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About this text

  • Title: Henry V (Modern, Folio)
  • Editor: James D. Mardock
  • ISBN: 978-1-55058-409-7

    Copyright James D. Mardock. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: James D. Mardock
    Peer Reviewed

    Henry V (Modern, Folio)

    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.
    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.
    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.
    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.
    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.]