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Henry V, Modern text based on the Folio

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: James D. Mardock
Not Peer Reviewed
626.1

[2.2]

Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmorland.
Bedford 'Fore God, his grace is bold to trust these traitors.
Exeter They shall be apprehended by and by.
630Westmorland How smooth and even they do bear themselves,
As if allegiance in their bosoms sat
Crownèd with faith and constant loyalty.
Bedford The king hath note of all that they intend
By interception, which they dream not of.
635Exeter Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath dulled and cloyed with gracious favors,
That he should for a foreign purse so sell
His sovereign's life to death and treachery!
Sound trumpets. 640Enter the King, Scrope, Cambridge, and Grey[, and attendants.]
King Henry Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard. --
My lord of Cambridge, and my kind lord of Masham,
And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts:
Think you not that the powers we bear with us
645Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution and the act
For which we have in head assembled them?
Scrope No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.
King Henry I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded
650We carry not a heart with us from hence
That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish
Success and conquest to attend on us.
Cambridge Never was monarch better feared and loved
655Than is your majesty. There's not, I think, a subject
That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
Under the sweet shade of your government.
Grey True. Those that were your father's enemies
Have steeped their galls in honey and do serve you
660With hearts create of duty and of zeal.
King Henry We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
And shall forget the office of our hand
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit,
According to the weight and worthiness.
665Scrope So service shall with steelèd sinews toil,
And labor shall refresh itself with hope
To do your grace incessant services.
King Henry We judge no less. Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday
670That railed against our person. We consider
It was excess of wine that set him on,
And on his more advice we pardon him.
Scrope That's mercy, but too much security.
Let him be punished, sovereign, lest example
675Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind.
King Henry Oh, let us yet be merciful.
Cambridge So may your highness, and yet punish too.
Grey Sir, you show great mercy if you give him life
After the taste of much correction.
680King Henry Alas, your too much love and care of me
Are heavy orisons 'gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults proceeding on distemper
Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested,
685Appear before us? We'll yet enlarge that man,
Though Cambridge, Scrope, and Grey, in their dear care
And tender preservation of our person
Would have him punished. And now to our French causes. --
Who are the late commissioners?
690Cambridge
I one, my lord.
Your highness bade me ask for it today.
Scrope So did you me, my liege.
Grey And I, my royal sovereign.
King Henry [Giving them papers] Then Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours.
695There yours, Lord Scrope of Masham; and sir knight,
Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.
Read them and know I know your worthiness. --
My lord of Westmorland, and uncle Exeter,
We will aboard to night. -- Why how now, gentlemen?
700What see you in those papers that you lose
So much complexion? Look ye how they change:
Their cheeks are paper! Why, what read you there
That have so cowarded and chased your blood
Out of appearance?
705Cambridge
I do confess my fault,
And do submit me to your highness' mercy.
Grey, Scrope To which we all appeal.
King Henry The mercy that was quick in us but late
By your own counsel is suppressed and killed.
710You must not dare for shame to talk of mercy,
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you. --
See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters: my lord of Cambridge here,
715You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appurtenants
Belonging to his honor. And this man
Hath for a few light crowns lightly conspired
And sworn unto the practices of France
720To kill us here in Hampton. To the which
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. -- But oh,
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scrope, thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature?
725Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coined me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practiced on me for thy use?
May it be possible that foreign hire
730Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange
That though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together
735As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in unnatural cause
That admiration did not whoop at them.
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder,
740And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence;
And other devils, that suggest by treasons,
Do botch and bungle up damnation
745With patches, colors, and with forms being fetched
From glist'ring semblances of piety.
But he that tempered thee, bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
750If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back
And tell the legions, "I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's."
755Oh, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why so didst thou. Seem they grave and learnèd?
Why so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
Why so didst thou. Seem they religious?
760Why so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,
Garnished and decked in modest complement,
Not working with the eye without the ear,
765And but in purgèd judgment trusting neither?
Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot
To make the full-fraught man, and best, indued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee,
770For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. -- Their faults are open.
Arrest them to the answer of the law,
And God acquit them of their practices.
Exeter I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of 775Richard Earl of Cambridge. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scrope of Masham. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland.
780Scrope Our purposes God justly hath discovered,
And I repent my fault more than my death,
Which I beseech your highness to forgive,
Although my body pay the price of it.
Cambridge For me, the gold of France did not seduce,
785Although I did admit it as a motive
The sooner to effect what I intended.
But God be thankèd for prevention,
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God and you to pardon me.
790Grey Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason
Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself,
Prevented from a damnèd enterprise.
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
795King Henry God quit you in his mercy. Hear your sentence:
You have conspired against our royal person,
Joined with an enemy proclaimed and from his coffers
Received the golden earnest of our death,
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
800His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person seek we no revenge,
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
805Whose ruin you sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death,
The taste whereof God of his mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
810Of all your dear offences. -- Bear them hence.
[Exeunt traitors, guarded.]
Now, lords, for France, the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you as us like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
815This dangerous treason lurking in our way
To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
But every rub is smoothèd on our way.
Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
820Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance.
No king of England if not king of France.
Flourish. [Exeunt.]