80 134 85 89 145 66 95 Sil. (Singing.) “Do me right, wilt in the land, 't is thine. Pistol, I will douAnd dub me knight: ble-charge thee with dignities. S'amingo." Bard. O joyful day! Is 't not so ? I would not take a knighthood for my forFal. 'Tis so. tune. Sil. Is 't so? Why then, say an old man can Pist. What! I do bring good news. do somewhat. Fal. Carry Master Silence to bed. Master (Re-enter Davy.) Shallow, my Lord Shallow, – be what thou wilt; I am Fortune's steward--get on thy boots, Davy. An't please your worship, there's We'll ride all night. O sweet Pistol ! Away, one Pistol come from the court with news. Bardolph ! (Exit Bard.), Come, Pistol, utter Fal. From the court! Let him come in. more to me, and withal devise something to do Enter PISTOL. thyself good. Boot, boot, Master Shallow ! I 148 know the young king is sick for me. Let us How now, Pistol ! take any man's horses ; the laws of England are Pist. Sir John, God save you ! at my commandment. Blessed are they that Fal. What wind blew you hither, Pis- have been my friends; and woe to my Lord tol? Chief Justice! Pist. Not the ill wind which blows no man Pist. Let vultures vile seize on his lungs to good. Sweet knight, thou art now one of the also ! greatest men in this realm. Where is the life that late I led ?" say they. Sil. By 'r lady, I think ’a be, but goodman Why here it is; welcome these pleasant days! Puff of Barson. (Exeunt. Pist. Puff ! Puff i' thy teeth, most recreant coward base ! SCENE IV. (London. A street.) Enter BEADLES, (dragging in) HOSTESS And tidings do I bring, and lucky joys Quickly and DOLL TEARSHEET. And golden times and happy news of price. 100 Host. No, thou arrant knave; I would to Fal. I pray thee now, deliver them like a God that I might die, that I might have thee man of this world. hang'd. Thou hast drawn my shoulder out of Pist. A foutra for the world and worldlings | joint. base! 1. Bead. The constables have deliver'd her I speak of Africa and golden joys. over to me; and she shall have whipping-cheer Fal. O base Assyrian knight, what is thy enough, I warrant her. There hath been a man news? or two lately kill'd about her. Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof, Dol. Nut-hook, nut-hook, you lie. Come on! Sil. (Singing.) And Robin Hood, Scarlet, I'll tell thee what, thou damn'd tripe-visag'd and John. rascal, an the child I now go with do miscarry, Pist. Shall dunghill curs confront the Heli- thou wert better thou hadst struck thy mother, cons ? thou paper-fac'd villain! And shall good news be baffled ? Host. O the Lord, that Sir John were come! Then, Pistol, lay thy head in Furies' lap. He would make this a bloody day to somebody. Sil. Honest gentleman, I know not your But I pray God the fruit of her womb misbreeding. carry: Pist. Why then, lament therefore. 1. Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of Shal. Give me pardon, sir. If, sir, you come cushions again ; you have but eleven now. with news from the court, I take it there's but Come, I charge you both go with me; for the two ways, either to utter them, or to conceal man is dead that you and Pistol beat amongst them. I am, sir, under the King, in some au you. thority. Dol. I'll tell you what, you thin man in a Pist. Under which king, Besonian? Speak, censer, I will have you as soundly swinged for this, - you blue-bottle rogue, you filthy fam. Shal. Under King Harry. ish'd correctioner, if you be not swinged, I 'll Pist. Harry the Fourth or Fifth ? forswear half-kirtles. Shal. Harry the Fourth. 1. Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant, Pist. A foutra for thine office! come. Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king; Host. O God, that right should thus overcome Harry the Fifth 's the man. I speak the might! Well, of sufferance comes ease. truth. Dol. Come, you rogue, come ; bring me to a When Pistol lies, do this, and fig me like justice. The bragging Spaniard. Host. Ay, come, you starv'd blood-hound. Fal. What, is the old king dead ? Dol. Goodman death, goodman bones ! Pist. As nail in door. The things I speak are Host. Thou atomy, thou ! just. Dol. Come, you thin thing ; come, you ras Fal. Away, Bardolph! saddle my horse. cal. Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou 1. Bead. Very well. (Ereunt, $ 105 110 118 or die. 129 126 my heart! 55 60 me. 16 70 20 Set on. SCENE V. (A public place near Westminster Abbey.] Enter two GROOMS, strewing rushes. 1. Groom. More rushes, more rushes. 2. Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice, 1. Groom. 'Twill be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation. Dispatch, dispatch. 4 [Exeunt. Trumpets sound, and the King and his train pass over the stage. After them enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and PAGE. Fal. Stand here by me, Master Robert Shallow ; I will make the King do you grace. I will leer upon him as he comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. 0, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But 't is no matter; this poor show doth better ; this doth infer the zeal I had to see him. [Shal.] It doth so. Fal. As it were, to ride day and night; and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me, Shal. It is best, certain. (Fal.] But to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him ; thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs else in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to see him. Pist. 'Tis ** semper idem,” for “obsque hoc nihil est." 'Tis all in every part. Shal. 'Tis so, indeed. liver, Alecto's snake, Fal. I will deliver her. clangor sounds. The trumpets sound. Enter the King and his train, the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE among them. Fal. God save thy Grace, King Hal! my royal Hal! Pist. The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame! Fal. God save thee, my sweet boy! vain man. what 't is you speak ? Fal. My king ! my Jove! I speak to thee, King. I know thee not, old man; fall to thy prayers. How ill white hairs become a fool and jester! I have long dream'd of such a kind of man, So surfeit-swell’d, so old, and so profane; But, being awak'd, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace; Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape For thee thrice wider than for other men. Reply not to me with a fool-born jest. Presume not that I am the thing I was; For God doth know, so shall the world per ceive, That I have turn'd away my former self ; So will I those that kept me company. When thou dost hear I am as I have been, Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast, 65 The tutor and the feeder of my riots ; Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death, As I have done the rest of my misleaders, Not to come near our person by ten mile. For competence of life I will allow you, That lack of means enforce you not to evils ; And, as we hear you do reform yourselves, We will, according to your strengths and qual ities, Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord, To see perform'd the tenour of my word. (Exeunt King (etc.l. Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Yea, marry, Sir John ; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. Fal. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word. This that you heard was but a colour. Shal. A colour that I fear you will die in, Sir John. Fal. Fear no colours ; go with me to dinner. Come, Lieutenant Pistol ; come, Bardolph. I shall be sent for soon at night. Re-enter PRINCE John, the LORD CHIEF JUS TICE [Officers with them). Fleet. Fal. My lord, my lord, you soon. Take them away. Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spera contenta, (Exeunt all but Prince John and the Chief Justice. 80 29 91 41 100 105 Lan. I like this fair proceeding of the King's. He hath intent his wonted followers Shall all be very well provided for ; But all are banish'd till their conversations Appear more wise and modest to the world. Ch. Just. And so they are. Lan. The King hath call'd his parliament, Ch. Just. He hath. Lan. I will lay odds that, ere this year ex pire, King. (Exeunt. 115 my lord. 110 known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a bet- (19 ter. I meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily bome, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here promis'd you I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies. Bate me (us some and I will pay you some and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs ? And yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will se make any possible satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me ; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy'd with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France; where, for anything I know, (w Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a be kill'd with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary ; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night ; and so kneel down be [** fore you; but, indeed, to pray for the Queen. EPILOGUE (Spoken by a DANCER.) First my fear; then my curtsy; last my speech. My fear is, your displeasure ; my curtsy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good' speech now, you undo me; for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say [5 will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it In the case of Henry V the date of composition can be fixed with more exactness and assurance than usual. The Chorus prefixed to Act v contains in lines 30-34 a clear allusion to the expedition led by the Earl of Essex, who left for Ireland on April 15, 1599, and returned on September 28 of the same year. The nature of the reference is such as to date the passage between these limits. A quarto edition appeared in 1600, and was reprinted in 1602 and 1608. This however, not the source of the text of the First Folio, on which the present edition is based. The Quarto is less than half the length of the version in the Folio, and the text is so badly mangled and corrupted that it is to be concluded that it is a pirated edition printed from notes taken at a performance, and perhaps from other sources surreptitiously obtained. The theory that it represents an earlier draft of the play, afterwards elaborated into the form found in the Folio, is negatived by a close comparison of the texts. The source of the serious plot of this history is, as usual, the Chronicles of Holinshed. Shakespeare follows the main thread of the actual events, altering the order only slightly, but condensing the action from six years. The long speeches throughout are, but for a few hints, altogether his, with the exception of the genealogical argument of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1. ü., which follows Holinshed with remarkable closeness. The scenes in which Pistol and his fellows appear have, of course, no original ; and the group of subordinate officers, Fluellen, Macmorris, and Captain Jamy, with Williams and Bates and the glove episode, are all purely Shakespearean. The pardoning of the man who had railed against the king is a skilful invention to lead up to the unmasking and self-condemnation of the conspirators. Changes in the comparative prominence of details are managed in such a way as to produce the characteristic patriotic temper of the play. Thus, the tennis-ball message and reply are emphasized and elaborated; and the happy personal relations existing among the English are bronght out in Henry's speeches to old Erpingham, in the description of the deaths of Suffolk and York, in the conversation between the king and the common soldiers, in the splendid eloquence of such speeches as those of Henry before Harfleur and on St. Crispin's Day, all of which are absent from the chronicles ; and, conversely, the vain boasting of the French lords before the battle is created out of a mere hint that they passed the night in merriment and were contemptuous of their opponents. Again, additional stress is laid by Shakespeare on Henry's piety, his soliloquy and prayer before Agincourt being without historical basis. Yet the main lines of his character are those laid down by Holinshed and earlier writers. The French lesson of the Princess is original ; but the wooing is foreshadowed in the crude play of The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, which had already supplied hints for Henry IV. This play also uses the Dauphin's gift of tennis-balls, and contains dialect parts which may have suggested the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish parts here; and a scene in which a Frenchman tries to hold an Englishman for ransom bears a certain resemblance to Pistol's treatment of his French captive. The stealing of the pyx and the fate, though not the character, of Bardolph are historical. The Dauphin was not in fact present at the battle of Agincourt, and in this detail the Quarto follows history more accurately than the Folio. The simile of the bees in Canterbury's speech (1. ii. 187–204) may have been suggested by a passage in Lyly's Euphues and his England, which in turn is based on Pliny. The style of the sonnet Epilogue suggests some doubts as to its anthorship, - a point of some importance in view of the stress laid on it in discussions on Henry VI. With the exception of the doubtful Henry VIII, this play was the last to be written of Shakespeare's histories. The crises in English history before the Tudor period which gave good dramatic opportunity were well-nigh exhausted, and the limitations of the form of the chronicle play must have been increasingly irksome to Shakespeare's developed artistic sense. Henry V forms an appropriate close to the series, bringing, as it does, the patriotic fervor underlying them all to its highest expression, and embodying it in the heroic figure of the ideal English king. THE LIFE OF HENRY THE FIFTH (DRAMATIS PERSONA KING HENRY V. BARDOLPE. DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, brothers to the King. ΒΟΥ. A Herald CHARLES VI, king of France. DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURBOX. BISHOP OF ELY. The Constable of France. EARL OF CAMBRIDGE. RAMBURES, French Lords. LORD SCROOP. GRANDPRÉ, SIR THOMAS GREY. Governor of Harfleur. SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, MONTJOY, a French Herald. Ambassadors to the King of England. ISABEL, queen of France. KATHARINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel. BATES, ALICE, a lady attending on her. COURT, soldiers in the same. Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mistress WILLIAMS, Quickly, and now married to Pistol. CHORUS. SCENE : England; afterwards France.] } 10 PROLOGUE Enter (CHORUS] ascend and fire all, them 16 SCENE I. (London. An ante-chamber in the King's palace.) the BISHOP OF ELY. urg'd, reign now? against us, We lose the better half of our possession ; 20 28 |