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:-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 for it,
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide1 your trespass, and return your mock
In second accent of his ordnance.

Dau. Say, if my father render fair reply,
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 those 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; which you shall read
In your own losses, if he stay in France.

Fr. King. To-morrow shall you know our mind at

full.

Exe. Despatch 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 despatched, with fair

conditions.

A night is but small breath, and little pause,
To answer matters of this consequence.

1 To chide is to resound, to echo.

[Exeunt.

ACT III.

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 pier1
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 furrowed 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 enriched
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work, your thoughts, and therein see a siege.
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,

2

1 "The well-appointed king at Hampton pier." "Well-appointed," that is, well furnished with all necessaries of war. The old copies read, "Dover pier:" but the Poet himself, and all accounts, and even the Chronicles which he followed, say that the king embarked at Southampton. A minute account still exists among the records of the town; and it is remarkable that a low, level plain, where the army encamped, is now covered by the sea, and called Westport.

2 The meaning of this passage is, "Let your minds follow this navy." The stern was anciently synonymous to rudder. "The sterne of a ship, gubernaculum."-Baret.

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,

[Alarum; and chambers1 go off. And down goes all before them. Still be kind, And eke out our performance with your mind. [Ex.

SCENE I.

The same. Before Harfleur. Alarums.

Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOSter, 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-favored rage.
Then lend the eye a terrible aspéct;

2

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

3

O'er hang and jutty his confounded base,

Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide;

1 "Chambers," small pieces of ordnance.

2 "The portage of the head." Shakspeare uses portage for loop-holes or port-holes.

3 "O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.'

To jutty is to project; jutties, or jetties, are projecting moles to break the force of the waves. Confounded is vered, or troubled.

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height!-On, on, you noble English,'
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders,

2

Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument;
Dishonor not your mothers; now attest,

That those, whom you called 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,
Sraining 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.

CENE II. The same. Forces pass over. Then

Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and Boy.

Bard. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach! to the breach!

4

Nym. 'Pray thee, corporal, stay; the knocks are too hot; and, for mine own part, I have not a case of lives: the humor of it is too hot, that is the very plainsong of it.

1 "You noble English." The folio reads noblish, by mistake; the compositor having taken twice the final syllable ish. Steevens reads noblest. This speech is not in the quartos.

2 "Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof." Mr. Pope took the liberty of altering this word to fetched. The sacred writings afford us many instances of its use. "Ascita et accepta a Græcis, Fet and taken out of Greece." It is often coupled with far, as in the expressions "farfet and dear-bought," "affectated and far-fet."

3 Argument is matter, subject.

4" Corporal." Bardolph is called lieutenant in a former scene.

Pist. The plain-song is most just; for humors 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. 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.

Enter FLUELLEN.'

Flu. Got's plood!-Up to the preaches, you rascals! will you not up to the preaches?

[Driving them forward. Pist. Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould! 2 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 humors!-your honor wins bad humors.

[Exeunt NYм, 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, three such antics do not amount to For Bardolph, he is white-livered, and redfaced; by the means whereof, 'a faces it out, but fights For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue, and a

a man.

not.

1 Fluellen is merely the Welsh pronunciation of Lluellyn, as Floyd is of Lloyd.

2 i. e. "be merciful, great commander, to men of earth, to poor mortal men." Duke is only a translation of the Roman dux. Sylvester, in his Du Bartas, calls Moses "a great duke."