KING HARRY

Peace to this meeting, wherefor we are met.

Unto our brother France and to our sister,

Health and fair time of day. joy and good wishes

To our most fair and princely cousin Catherine;

And as a branch and member of this royalty,

By whom this great assembly is contrived,

We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy.

And princes French, and peers, health to you all.

KING CHARLES

Right joyous are we to behold your face.

Most worthy brother England, fairly met.

So are you, princes English, every one.

QUEEN ISABEL

So happy be the issue, brother England,

Of this good day and of this gracious meeting,

As we are now glad to behold your eyes—

Your eyes which hitherto have borne in them,

Against the French that met them in their bent,

The fatal balls of murdering basilisks.

The venom of such looks we fairly hope

Have lost their quality, and that this day

Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.

KING HARRY

To cry amen to that, thus we appear.

QUEEN ISABEL

You English princes all, I do salute you.

BURGUNDY

My duty to you both, on equal love,

Great Kings of France and England. That I have

laboured

With all my wits, my pains, and strong endeavours,

To bring your most imperial majesties

Unto this bar and royal interview,

Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.

Since, then, my office hath so far prevailed

That face to face and royal eye to eye

You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me

If I demand, before this royal view,

What rub or what impediment there is

Why that the naked, poor, and mangled peace,

Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births,

Should not in this best garden of the world,

Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?

Alas, she hath from France too long been chased,

And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,

Corrupting in it own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,

Unprunèd dies; her hedges even-plashed

Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair

Put forth disordered twigs; her fallow leas

The darnel, hemlock, and rank fumitory

Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts

That should deracinate such savagery.

The even mead—that erst brought sweetly forth

The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover—

Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,

Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems

But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,

Losing both beauty and utility.

An all our vineyards, fallows, meads, and hedges,

Defective in their natures, grow to wildness,

Even so our houses and ourselves and children

Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,

The sciences that should become our country,

But grow like savages—as soldiers will

That nothing do but meditate on blood—

To swearing and stern looks, diffused attire,

And everything that seems unnatural.

Which to reduce into our former favour

You are assembled, and my speech entreats

That I may know the let why gentle peace

Should not expel these inconveniences

And bless us with her former qualities.

KING HARRY

If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace

Whose want gives growth to th’imperfections

Which you have cited, you must buy that peace

With full accord to all our just demands,

Whose tenors and particular effects

You have enscheduled briefly in your hands.

BURGUNDY

The King hath heard them, to the which as yet

There is no answer made.

KING HARRY Well then, the peace,

Which you before so urged, lies in his answer.

KING CHARLES

I have but with a cursitory eye

O’erglanced the articles. Pleaseth your grace

To appoint some of your council presently

To sit with us once more, with better heed

To re-survey them, we will suddenly

Pass our accept and peremptory answer.

KING HARRY

Brother, we shall.—Go, Uncle Exeter

And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester;

Warwick and Huntingdon, go with the King,

And take with you free power to ratify,

Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best

Shall see advantageable for our dignity,

Anything in or out of our demands,

And we’ll consign thereto.—Will you, fair sister,

Go with the princes, or stay here with us?

QUEEN

Our gracious brother, I will go with them.

Haply a woman’s voice may do some good

When articles too nicely urged be stood on.

KING HARRY

Yet leave our cousin Catherine here with us.

She is our capital demand, comprised

Within the fore-rank of our articles.

QUEEN

She hath good leave.

Exeunt all but King Harry, Catherine, and Alice

KING HARRY Fair Catherine, and most fair,

Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms