Henry V, Quarto
The Chronicle History of Henry the Fifth, with his battle fought at Agincourt in France, together with Ancient Pistol
Scene 1
Enter King Henry, Exeter, two
Bishops,
Clarence, and
other
attendants.
1.Sp2King Henry
Not yet, my cousin, till we be resolved
till we be resolvedOf some serious matters touching us
and France.
some serious matters touching us
and France.1.Sp4King Henry
Sure we thank you.
And good my lord, proceed:
Why the law Salic which they have in France
which they have in FranceOr should or should not stop us in our claim;
stop us in our claim;And God forbid, my wise and learned lord,
That you should fashion,
frame, or
wrest
the same.
frame, or
wrest
the same.For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood in approbation
in approbationOf what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawn our
person,
How you awake the sleeping sword of war;
We charge
you in the name of God, take heed.
you in the name of God, take heed.After
this conjuration speak, my lord,
this conjuration speak, my lord,And we will judge, note, and believe
in heart
and believe
in heartThat what you speak is washed as pure
As sin in baptism.
1.Sp5Bishop
Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you
peers,
peers,Which owe your lives, your faith, and services
and servicesTo this imperial throne.
There is no bar to stay your highness’ claim to France
to stay your highness’ claim to FranceBut one, which they produce from Pharamond:
produce from Pharamond:“No female shall succeed in Salic
land.”
in Salic
land.”Which Salic land the French unjustly gloss
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female
bar.
Yet their own writers faithfully affirm
That the land Salic lies in Germany,
Between the floods of Saale and
of Elbe,
of Saale and
of Elbe,Where Charles the Fifth, having subdued the Saxons,
having subdued the Saxons,There left behind and settled certain
French,
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their lives,
of their lives,Established there this law: to wit,
No female shall succeed in Salic land.
Which Salic land, as I said before,
Is at this time in Germany called Meissen.
Thus doth it well appear the Salic law
Was not devisèd for the realm of France,
Nor did the French possess the Salic land
Until four hundred one-and-twenty years
After the function of King Pharamond,
of King Pharamond,Godly
supposed the founder of this law.
supposed the founder of this law.Hugh Capet also, that usurped the crown,
also, that usurped the crown,To fine
his title with some show of truth —
his title with some show of truth —When in pure truth it was corrupt and naught —
—Conveyed himself as heir to the Lady Inger,
as heir to the Lady Inger,Daughter to Charles, the foresaid Duke of
Lorraine.
So that as clear as is the summer’s
sun,
King Pepin’s title and Hugh Capet’s
claim,
title and Hugh Capet’s
claim,King Charles his
satisfaction, all appear
his
satisfaction, all appearTo hold
in right and title of the female;
in right and title of the female;So do the lords of France until this day,
Howbeit
they would hold up this Salic law
they would hold up this Salic lawTo bar your highness claiming from the female,
And rather choose to hide them in a
net
Than amply to embase their
crooked
causes,
their
crooked
causes,Usurped from you and your progenitors.
.1.Sp7Bishop
The sin upon my head, dread sovereign.
dread sovereign.For in the book of Numbers is it writ:
writ:“When the son dies, let the inheritance”
“Descend unto the daughter”. Noble lord,
Noble lord,Stand for your own.
Unwind your bloody flag.
Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire’s grave,
grave,From whom you claim,
And your great-uncle,
Edward the Black Prince,
Edward the Black Prince,Who on the French ground played a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France
Whilst his most mighty father on a
hill
Stood smiling to behold his lion’s whelp
Foraging blood of French nobility.
blood of French nobility.Oh, noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full power of France
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work and cold for action!
1.Sp8King Henry
We must not only arm us against the French,
But lay down our proportion for the
Scot,
for the
Scot,Who will make road upon us with all advantages.
upon us with all advantages.1.Sp9Bishop
The Marches, gracious sovereign,
shall be sufficient
gracious sovereign,
shall be sufficientTo guard your
England from the pilfering borderers.
from the pilfering borderers.1.Sp10King Henry
We do not mean the coursing
sneakers only,
sneakers only,But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
of the Scot,For you shall read, never my
great-grandfather
Unmasked his power for France,
France,But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom
kingdomCame pouring like the tide into a breach,
That
England, being empty of defenses,
England, being empty of defenses,Hath shook and trembled at the bruit
hereof.
hereof.1.Sp11Bishop
She
hath been then more feared than hurt, my lord,
hath been then more feared than hurt, my lord,For hear her but exemplified by
herself:
When all her chivalry hath been in France
hath been in FranceAnd she a mourning widow of her nobles,
She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken and impounded as a stray
the king of
Scots,
the king of
Scots,Whom like a caitiff she
did lead to France,
she
did lead to France,Filling your chronicles
as rich with praise
chronicles
as rich with praiseAs is the ooze and bottom of the sea
and bottom of the seaWith sunken wreck and shipless treasury.
and shipless treasury.1.Sp12Lord
There is a saying very old and true:
“If you will France win”,
“Then with Scotland
first begin”.
For once the eagle England being in
prey,
To his unfurnished nest the weasel Scot
nest the weasel ScotWould suck her eggs,
playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
her eggs,
playing the mouse in absence of the cat,To spoil and havoc more than she can eat.
more than she can eat.1.Sp13Exeter
It follows then the cat must stay at home,
Yet that is but a cursed necessity,
necessity,Since we have traps to catch the petty thieves.
Whilst that the armèd hand doth fight abroad,
The advisèd head controls at home:
head controls at home:For government, though high or low being put into parts,
parts,Congrueth
with a mutual content
with a mutual content
Like
music.
1.Sp14Bishop
True: therefore doth heaven divide
The fate of man in divers functions,
of man in divers functions,Whereto is added as an aim or butt,
obedience.
or butt,
obedience.For so live the honey bees, creatures that by awe
Ordainan act of order to a peopled kingdom.
an act of order to a peopled kingdom.They have a king and officers of sort,
and officers of sort,Where some like magistrates
correct
at home;
correct
at home;Others like merchants venture trade abroad;
trade abroad;Others, like soldiers armèd in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet bud,
the summer’s velvet bud,Which pillage they with merry march bring home
they with merry march bring homeTo the tent-royal of their emperor,
of their emperor,Who, busied in his majesty,
behold
beholdThe singing masons building roofs of gold,
building roofs of gold,The civil
citizens
lading up the honey,
citizens
lading up the honey,The sad-eyed justice with his surly
hum
with his surly
humDelivering up to executors pale the lazy caning
drone.
pale the lazy caning
drone.This I infer:
that twenty actions once afoot
May all end in one moment.
As many arrows loosèd several ways
fly to one mark,
fly to one mark,As many several ways meet in one town,
meet in one town,As many fresh streams run in one self sea,
As many lines close in the dial center,
in the dial center,So may a thousand actions once afoot
End in one moment, and be all well borne
Without defect.
Therefore my liege, to France.
Divide your happy England into four,
England into four,Of which take you one quarter into France,
And you withal shall make all Gallia
shake.
shall make all Gallia
shake.If we, with thrice that power left at home,
Cannot defend our own door from the dog,
Let us be beaten, and from henceforth lose
The name of policy and hardiness.
and hardiness.1.Sp15King Henry
Call in the messenger sent from the dauphin, —
Exit
attendant. —
And by your aid, the noble sinews of our land,
France being ours, we’ll bring
it to our awe,
we’ll bring
it to our awe,Or break it all in pieces.
Either our chronicles shall with full mouth speak
Freely of our acts,
Or else like tongueless mutes;
Not worshipped with a paper
epitaph.
Enter the ambassadors
from France.
epitaph.Now are we well prepared to know the dauphin’s pleasure,
For we hear your coming is from him.
1.Sp16Ambassador
Pleaseth your majesty to give us leave
your majesty to give us leaveFreely to render
what we have in charge,
what we have in charge,Or shall I sparingly show, afar
off,
show, afar
off,The dauphin’s pleasure and our embassage?
1.Sp17King Henry
We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,
To whom our spirit is as
subject,
is as
subject,As are our wretches fettered in our prisons.
in our prisons.Therefore freely and with uncurbed boldness
boldnessTell us the dauphin’s mind.
1.Sp18Ambassador
Then this in fine the dauphin saith:
the dauphin saith:Whereas you claim certain towns in France
From your predecessor King Edward the Third,
This he returns: he saith there’s naught in France
in FranceThat can be with a nimble galliard won;
won;You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
dukedoms there.Therefore he sendeth, meeter for your
study,
This tun of treasure, and in lieu of this,
of treasure, and in lieu of this,Desires to let the dukedoms that you crave
let the dukedoms that you craveHear no more from you. This the dauphin saith.
1.Sp21King Henry
Exeunt ambassadors,
attended.We are glad the dauphin is so pleasant with us.
Your message and his present we accept.
When we have matched our rackets to
these balls,
to
these balls,We will, by God’s grace, play such a
set
Shall
strike his father’s crown into the
hazard.
strike his father’s crown into the
hazard.Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
That all the courts of France shall be disturbed
of France shall be disturbedWith chases. And we understand him well,
And we understand him well,How he comes o’er us with our wilder days,
us with our wilder days,Not measuring what use we made of them.
what use we made of them.We never valued this poor seat of England,
of England,And therefore gave ourselves
to barbarous license,
to barbarous license,As ’tis common seen that men are merriest when they are
from
home.
home.But tell the dauphin we will keep our
state,
Be, like a king, mighty, and command
When we do rouse us in throne of France.
in throne of France.For this have we laid by our majesty
And plodded like a man for working days,
a man for working days,But we will rise there with so full of glory,
That we will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Ay, strike the dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell him this: his mock
hath turned his balls to gunstones,
hath turned his balls to gunstones,And his soul shall sit sore charged
for the wasteful vengeance
for the wasteful vengeanceThat shall fly from them: for this his mock
Shall mock many a wife out of their dear husbands,
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down.
Ay, some are yet ungotten and unborn
and unbornThat shall have cause to curse the dauphin’s scorn.
But this lies all within the will of God,
To whom we do appeal, and in whose name
Tell you the dauphin we are coming on
To venge us as we may, and to put forth our hand
as we may, and to put forth our handIn a rightful cause.
cause.So get you hence and tell your prince
His jest will savor but of shallow wit,
shallow wit,When thousands weep more than did laugh at it. —
Convey them with safe conduct; see them hence.
1.Sp23King Henry
Exeunt omnes.
We hope to make the sender blush at it.
Therefore let our collection for the wars
for the warsBe soon provided, for, God before,
We’ll check the dauphin at his father’s door.
Therefore let every man now task his thought
his thoughtThat this fair action may on foot be brought.
action may on foot be brought.Scene 2
Enter Nym and Bardolph.
2.Sp4Nym
I cannot tell; things must be as they may: I dare not fight, but I will wink and hold out mine iron.
It is a simple one, but what though? It will serve to toast cheese, and it will endure cold as another man’s sword
will, and there’s the
humor of it.
and hold out mine iron.
It is a simple one, but what though? It will serve to toast cheese, and it will endure cold as another man’s sword
will, and there’s the
humor of it.2.Sp6Nym
I must do as I may. Though patience be a tired mare, yet she’ll plod, and some say knives have edges,
and men may sleep, and have their throats about them
at that time, and there is the humor of it.
, and some say knives have edges,
and men may sleep, and have their throats about them
at that time, and there is the humor of it.2.Sp7Bardolph
Come, i’faith, I’ll bestow a breakfast to make Pistol and
thee friends. What a
plague should we carry knives
to cut our own throats?
should we carry knives
to cut our own throats?2.Sp8Nym
Enter Pistol and Hostess, formerly Mistress
Quickly, his wife.
I’faith, I’ll live as long as I may, that’s the certain of it.
And when I cannot live any longer, I’ll do as I may,
and there’s my rest, and the
rendezvous of it.
of it.
And when I cannot live any longer, I’ll do as I may,
and there’s my rest, and the
rendezvous of it.2.Sp11Pistol
Base slave, call’st thou me host? Now by Gad’s lugs I
swear I scorn the title, nor shall my Nell keep lodging.
I
swear I scorn the title, nor shall my Nell keep lodging.2.Sp12Hostess
No, by my troth not I, for we cannot bed nor board half a score honest gentlewomen
that live honestly
by the prick of their needle,
but it is thought straight we
keep a bawdy-house.
(Nym draws his
sword.)
O Lord, here’s Corporal Nym’s!
Now shall we have willful adultery and murder committed.
Good Corporal Nym, show the valor of a man
and put up your
sword.
but it is thought straight we
keep a bawdy-house.
(Nym draws his
sword.)
O Lord, here’s Corporal Nym’s!
Now shall we have willful adultery and murder committed.
Good Corporal Nym, show the valor of a man
and put up your
sword.2.Sp16Pistol
“Solus”, egregious dog? That “solus” in thy throat, and in thy lungs, and which is
worse, within thy messful mouth! I do retort that “solus” in thy bowels, and in thy jaw, perdie: for I can
talk,
and Pistol’s flashing fiery cock is up.
dog? That “solus” in thy throat, and in thy lungs, and which is
worse, within thy messful mouth! I do retort that “solus” in thy bowels, and in thy jaw, perdie: for I can
talk,
and Pistol’s flashing fiery cock is up.2.Sp17Nym
I am not Barbasom; you cannot conjure me. I have an humor, Pistol, to knock you indifferently
well. An you fall foul with me,
Pistol, I’ll scour you with my
rapier
in fair terms. If you will walk off a
little, I’ll prick your guts a little in good terms,
and there’s the humor of it.
you cannot conjure me. I have an humor, Pistol, to knock you indifferently
well. An you fall foul with me,
Pistol, I’ll scour you with my
rapier
in fair terms. If you will walk off a
little, I’ll prick your guts a little in good terms,
and there’s the humor of it.2.Sp18Pistol
They draw.
They sheathe their swords.
O braggart
vile, and damnèd furious
wight,
the grave doth gape, and groaning
death is near, therefore exhale.
vile, and damnèd furious
wight,
the grave doth gape, and groaning
death is near, therefore exhale.2.Sp22Pistol
Enter the Boy.
Couple gorge is the word; I thee defy again! A damnèd hound, think’st
thou my spouse to get?
No! To the
powdering tub of infamy,
fetch forth the lazar
kite of
Cressid’s kind,
Doll Tearsheet, she by name, and her
espouse.
I have, and I will hold the quondam Quickly for
the only she, and
Paco! There, it is enough.
is the word; I thee defy again! A damnèd hound, think’st
thou my spouse to get?
No! To the
powdering tub of infamy,
fetch forth the lazar
kite of
Cressid’s kind,
Doll Tearsheet, she by name, and her
espouse.
I have, and I will hold the quondam Quickly for
the only she, and
Paco! There, it is enough.2.Sp23Boy
Hostess,
you must come straight to my master,
and you, Host
Pistol.
— Good Bardolph, put thy nose between the sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan.
you must come straight to my master,
and you, Host
Pistol.
— Good Bardolph, put thy nose between the sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan.2.Sp24Hostess
Exeunt Boy and Hostess.
By my troth, he’ll yield the crow a
pudding one of
these days.
I’ll go to him. Husband, you’ll come?
one of
these days.
I’ll go to him. Husband, you’ll come?2.Sp25Bardolph
They draw their swords.
Sheathes his sword.
Come, Pistol, be friends.
Nym, prithee be friends. An if
thou wilt not, be enemies with me too.
2.Sp33Pistol
Enter Hostess.
A noble
shalt thou have, and ready pay, and liquor likewise will give to thee, and friendship
shall combind, and brotherhood. I’ll live by Nym as Nym shall live by me:
is not this just? For I shall sutler be unto the camp, and profit will accrue.
shalt thou have, and ready pay, and liquor likewise will give to thee, and friendship
shall combind, and brotherhood. I’ll live by Nym as Nym shall live by me:
is not this just? For I shall sutler be unto the camp, and profit will accrue.2.Sp37Hostess
Exit.
Exeunt omnes.
As ever you came of men, come in.
Sir John, poor soul, is so troubled with a burning tashan
contigian
fever, ’tis wonderful.
men, come in.
Sir John, poor soul, is so troubled with a burning tashan
contigian
fever, ’tis wonderful.Scene 3
Enter Exeter and Gloucester.
3.Sp3Gloucester
Enter the King and three lords, Masham, Cambridge, and
Grey, and attendants.
Ay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath cloyed and graced with princely favors,
and graced with princely favors,That he should, for a foreign purse — to
sell
— to
sellHis sovereign’s life to death and treachery!
3.Sp5King Henry
Now sirs, the wind’s fair, and we will aboard.
and we will aboard.My lord of Cambridge, and my lord of Masham,
And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:
knight, give me your thoughts:Do you not think the power we bear with us,
we bear with us,Will make us conquerors in the field of France?
3.Sp8Grey
Even those that were your father’s enemies
Have steeped their galls in honey for your sake.
in honey for your sake.3.Sp9King Henry
We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
And shall forget the office of our
hands
Sooner than reward and merit,
According to their cause and
worthiness.
3.Sp10Masham
So service shall with steelèd sinews
shine,
And labor shall refresh itself with hope
To do your grace incessant service.
3.Sp11King Henry
Uncle of Exeter, enlarge the man
the manCommitted yesterday, that railed against our person.
yesterday, that railed against our person.We consider it was the heat of wine that set him on,
And on his more advice we pardon him.
we pardon him.3.Sp12Masham
That is mercy, but too much
security.
Let him be punished, sovereign, lest the
example of him
Breed more of such a kind.
3.Sp16King Henry
Alas, your too much care and love of me
Are heavy
orisons
’gainst the poor wretch.
orisons
’gainst the poor wretch.If little faults proceeding on
distemper
Should not be winked at,
how should we stretch our eye
how should we stretch our eyeWhen capital crimes,
chewed, swallowed, and digested,
crimes,
chewed, swallowed, and digested,Appear before us?
We’ll yet enlarge the man,
Though Cambridge and the rest, in their dear
loves
lovesAnd tender preservation of our state
Would have him punished.
Now to our French causes. —
Who are the late
commissioners?
commissioners?3.Sp20King Henry
(Giving them papers) Then
Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours.
There is yours, my lord of Masham and Sir Thomas
Grey,
Knight of Northumberland, this same is yours.
Read them, and know we know your worthiness. —
Uncle Exeter,
I will aboard tonight.
Why, how now, gentlemen?
Why change you color?
What see you in those papers
That hath so chased your blood out of appearance?
3.Sp23King Henry
The mercy which was quit in us but
late
in us but
lateBy your own reasons is forestalled and done.
is forestalled and done.You must not dare for shame to ask for mercy,
For your own conscience turn upon your bosoms
As dogs upon their masters, worrying them. —
them. —See you, my princes, and my noble peers,
These English monsters: my lord of Cambridge here,
You know how apt we were to grace him
In all things belonging to his honor;
And this vile man hath for a few
light crowns,
man hath for a few
light crowns,Lightly
conspired and sworn unto the practices of
France
conspired and sworn unto the practices of
FranceTo kill us here in Hampton. To the which
To the whichThis knight, no less in bounty bound to us
no less in bounty bound to usThan Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. —
To Masham
likewise sworn. —But oh, what shall I say to thee, false man?
Thou cruel, ingrateful, and inhumane creature,
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsel,
That knew’st the very secrets of my heart,
That almost mightst’a coined me into
gold,
Wouldst thou a’practiced on me for thy use?
me for thy use?Can it be possible that out of thee
Should proceed one spark
that might annoy my finger?
that might annoy my finger?’Tis so strange, that though the truth doth show as
gross
As black from white, mine eye will scarcely see it. —
mine eye will scarcely see it. —Their faults are open;
arrest them to the
answer of the law,
arrest them to the
answer of the law,And God acquit them of their practices.
3.Sp24Exeter
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
Richard, Earl of Cambridge.
I arrest thee of high treason, by
the name of Henry, Lord of Masham.
I arrest thee of high treason, by
the name of Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland.
Richard, Earl of Cambridge.
I arrest thee of high treason, by
the name of Henry, Lord of Masham.
I arrest thee of high treason, by
the name of Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland.3.Sp25Masham
Our purposes God justly hath discovered,
And I repent my fault more than my death,
Which I beseech your majesty forgive,
Although my body pay the price of
it.
3.Sp26King Henry
Exeunt omnes.God quit you in his mercy. Hear your sentence:
you in his mercy. Hear your sentence:You have conspired against our royal person,
Joined with an enemy proclaimed and
fixed,
And from his coffers
received the golden earnest of our death.
received the golden earnest of our death.Touching our person we seek no redress,
our person we seek no redress,But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to our laws
We do deliver you.
Get ye therefore hence,
Poor miserable creatures, to your death,
The taste whereof God in his mercy give you
whereof God in his mercy give youPatience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your deeds amiss. —
Bear them hence.
Exit the three lords, Cambridge,
Grey, and Masham, guarded.
Now, lords, to France, the enterprise whereof
whereofShall be to you as us, successively,
Since God cut off this dangerous treason lurking in our
way.
Cheerly
to sea; the signs of war advance.
to sea; the signs of war advance.No king of England if not king of
France.
Scene 4
Enter Nym, Pistol, Bardolph, Hostess, and Boy.
4.Sp4Hostess
Ay, he is in Arthur’s bosom, if ever any were.
He went away as if
it were a chrisomed
child, between twelve and one, just at turning of the tide.
His nose was as sharp as a pen;
for when I saw him fumble with the
sheets, and talk of flowers, and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was
no way but one.
“How now, Sir John?” quoth I, and he cried three times, “God,
God, God”. Now I, to comfort him,
bade him not think of God; I hope
there was no such need. Then he
bade me put more clothes
at his feet: and I felt to them, and they
were as cold as any stone; and
to his knees, and they were as cold as any stone; and so
upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any
stone.
if ever any were.
He went away as if
it were a chrisomed
child, between twelve and one, just at turning of the tide.
His nose was as sharp as a pen;
for when I saw him fumble with the
sheets, and talk of flowers, and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was
no way but one.
“How now, Sir John?” quoth I, and he cried three times, “God,
God, God”. Now I, to comfort him,
bade him not think of God; I hope
there was no such need. Then he
bade me put more clothes
at his feet: and I felt to them, and they
were as cold as any stone; and
to his knees, and they were as cold as any stone; and so
upward, and upward, and all was as cold as any
stone.4.Sp12Hostess
Indeed, he did in some sort handle women,
but then he was rheumatic, and talked of the whore of Babylon.
women,
but then he was rheumatic, and talked of the whore of Babylon.4.Sp13Boy
Hostess, do you remember he saw a flea stand upon Bardolph’s nose, and said it was
a black soul burning in hell fire?
4.Sp16Pistol
Exeunt omnes.
(To Hostess) Clear up thy crystals.
Look to my chattels
and my movables.
Trust none: the
word is
pitch and pay,
men’s words are wafer
cakes,
and Holdfast is the only dog, my
dear, therefore Cophetua be thy
counselor. —
(To the others) Touch her soft
lips and part.
Look to my chattels
and my movables.
Trust none: the
word is
pitch and pay,
men’s words are wafer
cakes,
and Holdfast is the only dog, my
dear, therefore Cophetua be thy
counselor. —
(To the others) Touch her soft
lips and part.Scene 5
Enter King of France, Bourbon, Dauphin, Constable,
Orléans, Berry,
and others.
5.Sp1French King
Now you Lords of Orléans,
of Bourbon, and of Berry,
of Bourbon, and of Berry,You see the King of England is not slack,
For he is footed on this land already.
this land already.5.Sp2Dauphin
My gracious lord, ’tis meet we all
go forth,
we all
go forth,And arm us against the foe,
And view the weak and sickly parts of France.
But let us do it with no show of fear,
No, with no more than if we heard
England
were busied with a morris dance.
were busied with a morris dance.For, my good Lord, she is so idly
kinged,
is so idly
kinged,Her scepter so fantastically borne,
so fantastically borne,So guided by a shallow humorous youth,
youth,That fear attends her not.
her not.5.Sp3Constable
Oh, peace, Prince Dauphin; you deceive yourself. —
Question your grace the late
ambassador:
ambassador:With what regard he heard his embassage,
embassage,How well supplied with agèd counselors,
counselors,And how his resolution answered him.
You then would say that Harry was not wild.
5.Sp7Dauphin
Enter Exeter.
My gracious father, cut up this English short.
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a thing
As self-neglecting.
5.Sp9Exeter
From him, and thus he greets your majesty:
He wills you in the name of God almighty
you in the name of God almightyThat you divest yourself, and lay apart
yourself, and lay apartThat borrowed title, which by gift of heaven,
which by gift of heaven,Of law, of nature, and of nations, ʼlongs
To him and to his heirs, namely the crown
And all wide-stretchèd titles that belongs
titles that belongsUnto the crown of France. That you may know
’Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim
nor no awkward claimPicked from the wormholes of old vanished days,
of old vanished days,Nor from the dust of old oblivion
racked,
racked,He sends you these most memorable lines,
Offers the
French King a paper
In every branch truly demonstrated,
Willing you overlook this pedigree.
And when you find him evenly derived
From his most famed and famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
heldFrom him, the native and true challenger.
and true challenger.5.Sp11Exeter
Bloody constraint: for if you hide the crown
for if you hide the crownEven 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 it.
fail, he will compel it.And on your heads turns he the widows’ tears,
the widows’ tears,The orphans’ cries, the dead men’s bones,
The pining maidens’ groans
For husbands, fathers, and distressèd lovers,
Which shall be swallowed in this controversy.
This is his claim, his threat’ning, and my message,
his threat’ning, and my message,Unless the dauphin be in presence here,
To whom expressly we bring greeting too.
greeting too.5.Sp13Exeter
Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,
contempt,And anything that may not misbecome
The mighty sender doth he prize you
at.
Thus saith my king: unless your father’s highness
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He’ll call you to so loud an answer for it,
an answer for it,That caves and wombly vaults of
France
vaults of
FranceShall chide your trespass and return your mock
your trespass and return your mockIn second accent of his ordinance.
of his ordinance.5.Sp14Dauphin
Say that, my father render fair reply,
reply,It is against my will, for I desire
Nothing so much as odds with England.
with England.And for that cause, according to his youth
I did present him with those Paris
balls.
5.Sp15Exeter
Exeunt omnes.
He’ll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
shake for it,Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe.
court of mighty Europe.And be assured, you’ll find a difference,
As we his subjects have in wonder found,
Between his younger days and these he musters
now,
now,Now he weighs time
even to the latest
grain,
even to the latest
grain,Which you shall find in your own losses
If he stay in France.
Scene 6
Enter Nym, Bardolph, Pistol, and
Boy.
Enter Flewellen, and beats them in.
Exeunt Nym,
Bardolph, and Pistol.
6.Sp8Boy
Exit Boy.
Enter Gower.
(To audience) Well, I would I
were once from them.
They would have me as familiar with men’s pockets as their gloves and their handkerchers.
They will steal anything. Bardolph stole a lute case, carried it three mile,
and sold it for three ha’pence.
Nym stole a fire-shovel. I knew by
that, they meant to carry coals.
Well, if they will not leave me, I
mean to leave them.
them.
They would have me as familiar with men’s pockets as their gloves and their handkerchers.
They will steal anything. Bardolph stole a lute case, carried it three mile,
and sold it for three ha’pence.
Nym stole a fire-shovel. I knew by
that, they meant to carry coals.
Well, if they will not leave me, I
mean to leave them.6.Sp10Flewellen
Enter the King and his
lords.Look you, tell the duke it is not so good to come to the mines. The concavities is otherwise,
you may discuss to the duke. The enemy is digged
himself, five yards under, the countermines. By Jesus,
I think he’ll blow up all if
there be no better direction.
you may discuss to the duke. The enemy is digged
himself, five yards under, the countermines. By Jesus,
I think he’ll blow up all if
there be no better direction. Alarum.
6.Sp11King Henry
Enter Governor.How yet resolves the governor of the town?
the governor of the town?This is the latest parley we’ll admit,
we’ll admit,Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves,
Or like to men proud of destruction
Defy us to our worst;
for as I am a soldier,
for as I am a soldier,A name that in my thoughts
becomes me best,
me best,If we
begin the battery once again,
begin the battery once again,I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
HarfleurTill in her ashes she be burièd.
The gates of mercy are all shut up.
What say you? Will you yield and this avoid,
Will you yield and this avoid,Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed?
be thus destroyed?
6.Sp12Governor
Exeunt omnes.Our expectation hath this day an end:
hath this day an end:The dauphin, whom of succor we entreated,
we entreated,Returns us word his powers are not yet ready
are not yet readyTo raise so great a siege. Therefore, dread king,
so great a siege. Therefore, dread king,We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
mercy.Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours,
us and ours,For we no longer are defensive now.
now.
Scene 7
Enter Catherine, Alice.
7.Sp1Catherine
Alice, venez ici.
Vous avez quarante ans;
vous parlez fort
bon l’anglais d’Angleterre.
Comment
appelez-vous la main en anglais?
Vous avez quarante ans;
vous parlez fort
bon l’anglais d’Angleterre.
Comment
appelez-vous la main en anglais?7.Sp11Catherine
Ecoutez: je raconterai
tout celle que j’ai appris:
de han, de arma, de neck, du cin, et de bilbo.
tout celle que j’ai appris:
de han, de arma, de neck, du cin, et de bilbo.7.Sp13Catherine
O Jesu, j’ai oublié!
Ma foi! Ecoutez; je raconterai:
de han, de arma, de neck, de cin, et de elbo. Est-ça bon?
7.Sp15Catherine
Par la grace de Dieu,
en petit temps je parle meilleur.
Comment
appelez-vous le pied et la
robe?
je parle meilleur.
Comment
appelez-vous le pied et la
robe?7.Sp17Catherine
Le fot,
et le con? O Jesu! Je ne veux point parler
ce plus devant
les chères chevaliers de France pour un
million! Ma foi!
les chères chevaliers de France pour un
million! Ma foi!
7.Sp19Catherine
Exeunt omnes.
Oh! Est-il
aussi? Ecoutez, Alice: de
han, de arma,
de neck, de cin, le foot,
et de con.
Ecoutez, Alice: de
han, de arma,
de neck, de cin, le foot,
et de con.Scene 8
Enter King of France, Lord Constable,
the Dauphin, and Bourbon.
8.Sp2Constable
Mort de ma
vie! Shall a few sprangs of
us,
Shall a few sprangs of
us,The emptying of our fathers’ luxury,
our fathers’ luxury,Outgrow their grafters?
8.Sp3Bourbon
Normans, bastard Normans.
Mon
dieu!
And if they pass unfought withal,
they pass unfought withal,I’ll sell my dukedom for a foggy farm
In that short-nook isle of England.
isle of England.8.Sp4Constable
Why, whence have they this mettle?
Is not their climate raw, foggy and cold,
foggy and cold,On whom, as in disdain, the sun looks pale?
as in disdain, the sun looks pale?Can barley broth, a drench for swollen jades,
a drench for swollen jades,Their sodden water, decoct
such lively blood?
water, decoct
such lively blood?And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
blood, spirited with wine,Seem frosty? Oh, for honor of our names,
Let us not hang like frozen icicles
Upon our houses’ tops while they o’
more
Frosty climate
sweat drops of youthful
blood.
sweat drops of youthful
blood.8.Sp5French King
Exeunt omnes.
Constable, dispatch. Send Montjoy forth
Send Montjoy forthTo know what willing ransom he will give.
he will give.Son dauphin, you shall stay in Rouen with
me.
with
me.Scene 9
Enter Gower and Flewellen, meeting.
9.Sp4Flewellen
Enter Ancient Pistol.
The Duke of Exeter is a man whom I love, and I honor, and I worship, with my soul,
and
my heart, and my life, and my lands and my livings,
and my uttermost powers. The duke is,
look you, God be praised and pleased for it, no harm in the worell.
He is maintain the bridge very
gallantly. There is an ensign
there, I do not know how you call him, but by Jesus I
think
he is as valiant a
man as
Mark Antony. He doth maintain the
bridge most gallantly. Yet he is a man of no reckoning,
but I did see him do gallant
service.
look you, God be praised and pleased for it, no harm in the worell.
He is maintain the bridge very
gallantly. There is an ensign
there, I do not know how you call him, but by Jesus I
think
he is as valiant a
man as
Mark Antony. He doth maintain the
bridge most gallantly. Yet he is a man of no reckoning,
but I did see him do gallant
service.9.Sp11Pistol
Bardolph, a soldier, one of buxom valor,
hath, by furious fate and
giddy
Fortune’s fickle
wheel, that goddess blind that stands upon the
rolling restless stone —
valor,
hath, by furious fate and
giddy
Fortune’s fickle
wheel, that goddess blind that stands upon the
rolling restless stone —9.Sp12Flewellen
By your patience, Ancient Pistol, Fortune,
look you, is painted plind, with a
muffler before her eyes, to signify to you that fortune is plind;
And she is moreover painted with
a wheel, which is the moral that
Fortune is turning, and inconstant, and variation, and mutabilities; and her fate is fixed at a spherical stone which rouls, and
rouls, and rouls.
Surely the poet is make an excellent description of Fortune. Fortune, look you, is
an excellent moral.
Ancient Pistol, Fortune,
look you, is painted plind, with a
muffler before her eyes, to signify to you that fortune is plind;
And she is moreover painted with
a wheel, which is the moral that
Fortune is turning, and inconstant, and variation, and mutabilities; and her fate is fixed at a spherical stone which rouls, and
rouls, and rouls.
Surely the poet is make an excellent description of Fortune. Fortune, look you, is
an excellent moral.9.Sp13Pistol
Fortune is Bardolph’s foe and frowns on him,
for he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must he be, a damnèd death. Let gallows gape
for dogs; let man go free, and
let not death his windpipe stop. But Exeter hath given the doom of death, for pax
of
petty price,
therefore go speak — the duke will hear thy voice —
and let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut with edge of penny-cord and vile approach.
Speak, captain, for his life, and
I will thee requite.
and hanged must he be, a damnèd death. Let gallows gape
for dogs; let man go free, and
let not death his windpipe stop. But Exeter hath given the doom of death, for pax
of
petty price,
therefore go speak — the duke will hear thy voice —
and let not Bardolph’s vital thread be cut with edge of penny-cord and vile approach.
Speak, captain, for his life, and
I will thee requite.9.Sp16Flewellen
Exit Pistol.
Certainly, Ancient Pistol, ’tis not a thing to rejoice at. For if he were my own brother, I would wish the duke to do his pleasure, and
put him to executions; for look you, disciplines ought to be kept. They ought to be
kept.
he were my own brother, I would wish the duke to do his pleasure, and
put him to executions; for look you, disciplines ought to be kept. They ought to be
kept.9.Sp24Flewellen
By Jesus, he is utter as prave words upon the bridge
as you shall desire
to see in a summer’s day. But it’s all one;
what he hath said to me, look you, is all one.
words upon the bridge
as you shall desire
to see in a summer’s day. But it’s all one;
what he hath said to me, look you, is all one.9.Sp25Gower
Why this is a gull, a fool, a rogue that goes to the wars only to grace himself at his return to London,
and such fellows as he are perfect in
great commanders’ names.
They will learn by rote where services were done: at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off
bravely, who was shot, who disgraced; what terms the enemy stood
on.
And this they con perfectly
in phrase of war,
which they trick up with new-tuned
oaths. And what a beard of the general’s cut and a horrid
shout of
the camp
will do among the foaming bottles
and ale-washed wits is wonderful to be thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of this age,
or else you may marvelously be mistook.
a fool, a rogue that goes to the wars only to grace himself at his return to London,
and such fellows as he are perfect in
great commanders’ names.
They will learn by rote where services were done: at such and such a sconce, at such a breach, at such a convoy; who came off
bravely, who was shot, who disgraced; what terms the enemy stood
on.
And this they con perfectly
in phrase of war,
which they trick up with new-tuned
oaths. And what a beard of the general’s cut and a horrid
shout of
the camp
will do among the foaming bottles
and ale-washed wits is wonderful to be thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders of this age,
or else you may marvelously be mistook.9.Sp26Flewellen
Enter King, Clarence, Gloucester, and others.
Certain, Captain Gower, it is not the man, look you, that I did take him to be, but
when time shall serve, I shall tell him a little of my
desires. Here comes his majesty.
9.Sp30Flewellen
An it shall please your majesty,
the partition of the adversary hath been great, very reasonable great, but for our own
parts, like you now,
I think we have lost
never a man, unless it be one
for robbing of a church: one Bardolph, if your majesty know the man.
His face is full of whelks,
and knubs,
and pumples, and his
breath blows at his nose like a
coal, sometimes red, sometimes plue.
But, God be praised, now his nose is executed and his fire out.
of the adversary hath been great, very reasonable great, but for our own
parts, like you now,
I think we have lost
never a man, unless it be one
for robbing of a church: one Bardolph, if your majesty know the man.
His face is full of whelks,
and knubs,
and pumples, and his
breath blows at his nose like a
coal, sometimes red, sometimes plue.
But, God be praised, now his nose is executed and his fire out.9.Sp31King Henry
Enter French Herald.
We would have all offenders so cut
off,
and we here
give
express
commandment
that there be nothing taken from the villages but paid for, none of the French abused
or upbraided
with disdainful language. For when cruelty and lenity
play for
a kingdom, the gentlest
gamester is the sooner winner.
and we here
give
express
commandment
that there be nothing taken from the villages but paid for, none of the French abused
or upbraided
with disdainful language. For when cruelty and lenity
play for
a kingdom, the gentlest
gamester is the sooner winner.9.Sp36Herald
“Go thee unto Harry of England, and tell him
advantage is a better soldier than rashness.
Although we did seem dead, we did but slumber.
Now we speak upon our
cue, and our voice is imperial.
England shall repent her folly, see her rashness, and admire our sufferance,
which to ransom, his pettiness
would bow under.
For the
effusion of our blood, his army is too weak;
for the disgrace we have borne, himself
kneeling at our feet a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this, add defiance”. So
much from the king my master.
is a better soldier than rashness.
Although we did seem dead, we did but slumber.
Now we speak upon our
cue, and our voice is imperial.
England shall repent her folly, see her rashness, and admire our sufferance,
which to ransom, his pettiness
would bow under.
For the
effusion of our blood, his army is too weak;
for the disgrace we have borne, himself
kneeling at our feet a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this, add defiance”. So
much from the king my master.9.Sp39King Henry
Thou dost thy office
fair.
Return thee back
fair.
Return thee backAnd tell thy king I do not seek him now,
But could be well content, without impeach,
To march on to Calais.
.For to say the sooth,
Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
and vantage,My soldiers are with sickness much enfeebled,
My army lessened, and those few I have
Almost no better than so many French,
Who when they were in heart, I tell thee, herald,
I tell thee, herald,I thought upon one pair of English
legs
Did march three Frenchmen’s.
Yet forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus; this your “heir” of
France
of
FranceHath blown this vice in me.
I must repent.
Go tell thy master here I am.
My ransom is this frail and worthless
body,
My army but a weak and sickly guard.
Yet, God before, we will come on, if France
we will come on, if FranceAnd such another neighbor stood in our way.
If we may pass, we will. If we be hindered,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood discolor.
ground with your red blood discolor.So, Montjoy, get you gone.(Gives money)
)
There is for your pains.
The sum of all our answer is but this:
We would not seek a battle as we are,
Nor as we are, we say, we will not shun it.
9.Sp42King Henry
We are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs.
Tonight we will encamp beyond the bridge,
And on tomorrow bid them
march away.
them
march away.Scene 10
Enter Bourbon, Constable, Orléans, Gebon.
10.Sp3Bourbon
Now you talk of a horse, I have a steed like the
palfrey
of the sun,
nothing but pure air
and fire,
and hath none of this dull element of earth within him.
of the sun,
nothing but pure air
and fire,
and hath none of this dull element of earth within him.10.Sp5Bourbon
And of the heat o’ the
ginger.
Turn all the
sands into eloquent tongues,
and my horse is argument for them all.
I once writ a sonnet in the praise of my horse,
and began thus: “Wonder of nature —”
o’ the
ginger.
Turn all the
sands into eloquent tongues,
and my horse is argument for them all.
I once writ a sonnet in the praise of my horse,
and began thus: “Wonder of nature —”10.Sp7Bourbon
Why, then did they imitate that which I writ in praise of my horse, for my
horse is my mistress.
10.Sp13Bourbon
Exit.Will it never be morning? I’ll ride tomorrow a mile,
and my way shall be paved with English faces.
Enter a messenger.
10.Sp36Constable
Exeunt omnes.
A valiant man, and an expert gentleman.
Come, come away.
The sun is high, and we wear out the day.
expert gentleman.
Come, come away.
The sun is high, and we wear out the day.Scene 11
Enter the King disguised, to him Pistol.
11.Sp9Pistol
Exit Pistol.
Enter Gower and
Flewellen.The king’s a bago, and a heart of gold, a
lad of life, an imp of fame, of
parents good, of fist most valiant. I kiss his dirty shoe, and from my heartstrings
I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?
and a heart of gold, a
lad of life, an imp of fame, of
parents good, of fist most valiant. I kiss his dirty shoe, and from my heartstrings
I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?
11.Sp21Flewellen
In the name of Jesu, speak lower.
It is the greatest folly in the
worell, when the auncient
prerogatives of the wars be not kept.
I warrant you, if you look
into the wars of the Romans, you shall find no tittle-tattle, nor
bible-bable there,
but you shall find the cares, and
the fears,
and the ceremonies, to be otherwise.
speak lower.
It is the greatest folly in the
worell, when the auncient
prerogatives of the wars be not kept.
I warrant you, if you look
into the wars of the Romans, you shall find no tittle-tattle, nor
bible-bable there,
but you shall find the cares, and
the fears,
and the ceremonies, to be otherwise.11.Sp23Flewellen
Exeunt Gower and
Flewellen.God-so!
Loud! If the enemy be an ass, and a fool,
and a prating coxcomb, is it meet that we be also a fool, and a prating coxcomb, in your
conscience now?
Loud! If the enemy be an ass, and a fool,
and a prating coxcomb, is it meet that we be also a fool, and a prating coxcomb, in your
conscience now?
Enter three soldiers.
11.Sp293 Soldier
Well, I think the king could wish himself
up to the neck in the middle of the Thames, and so I would he were, at all adventures, and I with him.
and I with him.11.Sp34King Henry
Nay, say not so. He is a man as we are.
The violet smells to him as to us,
therefore if he see reasons, he
fears as we do.
him as to us,
therefore if he see reasons, he
fears as we do.11.Sp352 Soldier
But the king hath a heavy reckoning to
make
if his cause be not good, when
all those souls
whose bodies shall be slaughtered here
shall join
together at the latter day,
and say “I died at such a place”,
some swearing,
some, their wives rawly left,
some leaving their children poor behind them.
Now if his cause be bad, I think
it will be a grievous matter to him.
to
make
if his cause be not good, when
all those souls
whose bodies shall be slaughtered here
shall join
together at the latter day,
and say “I died at such a place”,
some swearing,
some, their wives rawly left,
some leaving their children poor behind them.
Now if his cause be bad, I think
it will be a grievous matter to him.11.Sp36King Henry
Why, so you may say if a man send his servant
as factor into another country,
and he by any means miscarry,
you may say the business of the master was the author of his servant’s misfortune.
Or if a son be employed by his father,
and he fall into any lewd action,
you may say the father
was the author of his son’s damnation.
But the master is not to answer for his servants,
the father for his son, nor the king for his subjects,
for they purpose not
their deaths when they crave their
services.
Some there are that have the guilt of premeditated murder on them; others the broken seal
of forgery, in beguiling maidens.
Now if these outstrip the law,
yet they cannot escape God’s punishment. War is God’s beadle; war
is God’s vengeance.
Every man’s service is the king’s, but every man’s soul is his own. Therefore I would
have every
soldier examine himself
and wash every mote out of his conscience,
that in so doing he may be the readier for death, or not dying, why the time was
well spent wherein such preparation was made.
into another country,
and he by any means miscarry,
you may say the business of the master was the author of his servant’s misfortune.
Or if a son be employed by his father,
and he fall into any lewd action,
you may say the father
was the author of his son’s damnation.
But the master is not to answer for his servants,
the father for his son, nor the king for his subjects,
for they purpose not
their deaths when they crave their
services.
Some there are that have the guilt of premeditated murder on them; others the broken seal
of forgery, in beguiling maidens.
Now if these outstrip the law,
yet they cannot escape God’s punishment. War is God’s beadle; war
is God’s vengeance.
Every man’s service is the king’s, but every man’s soul is his own. Therefore I would
have every
soldier examine himself
and wash every mote out of his conscience,
that in so doing he may be the readier for death, or not dying, why the time was
well spent wherein such preparation was made.11.Sp373 Soldier
I’faith, he says true: every man’s fault on his
own head.
I would not have the king answer for me,
yet I intend to fight lustily for him.
I would not have the king answer for me,
yet I intend to fight lustily for him.11.Sp392 Soldier
Ay, he said so, to make us fight,
but when our throats be cut, he may be ransomed and we never the wiser.
11.Sp412 Soldier
Mass,
you’ll pay him then. ’Tis a great displeasure
that an elder-gun can do against a cannon,
or a subject against a monarch.
You’ll ne’er take his word again! You’re an ass. Go.
you’ll pay him then. ’Tis a great displeasure
that an elder-gun can do against a cannon,
or a subject against a monarch.
You’ll ne’er take his word again! You’re an ass. Go.11.Sp452 Soldier
They exchange
gloves.Here is my glove, which if ever I see in thy hat,
I’ll challenge thee, and strike thee.
11.Sp483 Soldier
Be friends, you fools. We have French quarrels enough
in hand;
we have no need of English broils.
in hand;
we have no need of English broils.11.Sp49King Henry
Enter Gloucester.
’Tis no treason to cut French crowns,
for tomorrow the King himself will be a clipper. —
Exeunt the soldiers.
for tomorrow the King himself will be a clipper. —O God of battles,
steel
my soldiers’ hearts.
steel
my soldiers’ hearts.Take from them now the sense of reckoning,
That the opposed multitudes which stand before
them
May not appall their courage.
Oh, not today,
their courage.
Oh, not today,Not today, O God, think on the fault
My father made in compassing the crown.
the crown.I Richard’s body have interrèd new,
And on it hath bestowed more contrite
tears
bestowed more contrite
tearsThan from it issued forcèd drops of blood.
drops of blood.A hundred men have I in yearly pay,
Which every day their withered hands hold up
To heaven to pardon blood,
And I have built two chantries;
more will I do,
more will I do,Though all that I can do is all too
little.
11.Sp53King Henry
Exeunt.Stay, Gloucester, stay, and I will go with thee.
The day, my friends, and all things stays for me.
Scene 12
Enter Clarence, Gloucester, Exeter, Warwick, and Salisbury.
12.Sp4Salisbury
The odds is all too great. Farewell, kind lords.
Brave Clarence, and my lord of Gloucester,
and my lord of Gloucester,My lord of Warwick, and to all, farewell.
12.Sp5Clarence
Enter King.
To Salisbury Farewell, kind lord.
Fight valiantly today.
Farewell, kind lord.
Fight valiantly today.And yet in truth I do thee wrong,
For thou art made on the true sparks of honor.
of honor.12.Sp6Warwick
Oh, would we had but ten thousand men
now, at this instant, that doth not work in
England.
in
England.12.Sp7King Henry
Who’s that, that wishes so, my cousin
Warwick?
God’s will, I would not lose the honor
one man would share
from me,
not for my kingdom.
Warwick?
God’s will, I would not lose the honor
one man would share
from me,
not for my kingdom.No, faith, my cousin, wish not one man more.
not one man more.Rather proclaim it presently through our camp
it presently through our campThat he that hath no stomach to this
feast,
Let him depart. His passport shall be drawn
shall be drawnAnd crowns for convoy put into his purse.
put into his purse.We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
to die with us.This day is called the day of
Crispin.
He that outlives this day and sees old
age
Shall stand a tiptoe when this day is named
when this day is namedAnd rouse him at the name of Crispin.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home
Shall yearly on the vigil feast his friends,
feast his friends,And say, “Tomorrow is Saint Crispin’s
Day”.
Then shall we in their flowing bowls
Be newly remembered:
Harry the King,
Harry the King,Bedford and Exeter, Clarence and Gloucester,
Warwick and York,
Familiar in their mouths as household words.
as household words.This story shall the good man tell his son,
And from this day unto the general
doom,
But we in it shall be rememberèd.
We few, we happy few, we bond of brothers,
few, we bond of brothers,For he today that sheds his blood by mine
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so base,
This day shall gentle his
condition.
Then shall he strip his sleeves, and show
his scars
And say, “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day”.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed
And hold their manhood cheap while any
speak
cheap while any
speakThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
12.Sp12Warwick
God’s will, my liege, would you and I alone
Without more help might fight this battle out.
12.Sp13King Henry
Enter the Herald from the French.
Why well said. That doth please me better
Than to wish me one. —
—You know your charge,
God be with you all.
12.Sp17King Henry
Exit Herald.
Enter York.I prithee bear my former answer back:
Bid them achieve me and then sell my bones.
me and then sell my bones.Good God, why should they mock good fellows thus?
The man that once did sell the lion’s
skin
While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.
A many of our bodies shall no doubt
of our bodies shall no doubtFind graves within your realm of France:
Though buried in your dunghills, we shall be famed,
we shall be famed,For there the sun shall greet them,
And draw up their honors reeking up to heaven,
up to heaven,Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,
The smell whereof shall breed a
plague in France.
in France.Mark
then abundant valor in our English,
then abundant valor in our English,That being dead, like to the bullets crazing,
Breaks forth into a second course of
mischief,
Killing in relapse of mortality.
Let me speak proudly:
There’s not a piece of feather in our camp —
in our camp —Good argument, I hope, we shall not fly —
—And time hath worn us into slovenry.
But by the mass, our hearts are in the
trim,
And my poor soldiers tell me yet ere night
They’ll be in fresher robes,
or
they will pluck
or
they will pluckThe gay new clothes o’er your French
soldiers’ ears
And turn them out of service. If they do this,
out of service. If they do this,As if it please God they shall,
Then shall our ransom soon be levièd.
Save thou thy labor, herald.
Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald.
They shall have naught, I swear, but these my bones,
I swear, but these my bones,Which if they have as I will leave ’em
them,
them,Will yield them little. Tell the constable.
the constable.
12.Sp20King Henry
Exeunt.
Take it, brave York. — Come soldiers, let’s away,
And as thou pleasest, God, dispose the day.
the day.Scene 13
Enter the four French lords, Gebon, Orléans, Bourbon,
and the Constable.
13.Sp5Constable
We are enough yet living in the field
To smother up the English,
If any order might be thought upon.
13.Sp6Bourbon
A plague of order! Once more to the
field,
And he that will not follow Bourbon now,
Let him go home and, with his cap in
hand
Like a base leno, hold the chamber door,
hold the chamber door,Whilst by a slave
no gentler than my dog,
no gentler than my dog,His fairest daughter is contaminate.
13.Sp7Constable
Exeunt omnes.
Disorder that hath spoiled us, right
us now.
us, right
us now.Come we:
in heaps we’ll offer up our lives
in heaps we’ll offer up our livesUnto these English, or else die with fame.
Come, come along,
Let’s die with honor; our shame doth
last too long.
too long.Scene 14
Enter Pistol, a French
soldier, and the Boy.
14.Sp11Pistol
On y est ma foy!
Couple la gorge!
Unless thou give to me egregious
ransom, die. One point of a
fox.
Unless thou give to me egregious
ransom, die. One point of a
fox.14.Sp14French Soldier
Oh! Je vous en prie,
petit gentilhomme, parlez
a ce grand capitaine pour avez merci
a moi, et je donnerai pour mon rançon
cinquante
écus.
Je suis un gentilhomme de France.
cinquante
écus.
Je suis un gentilhomme de France.
14.Sp16Boy
Marry, sir, he says he is a gentleman of a great house of France, and for his ransom
he will give you five hundred crowns.
crowns.14.Sp17Pistol
Exeunt omnes.My fury shall abate, and I the crowns will take,
and as I suck
blood, I will some mercy show.
Follow me, cur.
I will some mercy show.
Follow me, cur.
Scene 15
Enter the King and his nobles, Pistol.
Enter
Exeter.
15.Sp3King Henry
Lives he, good uncle? Twice I saw him down,
Twice up again,
From helmet to the spur all bleeding o’er.
15.Sp4Exeter
In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie,
brave soldier, doth he lie,Larding the plains. And by his bloody side,
the plains. And by his bloody side,Yoke-fellow to his honor-dyeing wounds,
to his honor-dyeing wounds,The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.
Suffolk first died, and York, all hasted
o’er,
Comes to him where in blood he lay steeped,
And takes him by the beard, kisses the gashes
That bloodily did yawn upon his face,
upon his face,And cried aloud, “Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk”.
dear cousin Suffolk”.“My soul shall thine keep company in heaven”.
“Tarry, dear soul, awhile, then fly to
rest”,
“And in this glorious and well-foughten field,”
in this glorious and well-foughten field,”“We kept together in our chivalry”.
Upon these words I came and cheered them
up.
He took me by the hand, said, “Dear my lord”,
“Commend my service to my sovereign”.
my service to my sovereign”.So did he turn, and over Suffolk’s neck
He threw his wounded arm, and so espoused
To death, with blood he sealed:
an argument
an argumentOf never-ending love.
The pretty and sweet manner of it forced
Those waters from me which I would have stopped,
from me which I would have stopped,But I not so much of man in me,
But all my mother came into my eyes,
came into my eyes,And gave me up to tears.
15.Sp5King Henry
Exeunt omnes.
I blame you not,
For hearing you,
I must convert to tears.
Alarum sounds.
What new alarum is this?
is this?Bid every soldier kill his prisoner.
Scene 16
Enter Flewellen and Captain Gower.
16.Sp1Flewellen
God’s plood! Kill the boys and the luggage?
’Tis the arrant’st piece of knavery as can be desired in the worell
now! In your
conscience now —
Kill the boys and the luggage?
’Tis the arrant’st piece of knavery as can be desired in the worell
now! In your
conscience now —16.Sp2Gower
’Tis certain there is not a boy left alive, and the cowardly rascals that
ran from the battle themselves have done this slaughter. Beside, they have carried
away and burnt
all that was in the king’s tent, whereupon the king caused every
prisoner’s
throat to be cut. Oh, he is a worthy king.
the king caused every
prisoner’s
throat to be cut. Oh, he is a worthy king.16.Sp3Flewellen
Ay, he was born at Monmorth.
Captain Gower, what call you the
place where Alexander the Big
was born?
Captain Gower, what call you the
place where Alexander the Big
was born?16.Sp5Flewellen
Why, I pray, is nat “big” great? As if I
say, big, or great, or magnanimous, I hope it is all one reckoning,
save the phrase is a
little variation.
“big” great? As if I
say, big, or great, or magnanimous, I hope it is all one reckoning,
save the phrase is a
little variation.16.Sp6Gower
I think Alexander the Great was borne at Macedon.
His father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.
His father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.16.Sp7Flewellen
I think it was Macedon indeed where Alexander was born. Look you, Captain Gower, and
if you look into the maps of the worell well, you shall find little difference between
Macedon and Monmorth. Look you, there is a river in Macedon, and there is also a river
in Monmorth. The
river’s name at Monmorth is
called Wye,
but ’tis out of my brain what is the name of the other. But ’tis all one; ’tis so
like
as my fingers is to
my fingers,
and there is salmons in both.
Look you, Captain Gower, an you mark it, you shall find our king is come after Alexander.
God knows, and you know, that Alexander in his
bowls, and his ales, and his wrath, and his displeasures,
and indignations, was kill his friend Cleitus.
but ’tis out of my brain what is the name of the other. But ’tis all one; ’tis so
like
as my fingers is to
my fingers,
and there is salmons in both.
Look you, Captain Gower, an you mark it, you shall find our king is come after Alexander.
God knows, and you know, that Alexander in his
bowls, and his ales, and his wrath, and his displeasures,
and indignations, was kill his friend Cleitus.16.Sp9Flewellen
Look you, ’tis not well done to take the tale out of a man’s mouth ere it is made
an end and finished. I speak in the comparisons: as
Alexander is kill his friend
Cleitus, so our king, being in his ripe wits and judgments, is turn away the fat
knight with the great-belly doublet.
I am forget his
name.
I am forget his
name.16.Sp11Flewellen
Enter King and the
lords, among them an English herald.Ay, I think it is Sir John Falstaff indeed. I can tell
you, there’s good men born at Monmorth.
16.Sp12King Henry
I was not angry since I came into France,
France,Until this hour. —
Take a trumpet, herald,
herald,And ride unto the horsemen on yon hill.
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or leave the field. They do offend our sight.
Will they do neither, we will come to them
And make them skirr away as
fast as stones
away as
fast as stonesEnforcèd from the old Assyrian slings.
from the old Assyrian slings.Besides, we’ll cut the throats of those we
have,
we’ll cut the throats of those we
have,And not one alive shall taste our mercy.
Enter the French Herald.
God’s will, what means this? Know’st thou not
That we have fined these bones of
ours for ransom?
for ransom?16.Sp13Herald
I come, great king, for charitable
favor,
To sort our nobles from our common men,
our nobles from our common men,We may have leave to bury all our dead,
Which in the field lie spoiled and trodden on.
16.Sp14King Henry
I tell thee truly, herald, I do not know whether
the day be ours or no,
for yet a
many of your French do keep the field.
be ours or no,
for yet a
many of your French do keep the field.16.Sp19Flewellen
Your grandfather of famous memory,
if your grace be remembered,
is do good service in France.
if your grace be remembered,
is do good service in France.16.Sp21Flewellen
Your majesty says very true.
An it please your majesty,
the Welshmen there
was do good service in a garden
where leeks did grow.
And I think your majesty will take no scorn
to wear a leek in your cap upon Saint Davy’s day.
please your majesty,
the Welshmen there
was do good service in a garden
where leeks did grow.
And I think your majesty will take no scorn
to wear a leek in your cap upon Saint Davy’s day.16.Sp23Flewellen
All the water in Wye will not wash your Welsh blood out of you. God keep it,
and preserve it, to his grace’s will
and pleasure.
will
and pleasure.16.Sp25Flewellen
By Jesus, I am your majesty’s countryman. I care not who know it, so long as your
majesty is an honest man.
I am your majesty’s countryman. I care not who know it, so long as your
majesty is an honest man.16.Sp26King Henry
God keep me so. — Our herald go with him,
and bring us the number of the scattered French.
(Exit
French and English heralds, and Gower.
Enter Second Soldier.)
Call yonder soldier hither.
and bring us the number of the scattered French.
(Exit
French and English heralds, and Gower.
Enter Second Soldier.)
Call yonder soldier hither.16.Sp292 Soldier
An’t
please your majesty, ’tis a rascal’s that swaggered
with me the other day, and he hath one of mine,
which if ever I see, I have sworn to strike him.
So hath he
sworn the like to me.
please your majesty, ’tis a rascal’s that swaggered
with me the other day, and he hath one of mine,
which if ever I see, I have sworn to strike him.
So hath he
sworn the like to me.16.Sp31Flewellen
An it please your majesty, ’tis lawful he keep his vow.
If he be perjured once, he is as arrant a
beggarly knave
as treads upon two
black shoes.
once, he is as arrant a
beggarly knave
as treads upon two
black shoes.16.Sp33Flewellen
Exit Soldier.
And if he be as good a gentleman as Lucifer,
and Belzebub, and
the devil himself,
’tis meet he keep his vow.
, and
the devil himself,
’tis meet he keep his vow.16.Sp39King Henry
Captain Flewellen, when Alençon and I was
down
together, I took this glove off from his
helmet.
Here, Flewellen, wear it. (Gives him 2 Soldier’s
glove) If any do challenge it, he is a
friend of Alençon’s, and an enemy to me.
and I was
down
together, I took this glove off from his
helmet.
Here, Flewellen, wear it. (Gives him 2 Soldier’s
glove) If any do challenge it, he is a
friend of Alençon’s, and an enemy to me.16.Sp40Flewellen
Your majesty doth me as great a favor as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects.
I would see that man now that should
challenge this glove,
an it please God of his grace. I would but see him, that is all.
challenge this glove,
an it please God of his grace. I would but see him, that is all.16.Sp45King Henry
Exeunt.
(To the lords) Follow
Flewellen closely at the heels,
The glove he wears, it was the soldier’s.
It may be there will be harm between them,
For I do know Flewellen valiant,
And being touched, as hot as gunpowder,
as hot as gunpowder,And quickly will return an injury.
Go see there be no harm between them.
Scene 17
Enter Gower, Flewellen, and the Second
Soldier.
17.Sp1Flewellen
He strikes him.
Captain Gower, in the name of Jesu,
come to his majesty. There is more good toward you than you can dream of.
you than you can dream of.17.Sp5Flewellen
Enter the King, Warwick, Clarence, and Exeter.
God’s ploot, and his! Captain Gower, stand away. I’ll give treason his due
presently.
and his! Captain Gower, stand away. I’ll give treason his due
presently.17.Sp7Flewellen
An it shall please your majesty, here is the notablest piece of treason come to light
as you shall desire
to see in a summer’s day.
Here is a rascal — beggarly rascal — is strike the glove which your majesty took out of the helmet of Alençon,
and your majesty will bear me witness, and testimony,
and avouchments, that this is the glove.
Here is a rascal — beggarly rascal — is strike the glove which your majesty took out of the helmet of Alençon,
and your majesty will bear me witness, and testimony,
and avouchments, that this is the glove.17.Sp82 Soldier
An it please your majesty, that was my glove.
He that I gave it to in the night promised me to wear it in his hat; I promised to
strike him if he did. I met
that gentleman with my glove in his hat,
and I think I have been as
good as my word.
hat,
and I think I have been as
good as my word.17.Sp10King Henry
Let me see thy glove.
Look you, this is the fellow of
it.
It was I indeed you promised to strike,
and thou hast given me most bitter words.
How canst thou make us amends?
Look you, this is the fellow of
it.
It was I indeed you promised to strike,
and thou hast given me most bitter words.
How canst thou make us amends?17.Sp122 Soldier
My liege, all offences come from the heart.
Never came any from mine to offend your majesty. You appeared to me as a common man —
witness the night, your
garments, your lowliness — and whatsoever you received under
that habit,
I beseech your majesty impute it
to your own fault and not mine, for yourself came not like yourself. Had you been as you seemed, I had made no offence. Therefore I beseech your grace to pardon me.
a common man —
witness the night, your
garments, your lowliness — and whatsoever you received under
that habit,
I beseech your majesty impute it
to your own fault and not mine, for yourself came not like yourself. Had you been as you seemed, I had made no offence. Therefore I beseech your grace to pardon me.17.Sp13King Henry
Uncle, fill the glove with crowns,
and give it to the soldier. Wear it, fellow,
as an honor in thy cap, till I do challenge it.
Give him the crowns. Come, Captain Flewellen,
I must needs have you friends.
17.Sp14Flewellen
By Jesus, the fellow hath mettle enough
in his belly. — Hark you, soldier, there is a shilling for
you, and keep yourself out of
brawls, and brabbles, and dissentions,
and look you, it shall be the
better for you.
enough
in his belly. — Hark you, soldier, there is a shilling for
you, and keep yourself out of
brawls, and brabbles, and dissentions,
and look you, it shall be the
better for you.17.Sp16Flewellen
Enter herald, with paper for King Henry.Why, ’tis a good shilling, man.
Why should you be queamish?
Your shoes are not so good;
it will serve you to mend your
shoes.
man.
Why should you be queamish?
Your shoes are not so good;
it will serve you to mend your
shoes.
17.Sp18Exeter
Charles, Duke of Orléans, nephew to the
king;
John, Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Boucicaut.
Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,
Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.
17.Sp19King Henry
shock of
battle,
was ever heard so great and
little loss on one part and another?
This note doth tell me of ten thousand
French
That in the field lie slain.
Of nobles bearing banners in the field:
in the field:Charles d’Albret, High Constable of France,
High Constable of France,Jacques of Châtillon, Admiral of France,
of France,The Master of the Crossbows,
John Duke Alençon,
Lord Rambures,
High Master of France,
of France,The brave Sir Guichard Dauphin.
Of noble chevaliers,
Granpré, and Roucy, Fauquembergues and Foix,
Gerard and Verton, Vaudémont and Lestrelles.
Here was a royal fellowship of death. —
a royal fellowship of death. —Where is the number of our English
dead?
Takes a paper
Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,
the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk,Sir Richard Kyghley, Davey Gam,
Esquire,
And of all other but five-and-twenty.
O God, thy arm was here,
and unto thee alone ascribe we
praise.
was here,When, without stratagem
and in even shock of
battle,
was ever heard so great and
little loss on one part and another?
Take it, God,
for it is only thine. God,
17.Sp21King Henry
Come, let us go on procession through the camp.
Let it be death proclaimed to any man
To boast hereof, or take the praise from God
Which is his due.
17.Sp25King Henry
Exeunt omnes.
Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum.
and Te Deum.The dead with charity interred in
clay,
We’ll then to Calais, and to England then,
Where ne’er from France arrived more
happier men.
men.Scene 18
Enter Gower and Flewellen.
18.Sp2Flewellen
Enter Pistol.
There is occasion, Captain Gower, look you, why, and
wherefore.
The other day, look you, Pistols,
which you know is a man of no
merits in the worell, is come
where I was the other day, and brings bread and salt, and bids me eat my leek.
’Twas in a place, look you, where I could move no dissentions,
but if I can see him, I shall tell him a little of my desires.
The other day, look you, Pistols,
which you know is a man of no
merits in the worell, is come
where I was the other day, and brings bread and salt, and bids me eat my leek.
’Twas in a place, look you, where I could move no dissentions,
but if I can see him, I shall tell him a little of my desires.18.Sp4Flewellen
’Tis no matter for his swelling and his turkey-cocks.
— God pless you, Ancient Pistol, you scall,
beggarly, lousy knave, God pless you.
— God pless you, Ancient Pistol, you scall,
beggarly, lousy knave, God pless you.18.Sp5Pistol
Ha, art thou bedlam?
Dost thou thirst, base Trojan,
to have me fold up
Parca’s fatal web?
Hence!
I am qualmish at the smell of leek.
Dost thou thirst, base Trojan,
to have me fold up
Parca’s fatal web?
Hence!
I am qualmish at the smell of leek.18.Sp6Flewellen
He strikes him with a cudgel.Ancient Pistol, I would desire you, because it doth not agree with your stomach,
and your appetite,
and your digestions, to eat this leek.
and your appetite,
and your digestions, to eat this leek.
18.Sp12Flewellen
He makes Ancient Pistol bite
of the leek.Astonished him? By Jesu, I’ll beat his head four days and four nights,
but I’ll make him eat some part
of my leek.
By Jesu, I’ll beat his head four days and four nights,
but I’ll make him eat some part
of my leek.
18.Sp16Flewellen
Offers money
Ay, leeks are good, Ancient Pistol. There is a
shilling for you to heal your
bloody coxcomb.
is a
shilling for you to heal your
bloody coxcomb.18.Sp20Flewellen
Exit Flewellen and Gower.
If I owe you anything, I’ll pay you in cudgels.
You shall be a woodmonger,
and buy
cudgels. God
b’wi’ you, Ancient Pistol, God bless you, and heal your broken pate.
Ancient Pistol, if you see leeks
another time, mock
at them, that is all. God b’wi’ you.
pay you in cudgels.
You shall be a woodmonger,
and buy
cudgels. God
b’wi’ you, Ancient Pistol, God bless you, and heal your broken pate.
Ancient Pistol, if you see leeks
another time, mock
at them, that is all. God b’wi’ you.18.Sp21Pistol
Exit Pistol.
All hell shall stir for this.
for this.Doth fortune play the hussy with me now?
with me now?Is honor cudgeled from my warlike lines?
Well, France, farewell. News have I certainly
That Doll is sick
on a
malady of France.
is sick
on a
malady of France.The wars affordeth naught. Home will I trug.
Home will I trug.Bawd
will I turn, and use the sleight of hand;
will I turn, and use the sleight of hand;To England will I steal,
and there I’ll steal,
and there I’ll steal,And patches will I get unto these scars,
will I get unto these scars,And swear I gat them in the Gallia
wars.
Scene 19
Enter at one door the King of England, the Duke
of Exeter
and his other lords, and at the other door, the King of France,
Catherine,
Alice, the Duke of
Bourbon, the Duke of Burgundy, and others.
19.Sp1King Henry
Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are
met,
And to our brother France, fair time of day.
France, fair time of day.Fair health unto our lovely cousin Catherine,
And as a branch and member of this
stock,
We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy.
19.Sp2French King
Brother of England, right joyous are we to behold
Your face. So are we,
princes English every one.
princes English every one.19.Sp3Burgundy
With pardon unto both, your mightiness,
your mightiness,Let it not displease you if I demand
What rub or bar hath thus far hindered you,
or bar hath thus far hindered you,To keep you from the gentle speech of peace?
19.Sp4King Henry
If, Duke of Burgundy, you would have peace,
You must buy that peace,
According as we have
drawn our articles.
19.Sp5French King
We have
but with a cursenary eye,
O’erviewed them. Pleaseth your grace
To let some of your council sit with us,
We shall return our peremptory answer.
but with a cursenary eye,
O’erviewed them. Pleaseth your grace
To let some of your council sit with us,
We shall return our peremptory answer.19.Sp6King Henry
Exeunt all but King Henry, Catherine, and the Gentlewoman Alice.Go, lords,
And sit with them, and bring
us answer back.
Yet leave our cousin Catherine here behind.
19.Sp8King Henry
Now, Kate, you have a blunt wooer here
left with you.
If I could win thee at leap-frog,
or with vaulting with my armor
on my back into my saddle,
without brag be it spoken,
I’d make compare with any.
But leaving that, Kate,
if thou tak’st me now,
thou shalt have me at the worst,
and in wearing, thou shalt have me better and better.
Thou shalt have a face that is not worth sunburning.
But dost thou think that thou and I, between Saint Denis and Saint George, shall get a
boy
that shall go to Constantinople and take the great Turk by the beard, ha, Kate?
or with vaulting with my armor
on my back into my saddle,
without brag be it spoken,
I’d make compare with any.
But leaving that, Kate,
if thou tak’st me now,
thou shalt have me at the worst,
and in wearing, thou shalt have me better and better.
Thou shalt have a face that is not worth sunburning.
But dost thou think that thou and I, between Saint Denis and Saint George, shall get a
boy
that shall go to Constantinople and take the great Turk by the beard, ha, Kate?19.Sp10King Henry
No Kate, ’tis
unpossible
you should love the enemy of
France,
for Kate, I love France so well that I’ll not leave a village; I’ll have it all mine.
Then, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then France is yours
and you are mine.
unpossible
you should love the enemy of
France,
for Kate, I love France so well that I’ll not leave a village; I’ll have it all mine.
Then, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then France is yours
and you are mine.19.Sp12King Henry
No, Kate? Why I’ll tell it you in French, which will hang upon my tongue like a bride
on her new-married husband.
Let me see — Saint
Denis
be my speed! —
Quand France est mon, —
be my speed! —
Quand France est mon, —19.Sp20King Henry
Wilt believe me, Kate? ’Tis easier for me to conquer the
kingdom than speak so much more
French.
19.Sp24King Henry
No? Can any of your neighbors tell? I’ll ask them. Come, Kate, I know you
love me, and soon, when you are
in your closet,
you’ll question this lady
of me.
But I pray thee, sweet Kate, use me
mercifully,
because I love thee cruelly.
That I shall die, Kate, is sure, but for thy love, by the Lord, never.
What, wench,
a straight back will grow
crooked,
a round eye will grow hollow,
a great leg will wax
small,
a curled pate
prove bald;
but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, and rather the sun and not the moon.
And therefore, Kate, take me,
take a soldier. Take
a soldier, take a king.
Therefore tell me, Kate, wilt thou have me?
tell? I’ll ask them. Come, Kate, I know you
love me, and soon, when you are
in your closet,
you’ll question this lady
of me.
But I pray thee, sweet Kate, use me
mercifully,
because I love thee cruelly.
That I shall die, Kate, is sure, but for thy love, by the Lord, never.
What, wench,
a straight back will grow
crooked,
a round eye will grow hollow,
a great leg will wax
small,
a curled pate
prove bald;
but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, and rather the sun and not the moon.
And therefore, Kate, take me,
take a soldier. Take
a soldier, take a king.
Therefore tell me, Kate, wilt thou have me?19.Sp26King Henry
Nay, it will please him. Nay, it shall please him, Kate,
and upon that condition, Kate, I’ll kiss you.
19.Sp27Catherine
O mon Dieu! Je ne
voudrai faire quelque chose
pour tout le monde.
Ce n’est point votre façon en faveur.
.
19.Sp29Alice
Dat it is not de fasion en France for de maids,
before dey be married, to —
Mais foi! J’oublie what is to baiser!
en France for de maids,
before dey be married, to —
Mais foi! J’oublie what is to baiser!19.Sp30King Henry
To kiss, to kiss. Oh, that ’tis not the fashion in France for the maids to kiss before
they are married.
19.Sp32King Henry
Well, we’ll break that custom.
Therefore, Kate, patience perforce, and yield. (Kisses
her)
Before God, Kate, you have witchcraft
in your kisses,
and may persuade with me more
than all the French council.
Your father is returned.
(Enter the King of France, and
the lords Exeter and Burgundy.)
How now, my lords?
and yield. (Kisses
her)
Before God, Kate, you have witchcraft
in your kisses,
and may persuade with me more
than all the French council.
Your father is returned.
(Enter the King of France, and
the lords Exeter and Burgundy.)
How now, my lords?19.Sp33French King
Brother of England, we have o’erread the
articles,
and have agreed to all that we in schedule had.
the
articles,
and have agreed to all that we in schedule had.19.Sp34Exeter
Only he hath not subscribed this:
where your majesty demands that
the king of France, having any occasion to write for matter of
grant,
shall name your highness in this
form and with this addition, in
French:
Notre très cher
fils Henri, Roi d’Angleterre, et
heir de
France; and thus in Latin:
Praecarissimus
filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae et heres Franciae.
this:
where your majesty demands that
the king of France, having any occasion to write for matter of
grant,
shall name your highness in this
form and with this addition, in
French:
Notre très cher
fils Henri, Roi d’Angleterre, et
heir de
France; and thus in Latin:
Praecarissimus
filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae et heres Franciae.
19.Sp35French King
Nor this have we so nicely stood upon,
stood upon,But you, fair brother, may entreat the same.
19.Sp36King Henry
Why then, let this among the rest have his full
course,
and withal, your daughter
Catherine in marriage.
,
and withal, your daughter
Catherine in marriage.19.Sp37French King
This, and what else your majesty
shall crave.
else your majesty
shall crave.God, that disposeth all, give you much joy.
all, give you much joy.19.Sp38King Henry
Exeunt.
Why then, fair Catherine, come, give me thy hand.
Our marriage will we present solemnize,
will we present solemnize,And end our hatred by a bond of love.
Then will I swear to Kate, and Kate to me,
And may our vows, once made, unbroken be.
Annotations
Scene 1
Location: the royal court.
According to Shakespeare’s historical sources, the setting of
the first scene should be
the last daie of Aprill in the towne of Leicester(Chronicles, 1587 545).
two Bishops
Only one bishop is necessary for the scene, as only one,
corresponding to the Archbishop of Canterbury in F and in the historical source
material, speaks.
Clarence
The Duke of Clarence, brother to the King, is silent in this
scene, though he may be given the speech of the unnamed
Lordat Sc1 Sp12. He replaces F’s Bedford.
th’ambassadors
The French ambassadors.
cousin
Kinsman.
This Duke of Exeter, Thomas Beaufort (1377–1426), was Henry’s
uncle. In the Quarto version of the play, the opening speech may have been
reassigned to him from the Folio’s Westmorland, who was Henry’s cousin by
marriage. This reading is not necessarily an error of neglect, however, since the
word cousin had a broader meaning than it now has, and is
equally applicable to both characters.
we
The royal pronoun, i.e.,
I.
resolved / Of
Freed from uncertainty about.
touching
Concerning.
become it
Grace it with your presence.
law Salic
A law prohibiting the inheritance of titles from a female
ancestor.
The Pactus Legis Salicae was
a legal code that adapted Roman law for the governance of the barbarian tribes
under Frankish rule. Issued by the Frankish King Clovis I between 508 and 511, the
Pactus governed crime as well as inheritance,
but when later French jurists used it to combat English claims of inheritance, it
came to be synonymous with the tenet of agnatic succession, i.e., the exclusion of
females from the inheritance of titles in
Salicland, a phrase that, as the bishop here points out, has no certain interpretation (see Geary 90–91 and 105–106). An Elizabethan audience, of course, would be well aware of the obsolescence of any such laws in Tudor England.
Or should … not
Either should or should not.
claim
Claim to the throne of France.
the same
Your argument, the legal justification of the claim.
drop their blood
Die or be wounded.
approbation
Proving true, putting to trial.
impawn our person
Commit me.
Both the sense of
put into pawn, give as a pledge(OED impawn, v.1) and
put in hazard(v.2) are relevant, with the further implication of the bishop moving Henry like a pawn in chess.
charge
Command.
After this conjuration
According to my imposition of this oath (i.e.,
in the name of God, take heed).
The more sinister sense of
conjuration, compelling a demon to do one’s bidding, may
also be implicit.
note
Pay close attention.
believe … baptism.
Henry’s beforehand declaration that he will believe what the
bishop says is true subtly undercuts his speech’s ostensible attempt to police and
evaluate the truth. It may be meant to imply that the decision to go to war is a
fait accomplis.
Then hear … progenitors.
The bishop’s speech is a significantly shorter version of its
analogue in F, which, aside from being rendered in meter, is taken nearly verbatim
from its source in Holinshed
(see FM A1 Sc2 Sp8 n.).
The omissions and changes in the Q version make composites of several historical
figures while carefully preserving the argument of the speech the
Lady Inger,for example, seems not to be an error, but rather a composite of the names
Ermengareand
Lingarein the Folio version, themselves names of doubtful authenticity. Graham Holderness argues at length for the conscious shaping of the Quarto version of the speech for dramatic effectiveness rather than historic precision. (See Holderness.)
peers
Nobles.
faith
Allegiance.
bar
Legal objection.
stay
Prevent.
they
The French.
Pharamond
A legendary king of the early Franks, supposedly reigning in the
fifth century.
succeed
Inherit a title or estate.
Salic land
Salic land originally referred not to a specific geographical
region, but to any land falling under the Salic law of succession. The bishop,
like the French, is glossing somewhat unjustly.
gloss
Define, interpret.
female bar
Prohibition against women’s succession.
floods
Rivers.
Saale … Elbe
Rivers in Germany.
The Quarto has
Sabeck and of Elme.Like
Lady Ingerbelow, these names serve as markers of the bishop’s authority, not as accurate geographical designations; they are misspelled in all early printed versions of the play.
Charles the Fifth
This is an error for F’s reading,
Charles the Great(FM A1 Sc2 Sp8), i.e., Charlemagne (742–814).
Charlemagne campaigned to settle and impose Christianity on
the German region of Saxony starting in 773; the last rebellions there were put
down in 804. The Quarto’s error is perhaps understandable, since the
sixteenth-century Holy Roman Emperor Charles V would have been the
Emperor Charlesclearest in the memories of Shakespeare’s contemporaries.
certain French
These
Frenchwere properly Franks, the Germanic tribes that Charlemagne ruled. The anachronistic distinction between French and Germans is, however, crucial to the bishop’s case.
dishonest manners
Lewd behaviour.
to wit
Namely.
Meissen
A town in Saxony on the banks of the Elbe.
function
Life, reign.
Q’s reading,
the functionmay well be an aural error for F’s
defunction(i.e., death; FM A1 Sc2 Sp8), but the word’s etymology and the senses
a person’s role in lifeand
the purpose or intended role of a person(OED function, n.1.a., 2.a.) suggest the possibility that this is the correct reading.
Godly
In a godly manner, by the godly (ironic).
Hugh Capet
The first Frankish king of the Capetian dynasty, Capet’s
accession to the throne in 987 was by election rather than patrilineal
succession.
naught
Worth nothing, legally invalid.
The sense of
naughty,or wickedly derived, is also present (see OED naught, adj. 2.a).
Inger
An unhistorical invention.
The Frankish-sounding name
Ingermay be a composite of F’s
Ermengare(i.e., Ermengarde at A1 Sc2 Sp8) and
Lingare(likely another invented figure; see A1 Sc2 Sp8 and note). The Lady Inger is a perfectly appropriate name for the ancestor of a figure who is also a composite of the historical Hugh Capet and Charles, the Duke of Lower Lorraine; she allows the bishop to make his point succinctly. At any rate, historical accuracy is not Shakespeare’s concern here, nor is it the bishop’s.
Charles … Lorraine.
No such Charles has been mentioned, but the longer analogous
passage in F does mention him (A1 Sc2 Sp8 and note).
as clear … sun
Given the length of the bishop’s argument, this line is often
played for laughs in performance, but it is not necessarily irony either on the
bishop’s or Shakespeare’s part.
King Pepin’s
Pepin the Short (714–768), who became the first Carolingian
king and the father of Charlemagne, justified his title through a female ancestor,
as the analogous longer speech in F explains (see A1 Sc2 Sp8 and
note).
Charles his
Charles’s (an archaic form of the possessive).
No female-succeeding King Charles has been mentioned in this
speech. Presumably the bishop refers to the contemporary king (Charles VI), which
gives an immediacy to his argument absent in the Folio version.
satisfaction
Contentment in the legitimacy of his title.
Howbeit
Although.
a net
1) A complicated web of lines of descent; 2) a tangle of
contradictions.
Perhaps with reference to the proverb
You dance in a net and think nobody sees you(Tilley N130).
amply to embase
Openly to discredit, devalue.
crooked
Dishonest; supported by indirect and perverse evidence.
progenitors
Ancestors.
The sin … head
If the claim is false, I will accept moral responsibility.
When … daughter.
A reference to Numbers 27:8.
Both Hall and Holinshed cite the verse,
If a man die and haue no sonne, then ye shall turne his inheritaunce vnto his daughter(Geneva Numbers 27:8 qtd. in Hall, The vnion and Holinshed, Chronicle, 1587). Shakespeare shortens the verse for the sake of meter, sacrificing some of the explicit sense.
Stand … own.
Defend your right to France.
great-grandsire’s
King Edward III’s.
From … claim
As whose descendant you make this claim.
Edward III’s maternal grandfather was King Philip IV of
France.
your great-uncle
The grave of your great-uncle.
Edward … Prince
The eldest of Edward III’s seven sons, Edward (1330–1376) was
popularly known as the Black Prince of Wales because of a gift of black armour
given to him after his famous victory at Crécy.
In the Quarto version of the play, even more pronouncedly
than in the Folio version, Shakespeare strategically avoids reference to the
dynastic conflicts that underlay the Wars of the Roses, the subject of his first
tetralogyof English history plays (1 Henry VI, 2 Henry VI, 3 Henry VI, and Richard III). The Black Prince’s son, Richard II, was deposed by Henry Bolingbroke, later Henry IV, an act that would lead to the civil wars. The bishop’s avoidance of that subject, and his linking of Henry V to his great-uncle’s glory, downplays the conflict.
tragedy
The battle of Crécy, 1346, at which the Black Prince led the
English forces.
In general, the Quarto emphasizes the recurring metaphor
linking warfare and drama less than the Folio version of the play (see my Textual
Introduction), though phrases
like this one and the Quarto-only
Unmasked his powerbelow (Sc1 Sp10) do suggest that theme.
his most … hill
According to Holinshed, Edward III
stood aloft on a windmill hillat Crécy and refused to join the battle, commanding that his officers
send no more to me for any aduenture that falleth, so long as my son is aliue, for I will that this iournie be his, with the honor thereof(Chronicle, 1587 372).
whelp
Cub.
Foraging
1) Taking as plunder; 2) devouring.
Q’s reading, with forage as a
transitive verb without a preposition, is as valid as the more familiar reading
from F,
Forage in.See OED forage, v. 1.
cold for action
1) Cold through lack of action; 2) indifferent or unmoved to
action.
lay … proportion
Determine the appropriate military force.
Oxford English Dictionary does not list the sense of
proportion as “military force”, but
Shakespeare frequently uses the word, usually pluralized, in this sense (FM H5
A1 Sc2 Sp30, A2 Sc4 Sp4; Ham
1.2.32.
the Scot
Scotland.
make road
Invade, make inroads.
with all advantages
At any opportunity; i.e., with our military power engaged in
France.
The Marches
The Scottish border lands (and their inhabitants; OED
march, n.3).
The Wardens of the Marches, bordering Scotland and Wales, kept a military retinue and a quasi-regal authority there until the seventeenth century(Gurr, King Henry).
England
This may be a mishearing of F’s
inland(i.e., the interior part of the country, as opposed to the border lands), but Q’s reading makes as good, if not better sense.
sneakers
This epithet seems illogically joined to
coursing—how exactly does one course sneakily?—and F’s reading,
snatchers(i.e., thieves), may be preferable. Q’s paradoxical phrase is appropriate, however, to the English view of the Scots, who are compared both to stealthy egg-stealing weasels and to the fearsome pouring of water through a tide wall.
intendment
Intention, design.
Oxford English Dictionary cites this line for this sense
(OED
intendment, n.5). In the Folio version, however, the sense is
clearly “disposition or general character” (n. 6.), as indicated by
the following line, which is absent in Q. In F, the native
giddinessof the Scots is the issue, not their plan for a coordinated invasion (A1 Sc2 Sp17).
For you … hereof.
From 1295 to 1560, France and Scotland made a series of
treaties, the
Auld Alliance,providing mutual military aid in conflicts with England. In 1346, during Edward III’s campaign in France, the Scottish King David II invaded England, though as the bishop notes below, he did so unsuccessfully. Hall, though not Holinshed, has Westmorland make a similar argument:
None of your progenitors euer passed the sea in iust quarell against the Frenche nacion, but the Scottishe people in their absence entered your realme, spoyled your houses, slewe your people and toke great praies innumerable, only to prouoke your auncestors for to returne from the inuayding of Fraunce. (The vnion fol. 39)The English fears were well grounded in this instance; the Scottish Earl of Douglas had made arrangements in 1413 with the nominally pro-English Duke of Burgundy to provide each other military aid. (See Anne Curry, Agincourt: A New History 37).
Unmasked … for
Revealed his intention to invade.
A more evocative phrasing than F’s
went with his forces into France,and so probably a conscious revision, this suggests the ethical ambiguity of Edward III’s invasion, and reinforces the metaphor of war as theatre begun at Sc1 Sp7. Another sense of unmask, to reveal a cannon’s location by firing it (OED unmask, v.3.a), though not cited until the eighteenth century, may be intended here, as well.
unfurnished
Unprotected.
breach
Gap in a sea wall.
That
So that.
bruit
Clamour, noise.
hereof
Of this invasion.
She
England.
feared
Frightened.
hear … herself
Just listen to how her history represents her.
chivalry
Knights (i.e., military forces).
impounded … stray
Penned up like a stray dog.
the king of Scots
The Scottish King David II, captured at the battle of
Neville’s Cross, 1346, while Edward III was in France. Historically (and in
Holinshed), David II was not sent to France, though he is in Edward III (1596).
caitiff
1) Captive; 2) poor wretch; 3) villain.
your chronicles
The history books (that you have read).
F’s their makes the sense “the
chronicles of King Edward’s time”. Both pronouns were frequently
abbreviated
yrin manuscript.
ooze
Muddy bed.
wreck
The cargo of wrecked or sunken ships (OED
wreck, n.1).
Legally, wreck (or wrack) became royal property.
shipless treasury
Treasure scattered from the hulls of sunken ships, or remaining
when the ships have rotted away.
Lord
The Folio assigns this reasonable caveat
about Scotland to the scene’s second bishop (designated in F as the Bishop of
Ely), which adds considerable nuance to the clergy’s case for the war (A1 Sc2 Sp19). Given the Quarto’s
opening stage direction, it might also go to Clarence, an otherwise silent
character. Since Westmorland appears in the Folio version of the scene, many
editors since Warburton have assigned this speech to him, arguing that Holinshed’s
account of this council has Westmorland making this argument (see third-level
note).
Holinshed suggests that Westmorland had
a personal agenda for making this argument:
When the archbishop had ended his prepared tale, Rafe Neuill earle of Westmerland, and as then lord Warden of the marches against Scotland, understanding that the king vpon a courageous desire to recouer his right in France, would suerlie take the wars in hand, thought good to mooue the king to begin first with Scotland, and thereupon declared how easie a matter it should be to make a conquest there, and how greatlie the same should further his wished purpose for the subduing of the Frenchmen, concluding the summe of his tale with this old saieng: that Who so will France win, must with Scotland first begin. Manie matters he touched, as well to shew how necessarie the conquest of Scotland should be, as also to prooue how iust a cause the king had to attempt it, trusting to persuade the king and all other to be of his opinion. (Chronicle, 1587 546)
If … begin.
See Tilley (Dictionary F663), which
lists Hall’s chronicle as the earliest instance of the proverb. In Holinshed, both
versions of the proverb are cited, first by Westmorland and then inverted by
Exeter, who
replied against the erle of Westmerlands oration, affirming rather that he which would Scotland win, he with France must first begin. For if the king might once compasse the conquest of France, Scotland could not long resist; so that conquere France, and Scotland would soone obeie. For where should the Scots lerne policie and skill to defend themselves, if they had not their bringing vp and training in France? If the French pensions mainteined not the Scotish nobilitie, in what case should they be? Then take awaie France, and the Scots will soone be tamed; France being to Scotland the same that the sap is to the tree, which being taken awaie, the tree must needs die and wither. (Chronicle, 1587 546)
in prey
A predator; out for prey.
To … eggs
England is usually gendered female, as at Sc1 Sp11,
but the switching of gendered pronouns in this metaphor captures both the
masculine excursion of the army/eagle from the nest and the feminine associations
of eggs.
suck
Go in order to suck.
havoc
Lay waste.
cursed
Damnable.
Properly, it is the reasoning that dictates the necessity of
staying at home that is
cursed,not the necessity itself.
advisèd
Judicious, wise.
though … parts
Though it be put into parts according to social hierarchy.
The phrase also establishes the musical metaphor of a chorus
of parts singing in harmony.
Congrueth
Agrees, accords.
The verb congrue appears only here and
in Q1 Hamlet.
with … content
To the satisfaction of everyone.
contentmay be an error for F’s
consent(A1 Sc2 Sp20) or for concent. The latter, meaning “harmony”, is a musical term of art—deriving from the Latin con cantus, a singing together—and would better elaborate the musical metaphor.
Like … divide
The Quarto’s addition of
Trueperfects the meter of the shared line, which lacks a beat in F.
fate
Predestined lot.
F’s reading (
state) keeps the sense of “situation, lot”, with the added sense of “governance”, the theme of the Bishop’s argument.
by awe
Out of reverent fear.
This reading differs markedly from F in its implications for
the Bishop’s argument. In the Folio, Canterbury attributes the bees’
act of orderto
a rule in nature(FM A1 Sc2 Sp21), i.e., their own instinct.
Ordain … kingdom
1) Enact a law ordering their kingdom; 2) arrange a demonstration
of order for the kingdom of humans.
king
The Aristotelian belief that the leader of a beehive was male
was traditional until the late sixteenth century. As Taylor notes, the fact of the
queen bee’s sex was not published in England until Charles Butler’s The Feminine Monarchy in 1609 (Henry V).
magistrates
Civil justices.
correct
Punish (wrongdoers).
venture
1) Send; 2) financially speculate in.
Make boot upon
Plunder.
velvet
1) Soft; 2) prosperously dressed.
pillage
Spoils, booty.
tent-royal
Royal pavilion.
The image anticipates the battlefield pavilion that Henry
will occupy in his French campaign.
busied … majesty
Absorbed in his kingly rank; busy with royal affairs.
behold
Beholds.
masons
Builders.
civil
Orderly.
citizens
The term has a more specific sense than
city-dwellers;
citizen,in Shakespeare’s London, signified a member of a recognized trade guild, especially the twelve great
livery companiesfrom which the city’s governors were elected. In the absence of banks in early modern England, wealthy citizen merchants and their guilds were storehouses of liquid wealth, providing loans of ready money to individuals, to civic institutions, and to the crown. The Bishop’s characterization of those bees who store the hive’s own liquid wealth as
citizenswould thus have seemed particularly apt to the play’s original audience.
lading up
Stowing away (i.e., loading into honeycombs).
sad-eyed justice
Somber judge.
hum
A noise of deliberation, (i.e.,
hmmm); also the buzz of a bee.
executors
Executioners.
The weaker legal sense of “those that carry out a
warrant” (OED
executor, n.1), is possible, but the grimmer sense fits the context,
and foreshadows the execution of Bardolph in scene 10.
caning
Turning sour and drossy, like poorly-brewed ale.
A rare word of northern English origin (OED
cane, v.2).
drone
Non-working male bee whose function is to impregnate the
queen.
After their sexual function is fulfilled, drones are ejected
from the hive to die. The drone is a common Renaissance figure for
laziness.
This … moment
These two lines disturb the otherwise metrically regular
speech, and their content is redundant, since they briefly convey the sense of the
series of similes that follow:
As many arrows […] defect(Sc1 Sp14). They were likely intended to replace those lines, a shorter version of the same sentiment. Perhaps one version or other was marked for deletion in the Quarto’s copy-text, but both were printed.
loosèd several ways
Shot in different directions.
mark
Target.
ways
Roads.
close
Converge, unite.
dial
Sundial.
borne
Carried out.
withal
With it (the
one quarter).
The division into quarters
appears as a first indication of the size of the English army in France and the small numbers present at Agincourt(Gurr, King Henry).
Gallia
The ancient Roman name for France (Gaul).
Craik notes that
all Galliarecalls the familiar opening to Caesar’s Gallic Wars:
Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres(“All Gaul is divided into three parts”; qtd. in Craik, King Henry).
policy
Political shrewdness.
dauphin
The title of the heir to the French throne.
In productions, the original spelling of the French prince’s
title (
Dolphin) has suggested a fertile joke to directors. In Adrian Noble’s 1984 production, for example, Exeter (Brian Blessed) insisted on the English pronunciation in order to irk the French, and the dauphin’s reaction, an indignantly precise French pronunciation (
For the—Doe-fan, I stand here for him) raised a laugh (Noble, Henry V). Similarly, in 2000, Edward Hall’s English characters used the Folio spellings of Dauphin, Calais (
Callice), etc., as a running joke about the parochialism of the English tourist’s refusal to acknowledge local custom (Hall, Henry V).
France being ours
Since France is rightfully ours.
bring … awe
Force its submission.
like tongueless mutes
The chronicles shall be dumb regarding us (since our failure will
give them nothing to say).
Not … epitaph
We shall not be memorialized gloriously in the chronicles.
pleasure
Intention.
from him
I.e., not from the king, his father.
Pleaseth
Does it please.
render
Deliver, recite.
what we … charge
What we have been ordered to say.
sparingly
Reservedly, delicately.
afar off
Indirectly, as if from a distance.
embassage
Message.
spirit
Passion, anger.
as … prisons
Like his prisoners, Henry’s passion is under the control of his
virtuous nature.
fettered
Chained.
uncurbed
Unhindered.
The word may be trisyllabic as it is in F, but the
irregularity of meter makes it uncertain.
in fine
In short (OED
fine, n.1.1.b).
Gurr argues that
in finepresents a different shade of meaning from F’s
in few(A1 Sc2 Sp25), the former implying a perfunctory summary and the latter the plainspoken bluntness that Henry enjoins (King Henry).
naught
Nothing.
galliard
Lively dance.
revel into
Party your way into.
meeter … study
1) More suited to your characteristic inclinations and pursuits;
2) an object appropriate for you to think upon.
See OED
study, n.1, 2, 7.
tun
Chest.
Tennis balls
The colourful but probably apocryphal anecdote of the
dauphin’s gift of tennis balls was among the most memorable popular traditions
surrounding Henry V. Holinshed places the
disdainfull ambassagein the spring preceding the Leicester parliament dramatized here:
Whilest in the Lent season the king laie at Killingworth, there came to him from Charles Dolphin of France certaine ambassadors, that brought with them a barrel of Paris balles, which from their maister they presented to him for a token that was taken in verie ill part, as sent in scorne, to signifie, that it was more meet for the king to passe the time with such childish exercise, than to attempt any worthie exploit. (Chronicle, 1587 545)Following the example of the anonymous 1598 play The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth (FV D2v–D3v), Shakespeare conflates the tennis ball embassy with the French reply to Henry’s demands.
When … chases.
Henry engages in extended wordplay, quibbling on several terms
from tennis (as it was played by the aristocracy of late medieval European
courts): rackets, set, hazard, match, courts, chases.
The game of
Real tennis: a seventeenth-century French illustration.
It is played indoors on a walled, oblong court, and scoring is achieved when the ball
is struck into a hazard (a hole or concavity in the wall)
or when it bounces twice without being returned (a chase).
(See Shakespeare’s
England 2.459–462).
realtennis (as opposed to the modern lawn tennis) originated in France, was popular among the English aristocracy from the reign of Henry V to the seventeenth century, and has maintained its enthusiasts to the present day.
rackets
1) Tennis rackets (OED
racket, n.1.1.b); 2) warlike uproar (n.2.1.a).
Prince Hal puns on these two senses (2H4
2.2.16–19).
Shall
That shall.
crown
With a possible quibble on money wagered on the metaphorical
tennis match.
the hazard
1) Jeopardy; 2) in tennis, a recess in the wall opposite the
server, who wins by striking the ball into it.
wrangler
Vigorous quarreler.
courts
Quibbling on two senses: royal courts and tennis
courts.
chases
1) Pursuit of quarry; 2) in tennis, double-bounced balls, the most
common means of scoring.
wilder days
According to fifteenth-century historical tradition, passed
down to Shakespeare’s historical sources and dramatized in both parts of Henry IV, before acceding to the throne Henry led a dissolute
life of lawless pleasure-seeking and surrounded himself with dissolute
companions—represented by Shakespeare in the characters of Sir John Falstaff,
Pistol, Bardolph, and Nym—whose companionship he had dutifully discarded at his
accession. Holinshed relates that
this king even at first appointing with himselfe, to shew that in his person princelie honors should change publike manners, he determined to put on him the shape of a new man. For whereas aforetime he had made himselfe a companion unto misrulie mates of dissolute order and life, he now banished them all from his presence (but not unrewarded, or else unpreferred) inhibiting them upon a great paine, not once to approach, lodge, or sojourne within ten miles of his court or presence: and in their places he chose men of gravitie, wit, and high policie. (Chronicle, 1587 543)The Folio Henry V emphasizes this aspect of the central character rather more than does the Quarto (see A1 Sc1 Sp11).
seat
Throne, court.
The context makes clear that seat
refers metonymically to the royal place and duties, and not, as some early editors
surmised, to England itself. But as Craik argues,
‘this poor seatʼ may introduce the ironical idea that England is only the lesser part of his rightful inheritance, his ‘throne of Franceʼ being the greater part(King Henry).
license
Excessive freedom.
from
Away from.
keep our state
Behave with kingly dignity (OED
state, n.19).
At this point in the Folio version of this speech, Henry’s
personal pronouns turn from the royal plural (we and
our) to the more personal I and
my, suggesting that the coming war is as much a personal
conflict between Henry and the dauphin as it is a battle between nations (F1 H5 H2v). The
Quarto’s consistent use of the plural we is consistent with
Q’s heightened emphasis on the communal nature of the campaign.
rouse us
Rise up.
throne
Though the Q1 reading is clear enough, a word may be missing
here, as suggested by F’s
my throne(FM A1 Sc2 Sp28) and Q3’s
the throne(sig. A4v). Gurr emends to
our thronepresumably to parallel the plural pronouns elsewhere in the Quarto version of the speech (King Henry).
like … days
Like a common working man.
Moore Smith reads
for working daysas
during working daysand draws a comparison between Henry’s ultimate glory and the Sabbath as a day of rest (Henry V 137-138).
mock
Act of mockery.
The repetition of the word in the ensuing lines appropriately
evokes the sound of a tennis ball struck back and forth.
balls
Tennis balls.
Some editors have found a bawdy play on the sense of
testicles.
gunstones
Cannon-balls.
Stones, rather than iron balls, were used as ammunition in
early cannons, and
gunstonesremained the more usual word until the seventeenth century. Henry’s quip about tennis balls returned as ammunition has a long pedigree. Caxton’s Cronycles of Englond (1482), for example, records that Henry
was wonder sore agreued & right euyll payed toward the frensshmen, and toward the kyng & the Dolphyn / & thought to auenge hym vpon hem / as sone as god wolde sende hym grace & myght / and anone lete make tenys balles for the dolphyn in al the hast that they mygt be made and they were grete gonne stones for the Dolphyn to playe with all. (Caxton T5r)In Famous Victories, Henry rejoins that
in steed of balles of leather, / We will tosse him balles of brasse and yron(FV D3v).
wasteful
Destructive.
yet ungotten
Not yet conceived.
venge us
Avenge ourselves/myself.
This
The dauphin’s embassy.
collection
Levy of money, gathering of troops and matériel.
God before
Led by God, or possibly an oath, i.e.,
I swear before God.
task
Employ.
Scene 2
Location: London.
morrow
Morning.
Corporal
A low-ranking non-commissioned officer (OED
corporal, n.2.1).
The rank of corporal is anachronistic; the earliest Oxford English Dictionary citation dates to the sixteenth
century.
Lieutenant
Although Bardolph appears in 1 Henry
IV, 2 Henry IV, and Merry
Wives, this is the first time he is addressed as Lieutenant, and the
addition of a military rank to the character seems intended to emphasize the
mobilization process. Nym is addressed as
Corporalconsistently in Merry Wives (the other play in which he appears), though Pistol is given the title
Ancientonly on the Quarto title pages of that play. Pistol is introduced in 2 Henry IV more as the comic type of the braggart soldier than as a literal military man, and in that play he is variously called
Ancient(F1 2H4 G4v, G5r),
Captain(G5r), and
Lieutenant(GG7v).
Ancient
Ensign, i.e., military flag-bearer.
Gary Taylor considered
Ensign Pistolto be a modernization of the character’s title, but I have retained
Ancienton the grounds that unless a character is a version of a historical figure with a modern historical convention dictating the spelling of his name, preference should be given to dramatic convention. Thus I have retained
Flewellen(or
Fluellenin F) as the fictional captain’s name despite
Llewellynbeing the more proper spelling of the common Welsh surname, and Ancient, as part of the designation of the dramatic character of Pistol. At any rate, neither ancient nor ensign, a variation of the title that Flewellen pronounces once in Q (Sc9 Sp4), is equivalent to the modern rank of ensign, which designates a naval officer, not a medieval standard-bearer.
wink
Shut my eyes.
iron
Sword.
what though
What of that?
it will … cold
I.e., it does not mind being unsheathed.
troth-plight
Betrothed.
A more binding arrangement than a modern engagement.
Though … plod.
Nym implies that he can wait indefinitely for his revenge.
do … may
Proverbial:
Men must do as they may, not as they would(Tilley M554).
A modern stage tradition, that Nim stutters, has the merit of bringing out the absurdity of this line, the stutter on do giving an audience time to anticipate the obvious and logical conclusion die, which Nim then avoids(Taylor, Henry V).
rest
1) Final consolation, i.e., death; 2) last-ditch bet (a reference
to the card game primero).
For the second sense, see OED
rest, n.2.6.a, which cites this line.
host
Innkeeper, with the suggestion of
pimp.
by Gad’s lugs
By God’s ears (OED
lug, n.2.2).
This reading is more evocative than F’s
by this hand(A4 Sc1 Sp69), and may be an actor’s improvisation or an authorial revision.
keep lodging
Rent out rooms.
With the suggestion of keeping a brothel, as the Hostess
implies.
live … needle
Make an honest living by sewing.
With additional bawdy senses, as both
prick and needle have the sense
of
penis,and, the RSC editors assert, needle can mean “vagina” as well (Bate and Rasmussen).
straight
Immediately.
Nym … sword.
The Quarto text, like the Folio, gives editors, directors,
and actors considerable latitude when determining who draws or sheathes a sword
and when in this scene. The only original stage directions are
They draweand again
They draw(Q1 H5 B2r), but the dialogue makes it clear that the threat of comic violence between the cowardly braggarts repeatedly arises. I have made editorial incursions only where the dialogue strongly suggests stage business.
Nym’s
Nym’s recently drawn weapon.
This exclamation may suggest that Pistol’s weapon has already
been drawn.
adultery
Perhaps a mistake for
assault.
valour
1) Worth; 2) courage.
put up
Sheathe.
Push.
Use your sword, strike (OED
push, v.2.a).
Cf. Pistol’s
Push homein F (A2 Sc1 Sp32). Various other senses of push are possible, and Pistol’s response suggests that he hears Nym’s speech as a verb. The corresponding speech in F reads
Pish(FM A2 Sc1 Sp13), a less-specific expression of contempt.
prick-eared
Pointy eared.
The phrase may also suggest the horns traditionally thought
to grow on a cuckold’s head, since Pistol has triumphantly stolen Nym’s intended
bride.
cur of Iceland
A popular breed of lap dog with long, course hair.
See OED
Iceland, n.2 John Caius’s treatise Of Englishe
Dogges (trans. Abraham Fleming, 1576) discusses the breed:
Vse and custome hath intertained other dogges of an outlandishe kinde, but a fewe and the same beyng of a pretty bygnesse, I meane Iseland, dogges curled & rough al ouer, which by reason of the lenght of their heare make showe nei|ther of face nor of body. And yet these corres, forsoothe; because they are so straunge are greatly set by, esteemed, taken vp, and made of many times in the roome of the Spaniell gentle or comforter. (Caius 37)Pistol’s insult may depend on the course shagginess of the breed or its meekness.
shog off
Begone (OED
shog, v.3.b).
Will you shog off?is likely an invitation to Pistol to carry the duel elsewhere, although it may be directed at the Hostess and/or Bardolph, whose presence is impeding the duel. Another sense of shog, to
shake off(OED shog, v.1.a) may indicate that someone is attempting to restrain Nym physically.
solus
Alone (Latin).
Usually a theatrical term indicating a character’s solo
entry, Pistol seems to misunderstand the word as an insult.
egregious
Outrageous.
messful
Dripping with half-chewed food(?).
Evidently Pistol’s nonce-word,
messful(
mesfullin Q) does not appear in Oxford English Dictionary. The contemporary senses of mess all have to do with food, not the modern senses of disorder, dirt, and disgust.
perdie
By God.
A corruption of the French par
Dieu.
retort
Cast back.
I can talk
I.e., I can talk as intimidatingly as you can.
Pistol’s … up.
1) Firing mechanism is ready; 2) burning penis is erect.
Pistol’s name (both a firearm and a homophone of
pizzle, a slang term for penis) provides much potential
for wordplay in scenes where he appears. The Quarto version of this phrase is more
suggestive of genitals and venereal disease than the Folio reading
(
Pistol’s cock is up, and flashing fire will follow), which plays more heavily on the handgun image.
Barbasom
The name of a demon.
Pistol’s inflated speech reminds Nym of a conjuror’s spell.
Barbason is also mentioned in Merry Wives (Wiv
2.2.227).
conjure
Invoke or control by magic.
humour
Inclination.
Nym implies that his violent urges are influenced by one of
the
four humorsbelieved by medieval medicine to control moods and behaviours: blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. Nym, both in this play and in Merry Wives, uses the word rather imprecisely, typically in some variation of his catchphrase,
that’s the humor of it.His overuse of the word pokes fun at
the comedy of humors,a type of play made fashionable at the time of Henry V by Chapman’s A Humorous Day’s Mirth (1597) and Jonson’s Every Man in his Humor (1598).
indifferently
Fairly.
foul
1) Insulting; 2) dirty from being fired.
scour
1) Stab; 2) clean the
pistol’sdirty barrel.
rapier
Long, light sword used for fencing.
As Nym is a contemporary of Henry V, his rapier is
anachronistic, as it evolved from the older longsword only in the sixteenth
century.
in fair terms
Legitimately.
in contrast to the
foulPistol.
braggart
Boaster.
furious
1) Raging; 2) absurd.
wight
Person.
exhale
Draw (literally
haul out) your sword.
Steevens’s suggestion,
breathe your last,is another possibility (Plays).
mickle
Much, great.
Couple gorge
Pistol’s version of Couper la
gorge, French for “cut the
throat”.
To the
Go to the.
powdering tub
Sweating tub used to treat venereal disease.
infamy
Shame, bad reputation.
lazar
Diseased.
Usually leprous, though in this context Pistol probably means
poxy, i.e., syphilitic.
kite
Bird of prey, predatory person.
Cressid’s kind
Impoverished whores.
Cressida, in classical legend, was the unfaithful lover of
Troilus, son of the Trojan king Priam. Robert Henryson’s fifteenth century poem
The Testament of Cresseid, a sequel to Chaucer’s
Troilus and Criseyde, has her ending her life as a
leprous beggar.
Doll Tearsheet
The name of a prostitute.
A character by this name is mentioned as a consort of
Falstaff’s (2H4 2.1.133, 2.2.123, 2.2.134). Doll was a common name for a
prostitute (cf. Jonson’s Dol Common in The Alchemist), and Tearsheet suggests violently
vigorous sexual activity.
espouse
Marry.
I … hold
The phrase recalls the marriage service.
quondam
“Former” (Latin).
By marriage, the Hostess’s name has become Mistress
Pistol.
Paco!
Pistol’s version of Pauca, Latin
for “few”, i.e., only a few words are needed to
explain the situation.
The full phrase is pauca
verba (“few words”).
Hostess
In F the boy comes to summon Pistol, with
your hostessas an afterthought (FM A2 Sc1 Sp24), but this is reversed in Q.
my master
Sir John Falstaff.
Falstaff is the companion of King Henry’s dissolute youth, as
depicted in 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry
IV.
Bardolph … warming-pan.
Warm Falstaff’s sheets with your fiery red nose.
Bardolph’s alcoholically red face, often compared to fire or
to red gems, is a running joke in the plays in which he appears. See the Boy’s
joke (A2 Sc3 Sp13)
and Flewellen’s description of Bardolph (A3 Sc6 Sp29).
See also especially 1 Henry
IV
3.3.18–38. A
warming-pan is a long-handled brass pan of live coals,
used for warming beds.
yield … pudding
Provide his substantial quantity of flesh to carrion birds; i.e.,
die.
Proverbial; see Tilley C860.
What a plague
A mild oath, roughly equivalent to
why the hell.
beating
Winning a contest.
The Folio reading,
betting(FM A2 Sc1 Sp29), may make better sense, but since Q repeats this spelling, and the entire speech verbatim, below (Sc2 Sp32), it is somewhat difficult to explain the Quarto reading as error, and though perhaps less precise, the Quarto version of Nym’s question makes its own sense.
Base
Unworthy, low.
As Craik argues,
Base is the slave that paysseems to have become proverbial from its use here (King Henry; see also Tilley S523).
As … compound.
That is as valour shall determine.
Sword … oath
Punning on ’sword (i.e., “God’s word”), a common oath.
noble
A gold coin worth six shillings eight pence.
i.e., sixteen pence less than Nym claims Pistol owes
him.
will give
I will give.
combind
Bind us together.
live by Nym
1) Live with Nym’s help; 2) make a living by thievery — playing on the sense of nym as
steal(OED nim, v.3.a).
sutler
Seller of provisions to an army.
camp
Army, military camp.
came of
Were born of.
tashan
The Hostess’s mistake for tertian, a type
of fever or ague.
A tertian fever causes paroxysms every
third day.
contigian
The Hostess’s mistake either for contagion,
or for quotidian, another type of fever.
A quotidian fever causes daily
paroxysms. Falstaff evidently has multiple types of fever at once. While some
editors cite the Hostess’s gibberish phrase as evidence that the composers of the
Quarto text had no knowledge of Latin, the error may very well be intended as one
of the Hostess’s malapropisms.
condole
Comfort, grieve over.
live
Outlive Falstaff.
Malone’s punctuation,
lambkins we will live(Plays), alters the traditional reading:
we will live as quietly and peaceably together as lambkins.
The longer version of this scene in the Folio (2.1) includes
several speeches that do not appear in Q, which serve to implicate King Henry’s
rejection of Falstaff and all of his former companions, as depicted in 2 Henry IV (2H4
5.5.39–66).
The Hostess’s declaration that
The king has killed Falstaff’s heart(A2 Sc1 Sp26), Nym’s assessment that Henry
hath run bad humors on the knight(A2 Sc1 Sp41) and Pistol’s attribution of his sickness to a broken heart rather than to fever (A2 Sc1 Sp42) are all absent in Q, part of a larger pattern that avoids critiques of Henry and presents his character less ambiguously than in F.
Scene 3
Location: the English muster camp at Southampton, a port city on
the southern coast of England.
In performance, this scene is often set on a quayside or a
makeshift council chamber to indicate the English preparations to embark, but no
such specificity is indicated in the text.
his grace
King Henry.
too bold
Overconfident.
apprehended
Arrested.
bedfellow
Intimate companion.
It was not unusual for men to share beds
until the middle of the seventeenth century, often only for convenience, though
here the practice indicates the special relationship that Scrope enjoyed with
Henry, detailed in Holinshed:
The said lord Scroope was in such fauour with the king, that he admitted him sometime to be his bedfellow, in whose fidelitie the king reposed such trust, that when anie priuat or publike councell was in hand, this lord had much in the determination of it. For he represented so great grauitie in his countenance, such modestie in behauiour, and so vertuous zeale to all godlinesse in his talke, that whatsoeuer he said was thought for the most part necessarie to be doone and followed. (Chronicle, 1587 548)In Munday’s Sir John Oldcastle (1600), which dwells much more fully on the conspiracy than does Henry V, Scrope proposes using this trust to assassinate the king:
Historically, Lord Scrope’s crime was not involvement in the plot, but failure to reveal it to the king, and as Anne Curry argues, Henry’s action against ScropeWhat thinke ye then of this? I am his bedfellow,And vnsuspected nightly sleepe with him.VVhat if I venture in those silent houres,VVhen sleepe hath sealed vp all mortall eies,To murder him in bed? how like ye that?(Munday H4r)
was verging on arbitrary rule(Agincourt 37).
cloyed
Sickened by overfeeding.
a foreign purse
French bribes.
aboard
Embark the navy.
gentle
Noble.
power
Troops.
feared
Revered.
Taylor notes that this line may allude
to the famous question — posed by Machiavelli in The
Prince — of whether it is better for a ruler to be feared or loved (Henry V, 132); if so,
then feared may have the sinister connotation more usual
today. Holinshed (citing Hall) may provide a source for the balanced view of Henry
that Cambridge voices here:
Thys king was a Prince whome all men loued, and of none disdayned. This Prince was a captain against whome fortune neuer frowned, nor mischance once spurned. This captain was a shepheard, whom his flocke both loued and obeyed. This shephearde was suche a Iusticiarie, that lefte no offence vnpunished, nor frendship vnrewarded. Thys Iusticiarie was so feared, that all rebellion was banished, and sedition suppressed. (Chronicle, 1577 4:1217)
steeped their galls
Drowned their bitterness.
Galls are
gall-bladders, traditionally regarded as the source of bitter feelings, especially those of resentment(Craik, King Henry).
And shall … merit
I am more likely to forget the purpose of my hands than the uses
of rewards.
Possibly an echo of Psalm 137:5:
If I forget thee, O Ierusalem, let my right hand forget to play(Geneva).
their … worthiness
The reasons for rewarding, and the worth of, my subjects.
with … shine
Gleam with muscles hardened and burnished like steel.
enlarge
Release.
Committed
Imprisoned.
railed … person
Ranted, spoke abusively about me (OED
rail, v.5.1).
Neither this incident, the release of the complaining
drunkard, nor the game with the commission papers that ensues, is historical, and
all seem to be Shakespeare’s inventions.
set him on
Provoked him.
on … advice
Now that he has sobered up and come to his senses.
the example … him
His precedent.
correction
Punishment.
heavy
Difficult to bear.
orisons
Prayers.
proceeding on distemper
Due to drunken rashness.
See OED
distemper, n.1.4.d, which cites this line as the earliest example of
the sense of “intoxication”. Steevens quotes an unrelated passage of
Holinshed:
his neighbours came to him, and gaue him wine and strong drinke in such excessiue sort, that he was therewith distempered, and reeled as he went(Chronicle, 1587 626).
how … eye
How wide must I open my eye.
capital
Punishable by death.
chewed … digested
Deliberately planned, premeditated.
dear
Tender.
The secondary sense of “costly, dearly bought”
is also ironically intended. The RSC editors find a pun on
direhere as well (Bate and Rasmussen, 1047).
late
Lately appointed.
commissioners
Officers to serve as regents during the absence of the
king.
it
My commission.
change you colour
Do you turn pale.
out of appearance
Out of your faces.
quit
Driven to an end.
F’s
quickmakes mercy a living thing that the traitors kill (FM A2 Sc2 Sp25); the Quarto reading, while less evocative, makes perfect sense.
but late
Just now.
worrying
Biting and shaking.
light
Cheap; below standard legal weight.
Lightly
1) Readily; 2) whorishly.
Hampton
Southampton.
This knight
Grey.
bounty
Generosity.
coined … gold
Made me your personal mint, to make as much gold as you
wanted.
use
Profit.
The sense of
interest, usurymay be a reminder, along with the coining metaphor in the previous line, that Masham had been Henry IV’s Lord Treasurer.
spark
Insignificant irritant.
annoy
Harm, irritate.
gross
Plainly.
black from white
Assigning moral value to black and white is common enough,
but the implicit alignment here of truth with blackness is curious. F’s reading,
black and white(FM A2 Sc2 Sp25), suggests instead the hard factuality of written words on paper.
open
Evident, clear.
to the answer
To receive the verdict.
practices
Treacheries.
by … name of
You who go by the name of.
price of it
At this point in the Folio text (FM A2 Sc2 Sp28),
Cambridge justifies his treachery according to his political motives rather than
avarice: according to Shakespeare’s chronicle sources, Cambridge’s motivation for
treason was to supplant Henry in favour of his brother-in-law Edmund Mortimer, Earl
of March, and of his own progeny (Holinshed,
Chronicle, 1587; Hall,
The vnion). As a grandson of Edward III, Richard of
Cambridge had his own claim to the throne, a claim that his son Richard, Duke of
York (1411–1461), would eventually make openly, starting the Wars of the Roses.
While Shakespeare had chronicled these matters extensively in his first tetralogy
of history plays, this later conflict is only hinted at in the Folio Henry V, and the Quarto version, which in general presents a unified
England untorn by civil unrest, omits even the hint.
quit
Pardon.
enemy … fixed
Officially recognized enemy of England (i.e., France).
coffers
Treasury.
Touching
Concerning.
enterprise
Undertaking, attempt to conquer.
Shall … successively
1) Shall be undertaken successfully by us all; 2) shall bring
glory to you through me (OED
successively, adv.6, 2).
signs
Ensigns, banners.
advance
Raise, move forward.
No … France.
Steevens notes the echo of Famous
Victories:
What not King of France, then nothing(FV G1v qtd. in Steevens, Plays).
Scene 4
Location: London.
Staines
A town west of London, on the road to Southampton.
Seventeen miles away from London, Staines is where the
soldiers would cross the Thames on their way to Southampton, eighty miles to the
southwest.
No fur
No farther.
A dialect form of the comparative, surviving from the Old
English feorr. See discussion at OED
far, adj.
Arthur’s bosom
The Hostess’s mistake for
Abraham’s bosom,i.e., heaven.
For the origin of the correct phrase,
see the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Geneva, Luke 16:19–31).
Arthur’s bosom,as a secular, literary alternative to Abraham’s, is arguably a more appropriate afterlife for Falstaff. Sir John himself is familiar with the gospel passage that the Hostess misremembers (see 1H4 3.3.24–25).
Philip Schwyzer suggests that her error reflects
dual impulses by English reformers (Literature, Nationalism, and Memory 131–133). On the one hand,
Abraham’s bosom was deleted from the Edwardian Book of Common Prayer in an attempt
to
eradicate, along with purgatory, all middle spaces between hell and heaven. At the
same
time,
early in the English Reformation, a link had been forged between Arthur and the True Church, both arch-enemies of Rome(Schwyzer 132). The newly-Protestant English crown could have
a middle place between heaven and hell or […] Arthur’s Empirebut not both.
Imperial Britain and Purgatory were effectively in economic and conceptual competition to fill a single space. It is no accident that the English crown’s seizure in 1547–48 of the assets set aside for the relief of souls in Purgatory coincided with its aggressive attempt to force the Scots to participate in a renewed British Empire. England’s rulers had chosen Arthur over Abraham the same choice made in Henry V by Hostess Quickly. (133)
as if it
As if he.
chrisomed
Newly-baptized.
The chrisom refers either to the white
robe worn by babies at baptism (OED
chrisom, n.2), or to the baby itself in its first month (n.4).
pen
Quill pen, i.e., a feather sharpened to a point.
no … one
No alternative but death.
clothes
Bedclothes.
cried out on
Decried, spoke against.
sack
Dry Spanish white wine.
Derived from the French vin
sec, “dry wine”,
sack seems to have referred in the sixteenth century to
fortified wines generally. In Shakespeare it is Falstaff’s favourite drink,
associated with him in all four plays in which he appears, rather
anachronistically, as its import to England began in the sixteenth century (e.g.:
1H4 3.3.33;
2H4 2.4.151; and
Wiv
2.1.6).
incarnate
In the flesh. The hostess understands him to mean “wearing
carnation”.
carnation
Pink, flesh-coloured.
handle
Discuss, with a bawdy play on the sense of
grope.
rheumatic
Feverish; the Hostess probably intends
lunatic.
Some editors suggest that the word’s similarity to
Rome-aticsuggests the ensuing connection to the whore of Babylon, associated by Protestants with Rome and the Catholic Church.
whore of Babylon
A figure from Revelation representing the sin and wickedness of
the world.
I sawe a woman sit vpon a skarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemie, which had seuen heads, and tenne hornes. And the woman was arayed in purple & skarlet, and gilded with golde, and precious stones, and pearles, and had a cup of gold in her hand, full of abominations, and filthines of her fornication. And in her forehead was a name written, A mysterie, that great Babylon, that mother of whoredomes, and abominations of the earth. (Geneva, Revelation 17:3–5)Since the figure of the whore of Babylon was most familiar to Shakespeare’s audiences from religious polemic associating her with the Catholic church, Maurice Hunt suggests that Falstaff
seeks to die a proto-Protestant condemning a personification of the Church of Rome(
Hybrid Reformations181).
burning … fire
See Sc2 Sp23 n.
A memory of Falstaff’s description of Bardolph’s face in 1 Henry
IV:
I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire and Dives that lived in purple—for there he is in his robes, burning, burning(1H4 3.3.23–25).
that … service
Either 1) abuse, or 2) my red face (from drink) was the only
payment he ever gave me.
Bardolph’s speech in F contains an sentence that clarifies
the joke, and makes the
wealthrefer explicitly to alcohol:
Well, the fuel is gone that maintained that fire. That’s all the riches I got in his service(FM A2 Sc3 Sp14).
shog off
Be on our way.
Clear … crystals.
Dry your eyes.
my … movables
My personal, as opposed to real, property; a legal phrase.
A redundancy, since chattels and
movables are legal synonyms.
wafer cakes
As breakable as wafers.
Holdfast … dog
Holding firm (to your money) is the best policy.
OED cites this
line as a source of
Holdfastas the literal name of
a dog that holds tenaciously(holdfast, adj. 3.b.), but Pistol probably refers to “a clamp that holds part of a building or structure together” (adj. 4.a.). Rann cites the proverb
Brag is a good dog, but holdfast is better,which plays on the sense of dog as
iron clamp(OED dog, n.1.7.a) and brag as
nail(OED brag, n.2).
Cophetua
A legendary king who stayed celibate until falling in love with,
and eventually marrying, a beggar maid he saw outside his palace.
Pistol’s advice to his new wife could admonish her to emulate
Cophetua’s purported lack of sexual interest, i.e., to remain chaste. More likely,
he encourages her to emulate the beggar and save her chastity for the highest
bidder. Shakespeare refers to the legend of Cophetua in Love’s Labour’s Lost
(4.1.61–65) and
Romeo and
Juliet (2.1.14).
buggle boe
Vagina.
The term has several suggestive etymologies. Gary Taylor
reads it as
buggle-boo—like bugaboo or bogle a Scots term for a goblin or phantom—and interprets Pistol to be urging the Hostess to
restrain her wandering spirit(Modernizing Shakespeare’s Spelling 149). The word could also, however, refer more generally to any fearful thing, and thus serve as a rather misogynistic term for female genitalia, incorporating the
terror of the devouring female(see Williams, Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery 166). Williams cites several seventeenth-century occurrences of
bugle bow,evidently also slang for the vagina, but derived a bit more innocently, as Andrew Gurr notes:
A ‘bugle bowʼ was technically a child’s bow made of a sheep’s or goat’s horn, a horn bow. Its resemblance to the human mouth made it a synonym both for the mouth and for the vagina(King Henry). I have retained Q’s original spelling as a conflation of both of these senses.
Scene 5
Location: The French royal court at Rouen, in northern
France.
slack
Slow, lazy.
is footed on
Has arrived in.
meet
Fitting.
England
1) The English army; 2) King Henry.
morris dance
Traditional English folk-dance performed at the summer holiday of
Pentecost, or Whitsun.
The morris was an elaborately choreographed dance involved
several (traditionally nine) men in various costumes, among which often appeared a
fool in a
coat of folly(A2 Sc0 Sp1), Robin Hood and Maid Marian, and a hobby-horse indicating a mimetic carnival version of a mounted knight. The latter character might suggest to the dauphin a hyperbolically ineffectual English attack. Alan Brissenden suggests that the
scepter so fantastically borne(A2 Sc4 Sp2) refers to the fool’s bauble stick (Brissenden, Shakespeare and the Dance 28–33).
she
England.
so idly kinged
Ruled by such a frivolous king.
sceptre
Ornamental rod, symbol of royal power.
fantastically
Whimsically, strangely.
humorous
Moody, capricious.
attends
Accompanies, serves.
late
Recently-returned.
he heard his
Henry heard the ambassador’s.
agèd
None of Henry’s council in Scene 1 is particularly old, but
as Taylor points out, Q’s reading, more than F’s
noble(FM A2 Sc4 Sp3),
seems much more pertinent in rebuking the Dauphin’s charges of adolescent giddiness(Henry V, 148).
think we
Let us think.
strongly arm us
Let us prepare our forces well.
prevent
Confront, oppose.
Exit Constable.
The French King’s
Bid himmay be to the constable or to attendants who have entered to announce Exeter’s presence. Having the constable himself exit here to fetch in Exeter achieves the necessary business with a minimum of fuss.
chase … followed
Hunt is eagerly pursued.
Foreshadowing the eventual French defeat, both the king and
the dauphin characterize the French as game hunted by the English. This
continues the metaphor begun with ‘fleshedʼ(Wilson, Henry V, 144).
self-neglecting
Lack of self-respect.
wills
Orders, demands.
divest
Undress.
lay apart
Set aside.
borrowed title
Usurped title, i.e.,
King of France.
wide-stretchèd
Extensive, far-reaching.
sinister
Malicious, deceitful.
Literally,
left-handed.The word in its figurative senses was originally stressed on the second syllable.
awkward
Backhanded, indirect.
wormholes
Decay, rotting remains.
With the connotation of worm-eaten, obsolete historical
manuscripts.
oblivion
Long-forgotten obscurity.
racked
Forced, strained, distorted (OED
rack, v.1.3.a, 3.b).
The sense “to draw off wine from sediment”
(v.2), may also be relevant, since Henry’s title is a thing of value sifted from
the dust of oblivion. F’s spelling,
rakt(F1 H5 H4v), may suggest either “racked” or “raked”.
lines
The bloodlines documented in Henry’s family tree.
Offers … paper
A stage direction is suggested by the text, and editors since
Capell have placed it here. It is possible that the document changes hands at some
point in the scene, but of course the French King (or his surrogate) need not take
it at the moment that Exeter offers it, if at all. The Quarto version has no
analogue to the French King’s promise in F to consider the document (FM A2 Sc4 Sp13).
truly demonstrated
Proven genuine.
evenly derived
Directly descended.
native
Natural, by birthright.
challenger
Claimant.
Bloody constraint
Violent compulsion by arms.
Jove
King of the Roman gods, who threw thunderbolts.
requiring
Demanding.
compel it
Take the crown by force.
on … turns he
He places with you the blame for.
we bring
I bring; the English bring.
Since Exeter would have no right to use the royal plural
pronoun,
wemight indicate that he enters attended, or he may refer to the collective English.
slight regard
Little estimation.
misbecome
Be inappropriate to.
Unlike the dauphin himself, that is, Henry will not demean
himself with childish insults.
prize you at
Estimate your worth to be.
loud
This Quarto reading is more in keeping with the passage’s
extended imagery of sounds and echoes than is F’s
hot(FM A2 Sc4 Sp15).
wombly vaults
Womb-like caverns.
chide
Answer reprovingly, rebuke.
trespass
Wrong.
The specific sense of “trespass to land”, i.e.,
the wrongful entry or inhabitation by the French of Henry’s rightful lands, is
implied.
second accent
Echo.
ordinance
Artillery, gunfire.
Although, as Malone points out,
ordnance is the modern spelling of the term in its
military sense of
artillery(OED ordinance, n.3.a), a double meaning is most appropriate here, since Exeter is also threatening the French with their divinely-ordained destiny. Cf. Cymbeline:
Let Ord’nance / Come as the Gods fore-say it(4.2.147–148).
fair
Polite.
odds
Conflict.
Paris balls
Tennis balls.
Louvre
Palace in Paris; pun on
lover.
The first Paris fortress of this name was built in the
twelfth century. The earliest printed spellings—
Louerin Q and F (Q1 C1v; F1 H5r),
Looverin F2 (K1r)—indicate early-modern English pronunciation, which is frequently used in modern performance to underscore national difference; Brian Blessed’s Exeter in 1984, for example, gleefully mispronounced the word to disgruntle the French (Noble, Henry V).
mistress
1) Principal; 2) paramour (playing on Louvre/lover).
musters
Displays.
weighs time
Values each moment of his time.
latest grain
Last grain of sand in the hourglass.
Scene 6
Location: Location: outside the walls of Harfleur, northern
France.
hot service
Violent battle.
vassals
Servants
’Tis honour
It’s all in the name of honour.
Nym probably means this in a bitterly derisive way; cf.
Falstaff’s battlefield speech on the worthlessness of honour in 1 Henry IV
(5.1.127–137).
prevail
Succeed.
hie
Go hastily.
beats them in
Drives them offstage (i.e., toward the battle) with blows.
Q’s stage directions indicate the beginning exit of Nym,
Bardolph, and Pistol here, but do not specify it until after the Boy’s monologue
(Q1 H5
C2v). They must deliver
their lines while being driven offstage.
God’s plood
God’s blood, i.e., by the blood of Christ, a powerful oath.
Shakespeare renders Flewellen’s Welsh accent phonetically
throughout the play. The spelling conventions intended to indicate a Welsh dialect
include p for b,
th for d, and
f for v. and occasional
indications of vowel pronunciation, all of which this edition retains. Since
Shakespeare does not make these substitutions consistently in Flewellen’s
speeches, some editors have sought to regularize the patterns, but I have
preserved the original distinctions as much as possible.
breaches
Gaps in Harfleur’s defensive wall.
Exeunt … Pistol.
The Quarto has these three characters exit along with the Boy
after the latter’s speech, but since the Boy complains to the audience about them,
they must have been beaten offstage by this point. Flewellen might follow them,
but no exit is marked for him, and he might as easily remain onstage, though apart
from and not engaging with the Boy’s aside. If Flewellen does exit, he must
re-enter almost immediately to encounter Gower.
from
Away from.
three mile
The Folio version compounds this absurdity by making Bardolph
haul the lute case
twelve leagues,or about thirty-six miles.
ha’pence
Halfpence.
carry coals
Figuratively, submit to humiliation.
familiar with
Adept at picking.
mines
Tunnels dug under a fortification’s walls and planted with
explosives.
concavities is otherwise
Hollowness of the mines, i.e., space for explosives, is the
opposite of
good.
is digged himself
Has dug and planted.
under
Under our mines.
The reading of this line in both Q and F, with no
punctuation, seems to indicate that Flewellen mistakes the English
minesfor the
counterminesthat would be excavated by the French defenders. I have adopted Taylor’s solution, which, following Moore Smith’s, clarifies that the French have planted countermines four yards beneath the English explosives (Henry V).
direction
Strategy, instruction.
Enter … lords.
In the Folio, the transition from the discussion of the mines
to the entrance of the king and the English army is accomplished with 77 more
lines, the introduction of two characters, Jamy and Macmorris, who do not appear
in Q, and an exit that at least implies a change of scene. Scene division in the
Harfleur scenes is unmarked and fluid even in the longer version, however, with
Shakespeare largely ignoring the convention of clearing the stage before a new
scene begins, perhaps in order to convey the spatial and temporal chaos of battle.
The Quarto version takes one short scene to represent a siege that in the Folio
extends over what is traditionally considered four: 3.0, 3.1 (both simply absent
in Q), 3.2, and 3.3 (substantially pared down).
resolves
Answers, decides.
latest parley
Last negotiation.
admit
Allow.
destruction
Their own destruction.
becomes
Suits.
battery
Artillery assault.
half-achieved
Half-conquered.
What say you?
Q presents a much milder and more abstract version of Henry’s
threat to Harfleur than F, with its vigorous description of infanticide, rape, and
slaughter. Here also there is no mitigating order from Henry to
use mercy to them allat the scene’s end (A3 Sc3 Sp3), with the result that his final parley comes off as far less equivocal, less morally and politically ambiguous.
guilty in defence
Responsible for your own destruction by continuing to defend the
town.
Taylor comments that this is
surely intended to sound paradoxical(Henry V, 174), but the phrase is specific to the medieval laws of warfare: a governor could be found
guilty in defenceif he stubbornly continued to hold a town even without adequate resources (see Rauchut,
).Guilty in Defense
Enter Governor.
Editors since Capell have located this entrance
above,i.e., in an upper stage space representing the walls of Harfleur. This is the most likely staging, but the simplicity of the stage directions in Q, as in F, allow for flexibility.
expectation
Hope.
of succor
For aid, reinforcements.
entreated
Pleaded.
powers
Troops.
raise
End.
soft
Tender-hearted.
dispose of
Take control of; make arrangements for.
Scene 7
Location: a French court.
This may the same location as the royal court at Rouen in the
next scene, though the text does not specify.
Alice … anglais?
Alice, come here. You are forty years old; you speak very good England English. What do you call the hand in English?
The degree to which the French in this scene and elsewhere
accurately reflects either sixteenth- or fourteenth-century French is a subject of
some debate, and presents the editor of a modern edition with a conundrum: does
one merely render the scene in correct modern French, correcting what would be
errors in that idiom? Or rather, does one attempt to preserve the different flavour
of sixteenth-century French, thus perhaps staying more faithful to the copy text,
but departing from the modernizing rationale? This edition attempts to modernize,
referring the reader to commentary when modernization is uncertain, would kill an
intended bilingual pun. Whatever choice an editor makes, the scene is likely to
sound as absurd to a modern francophone as it would have to a French ear in 1599.
For the most complete historical-linguistic study of the play’s French, see
Jean-Michel Déprats,
A French history of Henry V,especially 81–85.
Vous … ans;
The Q reading may intend
Vous avez quatorze ans,suggesting an erroneous substitution of the French for
fourteen(quatorze) for the French for
forty(quarante).
La main … han.
“The hand, madame? De han
”.
Et le bras?
“And the arm?”
Oui
“Yes”.
Et comment … col?
“And what do you call the chin and the neck?”
Et … coude?
“And de neck, and de cin. And the
elbow?”
Le coude? … madame.
“The elbow? My faith, I forget! But I
remembre—the elbow—oh! De elbo,
madame”.
Q’s spelling of
rememberindicates Alice’s accented pronunciation.
Ecoutez … bilbo.
“Listen: I will rehearse all that I have learned: de
han, de arma, de neck, du cin, and de bilbo
”.
The reading of this sentence’s verb in Q1 is
rehersera(C3v), an invented cognate of English rehearse. The emendation in Q3 —
recontera(C3v) — closer approximates the more correct French verb raconter.
O Jesu … bon?
“O Jesus, I forgot! My faith! Listen; I will recount:
de han, de arma, de neck, de cin, and de elbo. Is
it good?”
Other possible interpretations of the last three words of
this speech in Q (
e ca bon) include Et c’est bon? (“and is that good?”) and Gurr’s Eh, c’est bon! (“Hey, that’s good!”; Gurr, King Henry).
Ma foi … Angleterre.
“My faith, madame, you speak English as well as if you had
studied in England”.
The Quarto reads
Asie vous aues ettue en Englatara.I have followed Gurr in emending
Asie(King Henry), conjecturing it to be a mangled bilingual contraction of English
as ifand French
comme si.
Par … robe?
“By the grace of God, in small time I shall speak better.
What do you call the foot and the gown?”
foot
Catherine’s reaction suggests that she hears foutre, French for “to fuck”.
le con.
Alice attempts to say
gown,but Catherine hears the French obscenity con (cunt).
Modern editors disagree on how to represent this Franglish
hybrid word. The Quarto reading makes Catherine’s French mishearing clear, but
risks making the joke imperceptible to an Anglophone audience. Taylor’s
cown,on the other hand, emphasizes the English word Alice is going for, but obscures the obscenity in both languages (Henry V). The Folio reads
count,which might make the joke land with English audiences more familiar with English cunt than French con.
Le fot … foi!
“The fot, and the con? O Jesus! I
would not speak this again before the dear knights of France for a million! My
faith!”
Oh! Est-il … con.
“Oh! Is it so, too? Listen, Alice: de han, de arma, de
neck, de cin, the foot, and de con
”.
C’est … madame.
“Very good, madame”.
Allons-y a dîner.
“Let’s go to dinner”.
Scene 8
Location: The French royal court at Rouen.
river Somme
River in northern France, between Harfleur and Calais.
Mort … vie!
“Death of my life”.
sprangs of us
Offshoots, branches of our ancestry.
Oxford English Dictionary cites
sprang first in 1847 (OED
sprang, n.), but this is a likely first appearance.
After the Norman
invasion of England in 1066, many of the English and nearly all of the English
aristocracy had French blood.
fathers’ luxury
Ancestors’ lust.
grafters
1) The trees from which the English offshoots were cut in order to
be grafted onto a new trunk (i.e., the French bloodline carried into England); 2)
those doing the grafting (i.e., the Norman invaders themselves).
bastard Normans
Illegitimate descendants of the Normans who conquered
England.
Mon dieu!
My God.
Given Q1’s
spelling,
mor du(C4r), Mort dieu (approximating “God’s death”) is another possibility, though it makes little grammatical or logical sense. Cf. Q1’s
Mordeu ma via(C3v) and
Mor du ma vie(QM H5 Sc13 Sp2).
And if
An ifis also a possible reading, but the difference in sense is very subtle.
withal
With.
short-nook
Jagged-coasted.
That is, marked, as is the island of Britain, by many corners
and shallow peninsulas.
mettle
Vigour, courage.
raw
Bleak.
looks pale
Shines feebly.
barley broth
Strong ale.
Beer, the characteristic national drink of the English, is
made by fermenting boiled malt.
drench
1) Drink; 2) dose of medicine for an animal.
swollen jades
Sickly horses.
sodden
Boiled.
decoct
Heat by boiling.
quick
Lively.
spirited
1) Impregnated with alcohol; 2) possessed by energetic
spirits.
they o’ … climate
Those inhabitants of a colder land.
Q1 reads
they a more frosty clymate(C4r), and Gurr takes the English climate as a metonym for the English people (King Henry), but a as an abbreviation for
ofis common enough; see, e.g. Rosalind’s
what i’st a clocke?(AYL 3.2.258).
dispatch
Hasten.
Montjoy
The French royal herald.
Heralds were officers of the court specifically tasked to
carry messages between opposed armies. The Montjoie Roi
d’Armes was the traditional title of the highest-ranking herald of
the French royalty, but Shakespeare takes the name of the office as that of the
character. A montjoy (from the Latin mons
Gaudii)
is a heap of stones by a roadside (see OED
montjoy, n), used by armies to act as signposts leading soldiers to
a battle, hence an appropriate metaphor for a herald of war. In Famous Victories, the battle of Agincourt is begun with the stage
direction
The French-men cry within, S. Dennis, S. Dennis. Mount, Ioy, Saint Dennis(Q1 FV F1r).
willing ransom
Payment to the French for his return when captured.
In medieval warfare, leaders and noble members of an army
could expect to be held hostage and treated well in anticipation of a rich ransom.
Ransoms were, indeed, the largest source of potential income from a battle. Hence,
Henry’s repeated boast that he will give no ransom for his safe return if captured
(see Sc9 Sp39,
Sc12 Sp17)
represents an extraordinary profession of an intention to fight to the death.
Son … me.
Shakespeare follows Holinshed for the exchange:
The Dolphin sore desired to haue beene at the battell, but he was prohibited by his father(Chronicle, 1587 552). Famous Victories dramatizes the moment and provides the French King with emotional motivation:
Dolphin.I trust your Maiestie will bestow,Some part of the battell on me,I hope not to present any otherwise then well.King.(Q1 FV E2r)I tell thee my sonne,Although I should get the victory, and thou lose thy life,I should thinke my selfe quite conquered,And the Englishmen to haue the victorie.
Scene 9
Location: the English camp in Picardy, northern France, near the
river Canche.
meeting
Gower and Flewellen, as the dialogue makes clear, must enter
separately.
service
Military feats.
committed
Performed.
at the bridge
Holinshed does not the location of this skirmish. Some
editors, following Malone, place the historical encounter on the river Ternoise
near Blangy, but it is more likely that it took place on 22 October, three days
before the battle of Agincourt, at a bridge over the river Canche, near Frévent
(see Curry 154–156). Holinshed does
describe the encounter in some detail, though he does not mention the role of
Exeter (Chronicle, 1587 552).
The duke is
The duke has had.
worell
World.
Mark Antony
One of the three rulers of the Roman world during the Second
Triumvirate (43–33 BCE).
Flewellen’s comparison is ambivalent, as Mark Antony is most
famous to military history for his famous retreat from the battle of Actium (31
BCE), which led to the inception of the Roman Empire and Antony’s disgrace and
suicide.
buxom
1) Vigorous; 2) kindly, affable.
The definition
pliant, obedient(OED buxom, adj.1.a) may also be appropriate, giving
buxom valorthe sense of
valour under good command, obedient to its superiors(Steevens, Plays, 85).
giddy
Fickle.
Fortune’s … blind
The goddess Fortune was traditionally represented as a blind
woman turning a wheel that alternately exalted humans and cast them down.
rolling restless stone
An alternate depiction of Fortune showed her standing on a
spherical stone to represent her unpredictable fickleness. One of the earliest
such representations is that of the Roman tragedian Marcus Pacuvius (220–130 BCE),
who writes
Hans Sebald Beham’s 1541 engraving of Fortuna depicts both wheel and
spherical stone.
Dame Fortune, some philosophers maintain,Is witless, sightless, brutish; they declareThat on a rolling ball of stone she stands;For whither that same stone a hazard tilts,Thither, they say, falls Fortune; and they stateThat she is witless for that she is cruel,Untrustworthy, unstaid; and, they repeat,Sightless she is because she nothing seesWhereto she’ll steer herself.(Page, Capps, and Rouse 2:319)
By your patience
Forgive my interruption.
plind
Blind.
muffler
Blindfold.
to signify … plind
To illustrate that chance, the principle Fortune represents,
operates blindly.
Warburton found this to be a tautology signifying Flewellen’s
absurdity (Works), but Steevens argues that the captain
distinguishes between the goddess Fortuna and the
abstraction fortune (Plays). I have rendered the latter in
lowercase to suggest the distinction.
her fate … at
She is bound inexorably to.
This makes a certain amount of sense, but it is also probable
that
fateis an error—on the part of Flewellen’s or the textual transmission process—for F’s
foot(FM A3 Sc6 Sp12).
rouls
Most editors regularize the spelling, but Q1’s spelling,
roules(C4v), may indicate Flewellen’s non-standard pronunciation.
moral
Symbolic figure, allegorical emblem.
pax
Precious metal tablet depicting the crucifixion, kissed in mass by
those taking communion.
Though
paxis the reading of both Q and F, some editors emend to
pixor
pyx(the chest used to hold the consecrated bread), since that is the spelling used in the description of this incident by both Hall and Holinshed (The vnion; Chronicle, 1587), and since a pyx is an object equally likely to be stolen from a church. In Hall, though not in the more Protestant-inclined chronicle of Holinshed, the soldier’s real crime is not theft, but the blasphemous eating of the host outside the context of mass.
approach
A mistake for
reproach: shame, disgrace.
requite
Repay (by bribing).
Ancient
Although Pistol is also called
captainin 2 Henry IV (e.g., 2H4 2.4.111), Q’s reading is evidently an erroneous echo of the previous line; Flewellen has no reason to address Pistol as an officer of equal rank, and is unlikely to be in error, since he addresses him correctly at 1479 and 1500.
partly
Either because Pistol’s speech is confusing or because the offer
of a bribe is only implied.
Why … therefore!
A theatrical phrase, perhaps (as Malone observes) recalling
Marlowe’s Massacre at
Paris (1594):
The Guise is slaine, and I reioyce therefore(D2r). Cf. Pistol’s
Why then Lament thereforin 2 Henry IV (2H4 5.3.94).
For if
For even if.
figa
Pistol’s version of Italian fico,
“fig”.
The figwas an insulting exclamation, usually accompanied by biting the thumb or thrusting it between the first two fingers. By its shape, the gesture, also called
the figor
the fig of Spain(see Sc9 Sp19) suggests the fruit, but also evokes a haemorrhoid (another sense of fig; see OED fig, n.1.3.a), and indicates a wish for its recipient to suffer such a painful condition, or perhaps to be murdered by poisoned figs, a practice associated with Spanish and Italian revenge (n.2.).
cannot … thunder
Flewellen’s sarcastic dismissal of Pistol’s empty noise.
Probably an authoritative addition to Q.
it lighten
The lightning.
bawd
Pimp.
cutpurse
Pickpocket.
prave
Brave.
as … day
I.e., as you shall ever see.
Summer days are the longest and thus offer the best chance at
seeing wonders. The phrase is proverbial (Tilley S967). (See also Sc17 Sp7,
below, and MND
1.2.69).
all one
No matter.
perfect
Word-perfect.
sconce
Small fort.
Andrew Gurr’s discussion of this word—on which he partly
bases his argument about the relationship among Q1, Q3, and a manuscript copy-text
for F—depends on a misreading of Q1, which Gurr believes has
scenehere. In fact, Q1 reads
sconce,like Q3 and F, though a worn or imperfectly inked O type might suggest
scence(see The Shakespearian Stage 8).
convoy
Armed escort.
terms … on
Conditions the enemy insisted on.
con
Memorize.
phrase of war
Military jargon.
trick up
Adorn.
new-tuned
Newly invented.
general’s cut
Same fashion as the general’s.
Francis M. Kelly and Randolphe Schwabe, in A
Short History of Costume and Armour (1931), note that
in the ’nineties the Earl of Essex set the fashion of rather long, square beards, otherwise reserved for elder men(2.22), and F. S. Le Comte argues that it is to this fashion, the so-called
Cadiz beardthat Gower alludes (
Shakspere, Guilpin, and Essex); this allusion would lend support to the identification of
the general of our gracious empressmentioned by the Chorus with Essex (FM A5 Sc0 Sp1). Taylor suggests that
Pistol himself had such a beard, in the original performances(Henry V).
horrid
Frightful.
shout … camp
War cry.
ale-washed
Drunken.
wonderful
Amazing.
know
Recognize.
slanders … age
Disgraces to the current time.
mistook
Deceived, misled.
an it shall
If it shall.
partition
Flewellen’s mistake for perdition, i.e.,
“loss of men”.
like you now
If it please you.
A less usual, but fittingly more deferential, form of
Flewellen’s verbal tic,
look you now.
we have lost
The change from F’s reading,
the duke hath lost(F1 H5 I1r), is consistent with Q’s heightened emphasis on the war as a communal endeavour.
never a man
Not even one man.
one … church
Flewellen seems to indicate that Bardolph’s execution has
already occurred, revealing Pistol’s pleading to have been useless. This differs
significantly from F, where the line reads
one that is like to be executed for robbing a church(F1 H5 I1r). Q thus downplays Henry’s complicity in the decision to kill his former companion. Modern directors, working from a Folio-based script, have frequently brought Bardolph onstage in this scene to have Henry watch or silently order his execution.
if … man
Flewellen, of course, has no way of knowing of the prior
relationship between Henry and Bardolph, but assumes that the king might have
noticed the latter’s odd appearance.
His … out.
Steevens suggests an echo of Chaucer’s description of the
Summoner, whose face is
fyr-reedwith
whelkes whiteand
knobbes sittynge on his cheekes(General Prologue 624–633 qtd. in Steevens, Plays, vi.90). Johnson remarks with relief that
this is the last time that any sport can be made with the red face of Bardolph, which to confess the truth seems to have taken more hold on Shakespeare’s imagination than on any other. The conception is very cold to the solitary reader, though it may be somewhat invigorated by the exhibition on the stage. This poet is always more careful about the present than the future, about his audience than his readers. (Johnson, Plays)
whelks
Pustules.
knubs
Boils.
pumples
Pimples.
his … coal
His breath inflames his nose like a bellows blowing on a
smouldering coal.
Taylor takes this to imply that the character should have an
underbite (Henry
V, 192).
plue
Blue.
his … executed
His face no longer glows.
Either this means that Bardolph has been executed, an
assumption that reveals Pistol’s pleading to have been useless and Flewllen’s
prediction of the execution puzzling, or more likely, as Malone argued, it means
that the anticipation of his fate has extinguished the fire in Bardolph’s face.
Modern directors frequently portray the execution of Bardolph onstage at this
point in the scene. In Adrian Noble’s 1984 RSC production, for example, the moment
was played for full tragic effect: Bardolph was brought onstage to stare silently
at Henry during Flewllen’s description of him, and slowly knelt after
his fire’s out(Henry V). Kenneth Branagh’s Henry then gave a nod to Exeter, who garrotted Bardolph gruesomely; his agonizingly slow death and Henry’s static, silent reaction to it took place in a full eighty seconds of silence, filled only by the sound of rain falling, before Henry’s next line (Henry V, 1989).
cut off
Punished by death.
express
Explicit, direct.
upbraided
Reproached.
play for
Gamble for.
gentlest
Mildest, most generous.
gamester
Player, gambler.
habit
Apparel.
The French royal herald would wear a tabard bearing the
king’s coat of arms. Both Walter and Humphreys comment that Montjoy’s
unceremoniously terse greeting is insolent, but Henry’s
Thou dost thy office fair(Sc9 Sp39) suggests that he does not take offence.
of thee
From thee.
Unfold
Reveal, explain.
advantage
Superior circumstances (either a better attack location or greater
numbers).
upon our cue
At the appropriate time.
Like an actor following a script.
imperial
1) Commanding, majestic; 2) of a higher rank than a mere
king.
her
Q’s substitution of
herfor F’s
hismakes the herald address the country of England rather than the king as a symbol of it.
sufferance
Patient endurance.
which … under
The value of Henry’s ransom when captured will be insufficient to
repay the French for the injuries they have borne.
pettiness
Weakness, insignificance.
bow
Bend, collapse.
Implying Henry’s bow in obeisance to the French king.
For the effusion
In recompense for the spillage, loss (i.e., the slaughter of the
French).
too weak
Too few; too poor in blood.
thy quality
1) Your rank; 2) your occupation; 3) your character; 4) whose side
you are on.
office
Duty.
fair
Fairly.
impeach
Hindrance.
Calais
A port in the northern coast of France.
Calais, the closest French town to England, was
English-occupied territory—and a potential beachhead for English wars in France
—from its capture by Edward III 1347 to its recapture by the French in 1558.
Q1’s spelling,
Callis(D2r), indicates traditional English pronunciation.
sooth
Truth.
vantage
Military advantage.
May also pun on vauntage (“boasting”).
in heart
In healthy condition.
upon … Frenchmen’s
Every pair of English legs is worth three French ones (?).
The Quarto reading is likely an error for F’s
Frenchmen(F1 H5 I1r), but if so it is uncorrected in Q3.
heirof France
The dauphin and his boastful taunts; 2) punning on
air,the atmosphere of France that encourages such boastfulness.
Q’s spelling,
heire(Q1 H5 D2r), makes the pun more explicit than in the Folio version.
blown … in me
Inflated me with boastfulness.
Continuing the heir/air wordplay, the dauphin can be said to
have boasted (see OED
blow, v.1.6.a) boastfulness into Henry.
God before
1) With God on our side; 2) I swear before God.
tawny
Yellow-brown.
on … them
Tomorrow we will order the troops to.
Although MacDonald Jackson’s conjecture (
An Emendation), which Gurr accepts (King Henry), is attractive, the punctuation of Q and F makes perfectly good sense, and since Henry himself has just given the order to march, a further command to give the order would be redundant.
Scene 10
Location: the French camp, Agincourt.
Gebon
No French lord by this name appears in historical accounts of
Agincourt, though as Gerda Okerlund points out, it might be a misreading for some
version of Guilliam (
Quarto Version819). Since Gebon is never named in dialogue, Taylor surmises credibly that it is the name of an actor included in this scene as a supernumerary (Henry V).
palfrey
Riding horse.
A palfrey, typically ridden by women, would be unsuitable in
battle, and Bourbon presumably doesn’t mean to imply that his warhorse is one,
choosing it for the word’s association with chivalric poetry.
of the sun
Helios, the classical sun god, rode a chariot pulled by
either two or four horses, variously named by classical poets.
pure … fire
The two hot, light elements of the four elements of ancient
philosophy.
Shakespeare associates these elements with swiftness and
lightness (see Sonnets 44 and 45), and elsewhere with nobility and courage; see
Cleopatra’s boasting self-description:
I am Fire, and Ayre; my other Elements / I giue to baser life(Ant 5.2.278–279).
heat
Great eagerness, ardour (as ginger is
hotto the taste).
the sands
Infinite grains of sand.
argument … all
Sufficient topic to keep them all busy.
sonnet
Lyric poem.
Wonder of nature
Readers at least since Warburton have conjectured Shakespeare
satirizes a specific contemporary poem here, but no such poem has been
convincingly identified.
shook you
1) Rattled you while riding; 2) had sex with you.
shrewdly
1) Sharply, severely; 2) like a shrew, i.e., an ill-tempered
woman.
bearing me
1) Carrying me in the saddle; 2) having sex with me.
my … hair
I.e., as opposed to yours, who has lost her natural hair to
syphilis and so wears a wig.
to my mistress
As my mistress.
use … for
1) Treat like; 2) employ sexually as.
thou … anything
You find any way to turn my words against me.
outfaced … way
Defied and driven from my course.
Hay!
An exclamation of triumph on successfully hitting an
opponent.
Bourbon exits imagining, perhaps acting out, the upcoming
battle. Compare the dauphin’s exclamation
ch’hain the Folio version of the scene (A3 Sc7 Sp7).
he’ll … kills
I.e., he will kill no one.
The phrase is proverbial (Dent A192.2). Cf. Beatrice’s similar mock in Much Ado:
But how many hath he kil’d? for indeed, I promis’d to eate all of his killing(Ado 1.1.32–33).
cap
Outdo, beat.
The constable here begins a game called
Proverbs,in which players counter one proverbial saying with another. Taylor notes that such proverb duels also occur in Drayton’s Idea 59 (1619), Henry Porter’s Two Angry Women of Abingdon (ca. 1588), and John Grange’s Golden Aphroditis (1577) (Taylor, Henry V).
Have … eye
I’ll shoot at the target.
The constable imagines the dauphin, and the proverb that
makes him into a
devil,to
standas an archery target, the centremost point of which is called the
eye(OED eye, n.1.16.c).
jag of
Stab at.
Taylor suggests that Q’s
Ioggeis an error for fig (Henry V), but see Oxford English Dictionary (OED jag, n.1.7; cf. jag, v.1.1).
active
Energetic, diligent.
Doing his activity
Yes, when doing such contemptible things as he does.
still
Always, continually.
did hurt
Injured anyone.
never will
Will hurt no one tomorrow in battle.
he
Bourbon.
go … hazard
1) Make a wager; 2) go into danger, risk.
Literally a dice game.
a hundred paces
Approximately five hundred feet.
A military pace is a step, or roughly
five feet—the mile being derived from the Roman mille passus, a thousand paces. A mere five hundred
feet between camps seems an exaggeratedly small distance, so perhaps the phrase is
intended only to mean
within earshotor
dangerously close.F has the distance at a more probable
fifteen hundred paces,or roughly a mile and a half (A3 Sc7 Sp62).
Grandpré
The Quarto spelling (
Grandpeere) suggests a generic Franglois name for a French lord (i.e.,
great peer), while Gurr’s spelling in his edition of the Quarto version (
Grandpere) suggests a grandfather (King Henry). I have regularized the name to that of the historical French lord who appears as a character in F.
Come … day.
This closing couplet has been transposed from the Folio
(F1 H5 I3v),
which has no analogous scene in Q, and is set in the late morning rather than the
early hours. In the longer Folio version of the play, Orléans ends this prose
scene with a different couplet—the only verse in the scene and so perhaps tacked
on as an afterthought to clarify the passage of time—declaring it to be two in the
morning and anticipating the end of the battle by ten. Moving the constable’s
couplet suggests that the sun has, at the very least, risen since Bourbon’s exit
nineteen lines earlier, advancing dramatic time markedly and heightening the sense
of urgency. The change need not be seen as clumsy or produce contradiction with
the following scene in the English camp, in which the First Soldier acknowledges
the sunrise (Sc11 Sp27).
See Sc11 Sp22
n.
Scene 11
Location: the English camp, Agincourt.
Ke ve la?
Pistol’s version of Qui va là?,
French for “Who goes there?”
The fact that Pistol gives his challenge in pidgin French may
indicate his ambiguous patriotism, or it may merely serve as a reminder of how
close the camps are.
Discuss
Declare, relate.
Henry V is the only Shakespeare play in which this word
appears, in three of Pistol’s speeches and one of Flewellen’s (F1 H5 H5v, I2r, I4r).
popular
Of low birth; one of the common people.
For a discussion of the makeup of the English army and its
class divisions, see Curry (Agincourt 57–78).
gentleman … company
A nobleman, but serving as a volunteer rather than commissioned as
a captain.
Trail’st … pike?
Do you carry the mighty pike; i.e., are you an infantryman?
To
traila pike—the English infantryman’s usual weapon during the fifteenth century and into Shakespeare’s day—is to carry it below the head, dragging the butt along the ground. Trailing a pike, as opposed to carrying it over a shoulder, could be seen as a sign of defeat or of funereal mourning (see Cor 5.6.150), but it was also the usual means of carrying the weapons when not marching into battle.
Even so
Just so.
bago
Fine fellow; Pistol’s nonce word.
Probably a version of F’s reading,
bawcock(from the French beau coq), a word that seems in any case to originate with Pistol (see OED bawcock, n.). Since Pistol, in both versions of the play, imports corrupted snatches of various languages, the word might also have links to Spanish vago (“an affable idler”) or French bagou (“volubility, glibness”).
imp
Shoot of a plant (i.e., child).
Pistol uses the same phrase for Henry just after his
coronation (2H4
5.5.37).
The sense of
graft(OED imp, n.2.a.) is a reminder that Henry’s lineage has been grafted onto the tree of fame by his father’s usurpation of Richard II’s throne, as opposed to growing naturally.
heartstrings
The deepest seat of emotion.
Literally, the tendons or nerves thought to support the
heart.
bully
Fine fellow, gallant.
le Roy
Hints at
the king(French le roi).
Cornishman
Nothing about the name Leroy is
particularly Cornish. Walter suggests an allusion to the now lost play Harry of Cornwall (ca. 1591) mentioned in Henslowe’s Diary (1961
fol. 7, 7v qtd. in Walter, Henry V).
crew
Band of soldiers.
Crew, related to crowd, is usually
derogatory in Shakespeare; e.g.,
So dissolute a crew(R2 5.3.12), Robin’s
a crew of patches(MND 3.2.9), and the doctor’s
a crew of wretched souls(Mac 4.3.142).
a Welshman
Henry was created Prince of Wales—the traditional title of
the English heir apparent—at his father’s coronation, but he probably refers here
to his birth in Monmouth, in southeast Wales. Cf. Sc16 Sp22.
Philip Schwyzer points out that the historical Henry V had no actual Welsh blood,
and argues that his claim here relates more to the needs of the Tudor
dynasty—whose own Welshness came from Owain Tudor, the man who would marry Henry
V’s widow—to legitimize their link to Shakespeare’s heroic king:
Henry ‘inheritsʼ his Welshness not from his ancestors, but from his Tudor successors(Literature, Nationalism, and Memory 127).
sorts
Agrees.
Enter … Flewellen.
The two captains may enter together, in conversation, or
separately, with Gower greeting Flewellen too loudly.
worell
World.
prerogatives
Flewellen either means something like principles, or the
privilege of authority to maintain discipline and decorum, or
prerogativesis an error for another word.
tittle-tattle … bible-bable
Chatter, babbling.
cares
Heedfulness, seriousness.
fears
Soberness, reverence.
ceremonies
Formalities.
otherwise
Different from the loud, undisciplined English camp.
heard
The past tense here, a subtle change from the Folio version,
which has
heare(F1 H5 I2v), suggests that the night is already past and shifts the time of day into morning. Together with the constable’s closing couplet above (Sc10 Sp36) and the absence of the famous Chorus speech about the night before the battle, this change makes clear that in the Quarto version of this scene, day has already broken.
God-so!
By God’s such-and-such, a mild, euphemistic oath.
Gurr sees Q’s reading,
Godes sollud,to be
a phonetic transcription […] of whatever the player of Llewellyn invented here(King Henry). We need not see it as a whole-cloth invention, however.
God-sois a weakening of various oaths begging with
God’s:
God’s blood,
God’s wounds,etc. (see OED godso, int.). The Folio hints that God-so is in Flewellen’s vocabulary (FM A4 Sc1 Sp32), which reads
'So!(see A4 Sc1 Sp32 n.). Another possible emendation of Flewellen’s odd oath is
God’s blood(explained by a misreading of sollud for splud or sblud), which Flewellen uses multiple times (Q1M Sc6 Sp6, Sc16 Sp1, Sc17 Sp5. God-so may be an Anglicization of the very common Italian oath cazzo (“cock”, used with a broadness of sense comparable to the English fuck); the cobbler Juniper in Jonson’s The Case is Altered (1598) uses catso and Gods so interchangeably.
prating coxcomb
Chattering fool.
meet
Fitting.
care
Attentive concern, responsibility.
beginning
Beginning of the day.
at all adventures
Whatever happens.
What cheer?
How are you?
small cheer
Little joy.
frolic
Merry.
reckoning
Accounting (to God).
In both the literal sense of counting the dead lost in the
battle and the moral sense of accounting for sins.
join together
1) Rejoin their bodies; 2) speak in unison.
latter day
Judgement day.
Cf. Job 19:25:
For I am sure that my redeemer saueth, and he shall rayse vp at the latter day them that lye in the dust(Bishop’s Bible).
rawly
1) Abruptly; 2) too early in the marriage; 3) in
destitution.
Cf. Malcolm’s
Why in that rawness left you wife and child, […] Without leave-taking?(Mac 4.3.27–29).
Why … damnation.
This entire passage is much clearer in F, specifying that the
hypothetical servant and son not only die, but die in sin (A4 Sc1 Sp55).
factor
Agent, representative.
miscarry
Come to harm, die.
lewd action
Sinful behaviour.
they … services
Kings do not intend their subjects’ deaths when they employ
them.
This significant change in verb from the analogous sentiment
in F —
they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services(F1 H5 I2v; italics mine) — alters the referent of the pronouns, subtly changing Henry’s argument about moral agency and responsibility. In F,
theyare the subjects (or servants, or sons), who may intend to serve the king but do not necessarily expect to die. In Q,
theyare the kings (or masters, or fathers), whom Henry absolves of the knowledge that their servants could face death.
forgery
Deception, lying (OED
forgery, n.2).
F’s
perjury(oath-breaking) is only slightly more precise.
broken seal
The image suggests both the wax seals authenticating legal
contracts and the maidenheads of the beguiled maidens.
beguiling
Seducing, deceiving.
outstrip
Move faster than.
beadle
Parish official who punished petty criminals.
mote
Speck of dust.
The word echoes Jesus’s metaphor for hypocrisy:
And why seest thou the mote, that is in thy brothers eye, and perceiuest not the beame that is in thine owne eye?(Geneva Matthew 7:3).
every … head
In a significant difference from the Quarto version, F gives
this sentiment to Williams (the Folio analogue of the quarrelsome second soldier),
indicating that Henry’s long speech is convincing enough even for the man who
challenged the king’s cause (F1 H5 I3r). In Q, the second soldier is never won to
Henry’s side of this argument.
answer for me
Take responsibility for my sins.
lustily
Vigorously, heartily.
Mass
By the mass (the sacrament of the Eucharist).
elder-gun
Pop-gun made of a shoot from an elder-bush.
reproof
Rebuke, insult.
assure thee
Be sure.
They exchange gloves.
The exchange of pledges, usually gloves, was symbolic of a
promise to duel.
broils
Quarrels, brawls.
cut French crowns
1) Cut off French heads; 2) clip or shave metal from the edges of
French coins.
in addition to debasing the value of a coin, the practice of
coin clipping counted as
treason,as it defaced the image of the monarch.
clipper
1) Clipper of coins; 2) barber; i.e., cutter of French
heads.
Exeunt the soldiers.
In F, this first time Henry has been alone on stage is the
occasion for his only soliloquy, not counting the
god of battlesprayer. The missing speech is a moving complaint about the responsibilities of kingship in which, while not conveying wavering or doubt about his cause, he presents royalty as a collection of empty theatrical ceremonies (F1 H5 I3r); its absence in Q contributes to the Quarto’s pattern of portraying Henry’s rule less ambiguously than F does. The Quarto text prints, obviously in error, another stage direction:
Enter the King, Gloster, Epinham, and Attendants.This sounds like a memory of the staging at the beginning of F 4.3 (A4 Sc3 SD1), and may suggest that the agents who composed the Q text were familiar with the manuscript copy-text behind the F text, especially since the character of Erpingham does not appear in Q. (See Gurr, Shakespearian Stage 23.)
God of battles
Rather than the classical Mars, this is the aspect of the
Christian god referred to in the Old Testament as the
Lord of Hosts(i.e., armies).
steel
Harden.
sense of reckoning
Ability to count.
appall
Weaken; make pale.
the fault … crown
Henry IV’s deposition of Richard II, who was later murdered while
imprisoned at Pomfret castle by Sir Pierce of Exton, as dramatized by Shakespeare
in Richard II
(5.4 and 5.5).
interrèd new
Reburied with proper funeral rites.
After Richard’s murder, he was buried at Kings Langley in
Hertfordshire. One of Henry V’s first acts as king, in 1413, was to rebury Richard
II at Westminster after
a lavish funeral procession. See Holinshed (Chronicle, 1587 543–544).
hath
I have.
contrite
Penitent.
forcèd
Violently shed.
blood
Richard’s murder.
chantries
Privately financed chapels where priests sang masses to reduce an
individual’s time in purgatory (here Richard II’s).
all too little
According to the Anglican doctrine of Shakespeare’s audience,
though not to the Catholic belief of the historical Henry, such acts of penitence
as he describes here would have been insufficient to gain God’s favour, and the
purgatory he imagines Richard to dwell in was an outdated Catholic fable.
See General Introduction.
stays upon
Waits for.
Scene 12
Location: the English camp, Agincourt.
Gloucester
Since Gloucester has only just exited, and since he does not
speak until Sc12 Sp8,
when he provides new information about the French preparedness, it may make more
sense to delay his entrance until that point.
five to one
Odds against the English.
Contemporary historians, both French and English, provide
differing estimates of the size of the English army, ranging from 6,000 to 15,000;
contemporary estimates of the French army range from 10,000 to 150,000 and the
chroniclers variously calculate the French outnumbering the English at multiples
ranging from one and a half to six (see Curry 326–328). Exeter’s line would suggest that the English numbered
12,000, and Henry seems to suggest an army of only 5,000 (FM A4 Sc3 Sp16). Holinshed, following
Hall, gives the odds as six to one (Chronicle, 1587 553). In performance, of course,
mathematical discrepancies go unnoticed.
The numerical difficulty is harder to ignore in Famous Victories, since King Henry performs faulty arithmetic
on stage:
Oxf.And it please your Maiestie,Our Captaines haue numbered them,And so neare as they can iudge,They are about threescore thousand horsemen,And fortie thousand footemen.Hen. 5.(Q1 FV E4r)They threescore thousand,And we but two thousand.They threescore thousand footemen,And we twelue thousand.They are a hundred thousand,And we fortie thousand, ten to one.
and … fresh
They are still fresh, unlike the English, who have been on the
march.
Clarence
Historically, Henry’s brother the Duke of Clarence was not at
Agincourt, nor does he appear in this scene in F.
I … wrong
I insult you in admonishing you to fight valiantly.
sparks
Essence, animating principle.
not work
The battle of Agincourt was fought on a holiday, the feast day of
Saints Crispin and Crispinian (25 October).
See Sc12 Sp7 n.
cousin
A term of polite address among the nobility; Richard
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was not Henry’s cousin, though Westmorland, the
addressee of the analogous speech in F, was.
God’s will
Either
by God’s will(an oath), or
God’s will be done(a prayer).
share from me
Take from me as part of his share.
wish
Wish for.
proclaim
Announce.
stomach … feast
Appetite for this meal; i.e., courage for this battle.
passport
Document authorizing safe passage back to England.
drawn
Drawn up, issued to him.
crowns for convoy
Money for his journey.
his fellowship
Duty as a comrade.
day of Crispin
A holiday commemorating the martyrdom of the brothers Crispin and
Crispinian in 287 C.E.
Although historically Henry dedicated the battle of Agincourt
to another saint, it became traditionally associated with the mostly legendary
Saints Crispin and Crispinian, said to have been two third-century noble brothers
who fled persecution by Diocletian in Rome and lived in obscurity in France,
making Christian converts and supporting themselves as shoemakers before their
martyrdom. Cf. Holinshed:
The daie following was the fiue and twentith of October in the yeare 1415, being then fridaie, and the feast of Crispine and Crispinian, a day faire and fortunate to the English, but most sorrowfull and vnluckie to the French. (Chronicle, 1587 552)Shakespeare seems to have combined Crispin and Crispinian into one name (
Crispin Crispian), perhaps for metrical reasons. The name Crispian, an alternate spelling of Crispinian, also appears in Thomas Deloney’s The Gentle Craft (1597–1598), a prose work in praise of famous shoemakers that includes the story of the craft’s patron saints, the two Roman brothers. Deloney’s version of the saints’ legend, set in England and involving the conscription of one of the brothers to fight in France (Gaul), also provided the source for Thomas Dekker’s comedy The Shoemakers’ Holiday (1599). Dekker’s play, which the Lord Chamberlain’s Men probably performed concurrently with Henry V, has many thematic and verbal parallels to Shakespeare’s history play, and indeed strongly suggests that the English king who appears in the final act to resolve the romantic comedy and conscript its characters into his French war is Henry V himself.
stand a tiptoe
Stand tall; i.e., feel eagerness and pride.
vigil
Eve, night before the holiday.
in … remembered
Have a toast raised to us.
general doom
Day of universal judgement.
happy
Fortunate (to be so small in number).
base
Low-ranking.
gentle his condition
Ennoble him.
Steevens and Walter both note that when Henry passed
restrictions on bearing coats of arms in 1418, he excepted veterans of Agincourt.
Here, however, he promises only figurative gentility; certainly no common soldier
is promoted during or after the battle. Taylor suggests that a depiction of such
literal promotion may have occurred in some earlier play (Henry V).
Then … day.
These lines are possibly out of place and should come after
Tomorrow is Saint Crispin’s dayabove (Sc12 Sp7), though since the
hewho sheds his blood by Henry’s and the
hewho strips his sleeve and shows his scars could quite logically be the same person, they make sense as they are placed in Q.
manhood
Manliness, courage.
upon … day
For two very different performances of this famous speech,
watch Laurence Olivier (Cronicle History of King Henry the Fift)and Michael Pennington (Bogndanov,
Henry V) (see Stage History for
further discussion).
backward
Reluctant, unready.
one
One more man.
This sentence, while not absurd in Q, suffers from comparison
with the Folio reading:
Why, now thou hast unwished five thousand men, / Which likes me better than to wish us one(FM A4 Sc3 Sp16).
charge
Orders.
achieve
Capture.
The man … him.
I.e., overestimating oneself is dangerous.
Henry refers to the proverb
sell not the bear’s skin before you have caught him(Tilley B132). In substituting a lion for the more usual bear, he personalizes the proverb, alluding to the heraldic symbol of English royalty.
A many
A great many.
Though … dunghills
Even if we are buried shamefully and anonymously.
clime
Realm; climate, atmosphere.
breed a plague
Plague was thought to be spread by unwholesome air.
Mark
Note, behold.
abundant
Plentiful.
Q’s reading lacks the pun on
abounding(i.e., rebounding like a cannonball) that establishes the ensuing metaphor in F (A4 Sc3 Sp20).
crazing
Fragmenting after impact (for greater damage).
May also suggest
grazing,i.e., ricocheting. The F2 compositors, who printed grasing (F2 H5 K6r), evidently took this as the primary meaning. Craik defends crazing
because it implies the destruction, not merely the deflection, of the bullets(King Henry).
course of mischief
Round of damage.
in … mortality
As their bodies fall into decomposition.
Like the shattered bullets, the English will kill even as
they disintegrate.
feather
Decorative helmet feathers.
Henry derides the French army’s ornate battlefield apparel to
throw the English shabbiness into the light of unostentatious modesty and working
class honesty. His speech may be undercut, however, by the memory of Vernon’s
earnest praise of Prince Henry’s own army at the battle of Shrewsbury in 1 Henry IV:
All furnished, all in arms,All plumed like ostriches, that with the windBaited like eagles having lately bathed,Glittering in golden coats like images,As full of spirit as the month of May,And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.I saw young Harry with his beaver on,His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed,Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,And vaulted with such ease into his seatAs if an angel dropped down from the cloudsTo turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,And witch the world with noble horsemanship.(1H4 4.1.97–111)
fly
Flee.
With a quibble on the usual sense.
slovenry
Sloppiness.
in the trim
1) Fashionably dressed; 2) in working order.
in fresher robes
Newly clothed in heaven (Wilson, Henry V).
This subtle joke has seemed too grim and obscure for some
editors, who read the
fresher robesas synonymous with the
gay new clothesto be pillaged from the French (Sc12 Sp17). Such a reading usually requires emendation of
or(Sc12 Sp17) to
for(Hanmer) or
as(Taylor, Henry V).
pluck … service
Strip the dead Frenchmen of their finery.
A servant who has been
turned out of service(newly dismissed) has his livery removed.
them
The French soldiers, not the coats.
levièd
Raised.
naught
Nothing.
as I … them
I.e., dead.
vanguard
Foremost division.
dispose
Direct, manage.
Scene 13
Location: the battlefield, Agincourt.
Q reverses the order of this scene (4.5 in F) and the next
one (4.4) from their analogues’ positions in the Folio, perhaps because, as Taylor
argues,
Clarence and Montjoy (both present in 4.3) doubled the Boy and Pistol(Henry V), so in the more stripped-down acting version that Q represents, the two actors needed time for a costume change.
O diable!
Oh, the devil!
Mort … vie!
Death of my life!
Aujourd’hui haute.
“Today, (we shall be) in heaven” (?).
This is as close to sense as any reading of Q’s
O jour dei houte; Gurr ventures
O jour des heures(“O day of hours”; King Henry).
upon
Of.
with … hand
Doffing his cap in servility.
leno
Pander, pimp.
The appearance of this extremely rare word, a substitution
for F’s more common
. Pander,figures largely in arguments about the provenance and date of the text behind Q1. Taylor and Gurr have both argued that with this exception, and perhaps caning for F’s yawning (Q1M Sc1 Sp14; FM A1 Sc2 Sp21), the producers of the Q text tend to have
reduced F’s more colorful and unusual adjectives to something simpler(Gurr, Shakespearian Stage 21; Taylor,
Shakespeare’s Leno). See my Textual Introduction
no gentler
1) No kinder, no less rough; 2) with no more gentility.
contaminate
Corrupted; i.e., raped.
spoiled
Ruined, destroyed; plundered.
right us
Set us upright; correct our course.
Come we
Let us go (back to the battle).
This edition’s punctuation makes some sense of the line; Q’s
reading
Come we in heapes(Q1 H5 E3r), suggests a manoeuvre difficult to picture. An alternate modernization might be “Come, we in heaps will offer up our lives”.
in heaps … fame
Either we will be slaughtered ignobly or die honourably in
battle.
doth last
Has already lasted.
The constable’s last line in the play is a version of the
proverb
better to die with honor than to live with shame(Tilley H576).
Scene 14
Location: the battlefield, Agincourt.
O Monsieur … moi!
O sir, I pray you, have pity on me!
Moy
Uncomprehending repetition of moi.
The French word may have been pronounced by contemporary
Englishmen as rhyming with
destroy(e.g., R2 5.3.118–119). Pistol takes moy to mean a coin, and although Oxford English Dictionary calls it a nonce-word and denies that any real coin is intended (OED moy, n.2), it may relate to the later word moidore (Portuguese moeda de ouro; French moi-d’or?), an eighteenth-century designation for a gold coin.
Comment êtes-vous apellé?
What are you called?
Fer
Iron (French).
fer
Nonce word, apparently meaning “beat”.
Pistol may also play on
fear(frighten), but Shakespeare elsewhere uses similar nonsensical repetitions of names as threatening verbs. Cf. Wiv 4.2.145, Cor 2.2.104.
ferret
Worry (as a ferret would).
firk
Beat (OED firk, v.4).
Several other violent senses are possible; the word sometimes
puns on
fuck,as in Dekker’s Shoemaker’s Holiday—which also has a character named Firk—though the bawdy sense seems less likely here.
Faites-vous … gorge.
“Prepare yourself: he wants to cut your
throat”.
On y … gorge!
Pistol’s pidgin French, approximately “There’s my faith! Cut
the throat!”
egregious
Extraordinarily large.
One … fox.
All that stands between you and death is the point of my fox (a
kind of sword).
The fairly obscure term fox may come
from the blade-mark stamped on certain swords to identify their maker. Webster’s
White Devil uses the term it to distinguish an
English-made rapier:
O what blade is’t? / A Toledo, or an English fox?(Webster 5.6.233–234). F offers a slightly more explicit version of Pistol’s threat:
thou diest on point of fox(FM A4 Sc4 Sp5). The compositor of the second Quarto seems to have been so puzzled by
One point of a Foxethat he printed it as a stage direction, italicized and justified to the right margin (Q2 H5 E3r).
Que … monsieur?
“What does he say, sir?”
Il … tuerez.
“He said that if you will not give him a large ransom, he
will kill you”.
Oh! … France.
“Oh! I beg you, young gentleman, speak to this great captain
to have mercy on me, and I will give for my ransom fifty crowns. I am a
gentleman of France”.
five hundred
Either the Boy misunderstands M. Fer’s
cinquanteas “ cinq cents ”, or he intentionally exaggerates the proffered ransom of fifty crowns.
suck blood
Am bloodthirsty; am a leech.
Exeunt omnes.
Q has all three characters exit at the end of the scene, but
Pistol re-enters immediately, either without his prisoner or as his last line in
the scene indicates, with him still in tow. Pistol, or indeed all three
characters, could just as easily remain on stage to be met by the king and his
train.
Scene 15
Location: the battlefield, Agincourt.
commends him to
Greets.
down
Unhorsed.
array
Condition; attire (i.e., his blood).
Larding
Enriching (with his blood).
Yoke-fellow
Partner, companion.
honour-dyeing wounds
Wounds that coloured his honour indelibly with blood.
Suffolk … love.
Suffolk and York dying in each other’s arms is Shakespeare’s
invention. This Suffolk (Michael de la Pole, 1394–1415) was succeeded by his
brother, William de la Pole, who became a stalwart supporter of Henry VI during
the Wars of the Roses until his execution in 1450 at the orders of his archenemy
Richard, son of this Duke of York. The
testament of noble-ending lovehere related therefore serves both as an ironic foil for the conflict to come between the houses of York and Lancaster, and prefigures that conflict’s resolution. As Wilson noted, the passage also recalls the death of the Talbots in 1 Henry VI (1H6 4.7; Wilson, Henry V).
all hasted o’er
Covered in wounds.
The inclusion of all precludes the
sense of
hurried to him.Gurr suggests that
hastedis a portmanteau like F’s
hagled(F1 H5 I4v qtd. in King Henry). It seems to combine hacked and basted, i.e., thrashed, beaten soundly (OED baste, v.3).
steeped
Immersed, drenched.
yawn
Gape like mouths.
Julius Caesar, another 1599 play, also compares wounds to
gaping mouths:
thy wounds […] Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips, / To gain the voice and utterance of my tongue(JC 3.1.263–265).
Tarry
Linger, stay here.
well-foughten field
Well-fought battle.
chivalry
Knightliness; martial skill.
cheered them up
Spoke encouragingly to them.
F’s reading,
cheered him up,would seem to make better sense, since Exeter explains that Suffolk was already dead.
Commend
Remember; offer (my service).
sealed
Set his seal to the
espousalto death.
Q’s punctuation suggests this intransitive sense of
seal (OED
seal, v.4). Gurr’s
sealed an argumentadopts the punctuation of F, but requires a rather strained definition of
argument(King Henry).
waters
Tears.
my mother
My feminine tenderness.
The motherfrequently refers to a medical condition thought to arise from the uterus and cause hysteria in women, or a condition with similar symptoms (a sense of constriction in the torso, shortness of breath) in men (OED mother, n.1.9). See also Lr 7.215 and TN 2.1.30–31.
convert to tears
1) Turn entirely into tears; 2) turn from the battle to
weep.
alarum
Trumpet call to arms.
Couple gorge.
Cut the throat.
Pistol may cut his prisoner’s throat onstage at this point,
thus giving up Fer’s ransom and making the upshot of Henry’s order more
graphically explicit than is suggested in F. Modern productions frequently
emphasize the brutality of the decision to kill the prisoners by having them
executed onstage, often by soldiers or officers only reluctantly following the
order. In the 2003 National Theatre production, Adrian Lester’s Henry, frustrated
that no one acted when he ordered the prisoners’ deaths, unceremoniously gunned
them down himself (Hytner,
Henry V).
Scene 16
Location: the battlefield, Agincourt.
plood
Blood.
luggage
Presumably Flewellen means
those guarding the luggage.
arrant’st
Most downright.
worell
World.
whereupon
At which time; for which reason.
Shakespeare’s adaptation of his source material makes clear
that Gower’s interpretation of the prisoner-killing as retaliation for the French
atrocity is simply incorrect; as we have just seen (Sc15 Sp5),
it was instead a tactical response provoked by battlefield necessity, which is
different from the attack by the
cowardly rascals that ran from the battle(Sc16 Sp2). The disjunction between what we see and what the English army incorrectly remembers serves as a subtle commentary on the process of making history.
Monmorth
Flewellen’s pronunciation of Monmouth, a town in south Wales near
the English border.
one reckoning
The same thing.
phrase … variation
Wording is a little different.
Macedon
Macedonia, formerly a region in the north of Greece.
Wye
River forming the border between Wales and England.
both
Both rivers.
is come after
Follows, parallels.
in … ales
While drunk.
Cleitus
Macedonian general, friend and bodyguard of Alexander the
Great.
Cleitus, or Kleitos (375–328 BCE) was ordered in 328 to
command a separate army in Asia. Like Falstaff,
André Castaigne’s The Killing of Cleitus (1898-99).
Cleitus rankled at the prospect of being forced to withdraw from the
king’s company to be forgotten; he quarrelled with Alexander and was speared to
death by the drunken king, who later regretted the deed. Shakespeare’s audience
would have been familiar with the anecdote; Flewellen follows the crown-approved
Homilie against Gluttonie and Dronkennes:
The great Alexander after that he hadde conquered the whole worlde, was hym selfe ouercome by dronkennesse, in so muche, that beyng dronken, he slew his faythfull frende Clitus, whereof when he was sober, he was so muche ashamed, that for anguyshe of harte he wyshed death. (The seconde tome of homilies fol. 107v).
great-belly doublet
Tight jacket padded in the stomach covering.
The
belly,or lower part of a doublet (OED belly, n.3.b), could be
great(padded) or
thin(unpadded), according to fashion. The padding, in Falstaff’s case, was of course his fat, but the line serves as a reminder of the padded costuming of an actor playing the role.
I … name.
Taylor suggests that this is
a joking allusion to the name having had to be changed(i.e., from Oldcastle in 1 Henry IV to Falstaff in 2 Henry IV; Henry V); similarly in Merry Wives Mistress Page declares that she
cannot tell what the dickens his name is(Wiv 3.2.14). But in addition to the inside joke, Flewellen’s line gives point to the Henriad’s arguably tragic process of casting off Falstaff and excising him from Henry’s story, and reinforces the play’s theme of memory, forgetfulness, and remembering
with advantages(FM A4 Sc3 Sp10).
Enter … herald.
The stage directions in Quarto do not specify an entrance for
an English herald, but one must be on stage at this point, as Henry’s first speech
indicates. Gurr’s addition of an entrance for the Second Soldier (also missing in
Q1) at this point is also a possibility (King Henry), but I have indicated it later
in the scene (Sc16 SD4),
just before he is mentioned. I have also added a necessary exit for Gower at that
point, since the exit of the heralds seems a logical place for it.
trumpet
Trumpeter.
skirr
Flee.
as … slings
Craik hears an echo of Marlowe’s 1593 translation of Lucan’s
Pharsalia,
Swifter than bullets thrown from Spanish slings,(Lucan 231 qtd. in King Henry), and suggests that for patriotic reasons Shakespeare substituted Assyrians, who, according to the Geneva translation of Judith,
trust in shield, speare and bow, and sling(Geneva 9:7).
Enforcèd
Violently flung.
Besides
Additionally.
those
The prisoners.
fined … ours
Determined to pay only my bones and nothing more.
charitable favour
Gracious permission.
To sort
That, in order to sort.
day
Victory.
Crispin, Crispin
Either a repetition for effect, or a mistake for
Crispin and Crispian,the two brother saints on whose feast day Agincourt was fought.
grandfather … memory
Edward III.
Properly, Edward III was Henry’s great-grandfather, and Craik
suggests emending, as Flewellen has no reason to get this wrong (King Henry).
grandfather might mean simply
ancestorhere, however, and in later Scottish, though not Welsh usage, it could mean
great-grandfather(OED grandfather, n.2, 3).
An it
If it.
the Welshmen … grow
Flewellen is the only source for the idea that the tradition
of Welshmen wearing leeks comes from Crécy, though
Shakespeare may have gathered a tradition from Welshmen in London, as he seems to have done for details of Glendower’s character in 1 Henry IV(Humphreys, Henry V). Editors usually comment that the custom commemorates a March 1 victory of the Welsh over the Saxons in 540 C.E., Taylor points out that that explanation dates from the late seventeenth century (Henry V).
Saint Davy’s day
Feast day of David (Welsh Dewi),
patron saint of Wales (1 March).
On which day Welshmen wear leeks in their caps in
commemoration.
his grace’s
Either an epithet for the king or a reference to God’s
grace.
The two senses run together, resulting in a comic muddling of
divine and royal agency.
him
The French herald.
the scattered French
The remnant of the French army still alive.
Gower
Gower must exit at some point before his qualities are
discussed and the soldier is sent to fetch him (Sc16 Sp36).
This is a logical point for his exit, but not the only possibility.
swaggered
Boasted, quarrelled.
perjured
Forsworn, an oath-breaker.
arrant
Notorious, downright.
worth
High rank.
Lucifer, and Belzebub
Names of the devil.
meet
Fitting, necessary.
sirrah
Sir (an address to an inferior).
Pronounced with emphasis on the first syllable.
lit’rature … wars
Military learning.
Alençon
A French duke.
The Duke of Alençon mentioned in Henry V would likely have
reminded the Elizabethan audience of François of Anjou and Alençon (1555–1584), who
courted Queen Elizabeth in 1572. François, or simply
Monsieur,as he was popularly known, occasioned much ridicule for his physical deformities and for the twenty-two-year gap in age between himself and the queen, and caused English Protestants consternation at the idea of a royal marriage to a foreign, Catholic king.
down together
Fighting on the ground.
Perhaps the phrase merely distinguishes between fighting on
foot or on horseback, but its occurrence in Coriolanus
(Cor
4.5.119) suggest a rough and tumble wrestling match on the
battlefield. At any rate, Shakespeare has Henry recall his fight with Alençon as
hand-to-hand affair, while Holinshed records it differently:
The king that daie shewed himselfe a valiant knight, albeit almost felled by the duke of Alanson; yet with plaine strength he slue two of the dukes companie, and felled the duke himselfe; whome when he would haue yelded, the kings gard (contrarie to his mind) slue out of hand. (Chronicle, 1587 554)
touched
Given occasion; touched off, lit (like gunpowder).
Scene 17
Location: the field of victory, Agincourt.
toward
Coming to.
know
Recognize.
this glove
Henry’s glove (in the soldier’s possession).
this
The soldier’s glove (in Flewellen’s cap).
God’s ploot
God’s blood.
his
The soldier’s blood (which Flewellen intends to spill).
give … due
Kill the traitor as he deserves.
avouchments
A positive assertion.
under … manhood
1) In the name of your valour; 2) in your manliness; 3) unworthy of
comparison with your magnificence.
thy glove
That glove (actually Henry’s).
marshal’s law
Martial law, the law of the battlefield.
lowliness
Disguise of low rank.
under that habit
In that disguise.
mettle
Courage.
brabbles
Frivolous quarrels.
dissentions
Disagreements, disputes.
I’ll
I want.
Whether Williams assents to take Flewellen’s shilling is a
performer’s choice; Taylor argues that he does so, but he has no obvious warrant
for arguing for the assertion that
silence normally gives consent to a direction implied in the dialogueor that
continued refusal would surely elicit some verbal reaction from Henry or the others(Henry V). The scene allows no time for such comment, as the focus is shifted to loftier matters by the French herald’s entrance.
good
Not counterfeit.
paper … Henry
Evidently a list of the captured and killed French makes its
way on stage at this point, and is in Henry’s hands by Sc17 Sp19.
Exeter may read from it or speak from his own knowledge. I have attempted to leave
the stage directions as open as possible.
sort
High rank, nobility.
This note … thine.
The first quarto, evidently faulty in its speech prefixes
here, gives this entire speech to Exeter, which requires him to respond to himself
with
‘Tis wonderful(Sc17 Sp20). The second and third quartos fix this fault, quite logically, by giving Sc17 Sp18 to Exeter, allowing Henry to comment on the
royall fellowshipand ask about the English dead, Exeter to continue and Henry to come back with
O God thy arme was here(Q2 H5 F3r; Q3 F3v). The concurrence of the Q2 and Q3 solution might suggest some otherwise unindicated relationship between the copy-text for the two later quartos, or the agents behind them may have arrived at it independently. The Q2/Q3 version of the exchange does obviate the rather inelegant passing of papers necessitated by the Folio version (F1 H5 I5v), to which I have emended the Quarto edition here.
bearing banners
Of rank sufficient to fly their own standards.
Admiral
Commander of the navy.
Master … Crossbows
Commander of the French archers, a title traditionally given
to a high-ranking member of the French aristocracy.
High Master
Head of the royal household.
The Grand Maître was one of
the highest-ranking officials of the French court. Guichard Dauphin is a name; he
is not to be confused with the French crown prince.
chevaliers
Knights.
The Quarto reading, Charillas, has
puzzled editors (Q1 H5 F3v). Gurr believes
Nobelle Charillasto be a clarification of the name of Guichard Dauphin, but notes that no such name or title appears in Holinshed. He conjectures that it may be a version of
Charolais,the name of the Duke of Burgundy who appears in scene 19, but who was historically not at Agincourt. Gurr concedes that
how the revisers found such a name is an open question(King Henry). I propose that the Q reading is an error stemming from an easy misreading of MS
Chevillers(or, less likely,
Earles), the compositor having assumed that he was reading another unfamiliar French name and setting it in italic, without much compunction about spelling. Shakespeare uses chevalier as an English word only once elsewhere (1H6 4.3.14).
arm
Power, influence.
stratagem
Trickery.
The usual sense is
an artifice or trick designed to outwit or surprise the enemy(OED stratagem, n.1.a). Often paired as a synonym with policy, Shakespeare seems to use it contemptuously, as he does that word (see FM A2 Sc0 Sp1). As Gurr points out, Henry’s claim to have used no stratagem ignores what Holinshed calls
a politike invention(qtd. in Gurr, King Henry), the innovation of protecting archers from a cavalry charge with sharpened stakes:
he caused stakes bound with iron sharpe at both ends, of the length of fiue or six foot to be pitched before the archers, and of ech side the footmen like an hedge, to the intent that if the barded horsses ran rashlie vpon them, they might shortlie be gored and destroied. Certeine persons also were appointed to remooue the stakes, as by the mooueing of the archers occasion and time should require, so that the footmen were hedged about with stakes, and the horssemen stood like a bulwarke betweene them and their enimies, without the stakes. This deuise of fortifieng an armie, was at this time first inuented. (Chronicle, 1587 553, margin)
even … battle
Straightforward encounter of forces.
Take it
Accept the credit.
wonderful
Extraordinary, to be wondered at.
Non nobis
Latin hymn based on Psalm 115:
Give not praise to us, Lord.
The Psalm reads
Non nobis Domine non nobis sed nomini tuo da gloriam(Vulgate, Psalm 113:9), or
Not vnto vs, O Lord, not vnto vs, but vnto thy Name giue the glorie(Geneva, Psalm 115:1).
Te Deum
Latin hymn of thanksgiving, beginning
Te deum laudamus(“We praise thee, O God”).
A Te Deum is sung regularly
at the Catholic service of Matins and at public occasions celebrating divinely
influenced deliverance or victory.
with … clay
Given Christian burial.
According to Holinshed, the English army departed to Calais
leaving the despoiled French bodies on the field for days until the Earl of
Charolais had 5,800 bodies buried in three pits (Chronicle, 1587 555). The
English dead seem to have been burned or buried, for the most part, though
Holinshed records that Henry brought the corpses of York and Suffolk with him to
be buried in England (see Curry
12).
more happier
1) More joyful; 2) luckier, more fortunate.
Scene 18
Location: France.
The precise location is uncertain. It is clear from the
opening lines that it takes place in early March (just after Saint Davy’s day),
and not in late October, when Agincourt was fought, so apparently time has passed,
and the characters are back in France for the enforcement of the peace treaty
after wintering in England. In the Folio version, the Chorus makes the passage of
time explicit.
move no dissentions
Start no quarrel.
swelling … turkey-cock
Puffed up with pride.
The comparison is proverbial (Tilley T612), and used of Malvolio (TN
2.5.25), but
Flewellen’s response—
swellingsand
cocks—plays upon the resonances of
erect penis.
pless
Bless.
bedlam
Insane.
The word derives from
Bedlam (i.e., Bethlehem)
Hospital a famous asylum north of London.
base Trojan
Villain.
Usually Trojan is a positive epithet
for a boisterously good fellow (OED
villain, n.2.a), but Pistol seems to intend a melodramatic insult
on a Homerically epic scale.
fold … web
Kill you.
I.e., cut the cord of Flewellen’s life, spun out, according
to Greek myth, by the Fates, or Parcae. Pistol invokes the
Sisters Threein 2 Henry IV (2.4.167).
Hence!
Begone.
qualmish
Nauseous.
Cadwallader
Welsh king of the seventh century.
Cadwallader (or Cadwaladr) became a semi-legendary hero to
the Welsh in the later middle ages; as the last Welsh king to claim sovereignty
over all of Britain, he was prophesied to redeem the Welsh from the Saxons.
goats
Goats are traditionally associated with Wales; Pistol may
intend a sneer at Welsh poverty by implying that they are the height of Welsh
wealth and luxury.
goat
I.e., blow.
Flewellen may refer to his cudgel, punning on
goad,a pointed stick for driving livestock.
astonished
Stunned, stupefied.
in … reckoning
As a down payment for the revenge you owe me.
cudgels
Blows, beatings.
woodmonger
Wood merchant.
pate
Head.
mock at them
I dare you to mock them.
stir
Rouse itself (for vengeance).
J. A. K. Thompson first noted a possible echo of Virgil’s
Aeneid (Shakespeare and the Classics 106), in which Juno
vows
Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronto movebo(“If I cannot bend the powers above, I will stir up those of Acheron one of the rivers in hell ”; Virgil 7.312).
hussy
Mischievous woman.
As Q’s spelling (
huswye) indicates, the word is derived from housewife. The idea of Fortune as a whore is proverbial (Dent F603.1; cf. Ham 2.2.225).
lines
Lineaments, features.
Other senses perhaps as appropriate to Pistol are
verses(OED line, n.2.23.e), referring to his frequent histrionic snatches of metrical bombast, and
fits of temper(n.2 29.), a word from the dialect Shakespeare’s native Warwickshire that he uses in Merry Wives (F1 Wiv E3v) and Troilus and Cressida (F1 Tro ¶4v). It may also be a mistake for F’s
limbesor Q3’s
loynes; as Taylor points out,
linescould be a contemporary spelling of loins (Henry V).
Doll
A mistress of Pistol’s.
Many editors emend to
Nell,assuming that Pistol means his wife, the former Nell Quickly, a rather sentimental assumption about his marital fidelity. Johnson spent some time considering the possibility that
Dollis Doll Tearsheet, the prostitute mentioned in 2 Henry IV and at Sc2 Sp22, and Wilson uses this
mistakeas evidence that Pistol’s character was a late replacement for Falstaff, whom Shakespeare decided to kill off during the process of composing the play (Wilson, Henry V).
on … France
Of syphilis, known in England as
the French disease.
affordeth naught
Are worth nothing.
Bawd
Pimp.
the sleight … hand
My dexterity in cutting purses.
steal
Sneak.
With the play on the more usual sense (“rob”) in
the repetition.
patches
Bandages.
Gallia wars
French wars.
The pretentiousness of Pistol’s last
phrase, from the Latin for Gaul (France), would remind every former schoolboy in
Shakespeare’s audience of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. His
promise to lie about the origins of his scars reminds us of Gower’s
slanders of this age(Sc9 Sp25); as Joel B. Altman points out, in the late 1590s England was troubled with veterans returning from the Irish wars to a life of robbery such as Pistol imagines for himself:
Pistol was speaking to current affairs when he envisioned a profitable future in sturdy vagabondage upon his return from Henry’s France(
12). The speech also provides a rather pathetic conclusion to the Henriad’s comic scenes, as Johnson noted:Vile Participation
The comic scenes of The History of Henry the Fourth and Fifth are now at an end, and all the comic personages are now dismissed. Falstaff and Mrs Quickly are dead; Nym and Bardolph are hanged; Gadshill was lost immediately after the robbery; Poins and Peto have vanished since, one knows not how; and Pistol is now beaten into obscurity. I believe every reader regrets their departure. (Plays)
Scene 19
Location: a court in Troyes, France.
Catherine
The Quarto stage direction lists her as
Queene Katherine,anticipating her marriage to Henry and position as royal consort.
Alice
Catherine’s attendant is not addressed as
Alicein this scene, and her speech prefix throughout is
Lady.Since she serves as a translator, however, editors have always presumed her to be identical to the Alice of scene 7.
brother
Fellow king.
fair … day
Good day.
branch … stock
Member of the ruling family of France.
So are we
We are likewise glad to see yours.
both
Both of you kings.
Since
mightinessis singular, I suggest that Burgundy’s
bothrefers to both kings, but that
your mightinessis addressed to the victorious Henry alone.
bar
Obstacle.
According … articles
According to the demands we have presented.
cursenary
Cursory, hasty.
Most editors emend this word to
cursitory,a form which appears in no authoritative printed version: Q1 and Q2 read
cursenary(F5r; F4v), Q3 reads
cursorary(G1v), and F1 has
curselarie(K1r). Shakespeare clearly intended to coin a four-syllable word meaning
passing over rapidly.The only such word to have gained common currency, cursory — whose earliest Oxford English Dictionary occurrences are contemporary with Henry V (OED cursory, adj.) — is metrically inadequate. Since no modern alternative recommends itself, this edition retains the original forms.
O’erviewed
Looked over.
Pleaseth
If it please.
peremptory
Conclusive, final.
leap-frog
A boys’ vaulting game.
wearing
Using, possessing.
not worth sunburning
Too ugly for the sun to make worse.
By Elizabethan conventions of beauty, dark skin was
considered ugly.
between … George
With the combined blessings of the patron saints of France and
England.
a boy
Henry VI.
The irony of Henry’s hopes for Henry VI, a famously
ineffectual king, could not but be apparent to the audience.
take … beard
Drive out the Turks.
To pluck a man by the beard was a humiliating insult (cf.
Ham
2.2.469, Lr
3.7.33). Henry’s
sentiment is an anachronism, as the Ottoman Turks did not occupy Constantinople
(modern Istanbul) until 1453, three decades after Henry’s death. See my
General
Introduction.
sall
Shall.
Saint Denis
Patron saint of France.
be my speed
Help me.
false France
1) Bad French; 2) deceitful French.
neighbours
Friends, people close by.
closet
Private chamber.
of me
About me.
use
Treat.
cruelly
Excessively, extremely.
hollow
Sunken; insincere.
wax
Become.
curled pate
Head of curly hair.
as please
As it shall please, according to the wishes of.
O mon … faveur.
“O my God! I would not do anything like that? for all the world. This is not your
way to gain favour”.
Mais … baiser!
“But faith, I forget” what is to
“kiss”.
Oui … grace.
“Yes, saving your grace”.
patience perforce
You must endure.
in schedule had
Included in the written statement of demands.
The sense of “a note appended to a larger document
containing supplementary matter” (OED
schedule, n.2.a) might indicate, as does the French king’s exit
with the English lords that the terms of the French surrender are still being
written in this scene. Q’s phrased might also be a mishearing of
all that we enschedulèd,i.e., every term of surrender we listed; cf. F’s
enscheduled(A5 Sc2 Sp7).
subscribed
Signed agreement to.
for … grant
In conferring titles or estates.
addition
Title.
Notre … Franciae.
Both the French and Latin translate to “Our most dear son
Henry, King of England, heir of France”.
nicely
Fastidiously, precisely.
let … course
Let that demand go into effect as well.
what
Whatever.
disposeth
Governs, arranges.
present solemnize
Immediately celebrate.
Collations
Adopted reading (Q1):
Charles, the foresaid Duke of Lorraine.
Q1:
Charles, the foresaid Duke of Loraine,
F1:
Charlemaine, who was the Sonne
F continues for eight lines that
do not appear in Q, conflating Charlemagne with Charles of Lorraine.
Adopted reading (Capell 1779):
Exit attendant.
Adopted reading (this edition):
Be, like a king, mighty, and command
Adopted reading (Capell 1779):
Kisses her
Adopted reading (F1):
Exeunt Nym, Bardolph, and Pistol.
Adopted reading (Taylor 1982):
himself, five yards under, the
Q1:
Himselfe fiue yardes vnder the countermines:
F1:
himselfe foure yard vnder the
Adopted reading (this edition):
Vous avez quarante ans;
Q1:
vous aues cates en
Adopted reading (this edition):
vous parlez fort bon l’anglais d’Angleterre.
Q1:
Vou parte fort bon Angloys englatara
F1:
tu as este en Angleterre, & tu bien parlas le Language
Adopted reading (this edition):
Comment appelez-vous
Q1:
Coman sae palla vou
F1:
Comient appelle vous
Adopted reading (this edition):
Le coude? … madame.
Q1:
De cudie ma foy Ie oblye, mais Ie remembre, Le tude, o de elbo
madam.
F1:
Adopted reading (this edition):
Et comment appelez-vous le menton et le col?
Q1:
E Coman sa pella vow la menton a la coll.
Et comment s’appelez-vous le menton et le col?
Adopted reading (this edition):
Comment appelez-vous
Q1:
Coman se pella vou
Adopted reading (this edition):
parler ce plus devant
Q1:
parle, Sie plus deuant
Adopted reading (F2):
Mort de ma vie!
substantively
Q1:
Mordeu ma via:
Mort Dieu! Ma vie!
conjectured by Greg
Adopted reading (this edition):
they o’ more / Frosty climate
Q1:
they a more frosty clymate
F1:
a more frostie People
Adopted reading (Q1):
therefore!
Adopted reading (Q1):
Come, come away … the day.
Q1:
Come, come away: / The Sun is hie, and we weare out the
day.
F1:
Come, come away, / The Sunne is high, and we out-weare the
day.
These appear as the final lines of 4.2 in F.
Adopted reading (Q1):
le Roy.
Adopted reading (this edition):
Exeunt Gower and Flewellen.
Q1:
Exit Gower, and Flewellen.
Adopted reading (this edition):
You’re an ass. Go.
Q1:
your a nasse goe.
Q2:
you are an asse goe.
Q3:
you are a nasse, goe.
F1:
Adopted reading (Theobald 1740):
Exeunt the soldiers.
Q1:
Exit the Souldiers.
Adopted reading (Taylor 1982):
Warwick,
Adopted reading (Pope):
Whilst by a slave
Q1:
Why least by a slaue
F1:
Whilst a base slaue
F2:
Whilst by a base slave
Adopted reading (this edition):
Come we: in heaps we’ll
Q1:
Come we in heapes, weele
F1:
Let vs on heapes go
Adopted reading (Q1):
On y est ma foy! Couple la gorge!
Q1:
Ony e ma foy couple la gorge.
F1:
Owy, cuppele gorge permafoy
Adopted reading (Q1):
die. One point of a fox.
Q1:
dye. One point of a foxe.
Q2:
dye. /
One point of a Foxe.
F1:
dyest on point of Fox.
Adopted reading (this edition):
rançon
Adopted reading (this edition):
rançon
Adopted reading (Taylor 1982):
Enter Exeter.
Adopted reading (this edition):
honor-dyeing wounds,
Q1:
honour dying wounds
Adopted reading (this edition):
sealed: an argument
Q1:
sealed. An argument
F1:
seal’d / A Testament
Adopted reading (this edition):
Enter King and the lords, among them an English herald.
Q1:
Enter King and the Lords.
Q3:
Enter the King and his Lords.
F1:
Alarum. Enter King Harry and Burbon
Adopted reading (Craig):
Exit French and English
heralds, and Gower.
Q1:
Exit Heralds.
F1:
Exeunt Heralds with Montjoy
Adopted reading (Capell 1779):
Gives him 2 Soldier’s glove
Adopted reading (this edition):
Of noble chevaliers,
Q1:
Of Nobelle Charillas,
Adopted reading (Capell 1779):
Takes a paper
Adopted reading (Q3):
He makes Ancient Pistol bite of the leek.
Q3:
He makes Ancient Pistoll bite of the Leeke.
Q1:
Adopted reading (Q1):
Doll
Adopted reading (this edition):
both, your mightiness,
Q1:
both your mightines.
Adopted reading (this edition):
Exeunt all but … Alice.
Q1:
Exit King and the Lords. Manet, Hrry, Kathe- /
rine, and the Gentlewoman.
Adopted reading (Q1):
take me, take a soldier.
Q1:
take me, / Take a souldier:
F1:
take me; take a Souldier:
Adopted reading (Capell 1779):
Alice
substantively, throughout the scene
Characters
The English
King Henry V
The eldest son (1386–1422) of King Henry IV,
Henry reigned from 1413 until his death. He is mentioned in Richard II as the
unthrifty sonof King Henry IV (R2 5.3.1), and figures as the protagonist in 1H4 and 2H4. He is best remembered, largely because of Shakespeare’s play, as one of the temporary conquerors of France during the Hundred Years’ War, and indeed this play focuses almost entirely on the first of his three campaigns in France, in 1415. Among his domestic accomplishments are the establishment of English, not Anglo-Norman French, as the language of government, which may be reflected in Shakespeare’s portrait of a king who struggles to speak French, and the unification of his kingdom after civil wars that troubled his father’s reign. Shakespeare’s audience would also have known him as a persecutor of the Lollards, a heretical Christian movement that advocated English translation of the bible, and whose agitation in early 1414 Henry quickly quelled (see introduction). V
Duke of Clarence, brother to the king
Thomas of Lancaster, first Duke of
Clarence (1387–1421), was the second son of Henry IV. He has a speaking role
in 2 Henry IV, and takes a line assigned to Bedford
in the Folio; he may also speak the line assigned to
Lordin Scene 1, in which he otherwise does not speak. Historically, Clarence took very little part in the 1415 campaign, being invalided home with dysentery at the siege of Harfleur, though he did participate in later French campaigns, meeting his death at the battle of Baugé.
Duke of Bedford, brother to the king
John of Lancaster, first Duke of Bedford
(1389–1435), was the third son of Henry IV. He appears as Bedford in folio
Henry V and 1 Henry VI,
and as Prince John of Lancaster in the Henry IV
plays. After King Henry’s death, Bedford was named Regent, but focused his
energy on the war in France, while his younger brother Humphrey of
Gloucester became Lord Protector. He served as Lieutenant of England
throughout the 1415 campaign.
Duke of Gloucester, brother to the king
Humphrey of Lancaster, first Duke of
Gloucester (1391–1447) was the fourth and youngest son of Henry IV. He
appears as a main character in 1 Henry VI and in
2 Henry VI, which includes, as its Folio title
promises, the tragic
death of the Good Duke HVMFREY.Historically, he was instrumental in the siege of Harfleur, and was wounded at Agincourt:
The duke of Glocester the kings brother was sore wounded about the hips, and borne downe to the ground, so that he fell backwards, with his feet towards his enimies, whom the king bestrid, and like a brother valiantlie rescued from his enimies, & so sauing his life, caused him to be conueied out of the fight, into a place of more safetie. (Holinshed, Chronicles 1587 555)Gloucester became Lord Protector of England during the minority of Henry VI, and died in disgrace after his wife Eleanor Cobham was accused of sorcery.
Duke of Exeter, uncle of the king
Thomas Beaufort (ca. 1377–1426), Henry’s
Uncle of ExeterSc3 Sp11() was the illegitimate (later legitimated) son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and therefore half-brother of Henry IV. He was not created Duke of Exeter until 1416. He held Harfleur for the English during the 1415 campaign.
Duke of York, cousin to the king
Edward of Norwich, second Duke of York
(1373–1415), was a first cousin of Henry V. He appears as the Duke of
Aumerle in Richard II, but is unseen in the Henry
IV plays. His title was inherited from his father Edmund Langley (the Duke
of York in Richard II), and passed eventually to
his nephew Richard, whose claim to the throne precipitated the Wars of the
Roses, as dramatized in 2 Henry VI and 3 Henry VI. Shakespeare makes explicit neither his
connection to Richard II nor his offspring’s claim,
nor for that matter the fact that his younger brother was Cambridge, the
traitor of Scene 3. York’s death at Agincourt is the tragic theme of Scene
15, though historically his death was less chivalry than ignoble accident:
he smothered to death under a pile of corpses when unhorsed in the chaos of
battle.
Earl of Warwick
Richard Beauchamp, thirteenth Earl of
Warwick (1382–1439), also appears in 1 Henry VI.
His presence at Agincourt is unhistorical; various sources have him either
holding Calais for the English or returning to England with Clarence after
Harfleur.
Earl of Salisbury
Thomas Montacute or Montagu, fourth
Earl of Salisbury (1388–1428), was one of the peers who tried Cambridge for
treason, fought at Harfleur and Agincourt, and led English forces in France
until his death at the siege of Orléans.
Two Bishops
Both are unnamed in Q, which requires only one
bishop to speak. Historically this was Henry Chichele (ca. 1364–1443),
Archbishop of Canterbury.
Earl of Cambridge, conspirator
Richard Plantagenet, third
Earl of Cambridge (ca. 1375–5 August 1415), was the second son of Edmund of
Langley, Duke of York, and younger brother of Edward of Norwich, (York in
Henry V). He was the father of Richard, Duke of York, and grandfather of
Edward IV and Richard III. See Sc3 Sp25 n.
conspirator
Baron Masham, conspirator
Henry Scrope, third Baron
of Masham (ca. 1376–1415), was a loyal supporter of King Henry IV, who made
him Lord Treasurer and Knight of the Garter in 1410, and a close friend of
Henry V, who sent him on diplomatic missions to France in the years leading
up to the 1415 campaign. His motives for participation in the Southampton
plot are unknown. See Sc3 Sp3 n.
Sir Thomas Grey
Sir Thomas Grey of Heaton Moor,
Northumberland (1384–1415) was a brother of Sir John Grey, who served with
distinction in the French campaigns.
Ancient Pistol
Pistol, whose name suggests both the
notoriously inaccurate and noisy firearm and, through its likely
pronunciation (
pizzle), a penis (see Sc2 Sp16 n.), is a recurring comic character who appears in 2 Henry IV and Merry Wives as an associate of Sir John Falstaff. His appearance here in a more major role suggested to John Dover Wilson that he was a late replacement for Falstaff, who had originally been intended—as the epilogue to 2H4 suggests (2H4 Epilogue 21–22)—to participate in Henry’s French wars. FM A3 Sc6 Sp23 suggests that he was originally played with a beard. The Oxford editors made the case for modernizing Pistol’s rank to
Ensign,which does occur once in the quarto (Sc9 Sp4 ), but since
Ancient Pistolis the more recognized name of the character I have chosen not to do so. At any rate, since ensign is chiefly now a naval rank, such a modernization would be somewhat inaccurate. See Sc2 Sp2 n.
Hostess, formerly Mistress Quickly, married to Pistol.
Mistress of an inn, perhaps with the connotation
of prostitution. The Hostess is evidently the
same character who appears in the Henry IV plays as
the keeper of an Eastcheap tavern and in Merry
Wives as a suburban housekeeper. She is a wife in 1 Henry IV, a widow in 2 Henry
IV, and the unmarried object of Pistol’s affection in Merry Wives. She is named Mistress Quickly in the
dialogue and some speech prefixes in those plays, but only gets a first
name, Nell, in Henry V (FM A2 Sc1 Sp10). The Hostess was
originally played by a boy actor.
Lieutenant Bardolph
Corporal Nym
Nym appears in Merry
Wives as a companion of Sir John Falstaff. For his rank see Sc2 Sp1 n. and Sc2 Sp2 n. His name means
thiefor
to thieve(OED nim, n.1, v. 4.). The puritan Nicholas, in Middleton’s The Puritan, comically uses the word—as Bardolph and Nym use
purchase(FM A3 Sc2 Sp10)—as a euphemism to satisfy his legalistic scruples:
.(Middleton 1.4.143–146)NICHOLASThat’s the word literal, thou shalt not steal. And would you wish me to steal then?PRDIEBOARDNo, faith, that were too much, to speak truth. Why, wilt thou nim it from him?NICHOLASThat I will.
Boy
The page, or serving boy, attendant upon Falstaff,
the boy appears in 2 Henry IV and (with the name
Robin) Merry Wives. The role originally required a
boy actor with the ability to speak French, and may have been doubled, as it
is in some modern productions, with the role of Catherine.
Gower, an English captain
Gower is Shakespeare’s invention. Taylor argues
that he is the
Master Gowerof 2 Henry IV (2H4 2.1.109–157), but the name might also allude to the famous English poet John Gower—whom Shakespeare would later stage as the presenter of Pericles.
Flewellen, a Welsh captain
Flewellen’s name (Fluellen in F) is a phonetic
rendering of the common Welsh surname
Llewellyn,but since he is based on no historical figure and exists solely as a dramatic character, there is no need to emend the name to its more usual spelling, as Gurr does. The character was popular enough to appear, with Macmorris, in a 1720 comedy, Charles Molloy’s The Half-pay Officers, with half-parodic lines taken liberally from Shakespeare’s play. Lisa Hopkins suggests that Flewellen must have been played by the same Welsh-accented actor who had portrayed Glendower in 1 Henry IV
and is thus, in the double-haunted world of these plays, his symbolic replacement(Hopkins 64).
Three Soldiers
Herald
an officer in charge of bearing messages between
royalty and in keeping track of the names and coats of arms of the nobility. A
mute role that may be easily cut or conflated with the French Herald
(Montjoy).
The French
French King, Charles VI
King Charles VI of France (1380–1422), was
known both as Charles the Beloved and, because of occasional bouts of
insanity (probably schizophrenia), Charles the Mad. His madness, which
helped enable civil conflict in France and the English invasion, is not
mentioned by Shakespeare, who knew from his source that the French king
suffered from an
old disease of frensie(Holinshed, Chronicles, 1587, 547). Charles outlived Henry V by two months.
Dauphin, the French king’s son
Louis (1397–1415) was the eldest
surviving son of Charles and Isabeau to hold the title of dauphin; ten years
younger than King Henry, he did not fight at Agincourt, but died, probably
of dysentery, shortly after the battle. He was succeeded as dauphin by his
brother John, and then in 1417 by his brother Charles, who assassinated Duke
John of Burgundy and later became the King Charles VII depicted by
Shakespeare in 1 Henry VI. On the traditional title of the heir to the
French throne, derived from the dolphin heraldry he carried, see Sc1 Sp15 n. The role requires
the ability to speak French. In Q, the role is much diminished, as
Shakespeare adheres to history in keeping the dauphin from Agincourt and
gives his lines to Bourbon.
Catherine, the French king’s daughter
Catherine (1401–37) was Henry’s Queen consort
from the Treaty of Troyes until his death, after which she secretly married
the Welsh soldier Owain Tudor, founding the Tudor dynasty. As Queen
Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother, she provided much of the legitimacy for
her rule, and her appearance in the play underscores the discussion of
female succession and the Salic law in Scene 1. Her role was originally
played by a boy actor who could speak French.
Alice, Catherineʼs waiting woman
another boy actor’s role requiring the ability to
speak French.
Constable of Francce
Charles d’Albret (d. 1415) held the office of
Constable of France—a chief officer of the French royal household who
commanded the army in the king’s absence—from 1402–1411 and again from 1413
until his death at Agincourt, at which he was nominal commander (along with
Marshal Jean Boucicaut) of the French forces.
Duke of Burgundy
Philip the Good (1396–1467) was
twenty-four when he helped negotiate the Treaty of Troyes (Scene 19) and
should perhaps therefore be acted by a young man.
Duke of Bourbon
John I, Duke of Bourbon (1381–1434) was a
maternal uncle to King Charles VI. He was captured at Agincourt and lived
out his remaining years in England. His role in Q is greatly expanded, as he
is given lines ascribed to the dauphin in F.
Duke of Orléans
Charles, Duke of Orléans (1394–1465) was
a nephew of King Charles VI and head of the Armagnac faction of French
nobles, enemies of the Burgundians, who had assassinated Charles’s father in
1407. Because he was in line for the French throne, after his capture at
Agincourt he was deemed too important to ransom, and lived as a prisoner in
England for twenty-four years.
Duke of Berry
John, Duke of Berry (1340–1416) was the son
of King John II and uncle to Charles VI, during whose bouts of insanity he
sometimes served as regent. A herald in his employ is one of the chief
historical accounts of Agincourt, but though he may appear onstage in the
play in Scene 5, his is a mute role.
Gebon
Either the name of a fictional French lord or that
of an actor portraying the role. See Sc10 SD1 n.
Montjoy the Herald
Shakespeare takes Montjoy to be a
name, when it was in fact the title of the chief herald, or king-at-arms, of
the French (see Sc8 Sp5 n.), as instituted
in 1406 by Charles VI. I have not regularized to the more usual Mountjoye or
Montjoie, as the Folio’s spelling (Montioy) represents a fictional character
as Shakespeare envisioned him. By coincidence, Mountjoy was the surname of
the family from whom Shakespeare rented lodgings in London sometime before
1604, as well as of Elizabeth’s governor in Ireland from 1600–1603 (see FM
A5 Sc0 Sp1
n.).
Governor of Harfleur
Contemporary accounts differ as to who was
captain of Harfleur during the siege (see Curry 84–85).
Ambassador to England
Holinshed mentions an embassy from the
Archbishop of Bourges (Chronicles 1587 547), and in Famous
Victories this is equated with the earlier embassy of the tennis
balls (FV sig. D3r), also depicted in Scene 1, but Shakespeare
gives no indication that the ambassador is a prelate. The text seems to call
for only one ambassador at times (Sc1 Sp16, Sc5 Sp3) and for more than
one at other times (Sc1 Sp1, Sc1 SD3); if a second
ambassador appears onstage, he is mute.
French Soldier
Monsieur le Fer (“iron”):
an incongriuous enough name for a soldier who yields to Pistol(Craik). The role requires the ability to speak French. Monsieur le Fer.
Messenger
Lord
Prosopography
Chris Horne
Donald Bailey
Eric Rasmussen
Eric Rasmussen is Regents Teaching Professor and Foundation Professor of English at
the University of Nevada. He is co-editor with Sir Jonathan Bate of the RSC William Shakespeare Complete Works and general editor, with Paul Werstine, of the New Variorum Shakespeare. He has received the Falstaff Award from PlayShakespeare.com for Best Shakespearean Book of the Year in 2007, 2012, and 2013.
James D. Mardock
James Mardock is Associate Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Associate
General Editor for the Internet Shakespeare Editions, and a dramaturge for the Lake
Tahoe Shakespeare Festival and Reno Little Theater. In addition to editing quarto
and folio Henry V for the ISE, he has published essays on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other Renaissance
literature in The Seventeenth Century, Ben Jonson Journal, Borrowers and Lenders, and contributed to the collections Representing the Plague in Early Modern England (Routledge 2010) and Shakespeare Beyond Doubt (Cambridge 2013). His book Our Scene is London (Routledge 2008) examines Jonsonʼs representation of urban space as an element in
his strategy of self-definition. With Kathryn McPherson, he edited Stages of Engagement (Duquesne 2013), a collection of essays on drama in post-Reformation England, and
he is currently at work on a monograph on Calvinism and metatheatrical awareness in
early modern English drama.
Janelle Jenstad
Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director
of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.
Joey Takeda
Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020
after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.
Martin Holmes
Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVicʼs Humanities Computing and Media
Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities
projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the
Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020.
He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.
Michael Best
Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He is the Founding
Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions, of which he was the Coordinating Editor
until 2017. In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and
huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on
Electronic Shakespeares,and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.
Navarra Houldin
Project manager 2022–present. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them)
completed their BA in History and Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. During
their degree, they worked as a teaching assistant with the University of Victoriaʼs
Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies. Their primary research was on gender and
sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America.
Nicole Vatcher
Technical Documentation Writer, 2020–2022. Nicole Vatcher completed her BA (Hons.)
in English at the University of Victoria in 2021. Her primary research focus was womenʼs
writing in the modernist period.
Tracey El Hajj
Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD
from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science
and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched
Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on
Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life.Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.
William Shakespeare
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Orgography
Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE1)
The Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE) was a major digital humanities project created
by Emeritus Professor Michael Best at the University of Victoria. The ISE server was retired in 2018 but a final staticized HTML version of the Internet Shakespeare Editions project is still hosted at UVic.
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
University of Victoria (UVIC1)
https://www.uvic.ca/Witnesses
Boswell, James, the Younger. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. 21 vols. London, 1821. Boswell.
Capell, Edward, ed. The Works of Shakespeare. 10 vols. London, 1767–1768; rpt. 1774; rpt. 1779.
Collier, John Payne, ed. The Works of William Shakespeare. 8 vols. London: Whittaker & Co., 1842–1844.
Craig, Hardin, ed. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Ed. David Bevington. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1973.
Dyce, Alexander, ed. The Works of William Shakespeare.
6 vols. London: Edward
Moxon, 1857.
Gurr, Andrew, ed. King Henry V. New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; rpt. 2005. WSB aaq278.
Gurr, Andrew, ed. The First Quarto of Henry V. New Cambridge Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. WSB aab370.
Hudson, Henry N.
The Complete Works of William
Shakespeare. 11 vols.
London,
1856.
Knight, Charles, ed. The Pictorial Edition of the Works of
Shakspere. 6 vols.
London, 1838–1843.
Malone, Edmond, ed. The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare. 10 vols. London: J. Rivingston and Sons, 1790. ESTC T138858.
Moore Smith, G.C. Henry V. Warwick Shakespeare. London: Blackie and Son, 1893.
Mowat, Barbara K., and Paul Werstine, eds. The Life of Henry V. The New Folger Library Shakespeare. New York: Washington Square Press, 1995. WSB ai89.
Pope, Alexander, ed. The Works of Mr William Shakespear. 6 vols. London, 1723; rpt. 8 vols. London, 1728.
Rowe, Nicholas, ed. The Works of Mr William Shakespear. 6 vols. London, 1709; rpt. 8 vols. 1714. ESTC T138296.
Shakespeare, William. Mr William Shakespeares comedies, histories & tragedies: Published according to the
true originall copies. London: William Jaggard, 1623. STC 22273. ESTC S111228. DEEP 5081.
Shakespeare, William. Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies. London: Robert Allot, 1632. STC 22274. ESTC S111233.
Shakespeare, William. Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. London: Herringman, 1685. Wing S2915. ESTC R25621.
Shakespeare, William. The Chronicle History of Henry the Fifth
with his Battle Fought at Agincourt in
France. London,
1600. STC 22289. ESTC S111105.
Shakespeare, William. The Chronicle History of Henry the Fifth
with his Battle Fought at Agincourt in
France. London,
1602. STC 22290. ESTC S111108.
Shakespeare, William. The Chronicle History of Henry the Fifth
with his Battle Fought at Agincourt in
France. London,
1619. STC 22291. ESTC S111119.
Taylor, Gary, ed. Henry V. The Oxford Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. WSB ap267.
Taylor, Gary.
Shakespeare’s Leno: Henry V IV.V.14.Notes and Queries 26.2 (1979): 117–118. WSB bs597.
Theobald, Lewis. Shakespeare Restored: or, a Specimen of the Many Errors, as well Committed, as Unamended,
by Mr. Pope in his Late Edition of this Poet. London, 1726. ESTC T136611.
Wilson, John Dover, ed. Henry V.
Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press,
1947.
Metadata
| Authority title | Henry V, Quarto |
| Type of text | Primary Source Text |
| Publisher | University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
| Series | |
| Source |
Modern, Quarto
Old URI: https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/H5_Q1M/complete
|
| Editorial declaration | This edition takes the 1600 first quarto copy text, modernizing spelling and punctuation according to the guidelines and rationale laid out by Stanley Wells in Modernizing Shakespeare’s Spelling (1979). It has been conservatively emended, maintaining the first quarto’s readings wherever it has been possible to justify their sense. For individual textual cruxes, see commentary notes; for a fuller description of the editorial rationale, see the textual essay. |
| Edition | Released with LEMDO Editions for Peer Review 0.1.5 |
| Sponsor(s) |
New Internet Shakespeare EditionsThe Coordinating Editors of the NISE are Brett Greatley-Hirsch, Janelle Jenstad, James
Mardock, and Sarah Neville.
|
| Encoding description | |
| Document status | draft, peer-reviewed |
| Funder(s) | Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada |
| License/availability |
Intellectual copyright in this edition is held by the editor, James Mardock. The XML files of the semi-diplomatic and modern texts are licensed for reuse under
a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license, which means that they are freely downloadable without permission under the following
conditions: (1) credit must be given to the editor, NISE, and LEMDO in any subsequent
use of the files and/or data; (2) derivatives (e.g., adapted scripts for performance)
must be shared under the same CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license; and (3) commercial uses are
not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the editor, NISE, and LEMDO.
|