Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,

With blood, and sword, and fire to win your right:

In aid whereof we of the spiritualty

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,

As never did the clergy at one time

Bring in to any of your ancestors.

K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the French,

But lay down our proportions to defend

Against the Scot, who will make road upon us

With all advantages.

Cant. (R.C.) They of those marches,14 gracious sovereign,

Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

Therefore to France, my liege.

Divide your happy England into four;

Whereof take you one quarter into France,

And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.

If we, with thrice that power left at home,

Cannot defend our own door from the dog,

Let us be worried, and our nation lose

The name of hardiness and policy.

Now are we well resolv’d; and by Heaven’s help,

And yours, the noble sinews of our power,—

France being ours, we’ll bend it to our awe,

Or break it all to pieces.

Now are we well prepar’d to know the pleasure

Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear

Your greeting is from him, not from the king.

Amb. (L.C.) May it please your majesty to give us leave

Freely to render what we have in charge;

Or shall we sparingly show you far off

The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?

K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;

Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness

Tell us the Dauphin’s mind.

Amb.

Thus, then, in few.15

Your highness, lately sending into France,

Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right

Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.

In answer of which claim, the prince our master

Says,—that you savour too much of your youth;

And bids you be advis’d, there’s nought in France

That can be with a nimble galliard won;16

You cannot revel into dukedoms there.

He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,

This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,

Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim

Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.

Exe. Opening the chest. Tennis-balls, my liege.(H)

K. Hen. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;

His present and your pains we thank you for:

When we have match’d our rackets to these balls,

We will, in France, by Heaven’s grace, play a set

Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.

And we understand him well,

How he comes o’er us with our wilder days,

Not measuring what use we made of them.

But tell the Dauphin,—I will keep my state;

Be like a king, and show my soul of greatness,

When I do rouse me in my throne of France:

For I will rise there with so full a glory,

That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,

Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.

But this lies all within the will of Heaven,

To whom I do appeal; And in whose name,

Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on,

To venge me as I may, and to put forth

My rightful hand in a well-hallow’d cause.

So, get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin,

His jest will savour but of shallow wit,

When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it.—

Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well.

K. Hen. We hope to make the sender blush at it.

The King rises.

Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour

That may give furtherance to our expedition;

For we have now no thought in us but France,

Save those to Heaven, that run before our business.

Therefore let our proportions for these wars

Be soon collected, and all things thought upon

That may with reasonable swiftness add

More feathers to our wings; for, Heaven before,

We’ll chide this Dauphin at his father’s door.

Pist. (C.) No; for my manly heart doth yearn.—

Bardolph, be blithe;—Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins;

Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead,

And we must yearn therefore.