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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. I this infer,

That many things, having full reference

To one consent, may work contrariously;

As many arrows loosed several ways

Come to one mark, as many ways meet in one town,

As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,

As many lines close in the dial's centre;

So many a thousand actions, once afoot,

End in one purpose, and be all well home

Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.

Divide your happy England into four;

Whereof take you one quarter into France,

And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.

If we, with thrice such powers left at home,

Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,

Let us be worried, and our nation lose

The name of hardiness and policy.

KING HENRY.

Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.

Exeunt some attendants

Now are we well resolv'd; and, by God's help

And yours, the noble sinews of our power,

France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,

Or break it all to pieces; or there we'll sit,

Ruling in large and ample empery

O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,

Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,

Tombless, with no remembrance over them.

Either our history shall with full mouth

Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,

Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,

Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.

Enter AMBASSADORS of France

Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure

Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear

Your greeting is from him, not from the King.

AMBASSADOR.

May't please your Majesty to give us leave

Freely to render what we have in charge;

Or shall we sparingly show you far of

The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?

KING HENRY.

We are no tyrant,