know thy errand, I will go with thee:The day, my friends and all things stay for me.