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Until this instant. Take a trumpet, herald;

Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:

If they will fight with us, bid them come down,

Or void the field; they do offend our sight.

If they'll do neither, we will come to them,

And make them skirr away, as swift as stones

Enforced from the old Assyrian slings.

Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have,

And not a man of them that we shall take

Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

Exe. Here comes the herald of the French, my liege.

Glo. His eyes are humbler than they us'd to be.

K. Hen. How now! what means this, herald? know'st thou not

That I have fin'd these bones of mine for ransom?

Com'st thou again for ransom?

Mont.No, great king.

I come to thee for charitable licence,

That we may wander o'er this bloody field

To book our dead, and then to bury them;

To sort our nobles from our common men;

For many of our princes—woe the while!—

Lie drown'd and soak'd in mercenary blood;

So do our vulgar drench their peasant limbs

In blood of princes; and their wounded steeds

Fret fetlock-deep in gore, and with wild rage

Yerk out their armed heels at their dead masters,

Killing them twice. O! give us leave, great king,

To view the field in safety and dispose

 63 void: leave

65 skirr: scurry

73 fin'd: fixed as the price to be paid

77 book: record

81 vulgar: common soldiers

84 Yerk: strike 