| ACT III 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. | |
| KING HENRY V | 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 | 5 |
| | 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. | 10 |
| | 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. | 15 |
| | 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, | 20 |
| | 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 | 25 |
| | Upon the enraged 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; | 30 |
| | 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 | 35 |
| | 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 | 40 |
| | 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? | |
| GOVERNOR | Our expectation hath this day an end: | 45 |
| | The Dauphin, whom of succors 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; | 50 |
| | For we no longer are defensible. | |
| KING HENRY V | 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, | 55 |
| | The winter coming on and sickness growing | |
| | Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais. | |
| | To-night in Harfleur we will be your guest; | |
| | To-morrow for the march are we addrest. | |
| | Flourish. The King and his train enter the town. | |
