Page 1685 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

think that, making God so free an offer, he let him outlive that day to see his
greatness, and to teach others how they should prepare.

WILLIAMS
’Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon his own head; the King is not
to answer it. [180]

BATES
I do not desire he should answer for me; and yet I determine to fight lustily

for him.

KING HENRY
I myself heard the King say he would not be ransomed.

WILLIAMS
Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully; but [185] when our throats are
cut, he may be ransomed, and we ne’er the wiser.

KING HENRY
If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

WILLIAMS
[Mass,] you’ll pay him, then! That’s a perilous [190] shot out of an elder-gun,

that a poor and a private displeasure can do against a monarch. You may as
well go about to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock’s
feather. You’ll never trust his word after! come, ’tis a foolish saying. [195]

KING HENRY
Your reproof is something too round: I should be angry with you if the time
were convenient.

WILLIAMS
Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

KING HENRY
I embrace it.