Page 1617 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

KING HENRY
We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us; [145]
For you shall read that my great-grandfather

Never went with his forces into France
But that the Scot on his unfurnish’d kingdom
Carne pouring, like the tide into a breach,

With ample and brim fullness of his force, [150]
Galling the gleanèd land with hot assays,
Girding with grievous siege castles and towns;
That England, being empty of defence,
Hath shook and trembled at th’ ill neighbourhood.

CANTERBURY
She hath been then more fear’d than harm’d, my liege; [155]
For bear her but exampl’d by herself:
When all her chivalry hath been in France
And she a mourning widow of her nobles,

She hath herself not only well defended,
But taken and impounded as a stray [160]
The King of Scots; whom she did send to France,
To fill King Edward’s fame with prisoner kings,

And make her chronicle as rich with praise
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries. [165]

ELY
But there’s a saying very old and true;

If that you will France win,
Then with Scotland first begin:
For once the eagle England being in prey,
To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot [170]
Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,

Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
To ’tame and havoc more than she can eat.