woman. I'faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy un-, shall never move thee in French, unless it be to derstanding: I am glad, thou canst speak no bet- laugh at me.

ter English; for, if thou couldst, thou wouldst find Kath. Sauf vostre honneur, le François que vous me such a plain king, that thou wouldst think, I parlez, est meilleur, que l'Anglois lequel je parle. had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no K. Hen. No, 'faith, 'tis not, Kate; but thy speakways to mince it in love, but directly to say-I love ing of my tongue, and I thine, most truly falsely, you: then, if you urge me further than to say-must needs be granted to be much at one. Do you in faith? I wear out my suit. Give me Kate, dost thou understand thus much English? your answer; i'faith, do; and so clap hands and a Canst thou love me? bargain: How say you, lady? Kath. I cannot tell.

But

Kath. Sauf vostre honneur, me understand well. K. Hen. Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? K. Hen. Marry, if you would put me to verses, I'll ask them. Come, I know, thou lovest me: and or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me at night when you come into your closet, you'H for the one, I have neither words nor measure; and question this gentlewoman about me; and I know, for the other, I have no strength in measure, yet a Kate, you will, to her, dispraise those parts in me, reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a that you love with your heart: but, good Kate, mock lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle me mercifully; the rather, gentle princess, because with my armour on my back, under the correction I love thee cruelly. If ever thou be'st mine, Kate, of bragging be it spoken, I should quickly leap into (as I have a saving faith within me, tells me,-thou a wife. Or, if I might buffet for my love, or bound shalt,) I get thee with scambling, and thou must my horse for her favours, I could lay on like a therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder: Shall butcher, and sit like a jack-an-apes, never off: but, not thou and I, between Saint Dennis and Saint before God, I cannot look greenly, nor gasp out George, compound a boy, half French, half English, my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protesta- that shall go to Constantinople, and take the Turk tion; only downright oaths, which I never use till by the beard? shall we not? what sayest thou, urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst flower-de-luce?

2

love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not Kath. I do not know dat.

worth sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for K. Hen. No; 'tis hereafter to know, but now to love of any thing he sees there, let thine eye be thy promise: do but now promise, Kate, you will endea cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: If thou canst vour for your French part of such a boy; and, for love me for this, take me: if not, to say to thee-that my English moiety, take the word of a king, and a I shall die, is true; but-for thy love, by the Lord, bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Kathano; yet I love thee too. And while thou livest, dear rine du monde, mon tres chere et divine deesse? Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined con- Kath. Your majesté 'ave fausse French enough stancy; for he perforce must do thee right, because to deceive the most sage demoiselle dat is en France. he hath not the gift to woo in other places; for these K. Hen. Now, fie upon my false French! By mine fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves honour, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by into ladies' favours, they do always reason them- which honour I dare not swear, thou lovest me; yet selves out again. What! a speaker is but a prater; my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost, nota rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall; a withstanding the poor and untempering effect of my straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn visage. Now beshrew my father's ambition! he white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face was thinking of civil wars when he got me; therewill wither; a full eye will wax hollow; but a good fore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an heart, Kate, is the sun and moon; or, rather, the aspect of iron, that, when I come to woo ladies, I sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright, and fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou the better I shall appear: my comfort is, that old would have such a one, take me: And take me, age, that ill-layer up of beauty, can do no more take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king: And spoil upon my face: thou hast me, if thou hast me, what sayest thou then to my love? speak, my fair, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear and fairly, I pray thee. me, better and better; And therefore tell me, most Kath. Is it possible dat I should love de enemy fair Katharine, will you have me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the thoughts of your heart

of France?

K. Hen. No; it is not possible, you should love with the looks of an empress; take me by the hand, the enemy of France, Kate: but, in loving me, you and say-Harry of England, I am thine: which should love the friend of France; for I love France word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear, withal, so well, that I will not part with a village of it; I but I will tell thee aloud-England is thine, Irewill have it all mine: and, Kate, when France is land is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagemine, and I am yours, then yours is France, and net is thine; who, though I speak it before his face, you are mine.

Kath. I cannot tell vat is dat.

K. Hen. No, Kate? I will tell thee in French; which, I am sure, will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband's neck, hardly to be shook off. Quand j'ay la possession de France, et quand vous avez la possession de moi, (let me see, what then? Saint Dennis be my speed!)-donc vostre est France, et vous estes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom, as to speak so much more French: I

if he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is music, and thy English broken: therefore, queen of all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in broken English, Wilt thou have me

Kath. Dat is, as it shall please de roy mon pere. K. Hen. Nay, it will please him well, Kate; it shall please him, Kate.

Kath. Den it shall also content me.

K. Hen. Upon that I will kiss your hand, and I call you-my queen.

Kath. Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez: a fair French city, for one fair French maid that ma foy, je ne veux point que vous abbaissez vostre stands in my way.

grandeur, en baisant la main d'une vostre indigne Fr. King. Yes, my lord, you see them perspecservileure; excusez moy, je vous supplie, mon tres tively, the cities turned into a maid; for they are puissant seigneur. all girdled with maiden walls, that war hath never entered.

K. Hen. Then I will kiss your lips, Kate. Kath. Les dames, et damoiselles, pour estre baisées devant leur nopces, il n'est past le coutume de France.

K. Hen. Shall Kate be my wife?

Fr. King. So please you.

K. Hen. I am content; so the maiden cities you K. Hen. Madam, my interpreter, what says she? talk of, may wait on her: so the maid, that stood Alice. Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies in the way of my wish, shall show me the way to of France,-I cannot tell what is baiser, en English. K. Hen. To kiss.

Alice. Your majesty entendre bettre que moy.
K. Hen. It is not the fashion for the maids in
France to kiss before they are married, would she
say?

Alice. Ouy, vrayment.

my will.

Fr. King. We have consented to all terms of

reason.

K. Hen. Is't so, my lords of England? West. The king hath granted every article: His daughter, first; and then, in sequel, all, According to their firm proposed natures. K. Hen. O, Kate, nice customs curt'sy to great Exe. Only, he hath not yet subscribed this:kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined Where your majesty demands-fhat the king of within the weak list of a country's fashion: we are France, having any occasion to write for matter of the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that grant, shall name your highness in this form, and follows our places, stops the mouths of all find- with this addition, in French,-Notre tres cher faults; as I will do yours, for upholding the nice filz Henry, roy d'Angleterre, heretier de France; fashion of your country, in denying me a kiss: and thus in Latin,-Præclarissimus filius noste therefore, pauently, and yielding. [Kissing her.] Henricus, rex Anglia, et hæres Francia. You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them, than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England, than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father. Enter the French King and Queen, Burgundy, Bedford, Gloster, Exeter, Westmoreland, and other French and English Lords.

Bur. God save your majesty! my royal cousin, teach you our princess English?

K. Hen. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, now perfectly I love her; and that is good English. Bur. Is she not apt?

K. Hen. Our tongue is rough, coz; and my condition is not smooth: so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in his true likeness.

Fr. King. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied
But your request shall make me let it pass.
K. Hen. I pray you then, in love and dear
alliance,

Let that one article rank with the rest:
And, thereupon, give me your daughter.
Fr. King. Take her, fair son; and from her
blood raise up

Issue to me: that the contending kingdoms
Of France and England, whose very shores loos
pale

With envy of each other's happiness,
May cease their hatred; and this dear conjunction
Plant neighbourhood and christian-like accord
In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance
His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.
All. Amen!

K. Hen. Now welcome, Kate:-and bear me
witness all,

That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.

Bur. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, [Flourish you must make a circle: if conjure up love in her, Q. Isa. God, the best maker of all marriages, in his true likeness, he must appear naked, and Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one! blind: Can you blame her then, being a maid yet As man and wife, being two, are one in love, rosed over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal, she deny the appearance of a naked blind boy in That never may ill office, or fell jealousy, her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a hard Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage, condition for a maid to consign to.

K. Hen. Yet they do wink, and yield; as love is blind, and enforces.

Bur. They are then excused, my lord, when they see not what they do.

K. Hen. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent to winking.

Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,
To make divorce of their incorporate league;
That English may as French, French Englishmen,
Receive each other!-God speak this Amen!
All. Amen!

K. Hen. Prepare we for our marriage:-on
which day,

Bur. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if My lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath, you will teach her to know my meaning: for maids, And all the peers', for surety of our leagues.well summered and warm kept, are like flies at Bar- Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me; tholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes; And may our oaths well kept and prosp'rous be! and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on.

K. Hen. This moral ties me over to time, and a hot summer; and so I will catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she must be blind too. Bur. As love is, my lord, before it loves. K. Hen. It is so: and you may, some of you, nk love for my blindness; who cannot see many (2) Temper.

(1) Slight barrier.

Enter Chorus.

[Exeunt.

Thus far, with rough, and all unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursu'd the story;
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.

(3) Application.

(4) i. e. Unequal to the weight of the subject

SN