He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a-tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil 4 feast his neighbours,
And say, To-morrow is Saint Crispian :

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, These wounds I had on Crispin's day.
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in their mouths as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloster,-
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberéd,

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition : 5

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here ;
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

4 The vigil of a holy day was the watch that was kept the night before. Something of the old custom survives in the celebration of Christmas eve.

That is, shall make him a gentleman. King Henry V. inhibited any person, but such as had a right by inheritance or grant, from bearing coatsof-arms, except those who fought with him at the battle of Agincourt.

Re-enter SALISBURY.

Sal. My sovereign lord, bestow yourself with speed:

The French are bravely in their battles set,
And will with all expedience charge on us.

King. All things are ready, if our minds be so.

West. Perish the man whose mind is backward now! King. Thou dost not wish more help from England, coz? West. God's will! my liege, would you and I alone, Without more help, might fight this battle out!

King. Why, now thou hast unwish'd five thousand men ;8 Which likes me better than to wish us one.

You know your places: God be with you all!

Tucket. Enter MONTJOY.

Mont. Once more I come to know of thee, King Harry, If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,

Before thy most assurèd overthrow ;

For certainly thou art so near the gulf,

Thou needs must be englutted. Besides, in mercy,
The Constable desires thee thou wilt mind

Thy followers of repentance; that their souls

May make a peaceful and a sweet retire

From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies
Must lie and fester.

King.

Who hath sent thee now?

6 Bravely is in a braving manner; defiantly.

7 Expedience for expedition, speed. The usage was common.

8" By wishing only thyself and me, thou hast wished five thousand men away." The Poet, inattentive to numbers, puts five thousand, but in the last scene the French are said to be full three-score thousand, which Exeter declares to be five to one. The numbers of the English are variously stated; Holinshed makes them fifteen thousand, others but nine thousand.

Mont. The Constable of France.

King. I pray thee, bear my former answer back : Bid them achieve me, and then sell my bones.

Good God! why should they mock poor fellows thus ?

The man that once did sell the lion's skin

While the beast lived, was kill'd with hunting him.

A many of our bodies shall no doubt

Find native graves; upon the which, I trust,

Shall witness live in brass 9 of this day's work:
And those that leave their valiant bones in France,
Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,
They shall be famed; for there the Sun shall greet them,
And draw their honours reeking up to heaven;
Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,
The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.
Mark, then, abounding valour in our English;
That, being dead, like to the bullets grazing,
Break out into a second course of mischief,
Killing in relapse of mortality.10

Let me speak proudly: Tell the Constable
We are but warriors for the working-day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd
With rainy marching in the painful field;
There's not a piece of feather in our host, -
Good argument, I hope, we will not fly,-
And time hath worn us into slovenry :

9 Alluding to the plates of brass formerly let into tombstones.

10 "Relapse of mortality" is simply the falling-back or returning of the mortal body to its original dust. This high strain must be set down, I think, among the Poet's instances of overboldness. Certainly, nothing but his prodigious momentum of thought and poetry could carry us fairly through such a strain; hardly even that.

But by the Mass our hearts are in the trim;
And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night
They'll be in fresher robes; for they will pluck
The gay new coats o'er the French soldiers' heads,
And turn them out of service. If they do this, –
As, if God please, they shall, — my ransom then
Will soon be levied. Herald, save thy labour;
Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald:
They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints;
Which if they have as I will leave 'em them,
Shall yield them little, tell the Constable.

Mont. I shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well:

Thou never shall hear herald any more.

[Exit. King. I fear thou'lt once more come again for ransom.

Enter the Duke of YORK.11

York. My lord, most humbly on my knee I beg

The leading of the vaward.12

King. Take it, brave York. - Now, soldiers, march

away:

And how Thou pleasest, God, dispose the day!

[Exeunt.

11 This Edward Duke of York was the son of Edmund of Langley, the Duke of York, who was the fourth son of King Edward III. He is .he man who figures as Aumerle in King Richard the Second.

12 The vaward is the vanguard. So in Holinshed: "He appointed a vaward, of the which he made capteine Edward duke of York, who of an haultie courage had desired that office."

Alarums: excursions. Enter French Soldier, PISTOL, and the Boy.

Pist. Yield, cur!

Fr. Sol. Je pense que vous êtes le gentilhomme de bonne qualité.

Pist. Quality! Callino, castore me!1 art thou a gentleman? what is thy name? discuss.

Fr. Sol. O Seigneur Dieu!

Pist. O, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman:
Perpend my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark:
O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,2
Except, O signieur, thou do give to me
Egregious ransom.

Fr. Sol. O prenez miséricorde! ayez pitié de moi !
Pist. Moy shall not serve; I will have forty moys;
Or I will fetch thy rim 4 out at thy throat

1 These words, it seems, were the burden of an old song. Boswell found the notes in Playford's Musical Companion. He says the words mean "Little girl of my heart, for ever and ever"; and adds, “They have, it is true, no great connection with the poor Frenchman's supplications, nor were they meant to have any. Pistol, instead of attending to him, contemptuously hums a tune."

"

2 Fox was an old fancy-term for sword. "The name," says Staunton, 'was given from the circumstance that Andrea Ferrara, and, since his time, other foreign sword-cutlers, adopted a fox as the blade-mark of their weapons. Swords, with a running fox rudely engraved on the blades, are still occasionally to be met with in the old curiosity-shops of London."

3 Moy or moyos was a measure of corn; in French muy or muid, Latin modius, a bushel. It appears that twenty-seven moys were equal to at least

two tons.

4 Pistol is not very scrupulous in his language: he uses rim for the intestines generally. Bishop Wilkins defines it "the membrane of the belly";