It fits us, then, to be as provident

As fear may teach us, out of late examples
Left by the fatal and neglected English
Upon our fields.

Dau.

My most redoubted father,

It is most meet we arm us 'gainst the foe;

For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,—

Though war nor no known quarrel were in question,— But that defences, musters, preparations,

Should be maintain'd, assembled, and collected,

As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say 'tis meet we all go forth

To view the sick and feeble parts of France:

And let us do it with no show of fear;

No, with no more than if we heard that England

Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance:

For, my good liege, she is so idly king'd,
Her sceptre so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous youth,
That fear attends her not.

Con.
O peace, Prince Dauphin!
You are too much mistaken in this king:
Question your grace the late ambassadors,-
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counsellors,
How modest in exception, and withal
How terrible in constant resolution,-
And you shall find his vanities forespent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly;
As gardeners do with ordure hide those roots
That shall first spring and be most delicate.
Dau. Well, 'tis not so, my lord high-constable;
But though we think it so, it is no matter:
In cases of defence 'tis best to weigh
The enemy more mighty than he seems:
So the proportions of defence are fill'd;
Which, of a weak and niggardly projection,
Doth like a miser spoil his coat with scanting
A little cloth.

Fr. King. Think we King Harry strong;
And, princes, look you strongly arm to meet him.
The kindred of him hath been flesh'd upon us;
And he is bred out of that bloody strain

That haunted us in our familiar paths:

Witness our too-much memorable shame

When Cressy battle fatally was struck,

And all our princes captiv'd by the hand

Of that black name, Edward Black Prince of Wales;
Whiles that his mountain sire, -on mountain standing,
Up in the air, crown'd with the golden sun,-
Saw his heroical seed, and smil'd to see him,
Mangle the work of nature, and deface

The patterns that by God and by French fathers
Had twenty years been made. This is a stem
Of that victorious stock; and let us fear

The native mightiness and fate of him.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. Ambassadors from Harry King of England Do crave admittance to your majesty.

Fr. King. We'll give them present audience. bring them.

Go, and

[Exeunt Mess. and certain Lords.

You see this chase is hotly follow'd, friends.

Dau. Turn head and stop pursuit; for coward dogs

Most spend their mouths 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.

Fr. King.

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 sinister nor no awkward claim,

[Gives a paper.

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,

Edward the Third, he bids

you then resign

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: Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming, In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,— That if requiring fail, he will compel ;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 Dauphin 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.

Dau. For the Dauphin, I stand here for him: what to him from England? Exe. Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt, And anything 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 hot an answer for it
That caves and womby vaultages of France
Shall chide your trespass and return your mock
In second accent of his ordinance.

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 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 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. 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 despatch'd with fair conditions:

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

[Exeunt.

Enter Chorus.

Cho. 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-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 confus'd; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge: 0, 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,

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, within. And down goes all before them. Still be kind, And eke out our performance with your mind.

[Exit.

ACT III.

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 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 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 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:-
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 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,