The Life of

Henry the Fifth

KING HENRY V.

DUKE OF GLOUCESTER,

DUKE OF Bedford,

brothers to the King.

DUKE OF EXETER, uncle to the King.

DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King.

EARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORELAND, and WARWICK.

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

BISHOP OF ELY.

EARL OF CAMBRIDGE.

LORD SCROOP.

SIR THOMAS GREY.

SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM,

GOWER,

FLUELLEN,

MACMORRIS,

officers in King Henry's army.

CHARLES VI, king of France.

LEWIS, the Dauphin.

DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURBON.
The Constable of France.

HOSTESS of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mistress Quickly, and now married to Pistol.

CHORUS.

Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Citizens, Messengers, and Attendants.

SCENE: England; afterwards France.]

The Life of

Henry the Fifth

PROLOGUE

Enter [Chorus].

[Chor.] O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention,

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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

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Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits 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;

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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.

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Exit.

ACT FIRST

SCENE I

[London. An ante-chamber in the King's palace.]

Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 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 scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther question.

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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 valu'd 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 almshouses right well suppli'd;

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