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SCENE VII. Another part of the field.

Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER.

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

Gow. 'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive; and the cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha' done this slaughter: 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. a gallant king!

O, 'tis

Flu. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you the town's name where Alexander the Pig was born!

Gow. Alexander the Great.

Flu. Why, I pray you, is not pig great? the pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, 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 sall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth,

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Sc. 7. Holinshed relates that some six hundred French horsemen, 'being the first that fled,' 'hearing that the English tents and pavilions were a good way

distant from the army, without any sufficient guard, entered the camp, slew the servants, and plundered the treasure.'

that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. 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, 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.

Gow. Our king is not like him in that: he never killed any of his friends.

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40

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 figures and comparisons of it: 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 judgements, turned away the fat knight 50 with the great-belly 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 good

men porn at Monmouth.

Gow. Here comes his majesty.

Alarum. Enter King Henry, with BOURBON and prisoners; Warwick, Gloucester, EXETER, and others.

K. Hen. I was not angry since I came to

France

Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;
Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight:
If they 'll do neither, we will come to them,
And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings :

60

Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have,
And not a man of them that we shall take
Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

Enter MONTJOY.

Exe. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.

Glo. His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

K. Hen. How now! what means this, herald? know'st thou not

That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?

57. Enter King Henry, with Bourbon and prisoners. So Ff. Most modern edd. omit the reference to the prisoners. But it was clearly intended. Holinshed describes a renewal of the battle after the slaughter of the prisoners previously taken (iii. 555). It is pretty clear that Shakespeare meant to represent this by the fight ensuing on the desperate charge of Bourbon at the close of Scene 5. As the result of that,

VOL. VII

70

Bourbon and others are taken. Henry has thus a new batch of prisoners, and it is these whose slaughter he threatens in v. 66, as a deterrent to the horsemen on yon hill.' This, as Mr. Stone has shown, disposes of Johnson's sarcasm : 'the King is of a very bloody disposition. He has already cut the throats of his prisoners; and now threatens to cut them again.'

72. fined, agreed to pay as a fine.

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Comest thou again for ransom?
Mont.

No, great king:

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 drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood;
So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds
Fret fetlock deep in gore and with wild rage
Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,
To view the field in safety and dispose

Of their dead bodies!

K. Hen.

I tell thee truly, 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. Praised be God, and not our strength,
for it!

What is this castle call'd 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.

Flu. Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your majesty, and your great-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 very true: if your

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100

76. book, enter on the list of killed.

83. Yerk, jerk, kick.

94. Crispin Crispianus; properly Crispin and Crispinian; and so Holinshed.

majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy's day.

K. Hen. I wear it for a memorable honour; For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman. Flu. All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that: God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace, and his majesty too!

K. Hen. Thanks, good my countryman.

Flu. By Jeshu, I am your 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 God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

K. Hen. God keep me so! Our heralds go
with him:

Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.

[Points to Williams. Exeunt Heralds
with Montjoy.

Exe. Soldier, you must come to the king.
K. Hen. Soldier, why wearest thou that glove
in thy cap?

Will. An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive. K. Hen. An Englishman?

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Will. An't please your majesty, a rascal that 130

104. Monmouth caps. According to Fuller 'the best caps were made at Monmouth,' and they continued to be called Monmouth caps even when the

manufacture was, shortly before he wrote, moved into Worcestershire. They were specially worn by soldiers.

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