Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,
He sends you this most memorable line;
In every branch truly demonstrative;
Willing you overlook this pedigree:
And when you find him evenly derived
From his most famed of famous ancestors,
Edward the Third, he bids you then resign
Your crown and kingdom, indirectly held
From him the native and true challenger.
FR. KING. Or else what follows?

EXE. Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
That, if requiring fail, he will compel;
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries,
The dead men's blood, the pining maidens' groans,
For husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers,
That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.

This is his claim, his threatening and my message;
Unless the Dauphin be in presence here,
To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

FR. KING. For us, we will consider of this further : To-morrow shall you bear our full intent

Back to our brother England.

DAU.

For the Dauphin,

I stand here for him: what to him from England?
EXE. Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt,
And any thing that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.

Thus says my king; an if your father's highness
Do not, in grant of all demands at large,
Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,
He'll call you to so hot an answer of it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
In second accent of his ordnance,

DAU. Say, if my father render fair return,

It is against my will; for I desire

Nothing but odds with England: to that end,
As matching to his youth and vanity,

I did present him with the Paris balls.

EXE. He'll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,
Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe:
And, be assured, you'll find a difference,
As we his subjects have in wonder found,
Between the promise of his greener days
And these he masters now: now he weighs time
Even to the utmost grain: that you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.

130

140

FR. KING. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full. EXE. Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king Come here himself to question our delay;

For he is footed in this land already.

FR. KING. You shall be soon dispatch'd with fair con

ditions:

A night is but small breath and little pause

To answer matters of this consequence.

[Flourish. Exeunt.

АСТ III.

PROLOGUE.

Enter Chorus.

CHOR. Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies In motion of no less celerity

Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet

With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning :
Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge: 0, do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;

ΙΟ

For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow:
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women,
Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance;
For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege ;
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,

With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.

Suppose the ambassador from the French comes back;
Tells Harry that the king doth offer him
Katharine his daughter, and with her, to dowry,
Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
The offer likes not: and the nimble gunner
With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,

20

30

[Alarum, and chambers go off. And down goes all before them. Still be kind, And eke out our performance with your mind.

SCENE I.-France. Before Harfleur.

[Exit.

Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers, with scaling-ladders.

K. HEN. Once more unto the breach, dear friends,

once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect:

Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean,

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

20

30

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George !' [Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off.

SCENE II.-The same.

Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and Boy.

BARD. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach! NYM. Pray thee, corporal, stay: the knocks are too hot; and, for mine own part, I have not a case of lives: the humour of it is too hot, that is the very plain-song of it.

PIST. The plain-song is most just; for humours do abound:

Knocks go and come; God's vassals drop and die;
And sword and shield,

In bloody field,

Doth win immortal fame.

ΙΟ

Boy. Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would

give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.

PIST. And I :

If wishes would prevail with me,

My purpose should not fail with me,

But thither would I hie.

Boy. As duly, but not as truly,

As bird doth sing on bough.

20

Enter FLUELLEN.

FLU. Up to the breach, you dogs! avaunt, you cullions!

[Driving them forward.

PIST. Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould.
Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage,
Abate thy rage, great duke!

Good bawcock, bate thy rage; use lenity, sweet chuck!
NYM. These be good humours! your honour wins bad
humours.
[Exeunt all but Boy.

Boy. As young as I am, I have observed these three swashers. I am boy to them all three: but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man to me; for indeed three such antics do not amount to a man. For Bardolph, he is white-livered and red-faced; by the means whereof a' faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the means whereof a' breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, he hath heard that men of few words are the best men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest a' should be thought a coward: but his few bad words are matched with as few good deeds; for a' never broke any man's head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything, and call it purchase. Bardolph stole a lute-case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for three half-pence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in, filching, and in Calais they stole a fireshovel: I knew by that piece of service the men would carry coals. They would have me as familiar with men's pockets as their gloves or their handkerchers: which makes much against my manhood, if I should take from another's pocket to put into mine; for it is plain pocketing up of wrongs. I must leave them, and seek some better service: their villany goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up. [Exit.

Re-enter FLUELLEN, GOWER following.

Gow. Captain Fluellen, you must come presently to the mines; the Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.

FLU. To the mines! tell you the duke, it is not so good to come to the mines; for, look you, the mines is not according to the disciplines of the war: the concavities of it is not sufficient; for, look you, th' athversary you