The arden shakespeare co.., p.190
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 190
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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,
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And the fleshed 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,
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Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats
Enlinked to waste and desolation?
What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
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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 th’enraged soldiers in their spoil
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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
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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,
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Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dashed 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
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At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? Will you yield and this avoid?
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroyed?
GOVERNOR Our expectation hath this day an end.
The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,
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Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, dread 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.
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KING Open your gates. Exit Governor.
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
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Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.
Tonight in Harfleur will we be your guest;
Tomorrow for the march are we addressed.
[Flourish, and enter the town.]
3.4 Enter KATHERINE and ALICE, an old gentlewoman.
KATHERINE Alice, tu as été en Angleterre, et tu bien parles
le langage.
ALICE Un peu, madame.
KATHERINE Je te prie m’enseigner; il faut que j’apprenne à
parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en anglais?
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ALICE La main, elle est appelée de hand.
KATHERINE 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 appelés de
fingres; oui, de fingres.
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KATHERINE La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je
pense que je suis le bon écolier. J’ai gagné deux mots
d’anglais vitement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles?
ALICE Les ongles, nous les appelons de nails.
KATHERINE De nails. Écoutez; dites-moi si je parle
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bien:de hand, de fingres, et de nails.
ALICE C’est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon anglais.
KATHERINE Dites-moi l’anglais pour le bras.
ALICE De arm, madame.
KATHERINE Et le coude?
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ALICE D’elbow.
KATHERINE D’elbow. Je m’en fais la répétition de tous les
mots que vous m’avez appris dès à présent.
ALICE Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.
KATHERINE Excusez-moi, Alice. Écoutez: d’ hand, de
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fingres, de nails, de arm, de bilbow.
ALICE D’elbow, madame.
KATHERINE O Seigneur Dieu, je m’en oublie! D’elbow.
Comment appelez-vous le col?
ALICE De nick, madame.
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KATHERINE De nick. Et le menton?
ALICE De chin.
KATHERINE De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.
ALICE Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en vérité, vous prononcez
les mots aussi droit que les natifs d’Angleterre.
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KATHERINE Je ne doute point d’apprendre, par la grâce de
Dieu, et en peu de temps.
ALICE N’avez-vous déjà oublié ce que je vous ai enseigné?
KATHERINE Non, je le réciterai à vous promptement:
d’hand, de fingres, de mails, –
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ALICE De nails, madame.
KATHERINE De nails, de arm, de ilbow –
ALICE Sauf votre honneur, d’elbow.
KATHERINE Ainsi dis-je, d’elbow – de nick, et de sin.
Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe?
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ALICE De foot, madame, et de coun.
KATHERINE De foot, et de coun? O Seigneur Dieu, ils sont
les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et
non pour les dames d’honneur d’user. Je ne voudrais
prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France pour
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tout le monde. Foh! De foot et de coun! Néanmoins, je
réciterai une autre fois ma leçon ensemble: d’ hand, de
fingres, de nails, d’arm, d’elbow, de nick, de sin, de
foot, de coun.
ALICE Excellent, madame!
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KATHERINE C’est assez pour une fois. Allons-nous à dîner.
Exeunt.
3.5 Enter the KING of France, the DAUPHIN, the DUKE OF BRITAIN, the Constable of France and others.
FRENCH KING
’Tis certain he hath passed the river Somme.
CONSTABLE An if he be not fought withal, my lord,
Let us not live in France; let us quit all
And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.
DAUPHIN O Dieu vivant! Shall a few sprays of us,
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The emptying of our fathers’ luxury,
Our scions, put in wild and savage stock,
Spirt up so suddenly into the clouds
And overlook their grafters?
BRITAIN
Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!
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Mort de ma vie, if they march along
Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom
To buy a slobbery and a dirty farm
In that nook-shotten isle of Albion.
CONSTABLE
Dieu de batailles, where have they this mettle?
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Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull,
On whom, as in despite, the sun looks pale,
Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden water,
A drench for sur-reined jades, their barley-broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
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And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,
Let us not hang like roping icicles
Upon our houses’ thatch, whiles a more frosty people
Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields!
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Poor we may call them in their native lords.
DAUPHIN By faith and honour,
Our madams mock at us and plainly say
Our mettle is bred out, and they will give
Their bodies to the lust of English youth,
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To new-store France with bastard warriors.
BRITAIN They bid us to the English dancing-schools
And teach lavoltas high and swift corantos,
Saying our grace is only in our heels,
And that we are most lofty runaways.
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FRENCH KING
Where is Montjoy the herald? Speed him hence:
Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
Up, princes, and with spirit of honour edged
More sharper than your swords hie to the field.
Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France,
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You Dukes of Orleans, Bourbon and of Berry,
Alençon, Brabant, Bar and Burgundy,
Jaques Chatillon, Rambures, Vaudemont,
Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi and Fauconbridge,
Foix, Lestrelles, Boucicault and Charolais,
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High dukes, great princes, barons, lords and knights,
For your great seats now quit you of great shames.
Bar Harry England, that sweeps through our land
With pennons painted in the blood of Harfleur.
Rush on his host as doth the melted snow
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Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat
The Alps doth spit and void his rheum upon.
Go down upon him, you have power enough,
And in a captive chariot into Rouen
Bring him our prisoner.
CONSTABLE This becomes the great.
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Sorry am I his numbers are so few,
His soldiers sick and famished in their march,
For I am sure when he shall see our army
He’ll drop his heart into the sink of fear
And for achievement offer us his ransom.
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FRENCH KING
Therefore, Lord Constable, haste on Montjoy,
And let him say to England that we send
To know what willing ransom he will give. –
Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.
DAUPHIN Not so, I do beseech your majesty.
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FRENCH KING
Be patient, for you shall remain with us. –
Now forth, Lord Constable and princes all,
And quickly bring us word of England’s fall. Exeunt.
3.6 Enter the English and Welsh captains GOWER and FLUELLEN, meeting.
GOWER How now, Captain Fluellen, come you from the
bridge?
FLUELLEN I assure you there is very excellent services
committed at the bridge.
GOWER Is the Duke of Exeter safe?
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FLUELLEN The Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous as
Agamemnon, and a man that I love and honour with
my soul, and my heart, and my duty, and my life, and
my living, and my uttermost power. He is not, God be
praised and blessed, any hurt in the world, but keeps
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the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline.
There is an anchient lieutenant there at the pridge, I
think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as
Mark Antony, and he is a man of no estimation in the
world, but I did see him do as gallant service –
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GOWER What do you call him?
FLUELLEN He is called Anchient Pistol.
GOWER I know him not.
Enter PISTOL.
FLUELLEN Here is the man.
PISTOL Captain, I thee beseech to do me favours.
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The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.
FLUELLEN
Ay, I praise God, and I have merited some love at his
hands.
PISTOL Bardolph, a soldier firm and sound of heart,
Of buxom valour, hath, by cruel fate
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And giddy Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,
That goddess blind
That stands upon the rolling restless stone –
FLUELLEN By your patience, Anchient Pistol. Fortune
is painted blind, with a muffler afore her eyes, to
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signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is painted
also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral
