Enter the King ⌜of England,⌝ Humphrey ⌜Duke of
Gloucester,⌝ Bedford, Clarence, Warwick, Westmoreland,
and Exeter, ⌜with other Attendants.⌝KING HENRY Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
EXETER Not here in presence.KING HENRY Send for him, good uncle.WESTMORELAND Shall we call in th’ Ambassador, my liege?KING HENRY 5 Not yet, my cousin. We would be resolved, Before we hear him, of some things of weight That task our thoughts concerning us and France.Enter ⌜the⌝ two Bishops ⌜of Canterbury and Ely.⌝BISHOP OF CANTERBURY God and his angels guard your sacred throne And make you long become it.KING HENRY 10 Sure we thank you. My learnèd lord, we pray you to proceed And justly and religiously unfold Why the law Salic that they have in France Or should or should not bar us in our claim.15 And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading, Or nicely charge your understanding soul With opening titles miscreate, whose right20 Suits not in native colors with the truth; For God doth know how many now in health Shall drop their blood in approbation Of what your reverence shall incite us to. Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,25 How you awake our sleeping sword of war. We charge you in the name of God, take heed, For never two such kingdoms did contend Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint30 ’Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords
That makes such waste in brief mortality. Under this conjuration, speak, my lord, For we will hear, note, and believe in heart35 That what you speak is in your conscience washed As pure as sin with baptism.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers That owe yourselves, your lives, and services To this imperial throne. There is no bar40 To make against your Highness’ claim to France But this, which they produce from Pharamond: “In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant” (No woman shall succeed in Salic land), Which Salic land the French unjustly gloze45 To be the realm of France, and Pharamond The founder of this law and female bar. Yet their own authors faithfully affirm That the land Salic is in Germany, Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe,50 Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons, There left behind and settled certain French, Who, holding in disdain the German women For some dishonest manners of their life,55 Established then this law: to wit, no female Should be inheritrix in Salic land, Which “Salic,” as I said, ’twixt Elbe and Sala Is at this day in Germany called Meissen. Then doth it well appear the Salic law60 Was not devisèd for the realm of France, Nor did the French possess the Salic land Until four hundred one and twenty years After defunction of King Pharamond, Idly supposed the founder of this law,65 Who died within the year of our redemption Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons and did seat the French Beyond the river Sala in the year Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,70 King Pepin, which deposèd Childeric, Did, as heir general, being descended Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair, Make claim and title to the crown of France. Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown75 Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great, To find his title with some shows of truth, Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught, Conveyed himself as th’ heir to th’ Lady Lingare,80 Daughter to Charlemagne, who was the son To Lewis the Emperor, and Lewis the son Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth, Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet, Could not keep quiet in his conscience,85 Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother, Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare, Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine: By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great90 Was reunited to the crown of France. So that, as clear as is the summer’s sun, King Pepin’s title and Hugh Capet’s claim, King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear To hold in right and title of the female.95 So do the kings of France unto this day, Howbeit they would hold up this Salic law To bar your Highness claiming from the female, And rather choose to hide them in a net Than amply to imbar their crooked titles100 Usurped from you and your progenitors.KING HENRY May I with right and conscience make this claim?
BISHOP OF CANTERBURY The sin upon my head, dread sovereign, For in the Book of Numbers is it writ: “When the man dies, let the inheritance105 Descend unto the daughter.” Gracious lord, Stand for your own, unwind your bloody flag, Look back into your mighty ancestors. Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire’s tomb, From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit110 And your great-uncle’s, Edward the Black Prince, Who on the French ground played a tragedy, Making defeat on the full power of France Whiles his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling to behold his lion’s whelp115 Forage in blood of French nobility. O noble English, that could entertain With half their forces the full pride of France And let another half stand laughing by, All out of work and cold for action!BISHOP OF ELY 120 Awake remembrance of these valiant dead And with your puissant arm renew their feats. You are their heir, you sit upon their throne, The blood and courage that renownèd them Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege125 Is in the very May-morn of his youth, Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.EXETER Your brother kings and monarchs of the Earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself As did the former lions of your blood.WESTMORELAND 130 They know your Grace hath cause and means and might; So hath your Highness. Never king of England Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects,
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England135 And lie pavilioned in the fields of France.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, With ⌜blood⌝ and sword and fire to win your right, In aid whereof we of the spiritualty Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum140 As never did the clergy at one time Bring in to any of your ancestors.KING HENRY We must not only arm t’ invade the French, But lay down our proportions to defend Against the Scot, who will make road upon us145 With all advantages.BISHOP OF 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,150 But fear the main intendment of the Scot, Who hath been still a giddy neighbor to us. For you shall read that my great-grandfather Never went with his forces into France But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom155 Came pouring like the tide into a breach With ample and brim fullness of his force, Galling the gleanèd land with hot assays, Girding with grievous siege castles and towns, That England, being empty of defense,160 Hath shook and trembled at th’ ill neighborhood.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY She hath been then more feared than harmed, my liege, For hear her but exampled by herself: When all her chivalry hath been in France
165 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 kings170 And make ⌜her⌝ chronicle as rich with praise As is the ooze and bottom of the sea With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.BISHOP OF ELY But there’s a saying very old and true: “If that you will France win,
175 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,180 To ’tame and havoc more than she can eat.EXETER It follows, then, the cat must stay at home. Yet that is but a crushed necessity, Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.185 While that the armèd hand doth fight abroad, Th’ advisèd 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,190 Like music.BISHOP OF CANTERBURY Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavor in continual motion, To which is fixèd as an aim or butt195 Obedience; for so work the honeybees, 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,200 Others like merchants venture trade abroad, Others like soldiers armèd 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,205 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,210 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,215 As many arrows loosèd 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 center, So may a thousand actions, once afoot,220 ⌜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.225 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.⌜Attendants exit.⌝230 Now are we well resolved, 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 empery235 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,240 Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth, Not worshiped with a waxen epitaph.Enter Ambassadors of France, ⌜with Attendants.⌝
Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure Of our fair cousin Dauphin, for we hear Your greeting is from him, not from the King.AMBASSADOR 245 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,250 Unto whose grace our passion is as subject As is our wretches fettered in our prisons. Therefore with frank and with uncurbèd plainness Tell us the Dauphin’s mind.AMBASSADOR Thus, then, in few:255 Your Highness, lately sending into France, Did claim some certain dukedoms in the right Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third; In answer of which claim, the Prince our master Says that you savor too much of your youth260 And bids you be advised there’s naught in France That can be with a nimble galliard won; You cannot revel into dukedoms there. He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
This tun of treasure and, in lieu of this,265 Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.KING HENRY What treasure, uncle?EXETER Tennis balls, my liege.KING HENRY 270 We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us. His present and your pains we thank you for. When we have matched our rackets to these balls, We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.275 Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler That all the courts of France will be disturbed With chases. And we understand him well, How he comes o’er us with our wilder days,280 Not measuring what use we made of them. We never valued this poor seat of England, And therefore, living hence, did give ourself To barbarous license, as ’tis ever common That men are merriest when they are from home.285 But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state, Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness When I do rouse me in my throne of France, For that I have laid by my majesty And plodded like a man for working days;290 But I will rise there with so full a glory That I will dazzle all the eyes of France, Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us. And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his Hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul295 Shall stand sore chargèd for the wasteful vengeance That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;300 And some are yet ungotten and unborn That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn. But this lies all within the will of God, To whom I do appeal, and in whose name Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on,305 To venge me as I may and to put forth My rightful hand in a well-hallowed cause. So get you hence in peace. And tell the Dauphin His jest will savor but of shallow wit When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.—310 Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well.Ambassadors exit, ⌜with Attendants.⌝EXETER This was a merry message.KING HENRY We hope to make the sender blush at it. Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour That may give furth’rance to our expedition;315 For we have now no thought in us but France, Save those to God, that run before our business. Therefore let our proportions for these wars Be soon collected, and all things thought upon That may with reasonable swiftness add320 More feathers to our wings. For, God before, We’ll chide this Dauphin at his father’s door. Therefore let every man now task his thought, That this fair action may on foot be brought.Flourish. They exit.
Henry V
