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therefore, patiently and yielding. [Kissing her.] 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; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father. 272

Re-enter the FRENCH KING and QUEEN, BURGUNDY, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER, EXETER, WESTMORELAND, and other French and English Lords.

BUR. God save your majesty! my royal cousin, teach you our princess English?

K. HEN. I would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her; and that is good English.

BUR. Is she not apt?

282

K. HEN. Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in his true likeness. BUR. Pardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure in her, you must make a circle; if conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind. Can you

blame her then, being a maid yet rosed over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of a naked blind boy in her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign to.

290

K. HEN. Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.

BUR. They are then excused, my lord, when they see not what they do.

K. HEN. Then, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.

BUR. I will wink on her to consent, my lord, if you will teach her to know my meaning: for maids, well summered and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomewtide, blind, though they have their eyes; and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on.

302

K. HEN. This moral ties me over to time and a hot summer; and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end, and she must be blind too.

BUR. As love is, my lord, before it loves.

K. HEN. It is so: and you may, some of you, thank love for my blindness; who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair French maid that stands in my way.

FR. KING. Yes, my lord, you see them perspectively, the cities turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden walls that war hath never entered.

K. HEN. Shall Kate be my wife?

FR. KING. So please you.

312

K. HEN. I am content; so the maiden cities you talk of may wait on her so the maid that stood in the way

of my wish shall show me the way to my will.

FR. KING. We have consented to all terms of reason.

K. HEN. Is't so, my lords of England?

WEST. The king hath granted every article: His daughter first, and then in sequel all, According to their firm proposed natures.

320

EXE. Only he hath not yet subscribed this : Where your majesty demands, that the King of France, having any occasion to write for matter of grant, shall name your highness in this form and with this addition, in French, Notre très-cher fils Henri, Roi d'Angleterre, Héritier de France; and thus in Latin, Præclarissimus filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliæ et Hæres Franciæ.

FR. KING. Nor this I have not, brother, so denied, But your request shall make me let it pass.

K. HEN. I pray you then, in love and dear alliance, Let that one article rank with the rest;

And thereupon give me your daughter.

331

FR. KING. Take her, fair son; and from her blood

raise up

Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms

Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
With envy of each other's happiness,

May cease their hatred; and this dear conjunction
Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord
In their sweet bosoms, that never war advance
His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France.
ALL. Amen!

340

K. HEN. Now welcome, Kate: and bear me witness all, That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.

[Flourish.

Q. ISA. God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!

G

As man and wife, being two, are one in love,
So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal,
That never may ill office, or fell jealousy,
Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,
Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,
To make divorce of their incorporate league;
That English may as French, French Englishmen,
Receive each other! God speak this Amen!
ALL. Amen!

350

K. HEN. Prepare we for our marriage: on which day, My Lord of Burgundy, we'll take your oath, And all the peers', for surety of our leagues. Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me;

360

[Sennet. Exeunt.

And may our oaths well kept and prosperous be!

EPILOGUE.

Enter Chorus.

CHOR. Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursued the story;
In little room confining mighty men,

Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England: Fortune made his sword;
By which the world's best garden he achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.

Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King

Of France and England, did this king succeed; Whose state so many had the managing,

That they lost France and made his England bleed : Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake, In your fair minds let this acceptance take.

ΙΟ

Exit.

NOTES

PERSONS REPRESENTED.-The early editions give no list of Dramatis Personæ.

PROLOGUE.

CHORUS.-The Chorus is a sort of public interpreter of the play-an "Author's Preface" to each act.

I Muse of fire, &c. A simple enough poetical expression. Warburton thought it necessary to refer for an explanation to the Peripatetic philosophy. And Johnson's comment is worth quoting "It alludes likewise to the aspiring nature of fire, which by its levity, at the separation of the chaos, took the highest seat of all the elements."

:

6 Port. 'Carriage,' or 'bearing.'

7 Like hounds. Cf. Julius Cæsar, iii. 1. 273, "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.'

22

9 Hath. So the Folio. Globe have. Most of the editors

read spirit. Here and elsewhere the Folio reading of a singular verb following a plural subject has been retained. See Appendix, § 1, and cf. Greaves' Song Book (1604), “Ye bubbling springs, that gentle music makes.

II Cockpit. Used merely as a term of contempt.

13 0; i.e. a round room.' The Globe Theatre was actually octagonal.

Very casques.

troops.'

Lit. 'the actual helmets'; i.e. 'the same

Casque. 'Helmet,' ‘any kind of headpiece.'

18 Imaginary forces. 'Forces of your imagination.' 'Imaginary' is generally passive = 'imagined'; here, active='imaginative.' Cf. Sonnets, 27, 9—

"My soul's imaginary sight Presents thy shadow to my sightless view."

21 Abutting. Properly 'contiguous. Here, almost 'facing each other,'

25 Imaginary. Here in its ordinary sense. Make imaginary puissance' imagine a great body of troops.' Puissance, like power, is used sometimes as an abstract term = mightiness, sometimes as a concrete troops.

28 For 'tis your thoughts, &c.; i.e. 'By the exercise of your fancy, our kings must appear royal, and be transported from place to place,' &c.

30 Accomplishment. 'Completion of many years'; i.e. 'many complete years,' or (2) 'the things accomplished,' 'the deeds of many years.'

ACT I. SCENE I.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Chicheley, founder of All Souls' College, Oxford; Bishop of Ely, Fordham. Both belong to the familiar type of astute political prelates.

I Self='same.' Cf. Comedy of Errors, v. 1. 10, "That self chain about his neck."

3 Was like, &c. An elliptical phrase. Was likely to pass, and had (i.e. would have) passed, but that,' &c.

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4 Scambling. Scampering;' i.e. 'disorderly,' 'contentious.' Cf. v. 2. 200, "I get thee with scambling," and King John, iv. 3. 146, "England now is left to tug and scamble." Glossary.

5 Question. 'Discussion.'

See

9, and following. Cf. Holinshed: "A bill.. the effect of which supplication was, that the temporall lands deuoutlie giuen, and disordinatlie spent by religious, and other spirituall persons, should be seized into the king's hands, sith the same might suffice to mainteine, to the honor of the king, and defense of the realme, fifteene earles, fifteene hundred knights, six thousand and two hundred esquiers, and a hundred almessehouses for reliefe onelie of the poore, impotent, and needie persons, and the king to haue cleerelie to his coffers twentie thousand pounds, with manie other prouisions and values of religious houses, which I passe over.

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15 Lazars. So called from Lazarus, the leper, in the parable; but the term is not strictly confined to lepers.

22 Regard. Thought.' Cf. Julius Cæsar, iii. 1. 224, reasons are so full of good regard."

"Our

28 Consideration. Reflexion.' Cf. Antony, iv. 2. 45—

"Let's to supper, come,

And drown consideration."

29 The offending Adam. The unregenerate nature, the "old Adam," driven out of him by "consideration," as Adam was expelled from Paradise by an angel.

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34 Heady. Headlong.' Currance='rushing,' or 'current.'

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