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The Life of King Henry the Fifth · 1599

Act IV, Scene 5

by William Shakespeare 1564-1616


[Another part of the field.]

[Enter Constable, Orleans, Bourbon, Dauphin and Rambures.]

CONSTABLE.
O diable!

ORLEANS.
O 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.]

O méchante Fortune! Do not run away.

CONSTABLE.
Why, all our ranks are broke.

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

ORLEANS.
Is this the king we sent to for his ransom?

BOURBON.
Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!
Let’s die in honour! Once more back again!
And he that will not follow Bourbon now,
Let him go hence, and with his cap in hand,
Like a base pandar, hold the chamber door
Whilst by a slave, no gentler than my dog,
His fairest daughter is contaminated.

CONSTABLE.
Disorder, that hath spoil’d us, friend us now!
Let us on heaps go offer up our lives.

ORLEANS.
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.

[Exeunt.]

MLA

Shakespeare, William. The Life of King Henry the Fifth, Act IV, Scene 5. Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/work/henry-v-shakespeare/21/.

Chicago

Shakespeare, William. The Life of King Henry the Fifth, Act IV, Scene 5. Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/work/henry-v-shakespeare/21/.

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