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 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
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid?
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroyed?

Gov. Our expectation hath this day an end:
The dauphin, whom of succor we entreated,
Returns us—that his powers are not yet 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.

K. Hen. 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'll retire to Calais. To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest; To-morrow for the march are we addressed.' 1

[Flourish. The King, &c. enter the town.

SCENE IV.2 Rouen. A Room in the Palace.

Enter KATHARINE and ALICE.

Kath. Alice, tu as esté en Angleterre, et tu parles bien le langage.

Alice. Un peu, madame.

1 i. e. prepared.

2 Every one must wish to believe, with Warburton and Farmer, that this scene is an interpolation. Yet, as Johnson remarks, the grimaces of the two Frenchwomen, and the odd accent with which they uttered the English, might divert an audience more refined than could be found in the Poet's t.me.

Kath. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'apprenne à parler. Comment appellez vous la main, en Anglois? Alice. La main? elle est appellée, de hand. Kath. De hand. Et les doigts?

Alice. Les doigts?_ma foy, j'oublie les doigts; mais je me souviendray. Les doigts? je pense, qu'ils sont appellé de fingres; ouy, de fingres.

Kath. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense, que je suis le bon escolier. J'ay gagné deux mots d'Anglois vistement. Comment appellez vous les

ongles?

Alice. Les ongles? les appellons, de nails.

Kath. De nails. Escoutez; Escoutez; dites moy, si je parle bien; de hand, de fingres, de nails.

Alice. C'est bien dit, madame; il est fort bon Anglois.

Kath. Dites moy en Anglois, le bras.

Alice. De arm, madame.

Kath. Et le coude.

Alice. De elbow.

Kath. De elbow. Je m'en faitz la répétition de tous les mots, que vous m'avez appris dès à present.

Alice. Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense. Kath. Excusez moy, Alice; escoutez: De hand, de fingre, de nails, de arm, de bilbow.

Alice. De elbow, madame.

Kath. O Seigneur Dieu! je m'en oublie; de elbow. Comment appellez vous le col?

Alice. De neck, madame.

Kath. De neck. Et le menton?

Alice. De chin.

Kath. De sin. Le col, de neck: le menton, de sin. Alice. Ouy. Sauf vostre honneur; en vérité, vous prononcez les mots aussi droict que les natifs d'Angle

terre.

Kath. Je ne doute point d'apprendre par la grace de Dieu; et en peu de temps.

Alice. N'avez vous pas déjà oublié ce que je vous ay enseigné?

Kath. Non, je réciteray à vous promptement. De hand, de fingre, de mails,

Alice. De nails, madame.

Kath. De nails, de arme, de ilbow.
Alice. Sauf vostre honneur, de elbow.

Kath. Ainsi dis je; de elbow, de neck, et de sin. Comment appellez vous le pieds et la robe?

Alice. De foot, madame; et de con.

Kath. De foot et de con? O Seigneur Dieu! ces sont mots de son mauvais, corruptible, grosse, et impudique, et non pour les dames d'honneur d'user. Je ne voudrois prononcer ces mots devant les Seigneurs de France, pour tout le monde. Il faut de foot, et de con, neant-moins. Je reciterai une autre fois ma leçon ensemble. De hand, de fingre, de nails, de arm, de elbow, de neck, de sin, de foot, de con.

Alice. Excellent, madame!

Kath. C'est assez pour une fors; allons nous à disner. [Exeunt.

SCENE V. The same.

Another Room in the same.

Enter the French King, the Dauphin, Duke of Bour bon, the Constable of France, and others.

Fr. King. 'Tis certain he hath passed the river Some.

Con. And 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.

Dau. O Dieu vivant! shall a few sprays of us,—

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?

Bour. Normans, but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!

1 Luxury for lust.

“To't, Luxury, pellmell, for I lack soldiers.”—Lear.

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.

Con. Dieu de battailes! where have they this mettle?

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-reined2 jades, their barley broth,
Decoct their cold blood to such valiant heat?
And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,
Seem frosty? O, for honor 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;
Poor-we may call them, in their native lords.

Dau. By faith and honor,

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,
To new-store France with bastard warriors.

Bour. They bid us to the English dancing-schools, And teach lavoltas3 high, and swift corantos;

Saying, our grace is only in our heels,

And that we are most lofty runaways.

Fr. King. Where is Montjoy, the herald? Speed him hence;

Let him greet England with our sharp defiance.
Up, princes; and, with spirit of honor edged,
More sharper than your swords, hie to the field.

1 “Nook-shotten isle." Shotten signifies any thing projected; so nookshotten isle is an isle that shoots out into capes, promontories, and necks of land.

2 “A drench for sur-reined jades." Sur-reined is probably over-ridden or over-strained.

3 "Lavoltas high." The lavolta, or volta, "a kind of turning French dance," says Florio; in which the man turns the woman round several times, and then assists her in making a high spring or cabriole. The reader will find a very curious and amusing article on the subject, in Mr. Douce's Illustrations of Shakspeare, vol. i. p. 489.

Charles De-la-bret,1 high constable of France;
You dukes of Orleans, Bourbon, and of Berry,
Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy ;
Jaques Chatillion, Rambures, Vaudemont,
Beaumont, Grandpre, Roussi, and Fauconberg,
Foix, Lestrale, Bouciqualt, and Charolois ;

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
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.

Con.

This becomes the great.
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.2

Fr. 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.3
Dau. Not so, I do beseech your majesty.

Fr. 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.

1 This should be Charles D'Albret; but the metre would not admit of the change. Shakspeare followed Holinshed, who calls him Delabreth. The other French names have been corrected.

2 "And for achievement offer us his ransom." That is, instead of achieving a victory over us, make a proposal to pay us a sum as ransom. 3 Rouen is spelled Roan in the old copy. It was pronounced as a monosyllable.