thy prayers; How ill white hairs become a fool and jester ! ceive, was; 60 'That I have turn'd away my former self; 70 Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death, ities, [my lord, Give you advancement. Be it your charge, To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on. [Exeunt King, &c. Fal. Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound. Shal. Yea, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. 80 Fal. That can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this; I shall be sent for in private to him look you, he must seem thus to the world: fear not your advancements; I will be the man yet that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot well perceive how, unless you should give me your doublet and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand. Fal. Sir, I will be as good as my word: this that you heard was but a color. 91 Shal. A color that I fear you will die in, Sir John. Fal. Fear no colors: go with me to dinner: come, Lieutenant Pistol; come, Bardolph: I shall be sent for soon at night. Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero con tenta. [Exeunt all but Prince John and the Lan. I like this fair proceeding of the king's 110 Lan. I will lay odds that, ere this year ex- We bear our civil swords and native fire EPILOGUE, Spoken by a Dancer. First my fear; then my courtesy; last mv speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me: for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Бе it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a bet ter. I meant indeed to pay you with this which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be and here I commit my body to your mercies: hate me some and I will pay you some and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. 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 woull I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the gentle men 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 a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastre died a martyr, and this is not the man. tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I wil Ch. Just. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the bid you good night: and so kneel down before Fleet: you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen. Re-enter PRINCE JOHN, the LORD CHIEF- My KING HENRY V. INTRODUCTION. This play is not mentioned by Meres, and the reference in the chorus of Act V. to Essex in Ireland, and in the Prologue to "this wooden O," i.e. the Globe Theatre, built in 1599, make it probable that 1533 was the date of its production. A pirated imperfect quarto appeared in the following year. In this play Shakespeare bade farewell in trumpet tones to the history of England. It was a fitting Climax to the great series of works which told of the sorrow and the glory of his country, embodyfig as it did the purest patriotism of the days of Elizabeth. And as the noblest glories of England are presented in this play, so it presents Shakespeare's ideal of active, practical, heroic manhood. if Hamlet exhibits the dangers and weakness of the contemplative nature, and Prospero, its calm and its conquest, Henry exhibits the utmost greatness which the active nature can attain. He s not an astute politician like his father; having put every thing upon a sound substantial basis he red not strain anxious eyes of foresight to discern and provide for contingencies arising out of doubtful deeds; for all that naturally comes within its range he has an unerring eve. A devotion To great objects outside of self fills him with a force of glorious enthusiasm. Hence his religious frit and his humility or modesty-he feels that the strength he wields comes not from any clever sposition of forces due to his own prudence, but streams into him and through him from his ple, his country, his cause, his God. He can be terrible to traitors, and his sternness is without couch of personal revenge. In the midst of danger he can feel so free from petty heart-eating cares 3 to enjoy a piece of honest, soldierly mirth. His wooing is as plain, frank, and true as are his acts I piety. He unites around himself in loval service, the jarring nationalities of his father's timeInglishmen, Scotchigen, Welshmen, Irishmen, all are at Henry's side at Agincourt. Having preented his ideal of English kinghood, Shakespeare could turn aside from history. In this play no haracter except Henry greatly interested Shakespeare, unless it be the Welsh Fluellen, whom he ves (as Scott loved the Baron of Bradwardine) for his real simplicity underlying his apparatus of earning, and his touching faith in the theory of warfare. Governor of Harfleur. RE OF EXETER, uncle to the King. KE OF YORK, cousin to the King. ARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORELAND, and RAMBURES and GRANDPRE, French Lords. WARWICK. SCENE: England; afterwards France. Suppose within the girdle of these walls Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment Are now confined two mighty monarchies, 20 Consideration, like an angel, came Whose high upreared and abutting fronts And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him, The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder: Leaving his body as a paradise, 30 Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts; To envelop and contain celestial spirits. Never was such a sudden scholar made: Into a thousand parts divide one man, Never came reformation in a flood, And make imaginary puissance; Think when we talk of horses, that you see them Since his addiction was to courses vain, Ely. The strawberry grows underneath t nettle And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Are every one a woe, a sore complaint That make such waste in brief mortality. As pure as sin with baptism. 31 Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers, That owe yourselves, your lives and services Saxons, There left behind and settled certain French; Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair, Make claim and title to the crown of France. Hagh Capet also, who usurped the crown Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir male 70 Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great, To find his title with some shows of truth, Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught, Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare, Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth, Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet, Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lor raine: By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great 90 Was re-united to the crown of France. make this claim ? Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign! But fear the main intendment of the Scot, 99 For in the book of Numbers is it writ, Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb, From whom you claim; invoke his warlike Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, 110 Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead And with your puissant arm renew their feats: You are their heir; you sit upon their throne; The blood and courage that renowned them Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege hood. |