Henry monologue from Henry V

Henry’s monologue

The mercy that was quick in us but late,

By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:

You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;

For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,

5As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

See you, my princes, and my noble peers,

These English monsters! My Lord of Cambridge here,

You know how apt our love was to accord

To furnish him with all appertinents

10Belonging to his honour; and this man

Hath, for a few light crowns, lightly conspired,

And sworn unto the practises of France,

To kill us here in Hampton: to the which

This knight, no less for bounty bound to us

15Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn. But, O,

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,

20That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,

Wouldst thou have practised 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,

25That, though the truth of it stands off as gross

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,

30That admiration did not whoop at them:

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

35Hath got the voice in hell for excellence:

All other devils that suggest by treasons

Do botch and bungle up damnation

With patches, colours, and with forms being fetch'd

From glistering semblances of piety;

40But he that temper'd thee bade thee stand up,

Gave thee no instance why thou shouldst do treason,

Unless to dub thee with the name of traitor.

If that same demon that hath gull'd thee thus

Should with his lion gait walk the whole world,

45He might return to vasty Tartar back,

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?

50Why, so didst thou: seem they grave and learned?

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,

55Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,

Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,

Not working with the eye without the ear,

And but in purged judgment trusting neither?

Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem:

60And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,

To mark the full-fraught man and best indued

With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;

For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like

Another fall of man. Their faults are open:

65Arrest them to the answer of the law;

And God acquit them of their practises!

Public domain text.