| | PROLOGUE | |
| | Enter Chorus | |
| 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! | 5 |
| | 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, and gentles all, | |
| | The flat unraised spirits that have dared | 10 |
| | 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? | 15 |
| | 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 | 20 |
| | 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 on man, | 25 |
| | 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, | 30 |
| | 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. | 35 |
| | Exit | |
| ACT I SCENE I | London. An ante-chamber in the KING'S palace. | |
| | Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP OF ELY | |
| CANTERBURY | 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 | 40 |
| | Did push it out of farther question. | |
| ELY | But how, my lord, shall we resist it now? | |
| CANTERBURY | 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 | 45 |
| | 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; | 50 |
| | 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. | 55 |
| ELY | This would drink deep. | |
| CANTERBURY | 'Twould drink the cup and all. | |
| ELY | But what prevention? | |
| CANTERBURY | The king is full of grace and fair regard. | |
| ELY | And a true lover of the holy church. | 60 |
| CANTERBURY | 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 | 65 |
| | 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, | 70 |
| | 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. | 75 |
| CANTERBURY | 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: | 80 |
| | 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, | 85 |
| | 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: | 90 |
| | 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, | 95 |
| | 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: | 100 |
| | 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. | |
| CANTERBURY | It must be so; for miracles are ceased; | 105 |
| | And therefore we must needs admit the means | |
| | How things are perfected. | |
| ELY | But, my good lord, | |
| | How now for mitigation of this bill | |
| | Urged by the commons? Doth his majesty | 110 |
| | Incline to it, or no? | |
| CANTERBURY | He seems indifferent, | |
| | Or rather swaying more upon our part | |
| | Than cherishing the exhibiters against us; | |
| | For I have made an offer to his majesty, | 115 |
| | Upon our spiritual convocation | |
| | And in regard of causes now in hand, | |
| | Which I have open'd to his grace at large, | |
| | As touching France, to give a greater sum | |
| | Than ever at one time the clergy yet | 120 |
| | Did to his predecessors part withal. | |
| ELY | How did this offer seem received, my lord? | |
| CANTERBURY | With good acceptance of his majesty; | |
| | Save that there was not time enough to hear, | |
| | As I perceived his grace would fain have done, | 125 |
| | The severals and unhidden passages | |
| | Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms | |
| | And generally to the crown and seat of France | |
| | Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather. | |
| ELY | What was the impediment that broke this off? | 130 |
| CANTERBURY | The French ambassador upon that instant | |
| | Craved audience; and the hour, I think, is come | |
| | To give him hearing: is it four o'clock? | |
| ELY | It is. | |
| CANTERBURY | Then go we in, to know his embassy; | 135 |
| | Which I could with a ready guess declare, | |
| | Before the Frenchman speak a word of it. | |
| ELY | I'll wait upon you, and I long to hear it. | |
| | Exeunt | |
