KING HENRY.May I with right and conscience make this claim?CANTERBURY.The sin upon my head,dread sovereign!For in the book of Numbers is it writ,When the man dies,let the inheritance Descend unto the daughter.Gracious lord,Stand for your own,unwind your bloody flag,Look back into your mighty ancestors.Go,my dread lord,to your great-grandsire's tomb,From whom you claim;invoke his warlike spirit,And your great-uncle's,Edward the Black Prince,Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,Making defeat on the fun power of France,Whiles his most mighty father on a hill Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp Forage in blood of French nobility.O noble English,that could entertain With half their forces the full pride of France,And let another half stand laughing by,All out of work and cold for action!ELY.Awake remembrance of these valiant dead,And with your puissant arm renew their feats.You are their heir;you sit upon their throne;The blood and courage that renowned them Runs in your veins;and my thrice-puissant liege Is in the very May-morn of his youth,Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.EXETER.Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,As did the former lions of your blood.WESTMORELAND.
They know your Grace hath cause and means and might-So hath your Highness;never King of England Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.CANTERBURY.O,let their bodies follow,my dear liege,With blood and sword and fire to win your right!In aid whereof we of the spiritualty Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum As never did the clergy at one time Bring in to any of your ancestors.KING HENRY.We must not only arm t'invade the French,But lay down our proportions to defend Against the Scot,who will make road upon us With all advantages.CANTERBURY.They of those marches,gracious sovereign,Shall be a wall sufficient to defend Our inland from the pilfering borderers.KING HENRY.We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,But fear the main intendment of the Scot,Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;For you shall read that my great-grandfather Never went with his forces into France But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom Came pouring,like the tide into a breach,With ample and brim fulness of his force,Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,Girdling with grievous siege castles and towns;That England,being empty of defence,Hath shook and trembled at th'ill neighbourhood.CANTERBURY.She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd,my liege;For hear her but exampled by herself:When all her chivalry hath been in France,And she a mourning widow of her nobles,She hath herself not only well defended But taken and impounded as a stray The King of Scots;whom she did send to France,To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings,And make her chronicle as rich with praise As is the ooze and bottom of the sea With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.WESTMORELAND.But there's a saying,very old and true:
'If that you will France win,Then with Scotland first begin.'For once the eagle England being in prey,To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot Comes sneaking,and so sucks her princely eggs,Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,To tear and havoc more than she can eat.EXETER.It follows,then,the cat must stay at home;Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,Th'advised head defends itself at home;For government,though high,and low,and lower,Put into parts,doth keep in one consent,Congreeing in a full and natural close,Like music.CANTERBURY.Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions,Setting endeavour in continual motion;To which is fixed as an aim or but Obedience;for so work the honey bees,Creatures that by a rule in nature teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom.They have a king,and officers of sorts,Where some like magistrates correct at home;Others like merchants venture trade abroad;Others like soldiers,armed in their stings,Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor;Who,busied in his majesty,surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold,The civil citizens kneading up the honey,The poor mechanic porters crowding in Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,The sad-ey'd justice,with his surly hum,Delivering o'er to executors pale The lazy yawning drone.
