France. Before the Gates of Harfleur.
 CITIZENS of the town on the walls.
 Enter the KING and all his TRAIN before the gates.

King Henry	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-achievd Harfleur
	Till in her ashes she lie burid.
	The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
	And the fleshed 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,
	Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,
	Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats
	Enlinked 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 th' enragd soldiers in their spoil
	As send precepts to the leviathan
	To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,
	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 villainy.
	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 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?

                       Enter GOVERNOR on the walls.

Governor	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.

King Henry	Open your gates.
									 [Exit GOVERNOR from the walls.

							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.
	Tonight in Harfleur will we be your guest;
	Tomorrow for the march are we addressed.
									 [Flourish, and enter the town.
