Henry V: Act 4, Scene 5 Translation

A side-by-side translation of Act 4, Scene 5 of Henry V from the original Shakespeare into modern English.

  Original Text

 Translated Text

  Source: Folger Shakespeare Library

Enter Constable, Orléans, Bourbon, Dauphin, and
Rambures.

CONSTABLE Ô diable!

ORLÉANS
Ô Seigneur! Le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!

DAUPHIN
Mort de ma vie, all is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sits mocking in our plumes. A short Alarum. 5
Ô méchante Fortune!
Do not run away.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, the French are losing big time, despite the fact that they outnumber the English.

The once confident Constable, Bourbon, and Orléans are running around shouting things like "O the devil!" and "Death of my life!"

CONSTABLE Why, all our ranks are broke.

DAUPHIN
O perdurable shame! Let’s stab ourselves.
Be these the wretches that we played at dice for? 10

ORLÉANS
Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?

BOURBON
Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame!
Let us die. In once more! Back again!
And he that will not follow Bourbon now,
Let him go hence, and with his cap in hand 15
Like a base pander hold the chamber door,
Whilst by a slave, no gentler than my dog,
His fairest daughter is contaminate.

CONSTABLE
Disorder, that hath spoiled us, friend us now.
Let us on heaps go offer up our lives. 20

ORLÉANS
We are enough yet living in the field
To smother up the English in our throngs,
If any order might be thought upon.

BOURBON
The devil take order now! I’ll to the throng.
Let life be short, else shame will be too long. 25

They exit.

A guy named Rambures runs away in fear as Bourbon orders the French soldiers back into the fray.
Bourbon tells us that surrendering to (or running away from) the English would be like letting an enemy into his home to rape his daughter.