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KING HENRY. It sorts well with your fierceness.

Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER

GOWER.

Captain Fluellen!

FLUELLEN.

So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak fewer. It is the

greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true and

aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the wars is not kept: if you

would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great,

you shall find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle-taddle nor

pibble-pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you, you shall find the

ceremonies of the wars, and the cares of it, and the forms of it,

and the sobriety of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.

GOWER.

Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.

FLUELLEN.

If the enemy is an ass, and a fool, and a prating

coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be

an ass, and a fool, and a prating coxcomb? In your own conscience, now?

GOWER.

I will speak lower.

FLUELLEN.

I pray you and beseech you that you will.

Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN

KING HENRY.

Though it appear a little out of fashion,

There is much care and valour in this Welshman.

Enter three soldiers: JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT,

and MICHAEL WILLIAMS

COURT.

Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder? BATES. I think it be; but we have no great cause to desire the approach of day. WILLIAMS. We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there? KING HENRY. A friend. WILLIAMS. Under what captain serve you? KING HENRY. Under Sir Thomas Erpingham. WILLIAMS. A good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray you, what thinks he of our estate? KING HENRY. Even as men wreck'd upon a sand, that look to be wash'd off the next tide. BATES. He hath not told his thought to the King? KING HENRY. No; nor it is not meet he should. For though I speak it to you, I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore, when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are; yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army. BATES. He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here. KING HENRY. By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is. BATES. Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved. KING HENRY. I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this, to feel other men's minds; methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King's company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable. WILLIAMS. That's more than we know. BATES. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough if we know we are the King's subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us. WILLIAMS. But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads, chopp'd off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place'- some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the King that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection. KING HENRY. So, if a