Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night:
But freshly looks, and overbears attaint,
With cheerful semblance, and sweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largess universal, like the sun,

His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear.

Enter BATES, COURT, and WILLIAMS.

Court. Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?

Bates. I think it be: but we have no great cause to desire the approach of day.

Will. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think, we shall never see the end of it.-Who goes there?

K. Hen. A friend.

Will. Under what captain serve you?

K. Hen. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

Will. A good old commander, and a most kind gentleman: I pray you what thinks he of our estate? K. Hen. Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide.

Bates. He hath not told his thought to the king? K. Hen. No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I speak it to you, I think, the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him, as it doth to me; the element shows to him, as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions:* his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet when they stoop, they stoop with the like wings; therefore, when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are: Yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.

Bates. He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could

* Qualities.

wish himself in the Thames up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

K. Hen. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king; I think, he would not wish himself any where but where he is.

Bates. Then, 'would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and many poor men's lives saved.

K. Hen. I dare say, you love him not so ill, to wish him here, alone; howsoever you speak this, to feel other men's minds: Methinks, I could not die any where so contented, as in the king's company: his cause being just, and his quarrel honourable.

Will. That's more than we know.

Bates. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the king's subjects; if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

Will. But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make; when all those legs, and arms, and heads chopped off in a battle shall join together at the latter day,* and cry all-We died at such a place; some, swearing; some, crying for a surgeon; some, upon their wives left poor behind them; some, upon the debts they owe; some, upon their children rawlyf left. I am afeard there are few die well, that die in battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey, were against all proportion of sub jection.

K. Hen. 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 busi *The last day, the day of judgment. † Suddenly.

services.

ness of the master the author of the servant's damnation:-But this is not so: the king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers. Some, peradventure, have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling virgin 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: war is his beadle, war is his vengeance; so that here men are punished, for before breach of the king's laws, in now the king's quarrel: where they feared the death, they have borne life away; and where they would be safe, they perish: Then if they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of their damnation, than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited. Every subject's duty is the king's: but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost, wherein such preparations was gained: and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think, that making God so free an offer, he let him outlive that day to see his greatness, and to teach others how they should prepare.

Will. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill is upon his own head, the king is not to answer for it.

THE MISERIES OF ROYALTY.

O hard condition! twin-born with greatness Subjected to the breath of every fool,

Whose sense no more can feel but his own wringing! What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect,

*i e. Punishment in their native country.

That private men enjoy?

And what have kings, that privates have not too
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs, then do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? what are thy comings-in?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth!

What is the soul of adoration ?*

Art thou aught else but place, degree, and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?

Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
Than they in fearing.

What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!

Think'st thou the fiery fever will
go out

With titles blown from adulation?

Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
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 sceptre, and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The enter-tissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farcedf title running fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp,
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these thrice gorgeous ceremony
Not all these laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave;
Who, with a body fill'd, and vacant mind,
Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell;
But, like a lacky, from the rise to set,
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night

*"What is the real worth and intrinsic value of adoration?"

Farced is stuffed. The tumid puffy tides with which a king's name is introduced

Sleeps in Elysium; next day, after dawn,
Doth rise, and help Hyperion* to his horse;
And follows so the ever-running year
With profitable labour, to his grave:
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil, and nights with sleep,
Had the fore hand and 'vantage of a king.

DESCRIPTION OF THE MISERABLE STATE OF THE
ENGLISH ARMY.

Yon island's carrions, desperate of their bones, Ill-favour'dly become the morning field: Their ragged curtainst poorly are let loose, And our air shakes them passing scornfully. Big Mars seems bankrupt in their beggar'd host, And faintly through a rusty beaver peeps. Their horsemen sit like fixed candlesticks, With torch-staves in their hand: and the poor jades Lob down their heads, dropping the hides and hips; The gum down-roping from their pale-dead eyes, And in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit Lies foul with chew'd grass still and motionless; And their executors, the knavish crows, Fly o'er them all, impatient for their hour.

KING HENRY'S SPEECH BEFORE THE BATTLE OF AGIN

COURT.

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He, that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his friends, And say-to-morrow is Saint Crispian: Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say, these wounds I had on Crispian's day. Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot, But he'll remember, with advantages,

What feats he did that day: Then shall our names, Familiar in their mouths as household words,

Harry the king, Bedford, and Exeter,

The sun.

† Colours.

+ Ring.