KING HENRY V





     DRAMATIS PERSONAE





KING HENRY     the Fifth. (KING HENRY V)



DUKE OF GLOUCESTER  (GLOUCESTER:)  |

          |  brothers to the King.

DUKE OF BEDFORD     (BEDFORD:)     |





DUKE OF EXETER uncle to the King. (EXETER:)



DUKE OF YORK   cousin to the King. (YORK:)



EARL OF SALISBURY   (SALISBURY:)



EARL OF

WESTMORELAND   (WESTMORELAND:)



EARL OF WARWICK     (WARWICK:)



BISHOP OF

CANTERBURY     (CANTERBURY:)



BISHOP OF ELY  (ELY:)



EARL OF CAMBRIDGE   (CAMBRIDGE:)



LORD SCROOP    (SCROOP:)



SIR THOMAS GREY     (GREY:)





SIR

THOMAS ERPINGHAM    (ERPINGHAM:)   |

          |

GOWER          |

          |

FLUELLEN       |  Officers in King Henry's army.

          |

MACMORRIS      |

          |

JAMY      |





BATES     |

     |

COURT     |  soldiers in the same.

     |

WILLIAMS  |





PISTOL:



NYM:



BARDOLPH:



     Boy

     A Herald.



CHARLES the Sixth   King of France. (KING OF FRANCE:) (FRENCH KING:)



LEWIS     the Dauphin. (DAUPHIN:)



DUKE OF BURGUNDY    (BURGUNDY:)



DUKE OF ORLEANS     (ORLEANS:)



DUKE OF BOURBON     (BOURBON:)



     The Constable of France. (Constable:)





RAMBURES  |

     |  French Lords.

GRANDPRE  |





GOVERNOR  of Harfleur.



MONTJOY   a French Herald.



     Ambassadors to the King of England.



ISABEL    Queen of France. (QUEEN ISABEL:)



KATHARINE daughter to Charles and Isabel.



ALICE     a lady attending on her.



     Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap formerly

     Mistress Quickly, and now married to Pistol.

     Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Citizens,

     Messengers, and Attendants. Chorus.

     (Hostess:)

     (First Ambassador:)

     (Messenger:)

     (French Soldier:)



SCENE     England; afterwards France.









     KING HENRY V



     PROLOGUE





     [Enter Chorus]



Chorus    O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

     The brightest heaven of invention,

     A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

     And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

     Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

     Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

     Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire

     Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,

     The flat unraised spirits that have dared

     On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

     So great an object: can this cockpit hold

     The vasty fields of France? or may we cram

     Within this wooden O the very casques

     That did affright the air at Agincourt?

     O, pardon! since a crooked figure may

     Attest in little place a million;

     And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,

     On your imaginary forces work.

     Suppose within the girdle of these walls

     Are now confined two mighty monarchies,

     Whose high upreared and abutting fronts

     The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:

     Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;

     Into a thousand parts divide on man,

     And make imaginary puissance;

     Think when we talk of horses, that you see them

     Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;

     For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

     Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,

     Turning the accomplishment of many years

     Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,

     Admit me Chorus to this history;

     Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,

     Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.



     [Exit]









     KING HENRY V





ACT I







SCENE I   London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace.





     [Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP OF ELY]



CANTERBURY     My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is urged,

     Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign

     Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,

     But that the scambling and unquiet time

     Did push it out of farther question.



ELY  But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?



CANTERBURY     It must be thought on. If it pass against us,

     We lose the better half of our possession:

     For all the temporal lands which men devout

     By testament have given to the church

     Would they strip from us; being valued thus:

     As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,

     Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,

     Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;

     And, to relief of lazars and weak age,

     Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil.

     A hundred almshouses right well supplied;

     And to the coffers of the king beside,

     A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill.



ELY  This would drink deep.



CANTERBURY     'Twould drink the cup and all.



ELY  But what prevention?



CANTERBURY     The king is full of grace and fair regard.



ELY  And a true lover of the holy church.



CANTERBURY     The courses of his youth promised it not.

     The breath no sooner left his father's body,

     But that his wildness, mortified in him,

     Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment

     Consideration, like an angel, came

     And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,

     Leaving his body as a paradise,

     To envelop and contain celestial spirits.

     Never was such a sudden scholar made;

     Never came reformation in a flood,

     With such a heady currance, scouring faults

     Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

     So soon did lose his seat and all at once

     As in this king.



ELY                    We are blessed in the change.



CANTERBURY     Hear him but reason in divinity,

     And all-admiring with an inward wish

     You would desire the king were made a prelate:

     Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,

     You would say it hath been all in all his study:

     List his discourse of war, and you shall hear

     A fearful battle render'd you in music:

     Turn him to any cause of policy,

     The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,

     Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks,

     The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

     And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,

     To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;

     So that the art and practic part of life

     Must be the mistress to this theoric:

     Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,

     Since his addiction was to courses vain,

     His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow,

     His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports,

     And never noted in him any study,

     Any retirement, any sequestration

     From open haunts and popularity.



ELY  The strawberry grows underneath the nettle

     And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best

     Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:

     And so the prince obscured his contemplation

     Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,

     Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,

     Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.



CANTERBURY     It must be so; for miracles are ceased;

     And therefore we must needs admit the means

     How things are perfected.



ELY  But, my good lord,

     How now for mitigation of this bill

     Urged by the commons? Doth his majesty

     Incline to it, or no?



CANTERBURY     He seems indifferent,

     Or rather swaying more upon our part

     Than cherishing the exhibiters against us;

     For I have made an offer to his majesty,

     Upon our spiritual convocation

     And in regard of causes now in hand,

     Which I have open'd to his grace at large,

     As touching France, to give a greater sum

     Than ever at one time the clergy yet

     Did to his predecessors part withal.



ELY  How did this offer seem received, my lord?



CANTERBURY     With good acceptance of his majesty;

     Save that there was not time enough to hear,

     As I perceived his grace would fain have done,

     The severals and unhidden passages

     Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms

     And generally to the crown and seat of France

     Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.



ELY  What was the impediment that broke this off?



CANTERBURY     The French ambassador upon that instant

     Craved audience; and the hour, I think, is come

     To give him hearing: is it four o'clock?



ELY  It is.



CANTERBURY     Then go we in, to know his embassy;

     Which I could with a ready guess declare,

     Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.



ELY  I'll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT I







SCENE II  The same. The Presence chamber.





     [Enter KING HENRY V, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER,

     WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants]



KING HENRY V   Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?



EXETER    Not here in presence.



KING HENRY V   Send for him, good uncle.



WESTMORELAND   Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?



KING HENRY V   Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved,

     Before we hear him, of some things of weight

     That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.



     [Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP of ELY]



CANTERBURY     God and his angels guard your sacred throne

     And make you long become it!



KING HENRY V   Sure, we thank you.

     My learned lord, we pray you to proceed

     And justly and religiously unfold

     Why the law Salique that they have in France

     Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim:

     And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,

     That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,

     Or nicely charge your understanding soul

     With opening titles miscreate, whose right

     Suits not in native colours with the truth;

     For God doth know how many now in health

     Shall drop their blood in approbation

     Of what your reverence shall incite us to.

     Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,

     How you awake our sleeping sword of war:

     We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;

     For never two such kingdoms did contend

     Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops

     Are every one a woe, a sore complaint

     'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords

     That make such waste in brief mortality.

     Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;

     For we will hear, note and believe in heart

     That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd

     As pure as sin with baptism.



CANTERBURY     Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,

     That owe yourselves, your lives and services

     To this imperial throne. There is no bar

     To make against your highness' claim to France

     But this, which they produce from Pharamond,

     'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant:'

     'No woman shall succeed in Salique land:'

     Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze

     To be the realm of France, and Pharamond

     The founder of this law and female bar.

     Yet their own authors faithfully affirm

     That the land Salique is in Germany,

     Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;

     Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,

     There left behind and settled certain French;

     Who, holding in disdain the German women

     For some dishonest manners of their life,

     Establish'd then this law; to wit, no female

     Should be inheritrix in Salique land:

     Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,

     Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.

     Then doth it well appear that Salique law

     Was not devised for the realm of France:

     Nor did the French possess the Salique land

     Until four hundred one and twenty years

     After defunction of King Pharamond,

     Idly supposed the founder of this law;

     Who died within the year of our redemption

     Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great

     Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French

     Beyond the river Sala, in the year

     Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,

     King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,

     Did, as heir general, being descended

     Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,

     Make claim and title to the crown of France.

     Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown

     Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir male

     Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,

     To find his title with some shows of truth,

     'Through, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,

     Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,

     Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son

     To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son

     Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,

     Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,

     Could not keep quiet in his conscience,

     Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied

     That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,

     Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,

     Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorraine:

     By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great

     Was re-united to the crown of France.

     So that, as clear as is the summer's sun.

     King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim,

     King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear

     To hold in right and title of the female:

     So do the kings of France unto this day;

     Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law

     To bar your highness claiming from the female,

     And rather choose to hide them in a net

     Than amply to imbar their crooked titles

     Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.



KING HENRY V   May I with right and conscience make this claim?



CANTERBURY     The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!

     For in the book of Numbers is it writ,

     When the man dies, let the inheritance

     Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,

     Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;

     Look back into your mighty ancestors:

     Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,

     From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,

     And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,

     Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,

     Making defeat on the full power of France,

     Whiles his most mighty father on a hill

     Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp

     Forage in blood of French nobility.

     O noble English. that could entertain

     With half their forces the full Pride of France

     And let another half stand laughing by,

     All out of work and cold for action!



ELY  Awake remembrance of these valiant dead

     And with your puissant arm renew their feats:

     You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;

     The blood and courage that renowned them

     Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege

     Is in the very May-morn of his youth,

     Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.



EXETER    Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth

     Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,

     As did the former lions of your blood.



WESTMORELAND   They know your grace hath cause and means and might;

     So hath your highness; never king of England

     Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,

     Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England

     And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.



CANTERBURY     O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,

     With blood and sword and fire to win your right;

     In aid whereof we of the spiritualty

     Will raise your highness such a mighty sum

     As never did the clergy at one time

     Bring in to any of your ancestors.



KING HENRY V   We must not only arm to invade the French,

     But lay down our proportions to defend

     Against the Scot, who will make road upon us

     With all advantages.



CANTERBURY     They of those marches, gracious sovereign,

     Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

     Our inland from the pilfering borderers.



KING HENRY V   We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,

     But fear the main intendment of the Scot,

     Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;

     For you shall read that my great-grandfather

     Never went with his forces into France

     But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom

     Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,

     With ample and brim fulness of his force,

     Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,

     Girding with grievous siege castles and towns;

     That England, being empty of defence,

     Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.



CANTERBURY     She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;

     For hear her but exampled by herself:

     When all her chivalry hath been in France

     And she a mourning widow of her nobles,

     She hath herself not only well defended

     But taken and impounded as a stray

     The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,

     To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings

     And make her chronicle as rich with praise

     As is the ooze and bottom of the sea

     With sunken wreck and sunless treasuries.



WESTMORELAND   But there's a saying very old and true,

     'If that you will France win,

     Then with Scotland first begin:'

     For once the eagle England being in prey,

     To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot

     Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,

     Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,

     To tear and havoc more than she can eat.



EXETER    It follows then the cat must stay at home:

     Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,

     Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,

     And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.

     While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,

     The advised head defends itself at home;

     For government, though high and low and lower,

     Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,

     Congreeing in a full and natural close,

     Like music.



CANTERBURY               Therefore doth heaven divide

     The state of man in divers functions,

     Setting endeavour in continual motion;

     To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

     Obedience: for so work the honey-bees,

     Creatures that by a rule in nature teach

     The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

     They have a king and officers of sorts;

     Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,

     Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,

     Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,

     Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,

     Which pillage they with merry march bring home

     To the tent-royal of their emperor;

     Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

     The singing masons building roofs of gold,

     The civil citizens kneading up the honey,

     The poor mechanic porters crowding in

     Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,

     The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,

     Delivering o'er to executors pale

     The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,

     That many things, having full reference

     To one consent, may work contrariously:

     As many arrows, loosed several ways,

     Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;

     As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;

     As many lines close in the dial's centre;

     So may a thousand actions, once afoot.

     End in one purpose, and be all well borne

     Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.

     Divide your happy England into four;

     Whereof take you one quarter into France,

     And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.

     If we, with thrice such powers left at home,

     Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,

     Let us be worried and our nation lose

     The name of hardiness and policy.



KING HENRY V   Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.



     [Exeunt some Attendants]



     Now are we well resolved; and, by God's help,

     And yours, the noble sinews of our power,

     France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,

     Or break it all to pieces: or there we'll sit,

     Ruling in large and ample empery

     O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,

     Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,

     Tombless, with no remembrance over them:

     Either our history shall with full mouth

     Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,

     Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,

     Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.



     [Enter Ambassadors of France]



     Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure

     Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear

     Your greeting is from him, not from the king.



First Ambassador    May't please your majesty to give us leave

     Freely to render what we have in charge;

     Or shall we sparingly show you far off

     The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?



KING HENRY V   We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;

     Unto whose grace our passion is as subject

     As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons:

     Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness

     Tell us the Dauphin's mind.



First Ambassador    Thus, then, in few.

     Your highness, lately sending into France,

     Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right

     Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.

     In answer of which claim, the prince our master

     Says that you savour too much of your youth,

     And bids you be advised there's nought in France

     That can be with a nimble galliard won;

     You cannot revel into dukedoms there.

     He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,

     This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,

     Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim

     Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.



KING HENRY V   What treasure, uncle?



EXETER    Tennis-balls, my liege.



KING HENRY V   We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;

     His present and your pains we thank you for:

     When we have march'd our rackets to these balls,

     We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set

     Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.

     Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler

     That all the courts of France will be disturb'd

     With chaces. And we understand him well,

     How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,

     Not measuring what use we made of them.

     We never valued this poor seat of England;

     And therefore, living hence, did give ourself

     To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common

     That men are merriest when they are from home.

     But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,

     Be like a king and show my sail of greatness

     When I do rouse me in my throne of France:

     For that I have laid by my majesty

     And plodded like a man for working-days,

     But I will rise there with so full a glory

     That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,

     Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.

     And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his

     Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul

     Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance

     That shall fly with them: for many a thousand widows

     Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands;

     Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;

     And some are yet ungotten and unborn

     That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.

     But this lies all within the will of God,

     To whom I do appeal; and in whose name

     Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on,

     To venge me as I may and to put forth

     My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.

     So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin

     His jest will savour but of shallow wit,

     When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.

     Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.



     [Exeunt Ambassadors]



EXETER    This was a merry message.



KING HENRY V   We hope to make the sender blush at it.

     Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour

     That may give furtherance to our expedition;

     For we have now no thought in us but France,

     Save those to God, that run before our business.

     Therefore let our proportions for these wars

     Be soon collected and all things thought upon

     That may with reasonable swiftness add

     More feathers to our wings; for, God before,

     We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.

     Therefore let every man now task his thought,

     That this fair action may on foot be brought.



     [Exeunt. Flourish]









     KING HENRY V





ACT II





     PROLOGUE





     [Enter Chorus]



Chorus    Now all the youth of England are on fire,

     And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies:

     Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought

     Reigns solely in the breast of every man:

     They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,

     Following the mirror of all Christian kings,

     With winged heels, as English Mercuries.

     For now sits Expectation in the air,

     And hides a sword from hilts unto the point

     With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,

     Promised to Harry and his followers.

     The French, advised by good intelligence

     Of this most dreadful preparation,

     Shake in their fear and with pale policy

     Seek to divert the English purposes.

     O England! model to thy inward greatness,

     Like little body with a mighty heart,

     What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,

     Were all thy children kind and natural!

     But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out

     A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills

     With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men,

     One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,

     Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,

     Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,

     Have, for the gilt of France,--O guilt indeed!

     Confirm'd conspiracy with fearful France;

     And by their hands this grace of kings must die,

     If hell and treason hold their promises,

     Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.

     Linger your patience on; and we'll digest

     The abuse of distance; force a play:

     The sum is paid; the traitors are agreed;

     The king is set from London; and the scene

     Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton;

     There is the playhouse now, there must you sit:

     And thence to France shall we convey you safe,

     And bring you back, charming the narrow seas

     To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,

     We'll not offend one stomach with our play.

     But, till the king come forth, and not till then,

     Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.



     [Exit]









     KING HENRY V





ACT II







SCENE I   London. A street.





     [Enter Corporal NYM and Lieutenant BARDOLPH]



BARDOLPH  Well met, Corporal Nym.



NYM  Good morrow, Lieutenant Bardolph.



BARDOLPH  What, are Ancient Pistol and you friends yet?



NYM  For my part, I care not: I say little; but when

     time shall serve, there shall be smiles; but that

     shall be as it may. I dare not fight; but I will

     wink and hold out mine iron: it is a simple one; but

     what though? it will toast cheese, and it will

     endure cold as another man's sword will: and

     there's an end.



BARDOLPH  I will bestow a breakfast to make you friends; and

     we'll be all three sworn brothers to France: let it

     be so, good Corporal Nym.



NYM  Faith, I will live so long as I may, that's the

     certain of it; and when I cannot live any longer, I

     will do as I may: that is my rest, that is the

     rendezvous of it.



BARDOLPH  It is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell

     Quickly: and certainly she did you wrong; for you

     were troth-plight to her.



NYM  I cannot tell: things must be as they may: men may

     sleep, and they may have their throats about them at

     that time; and some say knives have edges. It must

     be as it may: though patience be a tired mare, yet

     she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I

     cannot tell.



     [Enter PISTOL and Hostess]



BARDOLPH  Here comes Ancient Pistol and his wife: good

     corporal, be patient here. How now, mine host Pistol!



PISTOL    Base tike, call'st thou me host? Now, by this hand,

     I swear, I scorn the term; Nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.



Hostess   No, by my troth, not long; for we cannot lodge and

     board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live

     honestly by the prick of their needles, but it will

     be thought we keep a bawdy house straight.



     [NYM and PISTOL draw]



     O well a day, Lady, if he be not drawn now! we

     shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.



BARDOLPH  Good lieutenant! good corporal! offer nothing here.



NYM  Pish!



PISTOL    Pish for thee, Iceland dog! thou prick-ear'd cur of Iceland!



Hostess   Good Corporal Nym, show thy valour, and put up your sword.



NYM  Will you shog off? I would have you solus.



PISTOL    'Solus,' egregious dog? O viper vile!

     The 'solus' in thy most mervailous face;

     The 'solus' in thy teeth, and in thy throat,

     And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw, perdy,

     And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!

     I do retort the 'solus' in thy bowels;

     For I can take, and Pistol's cock is up,

     And flashing fire will follow.



NYM  I am not Barbason; you cannot conjure me. I have an

     humour to knock you indifferently well. If you grow

     foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my

     rapier, as I may, in fair terms: if you would walk

     off, I would prick your guts a little, in good

     terms, as I may: and that's the humour of it.



PISTOL    O braggart vile and damned furious wight!

     The grave doth gape, and doting death is near;

     Therefore exhale.



BARDOLPH  Hear me, hear me what I say: he that strikes the

     first stroke, I'll run him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier.



     [Draws]



PISTOL    An oath of mickle might; and fury shall abate.

     Give me thy fist, thy fore-foot to me give:

     Thy spirits are most tall.



NYM  I will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair

     terms: that is the humour of it.



PISTOL    'Couple a gorge!'

     That is the word. I thee defy again.

     O hound of Crete, think'st thou my spouse to get?

     No; to the spital go,

     And from the powdering tub of infamy

     Fetch forth the lazar kite of Cressid's kind,

     Doll Tearsheet she by name, and her espouse:

     I have, and I will hold, the quondam Quickly

     For the only she; and--pauca, there's enough. Go to.



     [Enter the Boy]



Boy  Mine host Pistol, you must come to my master, and

     you, hostess: he is very sick, and would to bed.

     Good Bardolph, put thy face between his sheets, and

     do the office of a warming-pan. Faith, he's very ill.



BARDOLPH  Away, you rogue!



Hostess   By my troth, he'll yield the crow a pudding one of

     these days. The king has killed his heart. Good

     husband, come home presently.



     [Exeunt Hostess and Boy]



BARDOLPH  Come, shall I make you two friends? We must to

     France together: why the devil should we keep

     knives to cut one another's throats?



PISTOL    Let floods o'erswell, and fiends for food howl on!



NYM  You'll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?



PISTOL    Base is the slave that pays.



NYM  That now I will have: that's the humour of it.



PISTOL    As manhood shall compound: push home.



     [They draw]



BARDOLPH  By this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I'll

     kill him; by this sword, I will.



PISTOL    Sword is an oath, and oaths must have their course.



BARDOLPH  Corporal Nym, an thou wilt be friends, be friends:

     an thou wilt not, why, then, be enemies with me too.

     Prithee, put up.



NYM  I shall have my eight shillings I won of you at betting?



PISTOL    A noble shalt thou have, and present pay;

     And liquor likewise will I give to thee,

     And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood:

     I'll live by Nym, and Nym shall live by me;

     Is not this just? for I shall sutler be

     Unto the camp, and profits will accrue.

     Give me thy hand.



NYM  I shall have my noble?



PISTOL    In cash most justly paid.



NYM  Well, then, that's the humour of't.



     [Re-enter Hostess]



Hostess   As ever you came of women, come in quickly to Sir

     John. Ah, poor heart! he is so shaked of a burning

     quotidian tertian, that it is most lamentable to

     behold. Sweet men, come to him.



NYM  The king hath run bad humours on the knight; that's

     the even of it.



PISTOL    Nym, thou hast spoke the right;

     His heart is fracted and corroborate.



NYM  The king is a good king: but it must be as it may;

     he passes some humours and careers.



PISTOL    Let us condole the knight; for, lambkins we will live.









     KING HENRY V





ACT II







SCENE II  Southampton. A council-chamber.





     [Enter EXETER, BEDFORD, and WESTMORELAND]



BEDFORD   'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors.



EXETER    They shall be apprehended by and by.



WESTMORELAND   How smooth and even they do bear themselves!

     As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,

     Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.



BEDFORD   The king hath note of all that they intend,

     By interception which they dream not of.



EXETER    Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,

     Whom he hath dull'd and cloy'd with gracious favours,

     That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell

     His sovereign's life to death and treachery.



     [Trumpets sound. Enter KING HENRY V, SCROOP,

     CAMBRIDGE, GREY, and Attendants]



KING HENRY V   Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.

     My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham,

     And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:

     Think you not that the powers we bear with us

     Will cut their passage through the force of France,

     Doing the execution and the act

     For which we have in head assembled them?



SCROOP    No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.



KING HENRY V   I doubt not that; since we are well persuaded

     We carry not a heart with us from hence

     That grows not in a fair consent with ours,

     Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish

     Success and conquest to attend on us.



CAMBRIDGE Never was monarch better fear'd and loved

     Than is your majesty: there's not, I think, a subject

     That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness

     Under the sweet shade of your government.



GREY True: those that were your father's enemies

     Have steep'd their galls in honey and do serve you

     With hearts create of duty and of zeal.



KING HENRY V   We therefore have great cause of thankfulness;

     And shall forget the office of our hand,

     Sooner than quittance of desert and merit

     According to the weight and worthiness.



SCROOP    So service shall with steeled sinews toil,

     And labour shall refresh itself with hope,

     To do your grace incessant services.



KING HENRY V   We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,

     Enlarge the man committed yesterday,

     That rail'd against our person: we consider

     it was excess of wine that set him on;

     And on his more advice we pardon him.



SCROOP    That's mercy, but too much security:

     Let him be punish'd, sovereign, lest example

     Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.



KING HENRY V   O, let us yet be merciful.



CAMBRIDGE So may your highness, and yet punish too.



GREY Sir,

     You show great mercy, if you give him life,

     After the taste of much correction.



KING HENRY V   Alas, your too much love and care of me

     Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch!

     If little faults, proceeding on distemper,

     Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch our eye

     When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd and digested,

     Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,

     Though Cambridge, Scroop and Grey, in their dear care

     And tender preservation of our person,

     Would have him punished. And now to our French causes:

     Who are the late commissioners?



CAMBRIDGE I one, my lord:

     Your highness bade me ask for it to-day.



SCROOP    So did you me, my liege.



GREY And I, my royal sovereign.



KING HENRY V   Then, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours;

     There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight,

     Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours:

     Read them; and know, I know your worthiness.

     My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,

     We will aboard to night. Why, how now, gentlemen!

     What see you in those papers that you lose

     So much complexion? Look ye, how they change!

     Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there

     That hath so cowarded and chased your blood

     Out of appearance?



CAMBRIDGE                   I do confess my fault;

     And do submit me to your highness' mercy.





GREY |

     |  To which we all appeal.

SCROOP    |





KING HENRY V   The mercy that was quick in us but late,

     By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:

     You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;

     For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,

     As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

     See you, my princes, and my noble peers,

     These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,

     You know how apt our love was to accord

     To furnish him with all appertinents

     Belonging to his honour; and this man

     Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,

     And sworn unto the practises of France,

     To kill us here in Hampton: to the which

     This knight, no less for bounty bound to us

     Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O,

     What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel,

     Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature!

     Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,

     That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,

     That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,

     Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use,

     May it be possible, that foreign hire

     Could out of thee extract one spark of evil

     That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange,

     That, though the truth of it stands off as gross

     As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.

     Treason and murder ever kept together,

     As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,

     Working so grossly in a natural cause,

     That admiration did not whoop at them:

     But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in

     Wonder to wait on treason and on murder:

     And whatsoever cunning fiend it was

     That wrought upon thee so preposterously

     Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:

     All other devils that suggest by treasons

     Do botch and bungle up damnation

     With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd

     From glistering semblances of piety;

     But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,

     Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,

     Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.

     If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus

     Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,

     He might return to vasty Tartar back,

     And tell the legions 'I can never win

     A soul so easy as that Englishman's.'

     O, how hast thou with 'jealousy infected

     The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?

     Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and learned?

     Why, so didst thou: come they of noble family?

     Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?

     Why, so didst thou: or are they spare in diet,

     Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,

     Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,

     Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,

     Not working with the eye without the ear,

     And but in purged judgment trusting neither?

     Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem:

     And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,

     To mark the full-fraught man and best indued

     With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;

     For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like

     Another fall of man. Their faults are open:

     Arrest them to the answer of the law;

     And God acquit them of their practises!



EXETER       I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of

     Richard Earl of Cambridge.

     I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of

     Henry Lord Scroop of Masham.

     I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of

     Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.



SCROOP    Our purposes God justly hath discover'd;

     And I repent my fault more than my death;

     Which I beseech your highness to forgive,

     Although my body pay the price of it.



CAMBRIDGE For me, the gold of France did not seduce;

     Although I did admit it as a motive

     The sooner to effect what I intended:

     But God be thanked for prevention;

     Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,

     Beseeching God and you to pardon me.



GREY Never did faithful subject more rejoice

     At the discovery of most dangerous treason

     Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself.

     Prevented from a damned enterprise:

     My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.



KING HENRY V   God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.

     You have conspired against our royal person,

     Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd and from his coffers

     Received the golden earnest of our death;

     Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,

     His princes and his peers to servitude,

     His subjects to oppression and contempt

     And his whole kingdom into desolation.

     Touching our person seek we no revenge;

     But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,

     Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws

     We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,

     Poor miserable wretches, to your death:

     The taste whereof, God of his mercy give

     You patience to endure, and true repentance

     Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence.



     [Exeunt CAMBRIDGE, SCROOP and GREY, guarded]



     Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof

     Shall be to you, as us, like glorious.

     We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,

     Since God so graciously hath brought to light

     This dangerous treason lurking in our way

     To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now

     But every rub is smoothed on our way.

     Then forth, dear countrymen: let us deliver

     Our puissance into the hand of God,

     Putting it straight in expedition.

     Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:

     No king of England, if not king of France.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT II







SCENE III London. Before a tavern.





     [Enter PISTOL, Hostess, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy]



Hostess   Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines.



PISTOL    No; for my manly heart doth yearn.

     Bardolph, be blithe: Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins:

     Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,

     And we must yearn therefore.



BARDOLPH  Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in

     heaven or in hell!



Hostess   Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's

     bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A' made

     a finer end and went away an it had been any

     christom child; a' parted even just between twelve

     and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after

     I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with

     flowers and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew

     there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as

     a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. 'How now,

     sir John!' quoth I  'what, man! be o' good

     cheer.' So a' cried out 'God, God, God!' three or

     four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a'

     should not think of God; I hoped there was no need

     to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So

     a' bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my

     hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as

     cold as any stone; then I felt to his knees, and

     they were as cold as any stone, and so upward and

     upward, and all was as cold as any stone.



NYM  They say he cried out of sack.



Hostess   Ay, that a' did.



BARDOLPH  And of women.



Hostess   Nay, that a' did not.



Boy  Yes, that a' did; and said they were devils

     incarnate.



Hostess   A' could never abide carnation; 'twas a colour he

     never liked.



Boy  A' said once, the devil would have him about women.



Hostess   A' did in some sort, indeed, handle women; but then

     he was rheumatic, and talked of the whore of Babylon.



Boy  Do you not remember, a' saw a flea stick upon

     Bardolph's nose, and a' said it was a black soul

     burning in hell-fire?



BARDOLPH  Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire:

     that's all the riches I got in his service.



NYM  Shall we shog? the king will be gone from

     Southampton.



PISTOL    Come, let's away. My love, give me thy lips.

     Look to my chattels and my movables:

     Let senses rule; the word is 'Pitch and Pay:'

     Trust none;

     For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,

     And hold-fast is the only dog, my duck:

     Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.

     Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,

     Let us to France; like horse-leeches, my boys,

     To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!



Boy  And that's but unwholesome food they say.



PISTOL    Touch her soft mouth, and march.



BARDOLPH  Farewell, hostess.



     [Kissing her]



NYM  I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but, adieu.



PISTOL    Let housewifery appear: keep close, I thee command.



Hostess   Farewell; adieu.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT II







SCENE IV  France. The KING'S palace.





     [Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the

     DUKES of BERRI and BRETAGNE, the Constable, and others]



KING OF FRANCE Thus comes the English with full power upon us;

     And more than carefully it us concerns

     To answer royally in our defences.

     Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bretagne,

     Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,

     And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,

     To line and new repair our towns of war

     With men of courage and with means defendant;

     For England his approaches makes as fierce

     As waters to the sucking of a gulf.

     It fits us then to be as provident

     As fear may teach us out of late examples

     Left by the fatal and neglected English

     Upon our fields.



DAUPHIN                     My most redoubted father,

     It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;

     For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,

     Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,

     But that defences, musters, preparations,

     Should be maintain'd, assembled and collected,

     As were a war in expectation.

     Therefore, I say 'tis meet we all go forth

     To view the sick and feeble parts of France:

     And let us do it with no show of fear;

     No, with no more than if we heard that England

     Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance:

     For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,

     Her sceptre so fantastically borne

     By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,

     That fear attends her not.



Constable O peace, Prince Dauphin!

     You are too much mistaken in this king:

     Question your grace the late ambassadors,

     With what great state he heard their embassy,

     How well supplied with noble counsellors,

     How modest in exception, and withal

     How terrible in constant resolution,

     And you shall find his vanities forespent

     Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,

     Covering discretion with a coat of folly;

     As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots

     That shall first spring and be most delicate.



DAUPHIN   Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable;

     But though we think it so, it is no matter:

     In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh

     The enemy more mighty than he seems:

     So the proportions of defence are fill'd;

     Which of a weak or niggardly projection

     Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting

     A little cloth.



KING OF FRANCE                   Think we King Harry strong;

     And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.

     The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;

     And he is bred out of that bloody strain

     That haunted us in our familiar paths:

     Witness our too much memorable shame

     When Cressy battle fatally was struck,

     And all our princes captiv'd by the hand

     Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;

     Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing,

     Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,

     Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him,

     Mangle the work of nature and deface

     The patterns that by God and by French fathers

     Had twenty years been made. This is a stem

     Of that victorious stock; and let us fear

     The native mightiness and fate of him.



     [Enter a Messenger]



Messenger Ambassadors from Harry King of England

     Do crave admittance to your majesty.



KING OF FRANCE We'll give them present audience. Go, and bring them.



     [Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords]



     You see this chase is hotly follow'd, friends.



DAUPHIN   Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs

     Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten

     Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,

     Take up the English short, and let them know

     Of what a monarchy you are the head:

     Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin

     As self-neglecting.



     [Re-enter Lords, with EXETER and train]



KING OF FRANCE From our brother England?



EXETER    From him; and thus he greets your majesty.

     He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,

     That you divest yourself, and lay apart

     The borrow'd glories that by gift of heaven,

     By law of nature and of nations, 'long

     To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown

     And all wide-stretched honours that pertain

     By custom and the ordinance of times

     Unto the crown of France. That you may know

     'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,

     Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,

     Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,

     He sends you this most memorable line,

     In every branch truly demonstrative;

     Willing to overlook this pedigree:

     And when you find him evenly derived

     From his most famed of famous ancestors,

     Edward the Third, he bids you then resign

     Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held

     From him the native and true challenger.



KING OF FRANCE Or else what follows?



EXETER    Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown

     Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:

     Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,

     In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,

     That, if requiring fail, he will compel;

     And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,

     Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy

     On the poor souls for whom this hungry war

     Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head

     Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries

     The dead men's blood, the pining maidens groans,

     For husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers,

     That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.

     This is his claim, his threatening and my message;

     Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,

     To whom expressly I bring greeting too.



KING OF FRANCE For us, we will consider of this further:

     To-morrow shall you bear our full intent

     Back to our brother England.



DAUPHIN   For the Dauphin,

     I stand here for him: what to him from England?



EXETER    Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,

     And any thing that may not misbecome

     The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

     Thus says my king; an' if your father's highness

     Do not, in grant of all demands at large,

     Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,

     He'll call you to so hot an answer of it,

     That caves and womby vaultages of France

     Shall chide your trespass and return your mock

     In second accent of his ordnance.



DAUPHIN   Say, if my father render fair return,

     It is against my will; for I desire

     Nothing but odds with England: to that end,

     As matching to his youth and vanity,

     I did present him with the Paris balls.



EXETER    He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,

     Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe:

     And, be assured, you'll find a difference,

     As we his subjects have in wonder found,

     Between the promise of his greener days

     And these he masters now: now he weighs time

     Even to the utmost grain: that you shall read

     In your own losses, if he stay in France.



KING OF FRANCE To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.



EXETER    Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king

     Come here himself to question our delay;

     For he is footed in this land already.



KING OF FRANCE You shall be soon dispatch's with fair conditions:

     A night is but small breath and little pause

     To answer matters of this consequence.



     [Flourish. Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT III





     PROLOGUE.





     [Enter Chorus]



Chorus    Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies

     In motion of no less celerity

     Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen

     The well-appointed king at Hampton pier

     Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet

     With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning:

     Play with your fancies, and in them behold

     Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;

     Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give

     To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,

     Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,

     Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,

     Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think

     You stand upon the ravage and behold

     A city on the inconstant billows dancing;

     For so appears this fleet majestical,

     Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow:

     Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,

     And leave your England, as dead midnight still,

     Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women,

     Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance;

     For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd

     With one appearing hair, that will not follow

     These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?

     Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;

     Behold the ordnance on their carriages,

     With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.

     Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back;

     Tells Harry that the king doth offer him

     Katharine his daughter, and with her, to dowry,

     Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.

     The offer likes not: and the nimble gunner

     With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,



     [Alarum, and chambers go off]



     And down goes all before them. Still be kind,

     And eke out our performance with your mind.



     [Exit]









     KING HENRY V





ACT III







SCENE I   France. Before Harfleur.





     [Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD,

     GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers, with scaling-ladders]



KING HENRY V   Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

     Or close the wall up with our English dead.

     In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

     As modest stillness and humility:

     But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

     Then imitate the action of the tiger;

     Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

     Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;

     Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

     Let pry through the portage of the head

     Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it

     As fearfully as doth a galled rock

     O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

     Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

     Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

     Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit

     To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.

     Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!

     Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

     Have in these parts from morn till even fought

     And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:

     Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

     That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.

     Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

     And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,

     Whose limbs were made in England, show us here

     The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

     That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;

     For there is none of you so mean and base,

     That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

     I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

     Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:

     Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

     Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'



     [Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off]









     KING HENRY V





ACT III







SCENE II  The same.





     [Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and Boy]



BARDOLPH  On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach!



NYM  Pray thee, corporal, stay: the knocks are too hot;

     and, for mine own part, I have not a case of lives:

     the humour of it is too hot, that is the very

     plain-song of it.



PISTOL    The plain-song is most just: for humours do abound:

     Knocks go and come; God's vassals drop and die;

     And sword and shield,

     In bloody field,

     Doth win immortal fame.



Boy  Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give

     all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.



PISTOL    And I:

     If wishes would prevail with me,

     My purpose should not fail with me,

     But thither would I hie.



Boy            As duly, but not as truly,

     As bird doth sing on bough.



     [Enter FLUELLEN]



FLUELLEN  Up to the breach, you dogs! avaunt, you cullions!



     [Driving them forward]



PISTOL    Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould.

     Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage,

     Abate thy rage, great duke!

     Good bawcock, bate thy rage; use lenity, sweet chuck!



NYM  These be good humours! your honour wins bad humours.



     [Exeunt all but Boy]



Boy  As young as I am, I have observed these three

     swashers. I am boy to them all three: but all they

     three, though they would serve me, could not be man

     to me; for indeed three such antics do not amount to

     a man. For Bardolph, he is white-livered and

     red-faced; by the means whereof a' faces it out, but

     fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue

     and a quiet sword; by the means whereof a' breaks

     words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, he hath

     heard that men of few words are the best men; and

     therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest a'

     should be thought a coward: but his few bad words

     are matched with as few good deeds; for a' never

     broke any man's head but his own, and that was

     against a post when he was drunk. They will steal

     any thing, and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a

     lute-case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for

     three half pence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn

     brothers in filching, and in Calais they stole a

     fire-shovel: I knew by that piece of service the

     men would carry coals. They would have me as

     familiar with men's pockets as their gloves or their

     handkerchers: which makes much against my manhood,

     if I should take from another's pocket to put into

     mine; for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I

     must leave them, and seek some better service:

     their villany goes against my weak stomach, and

     therefore I must cast it up.



     [Exit]



     [Re-enter FLUELLEN, GOWER following]



GOWER     Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the

     mines; the Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.



FLUELLEN  To the mines! tell you the duke, it is not so good

     to come to the mines; for, look you, the mines is

     not according to the disciplines of the war: the

     concavities of it is not sufficient; for, look you,

     the athversary, you may discuss unto the duke, look

     you, is digt himself four yard under the

     countermines: by Cheshu, I think a' will plough up

     all, if there is not better directions.



GOWER     The Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order of the

     siege is given, is altogether directed by an

     Irishman, a very valiant gentleman, i' faith.



FLUELLEN  It is Captain Macmorris, is it not?



GOWER     I think it be.



FLUELLEN  By Cheshu, he is an ass, as in the world: I will

     verify as much in his beard: be has no more

     directions in the true disciplines of the wars, look

     you, of the Roman disciplines, than is a puppy-dog.



     [Enter MACMORRIS and Captain JAMY]



GOWER     Here a' comes; and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with him.



FLUELLEN  Captain Jamy is a marvellous falourous gentleman,

     that is certain; and of great expedition and

     knowledge in th' aunchient wars, upon my particular

     knowledge of his directions: by Cheshu, he will

     maintain his argument as well as any military man in

     the world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars

     of the Romans.



JAMY I say gud-day, Captain Fluellen.



FLUELLEN  God-den to your worship, good Captain James.



GOWER     How now, Captain Macmorris! have you quit the

     mines? have the pioneers given o'er?



MACMORRIS By Chrish, la! tish ill done: the work ish give

     over, the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand, I

     swear, and my father's soul, the work ish ill done;

     it ish give over: I would have blowed up the town, so

     Chrish save me, la! in an hour: O, tish ill done,

     tish ill done; by my hand, tish ill done!



FLUELLEN  Captain Macmorris, I beseech you now, will you

     voutsafe me, look you, a few disputations with you,

     as partly touching or concerning the disciplines of

     the war, the Roman wars, in the way of argument,

     look you, and friendly communication; partly to

     satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction,

     look you, of my mind, as touching the direction of

     the military discipline; that is the point.



JAMY It sall be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath:

     and I sall quit you with gud leve, as I may pick

     occasion; that sall I, marry.



MACMORRIS It is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me: the

     day is hot, and the weather, and the wars, and the

     king, and the dukes: it is no time to discourse. The

     town is beseeched, and the trumpet call us to the

     breach; and we talk, and, be Chrish, do nothing:

     'tis shame for us all: so God sa' me, 'tis shame to

     stand still; it is shame, by my hand: and there is

     throats to be cut, and works to be done; and there

     ish nothing done, so Chrish sa' me, la!



JAMY By the mess, ere theise eyes of mine take themselves

     to slomber, ay'll de gud service, or ay'll lig i'

     the grund for it; ay, or go to death; and ay'll pay

     't as valourously as I may, that sall I suerly do,

     that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad full

     fain hear some question 'tween you tway.



FLUELLEN  Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your

     correction, there is not many of your nation--



MACMORRIS Of my nation! What ish my nation? Ish a villain,

     and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal. What ish

     my nation? Who talks of my nation?



FLUELLEN  Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is

     meant, Captain Macmorris, peradventure I shall think

     you do not use me with that affability as in

     discretion you ought to use me, look you: being as

     good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of

     war, and in the derivation of my birth, and in

     other particularities.



MACMORRIS I do not know you so good a man as myself: so

     Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.



GOWER     Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.



JAMY A! that's a foul fault.



     [A parley sounded]



GOWER     The town sounds a parley.



FLUELLEN  Captain Macmorris, when there is more better

     opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so

     bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of war;

     and there is an end.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT III







SCENE III The same. Before the gates.





     [The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the

     English forces below. Enter KING HENRY and his train]



KING HENRY V   How yet resolves the governor of the town?

     This is the latest parle we will admit;

     Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;

     Or like to men proud of destruction

     Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,

     A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,

     If I begin the battery once again,

     I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur

     Till in her ashes she lie buried.

     The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,

     And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart,

     In liberty of bloody hand shall range

     With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass

     Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.

     What is it then to me, if impious war,

     Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,

     Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats

     Enlink'd to waste and desolation?

     What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,

     If your pure maidens fall into the hand

     Of hot and forcing violation?

     What rein can hold licentious wickedness

     When down the hill he holds his fierce career?

     We may as bootless spend our vain command

     Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil

     As send precepts to the leviathan

     To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,

     Take pity of your town and of your people,

     Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;

     Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace

     O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds

     Of heady murder, spoil and villany.

     If not, why, in a moment look to see

     The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand

     Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;

     Your fathers taken by the silver beards,

     And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,

     Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,

     Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused

     Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry

     At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.

     What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,

     Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?



GOVERNOR  Our expectation hath this day an end:

     The Dauphin, whom of succors we entreated,

     Returns us that his powers are yet not ready

     To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king,

     We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.

     Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours;

     For we no longer are defensible.



KING HENRY V   Open your gates. Come, uncle Exeter,

     Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,

     And fortify it strongly 'gainst the French:

     Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,

     The winter coming on and sickness growing

     Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.

     To-night in Harfleur we will be your guest;

     To-morrow for the march are we addrest.



     [Flourish. The King and his train enter the town]









     KING HENRY V





ACT III







SCENE IV  The FRENCH KING's palace.





     [Enter KATHARINE and ALICE]



KATHARINE Alice, tu as ete en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage.



ALICE     Un peu, madame.



KATHARINE Je te prie, m'enseignez: il faut que j'apprenne a

     parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglois?



ALICE     La main? elle est appelee de hand.



KATHARINE De hand. Et les doigts?



ALICE     Les doigts? ma foi, j'oublie les doigts; mais je me

     souviendrai. Les doigts? je pense qu'ils sont

     appeles de fingres; oui, de fingres.



KATHARINE La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense

     que je suis le bon ecolier; j'ai gagne deux mots

     d'Anglois vitement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles?



ALICE     Les ongles? nous les appelons de nails.



KATHARINE De nails. Ecoutez; dites-moi, si je parle bien: de

     hand, de fingres, et de nails.



ALICE     C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglois.



KATHARINE Dites-moi l'Anglois pour le bras.



ALICE     De arm, madame.



KATHARINE Et le coude?



ALICE     De elbow.



KATHARINE De elbow. Je m'en fais la repetition de tous les

     mots que vous m'avez appris des a present.



ALICE     Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.



KATHARINE Excusez-moi, Alice; ecoutez: de hand, de fingres,

     de nails, de arma, de bilbow.



ALICE     De elbow, madame.



KATHARINE O Seigneur Dieu, je m'en oublie! de elbow. Comment

     appelez-vous le col?



ALICE     De neck, madame.



KATHARINE De nick. Et le menton?



ALICE     De chin.



KATHARINE De sin. Le col, de nick; de menton, de sin.



ALICE     Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en verite, vous prononcez

     les mots aussi droit que les natifs d'Angleterre.



KATHARINE Je ne doute point d'apprendre, par la grace de Dieu,

     et en peu de temps.



ALICE     N'avez vous pas deja oublie ce que je vous ai enseigne?



KATHARINE Non, je reciterai a vous promptement: de hand, de

     fingres, de mails--



ALICE     De nails, madame.



KATHARINE De nails, de arm, de ilbow.



ALICE     Sauf votre honneur, de elbow.



KATHARINE Ainsi dis-je; de elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment

     appelez-vous le pied et la robe?



ALICE     De foot, madame; et de coun.



KATHARINE De foot et de coun! O Seigneur Dieu! ce sont mots

     de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et

     non pour les dames d'honneur d'user: je ne voudrais

     prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France

     pour tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le coun!

     Neanmoins, je reciterai une autre fois ma lecon

     ensemble: de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arm, de

     elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, de coun.



ALICE     Excellent, madame!



KATHARINE C'est assez pour une fois: allons-nous a diner.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT III







SCENE V   The same.





     [Enter the KING OF FRANCE, the DAUPHIN, the DUKE oF

     BOURBON, the Constable Of France, and others]



KING OF FRANCE 'Tis certain he hath pass'd the river Somme.



Constable And if he be not fought withal, my lord,

     Let us not live in France; let us quit all

     And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.



DAUPHIN   O Dieu vivant! shall a few sprays of us,

     The emptying of our fathers' luxury,

     Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,

     Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds,

     And overlook their grafters?



BOURBON   Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!

     Mort de ma vie! if they march along

     Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom,

     To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm

     In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.



Constable Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?

     Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull,

     On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,

     Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,

     A drench for sur-rein'd jades, their barley-broth,

     Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?

     And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,

     Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,

     Let us not hang like roping icicles

     Upon our houses' thatch, whiles a more frosty people

     Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields!

     Poor we may call them in their native lords.



DAUPHIN   By faith and honour,

     Our madams mock at us, and plainly say

     Our mettle is bred out and they will give

     Their bodies to the lust of English youth

     To new-store France with bastard warriors.



BOURBON   They bid us to the English dancing-schools,

     And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos;

     Saying our grace is only in our heels,

     And that we are most lofty runaways.



KING OF FRANCE Where is Montjoy the herald? speed him hence:

     Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.

     Up, princes! and, with spirit of honour edged

     More sharper than your swords, hie to the field:

     Charles Delabreth, high constable of France;

     You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berri,

     Alencon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;

     Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,

     Beaumont, Grandpre, Roussi, and Fauconberg,

     Foix, Lestrale, Bouciqualt, and Charolois;

     High dukes, great princes, barons, lords and knights,

     For your great seats now quit you of great shames.

     Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land

     With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur:

     Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow

     Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat

     The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon:

     Go down upon him, you have power enough,

     And in a captive chariot into Rouen

     Bring him our prisoner.



Constable This becomes the great.

     Sorry am I his numbers are so few,

     His soldiers sick and famish'd in their march,

     For I am sure, when he shall see our army,

     He'll drop his heart into the sink of fear

     And for achievement offer us his ransom.



KING OF FRANCE Therefore, lord constable, haste on Montjoy.

     And let him say to England that we send

     To know what willing ransom he will give.

     Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.



DAUPHIN   Not so, I do beseech your majesty.



KING OF FRANCE Be patient, for you shall remain with us.

     Now forth, lord constable and princes all,

     And quickly bring us word of England's fall.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT III







SCENE VI  The English camp in Picardy.





     [Enter GOWER and FLUELLEN, meeting]



GOWER     How now, Captain Fluellen! come you from the bridge?



FLUELLEN  I assure you, there is very excellent services

     committed at the bridge.



GOWER     Is the Duke of Exeter safe?



FLUELLEN  The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as Agamemnon;

     and a man that I love and honour with my soul, and my

     heart, and my duty, and my life, and my living, and

     my uttermost power: he is not-God be praised and

     blessed!--any hurt in the world; but keeps the

     bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline.

     There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the

     pridge, I think in my very conscience he is as

     valiant a man as Mark Antony; and he is a man of no

     estimation in the world; but did see him do as

     gallant service.



GOWER     What do you call him?



FLUELLEN  He is called Aunchient Pistol.



GOWER     I know him not.



     [Enter PISTOL]



FLUELLEN  Here is the man.



PISTOL    Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours:

     The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.



FLUELLEN  Ay, I praise God; and I have merited some love at

     his hands.



PISTOL    Bardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,

     And of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate,

     And giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel,

     That goddess blind,

     That stands upon the rolling restless stone--



FLUELLEN  By your patience, Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is

     painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to

     signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is

     painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which

     is the moral of it, that she is turning, and

     inconstant, and mutability, and variation: and her

     foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone,

     which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth,

     the poet makes a most excellent description of it:

     Fortune is an excellent moral.



PISTOL    Fortune is Bardolph's foe, and frowns on him;

     For he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must a' be:

     A damned death!

     Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free

     And let not hemp his wind-pipe suffocate:

     But Exeter hath given the doom of death

     For pax of little price.

     Therefore, go speak: the duke will hear thy voice:

     And let not Bardolph's vital thread be cut

     With edge of penny cord and vile reproach:

     Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.



FLUELLEN  Aunchient Pistol, I do partly understand your meaning.



PISTOL    Why then, rejoice therefore.



FLUELLEN  Certainly, aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice

     at: for if, look you, he were my brother, I would

     desire the duke to use his good pleasure, and put

     him to execution; for discipline ought to be used.



PISTOL    Die and be damn'd! and figo for thy friendship!



FLUELLEN  It is well.



PISTOL    The fig of Spain!



     [Exit]



FLUELLEN  Very good.



GOWER     Why, this is an arrant counterfeit rascal; I

     remember him now; a bawd, a cutpurse.



FLUELLEN  I'll assure you, a' uttered as brave words at the

     bridge as you shall see in a summer's day. But it

     is very well; what he has spoke to me, that is well,

     I warrant you, when time is serve.



GOWER     Why, 'tis a gull, a fool, a rogue, that now and then

     goes to the wars, to grace himself at his return

     into London under the form of a soldier. And such

     fellows are perfect in the great commanders' names:

     and they will learn you by rote where services were

     done; at such and such a sconce, at such a breach,

     at such a convoy; who came off bravely, who was

     shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on;

     and this they con perfectly in the phrase of war,

     which they trick up with new-tuned oaths: and what

     a beard of the general's cut and a horrid suit of

     the camp will do among foaming bottles and

     ale-washed wits, is wonderful to be thought on. But

     you must learn to know such slanders of the age, or

     else you may be marvellously mistook.



FLUELLEN  I tell you what, Captain Gower; I do perceive he is

     not the man that he would gladly make show to the

     world he is: if I find a hole in his coat, I will

     tell him my mind.



     [Drum heard]



     Hark you, the king is coming, and I must speak with

     him from the pridge.



     [Drum and colours. Enter KING HENRY, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers]



     God pless your majesty!



KING HENRY V   How now, Fluellen! camest thou from the bridge?



FLUELLEN  Ay, so please your majesty. The Duke of Exeter has

     very gallantly maintained the pridge: the French is

     gone off, look you; and there is gallant and most

     prave passages; marry, th' athversary was have

     possession of the pridge; but he is enforced to

     retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the

     pridge: I can tell your majesty, the duke is a

     prave man.



KING HENRY V   What men have you lost, Fluellen?



FLUELLEN  The perdition of th' athversary hath been very

     great, reasonable great: marry, for my part, I

     think the duke hath lost never a man, but one that

     is like to be executed for robbing a church, one

     Bardolph, if your majesty know the man: his face is

     all bubukles, and whelks, and knobs, and flames o'

     fire: and his lips blows at his nose, and it is like

     a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red;

     but his nose is executed and his fire's out.



KING HENRY V   We would have all such offenders so cut off: and we

     give express charge, that in our marches through the

     country, there be nothing compelled from the

     villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the

     French upbraided or abused in disdainful language;

     for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the

     gentler gamester is the soonest winner.



     [Tucket. Enter MONTJOY]



MONTJOY   You know me by my habit.



KING HENRY V   Well then I know thee: what shall I know of thee?



MONTJOY   My master's mind.



KING HENRY V   Unfold it.



MONTJOY   Thus says my king: Say thou to Harry of England:

     Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage

     is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we

     could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we

     thought not good to bruise an injury till it were

     full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice

     is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see

     his weakness, and admire our sufferance. Bid him

     therefore consider of his ransom; which must

     proportion the losses we have borne, the subjects we

     have lost, the disgrace we have digested; which in

     weight to re-answer, his pettiness would bow under.

     For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for the

     effusion of our blood, the muster of his kingdom too

     faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own

     person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and

     worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance: and

     tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his

     followers, whose condemnation is pronounced. So far

     my king and master; so much my office.



KING HENRY V   What is thy name? I know thy quality.



MONTJOY   Montjoy.



KING HENRY V   Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back.

     And tell thy king I do not seek him now;

     But could be willing to march on to Calais

     Without impeachment: for, to say the sooth,

     Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much

     Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,

     My people are with sickness much enfeebled,

     My numbers lessened, and those few I have

     Almost no better than so many French;

     Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,

     I thought upon one pair of English legs

     Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,

     That I do brag thus! This your air of France

     Hath blown that vice in me: I must repent.

     Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;

     My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,

     My army but a weak and sickly guard;

     Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,

     Though France himself and such another neighbour

     Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.

     Go bid thy master well advise himself:

     If we may pass, we will; if we be hinder'd,

     We shall your tawny ground with your red blood

     Discolour: and so Montjoy, fare you well.

     The sum of all our answer is but this:

     We would not seek a battle, as we are;

     Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it:

     So tell your master.



MONTJOY   I shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness.



     [Exit]



GLOUCESTER     I hope they will not come upon us now.



KING HENRY V   We are in God's hand, brother, not in theirs.

     March to the bridge; it now draws toward night:

     Beyond the river we'll encamp ourselves,

     And on to-morrow, bid them march away.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT III







SCENE VII The French camp, near Agincourt:





     [Enter the Constable of France, the LORD RAMBURES,

     ORLEANS, DAUPHIN, with others]



Constable Tut! I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!



ORLEANS   You have an excellent armour; but let my horse have his due.



Constable It is the best horse of Europe.



ORLEANS   Will it never be morning?



DAUPHIN   My lord of Orleans, and my lord high constable, you

     talk of horse and armour?



ORLEANS   You are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.



DAUPHIN   What a long night is this! I will not change my

     horse with any that treads but on four pasterns.

     Ca, ha! he bounds from the earth, as if his

     entrails were hairs; le cheval volant, the Pegasus,

     chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I

     soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth

     sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his

     hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.



ORLEANS   He's of the colour of the nutmeg.



DAUPHIN   And of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for

     Perseus: he is pure air and fire; and the dull

     elements of earth and water never appear in him, but

     only in Patient stillness while his rider mounts

     him: he is indeed a horse; and all other jades you

     may call beasts.



Constable Indeed, my lord, it is a most absolute and excellent horse.



DAUPHIN   It is the prince of palfreys; his neigh is like the

     bidding of a monarch and his countenance enforces homage.



ORLEANS   No more, cousin.



DAUPHIN   Nay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the

     rising of the lark to the lodging of the lamb, vary

     deserved praise on my palfrey: it is a theme as

     fluent as the sea: turn the sands into eloquent

     tongues, and my horse is argument for them all:

     'tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for

     a sovereign's sovereign to ride on; and for the

     world, familiar to us and unknown to lay apart

     their particular functions and wonder at him. I

     once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus:

     'Wonder of nature,'--



ORLEANS   I have heard a sonnet begin so to one's mistress.



DAUPHIN   Then did they imitate that which I composed to my

     courser, for my horse is my mistress.



ORLEANS   Your mistress bears well.



DAUPHIN   Me well; which is the prescript praise and

     perfection of a good and particular mistress.



Constable Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly

     shook your back.



DAUPHIN   So perhaps did yours.



Constable Mine was not bridled.



DAUPHIN   O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode,

     like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in

     your straight strossers.



Constable You have good judgment in horsemanship.



DAUPHIN   Be warned by me, then: they that ride so and ride

     not warily, fall into foul bogs. I had rather have

     my horse to my mistress.



Constable I had as lief have my mistress a jade.



DAUPHIN   I tell thee, constable, my mistress wears his own hair.



Constable I could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow

     to my mistress.



DAUPHIN   'Le chien est retourne a son propre vomissement, et

     la truie lavee au bourbier;' thou makest use of any thing.



Constable Yet do I not use my horse for my mistress, or any

     such proverb so little kin to the purpose.



RAMBURES  My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent

     to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?



Constable Stars, my lord.



DAUPHIN   Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.



Constable And yet my sky shall not want.



DAUPHIN   That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and

     'twere more honour some were away.



Constable Even as your horse bears your praises; who would

     trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.



DAUPHIN   Would I were able to load him with his desert! Will

     it never be day? I will trot to-morrow a mile, and

     my way shall be paved with English faces.



Constable I will not say so, for fear I should be faced out of

     my way: but I would it were morning; for I would

     fain be about the ears of the English.



RAMBURES  Who will go to hazard with me for twenty prisoners?



Constable You must first go yourself to hazard, ere you have them.



DAUPHIN   'Tis midnight; I'll go arm myself.



     [Exit]



ORLEANS   The Dauphin longs for morning.



RAMBURES  He longs to eat the English.



Constable I think he will eat all he kills.



ORLEANS   By the white hand of my lady, he's a gallant prince.



Constable Swear by her foot, that she may tread out the oath.



ORLEANS   He is simply the most active gentleman of France.



Constable Doing is activity; and he will still be doing.



ORLEANS   He never did harm, that I heard of.



Constable Nor will do none to-morrow: he will keep that good name still.



ORLEANS   I know him to be valiant.



Constable I was told that by one that knows him better than

     you.



ORLEANS   What's he?



Constable Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared

     not who knew it



ORLEANS   He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.



Constable By my faith, sir, but it is; never any body saw it

     but his lackey: 'tis a hooded valour; and when it

     appears, it will bate.



ORLEANS   Ill will never said well.



Constable I will cap that proverb with 'There is flattery in friendship.'



ORLEANS   And I will take up that with 'Give the devil his due.'



Constable Well placed: there stands your friend for the

     devil: have at the very eye of that proverb with 'A

     pox of the devil.'



ORLEANS   You are the better at proverbs, by how much 'A

     fool's bolt is soon shot.'



Constable You have shot over.



ORLEANS   'Tis not the first time you were overshot.



     [Enter a Messenger]



Messenger My lord high constable, the English lie within

     fifteen hundred paces of your tents.



Constable Who hath measured the ground?



Messenger The Lord Grandpre.



Constable A valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were

     day! Alas, poor Harry of England! he longs not for

     the dawning as we do.



ORLEANS   What a wretched and peevish fellow is this king of

     England, to mope with his fat-brained followers so

     far out of his knowledge!



Constable If the English had any apprehension, they would run away.



ORLEANS   That they lack; for if their heads had any

     intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy

     head-pieces.



RAMBURES  That island of England breeds very valiant

     creatures; their mastiffs are of unmatchable courage.



ORLEANS   Foolish curs, that run winking into the mouth of a

     Russian bear and have their heads crushed like

     rotten apples! You may as well say, that's a

     valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.



Constable Just, just; and the men do sympathize with the

     mastiffs in robustious and rough coming on, leaving

     their wits with their wives: and then give them

     great meals of beef and iron and steel, they will

     eat like wolves and fight like devils.



ORLEANS   Ay, but these English are shrewdly out of beef.



Constable Then shall we find to-morrow they have only stomachs

     to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm:

     come, shall we about it?



ORLEANS   It is now two o'clock: but, let me see, by ten

     We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT IV





     PROLOGUE.





     [Enter Chorus]



Chorus    Now entertain conjecture of a time

     When creeping murmur and the poring dark

     Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

     From camp to camp through the foul womb of night

     The hum of either army stilly sounds,

     That the fixed sentinels almost receive

     The secret whispers of each other's watch:

     Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames

     Each battle sees the other's umber'd face;

     Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs

     Piercing the night's dull ear, and from the tents

     The armourers, accomplishing the knights,

     With busy hammers closing rivets up,

     Give dreadful note of preparation:

     The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,

     And the third hour of drowsy morning name.

     Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,

     The confident and over-lusty French

     Do the low-rated English play at dice;

     And chide the cripple tardy-gaited night

     Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp

     So tediously away. The poor condemned English,

     Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires

     Sit patiently and inly ruminate

     The morning's danger, and their gesture sad

     Investing lank-lean; cheeks and war-worn coats

     Presenteth them unto the gazing moon

     So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold

     The royal captain of this ruin'd band

     Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,

     Let him cry 'Praise and glory on his head!'

     For forth he goes and visits all his host.

     Bids them good morrow with a modest smile

     And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.

     Upon his royal face there is no note

     How dread an army hath enrounded him;

     Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour

     Unto the weary and all-watched night,

     But freshly looks and over-bears attaint

     With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;

     That every wretch, pining and pale before,

     Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:

     A largess universal like the sun

     His liberal eye doth give to every one,

     Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all,

     Behold, as may unworthiness define,

     A little touch of Harry in the night.

     And so our scene must to the battle fly;

     Where--O for pity!--we shall much disgrace

     With four or five most vile and ragged foils,

     Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous,

     The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,

     Minding true things by what their mockeries be.



     [Exit]









     KING HENRY V





ACT IV







SCENE I   The English camp at Agincourt.





     [Enter KING HENRY, BEDFORD, and GLOUCESTER]



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, admonishing

     That we should dress us fairly for our end.

     Thus may we gather honey from the weed,

     And make a moral of the devil himself.



     [Enter ERPINGHAM]



     Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:

     A good soft pillow for that good white head

     Were 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 pains

     Upon 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 anon

     Desire 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!



     [Exeunt all but KING HENRY]



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



     [Enter PISTOL]



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-string

     I 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 pate

     Upon 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.



     [Exit]



KING HENRY V   It sorts well with your fierceness.



     [Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER]



GOWER     Captain Fluellen!



FLUELLEN  So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is

     the greatest admiration of 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 toddle

     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 sobriety

     of 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 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?



GOWER     I will speak lower.



FLUELLEN  I pray you and beseech you that you will.



     [Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN]



KING HENRY V   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.



WILLIAMS  We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think

     we 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: I

     pray you, what thinks he of our estate?



KING HENRY V   Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be

     washed 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 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 when he sees reason of fears, as we

     do, his fears, out 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 'tis, 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.



KING HENRY V   By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king:

     I think he would not wish himself any where but

     where he is.



BATES     Then I would he were here alone; so should he be

     sure 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 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.



WILLIAMS  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 kings subjects: if

     his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes

     the crime of it out of us.



WILLIAMS  But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath

     a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and

     arms and heads, chopped off in 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 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.



KING HENRY V   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

     servant, under his master's command transporting a

     sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in

     many irreconciled 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 vengeance;

     so that here men are punished for before-breach of

     the king's laws in now the king's quarrel: where

     they feared the death, they have borne life away;

     and where they would be safe, they perish: then if

     they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of

     their damnation than he was before guilty of those

     impieties for the which they are now visited. Every

     subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's

     soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in

     the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every

     mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death

     is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was

     blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:

     and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think

     that, making God so free an offer, He let him

     outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach

     others how they should prepare.



WILLIAMS  'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon

     his own head, the king is not to answer it.



BATES     But I do not desire he should answer for me; and

     yet 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: but

     when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we

     ne'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 an

     elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can

     do against a monarch! you may as well go about to

     turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a

     peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word

     after! come, 'tis a foolish saying.



KING HENRY V   Your reproof is something too round: I should be

     angry 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 my

     bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I

     will 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 come

     to 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 the

     king's company.



WILLIAMS  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.



KING HENRY V   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 idle 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 adoration?

     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

     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 intertissued 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]



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.



     [Exit]



KING HENRY V   O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;

     Possess them not with fear; take from them now

     The sense of reckoning, if the 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 anew;

     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.



     [Enter GLOUCESTER]



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.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT IV







SCENE II  The French camp.





     [Enter the DAUPHIN, ORLEANS, RAMBURES, and others]



ORLEANS   The sun doth gild our armour; up, my lords!



DAUPHIN   Montez A cheval! My horse! varlet! laquais! ha!



ORLEANS   O brave spirit!



DAUPHIN   Via! les eaux et la terre.



ORLEANS   Rien puis? L'air et la feu.



DAUPHIN   Ciel, cousin Orleans.



     [Enter Constable]



     Now, my lord constable!



Constable Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh!



DAUPHIN   Mount them, and make incision in their hides,

     That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,

     And dout them with superfluous courage, ha!



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

     How shall we, then, behold their natural tears?



     [Enter Messenger]



Messenger The English are embattled, you French peers.



Constable To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse!

     Do but behold yon poor and starved band,

     And your fair show shall suck away their souls,

     Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.

     There is not work enough for all our hands;

     Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins

     To give each naked curtle-axe a stain,

     That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,

     And sheathe for lack of sport: let us but blow on them,

     The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.

     'Tis positive 'gainst 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:

     But that our honours must not. What's to say?

     A very little little let us do.

     And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound

     The tucket sonance and the note to mount;

     For our approach shall so much dare the field

     That England shall couch down in fear and yield.



     [Enter GRANDPRE]



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

     Yon island carrions, desperate of their bones,

     Ill-favouredly 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,

     With torch-staves in their hand; and their poor jades

     Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips,

     The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes

     And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit

     Lies foul with chew'd grass, still and motionless;

     And their executors, the knavish crows,

     Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour.

     Description cannot suit itself in words

     To demonstrate the life of such a battle

     In life so lifeless as it shows itself.



Constable They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.



DAUPHIN   Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits

     And give their fasting horses provender,

     And after fight with them?



Constable I stay but for my guidon: to the field!

     I will the banner from a trumpet take,

     And use it for my haste. Come, come, away!

     The sun is high, and we outwear the day.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT IV







SCENE III The English camp.





     [Enter GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, ERPINGHAM, with

     all his host: SALISBURY and WESTMORELAND]



GLOUCESTER     Where is the king?



BEDFORD   The king himself is rode to view their battle.



WESTMORELAND   Of fighting men they have full three score thousand.



EXETER    There's five to one; besides, they all are fresh.



SALISBURY God's arm strike with us! 'tis a fearful odds.

     God be wi' you, princes all; I'll to my charge:

     If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,

     Then, joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford,

     My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter,

     And my kind kinsman, warriors all, adieu!



BEDFORD   Farewell, good Salisbury; and good luck go with thee!



EXETER    Farewell, kind lord; fight valiantly to-day:

     And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it,

     For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour.



     [Exit SALISBURY]



BEDFORD   He is full of valour as of kindness;

     Princely in both.



     [Enter the KING]



WESTMORELAND                     O that we now had here

     But one ten thousand of those men in England

     That do no work to-day!



KING HENRY V   What's he that wishes so?

     My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:

     If we are mark'd to die, we are enow

     To do our country loss; and if to live,

     The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

     God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.

     By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,

     Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;

     It yearns me not if men my garments wear;

     Such outward things dwell not in my desires:

     But if it be a sin to covet honour,

     I am the most offending soul alive.

     No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:

     God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour

     As one man more, methinks, would share from me

     For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!

     Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,

     That he which hath no stomach to this fight,

     Let him depart; his passport shall be made

     And crowns for convoy put into his purse:

     We would not die in that man's company

     That fears his fellowship to die with us.

     This day is called the feast of Crispian:

     He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

     Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,

     And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

     He that shall live this day, and see old age,

     Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

     And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'

     Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.

     And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'

     Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

     But he'll remember with advantages

     What feats he did that day: then shall our names.

     Familiar in his mouth as household words

     Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

     Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,

     Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.

     This story shall the good man teach his son;

     And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

     From this day to the ending of the world,

     But we in it shall be remember'd;

     We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

     For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

     Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

     This day shall gentle his condition:

     And gentlemen in England now a-bed

     Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

     And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

     That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.



     [Re-enter SALISBURY]



SALISBURY My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed:

     The French are bravely in their battles set,

     And will with all expedience charge on us.



KING HENRY V   All things are ready, if our minds be so.



WESTMORELAND   Perish the man whose mind is backward now!



KING HENRY V   Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz?



WESTMORELAND   God's will! my liege, would you and I alone,

     Without more help, could fight this royal battle!



KING HENRY V   Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thousand men;

     Which likes me better than to wish us one.

     You know your places: God be with you all!



     [Tucket. Enter MONTJOY]



MONTJOY   Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,

     If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,

     Before thy most assured overthrow:

     For certainly thou art so near the gulf,

     Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,

     The constable desires thee thou wilt mind

     Thy followers of repentance; that their souls

     May make a peaceful and a sweet retire

     From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies

     Must lie and fester.



KING HENRY V   Who hath sent thee now?



MONTJOY   The Constable of France.



KING HENRY V   I pray thee, bear my former answer back:

     Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones.

     Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus?

     The man that once did sell the lion's skin

     While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.

     A many of our bodies shall no doubt

     Find native graves; upon the which, I trust,

     Shall witness live in brass of this day's work:

     And those that leave their valiant bones in France,

     Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,

     They shall be famed; for there the sun shall greet them,

     And draw their honours reeking up to heaven;

     Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,

     The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.

     Mark then abounding valour in our English,

     That being dead, like to the bullet's grazing,

     Break out into a second course of mischief,

     Killing in relapse of mortality.

     Let me speak proudly: tell the constable

     We are but warriors for the working-day;

     Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd

     With rainy marching in the painful field;

     There's not a piece of feather in our host--

     Good argument, I hope, we will not fly--

     And time hath worn us into slovenry:

     But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim;

     And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night

     They'll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck

     The gay new coats o'er the French soldiers' heads

     And turn them out of service. If they do this,--

     As, if God please, they shall,--my ransom then

     Will soon be levied. Herald, save thou thy labour;

     Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald:

     They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;

     Which if they have as I will leave 'em them,

     Shall yield them little, tell the constable.



MONTJOY   I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well:

     Thou never shalt hear herald any more.



     [Exit]



KING HENRY V   I fear thou'lt once more come again for ransom.



     [Enter YORK]



YORK My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg

     The leading of the vaward.



KING HENRY V   Take it, brave York. Now, soldiers, march away:

     And how thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT IV







SCENE IV  The field of battle.





     [Alarum. Excursions. Enter PISTOL, French Soldier, and Boy]



PISTOL    Yield, cur!



French Soldier Je pense que vous etes gentilhomme de bonne qualite.



PISTOL    Qualtitie calmie custure me! Art thou a gentleman?

     what is thy name? discuss.



French Soldier O Seigneur Dieu!



PISTOL    O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman:

     Perpend my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark;

     O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,

     Except, O signieur, thou do give to me

     Egregious ransom.



French Soldier O, prenez misericorde! ayez pitie de moi!



PISTOL    Moy shall not serve; I will have forty moys;

     Or I will fetch thy rim out at thy throat

     In drops of crimson blood.



French Soldier Est-il impossible d'echapper la force de ton bras?



PISTOL    Brass, cur!

     Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat,

     Offer'st me brass?



French Soldier O pardonnez moi!



PISTOL    Say'st thou me so? is that a ton of moys?

     Come hither, boy: ask me this slave in French

     What is his name.



Boy  Ecoutez: comment etes-vous appele?



French Soldier Monsieur le Fer.



Boy  He says his name is Master Fer.



PISTOL    Master Fer! I'll fer him, and firk him, and ferret

     him: discuss the same in French unto him.



Boy  I do not know the French for fer, and ferret, and firk.



PISTOL    Bid him prepare; for I will cut his throat.



French Soldier Que dit-il, monsieur?



Boy  Il me commande de vous dire que vous faites vous

     pret; car ce soldat ici est dispose tout a cette

     heure de couper votre gorge.



PISTOL    Owy, cuppele gorge, permafoy,

     Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave crowns;

     Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.



French Soldier O, je vous supplie, pour l'amour de Dieu, me

     pardonner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison:

     gardez ma vie, et je vous donnerai deux cents ecus.



PISTOL    What are his words?



Boy  He prays you to save his life: he is a gentleman of

     a good house; and for his ransom he will give you

     two hundred crowns.



PISTOL    Tell him my fury shall abate, and I the crowns will take.



French Soldier Petit monsieur, que dit-il?



Boy  Encore qu'il est contre son jurement de pardonner

     aucun prisonnier, neanmoins, pour les ecus que vous

     l'avez promis, il est content de vous donner la

     liberte, le franchisement.



French Soldier Sur mes genoux je vous donne mille remercimens; et

     je m'estime heureux que je suis tombe entre les

     mains d'un chevalier, je pense, le plus brave,

     vaillant, et tres distingue seigneur d'Angleterre.



PISTOL    Expound unto me, boy.



Boy  He gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks; and

     he esteems himself happy that he hath fallen into

     the hands of one, as he thinks, the most brave,

     valorous, and thrice-worthy signieur of England.



PISTOL    As I suck blood, I will some mercy show.

     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; and they are both hanged; and so

     would this be, if he durst steal any thing

     adventurously. I must stay with the lackeys, with

     the luggage of our camp: the French might have a

     good prey of us, if he knew of it; for there is

     none to guard it but boys.



     [Exit]









     KING HENRY V





ACT IV







SCENE V   Another part of the field.





     [Enter Constable, ORLEANS, BOURBON, DAUPHIN, and RAMBURES]



Constable O diable!



ORLEANS   O seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!



DAUPHIN   Mort de ma vie! all is confounded, all!

     Reproach and everlasting shame

     Sits mocking in our plumes. O merchante fortune!

     Do not run away.



     [A short alarum]



Constable                   Why, all our ranks are broke.



DAUPHIN   O perdurable shame! let's stab ourselves.

     Be these the wretches that we play'd at dice for?



ORLEANS   Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?



BOURBON   Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!

     Let us 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 contaminated.



Constable Disorder, that hath spoil'd us, friend us now!

     Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.



ORLEANS   We are enow yet living in the field

     To smother up the English in our throngs,

     If any order might be thought upon.



BOURBON   The devil take order now! I'll to the throng:

     Let life be short; else shame will be too long.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT IV







SCENE VI  Another part of the field.





     [Alarums. Enter KING HENRY and forces, EXETER, and others]



KING HENRY V   Well have we done, thrice valiant countrymen:

     But all's not done; yet keep the French the field.



EXETER    The Duke of York commends him to your majesty.



KING HENRY V   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.



EXETER    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 spawn 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 abreast,

     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 smiled me in the face, raught me his hand,

     And, with a feeble gripe, says 'Dear my lord,

     Commend my service to me sovereign.'

     So did he turn and over Suffolk's neck

     He threw his wounded arm and kiss'd his lips;

     And so espoused to death, with blood he seal'd

     A testament of noble-ending love.

     The pretty and sweet manner of it forced

     Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd;

     But I had not so much of man in me,

     And all my mother came into mine eyes

     And gave me up to tears.



KING HENRY V   I blame you not;

     For, hearing this, I must perforce compound

     With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.



     [Alarum]



     But, hark! what new alarum is this same?

     The French have reinforced their scatter'd men:

     Then every soldier kill his prisoners:

     Give the word through.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT IV







SCENE VII Another part of the field.





     [Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER]



FLUELLEN  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?



GOWER     '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 burned and

     carried away all that was in the king's tent;

     wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every

     soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a

     gallant king!



FLUELLEN  Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What

     call you the town's name where Alexander the Pig was born!



GOWER     Alexander the Great.



FLUELLEN  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.



GOWER     I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his

     father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.



FLUELLEN  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 called 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.



GOWER     Our king is not like him in that: he never killed

     any of his friends.



FLUELLEN  It is not well done, mark you now take the tales out

     of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak

     but in the figures and comparisons of it: as

     Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his

     ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in

     his right wits and his good judgments, turned 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.



GOWER     Sir John Falstaff.



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



GOWER     Here comes his majesty.



     [Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, and forces; WARWICK,

     GLOUCESTER, EXETER, and others]



KING HENRY V   I was not angry since I came to France

     Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;

     Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon 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.



     [Enter MONTJOY]



EXETER    Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.



GLOUCESTER     His eyes are humbler than they used to be.



KING HENRY V   How now! what means this, herald? know'st thou not

     That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?

     Comest thou again for ransom?



MONTJOY   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!



KING HENRY V   I tell thee truly, herald,

     I know not if the day be ours or no;

     For yet a many of your horsemen peer

     And gallop o'er the field.



MONTJOY   The day is yours.



KING HENRY V   Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!

     What is this castle call'd that stands hard by?



MONTJOY   They call it Agincourt.



KING HENRY V   Then call we this the field of Agincourt,

     Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.



FLUELLEN  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.



KING HENRY V   They did, Fluellen.



FLUELLEN  Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is

     remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a

     garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their

     Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this

     hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do

     believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek

     upon Saint Tavy's day.



KING HENRY V   I wear it for a memorable honour;

     For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.



FLUELLEN  All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's

     Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that:

     God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases

     his grace, and his majesty too!



KING HENRY V   Thanks, good my countryman.



FLUELLEN  By Jeshu, I am your majesty's countryman, I care not

     who know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I

     need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be

     God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.



KING HENRY V   God keep me so! Our heralds go with him:

     Bring me just notice of the numbers dead

     On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.



     [Points to WILLIAMS. Exeunt Heralds with Montjoy]



EXETER    Soldier, you must come to the king.



KING HENRY V   Soldier, why wearest thou that glove in thy cap?



WILLIAMS  An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one that

     I should fight withal, if he be alive.



KING HENRY V   An Englishman?



WILLIAMS  An't please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered

     with me last night; who, if alive and ever dare to

     challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box

     o' th' ear: or if I can see my glove in his cap,

     which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear

     if alive, I will strike it out soundly.



KING HENRY V   What think you, Captain Fluellen? is it fit this

     soldier keep his oath?



FLUELLEN  He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your

     majesty, in my conscience.



KING HENRY V   It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort,

     quite from the answer of his degree.



FLUELLEN  Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as

     Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look

     your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if

     he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as

     arrant a villain and a Jacksauce, as ever his black

     shoe trod upon God's ground and his earth, in my

     conscience, la!



KING HENRY V   Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meetest the fellow.



WILLIAMS  So I will, my liege, as I live.



KING HENRY V   Who servest thou under?



WILLIAMS  Under Captain Gower, my liege.



FLUELLEN  Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and

     literatured in the wars.



KING HENRY V   Call him hither to me, soldier.



WILLIAMS  I will, my liege.



     [Exit]



KING HENRY V   Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me and

     stick it in thy cap: when Alencon and myself were

     down together, I plucked this glove from his helm:

     if any man challenge this, he is a friend to

     Alencon, and an enemy to our person; if thou

     encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.



FLUELLEN  Your grace doo's me as great honours as can be

     desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain

     see the man, that has but two legs, that shall find

     himself aggrieved at this glove; that is all; but I

     would fain see it once, an please God of his grace

     that I might see.



KING HENRY V   Knowest thou Gower?



FLUELLEN  He is my dear friend, an please you.



KING HENRY V   Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.



FLUELLEN  I will fetch him.



     [Exit]



KING HENRY V   My Lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloucester,

     Follow Fluellen closely at the heels:

     The glove which I have given him for a favour

     May haply purchase him a box o' th' ear;

     It is the soldier's; I by bargain should

     Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick:

     If that the soldier strike him, as I judge

     By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,

     Some sudden mischief may arise of it;

     For I do know Fluellen valiant

     And, touched with choler, hot as gunpowder,

     And quickly will return an injury:

     Follow and see there be no harm between them.

     Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT IV







SCENE VIII     Before KING HENRY'S pavilion.





     [Enter GOWER and WILLIAMS]



WILLIAMS  I warrant it is to knight you, captain.



     [Enter FLUELLEN]



FLUELLEN  God's will and his pleasure, captain, I beseech you

     now, come apace to the king: there is more good

     toward you peradventure than is in your knowledge to dream of.



WILLIAMS  Sir, know you this glove?



FLUELLEN  Know the glove! I know the glove is glove.



WILLIAMS  I know this; and thus I challenge it.



     [Strikes him]



FLUELLEN  'Sblood! an arrant traitor as any is in the

     universal world, or in France, or in England!



GOWER     How now, sir! you villain!



WILLIAMS  Do you think I'll be forsworn?



FLUELLEN  Stand away, Captain Gower; I will give treason his

     payment into ploughs, I warrant you.



WILLIAMS  I am no traitor.



FLUELLEN  That's a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his

     majesty's name, apprehend him: he's a friend of the

     Duke Alencon's.



     [Enter WARWICK and GLOUCESTER]



WARWICK   How now, how now! what's the matter?



FLUELLEN  My Lord of Warwick, here is--praised be God for it!

     --a most contagious treason come to light, look

     you, as you shall desire in a summer's day. Here is

     his majesty.



     [Enter KING HENRY and EXETER]



KING HENRY V   How now! what's the matter?



FLUELLEN  My liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that,

     look your grace, has struck the glove which your

     majesty is take out of the helmet of Alencon.



WILLIAMS  My liege, this was my glove; here is the fellow of

     it; and he that I gave it to in change promised to

     wear it in his cap: I promised to strike him, if he

     did: I met this man with my glove in his cap, and I

     have been as good as my word.



FLUELLEN  Your majesty hear now, saving your majesty's

     manhood, what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy

     knave it is: I hope your majesty is pear me

     testimony and witness, and will avouchment, that

     this is the glove of Alencon, that your majesty is

     give me; in your conscience, now?



KING HENRY V   Give me thy glove, soldier: look, here is the

     fellow of it.

     'Twas I, indeed, thou promised'st to strike;

     And thou hast given me most bitter terms.



FLUELLEN  An please your majesty, let his neck answer for it,

     if there is any martial law in the world.



KING HENRY V   How canst thou make me satisfaction?



WILLIAMS  All offences, my lord, come from the heart: never

     came any from mine that might offend your majesty.



KING HENRY V   It was ourself thou didst abuse.



WILLIAMS  Your majesty came not like yourself: you appeared to

     me but as a common man; witness the night, your

     garments, your lowliness; and what your highness

     suffered under that shape, I beseech you take it for

     your own fault and not mine: for had you been as I

     took you for, I made no offence; therefore, I

     beseech your highness, pardon me.



KING HENRY V   Here, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns,

     And give it to this fellow. Keep it, fellow;

     And wear it for an honour in thy cap

     Till I do challenge it. Give him the crowns:

     And, captain, you must needs be friends with him.



FLUELLEN  By this day and this light, the fellow has mettle

     enough in his belly. Hold, there is twelve pence

     for you; and I pray you to serve Got, and keep you

     out of prawls, and prabbles' and quarrels, and

     dissensions, and, I warrant you, it is the better for you.



WILLIAMS  I will none of your money.



FLUELLEN  It is with a good will; I can tell you, it will

     serve you to mend your shoes: come, wherefore should

     you be so pashful? your shoes is not so good: 'tis

     a good silling, I warrant you, or I will change it.



     [Enter an English Herald]



KING HENRY V   Now, herald, are the dead number'd?



Herald    Here is the number of the slaughter'd French.



KING HENRY V   What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?



EXETER    Charles Duke of Orleans, nephew to the king;

     John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt:

     Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,

     Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.



KING HENRY V   This note doth tell me of ten thousand French

     That in the field lie slain: of princes, in this number,

     And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead

     One hundred twenty six: added to these,

     Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,

     Eight thousand and four hundred; of the which,

     Five hundred were but yesterday dubb'd knights:

     So that, in these ten thousand they have lost,

     There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries;

     The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,

     And gentlemen of blood and quality.

     The names of those their nobles that lie dead:

     Charles Delabreth, high constable of France;

     Jaques of Chatillon, admiral of France;

     The master of the cross-bows, Lord Rambures;

     Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dolphin,

     John Duke of Alencon, Anthony Duke of Brabant,

     The brother of the Duke of Burgundy,

     And Edward Duke of Bar: of lusty earls,

     Grandpre and Roussi, Fauconberg and Foix,

     Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrale.

     Here was a royal fellowship of death!

     Where is the number of our English dead?



     [Herald shews him another paper]



     Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,

     Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire:

     None else of name; and of all other men

     But five and twenty. O God, thy arm was here;

     And not to us, but to thy arm alone,

     Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem,

     But in plain shock and even play of battle,

     Was ever known so great and little loss

     On one part and on the other? Take it, God,

     For it is none but thine!



EXETER    'Tis wonderful!



KING HENRY V   Come, go we in procession to the village.

     And be it death proclaimed through our host

     To boast of this or take the praise from God

     Which is his only.



FLUELLEN  Is it not lawful, an please your majesty, to tell

     how many is killed?



KING HENRY V   Yes, captain; but with this acknowledgement,

     That God fought for us.



FLUELLEN  Yes, my conscience, he did us great good.



KING HENRY V   Do we all holy rites;

     Let there be sung 'Non nobis' and 'Te Deum;'

     The dead with charity enclosed in clay:

     And then to Calais; and to England then:

     Where ne'er from France arrived more happy men.



     [Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V





ACT V





     PROLOGUE.





     [Enter Chorus]



Chorus    Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story,

     That I may prompt them: and of such as have,

     I humbly pray them to admit the excuse

     Of time, of numbers and due course of things,

     Which cannot in their huge and proper life

     Be here presented. Now we bear the king

     Toward Calais: grant him there; there seen,

     Heave him away upon your winged thoughts

     Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach

     Pales in the flood with men, with wives and boys,

     Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep mouth'd sea,

     Which like a mighty whiffler 'fore the king

     Seems to prepare his way: so let him land,

     And solemnly see him set on to London.

     So swift a pace hath thought that even now

     You may imagine him upon Blackheath;

     Where that his lords desire him to have borne

     His bruised helmet and his bended sword

     Before him through the city: he forbids it,

     Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;

     Giving full trophy, signal and ostent

     Quite from himself to God. But now behold,

     In the quick forge and working-house of thought,

     How London doth pour out her citizens!

     The mayor and all his brethren in best sort,

     Like to the senators of the antique Rome,

     With the plebeians swarming at their heels,

     Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in:

     As, by a lower but loving likelihood,

     Were now the general of our gracious empress,

     As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,

     Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,

     How many would the peaceful city quit,

     To welcome him! much more, and much more cause,

     Did they this Harry. Now in London place him;

     As yet the lamentation of the French

     Invites the King of England's stay at home;

     The emperor's coming in behalf of France,

     To order peace between them; and omit

     All the occurrences, whatever chanced,

     Till Harry's back-return again to France:

     There must we bring him; and myself have play'd

     The interim, by remembering you 'tis past.

     Then brook abridgment, and your eyes advance,

     After your thoughts, straight back again to France.



     [Exit]









     KING HENRY V





ACT V







SCENE I   France. The English camp.





     [Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER]



GOWER     Nay, that's right; but why wear you your leek today?

     Saint Davy's day is past.



FLUELLEN  There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in

     all things: I will tell you, asse my friend,

     Captain Gower: the rascally, scald, beggarly,

     lousy, pragging knave, Pistol, which you and

     yourself and all the world know to be no petter

     than a fellow, look you now, of no merits, he is

     come to me and prings me pread and salt yesterday,

     look you, and bid me eat my leek: it was in place

     where I could not breed no contention with him; but

     I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see

     him once again, and then I will tell him a little

     piece of my desires.



     [Enter PISTOL]



GOWER     Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.



FLUELLEN  'Tis no matter for his swellings nor his

     turkey-cocks. God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you

     scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you!



PISTOL    Ha! art thou bedlam? dost thou thirst, base Trojan,

     To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?

     Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.



FLUELLEN  I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my

     desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat,

     look you, this leek: because, look you, you do not

     love it, nor your affections and your appetites and

     your digestions doo's not agree with it, I would

     desire you to eat it.



PISTOL    Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.



FLUELLEN  There is one goat for you.



     [Strikes him]



     Will you be so good, scauld knave, as eat it?



PISTOL    Base Trojan, thou shalt die.



FLUELLEN  You say very true, scauld knave, when God's will is:

     I will desire you to live in the mean time, and eat

     your victuals: come, there is sauce for it.



     [Strikes him]



     You called me yesterday mountain-squire; but I will

     make you to-day a squire of low degree. I pray you,

     fall to: if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.



GOWER     Enough, captain: you have astonished him.



FLUELLEN  I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or

     I will peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you; it

     is good for your green wound and your ploody coxcomb.



PISTOL    Must I bite?



FLUELLEN  Yes, certainly, and out of doubt and out of question

     too, and ambiguities.



PISTOL    By this leek, I will most horribly revenge: I eat

     and eat, I swear--



FLUELLEN  Eat, I pray you: will you have some more sauce to

     your leek? there is not enough leek to swear by.



PISTOL    Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see I eat.



FLUELLEN  Much good do you, scauld knave, heartily. Nay, pray

     you, throw none away; the skin is good for your

     broken coxcomb. When you take occasions to see leeks

     hereafter, I pray you, mock at 'em; that is all.



PISTOL    Good.



FLUELLEN  Ay, leeks is good: hold you, there is a groat to

     heal your pate.



PISTOL    Me a groat!



FLUELLEN  Yes, verily and in truth, you shall take it; or I

     have another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat.



PISTOL    I take thy groat in earnest of revenge.



FLUELLEN  If I owe you any thing, I will pay you in cudgels:

     you shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but

     cudgels. God b' wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate.



     [Exit]



PISTOL    All hell shall stir for this.



GOWER     Go, go; you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will

     you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an

     honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of

     predeceased valour and dare not avouch in your deeds

     any of your words? I have seen you gleeking and

     galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You

     thought, because he could not speak English in the

     native garb, he could not therefore handle an

     English cudgel: you find it otherwise; and

     henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good

     English condition. Fare ye well.



     [Exit]



PISTOL    Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?

     News have I, that my Nell is dead i' the spital

     Of malady of France;

     And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.

     Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs

     Honour is cudgelled. Well, bawd I'll turn,

     And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.

     To England will I steal, and there I'll steal:

     And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars,

     And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.



     [Exit]









     KING HENRY V





ACT V







SCENE II  France. A royal palace.





     [Enter, at one door KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD,

     GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and other Lords;

     at another, the FRENCH KING, QUEEN ISABEL, the

     PRINCESS KATHARINE, ALICE and other Ladies; the

     DUKE of BURGUNDY, and his train]



KING HENRY V   Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!

     Unto our brother France, and to our sister,

     Health and fair time of day; joy and good wishes

     To our most fair and princely cousin Katharine;

     And, as a branch and member of this royalty,

     By whom this great assembly is contrived,

     We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy;

     And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!



KING OF FRANCE Right joyous are we to behold your face,

     Most worthy brother England; fairly met:

     So are you, princes English, every one.



QUEEN ISABEL   So happy be the issue, brother England,

     Of this good day and of this gracious meeting,

     As we are now glad to behold your eyes;

     Your eyes, which hitherto have borne in them

     Against the French, that met them in their bent,

     The fatal balls of murdering basilisks:

     The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,

     Have lost their quality, and that this day

     Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.



KING HENRY V   To cry amen to that, thus we appear.



QUEEN ISABEL   You English princes all, I do salute you.



BURGUNDY  My duty to you both, on equal love,

     Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour'd,

     With all my wits, my pains and strong endeavours,

     To bring your most imperial majesties

     Unto this bar and royal interview,

     Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.

     Since then my office hath so far prevail'd

     That, face to face and royal eye to eye,

     You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me,

     If I demand, before this royal view,

     What rub or what impediment there is,

     Why that the naked, poor and mangled Peace,

     Dear nurse of arts and joyful births,

     Should not in this best garden of the world

     Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?

     Alas, she hath from France too long been chased,

     And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,

     Corrupting in its own fertility.

     Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,

     Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach'd,

     Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,

     Put forth disorder'd twigs; her fallow leas

     The darnel, hemlock and rank fumitory

     Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts

     That should deracinate such savagery;

     The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth

     The freckled cowslip, burnet and green clover,

     Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,

     Conceives by idleness and nothing teems

     But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,

     Losing both beauty and utility.

     And as our vineyards, fallows, meads and hedges,

     Defective in their natures, grow to wildness,

     Even so our houses and ourselves and children

     Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,

     The sciences that should become our country;

     But grow like savages,--as soldiers will

     That nothing do but meditate on blood,--

     To swearing and stern looks, diffused attire

     And every thing that seems unnatural.

     Which to reduce into our former favour

     You are assembled: and my speech entreats

     That I may know the let, why gentle Peace

     Should not expel these inconveniences

     And bless us with her former qualities.



KING HENRY V   If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace,

     Whose want gives growth to the imperfections

     Which you have cited, you must buy that peace

     With full accord to all our just demands;

     Whose tenors and particular effects

     You have enscheduled briefly in your hands.



BURGUNDY  The king hath heard them; to the which as yet

     There is no answer made.



KING HENRY V   Well then the peace,

     Which you before so urged, lies in his answer.



KING OF FRANCE I have but with a cursorary eye

     O'erglanced the articles: pleaseth your grace

     To appoint some of your council presently

     To sit with us once more, with better heed

     To re-survey them, we will suddenly

     Pass our accept and peremptory answer.



KING HENRY V   Brother, we shall. Go, uncle Exeter,

     And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,

     Warwick and Huntingdon, go with the king;

     And take with you free power to ratify,

     Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best

     Shall see advantageable for our dignity,

     Any thing in or out of our demands,

     And we'll consign thereto. Will you, fair sister,

     Go with the princes, or stay here with us?



QUEEN ISABEL   Our gracious brother, I will go with them:

     Haply a woman's voice may do some good,

     When articles too nicely urged be stood on.



KING HENRY V   Yet leave our cousin Katharine here with us:

     She is our capital demand, comprised

     Within the fore-rank of our articles.



QUEEN ISABEL   She hath good leave.



     [Exeunt all except HENRY, KATHARINE, and ALICE]



KING HENRY V   Fair Katharine, and most fair,

     Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms

     Such as will enter at a lady's ear

     And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?



KATHARINE Your majesty shall mock at me; I cannot speak your England.



KING HENRY V   O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with

     your French heart, I will be glad to hear you

     confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do

     you like me, Kate?



KATHARINE Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is 'like me.'



KING HENRY V   An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.



KATHARINE Que dit-il? que je suis semblable a les anges?



ALICE     Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.



KING HENRY V   I said so, dear Katharine; and I must not blush to

     affirm it.



KATHARINE O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de

     tromperies.



KING HENRY V   What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men

     are full of deceits?



ALICE     Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of

     deceits: dat is de princess.



KING HENRY V   The princess is the better Englishwoman. I' faith,

     Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am

     glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if

     thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king

     that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my

     crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but

     directly to say 'I love you:' then if you urge me

     farther than to say 'do you in faith?' I wear out

     my suit. Give me your answer; i' faith, do: and so

     clap hands and a bargain: how say you, lady?



KATHARINE Sauf votre honneur, me understand vell.



KING HENRY V   Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for

     your sake, Kate, why you undid me: for the one, I

     have neither words nor measure, and for the other, I

     have no strength in measure, yet a reasonable

     measure in strength. If I could win a lady at

     leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my

     armour on my back, under the correction of bragging

     be it spoken. I should quickly leap into a wife.

     Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse

     for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and

     sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God,

     Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my

     eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation;

     only downright oaths, which I never use till urged,

     nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a

     fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth

     sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for love

     of any thing he sees there, let thine eye be thy

     cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: If thou canst

     love me for this, take me: if not, to say to thee

     that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the

     Lord, no; yet I love thee too. And while thou

     livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and

     uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee

     right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other

     places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that

     can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours, they do

     always reason themselves out again. What! a

     speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A

     good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a

     black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow

     bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax

     hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the

     moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it

     shines bright and never changes, but keeps his

     course truly. If thou would have such a one, take

     me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier,

     take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love?

     speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.



KATHARINE Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?



KING HENRY V   No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of

     France, Kate: but, in loving me, you should love

     the friend of France; for I love France so well that

     I will not part with a village of it; I will have it

     all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine and I am

     yours, then yours is France and you are mine.



KATHARINE I cannot tell vat is dat.



KING HENRY V   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. Je quand sur le possession de France, et quand

     vous avez le possession de moi,--let me see, what

     then? Saint Denis be my speed!--donc votre est

     France et vous etes mienne. It is as easy for me,

     Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much

     more French: I shall never move thee in French,

     unless it be to laugh at me.



KATHARINE Sauf votre honneur, le Francois que vous parlez, il

     est meilleur que l'Anglois lequel je parle.



KING HENRY V   No, faith, is't not, Kate: but thy speaking of my

     tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely, must needs

     be granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou

     understand thus much English, canst thou love me?



KATHARINE I cannot tell.



KING HENRY V   Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask

     them. Come, I know thou lovest me: and at night,

     when you come into your closet, you'll question this

     gentlewoman about me; and I know, Kate, you will to

     her dispraise those parts in me that you love with

     your heart: but, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the

     rather, gentle princess, because I love thee

     cruelly. If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a

     saving faith within me tells me thou shalt, I get

     thee with scambling, and thou must therefore needs

     prove a good soldier-breeder: shall not thou and I,

     between Saint Denis and Saint George, compound a

     boy, half French, half English, that shall go to

     Constantinople and take the Turk by the beard?

     shall we not? what sayest thou, my fair

     flower-de-luce?



KATHARINE I do not know dat



KING HENRY V   No; 'tis hereafter to know, but now to promise: do

     but now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your

     French part of such a boy; and for my English moiety

     take the word of a king and a bachelor. How answer

     you, la plus belle Katharine du monde, mon tres cher

     et devin deesse?



KATHARINE Your majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de

     most sage demoiselle dat is en France.



KING HENRY V   Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in

     true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honour I

     dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to

     flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor

     and untempering effect of my visage. Now, beshrew

     my father's ambition! he was thinking of civil wars

     when he got me: therefore was I created with a

     stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that, when

     I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith,

     Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear:

     my comfort is, that old age, that ill layer up of

     beauty, can do no more, spoil upon my face: thou

     hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou

     shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better:

     and therefore tell me, most fair Katharine, will you

     have me? Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the

     thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress;

     take me by the hand, and say 'Harry of England I am

     thine:' which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine

     ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud 'England is

     thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Harry

     Plantagenet is thine;' who though I speak it before

     his face, 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?



KATHARINE Dat is as it sall please de roi mon pere.



KING HENRY V   Nay, it will please him well, Kate it shall please

     him, Kate.



KATHARINE Den it sall also content me.



KING HENRY V   Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my queen.



KATHARINE Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez: ma foi, je

     ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en

     baisant la main d'une de votre seigeurie indigne

     serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon

     tres-puissant seigneur.



KING HENRY V   Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.



KATHARINE Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees devant

     leur noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France.



KING HENRY V   Madam my interpreter, what says she?



ALICE     Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of

     France,--I cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.



KING HENRY V   To kiss.



ALICE     Your majesty entendre bettre que moi.



KING HENRY V   It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss

     before they are married, would she say?



ALICE     Oui, vraiment.



KING HENRY V   O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear

     Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak

     list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of

     manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our

     places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will

     do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your

     country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently

     and yielding.



     [Kissing her]



     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.



     [Re-enter the FRENCH KING and his QUEEN, BURGUNDY,

     and other Lords]



BURGUNDY  God save your majesty! my royal cousin, teach you

     our princess English?



KING HENRY V   I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how

     perfectly I love her; and that is good English.



BURGUNDY  Is she not apt?



KING HENRY V   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.



BURGUNDY  Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you

     for that. If you would conjure in her, you must

     make a circle; if conjure up love in her in his true

     likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you

     blame her then, being a maid yet rosed over with the

     virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the

     appearance of a naked blind boy in her naked seeing

     self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid

     to consign to.



KING HENRY V   Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.



BURGUNDY  They are then excused, my lord, when they see not

     what they do.



KING HENRY V   Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.



BURGUNDY  I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will

     teach her to know my meaning: for maids, well

     summered and warm kept, are like flies at

     Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their

     eyes; and then they will endure handling, which

     before would not abide looking on.



KING HENRY V   This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer;

     and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the

     latter end and she must be blind too.



BURGUNDY  As love is, my lord, before it loves.



KING HENRY V   It is so: and you may, some of you, thank love for

     my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city

     for one fair French maid that stands in my way.



FRENCH KING    Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities

     turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with

     maiden walls that war hath never entered.



KING HENRY V   Shall Kate be my wife?



FRENCH KING    So please you.



KING HENRY V   I am content; so the maiden cities you talk of may

     wait on her: so the maid that stood in the way for

     my wish shall show me the way to my will.



FRENCH KING    We have consented to all terms of reason.



KING HENRY V   Is't so, my lords of England?



WESTMORELAND   The king hath granted every article:

     His daughter first, and then in sequel all,

     According to their firm proposed natures.



EXETER    Only he hath not yet subscribed this:

     Where your majesty demands, that the King of France,

     having any occasion to write for matter of grant,

     shall name your highness in this form and with this

     addition in French, Notre trescher fils Henri, Roi

     d'Angleterre, Heritier de France; and thus in

     Latin, Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex

     Angliae, et Haeres Franciae.



FRENCH KING    Nor this I have not, brother, so denied,

     But your request shall make me let it pass.



KING HENRY V   I pray you then, in love and dear alliance,

     Let that one article rank with the rest;

     And thereupon give me your daughter.



FRENCH 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 look 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!



KING HENRY V   Now, welcome, Kate: and bear me witness all,

     That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.



     [Flourish]



QUEEN ISABEL   God, the best maker of all marriages,

     Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!

     As man and wife, being two, are one in love,

     So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal,

     That never may ill office, or fell jealousy,

     Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,

     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!



KING HENRY V   Prepare we for our marriage--on which day,

     My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath,

     And all the peers', for surety of our leagues.

     Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me;

     And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be!



     [Sennet. Exeunt]









     KING HENRY V



     EPILOGUE





     [Enter Chorus]



Chorus    Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,

     Our bending author hath pursued the story,

     In little room confining mighty men,

     Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.

     Small time, but in that small most greatly lived

     This star of England: Fortune made his sword;

     By which the world's best garden be achieved,

     And of it left his son imperial lord.

     Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King

     Of France and England, did this king succeed;

     Whose state so many had the managing,

     That they lost France and made his England bleed:

     Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,

     In your fair minds let this acceptance take.



     [Exit]









     SONNETS







TO THE ONLY BEGETTER OF

THESE INSUING SONNETS

MR. W. H. ALL HAPPINESS

AND THAT ETERNITY

PROMISED BY

OUR EVER-LIVING POET WISHETH

THE WELL-WISHING

ADVENTURER IN

SETTING FORTH

T. T.





I.



FROM fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed'st thy light'st flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content

And, tender churl, makest waste in niggarding.

  Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

  To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.



II.



When forty winters shall beseige thy brow,

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,

Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:

Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

How much more praise deserved thy beauty's use,

If thou couldst answer 'This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,'

Proving his beauty by succession thine!

  This were to be new made when thou art old,

  And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st it cold.



III.



Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another;

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose unear'd womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime:

So thou through windows of thine age shall see

Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

  But if thou live, remember'd not to be,

  Die single, and thine image dies with thee.



IV.



Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend

Upon thyself thy beauty's legacy?

Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend,

And being frank she lends to those are free.

Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse

The bounteous largess given thee to give?

Profitless usurer, why dost thou use

So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live?

For having traffic with thyself alone,

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

Then how, when nature calls thee to be gone,

What acceptable audit canst thou leave?

  Thy unused beauty must be tomb'd with thee,

  Which, used, lives th' executor to be.



V.



Those hours, that with gentle work did frame

The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell,

Will play the tyrants to the very same

And that unfair which fairly doth excel:

For never-resting time leads summer on

To hideous winter and confounds him there;

Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,

Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where:

Then, were not summer's distillation left,

A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,

Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,

Nor it nor no remembrance what it was:

  But flowers distill'd though they with winter meet,

  Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.



VI.



Then let not winter's ragged hand deface

In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd:

Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

With beauty's treasure, ere it be self-kill'd.

That use is not forbidden usury,

Which happies those that pay the willing loan;

That's for thyself to breed another thee,

Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;

Ten times thyself were happier than thou art,

If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:

Then what could death do, if thou shouldst depart,

Leaving thee living in posterity?

  Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair

  To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir.



VII.



Lo! in the orient when the gracious light

Lifts up his burning head, each under eye

Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,

Serving with looks his sacred majesty;

And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill,

Resembling strong youth in his middle age,

yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,

Attending on his golden pilgrimage;

But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,

Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,

The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are

From his low tract and look another way:

  So thou, thyself out-going in thy noon,

  Unlook'd on diest, unless thou get a son.



VIII.



Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.

Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,

Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?

If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,

By unions married, do offend thine ear,

They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds

In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.

Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,

Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,

Resembling sire and child and happy mother

Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:

  Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,

  Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'



IX.



Is it for fear to wet a widow's eye

That thou consumest thyself in single life?

Ah! if thou issueless shalt hap to die.

The world will wail thee, like a makeless wife;

The world will be thy widow and still weep

That thou no form of thee hast left behind,

When every private widow well may keep

By children's eyes her husband's shape in mind.

Look, what an unthrift in the world doth spend

Shifts but his place, for still the world enjoys it;

But beauty's waste hath in the world an end,

And kept unused, the user so destroys it.

  No love toward others in that bosom sits

  That on himself such murderous shame commits.



X.



For shame! deny that thou bear'st love to any,

Who for thyself art so unprovident.

Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,

But that thou none lovest is most evident;

For thou art so possess'd with murderous hate

That 'gainst thyself thou stick'st not to conspire.

Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate

Which to repair should be thy chief desire.

O, change thy thought, that I may change my mind!

Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?

Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,

Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:

  Make thee another self, for love of me,

  That beauty still may live in thine or thee.



XI.



As fast as thou shalt wane, so fast thou growest

In one of thine, from that which thou departest;

And that fresh blood which youngly thou bestowest

Thou mayst call thine when thou from youth convertest.

Herein lives wisdom, beauty and increase:

Without this, folly, age and cold decay:

If all were minded so, the times should cease

And threescore year would make the world away.

Let those whom Nature hath not made for store,

Harsh featureless and rude, barrenly perish:

Look, whom she best endow'd she gave the more;

Which bounteous gift thou shouldst in bounty cherish:

  She carved thee for her seal, and meant thereby

  Thou shouldst print more, not let that copy die.



XII.



When I do count the clock that tells the time,

And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;

When I behold the violet past prime,

And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;

When lofty trees I see barren of leaves

Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,

And summer's green all girded up in sheaves

Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,

Then of thy beauty do I question make,

That thou among the wastes of time must go,

Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake

And die as fast as they see others grow;

  And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence

  Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.



XIII.



O, that you were yourself! but, love, you are

No longer yours than you yourself here live:

Against this coming end you should prepare,

And your sweet semblance to some other give.

So should that beauty which you hold in lease

Find no determination: then you were

Yourself again after yourself's decease,

When your sweet issue your sweet form should bear.

Who lets so fair a house fall to decay,

Which husbandry in honour might uphold

Against the stormy gusts of winter's day

And barren rage of death's eternal cold?

  O, none but unthrifts! Dear my love, you know

  You had a father: let your son say so.



XIV.



Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck;

And yet methinks I have astronomy,

But not to tell of good or evil luck,

Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons' quality;

Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,

Pointing to each his thunder, rain and wind,

Or say with princes if it shall go well,

By oft predict that I in heaven find:

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,

And, constant stars, in them I read such art

As truth and beauty shall together thrive,

If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;

  Or else of thee this I prognosticate:

  Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.



XV.



When I consider every thing that grows

Holds in perfection but a little moment,

That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows

Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;

When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,

Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,

And wear their brave state out of memory;

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay

Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,

Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,

To change your day of youth to sullied night;

  And all in war with Time for love of you,

  As he takes from you, I engraft you new.



XVI.



But wherefore do not you a mightier way

Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time?

And fortify yourself in your decay

With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,

And many maiden gardens yet unset

With virtuous wish would bear your living flowers,

Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

So should the lines of life that life repair,

Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen,

Neither in inward worth nor outward fair,

Can make you live yourself in eyes of men.

  To give away yourself keeps yourself still,

  And you must live, drawn by your own sweet skill.



XVII.



Who will believe my verse in time to come,

If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?

Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb

Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes

And in fresh numbers number all your graces,

The age to come would say 'This poet lies:

Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'

So should my papers yellow'd with their age

Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,

And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage

And stretched metre of an antique song:

  But were some child of yours alive that time,

  You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme.



XVIII.



Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

  So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

  So long lives this and this gives life to thee.



XIX.



Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,

And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;

Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,

And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;

Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,

And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,

To the wide world and all her fading sweets;

But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:

O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,

Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;

Him in thy course untainted do allow

For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.

  Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,

  My love shall in my verse ever live young.



XX.



A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;

A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,

Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created;

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

  But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,

  Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.



XXI.



So is it not with me as with that Muse

Stirr'd by a painted beauty to his verse,

Who heaven itself for ornament doth use

And every fair with his fair doth rehearse

Making a couplement of proud compare,

With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,

With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare

That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.

O' let me, true in love, but truly write,

And then believe me, my love is as fair

As any mother's child, though not so bright

As those gold candles fix'd in heaven's air:

  Let them say more than like of hearsay well;

  I will not praise that purpose not to sell.



XXII.



My glass shall not persuade me I am old,

So long as youth and thou are of one date;

But when in thee time's furrows I behold,

Then look I death my days should expiate.

For all that beauty that doth cover thee

Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,

Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:

How can I then be elder than thou art?

O, therefore, love, be of thyself so wary

As I, not for myself, but for thee will;

Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary

As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.

  Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain;

  Thou gavest me thine, not to give back again.



XXIII.



As an unperfect actor on the stage

Who with his fear is put besides his part,

Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,

Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart.

So I, for fear of trust, forget to say

The perfect ceremony of love's rite,

And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,

O'ercharged with burden of mine own love's might.

O, let my books be then the eloquence

And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,

Who plead for love and look for recompense

More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.

  O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:

  To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.



XXIV.



Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd

Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;

My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,

And perspective it is the painter's art.

For through the painter must you see his skill,

To find where your true image pictured lies;

Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,

That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;

  Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;

  They draw but what they see, know not the heart.



XXV.



Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,

Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.

Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread

But as the marigold at the sun's eye,

And in themselves their pride lies buried,

For at a frown they in their glory die.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,

After a thousand victories once foil'd,

Is from the book of honour razed quite,

And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:

  Then happy I, that love and am beloved

  Where I may not remove nor be removed.



XXVI.



Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage

Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit,

To thee I send this written embassage,

To witness duty, not to show my wit:

Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine

May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it,

But that I hope some good conceit of thine

In thy soul's thought, all naked, will bestow it;

Till whatsoever star that guides my moving

Points on me graciously with fair aspect

And puts apparel on my tatter'd loving,

To show me worthy of thy sweet respect:

  Then may I dare to boast how I do love thee;

  Till then not show my head where thou mayst prove me.



XXVII.



Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,

The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;

But then begins a journey in my head,

To work my mind, when body's work's expired:

For then my thoughts, from far where I abide,

Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,

And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,

Looking on darkness which the blind do see

Save that my soul's imaginary sight

Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,

Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,

Makes black night beauteous and her old face new.

  Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,

  For thee and for myself no quiet find.



XXVIII.



How can I then return in happy plight,

That am debarr'd the benefit of rest?

When day's oppression is not eased by night,

But day by night, and night by day, oppress'd?

And each, though enemies to either's reign,

Do in consent shake hands to torture me;

The one by toil, the other to complain

How far I toil, still farther off from thee.

I tell the day, to please them thou art bright

And dost him grace when clouds do blot the heaven:

So flatter I the swart-complexion'd night,

When sparkling stars twire not thou gild'st the even.

But day doth daily draw my sorrows longer

  And night doth nightly make grief's strength

     seem stronger.



XXIX.



When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state

And trouble deal heaven with my bootless cries

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,

Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

  For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings

  That then I scorn to change my state with kings.



XXX.



When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

  But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

  All losses are restored and sorrows end.



XXXI.



Thy bosom is endeared with all hearts,

Which I by lacking have supposed dead,

And there reigns love and all love's loving parts,

And all those friends which I thought buried.

How many a holy and obsequious tear

Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye

As interest of the dead, which now appear

But things removed that hidden in thee lie!

Thou art the grave where buried love doth live,

Hung with the trophies of my lovers gone,

Who all their parts of me to thee did give;

That due of many now is thine alone:

  Their images I loved I view in thee,

  And thou, all they, hast all the all of me.



XXXII.



If thou survive my well-contented day,

When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,

And shalt by fortune once more re-survey

These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,

Compare them with the bettering of the time,

And though they be outstripp'd by every pen,

Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,

Exceeded by the height of happier men.

O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:

'Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,

A dearer birth than this his love had brought,

To march in ranks of better equipage:

  But since he died and poets better prove,

  Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love.'



XXXIII.



Full many a glorious morning have I seen

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,

Kissing with golden face the meadows green,

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;

Anon permit the basest clouds to ride

With ugly rack on his celestial face,

And from the forlorn world his visage hide,

Stealing unseen to west with this disgrace:

Even so my sun one early morn did shine

With all triumphant splendor on my brow;

But out, alack! he was but one hour mine;

The region cloud hath mask'd him from me now.

  Yet him for this my love no whit disdaineth;

  Suns of the world may stain when heaven's sun staineth.



XXXIV.



Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,

And make me travel forth without my cloak,

To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,

Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?

'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,

To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,

For no man well of such a salve can speak

That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace:

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;

Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:

The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief

To him that bears the strong offence's cross.

  Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,

  And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.



XXXV.



No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

All men make faults, and even I in this,

Authorizing thy trespass with compare,

Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,

Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;

For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--

Thy adverse party is thy advocate--

And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:

Such civil war is in my love and hate

  That I an accessary needs must be

  To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.



XXXVI.



Let me confess that we two must be twain,

Although our undivided loves are one:

So shall those blots that do with me remain

Without thy help by me be borne alone.

In our two loves there is but one respect,

Though in our lives a separable spite,

Which though it alter not love's sole effect,

Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love's delight.

I may not evermore acknowledge thee,

Lest my bewailed guilt should do thee shame,

Nor thou with public kindness honour me,

Unless thou take that honour from thy name:

  But do not so; I love thee in such sort

  As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.



XXXVII.



As a decrepit father takes delight

To see his active child do deeds of youth,

So I, made lame by fortune's dearest spite,

Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,

Or any of these all, or all, or more,

Entitled in thy parts do crowned sit,

I make my love engrafted to this store:

So then I am not lame, poor, nor despised,

Whilst that this shadow doth such substance give

That I in thy abundance am sufficed

And by a part of all thy glory live.

  Look, what is best, that best I wish in thee:

  This wish I have; then ten times happy me!



XXXVIII.



How can my Muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thyself dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date.

  If my slight Muse do please these curious days,

  The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.



XXXIX.



O, how thy worth with manners may I sing,

When thou art all the better part of me?

What can mine own praise to mine own self bring?

And what is 't but mine own when I praise thee?

Even for this let us divided live,

And our dear love lose name of single one,

That by this separation I may give

That due to thee which thou deservest alone.

O absence, what a torment wouldst thou prove,

Were it not thy sour leisure gave sweet leave

To entertain the time with thoughts of love,

Which time and thoughts so sweetly doth deceive,

  And that thou teachest how to make one twain,

  By praising him here who doth hence remain!



XL.



Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;

What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?

No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call;

All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.

Then if for my love thou my love receivest,

I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;

But yet be blamed, if thou thyself deceivest

By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.

I do forgive thy robbery, gentle thief,

Although thou steal thee all my poverty;

And yet, love knows, it is a greater grief

To bear love's wrong than hate's known injury.

  Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,

  Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes.



XLI.



Those petty wrongs that liberty commits,

When I am sometime absent from thy heart,

Thy beauty and thy years full well befits,

For still temptation follows where thou art.

Gentle thou art and therefore to be won,

Beauteous thou art, therefore to be assailed;

And when a woman woos, what woman's son

Will sourly leave her till she have prevailed?

Ay me! but yet thou mightest my seat forbear,

And chide try beauty and thy straying youth,

Who lead thee in their riot even there

Where thou art forced to break a twofold truth,

  Hers by thy beauty tempting her to thee,

  Thine, by thy beauty being false to me.



XLII.



That thou hast her, it is not all my grief,

And yet it may be said I loved her dearly;

That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief,

A loss in love that touches me more nearly.

Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye:

Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her;

And for my sake even so doth she abuse me,

Suffering my friend for my sake to approve her.

If I lose thee, my loss is my love's gain,

And losing her, my friend hath found that loss;

Both find each other, and I lose both twain,

And both for my sake lay on me this cross:

  But here's the joy; my friend and I are one;

  Sweet flattery! then she loves but me alone.



XLIII.



When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,

For all the day they view things unrespected;

But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,

And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.

Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,

How would thy shadow's form form happy show

To the clear day with thy much clearer light,

When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!

How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made

By looking on thee in the living day,

When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade

Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!

  All days are nights to see till I see thee,

  And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.



XLIV.



If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,

Injurious distance should not stop my way;

For then despite of space I would be brought,

From limits far remote where thou dost stay.

No matter then although my foot did stand

Upon the farthest earth removed from thee;

For nimble thought can jump both sea and land

As soon as think the place where he would be.

But ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,

To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,

But that so much of earth and water wrought

I must attend time's leisure with my moan,

  Receiving nought by elements so slow

  But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.



XLV.



The other two, slight air and purging fire,

Are both with thee, wherever I abide;

The first my thought, the other my desire,

These present-absent with swift motion slide.

For when these quicker elements are gone

In tender embassy of love to thee,

My life, being made of four, with two alone

Sinks down to death, oppress'd with melancholy;

Until life's composition be recured

By those swift messengers return'd from thee,

Who even but now come back again, assured

Of thy fair health, recounting it to me:

  This told, I joy; but then no longer glad,

  I send them back again and straight grow sad.



XLVI.



Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war

How to divide the conquest of thy sight;

Mine eye my heart thy picture's sight would bar,

My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.

My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie--

A closet never pierced with crystal eyes--

But the defendant doth that plea deny

And says in him thy fair appearance lies.

To 'cide this title is impanneled

A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart,

And by their verdict is determined

The clear eye's moiety and the dear heart's part:

  As thus; mine eye's due is thy outward part,

  And my heart's right thy inward love of heart.



XLVII.



Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,

And each doth good turns now unto the other:

When that mine eye is famish'd for a look,

Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,

With my love's picture then my eye doth feast

And to the painted banquet bids my heart;

Another time mine eye is my heart's guest

And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:

So, either by thy picture or my love,

Thyself away art resent still with me;

For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,

And I am still with them and they with thee;

  Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight

  Awakes my heart to heart's and eye's delight.



XLVIII.



How careful was I, when I took my way,

Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,

That to my use it might unused stay

From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!

But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,

Most worthy of comfort, now my greatest grief,

Thou, best of dearest and mine only care,

Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.

Thee have I not lock'd up in any chest,

Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,

Within the gentle closure of my breast,

From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;

  And even thence thou wilt be stol'n, I fear,

  For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.



XLIX.



Against that time, if ever that time come,

When I shall see thee frown on my defects,

When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,

Call'd to that audit by advised respects;

Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass

And scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye,

When love, converted from the thing it was,

Shall reasons find of settled gravity,--

Against that time do I ensconce me here

Within the knowledge of mine own desert,

And this my hand against myself uprear,

To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:

  To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,

  Since why to love I can allege no cause.



L.



How heavy do I journey on the way,

When what I seek, my weary travel's end,

Doth teach that ease and that repose to say

'Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!'

The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,

Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,

As if by some instinct the wretch did know

His rider loved not speed, being made from thee:

The bloody spur cannot provoke him on

That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide;

Which heavily he answers with a groan,

More sharp to me than spurring to his side;

  For that same groan doth put this in my mind;

  My grief lies onward and my joy behind.



LI.



Thus can my love excuse the slow offence

Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:

From where thou art why should I haste me thence?

Till I return, of posting is no need.

O, what excuse will my poor beast then find,

When swift extremity can seem but slow?

Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind;

In winged speed no motion shall I know:

Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;

Therefore desire of perfect'st love being made,

Shall neigh--no dull flesh--in his fiery race;

But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade;

  Since from thee going he went wilful-slow,

  Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.



LII.



So am I as the rich, whose blessed key

Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,

The which he will not every hour survey,

For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,

Since, seldom coming, in the long year set,

Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,

Or captain jewels in the carcanet.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,

Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,

To make some special instant special blest,

By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.

  Blessed are you, whose worthiness gives scope,

  Being had, to triumph, being lack'd, to hope.



LIII.



What is your substance, whereof are you made,

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since every one hath, every one, one shade,

And you, but one, can every shadow lend.

Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit

Is poorly imitated after you;

On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,

And you in Grecian tires are painted new:

Speak of the spring and foison of the year;

The one doth shadow of your beauty show,

The other as your bounty doth appear;

And you in every blessed shape we know.

  In all external grace you have some part,

  But you like none, none you, for constant heart.



LIV.



O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!

The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour which doth in it live.

The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the roses,

Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly

When summer's breath their masked buds discloses:

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,

Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made:

  And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,

  When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.



LV.



Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

  So, till the judgment that yourself arise,

  You live in this, and dwell in lover's eyes.



LVI.



Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said

Thy edge should blunter be than appetite,

Which but to-day by feeding is allay'd,

To-morrow sharpen'd in his former might:

So, love, be thou; although to-day thou fill

Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness,

To-morrow see again, and do not kill

The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness.

Let this sad interim like the ocean be

Which parts the shore, where two contracted new

Come daily to the banks, that, when they see

Return of love, more blest may be the view;

  Else call it winter, which being full of care

  Makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare.



LVII.



Being your slave, what should I do but tend

Upon the hours and times of your desire?

I have no precious time at all to spend,

Nor services to do, till you require.

Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour

Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,

Nor think the bitterness of absence sour

When you have bid your servant once adieu;

Nor dare I question with my jealous thought

Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,

But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought

Save, where you are how happy you make those.

  So true a fool is love that in your will,

  Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.



LVIII.



That god forbid that made me first your slave,

I should in thought control your times of pleasure,

Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,

Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!

O, let me suffer, being at your beck,

The imprison'd absence of your liberty;

And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each cheque,

Without accusing you of injury.

Be where you list, your charter is so strong

That you yourself may privilege your time

To what you will; to you it doth belong

Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.

  I am to wait, though waiting so be hell;

  Not blame your pleasure, be it ill or well.



LIX.



If there be nothing new, but that which is

Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,

Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss

The second burden of a former child!

O, that record could with a backward look,

Even of five hundred courses of the sun,

Show me your image in some antique book,

Since mind at first in character was done!

That I might see what the old world could say

To this composed wonder of your frame;

Whether we are mended, or whether better they,

Or whether revolution be the same.

  O, sure I am, the wits of former days

  To subjects worse have given admiring praise.



LX.



Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,

So do our minutes hasten to their end;

Each changing place with that which goes before,

In sequent toil all forwards do contend.

Nativity, once in the main of light,

Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,

Crooked elipses 'gainst his glory fight,

And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth

And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,

Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,

And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:

  And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,

  Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.



LXI.



Is it thy will thy image should keep open

My heavy eyelids to the weary night?

Dost thou desire my slumbers should be broken,

While shadows like to thee do mock my sight?

Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee

So far from home into my deeds to pry,

To find out shames and idle hours in me,

The scope and tenor of thy jealousy?

O, no! thy love, though much, is not so great:

It is my love that keeps mine eye awake;

Mine own true love that doth my rest defeat,

To play the watchman ever for thy sake:

  For thee watch I whilst thou dost wake elsewhere,

  From me far off, with others all too near.



LXII.



Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye

And all my soul and all my every part;

And for this sin there is no remedy,

It is so grounded inward in my heart.

Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,

No shape so true, no truth of such account;

And for myself mine own worth do define,

As I all other in all worths surmount.

But when my glass shows me myself indeed,

Beated and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity,

Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;

Self so self-loving were iniquity.

  'Tis thee, myself, that for myself I praise,

  Painting my age with beauty of thy days.



LXIII.



Against my love shall be, as I am now,

With Time's injurious hand crush'd and o'er-worn;

When hours have drain'd his blood and fill'd his brow

With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn

Hath travell'd on to age's steepy night,

And all those beauties whereof now he's king

Are vanishing or vanish'd out of sight,

Stealing away the treasure of his spring;

For such a time do I now fortify

Against confounding age's cruel knife,

That he shall never cut from memory

My sweet love's beauty, though my lover's life:

  His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,

  And they shall live, and he in them still green.



LXIV.



When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced

The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;

When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed

And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;

When I have seen the hungry ocean gain

Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,

And the firm soil win of the watery main,

Increasing store with loss and loss with store;

When I have seen such interchange of state,

Or state itself confounded to decay;

Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate,

That Time will come and take my love away.

  This thought is as a death, which cannot choose

  But weep to have that which it fears to lose.



LXV.



Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,

But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,

Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

O, how shall summer's honey breath hold out

Against the wreckful siege of battering days,

When rocks impregnable are not so stout,

Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?

O fearful meditation! where, alack,

Shall Time's best jewel from Time's chest lie hid?

Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

  O, none, unless this miracle have might,

  That in black ink my love may still shine bright.



LXVI.



Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,

As, to behold desert a beggar born,

And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,

And purest faith unhappily forsworn,

And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,

And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,

And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,

And strength by limping sway disabled,

And art made tongue-tied by authority,

And folly doctor-like controlling skill,

And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,

And captive good attending captain ill:

  Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,

  Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.



LXVII.



Ah! wherefore with infection should he live,

And with his presence grace impiety,

That sin by him advantage should achieve

And lace itself with his society?

Why should false painting imitate his cheek

And steal dead seeing of his living hue?

Why should poor beauty indirectly seek

Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?

Why should he live, now Nature bankrupt is,

Beggar'd of blood to blush through lively veins?

For she hath no exchequer now but his,

And, proud of many, lives upon his gains.

  O, him she stores, to show what wealth she had

  In days long since, before these last so bad.



LXVIII.



Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,

When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,

Before the bastard signs of fair were born,

Or durst inhabit on a living brow;

Before the golden tresses of the dead,

The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,

To live a second life on second head;

Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:

In him those holy antique hours are seen,

Without all ornament, itself and true,

Making no summer of another's green,

Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;

  And him as for a map doth Nature store,

  To show false Art what beauty was of yore.



LXIX.



Those parts of thee that the world's eye doth view

Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;

All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,

Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.

Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown'd;

But those same tongues that give thee so thine own

In other accents do this praise confound

By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.

They look into the beauty of thy mind,

And that, in guess, they measure by thy deeds;

Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,

To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:

  But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,

  The solve is this, that thou dost common grow.



LXX.



That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,

For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;

The ornament of beauty is suspect,

A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.

So thou be good, slander doth but approve

Thy worth the greater, being woo'd of time;

For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,

And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.

Thou hast pass'd by the ambush of young days,

Either not assail'd or victor being charged;

Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,

To tie up envy evermore enlarged:

  If some suspect of ill mask'd not thy show,

  Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe.



LXXI.



No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O, if, I say, you look upon this verse

When I perhaps compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.

But let your love even with my life decay,

  Lest the wise world should look into your moan

  And mock you with me after I am gone.



LXXII.



O, lest the world should task you to recite

What merit lived in me, that you should love

After my death, dear love, forget me quite,

For you in me can nothing worthy prove;

Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,

To do more for me than mine own desert,

And hang more praise upon deceased I

Than niggard truth would willingly impart:

O, lest your true love may seem false in this,

That you for love speak well of me untrue,

My name be buried where my body is,

And live no more to shame nor me nor you.

  For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,

  And so should you, to love things nothing worth.



LXXIII.



That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou seest the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.

  This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,

  To love that well which thou must leave ere long.



LXXIV.



But be contented: when that fell arrest

Without all bail shall carry me away,

My life hath in this line some interest,

Which for memorial still with thee shall stay.

When thou reviewest this, thou dost review

The very part was consecrate to thee:

The earth can have but earth, which is his due;

My spirit is thine, the better part of me:

So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life,

The prey of worms, my body being dead,

The coward conquest of a wretch's knife,

Too base of thee to be remembered.

  The worth of that is that which it contains,

  And that is this, and this with thee remains.



LXXV.



So are you to my thoughts as food to life,

Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;

And for the peace of you I hold such strife

As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;

Now proud as an enjoyer and anon

Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,

Now counting best to be with you alone,

Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure;

Sometime all full with feasting on your sight

And by and by clean starved for a look;

Possessing or pursuing no delight,

Save what is had or must from you be took.

  Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,

  Or gluttoning on all, or all away.



LXXVI.



Why is my verse so barren of new pride,

So far from variation or quick change?

Why with the time do I not glance aside

To new-found methods and to compounds strange?

Why write I still all one, ever the same,

And keep invention in a noted weed,

That every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth and where they did proceed?

O, know, sweet love, I always write of you,

And you and love are still my argument;

So all my best is dressing old words new,

Spending again what is already spent:

  For as the sun is daily new and old,

  So is my love still telling what is told.



LXXVII.



Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,

Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;

The vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,

And of this book this learning mayst thou taste.

The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show

Of mouthed graves will give thee memory;

Thou by thy dial's shady stealth mayst know

Time's thievish progress to eternity.

Look, what thy memory can not contain

Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find

Those children nursed, deliver'd from thy brain,

To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.

  These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,

  Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.



LXXVIII.



So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse

And found such fair assistance in my verse

As every alien pen hath got my use

And under thee their poesy disperse.

Thine eyes that taught the dumb on high to sing

And heavy ignorance aloft to fly

Have added feathers to the learned's wing

And given grace a double majesty.

Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

Whose influence is thine and born of thee:

In others' works thou dost but mend the style,

And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

  But thou art all my art and dost advance

  As high as learning my rude ignorance.



LXXIX.



Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,

My verse alone had all thy gentle grace,

But now my gracious numbers are decay'd

And my sick Muse doth give another place.

I grant, sweet love, thy lovely argument

Deserves the travail of a worthier pen,

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent

He robs thee of and pays it thee again.

He lends thee virtue and he stole that word

From thy behavior; beauty doth he give

And found it in thy cheek; he can afford

No praise to thee but what in thee doth live.

  Then thank him not for that which he doth say,

  Since what he owes thee thou thyself dost pay.



LXXX.



O, how I faint when I of you do write,

Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,

And in the praise thereof spends all his might,

To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!

But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,

The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,

My saucy bark inferior far to his

On your broad main doth wilfully appear.

Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,

Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;

Or being wreck'd, I am a worthless boat,

He of tall building and of goodly pride:

  Then if he thrive and I be cast away,

  The worst was this; my love was my decay.



LXXXI.



Or I shall live your epitaph to make,

Or you survive when I in earth am rotten;

From hence your memory death cannot take,

Although in me each part will be forgotten.

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

The earth can yield me but a common grave,

When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,

And tongues to be your being shall rehearse

When all the breathers of this world are dead;

  You still shall live--such virtue hath my pen--

  Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.



LXXXII.



I grant thou wert not married to my Muse

And therefore mayst without attaint o'erlook

The dedicated words which writers use

Of their fair subject, blessing every book

Thou art as fair in knowledge as in hue,

Finding thy worth a limit past my praise,

And therefore art enforced to seek anew

Some fresher stamp of the time-bettering days

And do so, love; yet when they have devised

What strained touches rhetoric can lend,

Thou truly fair wert truly sympathized

In true plain words by thy true-telling friend;

  And their gross painting might be better used

  Where cheeks need blood; in thee it is abused.



LXXXIII.



I never saw that you did painting need

And therefore to your fair no painting set;

I found, or thought I found, you did exceed

The barren tender of a poet's debt;

And therefore have I slept in your report,

That you yourself being extant well might show

How far a modern quill doth come too short,

Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.

This silence for my sin you did impute,

Which shall be most my glory, being dumb;

For I impair not beauty being mute,

When others would give life and bring a tomb.

  There lives more life in one of your fair eyes

  Than both your poets can in praise devise.



LXXXIV.



Who is it that says most? which can say more

Than this rich praise, that you alone are you?

In whose confine immured is the store

Which should example where your equal grew.

Lean penury within that pen doth dwell

That to his subject lends not some small glory;

But he that writes of you, if he can tell

That you are you, so dignifies his story,

Let him but copy what in you is writ,

Not making worse what nature made so clear,

And such a counterpart shall fame his wit,

Making his style admired every where.

  You to your beauteous blessings add a curse,

  Being fond on praise, which makes your praises worse.



LXXXV.



My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,

While comments of your praise, richly compiled,

Reserve their character with golden quill

And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.

I think good thoughts whilst other write good words,

And like unletter'd clerk still cry 'Amen'

To every hymn that able spirit affords

In polish'd form of well-refined pen.

Hearing you praised, I say ''Tis so, 'tis true,'

And to the most of praise add something more;

But that is in my thought, whose love to you,

Though words come hindmost, holds his rank before.

  Then others for the breath of words respect,

  Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.



LXXXVI.



Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,

Bound for the prize of all too precious you,

That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse,

Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write

Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

No, neither he, nor his compeers by night

Giving him aid, my verse astonished.

He, nor that affable familiar ghost

Which nightly gulls him with intelligence

As victors of my silence cannot boast;

I was not sick of any fear from thence:

  But when your countenance fill'd up his line,

  Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine.



LXXXVII.



Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:

The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;

My bonds in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

And so my patent back again is swerving.

Thyself thou gavest, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgment making.

  Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,

  In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.



LXXXVIII.



When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,

And place my merit in the eye of scorn,

Upon thy side against myself I'll fight,

And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.

With mine own weakness being best acquainted,

Upon thy part I can set down a story

Of faults conceal'd, wherein I am attainted,

That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:

And I by this will be a gainer too;

For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,

The injuries that to myself I do,

Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.

  Such is my love, to thee I so belong,

  That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.



LXXXIX.



Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,

And I will comment upon that offence;

Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,

Against thy reasons making no defence.

Thou canst not, love, disgrace me half so ill,

To set a form upon desired change,

As I'll myself disgrace: knowing thy will,

I will acquaintance strangle and look strange,

Be absent from thy walks, and in my tongue

Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,

Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong

And haply of our old acquaintance tell.

  For thee against myself I'll vow debate,

  For I must ne'er love him whom thou dost hate.



XC.



Then hate me when thou wilt; if ever, now;

Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross,

Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,

And do not drop in for an after-loss:

Ah, do not, when my heart hath 'scoped this sorrow,

Come in the rearward of a conquer'd woe;

Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,

To linger out a purposed overthrow.

If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,

When other petty griefs have done their spite

But in the onset come; so shall I taste

At first the very worst of fortune's might,

  And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,

  Compared with loss of thee will not seem so.



XCI.



Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,

Some in their wealth, some in their bodies' force,

Some in their garments, though new-fangled ill,

Some in their hawks and hounds, some in their horse;

And every humour hath his adjunct pleasure,

Wherein it finds a joy above the rest:

But these particulars are not my measure;

All these I better in one general best.

Thy love is better than high birth to me,

Richer than wealth, prouder than garments' cost,

Of more delight than hawks or horses be;

And having thee, of all men's pride I boast:

  Wretched in this alone, that thou mayst take

  All this away and me most wretched make.



XCII.



But do thy worst to steal thyself away,

For term of life thou art assured mine,

And life no longer than thy love will stay,

For it depends upon that love of thine.

Then need I not to fear the worst of wrongs,

When in the least of them my life hath end.

I see a better state to me belongs

Than that which on thy humour doth depend;

Thou canst not vex me with inconstant mind,

Since that my life on thy revolt doth lie.

O, what a happy title do I find,

Happy to have thy love, happy to die!

  But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot?

  Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.



XCIII.



So shall I live, supposing thou art true,

Like a deceived husband; so love's face

May still seem love to me, though alter'd new;

Thy looks with me, thy heart in other place:

For there can live no hatred in thine eye,

Therefore in that I cannot know thy change.

In many's looks the false heart's history

Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,

But heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;

Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,

Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell.

  How like Eve's apple doth thy beauty grow,

  if thy sweet virtue answer not thy show!



XCIV.



They that have power to hurt and will do none,

That do not do the thing they most do show,

Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,

Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,

They rightly do inherit heaven's graces

And husband nature's riches from expense;

They are the lords and owners of their faces,

Others but stewards of their excellence.

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,

Though to itself it only live and die,

But if that flower with base infection meet,

The basest weed outbraves his dignity:

  For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;

  Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.



XCV.



How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame

Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,

Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!

O, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose!

That tongue that tells the story of thy days,

Making lascivious comments on thy sport,

Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise;

Naming thy name blesses an ill report.

O, what a mansion have those vices got

Which for their habitation chose out thee,

Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,

And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!

  Take heed, dear heart, of this large privilege;

  The hardest knife ill-used doth lose his edge.



XCVI.



Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;

Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;

Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;

Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort.

As on the finger of a throned queen

The basest jewel will be well esteem'd,

So are those errors that in thee are seen

To truths translated and for true things deem'd.

How many lambs might the stem wolf betray,

If like a lamb he could his looks translate!

How many gazers mightst thou lead away,

If thou wouldst use the strength of all thy state!

  But do not so; I love thee in such sort

  As, thou being mine, mine is thy good report.



XCVII.



How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

What old December's bareness every where!

And yet this time removed was summer's time,

The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,

Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,

Like widow'd wombs after their lords' decease:

Yet this abundant issue seem'd to me

But hope of orphans and unfather'd fruit;

For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,

And, thou away, the very birds are mute;

  Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer

  That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.



XCVIII.



From you have I been absent in the spring,

When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.

Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell

Of different flowers in odour and in hue

Could make me any summer's story tell,

Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;

Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;

They were but sweet, but figures of delight,

Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

  Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,

  As with your shadow I with these did play:



XCIX.



The forward violet thus did I chide:

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,

If not from my love's breath? The purple pride

Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells

In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.

The lily I condemned for thy hand,

And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair:

The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,

One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both

And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath;

But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth

A vengeful canker eat him up to death.

  More flowers I noted, yet I none could see

  But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.



C.



Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long

To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,

Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

Return, forgetful Muse, and straight redeem

In gentle numbers time so idly spent;

Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem

And gives thy pen both skill and argument.

Rise, resty Muse, my love's sweet face survey,

If Time have any wrinkle graven there;

If any, be a satire to decay,

And make Time's spoils despised every where.

  Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life;

  So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.



CI.



O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends

For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?

Both truth and beauty on my love depends;

So dost thou too, and therein dignified.

Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say

'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;

Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;

But best is best, if never intermix'd?'

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

Excuse not silence so; for't lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb,

And to be praised of ages yet to be.

  Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

  To make him seem long hence as he shows now.



CII.



My love is strengthen'd, though more weak in seeming;

I love not less, though less the show appear:

That love is merchandized whose rich esteeming

The owner's tongue doth publish every where.

Our love was new and then but in the spring

When I was wont to greet it with my lays,

As Philomel in summer's front doth sing

And stops her pipe in growth of riper days:

Not that the summer is less pleasant now

Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,

But that wild music burthens every bough

And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

  Therefore like her I sometime hold my tongue,

  Because I would not dull you with my song.



CIII.



Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth,

That having such a scope to show her pride,

The argument all bare is of more worth

Than when it hath my added praise beside!

O, blame me not, if I no more can write!

Look in your glass, and there appears a face

That over-goes my blunt invention quite,

Dulling my lines and doing me disgrace.

Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,

To mar the subject that before was well?

For to no other pass my verses tend

Than of your graces and your gifts to tell;

  And more, much more, than in my verse can sit

  Your own glass shows you when you look in it.



CIV.



To me, fair friend, you never can be old,

For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold

Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,

Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd

In process of the seasons have I seen,

Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd,

Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.

Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,

Steal from his figure and no pace perceived;

So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,

Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived:

  For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred;

  Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.



CV.



Let not my love be call'd idolatry,

Nor my beloved as an idol show,

Since all alike my songs and praises be

To one, of one, still such, and ever so.

Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,

Still constant in a wondrous excellence;

Therefore my verse to constancy confined,

One thing expressing, leaves out difference.

'Fair, kind and true' is all my argument,

'Fair, kind, and true' varying to other words;

And in this change is my invention spent,

Three themes in one, which wondrous scope affords.

  'Fair, kind, and true,' have often lived alone,

  Which three till now never kept seat in one.



CVI.



When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have express'd

Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,

They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

  For we, which now behold these present days,

  Had eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.



CVII.



Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul

Of the wide world dreaming on things to come,

Can yet the lease of my true love control,

Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom.

The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured

And the sad augurs mock their own presage;

Incertainties now crown themselves assured

And peace proclaims olives of endless age.

Now with the drops of this most balmy time

My love looks fresh, and death to me subscribes,

Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,

While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:

  And thou in this shalt find thy monument,

  When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent.



CVIII.



What's in the brain that ink may character

Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit?

What's new to speak, what new to register,

That may express my love or thy dear merit?

Nothing, sweet boy; but yet, like prayers divine,

I must, each day say o'er the very same,

Counting no old thing old, thou mine, I thine,

Even as when first I hallow'd thy fair name.

So that eternal love in love's fresh case

Weighs not the dust and injury of age,

Nor gives to necessary wrinkles place,

But makes antiquity for aye his page,

  Finding the first conceit of love there bred

  Where time and outward form would show it dead.



CIX.



O, never say that I was false of heart,

Though absence seem'd my flame to qualify.

As easy might I from myself depart

As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie:

That is my home of love: if I have ranged,

Like him that travels I return again,

Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,

So that myself bring water for my stain.

Never believe, though in my nature reign'd

All frailties that besiege all kinds of blood,

That it could so preposterously be stain'd,

To leave for nothing all thy sum of good;

  For nothing this wide universe I call,

  Save thou, my rose; in it thou art my all.



CX.



Alas, 'tis true I have gone here and there

And made myself a motley to the view,

Gored mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,

Made old offences of affections new;

Most true it is that I have look'd on truth

Askance and strangely: but, by all above,

These blenches gave my heart another youth,

And worse essays proved thee my best of love.

Now all is done, have what shall have no end:

Mine appetite I never more will grind

On newer proof, to try an older friend,

A god in love, to whom I am confined.

  Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,

  Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.



CXI.



O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

That did not better for my life provide

Than public means which public manners breeds.

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

And almost thence my nature is subdued

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:

Pity me then and wish I were renew'd;

Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink

Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection

No bitterness that I will bitter think,

Nor double penance, to correct correction.

  Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye

  Even that your pity is enough to cure me.



CXII.



Your love and pity doth the impression fill

Which vulgar scandal stamp'd upon my brow;

For what care I who calls me well or ill,

So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?

You are my all the world, and I must strive

To know my shames and praises from your tongue:

None else to me, nor I to none alive,

That my steel'd sense or changes right or wrong.

In so profound abysm I throw all care

Of others' voices, that my adder's sense

To critic and to flatterer stopped are.

Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:

  You are so strongly in my purpose bred

  That all the world besides methinks are dead.



CXIII.



Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind;

And that which governs me to go about

Doth part his function and is partly blind,

Seems seeing, but effectually is out;

For it no form delivers to the heart

Of bird of flower, or shape, which it doth latch:

Of his quick objects hath the mind no part,

Nor his own vision holds what it doth catch:

For if it see the rudest or gentlest sight,

The most sweet favour or deformed'st creature,

The mountain or the sea, the day or night,

The crow or dove, it shapes them to your feature:

  Incapable of more, replete with you,

  My most true mind thus makes mine eye untrue.



CXIV.



Or whether doth my mind, being crown'd with you,

Drink up the monarch's plague, this flattery?

Or whether shall I say, mine eye saith true,

And that your love taught it this alchemy,

To make of monsters and things indigest

Such cherubins as your sweet self resemble,

Creating every bad a perfect best,

As fast as objects to his beams assemble?

O,'tis the first; 'tis flattery in my seeing,

And my great mind most kingly drinks it up:

Mine eye well knows what with his gust is 'greeing,

And to his palate doth prepare the cup:

  If it be poison'd, 'tis the lesser sin

  That mine eye loves it and doth first begin.



CXV.



Those lines that I before have writ do lie,

Even those that said I could not love you dearer:

Yet then my judgment knew no reason why

My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.

But reckoning time, whose million'd accidents

Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings,

Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,

Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;

Alas, why, fearing of time's tyranny,

Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'

When I was certain o'er incertainty,

Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?

  Love is a babe; then might I not say so,

  To give full growth to that which still doth grow?



CXVI.



Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  If this be error and upon me proved,

  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.



CXVII.



Accuse me thus: that I have scanted all

Wherein I should your great deserts repay,

Forgot upon your dearest love to call,

Whereto all bonds do tie me day by day;

That I have frequent been with unknown minds

And given to time your own dear-purchased right

That I have hoisted sail to all the winds

Which should transport me farthest from your sight.

Book both my wilfulness and errors down

And on just proof surmise accumulate;

Bring me within the level of your frown,

But shoot not at me in your waken'd hate;

  Since my appeal says I did strive to prove

  The constancy and virtue of your love.



CXVIII.



Like as, to make our appetites more keen,

With eager compounds we our palate urge,

As, to prevent our maladies unseen,

We sicken to shun sickness when we purge,

Even so, being tuff of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,

To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding

And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness

To be diseased ere that there was true needing.

Thus policy in love, to anticipate

The ills that were not, grew to faults assured

And brought to medicine a healthful state

Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured:

  But thence I learn, and find the lesson true,

  Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.



CXIX.



What potions have I drunk of Siren tears,

Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within,

Applying fears to hopes and hopes to fears,

Still losing when I saw myself to win!

What wretched errors hath my heart committed,

Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never!

How have mine eyes out of their spheres been fitted

In the distraction of this madding fever!

O benefit of ill! now I find true

That better is by evil still made better;

And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,

Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.

  So I return rebuked to my content

  And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.



CXX.



That you were once unkind befriends me now,

And for that sorrow which I then did feel

Needs must I under my transgression bow,

Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.

For if you were by my unkindness shaken

As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time,

And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken

To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.

O, that our night of woe might have remember'd

My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,

And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd

The humble slave which wounded bosoms fits!

  But that your trespass now becomes a fee;

  Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.



CXXI.



'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,

When not to be receives reproach of being,

And the just pleasure lost which is so deem'd

Not by our feeling but by others' seeing:

For why should others false adulterate eyes

Give salutation to my sportive blood?

Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,

Which in their wills count bad what I think good?

No, I am that I am, and they that level

At my abuses reckon up their own:

I may be straight, though they themselves be bevel;

By their rank thoughts my deeds must not be shown;

  Unless this general evil they maintain,

  All men are bad, and in their badness reign.



CXXII.



Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain

Full character'd with lasting memory,

Which shall above that idle rank remain

Beyond all date, even to eternity;

Or at the least, so long as brain and heart

Have faculty by nature to subsist;

Till each to razed oblivion yield his part

Of thee, thy record never can be miss'd.

That poor retention could not so much hold,

Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;

Therefore to give them from me was I bold,

To trust those tables that receive thee more:

  To keep an adjunct to remember thee

  Were to import forgetfulness in me.



CXXIII.



No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change:

Thy pyramids built up with newer might

To me are nothing novel, nothing strange;

They are but dressings of a former sight.

Our dates are brief, and therefore we admire

What thou dost foist upon us that is old,

And rather make them born to our desire

Than think that we before have heard them told.

Thy registers and thee I both defy,

Not wondering at the present nor the past,

For thy records and what we see doth lie,

Made more or less by thy continual haste.

  This I do vow and this shall ever be;

  I will be true, despite thy scythe and thee.



CXXIV.



If my dear love were but the child of state,

It might for Fortune's bastard be unfather'd'

As subject to Time's love or to Time's hate,

Weeds among weeds, or flowers with flowers gather'd.

No, it was builded far from accident;

It suffers not in smiling pomp, nor falls

Under the blow of thralled discontent,

Whereto the inviting time our fashion calls:

It fears not policy, that heretic,

Which works on leases of short-number'd hours,

But all alone stands hugely politic,

That it nor grows with heat nor drowns with showers.

  To this I witness call the fools of time,

  Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.



CXXV.



Were 't aught to me I bore the canopy,

With my extern the outward honouring,

Or laid great bases for eternity,

Which prove more short than waste or ruining?

Have I not seen dwellers on form and favour

Lose all, and more, by paying too much rent,

For compound sweet forgoing simple savour,

Pitiful thrivers, in their gazing spent?

No, let me be obsequious in thy heart,

And take thou my oblation, poor but free,

Which is not mix'd with seconds, knows no art,

But mutual render, only me for thee.

  Hence, thou suborn'd informer! a true soul

  When most impeach'd stands least in thy control.



CXXVI.



O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power

Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle, hour;

Who hast by waning grown, and therein show'st

Thy lovers withering as thy sweet self grow'st;

If Nature, sovereign mistress over wrack,

As thou goest onwards, still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose, that her skill

May time disgrace and wretched minutes kill.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!

She may detain, but not still keep, her treasure:

  Her audit, though delay'd, answer'd must be,

  And her quietus is to render thee.



CXXVII.



In the old age black was not counted fair,

Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;

But now is black beauty's successive heir,

And beauty slander'd with a bastard shame:

For since each hand hath put on nature's power,

Fairing the foul with art's false borrow'd face,

Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,

But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.

Therefore my mistress' brows are raven black,

Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem

At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,

Slandering creation with a false esteem:

  Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,

  That every tongue says beauty should look so.



CXXVIII.



How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,

Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds

With thy sweet fingers, when thou gently sway'st

The wiry concord that mine ear confounds,

Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap

To kiss the tender inward of thy hand,

Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,

At the wood's boldness by thee blushing stand!

To be so tickled, they would change their state

And situation with those dancing chips,

O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait,

Making dead wood more blest than living lips.

  Since saucy jacks so happy are in this,

  Give them thy fingers, me thy lips to kiss.



CXXIX.



The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action; and till action, lust

Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,

Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,

Past reason hunted, and no sooner had

Past reason hated, as a swallow'd bait

On purpose laid to make the taker mad;

Mad in pursuit and in possession so;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.

  All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

  To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.



CXXX.



My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

  And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

  As any she belied with false compare.



CXXXI.



Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art,

As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel;

For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart

Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel.

Yet, in good faith, some say that thee behold

Thy face hath not the power to make love groan:

To say they err I dare not be so bold,

Although I swear it to myself alone.

And, to be sure that is not false I swear,

A thousand groans, but thinking on thy face,

One on another's neck, do witness bear

Thy black is fairest in my judgment's place.

  In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds,

  And thence this slander, as I think, proceeds.



CXXXII.



Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,

Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain,

Have put on black and loving mourners be,

Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.

And truly not the morning sun of heaven

Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,

Nor that full star that ushers in the even

Doth half that glory to the sober west,

As those two mourning eyes become thy face:

O, let it then as well beseem thy heart

To mourn for me, since mourning doth thee grace,

And suit thy pity like in every part.

  Then will I swear beauty herself is black

  And all they foul that thy complexion lack.



CXXXIII.



Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan

For that deep wound it gives my friend and me!

Is't not enough to torture me alone,

But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be?

Me from myself thy cruel eye hath taken,

And my next self thou harder hast engross'd:

Of him, myself, and thee, I am forsaken;

A torment thrice threefold thus to be cross'd.

Prison my heart in thy steel bosom's ward,

But then my friend's heart let my poor heart bail;

Whoe'er keeps me, let my heart be his guard;

Thou canst not then use rigor in my gaol:

  And yet thou wilt; for I, being pent in thee,

  Perforce am thine, and all that is in me.



CXXXIV.



So, now I have confess'd that he is thine,

And I myself am mortgaged to thy will,

Myself I'll forfeit, so that other mine

Thou wilt restore, to be my comfort still:

But thou wilt not, nor he will not be free,

For thou art covetous and he is kind;

He learn'd but surety-like to write for me

Under that bond that him as fast doth bind.

The statute of thy beauty thou wilt take,

Thou usurer, that put'st forth all to use,

And sue a friend came debtor for my sake;

So him I lose through my unkind abuse.

  Him have I lost; thou hast both him and me:

  He pays the whole, and yet am I not free.



CXXXV.



Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy 'Will,'

And 'Will' to boot, and 'Will' in overplus;

More than enough am I that vex thee still,

To thy sweet will making addition thus.

Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?

Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?

The sea all water, yet receives rain still

And in abundance addeth to his store;

So thou, being rich in 'Will,' add to thy 'Will'

One will of mine, to make thy large 'Will' more.

  Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;

  Think all but one, and me in that one 'Will.'



CXXXVI.



If thy soul cheque thee that I come so near,

Swear to thy blind soul that I was thy 'Will,'

And will, thy soul knows, is admitted there;

Thus far for love my love-suit, sweet, fulfil.

'Will' will fulfil the treasure of thy love,

Ay, fill it full with wills, and my will one.

In things of great receipt with ease we prove

Among a number one is reckon'd none:

Then in the number let me pass untold,

Though in thy stores' account I one must be;

For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold

That nothing me, a something sweet to thee:

  Make but my name thy love, and love that still,

  And then thou lovest me, for my name is 'Will.'



CXXXVII.



Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,

That they behold, and see not what they see?

They know what beauty is, see where it lies,

Yet what the best is take the worst to be.

If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks

Be anchor'd in the bay where all men ride,

Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forged hooks,

Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?

Why should my heart think that a several plot

Which my heart knows the wide world's common place?

Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not,

To put fair truth upon so foul a face?

  In things right true my heart and eyes have erred,

  And to this false plague are they now transferr'd.



CXXXVIII.



When my love swears that she is made of truth

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor'd youth,

Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false speaking tongue:

On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd.

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O, love's best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told:

  Therefore I lie with her and she with me,

  And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.



CXXXIX.



O, call not me to justify the wrong

That thy unkindness lays upon my heart;

Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue;

Use power with power and slay me not by art.

Tell me thou lovest elsewhere, but in my sight,

Dear heart, forbear to glance thine eye aside:

What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might

Is more than my o'er-press'd defense can bide?

Let me excuse thee: ah! my love well knows

Her pretty looks have been mine enemies,

And therefore from my face she turns my foes,

That they elsewhere might dart their injuries:

  Yet do not so; but since I am near slain,

  Kill me outright with looks and rid my pain.



CXL.



Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press

My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

Lest sorrow lend me words and words express

The manner of my pity-wanting pain.

If I might teach thee wit, better it were,

Though not to love, yet, love, to tell me so;

As testy sick men, when their deaths be near,

No news but health from their physicians know;

For if I should despair, I should grow mad,

And in my madness might speak ill of thee:

Now this ill-wresting world is grown so bad,

Mad slanderers by mad ears believed be,

  That I may not be so, nor thou belied,

  Bear thine eyes straight, though thy proud heart go wide.



CXLI.



In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,

For they in thee a thousand errors note;

But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;

Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,

Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,

Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone:

But my five wits nor my five senses can

Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,

Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,

Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:

  Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

  That she that makes me sin awards me pain.



CXLII.



Love is my sin and thy dear virtue hate,

Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:

O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,

And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;

Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,

That have profaned their scarlet ornaments

And seal'd false bonds of love as oft as mine,

Robb'd others' beds' revenues of their rents.

Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lovest those

Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:

Root pity in thy heart, that when it grows

Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.

  If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,

  By self-example mayst thou be denied!



CXLIII.



Lo! as a careful housewife runs to catch

One of her feather'd creatures broke away,

Sets down her babe and makes an swift dispatch

In pursuit of the thing she would have stay,

Whilst her neglected child holds her in chase,

Cries to catch her whose busy care is bent

To follow that which flies before her face,

Not prizing her poor infant's discontent;

So runn'st thou after that which flies from thee,

Whilst I thy babe chase thee afar behind;

But if thou catch thy hope, turn back to me,

And play the mother's part, kiss me, be kind:

  So will I pray that thou mayst have thy 'Will,'

  If thou turn back, and my loud crying still.



CXLIV.



Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still:

The better angel is a man right fair,

The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.

To win me soon to hell, my female evil

Tempteth my better angel from my side,

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

Wooing his purity with her foul pride.

And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend

Suspect I may, but not directly tell;

But being both from me, both to each friend,

I guess one angel in another's hell:

  Yet this shall I ne'er know, but live in doubt,

  Till my bad angel fire my good one out.



CXLV.



Those lips that Love's own hand did make

Breathed forth the sound that said 'I hate'

To me that languish'd for her sake;

But when she saw my woeful state,

Straight in her heart did mercy come,

Chiding that tongue that ever sweet

Was used in giving gentle doom,

And taught it thus anew to greet:

'I hate' she alter'd with an end,

That follow'd it as gentle day

Doth follow night, who like a fiend

From heaven to hell is flown away;

  'I hate' from hate away she threw,

  And saved my life, saying 'not you.'



CXLVI.



Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

[         ] these rebel powers that thee array;

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?

Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?

Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?

Then soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,

And let that pine to aggravate thy store;

Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more:

  So shalt thou feed on Death, that feeds on men,

  And Death once dead, there's no more dying then.



CXLVII.



My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease,

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,

The uncertain sickly appetite to please.

My reason, the physician to my love,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve

Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,

At random from the truth vainly express'd;

  For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,

  Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.



CXLVIII.



O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,

Which have no correspondence with true sight!

Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,

That censures falsely what they see aright?

If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,

What means the world to say it is not so?

If it be not, then love doth well denote

Love's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.'

How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,

That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?

No marvel then, though I mistake my view;

The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.

  O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,

  Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.



CXLIX.



Canst thou, O cruel! say I love thee not,

When I against myself with thee partake?

Do I not think on thee, when I forgot

Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?

Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?

On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?

Nay, if thou lour'st on me, do I not spend

Revenge upon myself with present moan?

What merit do I in myself respect,

That is so proud thy service to despise,

When all my best doth worship thy defect,

Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?

  But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind;

  Those that can see thou lovest, and I am blind.



CL.



O, from what power hast thou this powerful might

With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,

And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?

Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantize of skill

That, in my mind, thy worst all best exceeds?

Who taught thee how to make me love thee more

The more I hear and see just cause of hate?

O, though I love what others do abhor,

With others thou shouldst not abhor my state:

  If thy unworthiness raised love in me,

  More worthy I to be beloved of thee.



CLI.



Love is too young to know what conscience is;

Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,

Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:

For, thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my gross body's treason;

My soul doth tell my body that he may

Triumph in love; flesh stays no father reason;

But, rising at thy name, doth point out thee

As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,

He is contented thy poor drudge to be,

To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

  No want of conscience hold it that I call

  Her 'love' for whose dear love I rise and fall.



CLII.



In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,

But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing,

In act thy bed-vow broke and new faith torn,

In vowing new hate after new love bearing.

But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,

When I break twenty? I am perjured most;

For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee

And all my honest faith in thee is lost,

For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,

Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy,

And, to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness,

Or made them swear against the thing they see;

  For I have sworn thee fair; more perjured I,

  To swear against the truth so foul a lie!



CLIII.



Cupid laid by his brand, and fell asleep:

A maid of Dian's this advantage found,

And his love-kindling fire did quickly steep

In a cold valley-fountain of that ground;

Which borrow'd from this holy fire of Love

A dateless lively heat, still to endure,

And grew a seething bath, which yet men prove

Against strange maladies a sovereign cure.

But at my mistress' eye Love's brand new-fired,

The boy for trial needs would touch my breast;

I, sick withal, the help of bath desired,

And thither hied, a sad distemper'd guest,

  But found no cure: the bath for my help lies

  Where Cupid got new fire--my mistress' eyes.



CLIV.



The little Love-god lying once asleep

Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,

Whilst many nymphs that vow'd chaste life to keep

Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand

The fairest votary took up that fire

Which many legions of true hearts had warm'd;

And so the general of hot desire

Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm'd.

This brand she quenched in a cool well by,

Which from Love's fire took heat perpetual,

Growing a bath and healthful remedy

For men diseased; but I, my mistress' thrall,

  Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,

  Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.







  

     A LOVER'S COMPLAINT







FROM off a hill whose concave womb reworded

A plaintful story from a sistering vale,

My spirits to attend this double voice accorded,

And down I laid to list the sad-tuned tale;

Ere long espied a fickle maid full pale,

Tearing of papers, breaking rings a-twain,

Storming her world with sorrow's wind and rain.



Upon her head a platted hive of straw,

Which fortified her visage from the sun,

Whereon the thought might think sometime it saw

The carcass of beauty spent and done:

Time had not scythed all that youth begun,

Nor youth all quit; but, spite of heaven's fell rage,

Some beauty peep'd through lattice of sear'd age.



Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne,

Which on it had conceited characters,

Laundering the silken figures in the brine

That season'd woe had pelleted in tears,

And often reading what contents it bears;

As often shrieking undistinguish'd woe,

In clamours of all size, both high and low.



Sometimes her levell'd eyes their carriage ride,

As they did battery to the spheres intend;

Sometime diverted their poor balls are tied

To the orbed earth; sometimes they do extend

Their view right on; anon their gazes lend

To every place at once, and, nowhere fix'd,

The mind and sight distractedly commix'd.



Her hair, nor loose nor tied in formal plat,

Proclaim'd in her a careless hand of pride

For some, untuck'd, descended her sheaved hat,

Hanging her pale and pined cheek beside;

Some in her threaden fillet still did bide,

And true to bondage would not break from thence,

Though slackly braided in loose negligence.



A thousand favours from a maund she drew

Of amber, crystal, and of beaded jet,

Which one by one she in a river threw,

Upon whose weeping margent she was set;

Like usury, applying wet to wet,

Or monarch's hands that let not bounty fall

Where want cries some, but where excess begs all.



Of folded schedules had she many a one,

Which she perused, sigh'd, tore, and gave the flood;

Crack'd many a ring of posied gold and bone

Bidding them find their sepulchres in mud;

Found yet moe letters sadly penn'd in blood,

With sleided silk feat and affectedly

Enswathed, and seal'd to curious secrecy.



These often bathed she in her fluxive eyes,

And often kiss'd, and often 'gan to tear:

Cried 'O false blood, thou register of lies,

What unapproved witness dost thou bear!

Ink would have seem'd more black and damned here!'

This said, in top of rage the lines she rents,

Big discontent so breaking their contents.



A reverend man that grazed his cattle nigh--

Sometime a blusterer, that the ruffle knew

Of court, of city, and had let go by

The swiftest hours, observed as they flew--

Towards this afflicted fancy fastly drew,

And, privileged by age, desires to know

In brief the grounds and motives of her woe.



So slides he down upon his grained bat,

And comely-distant sits he by her side;

When he again desires her, being sat,

Her grievance with his hearing to divide:

If that from him there may be aught applied

Which may her suffering ecstasy assuage,

'Tis promised in the charity of age.



'Father,' she says, 'though in me you behold

The injury of many a blasting hour,

Let it not tell your judgment I am old;

Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power:

I might as yet have been a spreading flower,

Fresh to myself, If I had self-applied

Love to myself and to no love beside.



'But, woe is me! too early I attended

A youthful suit--it was to gain my grace--

Of one by nature's outwards so commended,

That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face:

Love lack'd a dwelling, and made him her place;

And when in his fair parts she did abide,

She was new lodged and newly deified.



'His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;

And every light occasion of the wind

Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.

What's sweet to do, to do will aptly find:

Each eye that saw him did enchant the mind,

For on his visage was in little drawn

What largeness thinks in Paradise was sawn.



'Small show of man was yet upon his chin;

His phoenix down began but to appear

Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin

Whose bare out-bragg'd the web it seem'd to wear:

Yet show'd his visage by that cost more dear;

And nice affections wavering stood in doubt

If best were as it was, or best without.



'His qualities were beauteous as his form,

For maiden-tongued he was, and thereof free;

Yet, if men moved him, was he such a storm

As oft 'twixt May and April is to see,

When winds breathe sweet, untidy though they be.

His rudeness so with his authorized youth

Did livery falseness in a pride of truth.



'Well could he ride, and often men would say

'That horse his mettle from his rider takes:

Proud of subjection, noble by the sway,

What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop

he makes!'

And controversy hence a question takes,

Whether the horse by him became his deed,

Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.



'But quickly on this side the verdict went:

His real habitude gave life and grace

To appertainings and to ornament,

Accomplish'd in himself, not in his case:

All aids, themselves made fairer by their place,

Came for additions; yet their purposed trim

Pieced not his grace, but were all graced by him.



'So on the tip of his subduing tongue

All kinds of arguments and question deep,

All replication prompt, and reason strong,

For his advantage still did wake and sleep:

To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep,

He had the dialect and different skill,

Catching all passions in his craft of will:



'That he did in the general bosom reign

Of young, of old; and sexes both enchanted,

To dwell with him in thoughts, or to remain

In personal duty, following where he haunted:

Consents bewitch'd, ere he desire, have granted;

And dialogued for him what he would say,

Ask'd their own wills, and made their wills obey.



'Many there were that did his picture get,

To serve their eyes, and in it put their mind;

Like fools that in th' imagination set

The goodly objects which abroad they find

Of lands and mansions, theirs in thought assign'd;

And labouring in moe pleasures to bestow them

Than the true gouty landlord which doth owe them:



'So many have, that never touch'd his hand,

Sweetly supposed them mistress of his heart.

My woeful self, that did in freedom stand,

And was my own fee-simple, not in part,

What with his art in youth, and youth in art,

Threw my affections in his charmed power,

Reserved the stalk and gave him all my flower.



'Yet did I not, as some my equals did,

Demand of him, nor being desired yielded;

Finding myself in honour so forbid,

With safest distance I mine honour shielded:

Experience for me many bulwarks builded

Of proofs new-bleeding, which remain'd the foil

Of this false jewel, and his amorous spoil.



'But, ah, who ever shunn'd by precedent

The destined ill she must herself assay?

Or forced examples, 'gainst her own content,

To put the by-past perils in her way?

Counsel may stop awhile what will not stay;

For when we rage, advice is often seen

By blunting us to make our wits more keen.



'Nor gives it satisfaction to our blood,

That we must curb it upon others' proof;

To be forbod the sweets that seem so good,

For fear of harms that preach in our behoof.

O appetite, from judgment stand aloof!

The one a palate hath that needs will taste,

Though Reason weep, and cry, 'It is thy last.'



'For further I could say 'This man's untrue,'

And knew the patterns of his foul beguiling;

Heard where his plants in others' orchards grew,

Saw how deceits were gilded in his smiling;

Knew vows were ever brokers to defiling;

Thought characters and words merely but art,

And bastards of his foul adulterate heart.



'And long upon these terms I held my city,

Till thus he gan besiege me: 'Gentle maid,

Have of my suffering youth some feeling pity,

And be not of my holy vows afraid:

That's to ye sworn to none was ever said;

For feasts of love I have been call'd unto,

Till now did ne'er invite, nor never woo.



''All my offences that abroad you see

Are errors of the blood, none of the mind;

Love made them not: with acture they may be,

Where neither party is nor true nor kind:

They sought their shame that so their shame did find;

And so much less of shame in me remains,

By how much of me their reproach contains.



''Among the many that mine eyes have seen,

Not one whose flame my heart so much as warm'd,

Or my affection put to the smallest teen,

Or any of my leisures ever charm'd:

Harm have I done to them, but ne'er was harm'd;

Kept hearts in liveries, but mine own was free,

And reign'd, commanding in his monarchy.



''Look here, what tributes wounded fancies sent me,

Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood;

Figuring that they their passions likewise lent me

Of grief and blushes, aptly understood

In bloodless white and the encrimson'd mood;

Effects of terror and dear modesty,

Encamp'd in hearts, but fighting outwardly.



''And, lo, behold these talents of their hair,

With twisted metal amorously impleach'd,

I have received from many a several fair,

Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd,

With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd,

And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify

Each stone's dear nature, worth, and quality.



''The diamond,--why, 'twas beautiful and hard,

Whereto his invised properties did tend;

The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard

Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend;

The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend

With objects manifold: each several stone,

With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan.



''Lo, all these trophies of affections hot,

Of pensived and subdued desires the tender,

Nature hath charged me that I hoard them not,

But yield them up where I myself must render,

That is, to you, my origin and ender;

For these, of force, must your oblations be,

Since I their altar, you enpatron me.



''O, then, advance of yours that phraseless hand,

Whose white weighs down the airy scale of praise;

Take all these similes to your own command,

Hallow'd with sighs that burning lungs did raise;

What me your minister, for you obeys,

Works under you; and to your audit comes

Their distract parcels in combined sums.



''Lo, this device was sent me from a nun,

Or sister sanctified, of holiest note;

Which late her noble suit in court did shun,

Whose rarest havings made the blossoms dote;

For she was sought by spirits of richest coat,

But kept cold distance, and did thence remove,

To spend her living in eternal love.



''But, O my sweet, what labour is't to leave

The thing we have not, mastering what not strives,

Playing the place which did no form receive,

Playing patient sports in unconstrained gyves?

She that her fame so to herself contrives,

The scars of battle 'scapeth by the flight,

And makes her absence valiant, not her might.



''O, pardon me, in that my boast is true:

The accident which brought me to her eye

Upon the moment did her force subdue,

And now she would the caged cloister fly:

Religious love put out Religion's eye:

Not to be tempted, would she be immured,

And now, to tempt, all liberty procured.



''How mighty then you are, O, hear me tell!

The broken bosoms that to me belong

Have emptied all their fountains in my well,

And mine I pour your ocean all among:

I strong o'er them, and you o'er me being strong,

Must for your victory us all congest,

As compound love to physic your cold breast.



''My parts had power to charm a sacred nun,

Who, disciplined, ay, dieted in grace,

Believed her eyes when they to assail begun,

All vows and consecrations giving place:

O most potential love! vow, bond, nor space,

In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine,

For thou art all, and all things else are thine.



''When thou impressest, what are precepts worth

Of stale example? When thou wilt inflame,

How coldly those impediments stand forth

Of wealth, of filial fear, law, kindred, fame!

Love's arms are peace, 'gainst rule, 'gainst sense,

'gainst shame,

And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,

The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.



''Now all these hearts that do on mine depend,

Feeling it break, with bleeding groans they pine;

And supplicant their sighs to you extend,

To leave the battery that you make 'gainst mine,

Lending soft audience to my sweet design,

And credent soul to that strong-bonded oath

That shall prefer and undertake my troth.'



'This said, his watery eyes he did dismount,

Whose sights till then were levell'd on my face;

Each cheek a river running from a fount

With brinish current downward flow'd apace:

O, how the channel to the stream gave grace!

Who glazed with crystal gate the glowing roses

That flame through water which their hue encloses.



'O father, what a hell of witchcraft lies

In the small orb of one particular tear!

But with the inundation of the eyes

What rocky heart to water will not wear?

What breast so cold that is not warmed here?

O cleft effect! cold modesty, hot wrath,

Both fire from hence and chill extincture hath.



'For, lo, his passion, but an art of craft,

Even there resolved my reason into tears;

There my white stole of chastity I daff'd,

Shook off my sober guards and civil fears;

Appear to him, as he to me appears,

All melting; though our drops this difference bore,

His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.



'In him a plenitude of subtle matter,

Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,

Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,

Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,

In either's aptness, as it best deceives,

To blush at speeches rank to weep at woes,

Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows.



'That not a heart which in his level came

Could 'scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,

Showing fair nature is both kind and tame;

And, veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:

Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;

When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,

He preach'd pure maid, and praised cold chastity.



'Thus merely with the garment of a Grace

The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd;

That th' unexperient gave the tempter place,

Which like a cherubin above them hover'd.

Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?

Ay me! I fell; and yet do question make

What I should do again for such a sake.



'O, that infected moisture of his eye,

O, that false fire which in his cheek so glow'd,

O, that forced thunder from his heart did fly,

O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestow'd,

O, all that borrow'd motion seeming owed,

Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd,

And new pervert a reconciled maid!'









     THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM







I.



WHEN my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutor'd youth,

Unskilful in the world's false forgeries.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although I know my years be past the best,

I smiling credit her false-speaking tongue,

Outfacing faults in love with love's ill rest.

But wherefore says my love that she is young?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?

O, love's best habit is a soothing tongue,

And age, in love, loves not to have years told.

Therefore I'll lie with love, and love with me,

Since that our faults in love thus smother'd be.





II.



Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,

That like two spirits do suggest me still;

My better angel is a man right fair,

My worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.

To win me soon to hell, my female evil

Tempteth my better angel from my side,

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

Wooing his purity with her fair pride.

And whether that my angel be turn'd fiend,

Suspect I may, yet not directly tell:

For being both to me, both to each friend,

I guess one angel in another's hell;

The truth I shall not know, but live in doubt,

Till my bad angel fire my good one out.





III.



Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,

'Gainst whom the world could not hold argument,

Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.

A woman I forswore; but I will prove,

Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee:

My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love;

Thy grace being gain'd cures all disgrace in me.

My vow was breath, and breath a vapour is;

Then, thou fair sun, that on this earth doth shine,

Exhale this vapour vow; in thee it is:

If broken, then it is no fault of mine.

If by me broke, what fool is not so wise

To break an oath, to win a paradise?





IV.



Sweet Cytherea, sitting by a brook

With young Adonis, lovely, fresh, and green,

Did court the lad with many a lovely look,

Such looks as none could look but beauty's queen.

She told him stories to delight his ear;

She showed him favors to allure his eye;

To win his heart, she touch'd him here and there,--

Touches so soft still conquer chastity.

But whether unripe years did want conceit,

Or he refused to take her figured proffer,

The tender nibbler would not touch the bait,

But smile and jest at every gentle offer:

Then fell she on her back, fair queen, and toward:

He rose and ran away; ah, fool too froward!





V.



If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love?

O never faith could hold, if not to beauty vow'd:

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I'll constant prove;

Those thoughts, to me like oaks, to thee like osiers bow'd.

Study his bias leaves, and makes his book thine eyes,

Where all those pleasures live that art can comprehend.

If knowledge be the mark, to know thee shall suffice;

Well learned is that tongue that well can thee commend;

All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder;

Which is to me some praise, that I thy parts admire:

Thine eye Jove's lightning seems, thy voice his dreadful

thunder,

Which, not to anger bent, is music and sweet fire.

Celestial as thou art, O do not love that wrong,

To sing heaven's praise with such an earthly tongue.





VI.



Scarce had the sun dried up the dewy morn,

And scarce the herd gone to the hedge for shade,

When Cytherea, all in love forlorn,

A longing tarriance for Adonis made

Under an osier growing by a brook,

A brook where Adon used to cool his spleen:

Hot was the day; she hotter that did look

For his approach, that often there had been.

Anon he comes, and throws his mantle by,

And stood stark naked on the brook's green brim:

The sun look'd on the world with glorious eye,

Yet not so wistly as this queen on him.

He, spying her, bounced in, whereas he stood:

'O Jove,' quoth she, 'why was not I a flood!'





VII.



Fair is my love, but not so fair as fickle;

Mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty;

Brighter than glass, and yet, as glass is, brittle;

Softer than wax, and yet, as iron, rusty:

A lily pale, with damask dye to grace her,

None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.



Her lips to mine how often hath she joined,

Between each kiss her oaths of true love swearing!

How many tales to please me hath she coined,

Dreading my love, the loss thereof still fearing!

Yet in the midst of all her pure protestings,

Her faith, her oaths, her tears, and all were jestings.



She burn'd with love, as straw with fire flameth;

She burn'd out love, as soon as straw outburneth;

She framed the love, and yet she foil'd the framing;

She bade love last, and yet she fell a-turning.

Was this a lover, or a lecher whether?

Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.





VIII.



If music and sweet poetry agree,

As they must needs, the sister and the brother,

Then must the love be great 'twixt thee and me,

Because thou lovest the one, and I the other.

Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch

Upon the lute doth ravish human sense;

Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such

As, passing all conceit, needs no defence.

Thou lovest to hear the sweet melodious sound

That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes;

And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd

When as himself to singing he betakes.

One god is god of both, as poets feign;

One knight loves both, and both in thee remain.





IX.



Fair was the morn when the fair queen of love,

[            ]

Paler for sorrow than her milk-white dove,

For Adon's sake, a youngster proud and wild;

Her stand she takes upon a steep-up hill:

Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;

She, silly queen, with more than love's good will,

Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds:

'Once,' quoth she, 'did I see a fair sweet youth

Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,

Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth!

See, in my thigh,' quoth she, 'here was the sore.'

She showed hers: he saw more wounds than one,

And blushing fled, and left her all alone.





X.



Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon vaded,

Pluck'd in the bud, and vaded in the spring!

Bright orient pearl, alack, too timely shaded!

Fair creature, kill'd too soon by death's sharp sting!

Like a green plum that hangs upon a tree,

And falls, through wind, before the fall should be.



I weep for thee, and yet no cause I have;

For why thou left'st me nothing in thy will:

And yet thou left'st me more than I did crave;

For why I craved nothing of thee still:

O yes, dear friend, I pardon crave of thee,

Thy discontent thou didst bequeath to me.





XI.



Venus, with young Adonis sitting by her

Under a myrtle shade, began to woo him:

She told the youngling how god Mars did try her,

And as he fell to her, so fell she to him.

'Even thus,' quoth she, 'the warlike god embraced me,'

And then she clipp'd Adonis in her arms;

'Even thus,' quoth she, 'the warlike god unlaced me,'

As if the boy should use like loving charms;

'Even thus,' quoth she, 'he seized on my lips,'

And with her lips on his did act the seizure:

And as she fetched breath, away he skips,

And would not take her meaning nor her pleasure.

Ah, that I had my lady at this bay,

To kiss and clip me till I run away!





XII.



Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:

Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;

Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;

Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.

Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short;

Youth is nimble, age is lame;

Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold;

Youth is wild, and age is tame.

Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee;

O, my love, my love is young!

Age, I do defy thee: O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,

For methinks thou stay'st too long,





XIII.



Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;

A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;

A flower that dies when first it gins to bud;

A brittle glass that's broken presently:

A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,

Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.



And as goods lost are seld or never found,

As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,

As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground,

As broken glass no cement can redress,

So beauty blemish'd once's for ever lost,

In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost.





XIV.



Good night, good rest. Ah, neither be my share:

She bade good night that kept my rest away;

And daff'd me to a cabin hang'd with care,

To descant on the doubts of my decay.

'Farewell,' quoth she, 'and come again tomorrow:'

Fare well I could not, for I supp'd with sorrow.



Yet at my parting sweetly did she smile,

In scorn or friendship, nill I construe whether:

'T may be, she joy'd to jest at my exile,

'T may be, again to make me wander thither:

'Wander,' a word for shadows like myself,

As take the pain, but cannot pluck the pelf.





XV.



Lord, how mine eyes throw gazes to the east!

My heart doth charge the watch; the morning rise

Doth cite each moving sense from idle rest.

Not daring trust the office of mine eyes,

While Philomela sits and sings, I sit and mark,

And wish her lays were tuned like the lark;



For she doth welcome daylight with her ditty,

And drives away dark dismal-dreaming night:

The night so pack'd, I post unto my pretty;

Heart hath his hope, and eyes their wished sight;

Sorrow changed to solace, solace mix'd with sorrow;

For why, she sigh'd and bade me come tomorrow.



Were I with her, the night would post too soon;

But now are minutes added to the hours;

To spite me now, each minute seems a moon;

Yet not for me, shine sun to succor flowers!

Pack night, peep day; good day, of night now borrow:

Short, night, to-night, and length thyself tomorrow.







     SONNETS TO SUNDRY NOTES OF MUSIC





XVI.



IT was a lording's daughter, the fairest one of three,

That liked of her master as well as well might be,

Till looking on an Englishman, the fair'st that eye could see,

Her fancy fell a-turning.



Long was the combat doubtful that love with love did fight,

To leave the master loveless, or kill the gallant knight:

To put in practise either, alas, it was a spite

Unto the silly damsel!



But one must be refused; more mickle was the pain

That nothing could be used to turn them both to gain,

For of the two the trusty knight was wounded with disdain:

Alas, she could not help it!



Thus art with arms contending was victor of the day,

Which by a gift of learning did bear the maid away:

Then, lullaby, the learned man hath got the lady gay;

For now my song is ended.





XVII.



On a day, alack the day!

Love, whose month was ever May,

Spied a blossom passing fair,

Playing in the wanton air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind

All unseen, gan passage find;

That the lover, sick to death,

Wish'd himself the heaven's breath,

'Air,' quoth he, 'thy cheeks may blow;

Air, would I might triumph so!

But, alas! my hand hath sworn

Ne'er to pluck thee from thy thorn:

Vow, alack! for youth unmeet:

Youth, so apt to pluck a sweet.

Thou for whom Jove would swear

Juno but an Ethiope were;

And deny himself for Jove,

Turning mortal for thy love.'





XVIII.



My flocks feed not,

My ewes breed not,

My rams speed not,

All is amiss:

Love's denying,

Faith's defying,

Heart's renying,

Causer of this.

All my merry jigs are quite forgot,

All my lady's love is lost, God wot:

Where her faith was firmly fix'd in love,

There a nay is placed without remove.

One silly cross

Wrought all my loss;

O frowning Fortune, cursed, fickle dame!

For now I see

Inconstancy

More in women than in men remain.

In black mourn I,

All fears scorn I,

Love hath forlorn me,

Living in thrall:

Heart is bleeding,

All help needing,

O cruel speeding,

Fraughted with gall.

My shepherd's pipe can sound no deal;

My wether's bell rings doleful knell;

My curtail dog, that wont to have play'd

Plays not at all, but seems afraid;

My sighs so deep

Procure to weep,

In howling wise, to see my doleful plight.

How sighs resound

Through heartless ground,

Like a thousand vanquish'd men in bloody fight!

Clear wells spring not,

Sweet birds sing not,

Green plants bring not

Forth their dye;

Herds stand weeping,

Flocks all sleeping,

Nymphs back peeping

Fearfully:

All our pleasure known to us poor swains,

All our merry meetings on the plains,

All our evening sport from us is fled,

All our love is lost, for Love is dead

Farewell, sweet lass,

Thy like ne'er was

For a sweet content, the cause of all my moan:

Poor Corydon

Must live alone;

Other help for him I see that there is none.





XIX.



When as thine eye hath chose the dame,

And stall'd the deer that thou shouldst strike,

Let reason rule things worthy blame,

As well as fancy partial might:

Take counsel of some wiser head,

Neither too young nor yet unwed.



And when thou comest thy tale to tell,

Smooth not thy tongue with filed talk,

Lest she some subtle practise smell,--

A cripple soon can find a halt;--

But plainly say thou lovest her well,



And set thy person forth to sell.

What though her frowning brows be bent,

Her cloudy looks will calm ere night:

And then too late she will repent

That thus dissembled her delight;

And twice desire, ere it be day,

That which with scorn she put away.



What though she strive to try her strength,

And ban and brawl, and say thee nay,

Her feeble force will yield at length,

When craft hath taught her thus to say,

'Had women been so strong as men,

In faith, you had not had it then.'



And to her will frame all thy ways;

Spare not to spend, and chiefly there

Where thy desert may merit praise,

By ringing in thy lady's ear:

The strongest castle, tower, and town,

The golden bullet beats it down.



Serve always with assured trust,

And in thy suit be humble true;

Unless thy lady prove unjust,

Press never thou to choose anew:

When time shall serve, be thou not slack

To proffer, though she put thee back.



The wiles and guiles that women work,

Dissembled with an outward show,

The tricks and toys that in them lurk,

The cock that treads them shall not know.

Have you not heard it said full oft,

A woman's nay doth stand for nought?



Think women still to strive with men,

To sin and never for to saint:

There is no heaven, by holy then,

When time with age doth them attaint.

Were kisses all the joys in bed,

One woman would another wed.



But, soft! enough, too much, I fear

Lest that my mistress hear my song,

She will not stick to round me i' the ear,

To teach my tongue to be so long:

Yet will she blush, here be it said,

To hear her secrets so bewray'd.





XX.



Live with me, and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

And all the craggy mountains yields.



There will we sit upon the rocks,

And see the shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow rivers, by whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.



There will I make thee a bed of roses,

With a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.



A belt of straw and ivy buds,

With coral clasps and amber studs;

And if these pleasures may thee move,

Then live with me and be my love.





LOVE'S ANSWER.



If that the world and love were young,

And truth in every shepherd's tongue,

These pretty pleasures might me move

To live with thee and be thy love.





XXI.



As it fell upon a day

In the merry month of May,

Sitting in a pleasant shade

Which a grove of myrtles made,

Beasts did leap, and birds did sing,

Trees did grow, and plants did spring;

Every thing did banish moan,

Save the nightingale alone:

She, poor bird, as all forlorn,

Lean'd her breast up-till a thorn

And there sung the dolefull'st ditty,

That to hear it was great pity:

'Fie, fie, fie,' now would she cry;

'Tereu, tereu!' by and by;

That to hear her so complain,

Scarce I could from tears refrain;

For her griefs, so lively shown,

Made me think upon mine own.

Ah, thought I, thou mourn'st in vain!

None takes pity on thy pain:

Senseless trees they cannot hear thee;

Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee:

King Pandion he is dead;

All thy friends are lapp'd in lead;

All thy fellow birds do sing,

Careless of thy sorrowing.

Even so, poor bird, like thee,

None alive will pity me.

Whilst as fickle Fortune smiled,

Thou and I were both beguiled.

Every one that flatters thee

Is no friend in misery.

Words are easy, like the wind;

Faithful friends are hard to find:

Every man will be thy friend

Whilst thou hast wherewith to spend;

But if store of crowns be scant,

No man will supply thy want.

If that one be prodigal,

Bountiful they will him call,

And with such-like flattering,

'Pity but he were a king;'

If he be addict to vice,

Quickly him they will entice;

If to women he be bent,

They have at commandement:

But if Fortune once do frown,

Then farewell his great renown

They that fawn'd on him before

Use his company no more.

He that is thy friend indeed,

He will help thee in thy need:

If thou sorrow, he will weep;

If thou wake, he cannot sleep;

Thus of every grief in heart

He with thee doth bear a part.

These are certain signs to know

Faithful friend from flattering foe.









     THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE







     LET the bird of loudest lay,

     On the sole Arabian tree,

     Herald sad and trumpet be,

     To whose sound chaste wings obey.



     But thou shrieking harbinger,

     Foul precurrer of the fiend,

     Augur of the fever's end,

     To this troop come thou not near!



     From this session interdict

     Every fowl of tyrant wing,

     Save the eagle, feather'd king:

     Keep the obsequy so strict.



     Let the priest in surplice white,

     That defunctive music can,

     Be the death-divining swan,

     Lest the requiem lack his right.



     And thou treble-dated crow,

     That thy sable gender makest

     With the breath thou givest and takest,

     'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.



     Here the anthem doth commence:

     Love and constancy is dead;

     Phoenix and the turtle fled

     In a mutual flame from hence.



     So they loved, as love in twain

     Had the essence but in one;

     Two distincts, division none:

     Number there in love was slain.



     Hearts remote, yet not asunder;

     Distance, and no space was seen

     'Twixt the turtle and his queen:

     But in them it were a wonder.



     So between them love did shine,

     That the turtle saw his right

     Flaming in the phoenix' sight;

     Either was the other's mine.



     Property was thus appalled,

     That the self was not the same;

     Single nature's double name

     Neither two nor one was called.



     Reason, in itself confounded,

     Saw division grow together,

     To themselves yet either neither,

     Simple were so well compounded,



     That it cried, How true a twain

     Seemeth this concordant one!

     Love hath reason, reason none,

     If what parts can so remain.



     Whereupon it made this threne

     To the phoenix and the dove,

     Co-supremes and stars of love,

     As chorus to their tragic scene.



     THRENOS.



     Beauty, truth, and rarity,

     Grace in all simplicity,

     Here enclosed in cinders lie.



     Death is now the phoenix' nest

     And the turtle's loyal breast

     To eternity doth rest,



     Leaving no posterity:

     'Twas not their infirmity,

     It was married chastity.



     Truth may seem, but cannot be:

     Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;

     Truth and beauty buried be.



     To this urn let those repair

     That are either true or fair

     For these dead birds sigh a prayer.