Page 1646 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

ACT III IT

Flourish. Enter Chorus.

[CHORUS]
Thus with imagin’d wing our swift scene flies

In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed King at Hampton pier

Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet [5]
With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning:
Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give

To sounds confus’d; behold the threaden sails, [10]
Borne with th’ invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow’d sea,

Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on th’ inconstant billows dancing; [15]
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!

Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women, [20]

Either past or nor arriv’d to pith and puissance:
For who is he, whose chin is but enrich’d
With one appearing hair, that all not follow
These cull’d and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege; [25]

Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose th’ ambassador from the French comes back;

Tells Harry that the King doth offer him
Katharine his daughter, and with her, to dowry, [30]