If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment,to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will 1. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you;-but, indeed, to pray for the queen.

King Henry V.

Persons Represented.

KING HENRY THE FIFTH.
DUKE OF GLOSTER, Brothers to
DUKE OF BEDFORD, S the King.
DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King.
DUKE OF YORK, Cousin to the King.
EARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORE-
LAND, and WARWICK.
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.
BISHOP OF ELY.

EARL OF CAMBRIDGE,
LORD SCROOP,

Conspira-
tors against
SIR THOMAS GREY, the King.
SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER,
FLUELLEN, MACMORRIS, JAMY,
Officers in King Henry's army.
BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, Soldiers
in the same.

NYM, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, formerly Servants to Falstaff, now Soldiers in the same

Boy, Servant to them.

A Herald.

Chorus.

| CHARLES

THE

SIXTH, King of

France.
LEWIS, the Dauphin.
DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS,
and BOURBON.
The CONSTABLE of France.
RAMBURES, and GRANDPREE, French
Lords.

Governor of Harfleur.
MONTJOY, a French Herald.
Ambassadors to the King of England.

ISABEL, Queen of France.
KATHARINE, Daughter of Charles

and Isabel.

ALICE, a Lady attending on the
Princess Katharine.

QUICKLY, Pistol's Wife, an Hostess.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and
English Soldier's. Messengers and
Attendants.

THE SCENE.-At the beginning of the play, lies in England; but afterwards wholly in France.

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 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 the wooden O,' the very casques,
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may

1 The circular theatre.

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' 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 First.

SCENE I.-LONDON. AN ANTE-CHAMBER IN THE KING'S PALACE.

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely.

Cant. My lord, I'll tell you, that self bill is urg'd, Which, in the eleventh year of the last king's reign, Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,

But that the scambling1 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 alms-houses, 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 promis'd it not.

1 Uncertain.

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 current, 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 musick :
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 practick part of life
Must be the mistress to this theorick:

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 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.

But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill

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

Cant.

He seems indifferent,

Or, rather, swaying more upon our part,
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us:

3 (Of the bill.)

For I have made an offer to his majesty,-
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
Did to his predecessors part withal.

Ely. How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty;
Save, that there was not time enough to hear
(As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done,)
The severals, and unhidden passages,

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms;
And, generally, the crown and seat of France,
Deriv'd from Edward, his great grandfather.

Ely. What was the impediment that broke this off?
Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant,
Crav'd audience: and the hour, I think, is come,
To give him hearing: Is it four o'clock?

Ely.

It is.

Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy; 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.

SCENE II.-A ROOM OF STATE IN THE SAME.
Enter King Henry, Gloster, Bedford, Exeter, Warwick,
Westmoreland, and Attendants.

K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury?
Exe. Not here in presence.

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle.

West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?
K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight,
That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishop of Ely. Cant. God, and his angels, guard your sacred throne, And make you long become it!

K. Hen.

Sure, we thank you. My learned lord, we pray you to proceed, And justly and religiously unfold,

Why the law Salique, that they have in France,

Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim.

And heaven forbid, my dear and faithful lord,

That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul

With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;

For heaven doth know, how many, now in health,
Shall drop their blood in approbation

Of what your reverence shall incite us to:
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,