Henry V: Act 1, Scene 2
Henry V. Act 1, Scene 2. King Henry
This speech is used in our interview with Nathan Winkelstein.
- We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.
- His present and your pains we thank you for.
- When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
- We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set
- Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
- Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
- That all the courts of France will be disturbed
- With chases. And we understand him well,
- How he comes o’er us with our wilder days,
- Not measuring what use we made of them.
- We never valued this poor seat of England,
- And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
- To barbarous license, as ’tis ever common
- That men are merriest when they are from home.
- But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
- Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness
- When I do rouse me in my throne of France,
- For that I have laid by my majesty
- And plodded like a man for working days;
- But I will rise there with so full a glory
- That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
- Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
- And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
- Hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
- Shall stand sore chargèd for the wasteful vengeance
- That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows
- Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,
- Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
- And some are yet ungotten and unborn
- That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn.
- But this lies all within the will of God,
- To whom I do appeal, and in whose name
- Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on,
- To venge me as I may and to put forth
- My rightful hand in a well-hallowed cause.
- So get you hence in peace. And tell the Dauphin
- His jest will savor but of shallow wit
- When thousands weep more than did