Henry V: Act 1, Scene 2 Translation

Enter the King of England, Humphrey Duke of
Gloucester, Bedford, Clarence, Warwick, Westmoreland,
and Exeter, with other Attendants.

KING HENRY
Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?

EXETER
Not here in presence.

KING HENRY Send for him, good uncle.

WESTMORELAND
Shall we call in th’ Ambassador, my liege?

KING HENRY
Not yet, my cousin. We would be resolved, 5
Before we hear him, of some things of weight
That task our thoughts concerning us and France.

Enter the two Bishops of Canterbury and Ely.

BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
God and his angels guard your sacred throne
And make you long become it.

KING HENRY Sure we thank you. 10
My learnèd lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold
Why the law Salic that they have in France
Or should or should not bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, 15
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your
reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colors with the truth; 20
For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake our sleeping sword of war. 25
We charge you in the name of God, take heed,
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
’Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the 30
swords
That makes such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord,
For we will hear, note, and believe in heart
That what you speak is in your conscience washed 35
As pure as sin with baptism.

BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers
That owe yourselves, your lives, and services
To this imperial throne. There is no bar
To make against your Highness’ claim to France 40
But this, which they produce from Pharamond:
“In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant
(No woman shall succeed in Salic land),
Which Salic land the French unjustly gloze
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond 45
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salic is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe,
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the 50
Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French,
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Established then this law: to wit, no female 55
Should be inheritrix in Salic land,
Which “Salic,” as I said, ’twixt Elbe and Sala
Is at this day in Germany called Meissen.
Then doth it well appear the Salic law
Was not devisèd for the realm of France, 60
Nor did the French possess the Salic land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of King Pharamond,
Idly supposed the founder of this law,
Who died within the year of our redemption 65
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala in the year
Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposèd Childeric, 70
Did, as heir general, being descended
Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown
Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male 75
Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
To find his title with some shows of truth,
Though in pure truth it was corrupt and naught,
Conveyed himself as th’ heir to th’ Lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemagne, who was the son 80
To Lewis the Emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied 85
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine:
By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
Was reunited to the crown of France. 90
So that, as clear as is the summer’s sun,
King Pepin’s title and Hugh Capet’s claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female.
So do the kings of France unto this day, 95
Howbeit they would hold up this Salic law
To bar your Highness claiming from the female,
And rather choose to hide them in a net
Than amply to imbar their crooked titles
Usurped from you and your progenitors. 100

KING HENRY
May I with right and conscience make this claim?

BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
The sin upon my head, dread sovereign,
For in the Book of Numbers is it writ:
“When the man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter.” Gracious lord, 105
Stand for your own, unwind your bloody flag,
Look back into your mighty ancestors.
Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire’s tomb,
From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit
And your great-uncle’s, Edward the Black Prince, 110
Who on the French ground played a tragedy,
Making defeat on the full power of France
Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
Stood smiling to behold his lion’s whelp
Forage in blood of French nobility. 115
O noble English, that could entertain
With half their forces the full pride of France
And let another half stand laughing by,
All out of work and cold for action!

BISHOP OF ELY
Awake remembrance of these valiant dead 120
And with your puissant arm renew their feats.
You are their heir, you sit upon their throne,
The blood and courage that renownèd them
Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
Is in the very May-morn of his youth, 125
Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.

EXETER
Your brother kings and monarchs of the Earth
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself
As did the former lions of your blood.

WESTMORELAND
They know your Grace hath cause and means and 130
might;
So hath your Highness. Never king of England
Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects,
Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England
And lie pavilioned in the fields of France. 135

BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
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 140
Bring in to any of your ancestors.

KING HENRY
We must not only arm t’ invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to defend
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages. 145

BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

KING HENRY
We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
But fear the main intendment of the Scot, 150
Who hath been still a giddy neighbor to us.
For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France
But that the Scot on his unfurnished kingdom
Came pouring like the tide into a breach 155
With ample and brim fullness of his force,
Galling the gleanèd land with hot assays,
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns,
That England, being empty of defense,
Hath shook and trembled at th’ ill neighborhood. 160

BISHOP OF CANTERBURY
She hath been then more feared than harmed, my
liege,
For hear her but exampled by herself:
When all her chivalry hath been in France
And she a mourning widow of her nobles, 165
She hath herself not only well defended
But taken and impounded as a stray
The King of Scots, whom she did send to France
To fill King Edward’s fame with prisoner kings
And make her chronicle as rich with praise 170
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries.

BISHOP OF ELY
But there’s a saying very old and true:
“If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin.” 175
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,
Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
To ’tame and havoc more than she can eat. 180

EXETER
It follows, then, the cat must stay at home.
Yet that is but a crushed necessity,
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
While that the armèd hand doth fight abroad, 185
Th’ advisèd head defends itself at home.
For government, though high and low and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
Congreeing in a full and natural close,
Like music. 190

BISHOP OF CANTERBURY Therefore doth heaven divide
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavor in continual motion,
To which is fixèd as an aim or butt
Obedience; for so work the honeybees, 195
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts,
Where some like magistrates correct at home,
Others like merchants venture trade abroad, 200
Others like soldiers armèd in their stings
Make boot upon the summer’s velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent royal of their emperor,
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 205
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice with his surly hum 210
Delivering o’er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer:
That many things, having full reference
To one consent, may work contrariously,
As many arrows loosèd several ways 215
Come to one mark, as many ways meet in one town,
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,
As many lines close in the dial’s center,
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,
End in one purpose and be all well borne 220
Without defeat. 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 such powers left at home, 225
Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,
Let us be worried, and our nation lose
The name of hardiness and policy.

KING HENRY
Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
Attendants exit.
Now are we well resolved, and by God’s help 230
And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
France being ours, we’ll bend it to our awe
Or break it all to pieces. Or there we’ll sit,
Ruling in large and ample empery
O’er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms, 235
Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
Tombless, with no remembrance over them.
Either our history shall with full mouth
Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth, 240
Not worshiped with a waxen epitaph.

Enter Ambassadors of France, with Attendants.

Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure
Of our fair cousin Dauphin, for we hear
Your greeting is from him, not from the King.

AMBASSADOR
May ’t please your Majesty to give us leave 245
Freely to render what we have in charge,
Or shall we sparingly show you far off
The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?

KING HENRY
We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,
Unto whose grace our passion is as subject 250
As is our wretches fettered in our prisons.
Therefore with frank and with uncurbèd plainness
Tell us the Dauphin’s mind.

AMBASSADOR Thus, then, in few:
Your Highness, lately sending into France, 255
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 savor too much of your youth
And bids you be advised there’s naught in France 260
That can be with a nimble galliard won;
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 265
Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.

KING HENRY
What treasure, uncle?

EXETER Tennis balls,
my liege.

KING HENRY
We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us. 270
His present and your pains we thank you for.
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
Tell him he hath made a match with such a 275
wrangler
That all the courts of France will be disturbed
With chases. And we understand him well,
How he comes o’er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them. 280
We never valued this poor seat of England,
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous license, as ’tis ever common
That men are merriest when they are from home.
But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state, 285
Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness
When I do rouse me in my throne of France,
For that I have laid by my majesty
And plodded like a man for working days;
But I will rise there with so full a glory 290
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
Shall stand sore chargèd for the wasteful vengeance 295
That shall fly with them; for many a thousand
widows
Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
And some are yet ungotten and unborn 300
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.
But this lies all within the will of God,
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 305
My rightful hand in a well-hallowed cause.
So get you hence in peace. And tell the Dauphin
His jest will savor but of shallow wit
When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.—
Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well. 310

Ambassadors exit, with Attendants.

EXETER This was a merry message.

KING HENRY
We hope to make the sender blush at it.
Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
That may give furth’rance to our expedition;
For we have now no thought in us but France, 315
Save those to God, 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, God before, 320
We’ll chide this Dauphin at his father’s door.
Therefore let every man now task his thought,
That this fair action may on foot be brought.

Flourish. They exit.