he would make this a bloody day to somebody. But I pray God the fruit of her womb miscarry! 1 Bead. If it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions again; you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me; for the man is dead, that you and Pistol beat among you. Dol. I'll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer! I will have you as soundly swinged for this, you blue-bottle rogue! you filthy famished correctioner! if you be not swinged, I'll forswear half-kirtles.t 1 Bead. Come, come, you she knight-errant, come. Host. O, that right should thus overcome might! Well; of sufferance comes ease. Dol. Come, you rogue, come; bring me to a justice. Host. Ay; come, you starved blood-hound. Dol. Come, you thin thing; come, you rascal! 1 Bead. Very well. [Exeunt. SCENE V.—A public Place near Westminster Abbey. Enter two GROOMS, strewing Rushes. 1 Groom. More rushes, more rushes. 2 Groom. The trumpets have sounded twice. 1 Groom. It will be two o'clock ere they come from the coronation: Despatch, despatch. [Exeunt GROOMS. Enter FALSTAFF, SHALLOW, PISTOL, BARDOLPH, and the PAGE. Fal. Stand here by me, master Robert Shallow; I will make the king do you grace: I will leer upon him, as 'a comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me. Pist. God bless thy lungs, good knight. Fal. Come here, Pistol; stand behind me. O, if I had had time to have made new liveries, I would have bestowed the thousand pound Í borrowed of you. [To SHALLOW.] But 'tis no matter; this poor show doth better: this doth infer the zeal I had to see him. Shal. It doth so. gape For thee thrice wider than for other men:- Give you advancement.-Be it your charge, my Shal. Ây, marry, Sir John; which I beseech you to let me have home with me. 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 advancement; I will be the man yet, that shall make you great. Shal. I cannot perceive how; unless you 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 colour. Shal. A colour, I fear, that you will die in, Sir John. Fal. Fear no colours; go with me to dinner. Come, lieutenant Pistol;-come, Bardolph:-I shall be sent for soon at night. Re-enter Prince JOHN, the CHIEF JUSTICE, Officers, &c. First, my fear; then, my court'sy; last, my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my court'sy, 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.-Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) 1 was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I did mean, 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, promised you, I would be, and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate 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 will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen 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 he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night; and so kneel down before you;-but, indeed, to pray for the queen.* Most of the ancient interludes conclude with a prayer for the King or Queen. Hence, perhaps, the Vivant Res et Regina, at the bottom of our modern play-bills. KING HENRY V. KING HENRY THE FIFTH. PERSONS REPRESENTED. DUKE OF GLOSTER, Brothers to the King. DUKE OF BEDFORD, DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King. DUKE OF YORK, Cousin to the King. CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France. DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURBON RAMBURES, and GRANDPREE, French Lords. EARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORELAND, and GOVERNOR OF HARFLEUR. MONTJOY, a French WARWICK. Herald. AMBASSADORS to the King of England. ISABEL, Queen of France, KATHARINE, Daughter of Charles and Isabel. ALICE, a Lady attending on the Princess Katharine. QUICKLY, Pistol's Wife, a Hostess. Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English and fire, Enter CHORUS. 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, [all, Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles 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,t 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: [them Think, when we talk of horses, that you see 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; [pray, Who, prologue-like, your humble patience Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play. An allusion to the circular form of the theatre. + Helmets. + Powers of fancy. ACT I. SCENE I.-London.-An Antichamber in the King's Palace. Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, and Bishop of ELY. Cant. My lord, I'll tell you,-that self bill is Which, in the eleventh year o'the last king's urg'd, [reign Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd, But that the scambling and unquiet time Did push it out of further question. 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: Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights; Of indigent faint souls, past corporal toil, Ely. This would drink deep. Cant. "Twould drink the cup and all. Cant. The king is full of grace, and fair re gard. 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, * Debate. study: List his discourse of war, and you shall hear The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Since his addiction was to courses vain: Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality: And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt, Grew like summer grass, fastest by night, Unseen, yet crescives in his faculty. Cant. It must be so: for miracles are ceas'd; And therefore we must needs admit the means, How things are perfected. Ely. But, my good lord, How now for mitigation of this bill Cant. He seems indifferent; Or, rather, swaying more upon our part, lord? Cant. With good acceptance of his majesty; Save, that there was not time enough to hear (As, I perceiv'd, his grace would fain have done,) The severals, and unhidden passages, Deriv'd from Edward, his great grandfather. SCENE II.-The sume.-A Room of State in the same. Enter King HENRY, GLOSTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Atten dants. K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury? Exe. Not here in presence. K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle. West. Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege? K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolv'd, Before we hear him, of some things of weight, That task our thoughts, concerning us and France. Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY, and Bishop of ELY. Cunt. God, and his angels, guard your sacred throne, And make you long become it! K. Hen. Sure, we thank you. Why the law Salique, that they have in France, Or nicely charge your understanding soul Of what your reverence shall incite us to: person, How you awake the sleeping sword of war; We charge you in the name of God, take heed: For never two such kingdoms did contend, Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint, That make such waste in brief mortality. Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign,and you peers, That owe your lives, your faith, and services, To this imperial throne;-There is no bar To make against your highness' claim to [mond, France, But this, which they produce from Phara- To be the realm of France, and Pharamond There left behind and settled certain French; To fine his title with some show of truth, Convey'd himself as heir to the lady Lingare, Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet, Cant. The sin upon my head, dread so- For in the book of Numbers is it writ,- prince; Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy, Making defeat on the full power of France; 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 Is in the very May-morn of his youth, [liege Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprizes. Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, As did the former lions of your blood. West. They know, your grace hath cause, and means, and might; So hath your highness; never king of England Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects; Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England, liege, And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France. K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the French; But lay down our proportions to defend Against the Scot, who will make road upon us With all advantages. Cant. They of those marches,t gracious soShall be a wall sufficient to defend [vereign, Our inland from the pelfering borderers. K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snat chers only, But fear the main intendment of the Scot bourhood. Cant. She hath been then more fear'ds than harm'd, my liege: For hear her but exampled by herself,- As is the ooze and bottom of the sea With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries. West. But there's a saying, very old and true, If that you will France win, |