King Henry V | Page 6

absence of the cat,?To tear and havoc more than she can eat.
EXETER.?It follows then the cat must stay at home;?Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,?Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.?While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,?The advised 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.
CANTERBURY.?Therefore doth heaven divide?The state of man in divers functions,?Setting endeavour in continual motion,?To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,?Obedience; for so work the honey-bees,?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,?Others, like soldiers, armed 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?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,?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, loosed several ways,?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 centre;?So many a thousand actions, once afoot,?End in one purpose, and be all well borne?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,?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.
[Exeunt some Attendants.]
Now are we well resolv'd; and, by God'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. Or there we'll sit,?Ruling in large and ample empery?O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,?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,?Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.
[Enter Ambassadors of France.]
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.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.?May't 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?
KING HENRY.?We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,?Unto whose grace our passion is as subject?As is our wretches fett'red in our prisons;?Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness?Tell us the Dauphin's mind.
AMBASSADOR.?Thus, then, in few.?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.?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.
KING HENRY.?What treasure, uncle?
EXETER.?Tennis-balls, my liege.
KING HENRY.?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 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 wrangler?That all the courts of France will be disturb'd?With chaces. And we understand him well,?How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,?Not measuring what use we made of them.?We never valu'd this poor seat of England;?And therefore, living hence, did give ourself?To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common?That men are merriest when they are from home.?But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,?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?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 turn'd his balls to gun-stones, and his soul?Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance?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