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KING HENRY V
So, if a son that is by his father sent about
merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the
imputation of his wickedness by your rule, should be
imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a
servant, under his master's command transporting a
sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in
many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the
business of the master the author of the servant's
damnation: but this is not so: the king is not
bound to answer the particular endings of his
soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of
his servant; for they purpose not their death, when
they purpose their services. Besides, there is no
king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to
the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all
unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them
the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder;
some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of
perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that
have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with
pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have
defeated the law and outrun native punishment,
though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to
fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance;
so that here men are punished for before-breach of
the king's laws in now the king's quarrel: where
they feared the death, they have borne life away;
and where they would be safe, they perish: then if
they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of
their damnation than he was before guilty of those
impieties for the which they are now visited. Every
subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's
soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in
the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every
mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death
is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was
blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:
and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think
that, making God so free an offer, He let him
outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach
others how they should prepare.
WILLIAMS
'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon
his own head, the king is not to answer it.
BATES
But I do not desire he should answer for me; and
yet I determine to fight lustily for him.
KING HENRY V
I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.
WILLIAMS
Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but
when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we
ne'er the wiser.
KING HENRY V
If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.
WILLIAMS
You pay him then. That's a perilous shot out of an
elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can
do against a monarch! you may as well go about to
turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a
peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word
after! come, 'tis a foolish saying.
KING HENRY V
Your reproof is something too round: I should be
angry with you, if the time were convenient.
WILLIAMS
Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.
KING HENRY V
I embrace it.
WILLIAMS
How shall I know thee again?
KING HENRY V
Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my
bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I
will make it my quarrel.
WILLIAMS
Here's my glove: give me another of thine.
KING HENRY V
There.
WILLIAMS
This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou come
to me and say, after to-morrow, 'This is my glove,'
by this hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.
KING HENRY V
If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
WILLIAMS
Thou darest as well be hanged.
KING HENRY V
Well. I will do it, though I take thee in the
king's company.
WILLIAMS
Keep thy word: fare thee well.
BATES
Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have
French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.
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