Earl of HUNTINGDON
Earl of SALISBURY
Earl of WARWICK
Earl of WESTMORLAND
conspirators against the King
Archbishop of CANTERBURY
Bishop of ELY
officers in the King’s army
soldiers in the King’s army
associates of Sir John Falstaff
BOY
Falstaff’s page
Nell, HOSTESS
of an Eastcheap tavern, formerly Mistress Quickly, now married to Pistol
Charles the Sixth, the FRENCH KING
QUEEN ISABEL
the French Queen
Louis, the DAUPHIN
their son
Princess KATHERINE
their daughter
ALICE
a lady attending on Princess Katherine
Duke of BERRY
Duke of BOURBON
Duke of BRITAIN
Duke of BURGUNDY
Duke of ORLEANS
Charles Delabreth, the CONSTABLE
of France
Earl of GRANDPRÉ
Lord RAMBURES
GOVERNOR
of Harfleur
MONTJOY
the French herald
Two French Ambassadors to the King of England
Monsier Le Fer, a FRENCH SOLDIER
A French Messenger
Attendants, Lords, Soldiers, Citizens of Harfleur
PROLOGUE
Enter CHORUS.
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,
5
Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
10
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
15
Attest in little place a million,
And let us, ciphers to this great account,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
20
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.
25
Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i’th’ receiving earth.
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
30
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. Exit.
1.1 Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and the Bishop of ELY.
CANTERBURY
My lord, I’ll tell you, that self bill is urged
Which in th’eleventh year of the last king’s reign
Was like and had indeed against us passed
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther question.
5
ELY But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
CANTERBURY
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
10
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,
15
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied,
And to the coffers of the King beside,
A thousand pounds by th’ year. Thus runs the bill.
ELY This would drink deep.
CANTERBURY ’Twould drink the cup and all.
20
ELY But what prevention?
CANTERBURY The King is full of grace and fair regard.
ELY And a true lover of the holy Church.
CANTERBURY
The courses of his youth promised it not.
The breath no sooner left his father’s body
25
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seemed to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came
And whipped th’offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise
30
T’envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made,
Never came reformation in a flood
With such a heady currence scouring faults,
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
35
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king.
ELY We are blessed in the change.
CANTERBURY Hear him but reason in divinity
And, all-admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire the King were made a prelate.
40
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 rendered you in music.
Turn him to any cause of policy,
45
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter, that when he speaks,
The air, a chartered libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears
To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences.
50
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 unlettered, rude, and shallow,
55
His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports,
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.
ELY The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
60
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighboured by fruit of baser quality.
And so the Prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
65
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
CANTERBURY It must be so, for miracles are ceased,
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
ELY But my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
70
Urged by the Commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?
CANTERBURY He seems indifferent,
Or rather swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing th’e
xhibitors against us.
For I have made an offer to his majesty,
75
Upon our spiritual convocation,
And in regard of causes now in hand
Which I have opened to his grace at large,
As touching France, to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
80
Did to his predecessors part withal.
ELY How did this offer seem received, my lord?
CANTERBURY With good acceptance of his majesty,
Save that there was not time enough to hear,
As I perceived his grace would fain have done,
85
The severals and unhidden passages
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms,
And generally to the crown and seat of France,
Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
ELY What was th’impediment that broke this off?
90
CANTERBURY
The French ambassador upon that instant
Craved audience, and the hour I think is come
To give him hearing. Is it four o’clock?
ELY It is.
CANTERBURY Then go we in, to know his embassy,
95
Which I could with a ready guess declare
Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
ELY I’ll wait upon you, and I long to hear it. Exeunt.
1.2 Enter the KING, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, CLARENCE, WARWICK, WESTMORLAND and EXETER and attendants.
KING Where is my gracious lord of Canterbury?
EXETER Not here in presence.
KING Send for him, good uncle.
Exit an attendant.
WESTMORLAND
Shall we call in th’ambassador, my liege?
KING Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight
5
That task our thoughts concerning us and France.
Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and the Bishop of ELY.
CANTERBURY
God and his angels guard your sacred throne
And make you long become it!
KING Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold
10
Why the law Salic that they have in France
Or should or should not bar us in our claim.
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest or bow your reading
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
15
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth.
For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
20
Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake our 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
25
Are every one a woe, a sore complaint
’Gainst him whose wrongs gives edge unto the swords
That makes such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration speak, my lord,
For we will hear, note, and believe in heart
30
That what you speak is in your conscience washed
As pure as sin with baptism.
CANTERBURY
Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers
That owe your selves, your lives and services
To this imperial throne. There is no bar
35
To make against your highness’ claim to France
But this which they produce from Pharamond:
In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant,
‘No woman shall succeed in Salic land’:
Which Salic land the French unjustly gloze
40
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salic is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe,
45
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French,
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Established then this law, to wit, no female
50
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 184
