To-morrow shall you bear our full intent
Back to our brother of England.
Dau. For the Dauphin, I stand here for him: what to him from England? Exe. Scorn and defiance; slight regard, con
And anything that may not misbecome
The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.
Thus says my king: and, 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 ord(i)nance.
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.
Fr. King. To-morrow shall you know our mind at full.
Exe. Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our
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.
HUS with imagined wing our swift scene
flies,
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose that
The well-appointed king at Hampton pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phœbus 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: 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 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
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose, the ambassador from the French comes
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,
[Alarum; and chambers (small cannon) go off.
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.
SCENE I.-France. Before Harfleur.
Alarums. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOSTER, and Soldiers, with scaling ladders.
K. Hen. Once more unto the breach, dear
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 nobless 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 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
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
[Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off.
Forces pass over; then 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.
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.
Boy. As duly, but not as truly,
As bird doth sing on bough.
Enter FLUELLEN.
Flu. Up to the preach, you dogs! avaunt, you cullions.
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
Nym. These be good humours!--your honour wins bad humours.
[Exeunt NYM, PISTOL, and BARDOLPH, followed by FLUELLEN.
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,
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