Henry V quotes

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, On your imaginary forces work. Suppose within the girdle of these walls Are now confined two mighty monarchies, Whose high upreared and abutting fronts The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;

Into a thousand parts divide one man, And make imaginary puissance; Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth; For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there;

You’ll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

Base is the slave that pays.

That now I will have: that’s the humour of it.

Alarum. Enter King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Gloucester and Soldiers, with scaling-ladders.

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

Or close the wall up with our English dead. In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility: But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger;

but his few bad words are matched with as few good deeds; for a’ never broke any man’s head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk.

They will steal anything, and call it purchase.

Bardolph stole a lute-case, bore it twelve leagues, and sold it for three half-pence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in filching, and in Calais they stole a fire-shovel: I knew by that piece of service the men would carry coals.

and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls: in good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it:

Fortune is an excellent moral.

Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him; For he hath stolen a pax, and hanged must a’ be: A damned death! Let gallows gape for dog; let man go free And let not hemp his windpipe suffocate:

Thus says my king: Say thou to Harry of England:

Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage is a better soldier than rashness.

Tell him we could have rebuked him at Harfleur, but that we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full ripe: now we speak upon our cue, and our voice is imperial:

Nay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly shook your back.

Mine was not bridled.

O then belike she was old and gentle; and you rode, like a kern of Ireland, your French hose off, and in your strait strossers.

I was told that by one that knows him better than you.

Marry, he told me so himself; and he said he cared not who knew it.

He needs not; it is no hidden virtue in him.

That every wretch, pining and pale before, Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks: A largess universal like the sun His liberal eye doth give to everyone, Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all Behold, as may unworthiness define,

A little touch of Harry in the night.

And so our scene must to the battle fly; Where—O for pity!—we shall much disgrace With four or five most vile and ragged foils, Right ill-disposed in brawl ridiculous, The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see, Minding true things by what their mock’ries be.

Gloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger; The greater therefore should our courage be. Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,

Would men observingly distil it out. For our bad neighbour makes us early stirrers, Which is both healthful and good husbandry: Besides, they are our outward consciences, And preachers to us all, admonishing That we should dress us fairly for our end.

No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I speak it to you,

I think the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me;

all his senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing.

and where they would be safe, they perish: then if they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited.

Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.

Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:

This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition:

Suivez-vous le grand capitaine. Exeunt Pistol and French Soldier.

I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true, “The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.”

Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring devil i’ the old play, that everyone may pare his nails with a wooden dagger; and they are both hanged; and so would this be, if he durst steal anything adventurously.

I tell thee truly, herald, I know not if the day be ours or no; For yet a many of your horsemen peer And gallop o’er the field.

Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!

What is this castle call’d that stands hard by?

Sir, know you this glove?

Know the glove! I know the glove is a glove.

I know this; and thus I challenge it. Strikes him.

for these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favours, they do always reason themselves out again. What! a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad.

A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.

If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love? speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.

do but now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your French part of such a boy; and for my English moiety take the word of a king and a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon très cher et divin déesse?

Your majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle dat is en France.

Now, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honour I dare not swear thou lovest me; yet my blood begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding the poor and untempering effect of my visage.

who, though I speak it before his face, if he be not fellow with the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows.

Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is music and thy English broken;

therefore, queen of all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in broken English; wilt thou have me?

we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently and yielding. Kissing her.

You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council;

and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.