ACT IV PIST. As I suck blood, I will some mercy shew.
Sc. IV 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;1 and they are both hang'd; and
so would this be, if he durst steal any thing adventur-
ously. I must stay with the lackeys, with the luggage
of our camp: the Frenchman 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.

Enter the CONSTABLE, ORLEANS, BOURBON, the DOLPHIN, and RAMBURES.

CON. O diable!

ORL. O Seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!
DOL. Mort de ma vie! all is confounded, all!

Reproach, Reproach and everlasting Shame,
Sits mocking in our plumes. O méchante Fortune!
Do not run now!
[A short alarum.
CON.
Why, all our ranks are broke.
DOL. O perdurable shame! let's stab ourselves.
Be these the wretches that we play'd at dice?
ORL. Is this the King we sent to for his ransom?
BOUR. Shame, and eternal Shame, nothing but Shame! 10
Let's 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 contaminate.

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

Unto these English!

ΤΟ

1 The Devil wore his nails long; so it was a point of honour with all the other comic
68
characters to pare them, with a blade of lath: he resisting furiously the while.

BOUR. The Devil take order now! I'll to the throng:1

Let Life be short; else Shame will be too long.

[exeunt.

SCENE VI. Another Part of the Field.

ΤΟ

Alarum. Enter the KING and his Train, with Prisoners.
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!
My soul shall thine keep company to Heaven ;
Tarry, sweet Soul, for mine, then fly a-breast;
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 smil❜d 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, espous'd to Death, with blood he seal'd
A testament of noble-ending love.

The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd

Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd:
But I had not so much of man in me

20

30

8 reached.

For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.
But hark! what new alarum is this same?

The French have reinforc'd their scatter'd men?

Then every soldier kill his prisoners;

Give the word through.

[Alarum.

[exeunt.

SCENE VII. Another Part of the Field.

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 burn'd and carried
away all that was in the King's tent; wherefore the
King, most worthily, hath caus'd 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 born?

Gow. Alexander the Great?

ΤΟ

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.

20

Gow. I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon: his father was call'd Philip of Macedon, as I take it. 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

call'd 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. Gow. Our King is not like him in that: he never kill'd any of his friends. FLU. It is not well done (mark you now) to take the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finish'd. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it: as Alexander kill'd his friend Cleitus, being in his Ales and his Cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgments, turn'd 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.

Gow. Sir John Falstaff.

39

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

Gow. Here comes his Majesty.

Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, with BOURBON, and

K. HEN. I was not angry since I came to France
Until this instant. Take a trumpet, Herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond 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.

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60

ACT IV
Sc. VII

ACT IV EXE. Here comes the herald of the French, my Liege. GLOU. His eyes are humbler than they us'd to be.

Sc. VII

Enter MONTJOY.

K. HEN. How now! what means this, Herald? know'st

thou not

That I have fin'd these bones of mine for ransom?

Com'st 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 our's or no;
For yet a many of your horsemen peer

And gallop o'er the field.

MONT.

The day is your's.

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,

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80

89

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.

K. HEN. They did, Fluellen.

FLU. Your Majesty says very true: if your Majesties is remember'd of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their