France. A royal palace.
[Enter, at one door KING HENRY, EXETER,
BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, WARWICK,
WESTMORELAND, and other Lords; at another,
the FRENCH KING, QUEEN ISABEL, the
PRINCESS KATHARINE, ALICE and other Ladies;
the DUKE of BURGUNDY, and his train]
KING HENRY V
Peace to this meeting, wherefore 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 Katharine;
And, as a branch and member of this royalty,
We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy;
And, princes French, and peers, health to you all!
KING OF FRANCE
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 HENRY V To cry amen to that, thus we appear.
BURGUNDY My duty to you both, on equal love,
Great Kings of France and England!
Since then my office hath so far prevail’d
That, face to face and royal eye to eye,
You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me,
If I demand, before this royal view,
Why that the naked, poor and mangled Peace,
Dear nurse of arts 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 its own fertility.
Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach’d,
Put forth disorder’d 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.
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 every thing that seems unnatural.
Which to reduce into our former favour
You are assembled.
KING HENRY V If, Duke of Burgundy,
you must buy that peace
With full accord to all our just demands;
KING OF FRANCE I have but with a cursorary eye
O’erglanced the articles: pleaseth your grace
To appoint some of your council presently
To sit with us, we will suddenly
Pass our accept and peremptory answer.
KING HENRY V Brother, we shall. Will you, fair sister,
Go with the princes, or stay here with us?
QUEEN ISABEL 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 HENRY V Yet leave our cousin Katharine here with us.
QUEEN ISABEL She hath good leave.
[Exeunt all except HENRY,
KATHARINE, and ALICE]
KING HENRY V Fair Katharine, and most fair,
Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms
Such as will enter at a lady’s ear
And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?
KATHARINE Your majesty shall mock at me;
I cannot speak your England.
KING HENRY V O fair Katharine, if you will love me
soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear
you confess it brokenly with your English tongue.
Do you like me, Kate?
KATHARINE Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell vat is ‘like me.’
KING HENRY V An angel is like you, Kate,
and you are like an angel.
KATHARINE Que dit-il? que je suis semblable a les anges?
ALICE Oui, vraiment, sauf votre grace, ainsi dit-il.
KATHARINE O bon Dieu! les langues des hommes
sont pleines de tromperies.
KING HENRY V What says she, fair one?
that the tongues of men are full of deceits?
ALICE Oui,
dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits.
KING HENRY V I’ faith, Kate: I am
glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if
thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king
that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my
crown. I know no ways to mince it in love, but
directly to say ‘I love you.’
Give me your answer; i’ faith, do: and so
clap hands and a bargain: how say you, lady?
KATHARINE Sauf votre honneur, me understand vell.
KING HENRY V Marry, if you would put me to verses
or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid me:
Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse
for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and
sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God,
Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my
eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation;
If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate,
that never looks in his glass for love
of any thing he sees there,
whose face is not worth
sun-burning, take me: if not, to say to thee
that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the
Lord, no; yet I love thee too. And while thou
livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and
uncoined constancy;
for these fellows of infinite tongue, that
can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favours, they do
always reason themselves out again. What! a
speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad.
A straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white;
a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax
hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the
moon; if thou would have such a one, take
me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier,
take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love?
speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.
KATHARINE Is it possible
dat I sould love de enemy of France?
KING HENRY V No, Kate: but, in loving me, you should
love the friend of France; for I love France so well that
I will not part with a village of it;
And, Kate, when France is mine and I am
yours, then yours is France and you are mine.
KATHARINE I cannot tell vat is dat.
KING HENRY V No, Kate? I will tell thee in French;
which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a
new-married wife about her husband’s neck, hardly
to be shook off. Je quand sur le possession de France,
et quand vous avez le possession de moi,–let me see,
what then? –donc votre est France et vous etes mienne.
I shall never move thee in French,
unless it be to laugh at me.
KATHARINE Sauf votre honneur, le Francois que vous
parlez, il est meilleur que l’Anglois lequel je parle.
KING HENRY V No, faith, is’t not, Kate: but thy speaking
of my tongue, and I thine, must needs be granted to be
much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much
English, canst thou love me?
KATHARINE I cannot tell.
KING HENRY V Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate?
I’ll ask them. Come, I know thou lovest me: and at night,
when you come into your closet, you’ll question this
gentlewoman about me; and I know, Kate, you will to
her dispraise those parts in me that you love with
your heart: but, good Kate, mock me mercifully; the
rather, gentle princess, because I love thee
cruelly. What sayest thou, my fair flower-de-luce?
La plus belle Katharine du monde, mon tres cher
et devin deesse?
KATHARINE Your majestee ave fausse French enough
to deceive de most sage demoiselle dat is en France.
KING HENRY V Now, fie upon my false French! By mine
honour, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honour
I dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to
flatter me that thou dost,
Put off your maiden blushes; avouch the
thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress;
take me by the hand, and say ‘Harry of England I am
thine:’ which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine
ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud ‘England is
thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Harry
Plantagenet is thine;’ therefore, queen of
all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in broken
English; wilt thou have me?
KATHARINE Dat is as it sall please de roi mon pere.
KING HENRY V Nay, it will please him well,
Kate it shall please him, Kate.
KATHARINE Den it sall also content me.
KING HENRY V Upon that I kiss your hand,
and I call you my queen.
KATHARINE Laissez, mon seigneur, laissez, laissez:
ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur
en baisant la main d’une de votre seigeurie indigne
serviteur; excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon
tres-puissant seigneur.
KING HENRY V Then I will kiss your lips, Kate.
KATHARINE Les dames et demoiselles pour etre baisees
devant leur noces, il n’est pas la coutume de France.
KING HENRY V Madam my interpreter, what says she?
ALICE Dat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of
France,–I cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.
KING HENRY V To kiss.
ALICE Your majesty entendre bettre que moi.
KING HENRY V It is not a fashion for the maids in France
to kiss before they are married, would she say?
ALICE Oui, vraiment.
KING HENRY V O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings.
Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak
list of a country’s fashion: we are the makers of
manners, Kate; therefore, patiently and yielding.
[Kissing her]
You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate.
[Re-enter the FRENCH KING and his
QUEEN, BURGUNDY, and other Lords]
BURGUNDY God save your majesty! my royal cousin,
teach you our princess English?
KING HENRY V I would have her learn, my fair cousin,
how perfectly I love her; and that is good English.
KING HENRY V Shall Kate be my wife?
FRENCH KING Take her, fair son, that the contending
kingdoms Of France and England,
whose very shores look pale
With envy of each other’s happiness,
May cease their hatred, and never war advance
His bleeding sword ‘twixt England and fair France.
ALL Amen!
[Sennet. Exeunt]
Act 5.1 | Epilogue
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