The Life of King Henry V. William Shakespeare

HENRY.

       We must not only arm to invade the French,

       But lay down our proportions to defend

       Against the Scot, who will make road upon us

       With all advantages.

      CANTERBURY.

       They of those marches, gracious sovereign,

       Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

       Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

      KING HENRY.

       We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,

       But fear the main intendment of the Scot,

       Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;

       For you shall read that my great-grandfather

       Never went with his forces into France

       But that the Scot on his unfurnish’d kingdom

       Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,

       With ample and brim fullness of his force,

       Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,

       Girdling with grievous siege castles and towns;

       That England, being empty of defence,

       Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.

      CANTERBURY.

       She hath been then more fear’d than harm’d, my liege;

       For hear her but exampl’d by herself:

       When all her chivalry hath been in France,

       And she a mourning widow of her nobles,

       She hath herself not only well defended

       But taken and impounded as a stray

       The King of Scots; whom she did send to France

       To fill King Edward’s fame with prisoner kings,

       And make her chronicle as rich with praise

       As is the ooze and bottom of the sea

       With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.

      WESTMORLAND.

       But there’s a saying very old and true,

       “If that you will France win,

       Then with Scotland first begin.”

       For once the eagle England being in prey,

       To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot

       Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,

       Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,

       To tear and havoc more than she can eat.

      EXETER.

       It follows then the cat must stay at home;

       Yet that is but a crush’d necessity,

       Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,

       And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.

       While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,

       The advised head defends itself at home;

       For government, though high and low and lower,

       Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,

       Congreeing in a full and natural close,

       Like music.

      CANTERBURY.

       Therefore doth heaven divide

       The state of man in divers functions,

       Setting endeavour in continual motion,

       To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

       Obedience; for so work the honey-bees,

       Creatures that by a rule in nature teach

       The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

       They have a king and officers of sorts,

       Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,

       Others like merchants, venture trade abroad,

       Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,

       Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds,

       Which pillage they with merry march bring home

       To the tent-royal of their emperor;

       Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

       The singing masons building roofs of gold,

       The civil citizens kneading up the honey,

       The poor mechanic porters crowding in

       Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,

       The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,

       Delivering o’er to executors pale

       The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,

       That many things, having full reference

       To one consent, may work contrariously.

       As many arrows, loosed several ways,

       Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;

       As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;

       As many lines close in the dial’s centre;

       So many a thousand actions, once afoot,

       End in one purpose, and be all well borne

       Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege!

       Divide your happy England into four,

       Whereof take you one quarter into France,

       And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.

       If we, with thrice such powers left at home,

       Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,

       Let us be worried and our nation lose

       The name of hardiness and policy.

      KING HENRY.

       Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.

      [Exeunt some Attendants.]

      Now are we well resolv’d; and, by God’s help,

       And yours, the noble sinews of our power,

       France being ours, we’ll bend it to our awe,

       Or break it all to pieces. Or there we’ll sit,

       Ruling in large and ample empery

       O’er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,

       Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,

       Tombless, with no remembrance over them.

       Either our history shall with full mouth

       Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,

       Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,

       Not worshipp’d with a waxen epitaph.

      Enter Ambassadors of France.

      Now are we well prepar’d to know the pleasure

       Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear

       Your greeting is from him, not from the King.

      FIRST AMBASSADOR.

       May’t please your Majesty to give us leave

       Freely to render what we have in charge,

       Or shall we sparingly show you far off

       The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?

      KING HENRY.

       We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,

       Unto whose grace our passion is as subject

       As is our wretches