K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the French,
But lay down our proportions to defend[4585]
Against the Scot, who will make road upon us
With all advantages.
Cant. They of those marches, gracious sovereign,[4586]140
Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,[4587]
But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;[4588]145
For you shall read that my great-grandfather
Never went with his forces into France[4589]
But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
With ample and brim fulness of his force,150
Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,[4590]
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.[4591]
Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;155
For hear her but exampled by herself:[4592]
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 stray160
The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings[4593]
And make her chronicle as rich with praise[4594]
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea[4595]
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.165
West. But there's a saying very old and true,[4596]
'If that you will France win,[4597]
Then with Scotland first begin:'[4597]
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot170
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.[4598]
Exe. It follows then the cat must stay at home:[4599]
Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,[4600]175
Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.[4601]
While that the armed hand cloth fight abroad,
The advised head defends itself at home;
For government, though high and low and lower,[4602]180
Put into parts, cloth keep in one consent,[4603]
Congreeing in a full and natural close,[4604]
Like music.
Cant. Therefore doth heaven divide[4605]
The state of man in divers functions,
Setting endeavour in continual motion;185
To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
Obedience: for so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach[4606]
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.[4607]
They have a king and officers of sorts;[4608]190
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,[4609]
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,[4610]
Which pillage they with merry march bring home195
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys[4611]
The singing masons building roofs of gold,[4612]
The civil citizens kneading up the honey,[4613]
The poor mechanic porters crowding in200
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
That many things, having full reference205
To one consent, may work contrariously:
As many arrows, loosed several ways,
Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;[4614]
As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;[4615]
As many lines close in the dial's centre;210
So may a thousand actions, once afoot,[4616]
End in one purpose, and be all well borne[4617]
Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.[4618]
Divide your happy England into four;
Whereof take you one quarter into France,215
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.220
K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.[4619]
[Exeunt some Attendants.
Now are we well resolved; 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,[4620]225
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[4621]230
Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,[4622]
Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.