PROLOGUE 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 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: O, do but think You stand upon the ravage 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 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, Alarum, and chambers go off And down goes all before them. Still be kind, And eke out our performance with your mind.
Exit SCENE I. France. Before Harfleur. Alarum. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, and Soldiers, with scaling-ladders KING HENRY V 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 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 yeoman, 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!'
Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off SCENE II. The same. Enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and Boy BARDOLPH 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. PISTOL 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. PISTOL 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 FLUELLEN Up to the breach, you dogs! avaunt, you cullions!
Driving them forward PISTOL 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 any thing, 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 fire-shovel: 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.
Imust leave them, and seek some better service:
their villany goes against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.
