Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Flourish. Enter the French King, the Dauphin, the Dukes
of Berri and Brittany, the Constable, and others. KING OF FRANCE
Thus comes the English with full power upon us,
And more than carefully it us concerns
To answer royally in our defenses.
Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Brittany,
Of Brabant and of Orléans, shall make forth, 5
And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,
To line and new-repair our towns of war
With men of courage and with means defendant.
For England his approaches makes as fierce
As waters to the sucking of a gulf. 10
It fits us then to be as provident
As fear may teach us out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields. DAUPHIN My most redoubted father, 15
It is most meet we arm us ’gainst the foe,
For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,
Though war nor no known quarrel were in question
But that defenses, musters, preparations
Should be maintained, assembled, and collected 20
As were a war in expectation.
Therefore I say ’tis meet we all go forth
To view the sick and feeble parts of France.
And let us do it with no show of fear,
No, with no more than if we heard that England 25
Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance.
For, my good liege, she is so idly kinged,
Her scepter so fantastically borne
By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not. 30 | In France (where the rest of the play takes place), King Charles and his son the Dauphin talk about how the English troops are about two seconds from knocking on France's front door. King Charles wants to make plans to defend his kingdom, but his son tells him to chill out and stop being a scaredy cat because England's king is nothing more than a little boy. |
CONSTABLE O peace, Prince Dauphin!
You are too much mistaken in this king.
Question your Grace the late ambassadors
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble councillors, 35
How modest in exception, and withal
How terrible in constant resolution,
And you shall find his vanities forespent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly, 40
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring and be most delicate. DAUPHIN
Well, ’tis not so, my Lord High Constable.
But though we think it so, it is no matter.
In cases of defense, ’tis best to weigh 45
The enemy more mighty than he seems.
So the proportions of defense are filled,
Which of a weak and niggardly projection
Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth. 50 KING OF FRANCE Think we King Harry strong,
And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been fleshed upon us,
And he is bred out of that bloody strain
That haunted us in our familiar paths. 55
Witness our too-much-memorable shame
When Cressy battle fatally was struck
And all our princes captived by the hand
Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of
Wales, 60
Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing
Up in the air, crowned with the golden sun,
Saw his heroical seed and smiled to see him
Mangle the work of nature and deface
The patterns that by God and by French fathers 65
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
Of that victorious stock, and let us fear
The native mightiness and fate of him. | Charles isn't so sure. He reminds everyone of the time that Henry's
great-grandfather (Edward III) and his great uncle (Edward the Black
Prince) stormed France and made the French army look like a bunch of
chumps. If Henry V is anything like his ancestors, France is in serious
trouble. |
Enter a Messenger. MESSENGER
Ambassadors from Harry King of England
Do crave admittance to your Majesty. 70 KING OF FRANCE
We’ll give them present audience. Go, and bring
them. Messenger exits. You see this chase is hotly followed, friends. DAUPHIN
Turn head and stop pursuit, for coward dogs
Most spend their mouths when what they seem to 75
threaten
Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
Take up the English short, and let them know
Of what a monarchy you are the head.
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin 80
As self-neglecting. | A Messenger brings word that King Henry's Ambassadors are close by and want a meeting with the French king. |
Enter Exeter, with Lords and Attendants. KING OF FRANCE From our brother of England? EXETER
From him, and thus he greets your Majesty:
He wills you, in the name of God almighty,
That you divest yourself and lay apart 85
The borrowed glories that, by gift of heaven,
By law of nature and of nations, ’longs
To him and to his heirs—namely, the crown
And all wide-stretchèd honors that pertain
By custom and the ordinance of times 90
Unto the crown of France. That you may know
’Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim
Picked from the wormholes of long-vanished days
Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,
He sends you this most memorable line, 95 He offers a paper. In every branch truly demonstrative,
Willing you overlook this pedigree,
And when you find him evenly derived
From his most famed of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign 100
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him, the native and true challenger. | The Duke of Exeter enters with a message from the English monarch.
Basically, King Henry says he wants King Charles to step aside
peacefully while he helps himself to the French throne, which he's
legally entitled to. |
KING OF FRANCE Or else what follows? EXETER
Bloody constraint, for if you hide the crown
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it. 105
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake like a Jove,
That, if requiring fail, he will compel,
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown and to take mercy 110
On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws, and on your head
Turning the widows’ tears, the orphans’ cries,
The dead men’s blood, the privèd maidens’
groans, 115
For husbands, fathers, and betrothèd lovers
That shall be swallowed in this controversy.
This is his claim, his threat’ning, and my message—
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
To whom expressly I bring greeting too. 120 | King Charles asks "Or else what?" Exeter says something like "Henry is totally going to invade France. The earth will quake and war will open its jaws and swallow everyone whole." Then Exeter sweetly adds that King Henry also wanted him to say "hi" to the Dauphin and thank him for the chest of tennis balls. |
KING OF FRANCE
For us, we will consider of this further.
Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother of England. DAUPHIN, to Exeter For the Dauphin,
I stand here for him. What to him from England? 125 EXETER
Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,
And anything that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my king: an if your father’s Highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large, 130
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his Majesty,
He’ll call you to so hot an answer of it
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
In second accent of his ordinance. 135 DAUPHIN
Say, if my father render fair return,
It is against my will, for I desire
Nothing but odds with England. To that end,
As matching to his youth and vanity,
I did present him with the Paris balls. 140 EXETER
He’ll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe.
And be assured you’ll find a difference,
As we his subjects have in wonder found,
Between the promise of his greener days 145
And these he masters now. Now he weighs time
Even to the utmost grain. That you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France. KING OF FRANCE
Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full. Flourish. EXETER
Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king 150
Come here himself to question our delay,
For he is footed in this land already. KING OF FRANCE
You shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions.
A night is but small breath and little pause
To answer matters of this consequence. 155 Flourish. They exit. | King Charles says he'll think about it. His son, the Dauphin, doesn't need to think about anything. He dares Henry to bring it. |