Sometimes you might hear people using quotations that you’re not familiar with or those whose meanings you’re not sure of. “Once more unto the breach” is a favorite quote for someone who either loves Shakespeare or just likes quoting him. But what does it really mean?
‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more’ is the first line of the second most famous speech featured in Henry V by William Shakespeare, and is used to refer to that whole section. (The first most famous speech in the play is Crispin’s Day Speech.) In reality, it’s not a one-liner quote, but points to a whole scene in the play that refers to an actual day in history.
Where does ‘Once more unto the breach’ first occur?
The speech occurs in Henry V Act III Scene 1, portraying what happened in history in 1415 when the real-life King Henry V laid siege to Harfleur in Normany during the Hundred Years War.
Henry gave this speech to call his troops to battle and unity, to encourage them to keep fighting against the French. He is known for using effective rhetoric and rousing the soldiers to battle, and when we read through the whole passage, you will see just how he was able to do that.
Meaning of Once more unto the breach speech
Let’s take a look at the actual scene and break them down line by line so you can get an idea of what the scene means.
Henry V Act III Scene 1
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
Here, Henry V is encouraging his army, calling them ‘dear friends’ to give them the sense that they are the king’s close companions and equals. Of course, since some of them were noblemen fighting alongside the king, they very well would have been. In this case, it appears that he addresses the noblemen first.
Using ‘once more’ twice gives us a glimpse into the length of time that the battle has already taken. He’s calling his men to summon their energy for one final assault on the walls of Harfleur. At this point, Henry and his troops have already weakened the walls, which is why he focuses on the “breach” that has been found on the wall. But this means they have not yet broken through completely, which is why he’s pushing them to keep going.
These oft-quoted first two lines sound almost contradictory. After all, if they’re able to push their way into and through the wall, doesn’t that mean they might win? But the second line talks of a failure, with the reference to “our English dead.” Possibly, he’s offering them these two options.
However, some Shakespearean critics believe that these two lines may have lost a line in between. T.W. Craik, who wrote the notes to the Arden edition of King Henry V, thinks that the complete lines should read:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
And either enter in, and win the town,
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
Either way, I think this points us to the real challenge given in the first two lines of the speech: either they do as King Henry was calling them to, and win the town, or they end up losing their comrades in the battle.
Let’s take a look at the next lines:
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, conjure up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage:
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Here we can see Henry V telling his troops that humility and being slow to anger are good traits—at least in peacetime! But when there’s a war, men should be quick to respond, like the ferocious tiger. And, that battlecry should cause their muscles to stiffen up and their blood to boil, as they get ready to fight. He tells them that their ‘fair’ or calm nature should be covered with anger that causes their eyes to blaze, making them appear fearsome to their enemies.
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 English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Here he keeps talking about their physical postures, continuing with the eyes, describing them like portholes (portage) on a ship, and then likening it even to brass cannons, which clearly bring up the image of war. He challenges them to jut out their foreheads, so that they have this terrifying expression, described like a cliff over a raging sea.
He then goes on to call them to grit their teeth in resolution, and to let anger cause their nostrils to flare. Doesn’t that paint a very vivid picture of a warrior intent on crushing the enemy? In the last two lines of this section, he even evokes the memory of their forefathers having been victorious in war.
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers: now attest,
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Here he compares their fathers to Alexander the Great, who kept in battle all through the day and night, and putting their weapons away only when there was not a single enemy left. He invokes them not to dishonor their mothers and fathers.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. 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;
As we mentioned earlier, a lot of the men that Henry V is addressing here are actually of noble birth. Here he challenges them to be good examples for those of lower birth. At this point, he then turns to the yeomen, or farmers, and encourages them with their English lineage so that they can prove their loyalty to England by the strength they show.
Henry tells them that he believes they are worthy of their English blood, but challenges them to prove it. This is considered a very persuasive conclusion to his speech, where he wins the soldiers by praising them and then challenging them to take action so as to prove themselves worthy of that praise.
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!’
And then, at the end of his speech, Henry re-affirms the men as having nobility in their whole bearing, starting with their eyes, and then describing them as being like hunting dogs straining at their leashes, waiting for their master to release them to start on the hunt.
Was ‘Once More Unto the Breach’ An Effective Speech?
Henry V used effective imagery throughout his ‘once more unto the breach’ speech: making reference to the ferocious tiger and the relentless greyhound, and then using words like ‘pasture’ and ‘breeding’ to bring to mind the tough and hardy rams and bulls.
He also successfully draws on the soldiers’ heritage, calling forth a nationalistic pride that he will push to greater levels in a later speech, known as the Crispin’s Day speech.
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Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.
