A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill.
Ely. This would drink deep.
Cant.

"Twould drink the cup and all. 20

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,

19. A thousand pounds by the year. 'Hall and Holinshed the principal sum. "And the king to have clerely to his cofers twentie thousand poundes" (Hall). Shakespeare reckons

30

40

interest therefore at five per cent' (Wright).

28. Consideration, serious reflection.

34. currance, current.

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.

51. the art and practic part of life, etc. The practical life must with him have been the source of theoretical knowledge, instead of the field for its

application; he must have learnt the principles of life by living.

52. theoric, theory.

55. companies, companions. 59. popularity, association with the public.

61, 62. wholesome berries, etc. It has been pointed out

But, my good lord,

50

60

In

that Montaigne expresses this idea more explicitly in a passage (iii. 9) which Shakespeare perhaps knew in the original. Florio's translation (1603) it runs: Roses and Violets are ever the sweeter and more odoriferous, that grow neere under Garlike and Onions, forasmuch as they suck and draw all the ill savours of the ground unto them.'

66. crescive in his faculty, increasing in virtue of its latent capacity.

A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill.

Ely. This would drink deep.
Cant.

"Twould drink the cup and all. 20

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,

19. A thousand pounds by the year. 'Hall and Holinshed the principal sum. "And the king to have clerely to his cofers twentie thousand poundes" (Hall). Shakespeare reckons

30

40

interest therefore at five per cent' (Wright).

28. Consideration, serious reflection.

34. currance, current.

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.

51. the art and practic part of life, etc. The practical life must with him have been the source of theoretical knowledge, instead of the field for its application; he must have learnt the principles of life by living.

52. theoric, theory.

55. companies, companions. 59. popularity, association with the public.

61, 62. wholesome berries, etc. It has been pointed out

But, my good lord,

50

60

In

that Montaigne expresses this idea more explicitly in a passage (iii. 9) which Shakespeare perhaps knew in the original. Florio's translation (1603) it runs: 'Roses and Violets are ever the sweeter and more odoriferous, that grow neere under Garlike and Onions, forasmuch as they suck and draw all the ill savours of the ground unto them.'

66. crescive in his faculty, increasing in virtue of its latent capacity.

How now for mitigation of this bill

Urged by the commons?
Incline to it, or no?
Cant.

Doth his majesty

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,
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 received, my lord?

Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty ;
Save that there was not time enough to hear,
As I perceived his grace would fain have done,
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?

Cant. 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.

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.

74. exhibiters, introducers of

the bill in Parliament.

86. severals, details.

[Exeunt.

86. unhidden passages, manifest courses or channels of descent.