places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently and yielding.
Kissing her. You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.
|
Re-enter the French King and his Queen, Burgundy, and other Lords. |
| Burgundy |
God save your majesty! my royal cousin, teach you our princess English? |
| King Henry |
I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her; and that is good English. |
| Burgundy |
Is she not apt? |
| King Henry |
Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in his true likeness. |
| Burgundy |
Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you blame her then, being a maid yet ros’d over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to. |
| King Henry |
Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces. |
| Burgundy |
They are then excused, my lord, when they see not what they do. |
| King Henry |
Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking. |
| Burgundy |
I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach her to know my meaning: for maids, well summered and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on. |
| King Henry |
This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end and she must be blind too. |
| Burgundy |
As love is, my lord, before it loves. |
| King Henry |
It is so: and you may, some of you, thank love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair French maid that stands in my way. |
| French King |
Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls that no war hath entered. |
| King Henry |
Shall Kate be my wife? |
| French King |
So please you. |
| King Henry |
I am content; so the maiden cities you talk of may wait on her: so the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will. |
| French King |
We have consented to all terms of reason. |
| King Henry |
Is’t so, my lords of England? |
| Westmoreland |
The king hath granted every article:
His daughter first, and then in sequel all,
According to their firm proposed natures.
|
| Exeter |
Only he hath not yet subscribed this: Where your majesty demands, that the King of France, having any occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your highness in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre très-cher fils Henri, Roi d’Angleterre, Héritier de France; and thus in Latin, Praeclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae, et Haeres Franciae. |
| French King |
Nor this I have not, brother, so denied
But our request shall make me let it pass.
|
| King Henry |
I pray you then, in love and dear alliance,
Let that one article rank with the rest;
And thereupon give me your daughter.
|
| French King |
Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up
Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms
Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
With envy of each other’s happiness,
May cease their hatred, and this dear conjunction
Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord
In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance
His bleeding sword ’twixt England and fair France.
|
| All |
Amen! |
| King Henry |
Now, welcome, Kate: and bear me witness all,
That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen. Flourish.
|
| Queen Isabel |
God, the best maker of all marriages,
Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!
As man and wife, being two, are one in love,
So be there ’twixt your kingdoms such a spousal,
That never may ill office, or fell jealousy,
Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,
Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,
To make divorce of their incorporate league;
That English may as French, French Englishmen,
Receive each other. God speak this Amen!
|
| All |
Amen! |
| King Henry |
Prepare we for our marriage: on which day,
My Lord of Burgundy, we’ll take your oath,
And all the peers’, for surety of our leagues.
Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me;
And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be! Sennet. Exeunt.
|
Epilogue
|
Enter Chorus. |
| Chorus |
Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursued the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England: Fortune made his sword;
By which the world’s best garden he achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown’d King
Of France and England, did this king succeed;
Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take. Exit.
|
