The English camp on the eve before battle at Agincourt. Henry is disguised and speaking with commoners.

• Henry V. I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men’s minds: methinks I could not die any where so contented as in the king’s company; his cause being
  just and his quarrel honorable.

• Williams. That’s more than we know.

• Bates. Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

• Williams. But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
  arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place;’ some swearing, some crying for a
  surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
  well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it
  will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

• 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; 2020
  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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Henry V. Your reproof is something too round: I should beangry with you, if the time were convenient.

• Williams. Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live. [break]

• Bates. Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have
  French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.

• Henry V. Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to 2070
  one, they will beat us; for they bear them on their shoulders: but it is no English treason to cut French crowns, and to-morrow the king himself will
  be a clipper.
  [Exeunt soldiers]
  Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls, Our debts, our careful wives,
  Our children and our sins lay on the king! We must bear all. O hard condition, Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
  Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
  But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s-ease Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy! And what have kings, that privates have not too,
  Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
  And what art thou, thou idle ceremony?
  What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers? What are thy rents? what are thy comings in? O ceremony, show me but thy worth!
  What is thy soul of adoration?
  Art thou aught else but place, degree and form,
  Creating awe and fear in other men?
  Wherein thou art less happy being fear’d
  Than they in fearing.
  What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
  But poison’d flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
  And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
  Think’st thou the fiery fever will go out
  With titles blown from adulation?
  Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
  Canst thou, when thou command’st the beggar’s knee,
  Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
  That play’st so subtly with a king’s repose; I am a king that find thee, and I know ‘Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
  The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
  The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
  The farced title running ‘fore the king,
  The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
  That beats upon the high shore of this world, No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
  Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
  Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
  Who with a body fill’d and vacant mind
  Gets him to rest, cramm’d with distressful bread;
  Never sees horrid night, the child of hell, But, like a lackey, from the rise to set Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night
  Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
  Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse, And follows so the ever-running year, With profitable labour, to his grave: And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
  Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king. The slave, a member of the country’s peace,
  Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots
  What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace, Whose hours the peasant best advantages.

[Enter ERPINGHAM]…….cut……

Henry before his troops on the field before the Battle of Agincourt.

Earl of Westmoreland. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

• Henry V. What’s he that wishes so?
  My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
  If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
  To do our country loss; and if to live,
  The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
  God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
  By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
  Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
  It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
  Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
  But if it be a sin to covet honour,
  I am the most offending soul alive.
  No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
  God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
  As one man more, methinks, would share from me
  For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
  Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
  That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
  Let him depart; his passport shall be made
  And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
  We would not die in that man’s company
  That fears his fellowship to die with us.
  This day is called the feast of Crispian:
  He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
  Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
  And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
  He that shall live this day, and see old age,
  Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
  And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
  Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
  And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
  Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
  But he’ll remember with advantages
  What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
  Familiar in his mouth as household words
  Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
  Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
  This story shall the good man teach his son;
  And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
  From this day to the ending of the world,
  But we in it shall be remember’d;
  We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
  For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
  Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
  This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed
  Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
  And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
  That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.