Speeches (Lines) for Duke of Burgundy
in "Henry V"
Total: 8

1

V,2,3004

Queen Isabel. You English princes all, I do salute you.

Duke of Burgundy. My duty to you both, on equal love,
Great Kings of France and England! That I have labour'd,
With all my wits, my pains and strong endeavours,
To bring your most imperial majesties
Unto this bar and royal interview,
Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.
Since then my office hath so far prevail'd
That, face to face and royal eye to eye,
You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me,
If I demand, before this royal view,
What rub or what impediment there is,
Why that the naked, poor and mangled Peace,
Dear nurse of arts and joyful births,
Should not in this best garden of the world
Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?
Alas, she hath from France too long been chased,
And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps,
Corrupting in its own fertility.
Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,
Unpruned dies; her hedges even-pleach'd,
Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,
Put forth disorder'd twigs; her fallow leas
The darnel, hemlock and rank fumitory
Doth root upon, while that the coulter rusts
That should deracinate such savagery;
The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth
The freckled cowslip, burnet and green clover,
Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank,
Conceives by idleness and nothing teems
But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs,
Losing both beauty and utility.
And as our vineyards, fallows, meads and hedges,
Defective in their natures, grow to wildness,
Even so our houses and ourselves and children
Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,
The sciences that should become our country;
But grow like savages,—as soldiers will
That nothing do but meditate on blood,—
To swearing and stern looks, diffused attire
And every thing that seems unnatural.
Which to reduce into our former favour
You are assembled: and my speech entreats
That I may know the let, why gentle Peace
Should not expel these inconveniences
And bless us with her former qualities.

2

V,2,3055

Henry V. If, Duke of Burgundy, you would the peace,
Whose want gives growth to the imperfections
Which you have cited, you must buy that peace
With full accord to all our just demands;
Whose tenors and particular effects
You have enscheduled briefly in your hands.

Duke of Burgundy. The king hath heard them; to the which as yet
There is no answer made.

3

V,2,3267

(stage directions). [Re-enter the FRENCH KING and his QUEEN, BURGUNDY, and other Lords]

Duke of Burgundy. God save your majesty! my royal cousin, teach you
our princess English?

4

V,2,3271

Henry V. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how
perfectly I love her; and that is good English.

Duke of Burgundy. Is she not apt?

5

V,2,3277

Henry V. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not
smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the
heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up
the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in
his true likeness.

Duke of Burgundy. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you
for that. If you would conjure in her, you must
make a circle; if conjure up love in her in his true
likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you
blame her then, being a maid yet rosed over with the
virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the
appearance of a naked blind boy in her naked seeing
self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid
to consign to.

6

V,2,3287

Henry V. Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.

Duke of Burgundy. They are then excused, my lord, when they see not
what they do.

7

V,2,3290

Henry V. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.

Duke of Burgundy. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will
teach her to know my meaning: for maids, well
summered and warm kept, are like flies at
Bartholomew-tide, blind, though they have their
eyes; and then they will endure handling, which
before would not abide looking on.

8

V,2,3299

Henry V. This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer;
and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the
latter end and she must be blind too.

Duke of Burgundy. As love is, my lord, before it loves.