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.
The EARL OF SALISBURY.

The EARL OF WESTMOreland.
The EARL OF WARWICK.

The ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
The BISHOP OF ELY.

The EARL OF CAMBRIDGE, LORD SCROOP, and Sir
THOMAS GREY, Conspirators against the King.
Sir THOMAS ERPINGHAM; GOWER; FLUELLEN, a Welsh-
man; MACMORRIS, an Irishman; and JAMY, a
Scotchman:-Officers in King Henry's Army.
BATES, COURT, and WILLIAMS, Soldiers in King
Henry's Army.

PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH, a Herald, and Boy.

CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France.

LEWIS, the Dauphin.

The DUKE OF BURGUNDY, the DUKE OF ORLEANS, and the DUKE OF BOURBON.

The CONSTABLE OF FRANCE,

RAMBURES and GRANDPRE, French Lords.

Governor of Harfleur.

MONTJOY, a French Herald.

Ambassadors to the King of England.

ISABEL, Queen of France.

KATHARINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel,

ALICE, a Lady attending on the Princess Katharine. Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mistress Quickly, now married to Pistol.

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

CHORUS.

SCENE,-At first in ENGLAND; afterwards in

FRANCE.

KING HENRY HENRY THE FIFTH.

CHORUS.

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 swell-
ing 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 unraisèd spirit, that hath 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 i' the receiving earth:
For 'tis 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.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-London. An Ante-chamber in the King's Palace.

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY and BISHOP OF ELY.

Canterbury.

Y 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?

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 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.

'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 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 envelope 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 honey'd 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 nettle ;

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscured 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 ceased; And therefore we must needs admit the means How things are perfected.

Ely.

But, my good lord,

How now for mitigation of this bill