To welcome him!

Much more, and much more cause, Did they this Harry. Now in London place him; (As yet the lamentation of the French Invites the king of England's stay at home ;) The emperor's coming in behalf of France, To order peace between them, we omit, And all the occurrences, whatever chanced, Till Harry's back-return again to France; There must we bring him; and myself have played The interim, by remembering you-'tis past. Then brook abridgment; and your eyes advance After your thoughts, straight back again to France.

[Exit.

SCENE I. France. An English Court of Guard.

Enter FLUELLEN and Gower.

Gow. Nay, that's right; but why wear you your leek to-day? Saint Davy's day is past.

Flu. There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things: I will tell you, as my friend, captain Gower; the rascally, scald, beggarly, lowsy, pragging knave, Pistol,—which you and yourself, and all the 'orld, know to be no petter than a fellow, look you now, of no merits, he is come to me, and prings me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek it was in a place where I could not breed no contentions with him; but I will be so pold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires.

1 "The emperor's coming." The emperor Sigismund, who was married to Henry's second cousin. This passage stands in the following embarrassed and obscure manner in the folio:

แ

Now in London place him.
As yet the lamentation of the French
Invites the king of England's stay at home;
The emperor's coming in behalf of France,
To order peace between them: and omit
All the occurrences," &c.

The liberty we have taken is to transpose the word and, and substitute we in its place.

Enter PISTOL.

Gow. Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey

cock.

Flu. 'Tis no matter for his swellings, nor his turkey-cocks.-Got pless you, ancient Pistol! you scurvy, lowsy knave, Got pless you!

Pist. 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.

Flu. I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lowsy knave, at my desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you, this leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor your affections, and your appetites, and your digestions, does not agree with it, I would desire you

to eat it.

Pist. Not for Cadwallader, and all his goats.

Flu. There is one goat for you. [Strikes him.] Will you be so good, scald knave, as eat it?

Pist. Base Trojan, thou shalt die.

Flu. You say very true, scald knave, when Got's will is I will desire you to live in the mean time, and eat your victuals; come, there is sauce for it. [Strikes him again.] You called me yesterday mountain-squire; but I will make you to-day a squire of low degree. I pray you, fall to; if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.

Gow. Enough, captain; you have astonished1 him. Flu. I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days.-Pite, I pray you; it is goot for your green wound, and your ploody coxcomb.

Pist. Must I bite?

Flu. Yes, certainly; and out of doubt, and out of questions too, and ambiguities.

Pist. By this leek, I will most horribly revenge: I eat, and eke I swear.2

1 Stunned.

2 "I eat, and eke I swear." The folio has "eat I swear."

Flu. Eat, I pray you: Will you have some more sauce to your leek? there is not enough leek to swear by.

Pist. Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see, I eat.

Flu. Much goot do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, 'pray you, throw none away; the skin is goot for your proken coxcomb. When you take occasions to see leeks hereafter, I pray you, mock at them! that is all. Pist. Good.

Flu. Ay, leeks is goot:-Hold you, there is a groat to heal your pate.

Pist. Me a groat?

Flu. Yes, verily, and in truth, you shall take it; or I have another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat. Pist. I take thy groat, in earnest of revenge.

Flu. If I owe you any thing, I will pay you in cudgels; you shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God be wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate. [Exit.

Pist. All hell shall stir for this.

Gow. Go, go; you are a counterfeit, cowardly knave. Will you mock at an ancient tradition,— begun upon an honorable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valor, and dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel: you find it otherwise; and, henceforth, let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition. Fare you well.

2

[Exit. Pist. Doth fortune play the huswife 3 with me now? News have I, that my Nell is dead i' the spital

Of malady of France;

And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs
Honor is cudgeled. Well, bawd will I turn,

1 Gleeking is scoffing, sneering.

2 i. e. disposition.

3 Huswife, for jilt, or hussy, as we have it still in vulgar speech.

And something lean to cut-purse of quick hand.
To England will I steal, and there I'll steal;
And patches will I get unto these scars,
And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.

[Exit.

SCENE II. Troyes in Champagne. An Apartment, in the French King's Palace.

Enter, at one door, KING HENry, Bedford, Gloster, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and other Lords; at another, the French King, QUEEN ISABEL, the PRINCESS KATHARINE, Lords, Ladies, &c., the DUKE of BURGUNDY, and his Train.

K. Hen. Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!1

Unto our brother France,-and to our sister,
Health and fair time of day ;-joy and good wishes
To our most fair and princely cousin Katharine;
And (as a branch and member of this royalty,
By whom this great assembly is contrived,)
We do salute you, duke of Burgundy ;-
And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!
Fr. King. Right joyous are we to behold your face,
Most worthy brother England; fairly met:-
So are you, princes English, every one.

Q. Isa. So happy be the issue, brother England,
Of this good day, and of this gracious meeting,
As we are now glad to behold your eyes;
Your eyes, which hitherto have borne in them.
Against the French, that met them in their bent,
The fatal balls of murdering basilisks;
The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,
Have lost their quality; and that this day
Shall change all griefs, and quarrels, into love.
K. Hen. To cry amen to that, thus we appear.

1 "Peace to this meeting, wherefore we are met!" Peace, for which we are here met, be to this meeting. Here Johnson thought that the chorus should have been prefixed, and the fifth act begin.

Q. Isa. You English princes all, I do salute you.
Bur. My duty to you both, on equal love,
Great kings of France and England! That I have
labored,

With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavors,
To bring your most imperial majesties

Unto this bar1 and royal interview,

Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.
Since then my office hath so far prevailed,
That, face to face, and royal eye to eye,
You have congreeted; let it not disgrace me,
If I demand, before this royal view,
What rub, or what impediment, there is,
Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births,
Should not, in this best garden of the world,
Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
Alas! she hath from France too long been chased;
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
Corrupting in its own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleached,—
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
Put forth disordered twigs; her fallow leas
The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory,
Doth root upon; while that the colter rusts,
That should deracinate such savagery.
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover,
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness; and nothing teems,
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.

And as our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,

1 "This bar;” that is, this barrier, this place of congress. The Chronicles represent a former interview in a field near Melun, with a barre or barrier of separation between the pavilions of the French and English; but the treaty was then broken off. It was now renewed at Troyes, but the scene of conference was St. Peter's church in that town, a place inconvenient for Shakspeare's action; his editors have therefore laid it in a palace.