SCENE I. The English camp at Agincourt. The Life of King Henry the Fifth  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry V  | Act 4, Scene 1 

 Previous scene  |  Next scene  SCENE I. The English camp at Agincourt. 

 Enter KING HENRY, BEDFORD, and GLOUCESTER  KING HENRY V  Gloucester, 'tis true that we are in great danger; 

 The greater therefore should our courage be. 

 Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty! 

 There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 

 Would men observingly distil it out. 

 For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers, 

 Which is both healthful and good husbandry: 

 Besides, they are our outward consciences, 

 And preachers to us all, admonishing 

 That we should dress us fairly for our end. 

 Thus may we gather honey from the weed, 

 And make a moral of the devil himself. 



 Enter ERPINGHAM  Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham: 

 A good soft pillow for that good white head 

 Were better than a churlish turf of France. 

 ERPINGHAM  Not so, my liege: this lodging likes me better, 

 Since I may say 'Now lie I like a king.' 

 KING HENRY V  'Tis good for men to love their present pains 

 Upon example; so the spirit is eased: 

 And when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt, 

 The organs, though defunct and dead before, 

 Break up their drowsy grave and newly move, 

 With casted slough and fresh legerity. 

 Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both, 

 Commend me to the princes in our camp; 

 Do my good morrow to them, and anon 

 Desire them an to my pavilion. 

 GLOUCESTER  We shall, my liege. 

 ERPINGHAM  Shall I attend your grace? 

 KING HENRY V  No, my good knight; 

 Go with my brothers to my lords of England: 

 I and my bosom must debate awhile, 

 And then I would no other company. 

 ERPINGHAM  The Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry! 



 Exeunt all but KING HENRY  KING HENRY V  God-a-mercy, old heart! thou speak'st cheerfully. 



 Enter PISTOL  PISTOL  Qui va la? 

 KING HENRY V  A friend. 

 PISTOL  Discuss unto me; art thou officer? 

 Or art thou base, common and popular? 

 KING HENRY V  I am a gentleman of a company. 

 PISTOL  Trail'st thou the puissant pike? 

 KING HENRY V  Even so. What are you? 

 PISTOL  As good a gentleman as the emperor. 

 KING HENRY V  Then you are a better than the king. 

 PISTOL  The king's a bawcock, 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 heart-string 

 I love the lovely bully. What is thy name? 

 KING HENRY V  Harry le Roy. 

 PISTOL  Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of Cornish crew? 

 KING HENRY V  No, I am a Welshman. 

 PISTOL  Know'st thou Fluellen? 

 KING HENRY V  Yes. 

 PISTOL  Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate 

 Upon Saint Davy's day. 

 KING HENRY V  Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, 

 lest he knock that about yours. 

 PISTOL  Art thou his friend? 

 KING HENRY V  And his kinsman too. 

 PISTOL  The figo for thee, then! 

 KING HENRY V  I thank you: God be with you! 

 PISTOL  My name is Pistol call'd. 



 Exit  KING HENRY V  It sorts well with your fierceness. 



 Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER  GOWER  Captain Fluellen! 

 FLUELLEN  So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is 

 the greatest admiration of the universal world, when 

 the true and aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the 

 wars is not kept: if you would take the pains but to 

 examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall 

 find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle toddle 

 nor pibble pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you, 

 you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and the 

 cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety 

 of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise. 

 GOWER  Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night. 

 FLUELLEN  If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating 

 coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, 

 look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating 

 coxcomb? in your own conscience, now? 

 GOWER  I will speak lower. 

 FLUELLEN  I pray you and beseech you that you will. 



 Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN  KING HENRY V  Though it appear a little out of fashion, 

 There is much care and valour in this Welshman. 



 Enter three soldiers, JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT, and MICHAEL WILLIAMS  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. 



 Exeunt soldiers  Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls, 

 Our debts, our careful wives, 

 Our children and our sins lay on the king! 

 We must bear all. O hard condition, 

 Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath 

 Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel 

 But his own wringing! What infinite heart's-ease 

 Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! 

 And what have kings, that privates have not too, 

 Save ceremony, save general ceremony? 

 And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? 

 What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more 

 Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? 

 What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? 

 O ceremony, show me but thy worth! 

 What is thy soul of adoration? 

 Art thou aught else but place, degree and form, 

 Creating awe and fear in other men? 

 Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd 

 Than they in fearing. 

 What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet, 

 But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness, 

 And bid thy ceremony give thee cure! 

 Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out 

 With titles blown from adulation? 

 Will it give place to flexure and low bending? 

 Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee, 

 Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream, 

 That play'st so subtly with a king's repose; 

 I am a king that find thee, and I know 

 'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball, 

 The sword, the mace, the crown imperial, 

 The intertissued robe of gold and pearl, 

 The farced title running 'fore the king, 

 The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp 

 That beats upon the high shore of this world, 

 No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony, 

 Not all these, laid in bed majestical, 

 Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, 

 Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind 

 Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread; 

 Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, 

 But, like a lackey, from the rise to set 

 Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night 

 Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn, 

 Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse, 

 And follows so the ever-running year, 

 With profitable labour, to his grave: 

 And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, 

 Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep, 

 Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. 

 The slave, a member of the country's peace, 

 Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots 

 What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, 

 Whose hours the peasant best advantages. 



 Enter ERPINGHAM  ERPINGHAM  My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence, 

 Seek through your camp to find you. 

 KING HENRY V  Good old knight, 

 Collect them all together at my tent: 

 I'll be before thee. 

 ERPINGHAM  I shall do't, my lord. 



 Exit  KING HENRY V  O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts; 

 Possess them not with fear; take from them now 

 The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers 

 Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord, 

 O, not to-day, think not upon the fault 

 My father made in compassing the crown! 

 I Richard's body have interred anew; 

 And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears 

 Than from it issued forced drops of blood: 

 Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay, 

 Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up 

 Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built 

 Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests 

 Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do; 

 Though all that I can do is nothing worth, 

 Since that my penitence comes after all, 

 Imploring pardon. 



 Enter GLOUCESTER  GLOUCESTER  My liege! 

 KING HENRY V  My brother Gloucester's voice? Ay; 

 I know thy errand, I will go with thee: 

 The day, my friends and all things stay for me. 



 Exeunt  Shakespeare homepage  |  Henry V  | Act 4, Scene 1 

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