Henry V – Act 3 Scene 1

KING HENRY V

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Once more, attack the gap into the city;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

Get in, or block the gap with English corpses.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

In peacetime nothing’s more respectable

As modest stillness and humility:

Than modesty and calm humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

But when we hear the trumpet blown for war,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

We have to act as though we are a tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Tense up your muscles, fire up your courage,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage;

Hide your civility with fearsome rage;

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Then fill your eyes with wild ferocity;

Let pry through the portage of the head

Stare piercingly from portholes in your head

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it

That look like cannons, frowning with your brow

As fearfully as doth a galled rock

As fearfully as jagged, jutting rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Protrudes above a cliff that’s doomed below,

Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean.

That’s bashed by the untamed, corrosive ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

Now grit your teeth and flare your nostrils wide,

Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit

And hold your breath and summon up your strength

To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,

As mighty as you can. Go, noble English,

Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!

Descendants rich from fathers proved in war!

Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

Fathers matching Alexander the Great,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought

Who’ve fought round here from morning until night

And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:

And sheathed their swords only when all were dead.

Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

Don’t disrespect your mothers; go and prove

That those whom you called fathers did beget you.

That those you called your fathers really sired you.

Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

Be models lesser men can look up to,

And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,

And teach them how to fight. Good common men,

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here

Whose limbs were made in England, demonstrate

The mettle of your pasture; let us swear

The strength of where you’re from; and let’s commit

That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;

To prove your life is worthy; I don’t doubt it;

For there is none of you so mean and base,

For no one here is so low-born or mean

That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

That their eyes don’t shine with nobility.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

I see you stand like greyhounds on a leash,

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:

Straining to start to run. The hunt is on:

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge

Follow your gut instinct, and as you charge,

Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

Shout, ‘God help Harry, England and Saint George!’