I suerly do, that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad full fain heard some question 'tween you tway.

Flu. Captain Macmorris, I think, look you, under your correction, there is not many of your 130 nation

Mac. Of my nation! What ish my nation? Ish a villain, and a bastard, and a knave, and a rascal-What ish my nation? Who talks of my

nation?

Flu. Look you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant, Captain Macmorris, peradventure I shall think you do not use me with that affability as in discretion you ought to use me, look you; being as good a man as yourself, both 140 in the disciplines of war, and in the derivation of my birth, and in other particularities.

Mac. I do not know you so good a man as myself: so Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.

Gow. Gentlemen both, you will mistake each other.

Jamy. A that's a foul fault.

[A parley sounded. Gow. The town sounds a parley.

Flu. Captain Macmorris, when there is more 150 better opportunity to be required, look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of war; and there is an end.

127. wad full fain heard, wad .. have heard. The omission of 'have' is a common

[Exeunt.

Northern and Scandinavian idiom. So Ff. The Camb. editors wrongly alter to 'hear.'

SCENE III. The same.

Before the gates.

The Governor and some Citizens on the walls; the English forces below. Enter KING HENRY and his train.

K. Hen. How yet resolves the governor of the town?

This is the latest parle we will admit :

Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;
Or like to men proud of destruction

Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,
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,

And the flesh'd 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,
Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?

What is 't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
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 the enraged soldiers in their spoil

As send precépts to the leviathan

To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,

10

20

II. flesh'd, inured, hardened. 26. precepts, legal summonses.

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
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villany.

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;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,

And their most reverend heads dash'd 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 destroy'd?

Gov. Our expectation hath this day an end:
The Dauphin, whom of succours we entreated,
Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great 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 will retire to Calais.
To-night in Harfleur will we be your guest;
To-morrow for the march are we addrest.

30

40

50

SCENE IV. The FRENCH KING'S palace.

Enter KATHARINE and ALICE.

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

Alice. Un peu, madame.

Kath. Je te prie, m'enseignez; il faut que j'apprenne à parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en Anglois ?

Alice. La main? elle est appelée de hand.
Kath. De hand. Et les doigts?

Alice. Les doigts? ma foi, j'oublie les doigts; mais je me souviendrai. Les doigts? je pense 10 qu'ils sont appelés de fingres; oui, de fingres.

Kath. La main, de hand; les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que je suis le bon écolier ; j'ai gagné deux mots d'Anglois vêtement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles ?

Alice. Les ongles? nous les appelons de nails. Kath. De nails. Écoutez; dites-moi, si je parle bien de hand, de fingres, et de nails.

:

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

Kath. Dites-moi l'Anglois pour le bras.
Alice. De arm, madame.
Kath. Et le coude?
Alice. De elbow.
Kath. De elbow. Je

Scene 4. Successive editors have substituted approximately correct modern French for the imperfect and corrupted French of the Folio text. Probably what Shakespeare wrote was less correct than what we read; but

m'en fais la répétition

ΙΟ

20

in the absence of any criteria of his French scholarship, it is hardly worth while to insist on a few cases in which the incorrectness of the Folio version cannot be due to mere corruption.

de tous les mots que vous m'avez appris dès à présent.

Alice. Il est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.

Kath. Excusez-moi, Alice; écoutez: de hand, 30 de fingres, de nails, de arma, de bilbow.

Alice. De elbow, madame.

Kath. O Seigneur Dieu, je m'en oublie! de elbow. Comment appelez-vous les col?

Alice. De neck, madame.

Kath. De nick. Et le menton ?

Alice. De chin.

Kath. De sin. Le col, de nick; le menton, de sin.

Alice. Oui. Sauf votre honneur, en vérité, 40 vous prononcez les mots aussi droit que les natifs d'Angleterre.

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 ai enseigné ?

Kath. Non, je reciterai à vous promptement: de hand, de fingres, de mails,

sin.

Alice. De nails, madame.

Kath. De nails, de arm, de ilbow.

Alice. Sauf votre honneur, de elbow.

Kath. Ainsi dis-je; de elbow, de nick, et de
Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe?
Alice. De foot, madame; et de coun.

50

Kath. De foot et de coun! O Seigneur Dieu ! ce sont 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 tout le monde. Foh! le foot et le coun! Néanmoins, je reciterai 60 une autre fois ma leçon ensemble: de hand, de