Original Text |
Translated Text |
| Source: Folger Shakespeare Library |
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Enter Exeter, Bedford, and Westmoreland. BEDFORD
’Fore God, his Grace is bold to trust these traitors. EXETER
They shall be apprehended by and by. WESTMORELAND
How smooth and even they do bear themselves,
As if allegiance in their bosoms sat
Crownèd with faith and constant loyalty. 5 BEDFORD
The King hath note of all that they intend,
By interception which they dream not of. EXETER
Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow,
Whom he hath dulled and cloyed with gracious
favors— 10
That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell
His sovereign’s life to death and treachery! | The scene shifts to Southampton. We learn from Gloucester, Exeter, and Westmoreland that Henry knows all about the traitors' plot to assassinate him. Brain Snack: Shakespeare doesn't exactly tell us how Henry found out about the plot, but the fact that he does tell us that Henry has a good spy network, which is Shakespeare's way of giving his monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, a big shout-out. (Elizabeth I was famous for having a bunch of spies everywhere. In fact, one of her mottos was Video et taceo, which is Latin for "I see and am silent.") |
Sound Trumpets. Enter the King of England,
Scroop, Cambridge, and Grey, with Attendants. KING HENRY
Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.—
My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of
Masham, 15
And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts.
Think you not that the powers we bear with us
Will cut their passage through the force of France,
Doing the execution and the act
For which we have in head assembled them? 20 SCROOP
No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best. KING HENRY
I doubt not that, since we are well persuaded
We carry not a heart with us from hence
That grows not in a fair consent with ours,
Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish 25
Success and conquest to attend on us. CAMBRIDGE
Never was monarch better feared and loved
Than is your Majesty. There’s not, I think, a subject
That sits in heart-grief and uneasiness
Under the sweet shade of your government. 30 GREY
True. Those that were your father’s enemies
Have steeped their galls in honey, and do serve you
With hearts create of duty and of zeal. KING HENRY
We therefore have great cause of thankfulness,
And shall forget the office of our hand 35
Sooner than quittance of desert and merit
According to the weight and worthiness. SCROOP
So service shall with steelèd sinews toil,
And labor shall refresh itself with hope
To do your Grace incessant services. 40 | Meanwhile, King Henry is boarding a ship that will take him and his troops to France. With him are Scrope, Cambridge, and Grey (the three traitors), who are busy trying to brown-nose the King. Henry decides to toy with the traitors a bit before he lets them know he's onto them. |
KING HENRY
We judge no less.—Uncle of Exeter,
Enlarge the man committed yesterday
That railed against our person. We consider
It was excess of wine that set him on,
And on his more advice we pardon him. 45 SCROOP
That’s mercy, but too much security.
Let him be punished, sovereign, lest example
Breed, by his sufferance, more of such a kind. KING HENRY O, let us yet be merciful. CAMBRIDGE
So may your Highness, and yet punish too. 50 GREY
Sir, you show great mercy if you give him life
After the taste of much correction. KING HENRY
Alas, your too much love and care of me
Are heavy orisons ’gainst this poor wretch.
If little faults proceeding on distemper 55
Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and
digested,
Appear before us? We’ll yet enlarge that man,
Though Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey, in their dear 60
care
And tender preservation of our person,
Would have him punished. And now to our French
causes.
Who are the late commissioners? 65 CAMBRIDGE I one, my lord.
Your Highness bade me ask for it today. SCROOP So did you me, my liege. GREY And I, my royal sovereign. | He makes up a story about how, yesterday, some drunk guy was talking smack about him in public (which is considered treason). King Henry asks the three traitors if they think he should have mercy on the guy. Scrope, Cambridge, and Grey are all, "You should punish that guy and make an example out of him!"
Henry says something like "Gee, guys, you really think I shouldn't be merciful to traitors?" |
KING HENRY, giving them papers
Then Richard, Earl of Cambridge, there is yours— 70
There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham.—And, sir
knight,
Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.—
Read them, and know I know your worthiness.—
My Lord of Westmoreland and uncle Exeter, 75
We will aboard tonight.—Why how now, gentlemen?
What see you in those papers, that you lose
So much complexion?—Look you, how they change.
Their cheeks are paper.—Why, what read you there
That have so cowarded and chased your blood 80
Out of appearance? | Henry hands the three men some documents to read. (The papers indicate that King Henry has proof of their plot to murder him.) As the traitors read the incriminating documents, Henry innocently asks why their faces look so pale. |
CAMBRIDGE I do confess my fault,
And do submit me to your Highness’ mercy. GREY/SCROOP To which we all appeal. KING HENRY
The mercy that was quick in us but late 85
By your own counsel is suppressed and killed.
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.—
See you, my princes and my noble peers, 90
These English monsters. My Lord of Cambridge
here,
You know how apt our love was to accord
To furnish him with all appurtenants
Belonging to his honor, and this man 95
Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired
And sworn unto the practices of France
To kill us here in Hampton; to the which
This knight, no less for bounty bound to us
Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn.—But O, 100
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature?
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew’st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coined me into gold, 105
Wouldst thou have practiced on me for thy use—
May it be possible that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? ’Tis so strange
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross 110
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either’s purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause
That admiration did not whoop at them. 115
But thou, ’gainst all proportion, didst bring in
Wonder to wait on treason and on murder,
And whatsoever cunning fiend it was
That wrought upon thee so preposterously
Hath got the voice in hell for excellence. 120
All other devils that suggest by treasons
Do botch and bungle up damnation
With patches, colors, and with forms being fetched
From glist’ring semblances of piety;
But he that tempered thee bade thee stand up, 125
Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,
Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.
If that same demon that hath gulled thee thus
Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,
He might return to vasty Tartar back 130
And tell the legions “I can never win
A soul so easy as that Englishman’s.”
O, how hast thou with jealousy infected
The sweetness of affiance! Show men dutiful?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learnèd? 135
Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?
Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?
Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare in diet,
Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger,
Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, 140
Garnished and decked in modest complement,
Not working with the eye without the ear,
And but in purgèd judgment trusting neither?
Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot 145
To mark the full-fraught man and best endued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee,
For this revolt of thine methinks is like
Another fall of man.—Their faults are open.
Arrest them to the answer of the law, 150
And God acquit them of their practices. | Scrope, Cambridge, and Grey know they're busted – they immediately 'fess up and beg for mercy.
Henry has them arrested and sentences them all to death for high treason. |
EXETER I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
Richard, Earl of Cambridge.—
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham.— 155
I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of
Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland. SCROOP
Our purposes God justly hath discovered,
And I repent my fault more than my death,
Which I beseech your Highness to forgive, 160
Although my body pay the price of it. CAMBRIDGE
For me, the gold of France did not seduce,
Although I did admit it as a motive
The sooner to effect what I intended;
But God be thankèd for prevention, 165
Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,
Beseeching God and you to pardon me. GREY
Never did faithful subject more rejoice
At the discovery of most dangerous treason
Than I do at this hour joy o’er myself, 170
Prevented from a damnèd enterprise.
My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign. | Cambridge confesses that, even though he accepted French money, he didn't do it for the cash. Brain Snack: Cambridge supports Edmund Mortimer, who seems to have a better claim to the English throne than Henry V because Mortimer is the great-grandson of Edward III's third son. Henry, on the other hand, is the grandson of Edward III's fourth son. Plus, Henry only inherited the throne after his father (King Henry IV) usurped the crown from Richard II. (In other words, Shakespeare is reminding us that Cambridge's plot isn't so different from what Henry IV did to Richard II.) |
KING HENRY
God quit you in His mercy. Hear your sentence:
You have conspired against our royal person,
Joined with an enemy proclaimed, and from his 175
coffers
Received the golden earnest of our death,
Wherein you would have sold your king to
slaughter,
His princes and his peers to servitude, 180
His subjects to oppression and contempt,
And his whole kingdom into desolation.
Touching our person, seek we no revenge,
But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,
Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws 185
We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,
Poor miserable wretches, to your death,
The taste whereof God of His mercy give
You patience to endure, and true repentance
Of all your dear offenses.—Bear them hence. 190 They exit under guard. Now, lords, for France, the enterprise whereof
Shall be to you as us, like glorious.
We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason lurking in our way 195
To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
But every rub is smoothèd on our way.
Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver
Our puissance into the hand of God,
Putting it straight in expedition. 200
Cheerly to sea. The signs of war advance.
No king of England if not king of France. Flourish. They exit. | As the traitors continue to beg for mercy, Henry refuses and says it's not because he's vengeful – he's just trying to protect England's national security. The traitors are hauled off to the slammer and Henry takes the opportunity to thank God for revealing the treacherous plot. This, he reasons, must be a sign that God wants him to invade France. |