HV3. The Big Speeches
HV3. The Big Speeches
HV3. The Big Speeches
ORIGINAL TEXT
KING HENRY
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HENRY V
MODERN TEXT
Attack the breach in the city wall once more, dear friends, attack it once
more—or else let’s close it up with English corpses.
But when the battle trumpet blows in our ears, then it’s time to act like the tiger.
With muscles taut and blood stirred up, hide your civilized nature under the
guise of ugly rage.
Lend your eyes a terrifying gleam and let them jut out from the portholes of the
head like brass cannon.
Make your brow jut out over your eyes like a frightening cliff over the wild and
desolate ocean.
Now grit your teeth and let your nostrils flare. Take a deep breath and draw on
every impulse to its fullest strength.
On, on, you noblest Englishmen, descended as you are from battle-tested
fathers, fathers who, like so many Alexander the Greats, have fought in these
regions from morning until night, sheathing their swords only when there was
no one left to fight.
Prove that the men you call your fathers did truly conceive you.
Serve as an example to men of common birth and teach them how to fight. And
you, good farmers, whose limbs were made in England, show us here the vigour
of your upbringing.
Prove you are worthy of your birth, which I do not doubt for a moment.
For there isn’t one of you so low-born that your eyes don’t shine with noble
lustre.
I see you’re standing like greyhounds on a leash, straining for the moment when
you’ll be let loose. The hunt is on! Follow your spirit, and as you charge cry,
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HENRY V
A4S3 “We Few, we happy few.” / ALT Version
Henry V
KING HENRY
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HENRY V
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
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 rememberèd—
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;
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhood’s cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
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HENRY V
MODERN TEXT
KING HENRY
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