Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels, That knew'st the very bottom of my soul, That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold, Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use, 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 and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together, As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose, Working so grossly in a natural cause, That admiration did not whoop at them:
But thou, 'gainst all proportion, didst bring in Wonder to wait on treason and on murder:
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was That wrought upon thee so preposterously Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:
All other devils that suggest by treasons Do botch and bungle up damnation With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd From glistering semblances of piety;But he that temper'd 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 gull'd 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.'
O, how hast thou with 'jealousy infected The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and learned?
Why, so didst thou: come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou: seem they religious?
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, Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement, Not working with the eye without the ear, And but in purged judgment trusting neither?
Such and so finely bolted 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 practises! EXETER I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Richard Earl of Cambridge.
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 discover'd;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 thanked 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 damned enterprise:
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign. KING HENRY V God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.
You have conspired against our royal person, Join'd with an enemy proclaim'd 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 CAMBRIDGE, SCROOP and GREY, 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 To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now But every rub is smoothed on our way.
Then forth, dear countrymen: let us deliver Our puissance into the hand of God, Putting it straight in expedition.
Cheerly to sea; the signs of war advance:
No king of England, if not king of France.
Exeunt SCENE III. London. Before a tavern. Enter PISTOL, Hostess, NYM, BARDOLPH, and Boy Hostess Prithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring thee to Staines. PISTOL No; for my manly heart doth yearn.
Bardolph, be blithe: Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins:
Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead, And we must yearn therefore. BARDOLPH Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell! Hostess Nay, sure, he's not in hell: he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A' made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child; a' parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a' babbled of green fields. 'How now, sir John!' quoth I 'what, man! be o' good cheer.' So a' cried out 'God, God, God!' three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a'
should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet.
