Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 117 (всего у книги 250 страниц)

4.8 Enter Captain Gower and Williams

WILLIAMS I warrant it is to knight you, captain. Enter Captain 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.

WILLIAM Sir, know you this glove?

FLUELLEN Know the glove? I know the glove is a glove.

WILLIAM Fplucking the glove from Fluellen’s cap] I know this, and thus I challenge it. He strikes Fluellen

FLUELLEN God’s plood, and his! An arrant traitor as any’s in the universal world, or in France, or in England.

GOWER (to Williams) How now, sir? You villain!

WILLIAM Do you think I’ll be forsworn?

FLUELLEN Stand away, Captain Gower. I will give treason his payment into plows, 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 Alençon’s.

Enter the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of 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.

Enter King Harry and the Duke of Exeter Here is his majesty.

KING HARRY How now, what is 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 Alençon.

WILLIAMS My liege, this was my gtove—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 Alençon that your majesty is give me, in your conscience now.

KING HARRY Give me thy glove, soldier. Look, here is the fellow of it.

‘Twas I indeed thou promisèd’st to strike,

And thou hast given me most bitter terms.

FLUELLEN An’t please your majesty, let his neck answer for it, if there is any martial law in the world.

KING HARRY 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 HARRY 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 HARRY

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 betty.—Ho[d, there is twelve pence for you, and I pray you to serve God, 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 shilling, I warrant you, or I will change it.

Enter ⌈an English⌉ Herald

KING HARRY Now, herald, are the dead numbered?

HERALD Here is the number of the slaughtered French.

KING HARRY What prisoners of good sort are taken, uncle?

EXETER

Charles, Duke of Orléans, nephew to the King;

Jean, Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Boucicault;

Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,

Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.

KING HARRY

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 dubbed 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 Delabret, High Constable of France;

Jaques of Châtillon, Admiral of France;

The Master of the Crossbows, Lord Rambures;

Great-Master of France, the brave Sir Guiscard

Dauphin;

Jean, Duke of Alençon; Antony, Duke of Brabant,

The brother to the Duke of Burgundy;

And Édouard, Duke of Bar; of lusty earls,

Grandpré and Roussi, Fauconbridge and Foix,

Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrelles.

Here was a royal fellowship of death.

Where is the number of our English dead?

He is given another paper

Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,

Sir Richard Keighley, 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 th’other? Take it God,

For it is none but thine.

EXETER

’Tis wonderful.

KING HARRY

Come, go we in procession to the village,

And be it death proclaimed through our host

To boast of this, or take that praise from God

Which is his only.

FLUELLEN Is it not lawful, an’t please your majesty, to tell how many is killed?

KING HARRY

Yes, captain, but with this acknowledgement,

That God fought for us.

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

KING HARRY 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

5.0 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 th‘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, maids, wives, and boys,

Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouthed

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 th’antique Rome

With the plebeians swarming at their heels,

Go forth and fetch their conqu’ring Caesar in—

As, by a lower but high-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 played

The interim by rememb‘ring you ’tis past.

Then brook abridgement, and your eyes advance,

After your thoughts, straight back again to France.

Exit

5.1 Enter Captain Gower and Captain Fluellen, with a leek in his cap and a cudgel

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, ass my friend, Captain Gower. The rascally scald beggarly lousy pragging knave Pistot—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 a 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 Ensign Pistol

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

FLUELLEN ‘Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks. —God pless you Ensign 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 does not agree with it, I would desire you to eat it. 26

PISTOL

Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.

FLUELLEN There is one goat for you. (He strikes Pistol) Will you be so good, scald knave, as eat it?

PISTOL Base Trojan, thou shalt die.

FLUELLEN You say very true, scald 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. (He strikes him) You called me yesterday ‘mountain-squire’, but I will make you today a ‘squire of low degree’. I pray you, fall to. If you can mock a leek you can eat a leek.

⌈He strikes him⌉

GOWER Enough, captain, you have astonished him.

FLUELLEN By Jesu, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days and four nights.—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—

⌈Fluellen threatens him⌉ 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, scald 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, verity, 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 anything, 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 hussy with me now?

News have I that my Nell is dead

I’th’ spital of a 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 cudgelled scars,

And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.

Exit

5.2 Enter at one door King Harry, the Dukes of Exeter and ⌈Clarence⌉, the Earl of Warwick, and other lords; at another, King Charles the Sixth of France, Queen Isabel, the Duke of Burgundy, and other French, among them Princess Catherine and Alice

KING HARRY

Peace to this meeting, wherefor 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 Catherine;

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 CHARLES

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 HARRY

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

laboured

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 prevailed

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, plenties, 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 it own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,

Unprunèd dies; her hedges even-plashed

Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair

Put forth disordered 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.

An all 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 everything 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 HARRY

If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace

Whose want gives growth to th’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 HARRY Well then, the peace,

Which you before so urged, lies in his answer.

KING CHARLES

I have but with a cursitory 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 HARRY

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,

Anything 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

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 HARRY

Yet leave our cousin Catherine here with us.

She is our capital demand, comprised

Within the fore-rank of our articles.

QUEEN

She hath good leave.

Exeunt all but King Harry, Catherine, and Alice

KING HARRY Fair Catherine, 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?

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

KING HARRY O fair Catherine, 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?

CATHERINE Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is ‘like me’.

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

CATHERINE (to Alice) Que dit-il?—que je suis semblable à les anges?

ALICE Oui, vraiment—sauf votre grâce—ainsi dit-il.

KING HARRY I said so, dear Catherine, and I must not blush to affirm it.

CATHERINE O bon Dieu! Les langues des hommes sont pleines de tromperies.

KING HARRY What says she, fair one? That the tongues of men are full of deceits?

ALICE Oui, dat de tongeus of de mans is be full of deceits—dat is de Princess.

KING HARRY 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?

CATHERINE Sauf votre honneur, me understand well.

KING HARRY 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 jackanapes, 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 sunburning, that never looks in his glass for love of anything 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 sayst thou then to my love? Speak, my fair—and fairly, I pray thee.

CATHERINE Is it possible dat I sould love de ennemi of France?

KING HARRY 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.

CATHERINE I cannot tell vat is dat.

KING HARRY 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. le quand suis le possesseur de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi—let me see, what then? Saint Denis be my speed!—donc vôtre est France, et vous êtes 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.

CATHERINE Sauf votre honneur, le français que vous parlez, il est meilleur que l’anglais lequel je parle.

KING HARRY 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?

CATHERINE I cannot tell.

KING HARRY 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 be’st mine, Kate—as I have a saving faith within me tells me thou shalt—I get thee with scrambling, 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 sayst thou, my fair flowerde-luce?

CATHERINE I do not know dat.

KING HARRY 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 Catherine du monde, mon très chere et divine deésse?

CATHERINE Your majesté ’ave faux French enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle dat is en France.

KING HARRY 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 Catherine, 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 Henry 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, Catherine, break thy mind to me in broken English: wilt thou have me?

CATHERINE Dat is as it shall please de roi mon père.

KING HARRY Nay, it will please him well, Kate. It shall please him, Kate.

CATHERINE Den it sail also content me.

KING HARRY Upon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my queen.

CATHERINE Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez! Ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abbaissez votre grandeur en baisant la main d’une de votre seigneurie indigne serviteur. Excusezmoi, je vous supplie, mon treis-puissant seigneur.

KING HARRY Then I will kiss your lips, Kate. 255

CATHERINE Les dames et demoiselles pour être baisées devant leurs noces, il n’est pas la coutume de France.

KING HARRY (to Alice) Madam my interpreter, what says she?

ALICE Dat it is not be de façon pour les ladies of France—I cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.

KING HARRY To kiss.

ALICE Your majesté entend bettre que moi.

KING HARRY It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say? 265 ALICE Oui, vraiment.

KING HARRY 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. (He kisses 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 Enter King Charles, Queen Isabel, the Duke of Burgundy, and the French and English lords

BURGUNDY God save your majesty. My royal cousin, teach you our princess English?

KING HARRY I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her, and that is good English.

BURGUNDY Is she not apt?

KING HARRY 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 HARRY 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 HARRY 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 HARRY 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 that it loves.

KING HARRY 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.

KING CHARLES 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 HARRY Shall Kate be my wife?

KING CHARLES So please you.

KING HARRY 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.

KING CHARLES We have consented to all terms of reason.

KING HARRY Is’t so, my lords of England?

⌈WARWICKI⌉

The King hath granted every article:

His daughter first, and so 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:

⌈reads⌉ in French, Notre très cher fils Henri, Roi

d’Angleterre, Heritier de France, and thus in Latin,

Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae et

Haeres Franciae.

KING CHARLES

Nor this I have not, brother, so denied,

But your request shall make me let it pass.

KING HARRY

I pray you then, in love and dear alliance,

Let that one article rank with the rest,

And thereupon give me your daughter.

KING CHARLES

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 HARRY

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 HARRY

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 prosp’rous be.

Sennet. Exeunt

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