Page images
PDF
EPUB

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by

RICHARD GRANT WHITE,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.

UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON & SON,
CAMBRIDGE

931

1889
V. 7-8

KING HENRY THE FIFTH.

M562038

(8)

"THE CRONICLE History of Henry the fift, With his battell fought at Agin Court in France. Togither with Auntient Pistoll. As it hath bene sundry times playd by the Right honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his seruants. LONDON Printed by Thomas Creede, for Tho. Millington, and Iohn Busby. And are to be sold at his house in Carter Lane, next the Powle head. 1600." 4to. 27 leaves.

The same, "London Printed by Thomas Creede, for 'I'nomas Pauier, and are to be sold at his shop in Cornhill, at the signe of the Cat and Parrets, neare the Exchange. 1602." 4to. 26 leaves.

The same, "Printed for T. P. 1608." 4to. 27 leaves.

The Life of Henry the Fift occupies twenty-seven pages in the folio of 1623, viz.: from p. 69 to p. 95 inclusive in the division of Histories. It is divided into Acts, but not into Scenes, and has no list of Dramatis Personæ.

(4)

KING HENRY V.

INTRODUCTION.

HOLINSHED furnished Shakespeare with the crude mate

rial with which he completed in this play the design of which he had the hint from The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth. The dramatist followed the chronicler closely, and in some passages but poetically paraphrased his prose.

Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth was first published in quarto in 1600, but with a text so mutilated, as well as so incomplete, that it is quite impossible to decide by internal evidence whether the manuscript from which it was printed represents, even imperfectly, an early form of the play, or, still more imperfectly, the completed work as it appears in the folio. The quarto. edition, among other important omissions, is without the Choruses; but from this no inference can be drawn as to the time when the Choruses were written; for it is manifest that that edition was published in great haste, from manuscript obtained in the most surreptitious and inefficient manner, to meet a demand created by the great popularity of the play; and from such a copy the Choruses would be most probably omitted, as having neither narrative nor comic interest. The fifth of these Choruses, therefore, which contains lines that must have been written between April and September, 1599,† is to be accepted as decisive of the date of the production of the play, especially as it is not mentioned by Meres in 1598, (in the list which includes Henry the Fourth, King John, and Richard the Second,) and as it was published in 1600.

The text exists in a very satisfactory state in the folio, which is the only authority for it. The quarto, however, sometimes affords welcome aid in the conjectural correction of typographical errors.

The period of the action is from 1414 to 1420.

• See the Introduction to the First Part of King Henry the Fourth.
t See Notes on this Chorus.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

KING HENRY the Fifth.

DUKE OF GLOSTER,

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, JANY,

Officers in King Henry's Army.

BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, Soldiers.

PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH.

Box, Servant to them. A Herald.

CHARLES the Sixth, King of France.

LEWIS, the Dauphin.

DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURBON.

The Constable of France.

RAMBURES and GRANDPRE, French Lords.

MONTJOY, a French Herald.

Governor of Harfleur. Ambassadors to England.

ISABEL, Queen of France.

KATHARINE, Daughter of Charles and Isabel.

ALICE, a Lady attending on the Princess.

Hostess of the Boar's Head Tavern in Eastcheap, (formerly Mrs. Quickly, now married to Pistol.)

Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers, Messengers, and Attendants.

Chorus.

The SCENE in England, and in France.

(6)

« PreviousContinue »