And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,

Shall think themselves 'accurs'd they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap, while 'any speaks
That fought with 'us upon Saint Crispin's day.
'All things are ready, if our 'minds be so.
You know your places: Heaven be with you all!
The heraldic signal is heard :-Montjoy enters.

Mont. Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry,
If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,
Before thy most assuréd 'overthrow?

K. Hen. I pray thee, bear my former answer back :
Bid them achieve me, and 'then . . . 'sell my bones!
Good heaven! why should they mock poor fellows
thus?

Let me speak 'proudly:-tell the Constable

We are but warriors for the 'working-day;
Our gayness, and our gilt, are all besmirched
With rainy marching in the painful field;
There's not a piece of 'feather* in our host--
(Good argument, I hope, we will not 'fly-)
And time hath worn us into slovenry:

But, by the mass, our 'hearts are in the trim;
And my poor soldiers tell me,—yet ere night
They'll be in 'fresher robes. Save thou thy labour;
Come thou no 'more for ransom, gentle Herald :
They shall have 'none, I swear, but these my joints, -
Which will yield little, tell the Constable.
Now, soldiers, march away:

[Exit Mont.

And how 'Thou pleasest, Heaven, dispose the day!

[Ex.

The Battle of Agincourt is now fought: the historical date is October 25, 1415. We learn the result by a hasty glance at the French headquarters, where, in the midst of repeated alarums and wild excitement, are assembled the Constable of France, Orleans Bourbon, the Dauphin, and others.

Dau. Mort de ma vie ! all is 'confounded! all!

Reproach and everlasting shame

Sit mocking in our plumes.

Con.
Why, all our ranks are broke!
Dan. O perdurablef shame!-let 's 'stab ourselves. .
Be these the wretches that we played at dice for?
Orl. Is this the King we sent-to for his ransom?
Bour. Shame, and 'eternal shame! nothing 'but shame!

*Plumage shewing cowardice= the white feather.

+ Lasting.

Let 's die in honour! Once more to the field!
Let us on 'heaps go offer up our lives.
Orl. We are enow, 'yet living in the field,

To 'smother-up the English in our throngs,
If any 'order might be thought upon.

Bour. The devil take order 'now! I'll to the 'throng: Let life be short; else, 'shame will be too 'long! [Exeunt.

Before the victory of the despised English had been ascertained, King Henry had ordered the slaughter of his prisoners: because, having no men to spare from the battle, he had left the baggage of his troops under the guard of boys and servants. Some runaway

French soldiers have attacked and murdered these defenceless camp-boys; and, as Henry fears that his prisoners-who were more numerous than his own soldiers-might be tempted to aid in this plunder, he issues, but soon withdraws, the cruel order for their immediate slaughter.

Captains Fluellen and Gower are heard in conversation on this subject.

Flu. Kill the poys and the luggage! 't is expressly 'against the law of arms: 't is as arrant a piece of knafery, mark you now, as can be offert: In your conscience, now, is it not?

Gow. 'T is certain there 's not a boy left alive; besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the King's tent; wherefore the King, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. 't is a gallant King!

O,

Flu. Ay; he was porn at 'Monmouth, Captain Cower. What call you the town's name where Alexander the Pig was porn?

Gow. Alexander the 'Great?

Flu. Why, I pray you, is not pig, kreat? The pig, or the kreat, or the mighty, or the huge, or the maknanimous, are all 'one reckonings,-save the phrase is a little variations. Gow. I think, Alexander the Great was born in 'Macedon: his father was called-Philip of Macedon, as I take it. Flu. I think it 'is in Macedon where Alexander is porn.

I

tell you, Captain,-if you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant you shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is poth alike. There is a rifer in Macedon; and there is also, moreover, a rifer at Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth: . . . but it is out of my prains

*

what is the name of the 'other rifer; but 't is all one,
't is alike as my fingers is to my fingers-and there is
salmons in poth. 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,-
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 the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the fikures 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 koot judgments, turned away the fat knight with the kreat pelly-doublet: he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks: ... I have forgot his name.

Gow. Sir John Falstaff?

Flu. That is he :-I'll tell you, there is 'koot men porn at Monmouth.

Gow. Here comes his majesty.

King Henry, Warwick, Gloucester, Exeter, and others, enter attended.

K. Hen. I was not angry, since I came to France,
Until this instant. Take a trumpet, Herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond' hill;
Bid them come down, or void† the field;
If they'll do neither, we will come to 'them,

And make them skirr,‡ as swift as stones from slings :-
Go, tell them so.

Exe. Here comes again the Herald of the 'French.
Glo. His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

Montjoy enters.

K. Hen. How now! what means this, Herald?
Com'st thou 'again for ransom?

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 ;
+ Scour, hasten.

* Allegories.

+ Quit.

For many of our 'Princes-woe the while!-
Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood!
O, give us leave, great King, to view the field,
And here dispose our dead!

K. Hen.

I tell thee, 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. Praiséd be Heaven, and not our strength, for it!— What is this Castle called, that stands hard by?

Mont. They call it Agincourt.

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

Captain Fluellen advances :

Flu. Your grandfather, of famous memory, an 't please your majesty; and your kreat-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 fery true: If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did koot service in a karden where leeks did krow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable padge of the service; and I do pelieve your 'majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's tay.

K. Hen. I wear it for a 'memorable 'honour;

For 'I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

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

K. Hen. Thanks, good my countryman.

Flu. I'am you 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 Cot, so long as your majesty is an 'honest man.

K. Hen. Heaven 'keep me so! Our herald go with him.

Bring me just notice of the numbers dead

On 'both our parts.

[Exeunt Heralds.

As Montjoy and the English attendants withdraw, the King perceives the soldier Williams-with whom he had exchanged angry words on the preceding night. He says to Exeter :

K. Hen. Call yonder fellow hither.
Ex. Soldier, thou must to the King.

Williams advances:

K. Hen. Soldier, why wearest thou that 'glove in thy cap? Will. An 't please your majesty, it is 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 crafen and a fillain '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.

Flu. Though he be as koot a gentleman as the tevil is-as Lucifer and Belzepup himself,-it is necessary, look your krace, that he 'keep his vow and his oath.

[The King turns to the soldier.

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

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

K. Hen. Whom servest thou under?
Will. Under Captain Gower, my liege.

Flu. Cower is a 'koot captain, and is koot knowledge and literatured 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 'Alençon, and an enemy to 'our person; if thou encounter any such, 'apprehend him, an thou dost love me.

Flu. Your krace does me as kreat 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 akkriefed at this klove, that is all; but I would fain see it once! and please Cot of his krace that I 'might see.

K. Hen. Knowest thou Gower?