Now entertain conjecture of a time

When creeping murmur and the poring dark

Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

From camp to camp through the foul womb of night

The hum of either army stilly sounds,

That the fix’d sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other’s watch;

Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames

Each battle sees 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 busy 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 secure in soul,

The confident and over-lusty French

Do the low-rated English play 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 sacrifices, by their watchful fires

Sit patiently and inly ruminate

The morning’s danger; and their gesture sad,

Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats,

Presented them unto the gazing moon

So many horrid ghosts. 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, “Praise and glory on his head!”

For forth he goes and visits all his host,

Bids them good morrow with a modest smile,

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 semblance and sweet majesty;

That every wretch, pining and pale before,

Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks.

A largess universal like the sun

His liberal eye doth give to everyone,

Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all

Behold, as may unworthiness define,

A little touch of Harry in the night.

And so our scene must to the battle fly,

Where—O for pity!—we shall much disgrace

With four or five most vile and ragged foils,

Right ill-dispos’d in brawl ridiculous,

The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,

Minding true things by what their mock’ries be.

Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger;

The greater therefore should our courage be.

Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,

Would men observingly distil it out;

For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers,

Which is both healthful and good husbandry.

Besides, they are our outward consciences,

And preachers to us all, admonishing

That we should dress us fairly for our end.

Thus may we gather honey from the weed,

And make a moral of the devil himself.

Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:

A good soft pillow for that good white head

Were better than a churlish turf of France.

Not so, my liege; this lodging likes me better,

Since I may say, “Now lie I like a king.”

’Tis good for men to love their present pains

Upon example; so the spirit is eased;

And when the mind is quick’ned, out of doubt,

The organs, though defunct and dead before,

Break up their drowsy grave and newly move,

With casted slough and fresh legerity.

Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,

Commend me to the princes in our camp;

Do my good morrow to them, and anon

Desire them all to my pavilion.

We shall, my liege.

Shall I attend your Grace?

No, my good knight;

Go with my brothers to my lords of England.

I and my bosom must debate a while,

And then I would no other company.

The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!

God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak’st cheerfully.

A friend.

Discuss unto me; art thou officer?

Or art thou base, common, and popular?

I am a gentleman of a company.

Trail’st thou the puissant pike?

Even so. What are you?

As good a gentleman as the Emperor.

Then you are a better than the King.

The King’s a bawcock, and a heart of gold,

A lad of life, an imp of fame;

Of parents good, of fist most valiant.

I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string

I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?

Harry le Roy.

Le Roy! a Cornish name. Art thou of Cornish crew?

No, I am a Welshman.

Know’st thou Fluellen?

Yes.

Tell him I’ll knock his leek about his pate

Upon Saint Davy’s day.

Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that

about yours.

Art thou his friend?

And his kinsman too.

The _fico_ for thee, then!

I thank you. God be with you!

My name is Pistol call’d.

It sorts well with your fierceness.

Captain Fluellen!

So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is the greatest

admiration in the universal world, when the true and anchient

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 shall find, I

warrant you, that there is no tiddle taddle nor pibble pabble in

Pompey’s camp. I warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies of the

wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety of it,

and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.

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

If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet,

think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a

prating coxcomb? In your own conscience, now?

I will speak lower.

I pray you and beseech you that you will.

Though it appear a little out of fashion,

There is much care and valour in this Welshman.

Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?

I think it be; but we have no great cause to desire the approach of

day.

We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see

the end of it. Who goes there?

A friend.

Under what captain serve you?

Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray you, what thinks

he of our estate?

Even as men wreck’d upon a sand, that look to be wash’d off the next

tide.

He hath not told his thought to the King?

No; nor it is not meet he should. For though I speak it to you, I think

the King is but a man as I am. The violet smells to him as it doth to

me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but

human conditions. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears

but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet,

when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees

reason of fears as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same

relish as ours are; yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any

appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.

He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a

night as ’tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I

would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I think he would

not wish himself anywhere but where he is.

Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed,

and a many poor men’s lives saved.

I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone, howsoever

you speak this to feel other men’s minds. Methinks I could not die

anywhere so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just

and his quarrel honourable.

That’s more than we know.

Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know

we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the

King wipes the crime of it out of us.

But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning

to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp’d off in a

battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, “We died at

such a place”; some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon

their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some

upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that

die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when

blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be

a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were

against all proportion of subjection.

So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully

miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule,

should be imposed upon his father that sent him; or if a servant, under

his master’s command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by

robbers and die in many irreconcil’d iniquities, you may call the

business of the master the author of the servant’s damnation. But this

is not so. The King is not bound to answer the particular endings of

his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for

they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services.

Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come

to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted

soldiers. Some peradventure have on them the guilt of premeditated and

contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of

perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored

the gentle bosom of Peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men

have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can

outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle,

war is his vengeance; so that here men are punish’d 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 safe, they

perish. 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 visited. Every subject’s duty is the King’s; but

every subject’s soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the

wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his

conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the

time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him

that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making God so free an

offer, He let him outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach

others how they should prepare.

’Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head, the

King is not to answer for it.

I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to fight

lustily for him.

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

Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but when our throats are

cut, he may be ransom’d, and we ne’er the wiser.

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

You pay him then. That’s a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, that a

poor and a private displeasure can do against a monarch! You may as

well go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a

peacock’s feather. You’ll never trust his word after! Come, ’tis a

foolish saying.

Your reproof is something too round. I should be angry with you, if the

time were convenient.

Let it be a quarrel between us if you live.

I embrace it.

How shall I know thee again?

Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet; then, if

ever thou dar’st acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel.

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

There.

This will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou come to me and say, after

tomorrow, “This is my glove,” by this hand I will take thee a box on

the ear.

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

Thou dar’st as well be hang’d.

Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the King’s company.

Keep thy word; fare thee well.

Be friends, you English fools, be friends. We have French quarrels

enough, if you could tell how to reckon.

Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to one they will beat

us, for they bear them on their shoulders; but it is no English treason

to cut French crowns, and tomorrow the King himself will be a clipper.

Our debts, our careful wives,

Our children, and our sins lay on the King!

We must bear all. O hard condition,

Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath

Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel

But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s ease

Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!

And what have kings, that privates have not too,

Save 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, show me but thy worth!

What is thy soul of adoration?

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,

Creating awe and fear in other men?

Wherein thou art less happy being fear’d

Than they in fearing.

What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,

But poison’d flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,

And bid thy Ceremony give thee cure!

Think’st thou the fiery fever will go out

With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?

Canst thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,

Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,

That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose;

I am a king that find thee, and I know

’Tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball,

The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,

The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,

The farced title running ’fore the King,

The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp

That beats upon the high shore of this world,

No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous Ceremony,—

Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,

Who with a body fill’d and vacant mind

Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread,

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,

But, like a lackey, from the rise to set

Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night

Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,

Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,

And follows so the ever-running year,

With profitable labour, to his grave:

And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,

Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.

The slave, a member of the country’s peace,

Enjoys it, but in gross brain little wots

What watch the King keeps to maintain the peace,

Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,

Seek through your camp to find you.

Good old knight,

Collect them all together at my tent.

I’ll be before thee.

I shall do’t, my lord.

O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts.

Possess them not with fear. Take from them now

The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers

Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O Lord,

O, not today, think not upon the fault

My father made in compassing the crown!

I Richard’s body have interred new,

And on it have bestow’d more contrite tears

Than from it issued 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 sad and solemn priests

Sing still for Richard’s soul. More will I do;

Though all that I can do is nothing worth,

Since that my penitence comes after all,

Imploring pardon.

My liege!

My brother Gloucester’s voice? Ay;

I know thy errand, I will go with thee.

The day, my friends, and all things stay for me.