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From Henry V., Act. III., Scene 3. September 27, 1415.
Scene III. Before the gates of Harfleur. The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the English forces below. Enter KING HENRY and his train.
K. Hen. How yet resolves the governor of the town? | |
| This is the latest parle we will admit: | |
| Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves; | |
| Or like to men proud of destruction | |
| Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier, | 5 |
| A name that in my thoughts becomes me best, | |
| If I begin the battery once again, | |
| I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur | |
| Till in her ashes she lie buried. | |
| The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, | 10 |
| And the flesh’d soldier, rough and hard of heart, | |
| In liberty of bloody hand shall range | |
| With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass | |
| Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants. | |
| What is it then to me, if impious war, | 15 |
| Array’d in flames like to the prince of fiends, | |
| Do, with his smirch’d complexion, all fell feats | |
| Enlink’d to waste and desolation? | |
| What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause, | |
| If your pure maidens fall into the hand | 20 |
| Of hot and forcing violation? | |
| What rein can hold licentious wickedness | |
| When down the hill he holds his fierce career? | |
| We may as bootless spend our vain command | |
| Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil | 25 |
| As send precepts to the leviathan | |
| To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, | |
| Take pity of your town and of your people, | |
| Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command; | |
| Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace | 30 |
| O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds | |
| Of heady murder, spoil and villany. | |
| If not, why, in a moment look to see | |
| The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand | |
| Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters; | 35 |
| Your fathers taken by the silver beards, | |
| And their most reverend heads dash’d to the walls, | |
| Your naked infants spitted upon pikes, | |
| Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused | |
| Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry | 40 |
| At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughter-men. | |
| What say you? will you yield, and this avoid, | |
| Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy’d? | |
| Gov. Our expectation hath this day an end: | |
| The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated, | 45 |
| Returns us that his powers are yet not ready | |
| To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king, | |
| We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy. | |
| Enter our gates; dispose of us and ours; | |
| For we no longer are defensible. | 50 |
| K. Hen. Open your gates. Come, uncle Exeter, | |
| Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain, | |
| And fortify it strongly ’gainst the French: | |
| Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle, | |
| The winter coming on and sickness growing | 55 |
| Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais. | |
| To-night in Harfleur we will be your guest; | |
To-morrow for the march are we addrest.
[Flourish. The King and his train enter the town. | |
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