ACT III.

Enter CHORUS.

Chor. 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 pier1
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 rivage2, 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 sternages of this navy;
And leave your England, as dead midnight, still,

1 The well appointed king at Hampton pier. Well appointed, that is, well furnished with all necessaries of war. Thus in King Henry VI. Part 111.:—

'And very well appointed, as I thought,
March'd towards Saint Albans.".

The old copies read Dover pier: but the poet himself, and all accounts, and even the Chronicles which he followed, say that the king embarked at Southampton. A minuté account still exists among the records of the town; and it is remarkable that a low level plain where the army encamped is now covered by the sea, and called Westport.

Rivage, the bank, or shore; rivage, Fr.

To sternage of this navy. The stern, or sternage, being the hinder part of the ship. The meaning of this passage is 'Let your minds follow this navy. The stern was anciently synonymous to rudder. The sterne of a ship, gubernaculum.-Baret.

Vol. V.

18*.

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 Chambers5 go off.
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.

[Exit.

SCENE I. The same. 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
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

rage:

4 Linstock is here put for a match; but it was, strictly speaking, the staff to which the match for firing ordnance was fixed.

Chambers, small pieces of ordnance. See King Henry VIII. Act i. Sc. 3.

Let it pry through the portage of the head1, su
Like the brass cannon: let the brow o'erwhelm it,
As fearfully, as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty2 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 English3,
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 arguments; 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;

1 The portage of the head. loop-holes or port-holes.

Shakspeare uses portage for

"O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.'

To jutty is to project; jutties, or jetties, are projecting moles to break the force of the waves. Confounded is neither worn, or wasted, as Johnson tells us; nor destroyed, as Malone infers bat vexed, or troubled. Swill'd anciently was used for 'washed much, or long, drowned, surrounded by water: Prolutus. Daniel, in his Civil Warres, has a similar passage:

A place there is, where proudly rais'd there stands
A huge aspiring rock, neighbouring the skies,
Whose surly brow imperiously commands
The sea his bounds, that at his proud foot lies;
And spurns the waves that in rebellious bands
Assault his empire, and against him rise.'

3 'You noble English. The folio reads noblish, by mistake; the compositor having taken twice the final syllable ish. Steevens reads noblest. This speech is not in the quartos

4 Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof.' Mr. Pope took the liberty of altering this word to fetch'd. The sacred writings afford us many instances of its use. 'Ascita et accepta a Graecis, Fet and taken out of Grecce. It is often coupled with far, as in the expressions far-fet and dear bought,' 'affectated and far-fet.'

Argument is matter, subject.

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 slips6,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot;
Follow your spirit: and, upon this charge,
Cry-God for Harry! England! and Saint George!
[Exeunt. Alarum, and Chambers go off.

SCENE II. The same.

Forces pass over; then enter NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and Boy.

Bard. On, on, on, on, on! to the breach! to the breach!

Nym. Pray thee, corporal1, stay; the knocks are too hot; and, for mine own part, I have not a case of lives2: the humour of it is too hot, that is the very plain-song of it.

Pist. The plain-song is most just; for humours do abound;

Knocks go and come; God's vassals drop and die; And sword and shield,

In bloody field,

Doth win immortal fame.

Boy. 'Would, I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.

Pist. And I:

If wishes would prevail with me,
My purpose should not fail with me,

But thither would I hie.

Boy. As duly, but not as truly,

As bird doth sing on bough.

6 Slips are contrivances of leather to start two dogs at the same time.

Corporal. Bardolph is called lieutenant in a former scene; 80 that there is a lapse of memory in the poet in one or other of these instances.

A case of lives; that is, a pair of lives: tols,' a case of poniards, a case of masks.' wo have a case of justices.'

as a case of piaSo in Ram Alley,

Enter FLUELLEN3.

Flu. Got's plood!-Up to the preaches, you rascals! will you not up to the preaches?

[Driving them forward. Pist. Be merciful, great duke, to men of mould1! Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage!

Abate thy rage, great duke!

Good bawcock, bate thy rage! use lenity, sweet chuck!

Nym. These be good humours!-your honour wins bad humours.

[Exeunt NYM, PISTOL, and BARDOLPH, followed by FLuellen.

Boy. As young as I am, I have observed these three swashers. I am boy to them all three: but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man to me: for, indeed, three such anticks do not amount to a man. For Bardolph, -he is white-liver'd, and red-fac'd; by the means whereof, a faces it out, but fights not. For Pistol,Ire hath a killing tongue, and a quiet sword; by the means whereof 'a breaks words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, he hath heard, that men of few words are the best5 men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest 'a should be thought a coward: but his few bad words are match'd with as few good deeds; for a never broke any man's head but his own; and that was against a post, when he was drunk. They will steal any thing, and call it,— purchase. Bardolph

3 Fluellen is merely the Welsh pronunciation of Lluellyn; as Floyd is of Lloyd.

i. e. 'be merciful, great commander, to men of earth, to poor mortal men.' Duke is only a translation of the Roman dur. Sylvester, in his Du Bartas, calls Moses 'a great duke.'

5 "The best men; that is, bravest. So, in the next line, good deeds are brave actions.

6 Purchase, which anciently signified gain, profit, was the cant term used for any thing obtained by cheating; as appears by Green's Art of Coneycatching.