Orl. We are enough, yet living in the field, To smother up the English in our throngs,

If any order might be thought upon.

Bour. The Devil take order now! I'll to the throng: Let life be short; else shame will be too long.

[Exeunt.

SCENE VI.—Another Part of the Field.

Alarums. Enter King HENRY and Forces, EXETER, and others.

King. Well have we done, thrice-valiant countrymen : But all's not done; yet keep the French the field. Exe. The Duke of York commends him to your Majesty. King. Lives he, good uncle? thrice within this hour

I saw him down; thrice up again, and fighting;

From helmet to the spur all blood he was.

Exe. In which array, brave soldier, doth he lie,
Larding the plain;1 and by his bloody side,
Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing wounds,
The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.

Suffolk first died: and York, all haggled over,
Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep'd,
And takes him by the beard; kisses the gashes
That bloodily did yawn upon his face;
And cries aloud, Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk!
My soul shall keep thine company to Heaven;
Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly a-breast;

1 That is, enriching the plain with his blood. In 1 Henry the Fourth, ii. 2, Falstaff is said to do the same thing with his sweat: "Fat Falstaff sweats to death, and lards the lean earth as he walks along."

As in this glorious and well-foughten field
We kept together in our chivalry!

up:

Upon these words, I came and cheer'd him
He smiled me in the face, raught 2 me his hand,
And, with a feeble gripe, says, Dear my lord,
Commend my service to my sovereign.

So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck

He threw his wounded arm, and kiss'd his lips;
And so, espoused to death, with blood he seal'd
A testament of noble-ending love.

The pretty and sweet manner of it forced

each

Those waters from me which I would have stopp'd:
But I had not so much of man in me,

But all my mother came into mine eyes,

And gave me up to tears.

King.

For, hearing this, I must perforce compound
With mistful eyes, or they will issue too.

I blame you not;

[Alarum.

But, hark! what new alarum is this same?

Flu. Kill the poys and the luggage! 'tis expressly against the law of arms: 'tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offer'd; in your conscience, now, is it not? Gow. 'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive; and the

2 Raught is the old preterit of reach.

8 But here is equivalent to but that. A frequent usage.

cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha' done this slaughter: besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the King's tent; wherefore the King, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner's throat.1 O, 'tis a gallant king!

Flu. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, Captain Gower. What call you the town's name where Alexander the Pig was porn?

Gow. Alexander the Great.

Flu. Why, I pray you, is not pig great? the pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.

Gow. I think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon: his father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take it.

Flu. I think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant you shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river: but 'tis all one; 'tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come after it indifferent well;2

1 This incident is related in full by Holinshed. It appears afterwards, however, that the King, on finding that the danger was not so great as he at first thought, stopped the slaughter, and was able to save a great number. It is observable that the King gives as his reason for the order, that he expected another battle, and had not men enough to guard one army and fight another. Gower here assigns a different reason. Holinshed gives both reasons, and the Poet chose to put one in the King's mouth, the other in Gower's.

2" Indifferent well" is tolerably well. See Twelfth Night, p. 52, n. 23.

for there is figures in all things. Alexander,-Got knows, and you know, in his rages, and his furies, and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his pest friend, Cleitus.

Gow. Our King is not like him in that: he never kill'd any of his friends.

Flu. It is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth, ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it: As Alexander kill'd his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his goot judgments, turn'd away the fat knight with the great-pelly doublet ;3 he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I have forgot his name.

Gow. Sir John Falstaff.

Flu. That is he. I'll tell you there is goot men porn at Monmouth.

Gow. Here comes his Majesty.

Alarum. Enter King HENRY with a part of the English Forces; WARWICK, GLOSTER, EXETER, and others.

King. I was not angry since I came to France

Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;

Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond hill:
If they will fight with us, bid them come down,
Or void the field; they do offend our sight:

3 That is, "great-bellied doublet," which was the opposite of " thin-bellied doublet." Doublet was the name of a man's upper garment. "The doublets," says Staunton, "were made some without stuffing,—thin-bellied, - and some bombasted out."

If they'll do neither, we will come to them,

4

And make them skirr away, as swift as stones
Enforced from the old Assyrian slings :

Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have ;
And not a man of them that we shall take

Shall taste our mercy. Go, and tell them so.

Exe. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.
Glo. His eyes are humbler than they used to be.

Enter MONTJOY.

King. How now! what means this, herald? know'st thou

not

That I have fined these bones of mine for ransom?

Comest thou again for ransom?

Mont.

No, great King:

I come to thee for charitable license
That we may wander o'er this bloody field
To look our dead,5 and then to bury them;
To sort our nobles from our common men ;
For many of our princes woe the while!
Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood:
So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs
In blood of princes; and the wounded steeds
Fret fetlock deep in gore, and with wild rage
Yerk out their armèd heels at their dead masters,
Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great King,

4 Scour away; to run swiftly in various directions. It has the same meaning in Macbeth, v. 3, “ Skirr the country round."

5 The use of look as a transitive verb was not uncommon. The incident is thus related by Holinshed: "In the morning Montjoie and foure other heralds came to the king, to know the number of prisoners, and to desire buriall for the dead."