Henry V (The Play, Historical Background and Analysis of the Character in the Play). William Hazlitt
Defy us to our worst; for, as I am a soldier,
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,
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 flow’ring infants.
What is it then to me, if impious War,
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
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
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
O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy.
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;
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 confus’d
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? Will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy’d?
GOVERNOR.
Our expectation hath this day an end.
The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,
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.
KING HENRY.
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
Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.
Tonight in Harfleur will we be your guest;
Tomorrow for the march are we addrest.
[Flourish. [The King and his train] enter the town.]
SCENE IV.
The French King’s palace.
[Enter Katharine and [Alice,] an old Gentlewoman.]
KATHARINE.
Alice, tu as ete en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage.
ALICE.
Un peu, madame.
KATHARINE.
Je te prie, m’enseignez; il faut que j’apprenne a parler.
Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglois?
ALICE.
La main? Elle est appelee de hand.
KATHARINE.
De hand. Et les doigts?
ALICE. Les doigts? Ma foi, j’oublie les doigts; mais je me souviendrai. Les doigts? Je pense qu’ils sont appeles de fingres; oui, de fingres.
KATHARINE. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que je suis le bon ecolier; j’ai gagne deux mots d’Anglois vitement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles?
ALICE.
Les ongles? Nous les appelons de nails.
KATHARINE. De nails. Ecoutez; dites-moi, si je parle bien: de hand, de fingres, et de nails.
ALICE.
C’est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglois.
KATHARINE.
Dites-moi l’Anglois pour le bras.
ALICE.
De arm, madame.
KATHARINE.
Et le coude?
ALICE.
D’elbow.
KATHARINE. D’elbow. Je m’en fais la repetition de tous les mots que vous m’avez appris des a present.
ALICE.
Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.
KATHARINE. Excusez-moi, Alice; ecoutez: d’hand, de fingres, de nails, d’arma, de bilbow.
ALICE.
D’elbow, madame.
KATHARINE.
O Seigneur Dieu, je m’en oublie! D’elbow.
Comment appelez-vous le col?
ALICE.
De nick, madame.
KATHARINE.
De nick. Et le menton?
ALICE.
De chin.
KATHARINE.
De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.
ALICE.
Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en verite, vous prononcez les mots aussi droit que les natifs d’Angleterre.
KATHARINE. Je ne doute point d’apprendre, par la grace de Dieu, et en peu de temps.
ALICE.
N’avez-vous pas deja oublie ce que je vous ai enseigne?
KATHARINE. Non, je reciterai a vous promptement: d’hand, de fingres, de mails,—
ALICE.
De nails, madame.
KATHARINE.
De nails, de arm, de ilbow.
ALICE.
Sauf votre honneur, de elbow.
KATHARINE. Ainsi dis-je; d’elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe?
ALICE.
De foot, madame; et