COURT Brother John Bates, is not that...

COURT

Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which

breaks yonder?

BATES

I think it be: but we have no great cause to desire

the approach of day.

WILLIAMS

We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think

we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?

KING HENRY V

A friend.

WILLIAMS

Under what captain serve you?

KING HENRY V

Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

WILLIAMS

A good old commander and a most kind gentleman: I

pray you, what thinks he of our estate?

KING HENRY V

Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be

washed off the next tide.

BATES

He hath not told his thought to the king?

KING HENRY V

No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I

speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I

am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the

element shows to him as it doth to me; all his

senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies

laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and

though his affections are higher mounted than ours,

yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like

wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we

do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish

as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess

him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing

it, should dishearten his army.

BATES

He may show what outward courage he will; but I

believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish

himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he

were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

KING HENRY V

By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king:

I think he would not wish himself any where but

where he is.

BATES

Then I would he were here alone; so should he be

sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.

KING HENRY V

I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here

alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's

minds: methinks I could not die any where so

contented as in the king's company; his cause being

just and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMS

That's more than we know.

BATES

Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know

enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if

his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes

the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath

a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and

arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join

together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at

such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a

surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind

them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their

children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die

well that die in a battle; for how can they

charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their

argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it

will be a black matter for the king that led them to

it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of

subjection.

KING HENRY V

So, if a son that is by his father sent about

merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the

imputation of his wickedness by your rule, should be

imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a

servant, under his master's command transporting a

sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in

many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the

business of the master the author of the servant's

damnation: but this is not so: the king is not

bound to answer the particular endings of his

soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of

his servant; for they purpose not their death, when

they purpose their services. Besides, there is no

king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to

the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all

unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them

the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder;

some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of

perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that

have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with

pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have

defeated the law and outrun native punishment,

though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to

fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance;

so that here men are punished for before-breach of

the king's laws in now the king's quarrel: where

they feared the death, they have borne life away;

and where they would be safe, they perish: then if

they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of

their damnation than he was before guilty of those

impieties for the which they are now visited. Every

subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's

soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in

the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every

mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death

is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was

blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:

and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think

that, making God so free an offer, He let him

outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach

others how they should prepare.

WILLIAMS

'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon

his own head, the king is not to answer it.

BATES

But I do not desire he should answer for me; and

yet I determine to fight lustily for him.

KING HENRY V

I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.

WILLIAMS

Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but

when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we

ne'er the wiser.

KING HENRY V

If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

WILLIAMS

You pay him then. That's a perilous shot out of an

elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can

do against a monarch! you may as well go about to

turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a

peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word

after! come, 'tis a foolish saying.

KING HENRY V

Your reproof is something too round: I should be

angry with you, if the time were convenient.

WILLIAMS

Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

KING HENRY V

I embrace it.

WILLIAMS

How shall I know thee again?

KING HENRY V

Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my

bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I

will make it my quarrel.

WILLIAMS

Here's my glove: give me another of thine.

KING HENRY V

There.

WILLIAMS

This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou come

to me and say, after to-morrow, 'This is my glove,'

by this hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.

KING HENRY V

If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

WILLIAMS

Thou darest as well be hanged.

KING HENRY V

Well. I will do it, though I take thee in the

king's company.

WILLIAMS

Keep thy word: fare thee well.

BATES

Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have

French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.

KING HENRY V

Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to

one, they will beat us; for they bear them on their

shoulders: but it is no English treason to cut

French crowns, and to-morrow the king himself will

be a clipper.