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nanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.

Gow. I think, Alexander the Great was born in Macedon; his father was called-Philip of Macedon, as I take it.

Flu. I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell you, captain,-if you look in the look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant you shall 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 so like 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 pest friend, Clytus.

Gow. Our king is not like him in that; he never killed any of his friends.

Flu. It is not well done, mark you now, to take tales out of my mouth, ere it is made an end and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it. As Alexander is kill his friend Clytus, being in his ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his goot judgments, is turn away the fat knight with the great pelly-doublet: he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I have forgot his name.

Gow. Sir John Falstaff.

Flu. That is he. I can tell you, there is goot men porn at Monmouth.

Gow. Here comes his majesty.

!

Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, with a part of the English Forces; WARWICK,1 Gloster, EXETER, and others.

K. Hen. 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 2 away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:

Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have ;3
And not a man of them, that we shall take,
Shall taste our mercy.-Go, and tell them so.

1 Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick. He did not, however, obtain that title till 1417, two years after the era of this play.

2 i. e. scour away.

Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have." Johnson accuses the Poet of having made the king cut the throats of his prisoners twice over. Malone replies that the incongruity, if it be one, is Holinshed's, for thus the matter is stated by him. While the battle was yet going on, about six hundred horsemen, who were the first that fled, hearing that the English tents were a good way distant from the army, without a sufficient guard, entered and pillaged the king's camp. "When the outcry of the lackies and boys which ran away for fear of the Frenchmen, thus spoiling the camp, came to the king's ears, he doubting lest his enemies should gather together again and begin a new fielde, and mistrusting further that the prisoners would either be an aide to his enemies or very enemies to their takers indeed, if they were suffered to live, contrary to his accustomed gentleness, commanded by sounde of trumpet that every man upon pain of death should incontinently slea his prisoner." This was the first transaction. Holinshed proceeds" When this lamentable slaughter was ended, the Englishmen disposed themselves in order of battayle, ready to abide a new fielde, and also to invade and newly set on their enemies. Some write, that the king perceiving his enemies in one parte to assemble together as though they meant to give a new battle for preservation of the prisoners, sent to them a herault, commanding them either to depart out of his sight, or else to come forward at once and give battaile; promising herewith, that, if they did offer to fight agayne, not only those prisoners which his people already had taken, but also so many of them as in this new conflicte, which they thus attempted, should fall into his hands, should die the death without redemption." The fact is, that notwithstanding the first order concerning the prisoners, they were not all put to death, as appears from a subsequent passage, and the concurrent testimony of various historians, upon whose authority Hume says that Henry, on discovering that his danger was not so great as he at first apprehended from the attack on his camp, "stopped the slaughter, and was still able to save a great number." It was policy in Henry to intimidate the French by threatening to kill his prisoners, and occasioned them, in fact, to lay down their arms.

Enter MONTJOY.

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

Glo. His eyes are humbler than they used to be.
K. Hen. How now, what means this, herald?
Know'st thou not,

That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?
Com'st thou again for ransom?

Mont.

No, great king.

I come to thee for charitable license,
That we may wander o'er this bloody field,
To book our dead, and then to bury them;
To sort our nobles from our common men;
For many of our princes (woe the while!)
Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood
(So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes;) and their wounded steeds
Fret fetlock deep in gore, and, with wild rage,
Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,
To view the field in safety, and dispose

Of their dead bodies.

K. Hen.

I tell thee truly, herald,

I know not if the day be ours, or no;
For yet a many of your horsemen peer,
And gallop o'er the field.

Mont.

The day is yours.

K. Hen. Praised be God, and not our strength, for

it!

What is this castle called, that stands hard by?
Mont. They call it-Agincourt.

K. Hen. Then call we this-the field of Agincourt, Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

Flu. Your grandfather, of famous memory, an't please your majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.

K. Hen. They did, Fluellen.

Flu. Your majesty says very true. If your majes

VOL. IV.

26

ties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps;1 which, your majesty knows, to this hour is an honorable padge of the service; and, I do believe, your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon saint Tavy's day.

K. Hen. I wear it for a memorable honor ; For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

Flu. All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that. Got pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace, and his majesty too!

K. Hen. Thanks, good my countryman.

Flu. By Chesu, 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 Got, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

K. Hen. 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 MONTJOY and others.

Exe. Soldier, you must come to the king. K. Hen. Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy cap?

Will. An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive.

K. Hen. An Englishman?

Will. An't please your majesty, a rascal, that swaggered with me last night; who, if 'a live, and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o' the 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.

K. Hen. What think you, captain Fluellen? is it fit this soldier keep his oath?

1 Monmouth, according to Fuller, was celebrated for its caps, which were particularly worn by soldiers. The best caps were formerly made at Monmouth, where the capper's chapel still remains.

Flu. He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your majesty, in my conscience.

K. Hen. It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort,' quite from the answer of his degree.

Flu. Though he be as goot a gentleman as the tevil 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 Jack-sauce, as ever his plack shoe trod upon Got's ground and his earth, in my conscience, la.

2

K. Hen. Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet'st the fellow.

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

K. Hen. Who servest thou under ?

Will. Under captain Gower, my liege.

Flu. Gower is a goot captain; and is goot knowledge and literature in the wars.

K. Hen. Call him hither to me, soldier.
Will. I will, my liege.

3

[Exit.

K. Hen. Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favor for me, and stick it in thy cap. When Alençon and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm. If any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon and an enemy to our person; if thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost love me.

Flu. Your grace does me as great honors 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 aggriefed at this glove, that is all; but I would fain see it once; an please Got of his grace, that I might see it.

K. Hen. Knowest thou Gower?

Flu. He is my dear friend, an please you.

K. Hen. Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.

1 Great sort is high rank.

2 Jack-sauce for saucy Jack.

3 Henry was felled to the ground by the duke of Alençon, but recovered, and slew two of the duke's attendants. Alençon was afterwards killed by the king's guard, contrary to Henry's intention, who wished to have saved him.

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