Enter a Messenger.
MESSENGER.
My honourable lords, health to you all!
Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,
Of loss, of slaughter, and discomfiture:
Guienne, Champaigne, Rheims, Rouen, Orleans,
Paris, Guysors, Poictiers, are all quite lost.
BEDFORD.
What say’st thou, man, before dead Henry’s corse?
Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns
Will make him burst his lead and rise from death.
GLOUCESTER.
Is Paris lost? Is Rouen yielded up?
If Henry were recall’d to life again,
These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.
EXETER.
How were they lost? What treachery was us’d?
MESSENGER.
No treachery, but want of men and money.
Amongst the soldiers this is muttered:
That here you maintain several factions
And whilst a field should be dispatch’d and fought,
You are disputing of your generals.
One would have lingering wars with little cost;
Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings;
A third thinks, without expense at all,
By guileful fair words peace may be obtain’d.
Awake, awake, English nobility!
Let not sloth dim your honours new-begot.
Cropp’d are the flower-de-luces in your arms;
Of England’s coat one half is cut away.
[He exits.]
EXETER.
Were our tears wanting to this funeral,
These tidings would call forth their flowing tides.
BEDFORD.
Me they concern; Regent I am of France.
Give me my steeled coat. I’ll fight for France.
Away with these disgraceful wailing robes!
Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,
To weep their intermissive miseries.
Enter to them another Messenger.