KING HARRY

Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.

Exit one or more

Now are we well resolved, 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 worshipped with a waxen epitaph.

Enter Ambassadors of France, with a tun

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

Freely to render what we have in charge,

Or shall we sparingly show you far off

The Dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?

KING HARRY

We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,

Unto whose grace our passion is as subject

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

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 advised, there’s naught 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 HARRY

What treasure, uncle?

EXETER (opening the tun) Tennis balls, my liege.

KING HARRY

We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.

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 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.

We never valued 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 have I 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 turned his balls to gunstones, and his soul

Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance

That shall fly from them—for many a thousand

widows

Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,

Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;

Ay, some are yet ungotten and unborn

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

My rightful hand in a well-hallowed cause.

So get you hence in peace. And tell the Dauphin

His jest will savour but of shallow wit

When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.—

Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well.

Exeunt Ambassadors

EXETER This was a merry message.

KING HARRY

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,

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,

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.⌉ Exeunt

2.0 Enter Chorus

CHORUS

Now all the youth of England are on fire,

And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;

Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought

Reigns solely in the breast of every man.