Henry V: Act IV

Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fixed sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other’s watch.

Steed threatens steed in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents
The armorers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.

The poor condemnèd English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger; and their gesture sad,
Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats,
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts.

A largesse universal, like the sun,
His liberal eye doth give to everyone,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.

A largesse universal, like the sun,
His liberal eye doth give to everyone,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.

Besides, they are our outward consciences
And preachers to us all, admonishing
That we should dress us fairly for our end.

Do my good morrow to them, and anon
Desire them all to my pavilion.

It is the greatest admiration in the universal world when the true and aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept.

Take from them now
The sense of reck’ning or th’ opposèd numbers
Pluck their hearts from them.

So, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him.

Or if a servant, under his master’s command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant’s damnation.

Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery.

Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery.

Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment, though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God.

Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed: wash every mote out of his conscience.

Your reproof is something too round.

Think’st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?

Canst thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose.

I am a king that find thee, and I know
’Tis not the balm, the scepter, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl

I Richard’s body have interrèd new
And on it have bestowed more contrite tears
Than from it issued forcèd drops of blood.

I Richard’s body have interrèd new
And on it have bestowed more contrite tears
Than from it issued forcèd drops of blood.

More will I do—
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.

The sun doth gild our armor.

Why do you stay so long, my lords of France?
Yond island carrions, desperate of their bones,
Ill-favoredly become the morning field.

Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits,
And give their fasting horses provender,
And after fight with them?

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.

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.

If they do this,
As, if God please, they shall, my ransom then
Will soon be levied.

Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valor than this roaring devil i’ th’ old play, that everyone may pare his nails with a wooden dagger, and they are both hanged, and so would this be if he durst steal anything adventurously.

He cries aloud “Tarry, my cousin Suffolk.
My soul shall thine keep company to heaven.
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine; then fly abreast,
As in this glorious and well-foughten field
We kept together in our chivalry.”

But hark, what new alarum is this same?

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 best friend, Cleitus.

As Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups, so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgments, turned away the fat knight with the great-belly doublet; he was full of jests and gipes and knaveries and mocks—I have forgot his name.

I come to thee for charitable license,
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 drowned and soaked in mercenary blood.

He is a craven and a villain else, an ’t please your Majesty, in my conscience.

If he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jack Sauce as ever his black shoe trod upon God’s ground and His earth, in my conscience, la.

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, touched with choler, hot as gunpowder,
And quickly will return an injury.

Hold, there is twelvepence for you, and I pray you to serve God and keep
you out of prawls and prabbles and quarrels and dissensions, and I warrant you it is the better for you.