TPTT The Life of Henry the Fifth: ACT II
Introduction
ACT I
ACT II
PROLOGUE
SCENE I. London. A street.
SCENE II. Southampton. A council-chamber.
SCENE III. London. Before a tavern.
SCENE IV. France. The KING'S palace.
ACT III
ACT IV
ACT V
About the Play
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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,
5     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
10    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
15    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,
20    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;
25    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,
30    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,
35    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,
40    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:
45    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
50    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
55    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;
60    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
65    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
70    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,
75    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
80    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
85    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,
90    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:
95    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
100   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,
105   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
110   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;
115   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
120   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.
125   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
130   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,
135   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,
140   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
145   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:
150   A night is but small breath and little pause
      To answer matters of this consequence.
Flourish. Exeunt
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