FR. KING. We'll give them present audience. Go, and
bring them. [Exeunt Messenger and certain Lords.
You see this chase is hotly follow'd, Friends.
DOL. Turn head, and stop pursuit; for coward dogs
Most spend their mouths1 when what they seem to
threaten
Runs far before them. Good my Sovereign,
Take up the English short; and let them know
Of what a Monarchy you are the head:
Self-love, my Liege, is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting.
Re-enter Lords, with EXETER and Train.
From our brother England?
EXE. From him; and thus he greets your Majesty.
He wills you, in the name of God Almighty,
That you divest yourself, and lay apart
The borrow'd glories that, by gift of Heaven,
By law of Nature and of nations, 'long'
To him and to his heirs; namely, the Crown,
And all wide-stretched honours that pertain
By custom and the ordinance of times
Unto the Crown of France. That you may know
"Tis no sinister3 nor no awkward claim
Pick'd from the worm-holes of long-vanish'd days,
Nor from the dust of old oblivion rak'd,
He sends you this most memorable line,*
In every branch truly demonstrative,
Willing you overlook this pedigree:
And when you find him evenly deriv'd
From his most fam'd of famous ancestors,
then resign
Edward the Third, he bids you
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:
And therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
That, if requiring fail, he will compel;
1 (hunters') give tongue.
♦ 'this deduction of his lineage.'-Johnson.
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
Turns he 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 Dolphin 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.
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 loud an answer of it
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide1 your trespass, and return
In second accent to his ordinance.2
DOL. 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 Loover shake for it,
Were it the mistress-court of mighty Europe:
And, be assur'd, you'll find a difference,
As we his subjects have in wonder found,
Between the promise of his greener days
And these he musters now: now he weighs time
Even to the utmost grain: that you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.
FR. KING. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.
3 i.c. the finest Jeu-de-paume.
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 conditions:
A night is but small breath and little pause
To answer matters of this consequence.
CHOR. Thus with imagin'd wing our swift Scene flies
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of Thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed1 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 confus'd; behold the threaden sails,
Borne2 with the invisible and creeping Wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd Sea,
Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think
You stand upon the rivage, and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
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 arriv'd 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,
1 furnished and armed at point. 2 charged.
3 shore. 4 i.c. compel this
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Navy to take your minds in tow.
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 likes1 not: and the nimble Gunner
With linstock2 now the devilish cannon touches,
[Alarum, and chambers go off within.
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.
SCENE I. Before Harfleur.
Alarums. Enter KING HENRY THE FIFTH, EXETER,
BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers, with scaling-ladders.
K. HEN. Once more unto the breach, dear Friends, once
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, commune 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 !8 On, on, you noble 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 sheath'd their swords for lack of argument:10
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
2 'Lintstock is a handsome carved stick, more than halfe yard long, with a cocke at the one end, to hold fast his match.'-Smith, 1627.
3 small cannon.
7 (archers')=draw.
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, shew 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,
Cry God for Harry, England, and Saint George!
[exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off.
Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and the Boy.
BARD. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach, to the breach!
NYм. Pray thee, Corporal, stay: the knocks are too hot;
and, for mine own part, I have not a case1 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.2
Boy. Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would
give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.
If wishes would prevail with me,
My purpose should not fail with me,
But thither would I hie.
As duly, but not as truly,
As bird doth sing on bough.3
FLU. Up to the breach, you Dogs! Avaunt, you Cullions!*
PIST. Be merciful, great Duke," to men of mould!
1 pair; as in a case of pistols, knives, etc.
2 Pistol, being in mortal terror, mis
quotes an old song: 'Knocks go and come To all and some, God's vassals feel the same,' etc.
3 Pistol again misquotes, using 'hie' for 'now.' The Boy, whose nerves are of far other
fashion, misquotes too, but for a purpose of his own, and gives the rhyme.
4 'A noddie,
foole, a patch, a dolt, a meacock.'-Florio, s.v. Coglione (=cullion). 5 i.e. leader, dux.
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