MONTJOY No, great King.

I come to thee for charitable licence,

That we may wander o’er this bloody field

To book our dead and then to bury them,

To sort our nobles from our common men—

For many of our princes, woe the while,

Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood.

So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs

In blood of princes, and our wounded steeds

Fret fetlock-deep in gore, and with wild rage

Jerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,

Killing them twice. O give us leave, great King,

To view the field in safety, and dispose

Of their dead bodies.

KING HARRY I tell thee truly, herald,

I know not if the day be ours or no,

For yet a many of your horsemen peer

And gallop o’er the field.

MONTJOY The day is yours.

KING HARRY

Praised be God, and not our strength, for it.

What is this castle called that stands hard by?

MONTJOY They call it Agincourt.

KING HARRY

Then call we this the field of Agincourt,

Fought on the day of Crispin Crispian.

FLUELLEN Your grandfather of famous memory, an’t please your majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles, fought a most prave pattle here in France.

KING HARRY They did, Fluellen.

FLUELLEN Your majesty says very true. If your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps, which your majesty know to this hour is an honourable badge of the service. And I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day.

KING HARRY

I wear it for a memorable honour,

For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

FLUELLEN All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty’s Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that. God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace, and his majesty too.

KING HARRY Thanks, good my countryman.

FLUELLEN By Jeshu, I am your majesty’s countryman. I care not who know it, I will confess it to all the world. I need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

KING HARRY

God keep me so.

Enter Williams with a glove in his cap

Our heralds go with him.

Bring me just notice of the numbers dead On both our parts.

Exeunt Montjoy, ⌈Gower,⌉and an English herald

Call yonder fellow hither.

EXETER (to Williams) Soldier, you must come to the King.

KING HARRY Soldier, why wearest thou that glove in thy cap?

WILLIAM An’t please your majesty, ’tis the gage of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive.

KING HARRY An Englishman?

WILLIAMS An’t please your majesty, a rascal, that swaggered with me last night—who, if a live, and ever dare to challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o’th’ ear; or if I can see my glove in his cap—which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear if a lived—I will strike it out soundly.

KING HARRY What think you, Captain Fluellen? Is it fit this soldier keep his oath?

FLUELLEN He is a craven and a villain else, an’t please your majesty, in my conscience.

KING HARRY It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort, quite from the answer of his degree.

FLUELLEN Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as Lucifer and Beelzebub himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath. If he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a Jack-sauce as ever his black shoe trod upon God’s ground and his earth, in my conscience, law.

KING HARRY Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meetest the fellow.

WILLIAMS So I will, my liege, as I live.

KING HARRY Who serv’st thou under?

WILLIAM Under Captain Gower, my liege.

FLUELLEN Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and literatured in the wars.

KING HARRY Call him hither to me, soldier.

WILLIAM I will, my liege. Exit

KING HARRY (giving him Williams’s other glove) Here, Fluellen, wear thou this favour for me and stick it in thy cap. When Alençon and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm. If any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon and an enemy to our person. If thou encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.

FLUELLEN Your grace does me as great honours as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects. I would fain see the man that has but two legs that shall find himself aggriefed at this glove, that is all; but I would fain see it once. An’t please God of his grace, that I would see.

KING HARRY Know’st thou Gower?

FLUELLEN He is my dear friend, an’t please you.

KING HARRY Pray thee, go seek him and bring him to my tent. 165

FLUELLEN I will fetch him. Exit

KING HARRY

My lord of Warwick and my brother Gloucester,

Follow Fluellen closely at the heels.

The glove which I have given him for a favour

May haply purchase him a box o’th’ ear.

It is the soldier’s. I by bargain should

Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick.

If that the soldier strike him, as I judge

By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,

Some sudden mischief may arise of it,

For I do know Fluellen valiant

And touched with choler, hot as gunpowder,

And quickly will return an injury.

Follow, and see there be no harm between them.

Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.

Exeunt severally

4.8 Enter Captain Gower and Williams

WILLIAMS I warrant it is to knight you, captain. Enter Captain Fluellen

FLUELLEN God’s will and his pleasure, captain, I beseech you now, come apace to the King. There is more good toward you, peradventure, than is in your knowledge to dream of.

WILLIAM Sir, know you this glove?

FLUELLEN Know the glove? I know the glove is a glove.

WILLIAM Fplucking the glove from Fluellen’s cap] I know this, and thus I challenge it. He strikes Fluellen

FLUELLEN God’s plood, and his! An arrant traitor as any’s in the universal world, or in France, or in England.

GOWER (to Williams) How now, sir? You villain!

WILLIAM Do you think I’ll be forsworn?

FLUELLEN Stand away, Captain Gower. I will give treason his payment into plows, I warrant you.

Williams I am no traitor.

FLUELLEN That’s a lie in thy throat. I charge you in his majesty’s name, apprehend him. He’s a friend of the Duke Alençon’s.

Enter the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Gloucester

WARWICK How now, how now, what’s the matter?

FLUELLEN My lord of Warwick, here is—praised be God for it—a most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall desire in a summer’s day.