Page:Henry V (1918) Yale.djvu/52

40 

K. Hen. 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;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let it pry through the portage of the head

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

As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit

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

Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof;

Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,

Have in these parts from morn till even fought,

And sheath'd their swords for lack of argument.

Dishonour not your mothers; now attest

That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.

Be copy now to men of grosser blood,

 8 hard-favour'd: ugly

10 portage: porthole

11 o'erwhelm: overhang

12 galled: undermined

13 jutty: project beyond

confounded: ruined

14 Swill'd with: gulped down by

18 fet: fetched

war-proof: valor proven in war

21 argument: subject of contention

24 copy: example 