And with your puissant arm renew their feats: Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprizes. Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, As did the former lions of your blood. West. They know, your grace hath cause, and means, and might; So hath your highness; never king of England Cant. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, Will raise your highness such a mighty sum, Bring in to any of your ancestors. K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the French; But lay down our proportions to defend Against the Scot, who will make road upon us With all advantages. Cant. They of those marches, gracious sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend Our inland from the pilfering borderers. K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only, But fear the main intendment of the Scot, Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us; Never went with his forces into France, Hath shook, and trembled at the ill neighbourhood. Cant. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege: For hear her but exampled by herself, When all her chivalry hath been in France, And she a mourning widow of her nobles, The king of Scots; whom she did send to France, With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries. West. But there's a saying, very old and true, If that you will France win, Then with Scotland first begin: For once the eagle England being in prey, To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs; Exe. It follows then, the cat must stay at home: Yet that is but a curs'd necessity; Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries, The advised head d efends itself at home: For government, though high, and low, and lower, Put into parts, doth keep in one concent; Congruing in a full and natural close, Like music. Cant. True: therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions, Setting endeavour in continual motion; To which is fixed, as an aim or butt, Obedience: for so work the honey bees, Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach The act of order to a peopled kingdom. They have a king, and officers of sorts: Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings, Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds; Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor: Who, busied in his majesty, surveys The singing masons building roofs of gold; The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,- As many several ways meet in one town; VOL. VII. Q As K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin. [Exit an Attendant. The King ascends his Throne. O'er France, and all her almost kingly dukedoms; Speak freely of our acts; or else our grave, Enter Ambassadors of France. Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure Amb. May it please your majesty, to give us leave Freely to render what we have in charge; Or shall we sparingly show you far off The Dauphin's meaning, and our embassy? K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king; As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons : Amb. Thus then, in few. Your highness, lately sending into France, Exe. Tennis-balls, my liege. K. Hen. We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us; His present, and your pains, we thank you for : When we have match'd our rackets to these balls, We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set, Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard: Tell him, he hath made a match with such a wrangler, That all the courts of France will be disturbed |