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
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 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 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.
CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France.
LEWIS, the Dauphin.
Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, and Bourbon.
The Constable of France.
GRANDPREE, French Lords
Governor of Harfleur.
MONTJOY, a French Herald.
Ambassadors to the King of England.
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 Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants.
The SCENE, at the beginning of the Play, lies in England; but afterwards wholly in France.
Which in the eleventh year o' 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.
Eli. But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
Cant. It must be thoughtson. If it pass against us,
We lose the better half of our possession:
By testament have given to the church,
For all the temporal lands, which men devout
As much as would maintain, to the king's honour,
Would they strip from us: being valued thus,-
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.
"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
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.
We are blessed in the change. Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity And, all admiring, with an inward wish
SCENE I. London. An Antechamber in the from Hall and Holinshed that the events passed at Lei King's Palace. Enter the Archbishop of Canter-cester, where King Henry V. held a parliament in the bury, and Bishop of Ely.
My lord, I'll tell you,-that self bill is urg'd,
10 for circle, alluding to the circular form of the heatre. The very casques does not mean the identical casques, but the casques alone, or merely the casques. 2 Imaginary forces.' Imaginary for imaginative, or your powers of fancy. The active and passive are of ten confounded by old writers.
3 This first scene was added in the folio, together with the choruses, and other amplifications. It appears
second year of his reign. But the chorus at the beginning of the second act shows that the poet intended to make London the place of his first scene.
4 'Canterbury and Ely.' Henry Chicheley, a Carthusian monk, recently promoted to the see of Canterbury. John Fordham, bishop of Ely, consecrated 1388, died 1426.
5 i. e. scrambling.
6 Question is debate.
7 The same thought occurs in the preceding play. where King Henry V. says:
My father is gone wild into his grave.
For in his tomb lie my affectious.'
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