WILL. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but, I think, we shall never see the end of it.Who goes there?

K. HEN. A friend.

WILL. Under what captain serve you?

K. HEN. Under sir Thomas* Erpingham. WILL. A good old commander, and a most kind gentleman: I pray you, what thinks he of our estate?

K. HEN. 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? K. HEN. 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.

K. HEN. 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.

K. HEN. 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. WILL. 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 king's subjects: if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

WILL. 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 a 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

(*) Old copy, John.

• Contrived murder ;] Plotted, preconcerted murder. Thus, in

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; who to disobey, were against all proportion of subjection.

K. HEN. 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 his 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.

WILL. 'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head, the king is not to answer it.

BATES. I do not desire he should answer for me, and yet I determine to fight lustily for him.

"Othello," Act I. Sc. 2:

"Yet do I hold it very stuff o' th' conscience, To do no contriv'd murder."

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

WILL. 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.

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

*

WILL. 'Mass, 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.

K. HEN. Your reproof is something too round; I should be angry with you, if the time were convenient.

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

WILL. Thou darest as well be hanged.

K. HEN. Well, I will do it, though I take thee in the king's company.

WILL. 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.

K. HEN. 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

(*) First folio omits, 'Mass.

a Ceremony?] See note (c), p. 23.

b What is thy soul, O adoration?] The folio reads,

"What is thy Soule of Odoration?'

We adopt the easy emendation, proposed by Dr. Johnson, which

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 idol 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, O adoration?b

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? Can'st 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 intertissu'd 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 a Messenger.

MESS. The English are embattled, you French

peers.

CON. To horse, you gallant princes! straight to horse!

Do but behold yond poor and starved band,
And your fair show shall suck away their souls,
Leaving them but the shales and husks of men.
There is not work enough for all our hands;
Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins,
To give each naked curtle-axe a stain,
That our French gallants shall to-day draw out,
And sheath for lack of sport. Let us but blow on
them,

The vapour of our valour will o'erturn them.
'Tis positive 'gainst all exceptions, lords,

That our superfluous lackeys, and our peasants,-
Who, in unnecessary action, swarm
About our squares of battle,-were enow
To purge this field of such a hilding foe,
Though we, upon this mountain's basis by
Took stand for idle speculation:
But that our honours must not.
A very little-little let us do,

What's to say?

And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound
The tucket-sonance, and the note to mount;
For our approach shall so much dare the field,
That England shall couch down in fear, and yield.

The gimmal-bit-] Spelt Iymold, in the old text. A bit in two parts; and so called from the Latin gemellus, double or twinned.

I stay but for my guard; on, &c.] A correspondent of Mr. Knight's ingeniously suggests, what certainly seems called for by the context, that we ought to read,

"I stay but for my guidon.-To the field!" The emendation is enforced, too, by a passage in Holinshed, where, speaking of the French, he says,-"They thought themseives so sure of victory, that diverse of the noblemen made such haste towards the battle, that they left many of their servants and men of war behind them, and some of them would not once

Lies foul with chaw'd grass, still and motionless;
And their executors, the knavish crows,
Fly o'er them, all impatient for their hour.
Description cannot suit itself in words,

To demonstrate the life of such a battle
In life so lifeless as it shows itself.

CON. They have said their prayers, and they stay for death.

DAU. Shall we go send them dinners and fresh suits,

And give their fasting horses provender,
And after fight with them?

CON. I stay but for my guard; on, to the field:

I will the banner from a trumpet take,
And use it for my haste. Come, come away!
The sun is high, and we outwear the day.

[Exeunt.

stay for their standards; as amongst other the Duke of Brabant when his standard was not come, caused a banner to be taken from a trumpet, and fastened to a speare, the which he commanded to be borne before him, instead of a standard."

e God buy' you, princes all;] God buy' is the same as our "Good-bye," a corruption of "God be with you;" and in this instance, for the sake of the metre, the old form of it should be retained.

d And yet I do thee wrong, &c.] The last two lines in this speech are annexed to the preceding one of Bedford in the folio: the present arrangement was suggested by Thirlby.