Fr. King.
Thus come the English with full power upon us,
And more than carefully it us concerns
To answer royally in our defences.
Therefore the Dukes of Berry, and of Britain,
Of Brabant, and of Orleans, shall make forth,
And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch;
To line, and new repair our towns of war,
With men of courage, and with means defendant:
For England his Approaches makes as fierce,
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.
It fits us then to be as provident,
As fear may teach us out of late examples;
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.

Dau.
My most redoubted father,
It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe:
For peace it self should not so dull a Kingdom,
(Though war, nor no known quarrel, were in question)
But that defences, musters, preparations,
Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,
As were a war in expectation.
Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth,
To view the sick and feeble parts of France:
And let us do it with no shew of fear;
No, with no more, than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitson morris-dance:
For, my good Liege, she is so idly king'd,
Her scepter so fantastically born,
By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.

Con.
O peace, Prince Dauphin!
You are too much mistaken in this King:
Question your Grace the late ambassadors,

With what great state he heard their embassie;
How well supply'd with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception, and withal
How terrible in constant resolution:
And you shall find, his vanities fore-spent
Were but the out-side of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots,
That shall first spring and be most delicate.

Dau.
Well, 'tis not so, my lord high constable.
But tho we think it so, it is no matter:
In causes of defence, 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems;
So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
Which of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth.

Fr. King.
Think we King Harry strong;
And, Princes, look, you strongly arm to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
And he is bred out of that bloody strain,
That haunted us in our familiar paths:
Witness our too much memorable shame,
When Cressy-battel fatally was struck;
And all our princes captiv'd by the hand
Of that black name, Edward black Prince of Wales:
While that his mounting sire, on mountain standing,(19) ^note

Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,
Saw his heroick seed, and smil'd to see him
Mangle the work of nature: and deface
The patterns, that by God and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
The native mightiness and fate of him. Enter a Messenger.

Mess.
Ambassadors from Harry, King of England,
Do crave admittance to your Majesty.

Fr. King.
We'll give them present audience. Go, and bring them.
You see, this chase is hotly follow'd, friends.

Dau.
Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
Most spend their mouths, when, what they seem to threaten,
Runs far before them. Good my Sovereign,
Take up the English short; and let them know
Of what a monarchy you are the head:
Self-love, my Liege, is not so vile a sin,
As self-neglecting. Enter Exeter.

Fr. King.
From our brother England?

Exe.
From him; and thus he greets your Majesty:
He wills you in the name of God Almighty,
That you divest your self, and lay apart
The borrow'd glories, that, by gift of heaven,
By law of nature and of nations, 'long.
To him and to his heirs; namely, the Crown;
And all the wide-stretch'd honours, that pertain
By custom and the ordinance of times,
Unto the Crown of France. That you may know,
'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,
Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd;
He sends you this most memorable Line,
In every branch truly demonstrative, [Gives the French King a Paper.
Willing you over-look this pedigree;

And when you find him evenly deriv'd
From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third; he bids you then resign
Your Crown and Kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.

Fr. King.
Or else what follows?

Exe.
Bloody constraint; for if you hide the Crown
Ev'n in your hearts, there will he rake for it.
And therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder, and in earthquake, like a Jove:
That, if requiring fail, he may compel.
He bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the Crown; and to take mercy
On the poor souls, for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws; upon your head
Turning the widows tears, the orphans cries,
The dead mens blood, the pining maidens groans,(20) ^note

Fr. King.
For us, we will consider of this further:
To morrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother England.

Dau.
For the Dauphin,
I stand here for him; what to him from England?

Exe.
Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not mis-become
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

Thus says my King; and if your father's Highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty;
He'll call you to so hot an answer for it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall hide your trespass, and return your mock
In second accent to his ordinance.

Dau.
Say, if my father render fair reply,
It is against my will; for I desire
Nothing but odds with England; to that end,
As matching to his youth and vanity,
I did present him with those Paris balls.

Exe.
He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe:
And, be assur'd, you'll find a difference,
(As we his subjects have in wonder found,)
Between the promise of his greener days,
And these he masters now; now he weighs time
Even to the utmost grain, which you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.

Fr. King.
To morrow you shall know our mind at full. [Flourish.

Exe.
Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our King
Come here himself to question our delay;
For he is footed in this land already.

Fr. King.
You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair conditions:
A night is but small breath, and little pause,
To answer matters of this consequence. [Exeunt. Enter Chorus.
Thus with imagin'd wing our swift scene flies,
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose, that you have seen
The well-appointed King at Hampton Peer(21) ^note

Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phœbus fanning.
Play with your fancies; and in them behold,
Upon the hempen tackle, ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confus'd; behold the threaden sails,
Born with th' invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms thro' the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think,
You stand upon the rivage, and behold
A city on th' inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this Fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow.
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women;
Or past, or not arriv'd, to pith and puissance:
For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege:
Behold the ordnance on their carriages
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose, th' ambassador from France comes back;
Tells Harry, that the King doth offer him
Catharine his daughter, and with her to dowry
Some petty and unprofitable Dukedoms:
The offer likes not; and the nimble gunner
With lynstock now the devilish cannon touches,
And down goes all before him. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind. [Exit.

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