Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance:
For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.

Con.
O peace, Prince Dauphin !
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.

Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable; But though we think it so, it is no matter: In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh The enemy more mighty than he seems: So the proportions of defence are fill'd; Which of a weak and niggardly projection Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting A little cloth.

Fr. King. Think we King Harry strong; And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.

The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;

28. humorous, whimsical. 34. modest in exception, temperate in raising objection.

37. the Roman Brutus; the assailant of Tarquin; cf. Lucrece, 11. 1809-15.

46. of a weak and niggardly

30

40

50

projection, if planned on a mean scale. The subject of 'doth' is the projector,' implied in 'projection.'

50. flesh'd; to 'flesh was to give a hound its first taste of the flesh of the animal it was being trained to hunt. L.

And he is bred out of that bloody strain
That haunted us in our familiar paths:
Witness our too much memorable shame
When Cressy battle fatally was struck,
And all our princes captived by the hand

Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;

Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain
standing,

Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,
Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him,
Mangle the work of nature and deface

The patterns that by God and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
The native mightiness and fate of him.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Ambassadors from Harry King of England

Do crave admittance to your majesty.

Fr. King. We'll give them present audience.
Go, and bring them.

[Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords.

You see this chase is hotly follow'd, friends.

Dau. Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs

Most spend their mouths when what they seem

to threaten

Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,

Take up the English short,

54. struck, fought (battle being from 'battre'; cf. Ger. 'eine Schlacht schlagen').

57. his mountain sire. Probably a bold image for his mighty father,' in keeping with

and let them know

60

70

the following line, which makes the setting sun his crown.

70. Most spend their mouths, give tongue loudest; a technical term of hunting.

Of what a monarchy you are the head:
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting.

Re-enter Lords, with EXETER and train.

Fr. King.

From our brother England?

Exe. From him; and thus he greets your majesty.

He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,
That you divest yourself, and lay apart
The borrow'd glories that by gift of heaven,
By law of nature and of nations, 'long

To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown
And all wide-stretched honours that pertain
By custom and the ordinance of times
Unto the crown of France.

That you may know 'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,

Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,
He sends you this most memorable line,
In every branch truly demonstrative;
Willing you overlook this pedigree:
And when you find him evenly derived
From his most famed of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.
Fr. King. Or else what follows?

Exe. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
That, if requiring fail, he will compel;

85. sinister, unfair.

ib, awkward, perverse. 94. indirectly, wrongfully.

80

90

100

95. challenger, claimant.
99. fierce (two syllables).
101. requiring, demanding.

And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
The dead men's blood, the pining maidens' groans,
For husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers,
That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.
This is his claim, his threatening and my message; 110
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,

To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

Fr. King. For us, we will consider of this further:

To-morrow shall you bear our full intent

Back to our brother England.

Dau.

For the Dauphin,

I stand here for him: what to him from England?
Exe. Scorn and defiance; slight regard, con-

tempt,

And any thing that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my king; an if your father's highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He'll call you to so hot an answer of it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock

In second accent of his ordinance.

Dau. Say, if my father render fair return,
It is against my will; for I desire

Nothing but odds with England: to that end,
As matching to his youth and vanity,
I did present him with the Paris balls.

102. in the bowels of the Lord, in the name of the divine mercy (Holinshed's phrase).

120

130

124. womby vaultages, hollow

caverns.

Exe. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe:
And, be assured, you'll find a difference,
As we his subjects have in wonder found,
Between the promise of his greener days
And these he masters now: now he weighs time
Even to the utmost grain: that you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.

Fr. King. To-morrow shall you know our mind
at full.

Exe. Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king

Come here himself to question our delay;

For he is footed in this land already.

Fr. King. You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair conditions:

A night is but small breath and little pause
To answer matters of this consequence.

140

[Flourish. Exeunt.

ACT III.

PROLOGUE.

Enter Chorus.

Chor. Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies

In motion of no less celerity

Than that of thought. Suppose that you have

seen

137. masters, possesses, dis

poses of.

145. breath, breathing-space.

1. imagined wing, on wings of imagination.