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Transcript "Henry V (Hollow Crown) - Tennis Ball"
Ambassador: May't please your majesty to give us leave freely to render what we have in charge? Or shall we sparingly show you the Dauphin's meaning?
Henry: We are no tyrant, but a Christian king. Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness, tell us the Dauphin's mind.
Ambassador: Thus then, in few. Your highness, lately sending into France, did claim some certain dukedoms in the right of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third. In answer of which claim, the Prince, our master, says that you savour too much of your youth and bids you be advised there's naught in France that can be with a nimble galliard won. You cannot revel into dukedoms there. He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit, this tun of treasure, and in lieu of this, desires you let the dukedoms that you claim hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
Henry: What treasure, Uncle?
Exeter: Tennis balls, my liege.
Henry: We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us. His present and your pains, we thank you for. When we have matched our rackets to these balls, we will in France, by God's grace, play a set shall strike his father's crown into the hazard. Tell him, he hath made a match with such a wrangler that all the courts of France shall be disturbed with chasers. And we understand him well, how he comes oer'st with our wilder days, not measuring what use we made of them. We never valued this poor seat of England, and therefore living hence did give ourself to barbarous license. As is ever common that men are merriest when they are from home. But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state, be like a king and show my sail of greatness, when I do rouse me in my throne of France. And I will rise there, with so full a glory that I will dazzle all the eyes of France, yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us. And tell the pleasant Prince, this mock of his hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance that shall fly with them. For many a thousand widows shall this, his mock, mock out of their dear husbands, mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down, and some are yet ungotten and unborn that shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn. But this lies all within the will of God, to whom I do appeal, and in whose name, tell you the Dauphin I am coming on to venge me as I may, and to put forth my rightful hand in a well-hallowed cause. So get you hence in peace. And tell the Dauphin his jest will savour but of shallow wit, when thousands weep more than did laugh at it. Convey him with safe conduct.