Vindskeivt

KING HENRY:

A good leg will fall;

a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white;

a curl’d pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither;

a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart Kate, is the sun

and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon, –

for it shines bright, and never changes, but keeps his

course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me:

and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king:

and what say’st thou, then, to my love? speak, my fair,

and fairly, I pray thee.

KATHARINE:

Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?

KING HENRY:

No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of

France, Kate: but, in loving me, you should love the

friend of France; for I love France so well, that I will not

part with a village of it; I will have it all mine: and, Kate,

when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is

France and you are mine.

-William Shakespeare, King Henry the Fifth (1598-1599)

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CAMBRIDGE:

I do confess my fault;

And do submit me to your highness’ mercy.

GREY and SCROOP:

To which we all appeal.

KING HENRY:

The mercy that was quick in us but late,

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

For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,

As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

See you, my princes and my noble peers,

These English monsters!

– – –

CAMBRIDGE:

For me, the gold of France did not seduce;

Although I did admit it as a motive

The sooner to effect what I intended:

But God be thanked for prevention;

Which I in sufferance heartily will rejoice,

Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

GREY:

Never did faithful subject more rejoice

At the discovery of most dangerous treason

Than I do at this hour joy o’er myself,

Prevented from a damned enterprise:

My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.

KING HENRY:

God quit you in his mercy! Hear your sentence.

You have conspired against our royal person,

Join’d with an enemy proclaim’d, and from his coffers

Receiv’d the golden earnest of our death;

Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,

His princes and his peers to servitude,

His subjects to oppression and contempt,

And his whole kingdom into desolation.

Touching our person, seek we no revenge;

But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,

Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws

We do deliver you. Get you, therefore, hence,

Poor miserable wretches, to your death:

The taste whereof, God of his mercy give

You patience to endure, and true repentance

Of all your dear offences! – Bear them hence.

-William Shakespeare, King Henry the Fifth (1598-1599)

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Which when BEELZEBUB perceiv’d, then whom,

SATAN except, none higher sat, with grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem’d

A Pillar of State; deep on his Front engraven

Deliberation sat and publick care;

And Princely counsel in his face yet shon,

Majestick though in ruin: sage he stood

With ATLANTEAN shoulders fit to bear

The weigth of mightiest Monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as Night

Or Summers Noon-tide air, while thus he spake.

– John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667)

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