Henry V: Act 4, Scene 5

    history

    Another part of the field.

    Scene Summary

    Skip to text ↓

    French nobles are in disarray and cannot understand how the battle has gone against them. The Dauphin is in despair.

    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. O merchante fortune!
    Do not run away.
    A short alarum
    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 us 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 pander, 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 enow 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