Let
housewifery
appear; keep close, I thee command.
Shakespeare
Look to my chattles and my moveables;
Let senses rule. The word is 'Pitch and Pay. '
Trust none;
For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes,
And Holdfast is the only dog, my duck.
Therefore, Caveto be thy counsellor.
Go, clear thy crystals. Yoke-fellows in arms,
Let us to France, like horse-leeches, my boys,
To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck.
BOY. And that's but unwholesome food, they say.
PISTOL. Touch her soft mouth and march.
BARDOLPH. Farewell, hostess. [Kissing her]
NYM. I cannot kiss, that is the humour of it; but adieu.
PISTOL.
Let housewifery appear; keep close, I thee command.
HOSTESS. Farewell; adieu. Exeunt
SCENE IV.
France. The KING'S palace
Flourish. Enter the FRENCH KING, the DAUPHIN, the DUKES OF BERRI
and BRITAINE, the CONSTABLE, and others
FRENCH KING. Thus comes the English with full power upon us;
And more than carefully it us concerns
To answer royally in our defences.
Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Britaine,
Of Brabant and of Orleans, shall make forth,
And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch,
To line and new repair our towns of war
With men of courage and with means defendant;
For England his approaches makes as fierce
As waters to the sucking of a gulf.
It fits us, then, to be as provident
As fear may teach us, out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.
DAUPHIN. My most redoubted father,
It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;
For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,
Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,
But that defences, musters, preparations,
Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,
As were a war in expectation.
Therefore, I say, 'tis meet we all go forth
To view the sick and feeble parts of France;
And let us do it with no show of fear-
No, with no more than if we heard that England
Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance;
For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne
By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.
CONSTABLE. O peace, Prince Dauphin!
You are too much mistaken in this king.