- [Addressing the troops]
- King Henry V: And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by from this day until the ending of the world but we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, Be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition, and gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves acursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks, that fought with us upon St. Crispin's day!
- King Henry V: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead!
- King Henry V: Canst thou love me?
- Princess Katherine: I cannot tell.
- King Henry V: Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I'll ask them.
- Montjoy: Give us leave, great king, to view the field in safety and dispose of their dead bodies.
- King Henry V: I tell thee truly, herald, I know not if the day be ours or no.
- Montjoy: The day is yours.
- King Henry V: Praised be God and not our strength for it! What is this castle called that stands hard by?
- Montjoy: They call it Agincourt.
- King Henry V: Then call we this the field of Agincourt, fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.
- King Henry V: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close up the wall with our English dead!
- [charging his troops to attack the gates of Harfluer]
- King Henry V: For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
- King Henry V: If little faults proceeding on distemper shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye, when capital crimes, chewed, swallowed and digested appear before us?
- King Henry V: [after kissing Princess Katherine] 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.
- King Henry V: Fair Katherine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?
- Princess Katherine: [unable to understand his English] Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell what is 'like me'.
- King Henry V: An angel is like you, Kate.
- Falstaff: [stroking his vast gut] Do I not shrink? Do I not dwindle? My skin hangs upon me like an old woman's loose gown.
- [Delivering a message from King Henry to the French King]
- Exeter: This is his claim, his threatening and my message. Unless the *Dolphin*
- [intentionally mispronounced]
- Exeter: be in presence here, to whom expressly I bring greeting too.
- French King: For us, we will consider of this further. Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent back to our brother England.
- Dauphin: For the *Dauphin*
- [emphasizes the correct pronunciation]
- Dauphin: , I stand here for him. What to him from England?
- Exeter: Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt and any thing that may not misbecome the mighty sender, doth he prize you at. Thus says my king.
- King Henry V: Thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better.
- [first lines]
- Chorus: [lights a match] O, for a Muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention...
- [switches on the lights to a soundstage, and walks across it]
- Chorus: A kingdom for a stage, princes to act and monarchs to behold the swelling scene. Then should the war-like Harry, like himself, assume the port of Mars, and at his heels, leashed in like hounds, should Famine, Sword, and Fire crouch for employment. But pardon, Gentles all, the flat unraised Spirits that hath dared, on this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth so great an object. Can this cockpit hold the vast fields of France? Or may we cram within this wooden O, the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt? O, pardon. And let us, cyphers to this great accompt, on your imaginary forces work. For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our Kings, carry them here and there, jumping over times, turning the accomplishment of many years into an hourglass. For the which supply, admit me Chorus to this history. Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray: gently to hear, kindly to judge... our Play!
- [opens the doors to the English court]
- King Henry V: [to Montjoy] I pray thee take my former answer back. Bid them achieve me than sell my bones!"
- 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 defy us to our worst. For as I am a soldier, if I begin the batt'ry once again, I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur, till in her ashes she lie burièd. Therefore, ye 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'er blows 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! WHAT SAY YOU? Will you yield, and this avoid? Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed?
- [last lines]
- Chorus: Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen, our bending author hath pursued the story, in little room confining mighty men, angling by starts the full course of their glory. Small time, but in that small most greatly lived this star of England: Fortune made his sword, by which the world's best garden he achieved. And of it left his son imperial lord, Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned king. Of France and England, did this king succeed, whose state so many had the managing, that they lost France and made his England bleed. Which oft our stage hath shown, and for their sake, in your fair minds, let this acceptance take.
- [closes the doors to the English court]
- Bates: He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him.
- Williams: But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, "We died at such a place," some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument?
- King Henry V: Upon the king. Let us our lives, our souls, our debts, our careful wives, our children, and our sins lay on the king. We must bear all. Oh, hard condition. Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath of every fool. What infinite heart's ease must kings neglect that private men enjoy? And what have kings that privates have not too save ceremony? And what art thou, thou idle ceremony? What drink'st thou oft instead of homage sweet but poison'd flattery? Oh, be sick, great greatness, and bid thy ceremony give thee cure. Canst thou, when thou commandest the beggar's knee, command the health of it? No, thou proud dream that playest so subtly with a king's repose. I am a king that find thee, and I know... 'tis not the balm, the sceptre, and the ball, the sword, the mace, the crown imperial, the intertissued robe of gold and pearl, the farced title running 'fore the king, the throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp that beats upon the high shore of this world. No, not all these thrice-gorgeous ceremony, not all these laid in bed majestical can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave, who, with a body filled and vacant mind, gets him to rest, crammed with distressful bread, never sees horrid night, the child of hell, but like a lackey from the rise to the set, sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night sleeps in Elysium. Next day after dawn, doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse and follows so the ever-running year with profitable labour to his grave. And, but for ceremony, such a wretch, winding up days with toil and nights with sleep had the forehand and vantage... of a king.