KING HENRY THE FIFTH.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

KING HENRY THE FIFTH.

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, Brothers to the King.

DUKE OF BEDFORD,

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 in the same.

PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH.

Boy.

A Herald.

CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France.

LEWIS, the Dauphin.

DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and Bourbon.

The Constable of France.

RAMBURES and GRANDPRÉ, French Lords.

MONTJOY, a French Herald.

Governor of Harfleur.

Ambassadors to the King of England.

ISABEL, Queen of France.

KATHARINE, Daughter to Charles and Isabel.

ALICE, a Lady attending on the Princess.

Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mrs Quickly, and now married to Pistol.

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

Chorus.

SCENE.England; afterwards France.

ACT I.

Enter CHORUS.

O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention ;
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.
Then should the war-like 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 spirits that have dared
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 confined 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 the receiving earth;

For 't is your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning the 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.

[Exit.

SCENE I. London. An Antechamber in the
KING'S Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and
the Bishop of ELY.

Cant. My lord, I'll tell you; that self bill is urged,

Which in the 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 further question.

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

I.

Cant. It must be thought on.

us,

If it pass against

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 almshouses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by the year. Thus runs the bill.

Ely. This would drink deep.

Cant.

'T would 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 promised it not.
The breath no sooner left his father's body
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came,

And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,

To 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