In second accent of his ordinance.

DAUPHIN

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.

EXETER

He’ll make your Paris Louvre shake for it,

Were it the mistress court of mighty Europe.

And be assured, you’ll find a diff’rence,

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.

KING CHARLES ⌈rising⌉

Tomorrow shall you know our mind at full.

Flourish

EXETER

Dispatch us with all speed, lest that our king

Come here himself to question our delay—

For he is footed in this land already.

KING CHARLES

You shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions.

A night is but small breath and little pause

To answer matters of this consequence.

⌈Flourish.⌉ Exeunt

3.0 Enter Chorus

CHORUS

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 Dover 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 th‘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 th’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,

With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.

Suppose th’ambassador from the French comes back,

Tells Harry that the King doth offer him

Catherine 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 go off

And down goes all before them. Still be kind,

And eke out our performance with your mind. Exit

3.1 Alarum. Enter King Harry ⌈and the English army, with⌉ scaling ladders

KING HARRY

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, conjure up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured 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 gallèd rock

O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swilled 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 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,

Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot.

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Cry, ‘God for Harry! England and Saint George!’

Alarum, and chambers go off. Exeunt

3.2 Enter Nim, Bardolph, Ensign Pistol, and Boy

BARDOLPH On, on, on, on, oh! To the breach, to the breach!

NIM 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 plainsong of it. 6