Stockdale's edition of Shakespeare, with explanatory notes

Each battle fees 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 bufy 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 fecure in foul,
The confident and over-lufty French
Do the low-rated English play 2 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 facrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently, and inly ruminate

The morning's danger; and their gefture fad,
Invefting lank-lean cheeks, and war-worn coats,
Prefented them unto the gazing moon

So many horrid ghofts. 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-Praife and glory on his head!
For forth he goes, and vifits all his hoft;
Bids them good morrow, with a modett fmile;
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 femblance, and fweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largefs univerfal, like the fun,

His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear. Then, mean and gentle all,
Behold, as may unworthinefs define,
A little touch of Harry in the night :
And fo our fcene muft to the battle fly;
Where (O for pity!) we fhall much disgrace-
With four or five moft vile and ragged foils,
Right ill difpos'd, in brawl ridiculous,-
The name of Agincourt: Yet, fit and fee;
Minding 3 true things by what their mockeries be.

SCENE I.

[Exit.

Befides, they are our outward confciences, And preachers to us all; admonithing, That we should dreis us fairly for our end. Thus may we gather honey from the weed, And make a moral of the devil himself. Enter Frpingham.

Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:
A good foft pillow for that good white head
Were better than a churlish turf of France.[better,

Erping. Not fo, my liege; this lodging likes me Since 1 may fay ow lie I like a king. [ient pains,

K. Henry. 'Tis good for men to love their preUpon example; fo the fpirit 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 cafted flough and freth legerity 5.
Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas.--Brothers both,
Commend me to the princes in our camp;
Do my good morrow to them; and, anon,
Defire them all to my pavilion.
Gio. We fhall, my liege.
Erping. Shall I attend your grace?
K. Heary. No, my good knight;

Go with my brothers to my lords of England:
I and my bofom must debate a while,
And then I would no other company. [Harry!
Erping. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble
K. Heny. God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'ft
cheerfully.
[Exeunt.
Enter Piftol.

Pift. Qui va la?

K. Henry. A friend.

Pift. Difcufs unto me: Art thou officer?
Or art thou bafe, common, and popular?
K. Henry. I am a gentleman of a company.
Pift. Trail'ft thou the puiffant pike?
K. Henry. Even fo: What are you?
Pift. As good a gentleman as the emperor.
K. Henry. Then you are a better than the king.
Pift. The king's a bawcock, and a heart of gold;
A lad of life, an impof fame;

Of parents good, of fift mort valiant:

I kits his dirty fhoe, and from my heart-strings
I love the lovely bully. What's thy name?
K. Henry. Harry le Roy.

[Cornish crew?

Pift. Le Roy! a Cornifh name : art thou of K. Henry. No, I am a Welshman.

Pift. Know'ft thou Fluellen ?

K. Henry. Yes.

Pift. Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate Upon faint David's day.

K. Henry. Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, left he knock that about yours. Pift. Art thou his friend ?

K. Henry. And his kinfman too.
Pift. The figo for thee then!

1 Umber is a brown colour: the diftant vifages of the foldiers would certainly appear of this hue when beheld through the light of midnight fires. Mr. Tollet obferves, that another interpretation of this phrafe occurs, expreflive of the preparation of both armies for an engagement, in Hamlet, A&t III. Mr. Steevens gives the following quotations from Stowe's Chronicle. "He braft up his umber three times;" where umber means the vizor of the helmet, as umbriere doth in Spenfer, trom the French ombre, ombriere, or ombraire, a fhadow, an umbrella, or any thing that hides or covers the face. Hence umber'd face may denote a face arm'd with a helmet. 2 i. e. do play them at dice. mind is the fame as to call to remembrance. 4 Slough is the fkin which the ferpent annually off, and by the change of which he is fuppofed to regain new vigour and fresh youth. is lightpefs, nimbleuefs, •See Note 2, p. 566.

3 To

throws Legerity K. Henry.

K. Henry. I thank you: God be with you!
Pift. My name is Pistol call'd.

[Exit. K. Henry. It forts well with your fierceness. Enter Fluellen, and Gower, feverally.

Gow. Captain Fluellen,

Flu. So in the name of Chefhu Christ, speak fewer. It is the greatest admiration in the univerfal 'orld, when the true and auncient 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 fhall find, I warrant you, that there is no tittle tattle, nor pibble pabble, in Pompey's camp; I warrant you, you fhall find the ceremonies of the wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it, and the fobriety of it, and the modefty of it, to be otherwife.

Bates. He may fhew what outward courage he will: but, I believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could with himself in the Thames up to the neck; and fo I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, fo we were quit here.

K. Henry. By my troth, I will speak my confcience of the king; I think, he would not with himself any where but where he is.

Bates. Then, 'would he were here alone; for fhould he be fure to be ranfom'd, and a many poor men's lives fav'd.

K. Henry. I dare fay, you love him not fo ill, to with him here alone; howfoever you speak this, to feel other men's minds: Methinks, I could not die any where fo contented, as in the king's company; his caufe being juft, and his

Gow. Why, the enemy is loud; you heard him quarrel honourable. all night.

Will. That's more than we know.

Bates. Ay, or more than we should feek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the king's fubjects: if his caufe be wrong, our obe

Flu. If the enemy is an afs and a fool, and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be an afs, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb; in your own confcience now?dience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us. Gow. I will fpeak lower.

Flu. I pray you, and befeech you, that you will. [Exeunt. K. Henry. Though it appear a little out of fafhion, there is much care and valour in this Welshman.

Will. But if the caufe be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make; when all thofe legs, and arms, and heads, chopp'd off in a battle, fhall join together at the latter day, and cry all-We dy'd at íuch a place; fome, fwearing; fome, crying for a furgeon; fome, upon their wives left poor behind them; fome, upon the debts they owe; fome, upon their children rawly 3 Court. Brother John Bates, is not that the morn-left. I am afeard there are few die well, that die ing which breaks yonder ?

Enter three Soldiers, John Bates, Alexander Court, and Michael Williams.

in a battle; for how can they charitably difpofe of

Bates. I think it be: but we have no great caufe any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, to defire the approach of day.

Will. We fee yonder the beginning of the day, but, I think, we fhall never fee the end of it.— Who goes there?

K. Henry. A friend,

Wil. Under what captain ferve you?

K. Henry. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham. Will. A good old commander, and a moft kind gentleman: I pray you, what thinks he of our eftate ?

K. Henry. Even as men wreck'd upon a fand,

that look to be wash'd off the next tide.

Bates. He hath not told his thought to the king?

K. Henry. No; nor it is not meet he should.For, though I fpeak it to you, I think, the king is but a man, as I ain: the violet fmells to him, as it doth to me; the element fhews to him, as it doth to me; all his fenfes have but human conditions 2: his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they ftoop, they stoop with the like wing; therefore, when he fees reafon of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the fame relifh as ours are: Yet, in reafon, no man fhould poffefs him with any appearance of fear, left he, by fhewing it, fhould dishearten his army.

1 i. e. it agrees.

if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to difobey, were against all proportion of fubjec

tion.

K. Henry. So, if a fon, that is by his father fent about merchandize, do finfully mifcarry upon the fea, the imputation of his wickednefs, by your rule, thould be impofed upon his father that fent him; or, if a fervant, under his master's command, transporting a fum of money, be affail'd by robbers, and die in many irreconcil'd iniquities, you may call the business of the mafter the author of the fervant's damnation :-But this is not fo: the king is not bound to anfwer the particular endings of his foldiers, the father of his fon, nor the mafter of his fervant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their fervices. Befides, there is no king, be his caufe never fo fpotless, if it conte to the arbitrement of fwords, can try it out with all unspotted foldiers. Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; fome, of beguiling virgins with the broken feals of perjury; fome, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bofom of peace with pillage and robbery. Now if thefe men have defeated the law, and outrun native punithment 4, though they can out-strip men, they have no wings to fly from God: war

2 Conditions mean qualities. 3 i. e. haftily, fuddenly. 4 That is, punishment in

their native country; or, fuch as they are born to if th/offend.

Is his beadle, war is his vengeance; fo 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 fafe, they perifh: 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 vifited.Every fubject's duty is the king's; but every fubject's foul is his own. Therefore fhould every foldier in the wars do as every fick man in his bed, wash every moth out of his confcience and dying fo, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was bleffedly loft, wherein fuch preparation was gained: and, in him that efcapes, it were not fin to think, that, making God fo free an offer, he let him out-live that day to fee his greatness, and to teach others how they should prepare.

Will. 'Tis certain, that every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his own head, the king is not to anfwer for it.

Bates. I do not defire he should anfwer for me; and yet I determine to fight luftily for him. K. Henry. I myself heard the king fay, he would| not be ranfom'd.

Will. Ay, he faid fo, to make us fight chearfully but, when our throats are cut, he may be ranfom'd, and we ne'er the wifer.

K. Henry. If I live to fee it, I will never truft his word after.

Will. You pay him then! that's a perilous fhot out of an elder gun, that a poor and private difpleasure can do against a monarch! you may as well go about to turn the fun to ice, with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather. You'll never truft his word after! come, 'tis a foolish faying.

K. Henry. Your reproof is fomething too round: I should be angry with you, if the time were con

venient.

K. Henry. Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one, they will beat us; for they bear them on their fhoulders: But it is no English treason to cut French crowns; and, tômorrow, the king himself will be a clipper.

[Exeunt foldiers.

Upon the king! let us our lives, our fouls,
Our debts, our careful wives, our children, and
Our fins, lay on the king; we must bear all.
O hard condition! twin-born with greatness,
Subjected to the breath of every fool, [ing!
Whose feufe no more can feel but his own wring-
What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect,
That private men enjoy? and what have kings,
That privates have not too, fave ceremony?
Save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol 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, fhew me but thy worth!
What is thy foul, O adoration ?
Art thou aught elfe but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art lefs happy being fear'd,
Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poifon'd flattery? Q, be fick, great greatnefs,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
Think it thou, the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Can't thou, when thou command'st the beggar's
knee,
[dream,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud
That play'ft fo fubtly with a king's repofe,
I am a king, that find thee: and I know,
'Tis not the balm, the fcepter, and the ball,
Thefword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The enter-tiffued robe of gold and pearl,

Will. Let it be a quarrel between us if you live. The farfed 2 title running 'fore the king,
K. Henry. I embrace it.

Will. How fhall I know thee again?

K. Henry. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet: then, if ever thou dar'it acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel. Will. Here's my glove; give me another of

thine.

K. Henry. There.

The throne he fits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of the world,
No, not all thefe, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can fleep fo foundly as the wretched slave ;
Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind,
Gets him to reft, cramm'd with diftrefsful bread,
Never fees horrid night, the child of hell;
But, like a lacquey, from the rife to fet,
Sweats in the eye,of Phoebus, and all night
Sleeps in Elyfium; next day, after dawn,
Doth rife, and help Hyperion to his horfe;
chal-And follows to the ever-running year

Will. This will I alfo wear in my cap: if ever thou come to me and fay, after to-morrow, This is my glove, by this hand, I will take thee a box

on the ear.

K. Henry. If ever I live to fee it, I will lenge it.

Will. Thou dar'ft as well be hang'd.

With profitable labour, to his grave:
And, but for ceremony, fuch a wretch,

K. Henry. Well, I will do it, though I take Winding up days with toil, and nights with deep,

thee in the king's company.

Will. Keep thy word: fare thee well. Bates. Be friends, you English fools, be friends; we have French quarrels enough, if you could tell how to reckon.

Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The flave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it; but in grofs brain little wots,
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whofe hours the peasant beft advantages.

1 Meaning, it is a great displeasure that an elder gun can do against a cannon. 2 Farfed is fluffed; meaning, the tumid puffy titles with which a king's name is always introduced.

M m

Enter

Enter Erpingham.

Con. To horfe, you gallant princes! strait to horfe!

Erp. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your Do hut behold yon poor and starved band,

Seek through your camp to find you.

K. Henry. Good old knight,

Collect them all together at my tent:
I'll be before thee.

Erp. I fhall do't, my lord.

[abfence, And your fair fhew fhall fuck away their fouls,

[Exit.

K. Henry, O God of battles! fteel my foldiers'

hearts!

Leaving them but the shales and hufks of men.
There is not work enough for all our hands;
Scarce blood enough in all their fickly veins,
To give each naked curtle-ax a ftain,
That our French gallants fhall to-day draw out,
And fheath for lack of fport: let us but blow on
them,

Poffefs 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'Tis pofitive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,

O not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compafting the crown!
I Richard's body have interred new ;
And on it have beftow'd more contrite tears,
Than from it iffued 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 fad and folemn priests
Sing ftill for Richard's foul. More wil! I do :
Though all that I can do, is nothing worth;
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.

Gle. My liege!

Enter Glofter.

The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.

What's to fay

[Lord, That our fuperfluous lacqueys, and our peasants,—
Who, in unneceflary action, fwarm
About our fquares of battle, were enough
To purge this field of fuch a hilding foe;
Though we, upon this mountain's bafis by,
Took ftand for idle fpeculation:
But that our honours must not.
A very little little let us do,
And all is done. Then let the trumpets found
The tucket fonuance 2, and the note to mount :
For our approach shall so much dare the field,
That England shall couch down in fear, and yield,
Enter Grandpré.

K. Henry. My brother Gloster's voice ?—Ay ;
I know thy errand, I will go with thee :-
The day, my friends, and all things ftay for me.

N E II.

E
C
The French Camp.

[Exeunt.

Grand. Why do you ftay fo long, my lords of
France ?

Yon ifland carrions, defperate of their bones,
Ill-favour'dly become the morning field:
Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air fhakes them paffing fcornfully.
Big Mars feems bankrupt in their beggar'd hoft,

Enter the Dauphin, Orleans, Rambures, and Beau-And faintly through a rufty beaver peeps.

mont.

Orl. The fun doth gild our armour; up, lords.

Dau. Montes à cheval:-My horfe! lacquey! ha!

Orl. O brave fpirit!

Dau.

Via!-les eaux & la terre.

Orl. Rien plus? Pair & le fu

Dau. Cist! coulin Orleans.

my valet!

Their horfemen fit like fixed candlesticks,
With torch-ftaves in their hand 3: and their poor
jades

Lob down their heads, dropping the hide 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 grafs, ftill and motionlefs;
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o'er them all, impatient for their hour.
Defcription cannot fuit itfelf in words,
To demonftrate the life of fuch a battle

Con. Hark, how our steeds for prefent fervice In life fo lifeless as it thews itself.

Via! is an oid hortatory exclamation, as allons! 2 The tucket-fonuance was probably the name of an introductory flourish on the trumpet. 3 Grandpré alludes to the form of the ancient candlesticks, which frequently reprefented human figures holding the fockets for the lights in their extended hands. Gimmal is, in the western counties, a ring; a gimmal bit is therefore a bit of which the parts played one within another. 5 It feems, by what follows, that guard in this place means rather fomething of ornament or of diftinction than a body of attendants. The following quotation from Holinfhed will beft elucidate this paffage-" The duke of Brabant, when his ftandard was not come, caufed a banner to be taken from a trumpet and faflened upon a fpear, the which he commanded to be borne before him inftead of a standard."

SCENE

thoufand.

Familiar in their mouth as houfhold words,→
Harry the king, Bedford, and Exeter,

Glo. Where is the king?
Bed. The king himself is rode to view their Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,→→
battle.
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd :
Weft. Of fighting men they have full threefcore This story shall the good man teach his fon;
And Crifpin Crifpian fhall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered :
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that fheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he n'er fo vile,
This day fhall gentle his condition 2:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accurs'd, they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap, while any fpeaks,

Exe. There's five to one; befides, they all are fresh.
Sal. God's arm ftrike 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 Glofter,—and my good lord Exeter,
And my kind kinfman,-warriors all, adieu!
Bed. Farewel, good Salisbury; and good luck
go with thee!

Exe. to Sal. Farewel, kind lord! fight valiant-That fought with us upon faint Crifpin's day.

ly to-day:

And yet I do thee wrong, to mind thee of it,
For thou art fram'd of the firm truth of valour.
[Exit Salisbury.
Bed. He is as full of valour, as of kindnets;
Princely in both.

Enter King Henry.

Weft. O, that we now had here

But one ten thoufand of thofe men in England,
That do no work to-day!

K. Henry. What's lie, that wishes fo?
My coufin Weftinoreland ?---No, my fair coufin:
If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country lofs; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, with not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold;
Nor care I, who doth feed upon my coft;
It yerns me not, if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my defires:
But, if it be a fin to covet honour,
I am the most offending foul alive.

No, 'faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace ! I would not lose fo great an honour,
As one man more, methinks, would thare from me,
For the best hope I have. O, do not with one more:
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my hoft,
That he, which hath no ftomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his paffport fhall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purfe :
We would not die in that man's company,
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd-the feaft of Crifpian :
He, that out-lives this day, and comes fafe home,
Will ftand a-tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouze him at the name of Crifpian.

He, that thall live this day, and fee old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends,
And fay-To-morrow is faint Crifpian:
Then will he strip his fleeve, and fhew his fears.

Enter Salisbury.

Sal. My fovereign lord, beitow yourself with

speed:

The French are 3 bravely in their battles fet,
And will with all expedience 4 charge on us.

K. Henry. All things are ready, if our minds
be fo.

Weft. Perish the man, whofe mind is backward

now!

K. Henry. Thou doft not wish more help from
England, coufin ?

Weft. God's will, my liege, 'would you and I
alone,

Without more help, might fight this battle out!
K. Henry. Why, now thou hast unwith'd five

thousand men;

Which likes me better, than to wifh us one.-
You know your places: God be with you all!
Tucket. Enter Montjoy.

Mont. Once more I come to know of thee,
king Harry,

If for thy ranfom thou wilt now compound,
Before thy molt affured over-throw :
For, certainly, thou art fo near the gulf,
Thou needs must be englutted. Befides, in mercy,
The Conftable defires thee-thou wilt mind
Thy followers of repentance; that their fouls
May make a peaceful and a sweet retire
From off thefe fields, where (wretches) their poor
bodies
Muft lie and fefter.

K. Henry. Who hath fent thee now?
Mont. The Conftable of France.

K. Henry. I pray thee, bear my former answer
back;

Bid them atchieve me, and then fell my bones.
Good God! why should they mock poor fellows
thus?

The man, that once did fell the lion's skin
While the beaft liv'd, was kill'd with hunting him.

1 The battle of Agincourt was fought upon the 25th of October, St. Crifpin's day. day fhall advance him to the rank of a gentleman. 3i, c. fplendidly, oftentatiously.

2 i. e. this 4 i. e. cx

pedition,

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