Scroop. So did you me, my liege.
Grey. And me, my royal sovereign.
King. Then, Richard, Earl of Cambridge, there is
yours; There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham; and, sir knight, Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours;
[He gives each of them a paper.
Read them; and know, I know your worthiness.
My Lord of Westmoreland, and uncle Exeter,
We will aboard to-night. [The Conspirators read and turn
pale.] Why, how now, gentlemen!
What see you in those papers, that you lose
So much complexion? Look ye, how they change! Their cheeks are paper. Why, what read you there, 70 That hath so cowarded and chased your blood
Cambridge [kneeling]. I do confess my fault; And do submit me to your highness' mercy. Grey and Scroop [kneeling]. To which we all appeal. [The other Lords cry out in anger. King. The mercy that was quick in us but late, 75 By your own counsel is suppressed and killed : You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy : For your own reasons turn into your bosoms, As dogs upon their masters, worrying you. See you, my princes and my noble peers,
These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here—
You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appertinents
Belonging to his honour; and this man
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,
And sworn unto the practices of France,
To kill us here in Hampton: to the which,
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn.
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel, 90
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature!
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coined me into gold,—
May it be possible that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? 'Tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black from white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose :
But whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence :
And other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnatión
With patches, colours, and with forms being fetched
From glistering semblances of piety;
But he that tempered thee bade thee stand up,
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back,
And tell the legions 'I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman's'.
Oh, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou:
Why, so didst thou:
Why, so didst thou:
Why, so didst thou or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood?
Such and so finely boulted didst thou seem :
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued,
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man.-Their faults are open :
Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practices!
[They rise. Exeter disarms them one by one, and
hands them over to the guard.
Exeter. I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
Richard Earl of Cambridge.
seem they grave and learned ?
come they of noble family? 120
seem they religious?
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop of Masham.
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland.
Scroop. Our purposes God justly hath discovered, And I repent my fault more than my death; Which I beseech your highness to forgive, Although my body pay the price of it.
Cambridge. For me, the gold of France did not seduce; Although I did admit it as a motive The sooner to effect what I intended: But God be thankèd for prevention ; Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice, Beseeching God and you to pardon me.
Grey. Never did faithful subject more rejoice At the discovery of most dangerous treason, Than I do at this hour joy o'er myself, Prevented from a damnèd enterprise :
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.
King. God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sen-
You have conspired against our royal person,
Joined with an enemy proclaimed, and from his coffers
Received the golden earnest of our death;
Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude,
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person seek we no revenge :
But we our kingdom's safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death:
The taste whereof, God of his mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offences! Bear them hence.
[Exeunt the Conspirators, guarded. Now, lords, for France; the enterprise whereof Shall be to you, as us, like glorious. We doubt not of a fair and lucky war: Since God so graciously hath brought to light This dangerous treason lurking in our way. Then forth, dear countrymen
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expeditión.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance :
No king of England, if not king of France. [Exeunt.
Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed King at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning:
Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,
Breasting the lofty surge: Oh, do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy;
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women;
For who is he, whose chin is but enriched
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
Those culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France ?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back;
Tells Harry that the King doth offer him
Katharine his daughter; and with her, to dowry,
Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
The offer likes not and the nimble gunner
With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,
[Alarum, and cannons go off. And down goes all before them. Still be kind, And eke out our performance with your mind.
SCENE IV. THE ATTACK ON HARFLEUR.
The wall has been breached by the cannons. The English have assaulted, but been driven back; the King heads a second charge.
Alarums. Enter King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Gloucester, and soldiers with scaling-ladders.
King. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspéct ;
Let it pry through the portage of the head,
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it, As fearfully as doth a gallèd rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swilled with the wild and wasteful oceán.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide;
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height! On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you called fathers did beget you!
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war! And you, good yeomen, 25
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. [He seizes a banner.] The game 's afoot :
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