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Henry the Fifth, I. ii

Of what your reverence shall incite us to.

Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,

How you awake our sleeping sword of war:

We charge you in the name of God, take heed;

For never two such kingdoms did contend

Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops

Are every one a woe, a sore complaint,

'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.

Under this conjuration speak, my lord,

For we will hear, note, and believe in heart,

That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd

As pure as sin with baptism.

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,

That owe yourselves, your lives, and services

To this imperial throne. There is no bar

To make against your highness' claim to France

But this, which they produce from Pharamond,

In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,

'No woman shall succeed in Salique land':

Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze

To be the realm of France, and Pharamond -

The founder of this law and female bar.

Yet their own authors faithfully affirm

That the land Salique is in Germany,

Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;

Where Charles the Great, having subdu'd the Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French;

Who, holding in disdain the German women

For some dishonest manners of their life,

 21 impawn: pledge

28 mortality: human life

37 Pharamond: legendary Frankish king

40 gloze: interpret

45 floods: rivers

46 Charles the Great: Charlemagne

49 dishonest: unchaste 