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.

Will. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head: the king is not to answer it.

Bates. I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to fight lustily for him.

K. Hen. I myself heard the king say, he would not be ransomed.

Will. Ay, he said so to make us fight cheerfully; but when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we ne'er the wiser.

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

Will. 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, 't is a foolish saying.

K. Hen. Your reproof is something too round: I should be angry with you, if the time were convenient.

Will. Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

K. Hen. I embrace it.

Will. How shall I know thee again?

K. Hen. Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel.

Will. Here's my glove: give me another of thine.

K. Hen. There.

Will. This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou come to me and say, after to-morrow,

I will take thee a box on the ear.

This is my glove," by this hand,

K. Hen. If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
Will. Thou darest as well be hanged.

K. Hen. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the king's company.

Will. Keep thy word: fare thee well.

Bates. Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.

K. Hen. 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 to-morrow the king himself will be a clipper. [Exeunt Soldiers.

Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,

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 inter-tissued 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.

Enter ERPINGHAM.

Erp. My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence, Seek through your camp to find you.

K. Hen.

Collect them all together at my tent:

I'll be before thee.

Erp.

Good old knight,

I shall do 't, my lord.

K. Hen. O, God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts: Possess them not with fear: take from them now

[Exit.

The sense of reckoning, if th' opposed numbers

Pluck their hearts from them! Not to-day, O Lord!
O! not to-day, 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.

Enter GLOSTer.

Glo. My liege!

K. Hen.

My brother Gloster's voice? - Ay;

I know thy errand, I will go with thee. —

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

SCENE II.

The French Camp.

[Exeunt.

Enter DAUPHIN, Orleans, RaMBURES, and Others.
Orl. The sun doth gild our armour: up, my lords!

Dau. Montez à cheval: — My horse! valet! lacquay! ha!
Orl. O brave spirit!

Con. Hark, how our steeds for present service neigh.
Dau. Mount them, and make incision in their hides.

That their hot blood may spin in English eyes,

And doubt them with superfluous courage: Ha!

Ram. What, will you have them weep our horses' blood? How shall we then behold their natural tears?

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. The English are embattled, you French peers. Con. To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse! Do but behold yon poor and starved band,

And your fair show shall suck away their souls;
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
There is not work enough for all our hands;
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins,
To give each naked curtle-ax a stain,

That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,
And sheath for lack of sport: let us but blow on them,
The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.

'T is positive against all exceptions, lords,
That our superfluous lackeys, and our peasants,

Who in unnecessary action swarm

About our squares of battle, were enow

To purge this field of such a hilding foe,
Though we, upon this mountain's basis by
Took stand for idle speculation:

But that our honours must not. What's to say?
A very little little let us do,

And all is done. Then, let the trumpets sound
The tucket-sonnance, and the note to mount:
For our approach shall so much dare the field,
That England shall couch down in fear, and yield.

Enter GRANDPRÉ.

Grand. Why do you stay so long, my lords of France? Yond' island carrions, desperate of their bones,

Ill-favour'dly become the morning field:

Their ragged curtains poorly are let loose,
And our air shakes them passing scornfully.
Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host,
And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps.
The horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks,