Delivering o'er to executors* pale

The lazy yawning drone.

King Henry's defiant Message to the Dauphin of France.

We are glad, the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
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 wrangler
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 valued this poor seat of England;
And therefore, living hence,§ did give ourself
To barbarous license; as 't is ever common,
That men are merriest when they are from home.
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;
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 turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance,

* Executioners.

†The Dauphin of France had, in derision of the King, sent him a box containing tennis-balls.

A term used in playing at tennis.
Having retired from the Court.

T

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.

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,
To venge me as I may, and to put forth
My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin,
His jest will savour of but shallow wit,

When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it.

ACT II.

CHORUS.

Martial Spirit.

Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies ;
Now thrive the armourers, and honour's thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man ;
They sell the pasture now, to buy the horse;
Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
For now sits Expectation in the air ;
And hides a sword, from hilt unto the point,
With crowns imperial, crowns, and coronets,
Promis'd to Harry and his followers.

Apostrophe to England.

O England!-model to thy inward greatness, Like little body with a mighty heart,

What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do,

Were all thy children kind and natural!

B

A

But see thy fault!

France hath in thee found out

A nest of hollow bosoms which he fills

With treacherous crowns.

False Appearances; the King's Reproaches to the
Traitor Scroop.

O, how hast thou with jealousy infected

The sweetness of affiance!

Why, so didst thou:

Why, so didst thou:

Show men dutiful?

Seem they grave and learned? Come they of noble family? Why, so didst thou: Seem they religious? Why, so didst thou or are they spare in diet; Free from gross passion, or of mirth or anger; Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement; + Not working with the eye, without the ear, And, but in purged judgment, trusting neither? Such, and so finely bolted, ‡ didst thou seem: And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot, To mark the full-fraught man, and best indued, § With some suspicion.

any

Dame Quickly's Account of Falstaff's Death.

'A made a finer end, and went away, an it had been chrisom child; || 'a parted even just between twelve and one, e'en at turning o' the tide; for after I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and 'a babbled of green fields.

i. e., The King of France. § Endow'd.

Accomplishment.

A child not more than a month old.

Sifted.

King Henry's Character by the Constable of France.

You are too much mistaken in this king:
Question, your grace, the late ambassadors,
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception,* and, withal,
How terrible in constant resolution,-
And you shall find, his vanities forespent +
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring, and be most delicate.

ACT III.

CHORUS.

Description of a Fleet setting Sail.

Suppose, that you have seen

The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning.
Play with your fancies; and in them behold,
Upon the hempen tackle, ship-boys climbing:
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confus'd: behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge.

King Henry's Address to his Soldiers at Harfleur.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends,—once

more,

Or close the wall up with our English dead!

* In making objections.

Wasted, exhausted.

In

peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility;

But, when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let it pry through the portage* of the head,
Like the brass cannon: let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty+ his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height! On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fett from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought,
And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.§

ACT IV.

CHORUS.

Description of Night in a Camp.

From camp to camp

The hum of either army stilly || sounds,

That the fix'd sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other's watch :
Fire answers fire; and through their paly flames

* Comparing the eyes to cannons placed at port-holes. "Jutty his confounded base”—that is, as a rock projects over its base, which is confounded or destroyed by the waves. For lack of matter.

Fet, that is fetched.

|| Gently, lowly.