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France. Before Harfleur. | |
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Alarums. Enter KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, 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 | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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; | 20 |
| 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. | 25 |
| 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; | 30 |
| 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 | 35 |
| Cry ‘God for Harry! England and Saint George!’ [Exeunt. Alarum, and chambers go off. | |
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