William Shakespeare: Henry V, Act IV, Scene V

Updated September 23, 2019 | Infoplease Staff

Scene V

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. 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

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