K. Henry.
How yet resolves the Governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit:
Therefore to our best mercy give your selves,
Or, like to men proud of destruction,
Defie us to our worst; as I'm a soldier,
(A name, that, in my thoughts, becomes me best)
If I begin the batt'ry once again,
I will not leave the half-atchieved 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 flow'ring infants.
What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array'd in flames like to the Prince of fiends,
Do with his smircht complexion all fell feats,
Enlinkt to waste and desolation?
What is't to me, when you your selves 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 th' enraged soldiers in their spoil,
As send our precepts to th' Leviathan
To come a-shoar. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
Take pity of your town and of your people,
While yet my soldiers are in my command;
While yet the cool and temp'rate wind of grace
O'er-blows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murther, 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 dasht to the walls;
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
While the mad mothers with their howls confus'd
Do break the clouds; as did the wives of Jewry,
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughter-men.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid?
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd? Enter Governor, upon the Walls.

Gov.
Our expectation hath this day and end:
The Dauphin, of whom succours we entreated,
Returns us, that his pow'rs 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. Henry.
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 we will be your guest,
To morrow for the march we are addrest. [Flourish, and enter the town.

Previous section

Next section