SCENE IV. France. The KING'S palace. The Life of King Henry the Fifth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry V  | Act 2, Scene 4 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE IV. France. The KING'S palace. 

 Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the DUKES of BERRI and BRETAGNE, the Constable, and others  KING OF FRANCE  Thus comes the English with full power upon us; 

 And more than carefully it us concerns 

 To answer royally in our defences. 

 Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bretagne, 

 Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth, 

 And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch, 

 To line and new repair our towns of war 

 With men of courage and with means defendant; 

 For England his approaches makes as fierce 

 As waters to the sucking of a gulf. 

 It fits us then to be as provident 

 As fear may teach us out of late examples 

 Left by the fatal and neglected English 

 Upon our fields. 

 DAUPHIN  My most redoubted father, 

 It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe; 

 For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom, 

 Though war nor no known quarrel were in question, 

 But that defences, musters, preparations, 

 Should be maintain'd, assembled and collected, 

 As were a war in expectation. 

 Therefore, I say 'tis meet we all go forth 

 To view the sick and feeble parts of France: 

 And let us do it with no show of fear; 

 No, with no more than if we heard that England 

 Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance: 

 For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd, 

 Her sceptre so fantastically borne 

 By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth, 

 That fear attends her not. 

 Constable  O peace, Prince Dauphin! 

 You are too much mistaken in this king: 

 Question your grace the late ambassadors, 

 With what great state he heard their embassy, 

 How well supplied with noble counsellors, 

 How modest in exception, and withal 

 How terrible in constant resolution, 

 And you shall find his vanities forespent 

 Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus, 

 Covering discretion with a coat of folly; 

 As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots 

 That shall first spring and be most delicate. 

 DAUPHIN  Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable; 

 But though we think it so, it is no matter: 

 In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh 

 The enemy more mighty than he seems: 

 So the proportions of defence are fill'd; 

 Which of a weak or niggardly projection 

 Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting 

 A little cloth. 

 KING OF FRANCE  Think we King Harry strong; 

 And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him. 

 The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us; 

 And he is bred out of that bloody strain 

 That haunted us in our familiar paths: 

 Witness our too much memorable shame 

 When Cressy battle fatally was struck, 

 And all our princes captiv'd by the hand 

 Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales; 

 Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing, 

 Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun, 

 Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him, 

 Mangle the work of nature and deface 

 The patterns that by God and by French fathers 

 Had twenty years been made. This is a stem 

 Of that victorious stock; and let us fear 

 The native mightiness and fate of him. 



 Enter a Messenger  Messenger  Ambassadors from Harry King of England 

 Do crave admittance to your majesty. 

 KING OF FRANCE  We'll give them present audience. Go, and bring them. 



 Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords  You see this chase is hotly follow'd, friends. 

 DAUPHIN  Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs 

 Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten 

 Runs far before them. Good my sovereign, 

 Take up the English short, and let them know 

 Of what a monarchy you are the head: 

 Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin 

 As self-neglecting. 



 Re-enter Lords, with EXETER and train  KING OF FRANCE  From our brother England? 

 EXETER  From him; and thus he greets your majesty. 

 He wills you, in the name of God Almighty, 

 That you divest yourself, and lay apart 

 The borrow'd glories that by gift of heaven, 

 By law of nature and of nations, 'long 

 To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown 

 And all wide-stretched honours that pertain 

 By custom and the ordinance of times 

 Unto the crown of France. That you may know 

 'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim, 

 Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days, 

 Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked, 

 He sends you this most memorable line, 

 In every branch truly demonstrative; 

 Willing to overlook this pedigree: 

 And when you find him evenly derived 

 From his most famed of famous ancestors, 

 Edward the Third, he bids you then resign 

 Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held 

 From him the native and true challenger. 

 KING OF FRANCE  Or else what follows? 

 EXETER  Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown 

 Even 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; 

 And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord, 

 Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy 

 On the poor souls for whom this hungry war 

 Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head 

 Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries 

 The dead men's blood, the pining maidens groans, 

 For husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers, 

 That shall be swallow'd in this controversy. 

 This is his claim, his threatening and my message; 

 Unless the Dauphin be in presence here, 

 To whom expressly I bring greeting too. 

 KING OF FRANCE  For us, we will consider of this further: 

 To-morrow shall you bear our full intent 

 Back to our brother England. 

 DAUPHIN  For the Dauphin, 

 I stand here for him: what to him from England? 

 EXETER  Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt, 

 And any thing that may not misbecome 

 The mighty sender, doth he prize you at. 

 Thus says my king; an' if your father's highness 

 Do not, in grant of all demands at large, 

 Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty, 

 He'll call you to so hot an answer of it, 

 That caves and womby vaultages of France 

 Shall chide your trespass and return your mock 

 In second accent of his ordnance. 

 DAUPHIN  Say, if my father render fair return, 

 It is against my will; for I desire 

 Nothing but odds with England: to that end, 

 As matching to his youth and vanity, 

 I did present him with the Paris balls. 

 EXETER  He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it, 

 Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe: 

 And, be assured, you'll find a difference, 

 As we his subjects have in wonder found, 

 Between the promise of his greener days 

 And these he masters now: now he weighs time 

 Even to the utmost grain: that you shall read 

 In your own losses, if he stay in France. 

 KING OF FRANCE  To-morrow shall you know our mind at full. 

 EXETER  Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king 

 Come here himself to question our delay; 

 For he is footed in this land already. 

 KING OF FRANCE  You shall be soon dispatch's with fair conditions: 

 A night is but small breath and little pause 

 To answer matters of this consequence. 



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