my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things. Alexander (God knows, and you know,) in his rages, and his furies, and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his pest friend, Clytus.

Gow. Our king is not like him in that; he never killed any of his friends.

Flu. It is not well done, mark you now, to take tales out of my mouth, ere it is made an end and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it: As Alexander is kill his friend Clytus, being in his ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his goot judgments, is turn away the fat knight with the great pelly-doublet: he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I am forget his name.

Gow. Sir John Falstaff.

Flu. That is he: I can tell you there is goot men born at Monmouth.

Gow. Here comes his majesty.

Alarum. Enter King HENRY with a Part of the English Forces; WARWICK, GLOster, Exeter, and Others.

K. Hen. I was not angry since I came to France Until this instant.-Take a trumpet, herald; Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill; If they will fight with us, bid them come down, Or void the field; they do offend our sight:

4

the fat knight —] This is the last time that Falstaff can make sport. The poet was loath to part with him, and has con➡ tinued his memory as long as he could.

If they'll do neither, we will come to them;
And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings:

Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have;
And not a man of them, that we shall take,
Shall taste our mercy :-Go, and tell them so.

Enter MONTJOY.

Ere. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege. Glo. His eyes are humbler than they us'd to be. K. Hen. How now! what means this, herald? know'st thou not,

That I have fin'd these bones of mine for ransome? Com'st thou again for ransome?

Mont. No, great king: I come to thee for charitable licence, That we may wander o'er this bloody field, To book our dead, and then to bury them; To sort our nobles from our common men; For many of our princes (woe the while!) Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood; (So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs In blood of princes;) and their wounded steeds Fret fetlock deep in gore, and, with wild rage, Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters, Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king, To view the field in safety, and dispose

Of their dead bodies.

K. Hen.

I tell thee truly, herald,
I know not, if the day be ours, or no;
For yet a many of your horsemen peer,
And gallop o'er the field.

Mont.

The day is yours.

K. Hen. Praised be God, and not our strength,

for it!

What is this castle call'd, that stands hard by
Mont. They call it—Agincourt.

VOL. V.

S

K. Hen. Then call we this-the field of Agincourt, Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

Flu. Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your majesty, and your great uncle Edward the plack prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France. K. Hen. They did, Fluellen.

Flu. Your majesty says very true if your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshman did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty knows, to this hour is an honourable padge of the service; and I do believe, your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day.

K. Hen. I wear it for a memorable honour: For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

Flu. All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that: Got pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace, and his majesty too!

K. Hen. Thanks, good my countryman.

Flu. By Cheshu, I am your majesty's countryman, I care not who know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

K. Hen. God keep me so!-Our heralds go with
him;

Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
On both our parts.-Call yonder fellow hither.

[Points to WILLIAMS. Exeunt MONTJQY
and Others.

Exe. Soldier, you must come to the king. K. Hen. Soldier, why wear'st thou that glove in thy cap?

Will. An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive.

K. Hen. An Englishman?

Will. An't please your majesty, a rascal, that swaggered with me last night: who, if 'a live, and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o'the ear: or, if I can see my glove in his cap, (which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear, if alive,) I will strike it out soundly.

K. Hen. What think you, captain Fluellen? is it fit this soldier keep his oath ?

Flu. He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your majesty, in my conscience.

K. Hen. It may be, his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, quite from the answer of his degree."

5

Flu. Though he be as goot a gentleman as the tevil is, as Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain, and a Jack sauce, as ever his plack shoe trod upon Got's ground and his earth, in my conscience, la.

K. Hen. Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meet'st the fellow.

Will. So I will, my liege, as I live.

K. Hen. Who servest thou under?
Will. Under captain Gower, my liege.

Flu. Gower is a goot captain? and is good knowledge and literature in the wars.

K. Hen. Call him hither to me, soldier.
Will. I will, my liege.

Exit.

K. Hen. Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me, and stick it in thy cap: When Alençon and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm; if any man challenge this, he is a friend to

5

great sort,] High rank.

6

quite from the answer of his degree.] A man of such station as is not bound to hazard his person to answer to a challenge from one of the soldier's low degree.

Alençon and an enemy to our person; if thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost love me.

Flu. Your grace does me as great honours, as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain see the man, that has but two legs, that shall find himself aggriefed at this glove, that is all; but I would fain see it once: an please Got of his grace, that I might see it.

K. Hen. Knowest thou Gower?

Flu. He is my dear friend, an please you.

K. Hen. Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.

Flu. I will fetch him.

[Exit. K. Hen. My lord of Warwick,-and my brother

Gloster,

Follow Fluellen closely at the heels:

The glove, which I have given him for a favour,
May, haply, purchase him a box o'the ear;
It is the soldier's; I, by bargain, should
Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick:
If that the soldier strike him, (as, I judge
By his blunt bearing, he will keep his word,)
Some sudden mischief may arise of it;

For I do know Fluellen valiant,

And, touch'd with choler, hot as gunpowder,

And quickly will return an injury:

Follow, and see there be no harm between them.

Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.

SCENE VIII.

Before King Henry's Pavilion.

Enter GoWER and WILLIAMS.

[Exeunt.

Will. I warrant, it is to knight you, captain.