DRAMATIS PERSONÆ'.

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 WAR

WICK.

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. BISHOP OF ELY. EARL OF CAMBRIDGE,

LORD SCROOP,

SIR THOMAS GREY,

Conspirators.

SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER, FLUELLEN, MAC

MORRIS, JAMY, Officers in King Henry's Army.

BATES, COURT, WILLIAMS, Soldiers.

PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH.

BOY, Servant to them. An English Herald.

CHORUS.

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.

MRS. QUICKLY, a Hostess.

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

and Attendants.

The SCENE in England, and in France.

Rowe first gave a list of the characters.

CHORU S.

Enter CHORUS', as Prologue.

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, and fire,
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
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,
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.

1 Enter Chorus,] The old stage-direction is "Enter Prologue," but it was the same "Chorus " as in a subsequent part of the play near the end of the address the speaker calls himself "Chorus," and only professes to deliver the lines "Prologue-like," not absolutely as the Prologue. Consistently with this notion the direction in the corr. fo. 1632 is altered to "Enter Chorus, as Prologue," and thus we have given it.

2 Within this wooden O] The Globe Theatre, on the Bankside, was circular within, and probably this historical drama was first acted there; but the company to which Shakespeare belonged also played in the winter at the Blackfriars Theatre, regarding the shape of which we have no information. See Hist. of Engl. Dram. Poetry and the Stage, Vol. iii. p. 296. The Globe differed from the Fortune in Cripplegate, which was a square building. Ibid. Vol. iii. p. 302.

3 On your IMAGINARY forces work.] An emendation is here introduced in the corr. fo. 1632, but a water-stain has so obliterated it, that it is not legible.

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*:

Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving carth;.
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
Turning th' 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.

Johnson suggested imaginative, as more proper than "imaginary;" and in a line, nearer the end of this Prologue,

"And make imaginary puissance,"

the word is employed in its ordinary signification. We should be disposed to read imaginative, if the word had been employed by Shakespeare or his contemporaries: it is nevertheless as old as the time of Lord Berners. We must here suppose that our poet uses "imaginary " for imaginative.

* And make imaginary puissance:] A chorus of a similar kind precedes the anonymous play of "The Famous History of Thomas Stukely," printed in 1605, but acted some years before. The speaker of the chorus there says, in accordance with Shakespeare,

"Your gentle favour we must needs entreat

For rude presenting such a royal fight;
Which more imagination must supply

Than all our utmost strength can reach unto."

KING HENRY V.

ACT I. SCENE I.

London. An Ante-chamber 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 urg'd,
Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,

But that the scambling and unquiet time 1
Did push it out of farther 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 2;
For all the temporal lands, which men devout

By testament have given to the church,

Would they strip from us; being valued 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 alms-houses, right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,

1 But that the SCAMBLING and unquiet time] 66 Scambling" is a word which occurs again in this play, and has before been employed in "Much Ado About Nothing," Vol. ii. p. 259. It was in frequent use among our old authors, and is what has since been changed to scrambling, though they also had it in that form.

2- of our possession ;] So all the old copies; but the corr. fo. 1632, perhaps unnecessarily, alters "possession" to possessions. We may suppose that the recitation by the actor of the part of the Archbishop (Chicheley, who had been translated from St. David's in 1414) was in the plural.

A thousand pounds by the year. Thus runs the bill.

Ely. This would drink deep.
Cant.

Ely. But what prevention?

"Twould drink the cup and all.

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 promis'd 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 th' offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,
T'envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood,

With such a heady current 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,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honeyed 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;

3 His COMPANIES unletter'd,] In "Midsummer Night's Dream," A. i. sc. 1 (Vol. ii. p. 194), we have had, as here, "companies" for companions; although there in the old impressions it is misprinted companions, "companies" being required for the rhyme.