France. The French King's Palace.
 Flourish.
 Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN,
 the Dukes of BERRI and BRETAGNE, the CONSTABLE, and OTHERS.

French King	Thus comes the English with full power upon us,
	And more than carefully it us concerns
	To answer royally in our defences.
	Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Bretagne,
	Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,
	And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,
	To line and new repair our towns of war
	With men of courage and with means defendant;
	For England his approaches makes as fierce
	As waters to the sucking of a gulf.
	It fits us then to be as provident
	As fear may teach us out of late examples
	Left by the fatal and neglected English
	Upon our fields.

Dauphin						My most redoubted father,
	It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;
	For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom-
	Though war nor no known quarrel were in question-
	But that defences, musters, preparations,
	Should be maintained, assembled, and collected,
	As were a war in expectation.
	Therefore I say 'tis meet we all go forth
	To view the sick and feeble parts of France;
	And let us do it with no show of fear,
	No, with no more than if we heard that England
	Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance;
	For, my good liege, she is so idly kinged,
	Her sceptre so fantastically borne
	By a vain giddy shallow humorous youth,
	That fear attends her not.

Constable									O peace, Prince Dauphin;
	You are too much mistaken in this king.
	Question your grace the late ambassadors
	With what great state he heard their embassy,
	How well supplied with noble counsellors,
	How modest in exception, and withal
	How terrible in constant resolution,
	And you shall find his vanities forespent
	Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
	Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
	As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
	That shall first spring and be most delicate.

Dauphin	Well, 'tis not so, my Lord High Constable.
	But though we think it so, it is no matter:
	In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh
	The enemy more mighty than he seems-
	So the proportions of defence are filled;
	Which of a weak and niggardly projection,
	Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
	A little cloth.

French King						Think we King Harry strong;
	And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
	The kindred of him hath been fleshed upon us,
	And he is bred out of that bloody strain
	That haunted us in our familiar paths:
	Witness our too much memorable shame
	When Crcy battle fatally was struck,
	And all our princes captived by the hand
	Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales;
	Whiles that his mountain sire, on mountain standing,
	Up in the air, crowned with the golden sun,
	Saw his heroical seed, and smiled to see him,
	Mangle the work of nature, and deface
	The patterns that by God and by French fathers
	Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
	Of that victorious stock; and let us fear
	The native mightiness and fate of him.

                            Enter a MESSENGER.

Messenger	Ambassadors from Harry King of England
	Do crave admittance to your majesty.

French King	We'll give them present audience. Go, and bring them.
							  [Exeunt MESSENGER and certain LORDS.
	You see this chase is hotly followed, friends.

Dauphin	Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
	Most spend their mouths when what they seem to threaten
	Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,
	Take up the English short, and let them know
	Of what a monarchy you are the head.
	Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
	As self-neglecting.

                  Re-enter LORDS, with EXETER and TRAIN.

French King							From our brother England?

Exeter	From him; and thus he greets your majesty:
	He wills you in the name of God Almighty
	That you divest yourself, and lay apart
	The borrowed glories that by gift of heaven,
	By law of nature and of nations, 'longs
	To him and to his heirs; namely, the crown
	And all wide-stretchd honours that pertain
	By custom and the ordinance of times
	Unto the crown of France. That you may know
	'Tis no sinister nor no awkward claim,
	Picked from the worm-holes of long-vanished days,
	Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,
	He sends you this most memorable line,
	In every branch truly demonstrative,
	Willing you overlook this pedigree.
	And when you find him evenly derived
	From his most famed of famous ancestors,
	Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
	Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
	From him, the native and true challenger.

French King	Or else what follows?

Exeter	Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
	Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it.
	Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
	In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
	That if requiring fail, he will compel;
	And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
	Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
	On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
	Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
	Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
	The dead men's blood, the privd maidens' groans,
	For husbands, fathers, and betrothd lovers,
	That shall be swallowed in this controversy.
	This is his claim, his threat'ning, and my message-
	Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
	To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

French King	For us, we will consider of this further.
	Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent
	Back to our brother England.

Dauphin									For the Dauphin,
	I stand here for him. What to him from England?

Exeter	Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt,
	And anything that may not misbecome
	The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
	Thus says my king: and if your father's highness
	Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
	Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
	He'll call you to so loud an answer of it
	That caves and womby vaultages of France
	Shall chide your trespass, and return your mock
	In second accent of his ordinance.

Dauphin	Say: if my father render fair return,
	It is against my will; for I desire
	Nothing bur odds with England. To that end,
	As matching to his youth and vanity,
	I did present him with the Paris balls.

Exeter	He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
	Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe;
	And, be assured, you'll find a difference,
	As we his subjects have in wonder found,
	Between the promise of his greener days
	And these he masters now. Now he weighs time
	Even to the utmost grain: - that you shall read
	In your own losses, if he stay in France.

French King	Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full.
													[Flourish.

Exeter	Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king
	Come here himself to question our delay;
	For he is footed in this land already.

French King	You shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions.
	A night is but small breath and little pause
	To answer matters of this consequence.
													[Exeunt.
