day a squire of low degree. I pray you, fall to: if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek. Gow. Enough, captain: you have astonished

him.

4I

Flu. I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you; it is good for your green wound and your ploody coxcomb.

Pist. Must I bite?

Flu. Yes, certainly, and out of doubt and out of question too, and ambiguities.

Pist. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge: I eat and eat, I swear

50

Flu. Eat, I pray you: will you have some more sauce to your leek? there is not enough leek to swear by.

Pist. Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see I eat.

Flu. Much good do you, scauld knave, heartily. Nay, pray you, throw none away; the skin is good for your broken coxcomb. When you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you, mock at 'em; that is all.

Pist. Good.

60

Flu. Ay, leeks is good: hold you, there is a groat to heal your pate.

Pist. Me a groat!

Flu. Yes, verily and in truth, you shall take it; or I have another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat.

Pist. I take thy groat in earnest of revenge. Flu. If I owe you any thing, I will pay you in cudgels: you shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God b' wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate. Exit. 71

Pist. All hell shall stir for this. ́Gow. Go, go; you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour and dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking* and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he

could not therefore handle an English cudgel: you find it otherwise; and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition. Fare ye well. *Scoffing. [Exit. Pist. Doth Fortune play the huswife with me

now?

News have I, that my Nell is dead i' the spital* Of malady of France; *Hospital.

†Grow.

90

And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
Old I do wax;† and from my weary limbs
Honour is cudgelled. Well, bawd I'll turn,
And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.
To England will I steal, and there I'll steal:
And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars,
And swear I got them in the Gallia wars. [Exit.

SCENE II. France. A royal palace.

Enter, at one door, KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and other Lords; at another, the FRENCH KING, QUEEN ISABEL, the PRINCESS KATHARINE, ALICE and other Ladies; the DUKE OF BURGUNDY, and his train.

K. Hen. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!

Unto our brother France, and to our sister,
Health and fair time of day; joy and good wishes
To our most fair and princely cousin Katharine;
And, as a branch and member of this royalty,
By whom this great assembly is contrived,
We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy;
And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!
Fr. King. Right joyous are we to behold
your face,

Most worthy brother England; fairly met:
So are you, princes English, every one.

ΙΟ

Q. Isa. So happy be the issue, brother England,

Of this good day and of this gracious meeting,
As we are now glad to behold your eyes;
Your eyes, which hitherto have borne in them

Against the French, that met them in their bent,
The fatal balls of murdering basilisks:
The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
Have lost their quality, and that this day
Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love. 20
K. Hen. To cry amen to that, thus we appear.
Q. Isa. You English princes all, I do salute

you.

Bur. My duty to you both, on equal love, Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour'd,

With all my wits, my pains and strong endea

vours,

To bring your most imperial majesties

Unto this bar and royal interview,

30

Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.
Since then my office hath so far prevail'd
That, face to face and royal eye to eye,
You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me,
If I demand, before this royal view,
What rub or what impediment there is,
Why that the naked, poor and mangled Peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties and joyful births,
Should not in this best garden of the world
Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
Alas, she hath from France too long been chased,
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
Corrupting in it own fertility.

40

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach'd,
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
Put forth disorder'd twigs; her fallow leas
The darnel, hemlock and rank fumitory
Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts
That should deracinate such savagery;
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip, burnet and green clover,
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness and nothing teems
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies,* burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.

50

*Hemlocks.

And as our vineyards, fallows, meads and hedges, Defective in their natures, grow to wildness,

60

Even so our houses and ourselves and children
Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,
The sciences that should become our country;
But grow like savages,—as soldiers will
That nothing do but meditate on blood,-
To swearing and stern looks, defused attire
And every thing that seems unnatural.
Which to reduce into our former favour
You are assembled: and my speech entreats
That I may know the let,† why gentle Peace
Should not expel these inconveniences +Hindrance.
And bless us with her former qualities.

K. Hen. If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace,

Whose want gives growth to the imperfections Which you have cited, you must buy that peace With full accord to all our just demands; Whose tenours and particular effects

71

You have enscheduled briefly in your hands.
Bur. The king hath heard them; to the which

as yet

There is no answer made.

K. Hen.
Well then the peace,
Which you before so urged, lies in his answer.
Fr. King. I have but with a cursorary eye
O'erglanced the articles: pleaseth your grace
To appoint some of your council presently
To sit with us once more, with better heed
To re-survey them, we will suddenly
Pass our accept and peremptory answer.

K. Hen. Brother, we shall. Go, uncle Exeter, And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,

Warwick and Huntingdon, go with the king;
And take with you free power to ratify,
Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best
Shall see advantageable for our dignity,
Any thing in or out of our demands,

And we'll consign thereto. Will you, fair sister,
Go with the princes, or stay here with us?

91

Q. Isa. Our gracious brother, I will go with

them:

Haply a woman's voice may do some good,

When articles too nicely urged be stood on.

K. Hen.

with us:

Yet leave our cousin Katharine here

She is our capital demand, comprised
Within the fore-rank of our articles.
Q. Isa. She hath good leave.

K. Hen.

[Exeunt all except Henry, Katharine, and Alice.

Fair Katharine, and most fair, Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms Such as will enter at a lady's ear

And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?

ΙΟΟ

Kath. Your majesty shall mock at me; I cannot speak your England.

K. Hen. O fair Katharine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?

Kath. Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is 'like me.'

K. Hen. An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.

III

Kath. Que dit-il? que je suis semblable à les anges?

Alice. Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.

K. Hen. I said so, dear Katharine; and I must not blush to affirm it.

Kath. O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes sont pleines de tromperies.

K. Hen. What says she, fair one? that the tongues of men are full of deceits?

[21

Alice. Oui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits: dat is de princess.

K. Hen. The princess is the better Englishwoman. I' faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say 'I love you:' then if you urge me farther than to say 'do you in faith? I wear out my suit.

Give