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Henry V: Act IV, Scene 1

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Henry V
Act IV, Scene 1

Agincourt. The English camp.

Morning of the Battle of Agincourt, 25th October 1415

Morning of the Battle of Agincourt, 25th October 1415

John Gilbert, 1884

  1. Enter the King, Bedford, and Gloucester.

King Henry the Fifth

1 - 15
  1. Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger,
  2. The greater therefore should our courage be.
  3. Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!
  4. There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
  5. Would men observingly distill it out;
  6. For our bad neighbor makes us early stirrers,
  7. Which is both healthful and good husbandry.
  8. Besides, they are our outward consciences
  9. And preachers to us all, admonishing
  10. That we should dress us fairly for our end.
  11. Thus may we gather honey from the weed,
  12. And make a moral of the devil himself.
  13. Enter Erpingham.
  14. Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham.
  15. A good soft pillow for that good white head
  16. Were better than a churlish turf of France.

Sir Thomas Erpingham

16 - 17
  1. Not so, my liege, this lodging likes me better,
  2. Since I may say, “Now lie I like a king.”

King Henry the Fifth

18 - 27
  1. ’Tis good for men to love their present pains
  2. Upon example; so the spirit is eased;
  3. And when the mind is quick’ned, out of doubt,
  4. The organs, though defunct and dead before,
  5. Break up their drowsy grave, and newly move
  6. With casted slough and fresh legerity.
  7. Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,
  8. Commend me to the princes in our camp;
  9. Do my good morrow to them, and anon
  10. Desire them all to my pavilion.

Duke of Gloucester

28
  1. We shall, my liege.

Sir Thomas Erpingham

29
  1. Shall I attend your Grace?

King Henry the Fifth

30 - 33
  1.                            No, my good knight;
  2. Go with my brothers to my lords of England.
  3. I and my bosom must debate a while,
  4. And then I would no other company.

Sir Thomas Erpingham

34
  1. The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!
  1. Exeunt all but the King.

King Henry the Fifth

35
  1. God-a-mercy, old heart, thou speak’st cheerfully.
  1. Enter Pistol.

Pistol

36
  1. Qui vous là?

King Henry the Fifth

37
  1. A friend.

Pistol

38 - 39
  1. Discuss unto me, art thou officer,
  2. Or art thou base, common, and popular?

King Henry the Fifth

40
  1. I am a gentleman of a company.

Pistol

41
  1. Trail’st thou the puissant pike?

King Henry the Fifth

42
  1. Even so. What are you?

Pistol

43
  1. As good a gentleman as the Emperor.

King Henry the Fifth

44
  1. Then you are a better than the King.

Pistol

45 - 49
  1. The King’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold,
  2. A lad of life, an imp of fame,
  3. Of parents good, of fist most valiant.
  4. I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string
  5. I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?

King Henry the Fifth

50
  1. Harry le Roy.

Pistol

51
  1. Le Roy? A Cornish name. Art thou of Cornish crew?

King Henry the Fifth

52
  1. No, I am a Welshman.

Pistol

53
  1. Know’st thou Fluellen?

King Henry the Fifth

54
  1. Yes.

Pistol

55 - 56
  1. Tell him I’ll knock his leek about his pate
  2. Upon Saint Davy’s day.

King Henry the Fifth

57 - 58
  1. Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he
  2. knock that about yours.

Pistol

59
  1. Art thou his friend?

King Henry the Fifth

60
  1. And his kinsman too.

Pistol

61
  1. The figo for thee then!

Byam Shaw, 1901

King Henry the Fifth

62
  1. I thank you. God be with you!

Pistol

63
  1. My name is Pistol call’d.
  1. Exit.

King Henry the Fifth

64
  1. It sorts well with your fierceness.
  1. Manet King to one side.
  1. Enter Fluellen and Gower.

Gower

65
  1. Captain Fluellen!

Fluellen

66 - 74
  1. So! In the name of Jesu Christ, speak fewer. It is the
  2. greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true
  3. and aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept.
  4. If you would take the pains but to examine the wars of
  5. Pompey the Great, you shall find, I warrant you, that there
  6. is no tiddle taddle nor pibble babble in Pompey’s camp. I
  7. warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and
  8. the cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety of
  9. it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.

Gower

75
  1. Why, the enemy is loud, you hear him all night.

Fluellen

76 - 79
  1. If the enemy is an ass and a fool, and a prating coxcomb, is
  2. it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass
  3. and a fool, and a prating coxcomb, in your own conscience
  4. now?

Gower

80
  1. I will speak lower.

Fluellen

81
  1. I pray you, and beseech you, that you will.
  1. Exit with Gower.

King Henry the Fifth

82 - 83
  1. Though it appear a little out of fashion,
  2. There is much care and valor in this Welshman.
  1. Enter three soldiers, John Bates, Alexander Court, and
  2. Michael Williams.

Court

84 - 85
  1. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks
  2. yonder?

Bates

86 - 87
  1. I think it be; but we have no great cause to desire the
  2. approach of day.

Williams

88 - 89
  1. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall
  2. never see the end of it. Who goes there?

King Henry the Fifth

90
  1. A friend.

Williams

91
  1. Under what captain serve you?

King Henry the Fifth

92
  1. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

Williams

93 - 94
  1. A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray you,
  2. what thinks he of our estate?

King Henry the Fifth

95 - 96
  1. Even as men wrack’d upon a sand, that look to be wash’d off
  2. the next tide.

Bates

97
  1. He hath not told his thought to the King?

King Henry the Fifth

98 - 108
  1. No; nor it is not meet he should. For though I speak it to
  2. you, I think the King is but a man, as I am. The violet
  3. smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as
  4. it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions. His
  5. ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man;
  6. and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet
  7. when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore,
  8. when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of
  9. doubt, be of the same relish as ours are; yet in reason, no
  10. man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he,
  11. by showing it, should dishearten his army.

Bates

109 - 112
  1. He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as
  2. cold a night as ’tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to
  3. the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all
  4. adventures, so we were quit here.

King Henry the Fifth

113 - 114
  1. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I think
  2. he would not wish himself any where but where he is.

Bates

115 - 116
  1. Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be
  2. ransom’d, and a many poor men’s lives sav’d.

King Henry the Fifth

117 - 120
  1. I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here alone,
  2. howsoever you speak this to feel other men’s minds. Methinks
  3. I could not die any where so contented as in the King’s
  4. company, his cause being just and his quarrel honorable.

Williams

121
  1. That’s more than we know.

Bates

122 - 125
  1. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough,
  2. if we know we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be
  3. wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out
  4. of us.
George Rignold as Henry V

George Rignold as Henry V

New York Times, circa 1916

Williams

126 - 137
  1. But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy
  2. reckoning to make, when all those legs, and arms, and heads,
  3. chopp’d off in a battle, shall join together at the latter
  4. day and cry all, “We died at such a place”—some swearing,
  5. some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor
  6. behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their
  7. children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that
  8. die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any
  9. thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do
  10. not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that
  11. led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion
  12. of subjection.

King Henry the Fifth

138 - 172
  1. So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do
  2. sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his
  3. wickedness, by your rule, should be impos’d upon his father
  4. that sent him; or if a servant, under his master’s command
  5. transporting a sum of money, be assail’d by robbers and die
  6. in many irreconcil’d iniquities, you may call the business
  7. of the master the author of the servant’s damnation. But
  8. this is not so. The King is not bound to answer the
  9. particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son,
  10. nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their
  11. death when they purpose their services. Besides, there is no
  12. king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the
  13. arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted
  14. soldiers. Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of
  15. premeditated and contriv’d murder; some, of beguiling
  16. virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the
  17. wars their bulwark, that have before gor’d the gentle bosom
  18. of peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have
  19. defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they
  20. can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is
  21. his beadle, war is his vengeance; so that here men are
  22. punish’d for before-breach of the King’s laws in now the
  23. King’s quarrel. Where they fear’d the death, they have borne
  24. life away; and where they would be safe, they perish. Then
  25. if they die unprovided, no more is the King guilty of their
  26. damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for
  27. the which they are now visited. Every subject’s duty is the
  28. King’s, but every subject’s soul is his own. Therefore
  29. should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his
  30. bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so,
  31. death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was
  32. blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gain’d; and in
  33. him that escapes, it were not sin to think that making God
  34. so free an offer, He let him outlive that day to see His
  35. greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.

Williams

173 - 174
  1. ’Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own
  2. head, the King is not to answer it.

Bates

175 - 176
  1. I do not desire he should answer for me, and yet I determine
  2. to fight lustily for him.

King Henry the Fifth

177
  1. I myself heard the King say he would not be ransom’d.

Williams

178 - 179
  1. Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our
  2. throats are cut, he may be ransom’d, and we ne’er the wiser.

King Henry the Fifth

180
  1. If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

Williams

181 - 186
  1. You pay him then. That’s a perilous shot out of an
  2. elder-gun, that a poor and a private displeasure can do
  3. against a monarch! You may as well go about to turn the sun
  4. to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock’s feather.
  5. You’ll never trust his word after! Come, ’tis a foolish
  6. saying.
Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

Know’st thou Fluellen?

From: Cassell's Illustrated Shakespeare

Mary Cowden Clarke, Charles Cowden Clarke, 1870

King Henry the Fifth

187 - 188
  1. Your reproof is something too round, I should be angry with
  2. you, if the time were convenient.

Williams

189
  1. Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

King Henry the Fifth

190
  1. I embrace it.

Williams

191
  1. How shall I know thee again?

King Henry the Fifth

192 - 194
  1. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet;
  2. then if ever thou dar’st acknowledge it, I will make it my
  3. quarrel.

Williams

195
  1. Here’s my glove; give me another of thine.

King Henry the Fifth

196
  1. There.

Williams

197 - 199
  1. This will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou come to me and
  2. say, after tomorrow, “This is my glove,” by this hand I will
  3. take thee a box on the ear.

King Henry the Fifth

200
  1. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

Williams

201
  1. Thou dar’st as well be hang’d.

King Henry the Fifth

202 - 203
  1. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King’s
  2. company.

Williams

204
  1. Keep thy word; fare thee well.

Bates

205 - 206
  1. Be friends, you English fools, be friends, we have French
  2. quarrels now, if you could tell how to reckon.

King Henry the Fifth

207 - 265
  1. Indeed the French may lay twenty French crowns to one they
  2. will beat us, for they bear them on their shoulders; but it
  3. is no English treason to cut French crowns, and tomorrow the
  4. King himself will be a clipper.
  5. Exeunt Soldiers.
  6. Upon the King! Let us our lives, our souls,
  7. Our debts, our careful wives,
  8. Our children, and our sins lay on the King!
  9. We must bear all. O hard condition,
  10. Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
  11. Of every fool whose sense no more can feel
  12. But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s ease
  13. Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
  14. And what have kings, that privates have not too,
  15. Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
  16. And what art thou, thou idol Ceremony?
  17. What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more
  18. Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
  19. What are thy rents? What are thy comings-in?
  20. O Ceremony, show me but thy worth!
  21. What is thy soul of adoration?
  22. Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
  23. Creating awe and fear in other men?
  24. Wherein thou art less happy, being fear’d,
  25. Than they in fearing.
  26. What drink’st thou oft, in stead of homage sweet,
  27. But poison’d flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
  28. And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
  29. Thinks thou the fiery fever will go out
  30. With titles blown from adulation?
  31. Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
  32. Canst thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,
  33. Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
  34. That play’st so subtilly with a king’s repose.
  35. I am a king that find thee; and I know
  36. ’Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,
  37. The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
  38. The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
  39. The farced title running ’fore the king,
  40. The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
  41. That beats upon the high shore of this world—
  42. No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
  43. Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
  44. Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave;
  45. Who, with a body fill’d and vacant mind,
  46. Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread,
  47. Never sees horrid night, the child of hell;
  48. But like a lackey, from the rise to set,
  49. Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
  50. Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
  51. Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
  52. And follows so the ever-running year
  53. With profitable labor to his grave:
  54. And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
  55. Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep,
  56. Had the forehand and vantage of a king.
  57. The slave, a member of the country’s peace,
  58. Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots
  59. What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace,
  60. Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
  1. Enter Erpingham.
King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt

King Henry V at the Battle of Agincourt

Harry Payne, 1915

Sir Thomas Erpingham

266 - 267
  1. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
  2. Seek through your camp to find you.

King Henry the Fifth

268 - 270
  1.                                     Good old knight,
  2. Collect them all together at my tent.
  3. I’ll be before thee.

Sir Thomas Erpingham

271
  1.                      I shall do’t, my lord.
  1. Exit.

King Henry the Fifth

272 - 288
  1. O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts,
  2. Possess them not with fear! Take from them now
  3. The sense of reck’ning, if th’ opposed numbers
  4. Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord,
  5. O, not today, think not upon the fault
  6. My father made in compassing the crown!
  7. I Richard’s body have interred new,
  8. And on it have bestowed more contrite tears,
  9. Than from it issued forced drops of blood.
  10. Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
  11. Who twice a day their wither’d hands hold up
  12. Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
  13. Two chauntries, where the sad and solemn priests
  14. Sing still for Richard’s soul. More will I do;
  15. Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
  16. Since that my penitence comes after all,
  17. Imploring pardon.
  1. Enter Gloucester.

Duke of Gloucester

289
  1. My liege!

King Henry the Fifth

290 - 292
  1. My brother Gloucester’s voice? Ay;
  2. I know thy errand, I will go with thee.
  3. The day, my friends, and all things stay for me.
  1. Exeunt.
The Battle of Agincourt, 1415

The Battle of Agincourt, 1415

John Gilbert, 19th century

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