Kenneth Branagh credited as playing...
King Henry V
- [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: Well, can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I'll ask them.
- Montjoy: Great King! I come to thee for charitable license that we may wander o'er this bloody field to book our dead and then to bury them. To sort our nobles from our common men. For many of our princes, woe the while, lie drowned and soaked in mercenary blood. Oh, give us leave, great King, to view the field in safety and to 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!
- 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?
- [charging his troops to attack the gates of Harfluer]
- King Henry V: Dishonor not your mothers. Now attest that those whom you called fathers did beget you. And you, good yeoman, whose limbs were made in England, show us here the mettle of your pasture. Let us swear that you are worth your breeding, which I - doubt - not! For there is none of you so mean and base that hath not noble luster 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: It is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say?
- Alice: Oui! Vraiment.
- King Henry V: Oh, Kate. Nice customs curtsy to great kings. You and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashion. We - are the makers of manners, Kate. Therefore, patiently and yielding.
- [kisses Kate]
- King Henry V: 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. Here comes your father.
- King Henry V: [to Montjoy] I pray thee take my former answer back. Bid them achieve me than sell my bones!"
- Princess Katherine: Your Majesty shall mock at me. I cannot speak your England.
- King Henry V: Oh. 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. You're like an angel.
- King Henry V: When I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear. My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face. Thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst. And thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better. And, therefore, tell me, most fair Katherine. Will you have me? Come, your answer in broken music, for thy voice is music, and thy English broken. Therefore, queen of all, Katherine, wilt thou have me?
- 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 soldier, if I begin the battery once again, I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur till in her ashes she lie buried. Therefore, you 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 their 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?
- 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.
- King Henry V: The mercy that was quick in us of late by your own counsel is suppressed and killed. You must not dare for *shame* to talk of mercy. For your own reasons turn into your bosoms as dogs upon their masters worrying you.
- King Henry V: 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-favoured 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 England!