Henry V: Act 3

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MACMORRIS
I do not know you so good a man as myself: so Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.

GOWER
Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.

JAMY
A! that's a foul fault.

A parley sounded

GOWER
The town sounds a parley.

FLUELLEN
Captain Macmorris, when there is more better opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of war; and there is an end.

Exeunt

SCENE III. The same. Before the gates

The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the English forces below. Enter KING HENRY and his train

KING HENRY V
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,
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 flowering 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 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;
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
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 succors 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 V
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.
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

SCENE IV. The FRENCH KING's palace

Enter KATHARINE and ALICE

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
De elbow.

KATHARINE
De 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: de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arma, de bilbow.

ALICE
De elbow, madame.

KATHARINE
O Seigneur Dieu, je m'en oublie! de elbow. Comment appelez-vous le col?

ALICE
De neck, madame.

KATHARINE
De nick. Et le menton?

ALICE
De chin.

KATHARINE
De sin. Le col, de nick; de 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.

 

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