Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
Exe. Your brother kings, and monarchs of the earth,
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.
West. 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 England, And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.
Cant. 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 sum,
As never did the clergy at one time
Bring in to any of your ancestors.
K. Hen. We must not only arm t' invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.
Cant. They of those marches, gracious Sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
K. Hen. 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 fulness of his force;
Galling the gleaned land with hot essays,
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood. Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;
For hear her but exampled 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 wrack and sumless treasuries.
West. 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.
Exe. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home:
Yet that is but a curs'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,
Th' 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,
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 burthens at his narrow gate,
The sad-ey'd 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 concent, 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 may 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.
K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the
Dolphin.
[Exit an Attendant.
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 Dolphin; for, we hear,
Your greeting is from him, not from the King
Ambassador. May't please your Majesty to give
us leave
Freely to render what we have in charge?
Or shall we sparingly shew you, far off,
The Dolphin's meaning and our embassy?
K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king, Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons;
Therefore, with frank and with uncurbed plainness, Tell us the Dolphin's mind.
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 savour too much of your youth,
And bids you be advis'd, 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,
Desires you, let the dukedoms that you claim
Hear no more of you. This the Dolphin speaks.
K. Hen. What treasure, uncle?
K. Hen. We are glad the Dolphin is so pleasant
His present and your pains we thank you for: When we have match'd 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.
Tell him he hath made a match with such a
That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
With chases. And we understand him well,
How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.
We never valu'd 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.
But tell the Dolphin, — I will keep my state,
Be like a king, and shew 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;
But I will rise there with so full a glory,
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dolphin blind to look on us.
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