1    Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?

2    Not here in presence.

3    Send for him, good uncle.

4    Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?

5    Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved,
6    Before we hear him, of some things of weight
7    That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

8    God and his angels guard your sacred throne
9    And make you long become it!

10   Sure, we thank you.
11   My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
12   And justly and religiously unfold
13   Why the law Salique that they have in France
14   Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim:
15   And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
16   That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
17   Or nicely charge your understanding soul
18   With opening titles miscreate, whose right
19   Suits not in native colours with the truth;
20   For God doth know how many now in health
21   Shall drop their blood in approbation
22   Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
23   Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
24   How you awake our sleeping sword of war:
25   We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;
26   For never two such kingdoms did contend
27   Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
28   Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
29   'Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords
30   That make such waste in brief mortality.
31   Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;
32   For we will hear, note and believe in heart
33   That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
34   As pure as sin with baptism.

35   Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
36   That owe yourselves, your lives and services
37   To this imperial throne. There is no bar
38   To make against your highness' claim to France
39   But this, which they produce from Pharamond,
40   'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant:'
41   'No woman shall succeed in Salique land:'
42   Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
43   To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
44   The founder of this law and female bar.
45   Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
46   That the land Salique is in Germany,
47   Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
48   Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,
49   There left behind and settled certain French;
50   Who, holding in disdain the German women
51   For some dishonest manners of their life,
52   Establish'd then this law; to wit, no female
53   Should be inheritrix in Salique land:
54   Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
55   Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.
56   Then doth it well appear that Salique law
57   Was not devised for the realm of France:
58   Nor did the French possess the Salique land
59   Until four hundred one and twenty years
60   After defunction of King Pharamond,
61   Idly supposed the founder of this law;
62   Who died within the year of our redemption
63   Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
64   Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
65   Beyond the river Sala, in the year
66   Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
67   King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,
68   Did, as heir general, being descended
69   Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
70   Make claim and title to the crown of France.
71   Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown
72   Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
73   Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
74   To find his title with some shows of truth,
75   'Through, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,
76   Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,
77   Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
78   To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
79   Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,
80   Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
81   Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
82   Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
83   That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
84   Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
85   Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorraine:
86   By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
87   Was re-united to the crown of France.
88   So that, as clear as is the summer's sun.
89   King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim,
90   King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
91   To hold in right and title of the female:
92   So do the kings of France unto this day;
93   Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
94   To bar your highness claiming from the female,
95   And rather choose to hide them in a net
96   Than amply to imbar their crooked titles
97   Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

98   May I with right and conscience make this claim?

99   The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
100  For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
101  When the man dies, let the inheritance
102  Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
103  Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;
104  Look back into your mighty ancestors:
105  Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,
106  From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
107  And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
108  Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
109  Making defeat on the full power of France,
110  Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
111  Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp
112  Forage in blood of French nobility.
113  O noble English. that could entertain
114  With half their forces the full Pride of France
115  And let another half stand laughing by,
116  All out of work and cold for action!

117  Awake remembrance of these valiant dead
118  And with your puissant arm renew their feats:
119  You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;
120  The blood and courage that renowned them
121  Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
122  Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
123  Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.

124  Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
125  Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
126  As did the former lions of your blood.

127  They know your grace hath cause and means and might;
128  So hath your highness; never king of England
129  Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,
130  Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England
131  And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.

132  O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
133  With blood and sword and fire to win your right;
134  In aid whereof we of the spiritualty
135  Will raise your highness such a mighty sum
136  As never did the clergy at one time
137  Bring in to any of your ancestors.

138  We must not only arm to invade the French,
139  But lay down our proportions to defend
140  Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
141  With all advantages.

142  They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
143  Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
144  Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

145  We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
146  But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
147  Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
148  For you shall read that my great-grandfather
149  Never went with his forces into France
150  But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
151  Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
152  With ample and brim fulness of his force,
153  Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,
154  Girding with grievous siege castles and towns;
155  That England, being empty of defence,
156  Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.

157  She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;
158  For hear her but exampled by herself:
159  When all her chivalry hath been in France
160  And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
161  She hath herself not only well defended
162  But taken and impounded as a stray
163  The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,
164  To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings
165  And make her chronicle as rich with praise
166  As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
167  With sunken wreck and sunless treasuries.

168  But there's a saying very old and true,
169  'If that you will France win,
170  Then with Scotland first begin:'
171  For once the eagle England being in prey,
172  To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
173  Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,
174  Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
175  To tear and havoc more than she can eat.

176  It follows then the cat must stay at home:
177  Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,
178  Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
179  And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
180  While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
181  The advised head defends itself at home;
182  For government, though high and low and lower,
183  Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
184  Congreeing in a full and natural close,
185  Like music.

186  Therefore doth heaven divide
187  The state of man in divers functions,
188  Setting endeavour in continual motion;
189  To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
190  Obedience: for so work the honey-bees,
191  Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
192  The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
193  They have a king and officers of sorts;
194  Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
195  Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,
196  Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
197  Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
198  Which pillage they with merry march bring home
199  To the tent-royal of their emperor;
200  Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
201  The singing masons building roofs of gold,
202  The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
203  The poor mechanic porters crowding in
204  Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
205  The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
206  Delivering o'er to executors pale
207  The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
208  That many things, having full reference
209  To one consent, may work contrariously:
210  As many arrows, loosed several ways,
211  Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
212  As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;
213  As many lines close in the dial's centre;
214  So may a thousand actions, once afoot.
215  End in one purpose, and be all well borne
216  Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.
217  Divide your happy England into four;
218  Whereof take you one quarter into France,
219  And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
220  If we, with thrice such powers left at home,
221  Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,
222  Let us be worried and our nation lose
223  The name of hardiness and policy.

224  Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
Exeunt some Attendants
225  Now are we well resolved; and, by God's help,
226  And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
227  France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
228  Or break it all to pieces: or there we'll sit,
229  Ruling in large and ample empery
230  O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
231  Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
232  Tombless, with no remembrance over them:
233  Either our history shall with full mouth
234  Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
235  Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
236  Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.
Enter Ambassadors of France
237  Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure
238  Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear
239  Your greeting is from him, not from the king.

240  May't please your majesty to give us leave
241  Freely to render what we have in charge;
242  Or shall we sparingly show you far off
243  The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?

244  We are no tyrant, but a Christian king;
245  Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
246  As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons:
247  Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness
248  Tell us the Dauphin's mind.

249  Thus, then, in few.
250  Your highness, lately sending into France,
251  Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
252  Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.
253  In answer of which claim, the prince our master
254  Says that you savour too much of your youth,
255  And bids you be advised there's nought in France
256  That can be with a nimble galliard won;
257  You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
258  He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
259  This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
260  Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
261  Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.

262  What treasure, uncle?

263  Tennis-balls, my liege.

264  We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
265  His present and your pains we thank you for:
266  When we have march'd our rackets to these balls,
267  We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
268  Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
269  Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
270  That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
271  With chaces. And we understand him well,
272  How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
273  Not measuring what use we made of them.
274  We never valued this poor seat of England;
275  And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
276  To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common
277  That men are merriest when they are from home.
278  But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
279  Be like a king and show my sail of greatness
280  When I do rouse me in my throne of France:
281  For that I have laid by my majesty
282  And plodded like a man for working-days,
283  But I will rise there with so full a glory
284  That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
285  Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
286  And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
287  Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
288  Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
289  That shall fly with them: for many a thousand widows
290  Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands;
291  Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
292  And some are yet ungotten and unborn
293  That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.
294  But this lies all within the will of God,
295  To whom I do appeal; and in whose name
296  Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on,
297  To venge me as I may and to put forth
298  My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
299  So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
300  His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
301  When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.
302  Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.

303  This was a merry message.

304  We hope to make the sender blush at it.
305  Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
306  That may give furtherance to our expedition;
307  For we have now no thought in us but France,
308  Save those to God, that run before our business.
309  Therefore let our proportions for these wars
310  Be soon collected and all things thought upon
311  That may with reasonable swiftness add
312  More feathers to our wings; for, God before,
313  We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.
314  Therefore let every man now task his thought,
315  That this fair action may on foot be brought.