DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

KING HENRY the Fifth.

DUKE OF GLOSTER,

DUKE OF BEDFORD, Brothers to the King.

DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King.

DUKE OF YORK, Cousin to the King.

EARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORELAND, and WARWICK.

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

BISHOP OF ELY.

EARL OF CAMBRIDGE.

LORD SCROop.

Sir THOMAS GREY.

Sir THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER, FLUELLEN, MACMORRIS, JAMY,
Officers in King Henry's Army.
BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, Soldiers.
PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH.

Boy, Servant to them. A. Herald.

CHARLES the Sixth, King of France.

LEWIS, the Dauphin.

DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURbon.

The Constable of France.

RAMBURES and GRANDPRE, French Lords.

MONTJOY, a French Herald.

Governor of Harfleur. Ambassadors to England.

ISABEL, Queen of France.

KATHARINE, Daughter of Charles and Isabel.

ALICE, a Lady attending on the Princess.

Hostess of the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap, (formerly Mrs. Quickly, now married to Pistol.)

Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants.

Chorus.

The SCENE in England, and in France.

(6)

THE LIFE OF

KING HENRY THE FIFTH.

ACT I.

Enter Chorus.

CHORUS.

O,

FOR a Muse of fire, that would ascend 9 The brightest heaven of invention! A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels, Leash'd in like hounds, should Famine, Sword, and

Fire,

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat, unraised spirit that hath dar'd,
On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques,
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose, within the girdle of these walls.
Are now confin'd two mighty monarchies,
Whose high-upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,

And make imaginary puissance :

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' th' receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning th' accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass 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.

SCENE I.

London. An Ante-chamber in the King's Palace. Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely. Canterbury. My lord, I'll tell you, that self bill is urg'd,

Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,

But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther question..

Ely. But how, my lord, shall we resist it
now?

Cant. It must be thought on. If it pass against us,

We lose the better half of our possession;
For all the temporal lands which men devout
By testament have given to the Church
Would they strip from us; being valued thus,
As much as would maintain, to the King's honour,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires ;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age,

Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,

A hundred alms-houses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the King beside,

A thousand pounds by th' year. Thus runs the bill.
Ely. This would drink deep.

Cant. 'Twould drink the cup and all. Ely. But what prevention? Cant. The King is full of grace and fair regard. Ely. And a true lover of the Holy Church. Cant. The courses of his youth promis'd it not. The breath no sooner left his father's body, But that his wildness, mortifi'd in him, Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment, Consideration, like an angel, came

And whipp'd th' offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise
T'envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood

With such a heady currance, scouring faults;
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,

As in this King.

Ely.
We are blessed in the change.
Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish

You would desire the King were made a prelate :
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say, it hath been all-in-all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric:

Which is a wonder, how his Grace should glean it, Since his addiction was to courses vain;

His companies unletter'd, rude, and shallow;

His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports;
And never noted in him any study,

Any retirement, any sequestration

From open haunts and popularity.

Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the net. tle,

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the Prince obscur'd his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd,
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.

Ely.

How now for mitigation of this bill

Urg'd by the commons? Doth his Majesty
Incline to it, or no?

But, my good lord,