Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

-Be it known to you, (as it is very well,) I was have forgiven me; if the gentlemen will not, then lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomeu, your patience for it, and to promise you a better. I which was never seen before in such an assembly. did niean, indeed, to pay you with this; which, if, One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too like an ill venture, it come unluckily home, I break, much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here, I pro- continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you mised you, I would be, and here I commit my body merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for to your mercies : bate me some, and I will pay you any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unsume, and, as most debtors do, promise you intinitely less already he be killed with your hard opinions; for

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. will you command me to use my legs ? and yet that My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will were but light payment,—to dance out of your debt. bid you good night: and so kneel down before vou; Bu“ a good conscience will make any possible satis- but indeed, to pray for the queen. fact on, and as will l. All the gentlewomen here

KING HENRY V.

DUKE OF GLOFFORD,}

PERSONS REPRESENTED. Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,

The flat unraised spirit, that hath dar'd, KING HENRY THE FIFTH.

On this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth DUKE OF GLOSTER, brothers to the King.

So great an object : Can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France ? or may we cram DUKE OF EXETER, uncle to the King.

Within this wooden O the very casques DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King.

That did affright the air at Agincourt ? EARLS OF SALISBURY, WESTMORSLAND, und 1 o, pardon! since a crooked figure may WARWICK.

Attest, in little place, a million; ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, BISHOP OF ELY.

On your imaginary forces work: EARL OF CAMBRIDGE, ( conspirators against the

Suppose, within the girdle of these walls LORD SCROOP,

Are now confin’d two mighty monarchies, Sir THOMAS Grey, I

King.

Whose high-upreared and abutting fronts
Sir Thomas ERPINGHAM, Gower, FIUELLEN, The perilous, narrow ocean parts asunder.

MACMORRIS, JAMY, Officers in King Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Henry's army.

Into a thousand parts divide one man,
Bates, Court, Williams, soidiers in the same. And make imaginary puissance:
Nym, BARDOLPH, Pistol., formerly serrants to Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them

Falstaff, now soldiers in the same. Printing their proud hoofs i’the receiving earth .. Boy, servant to them.

For’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, A herald.

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times; Chorus.

Turning the accomplishment of many years

Into an hour.glass; For the which supply, CHARLES THE Sixth, King of France.

Admit me chorus to this history; LEWIS, the Dauphin.

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray, DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, and BOURBON. Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play The CONSTABLE of France. RAMBURES and GRANDPREE, French lords. Governor of Harfleur. MONTJOY, a French herald. Ambassadors to the King of England.

ACT I. Isabel, Queen of France.

SCENE I.-London. An Ante-chamber in the KATHARINE, daughter of Charles and Isabel.

King's Palace.
Alice, a lady attending on the Princess Katharine.
QUICKLY, Pistol's wife, an hostess,

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and Bishop

of Ely. Lords, Ladies, Officers, French and English Soldiers,

Cant. My lord, I'll tell you,--that self bill is urg'd, Messengers, and Attendants.

Which, in the eleventh year o' the last king's reign

Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd, The SCENE, at the beginning of the Play, lies in But that the scambling and unquiet time ENGLAND; but afterwards wholly in France.

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 :
Enter Chorus.

For all the temporal lands, which men devout O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend

By testament have given to the church, The brightest heaven of invention !

Would they strip from us; being valued thus,A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,

As much as would maintain, to the king's honour And monarchs to behold the swelling scene ! Full fifteen earls, and fifteen hundred knights; Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Six thousandaand two hundred good esquires : Assume the port of Mars; and, at his heels, (fire, And, to relief of lazars, and weak age, Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword, and Of indigent saint souls, past corporal toil,

same.

A hundred alms-houses, right well supplied ; (As I perceiv’d, his grace would sain have done,)
And to the coffers of the king beside,

The severals, and unhidden passages,
A thousand pounds by the year: Thus runs the bill. Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms-
Ely. This would drink deep.

And, generally, to the crown and seat of France, Cant.

'Twould drink the cup and all. Deriv'd from Edward, his great grandfather. Ely. But what prevention ?

Ely. What was the impediment that broke this off ? Cant. The king is full of grace, and fair regard. Cant. The French ambassador, upon that instant, Ely. And a true lover of the holy church. Cray'd audience : and the hour, I think, is come, Cant. The courses of his youth groinis'd it not. To give bid bazar: ay Is it four o'clock? The breath no sooner left his father's body,

Ely.

It is. But that his wildness, mortified in him,

Cant. Then go we in, to know his embassy; Seem'd to die too: yea, at that very moment, Which I could, with a ready guess, declare, Cousideration like an angel came,

Before the Frenchman speak a word of it. And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him; Ely. I'll wait upon you : and I long to hear it. Leaving his body as a paradise,

[Ereunt. To cnvelop and contain celestial spirits.

SCENE II.-The same. Never was such a sudden scholar made :

A Room of State in the Never came reformation in a flood, With such a heady current, sconring faults ; Enter King Henry, GLOSTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness

WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants. So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,

K. Hen. Where is my gracious lord of CanterAs in this king

bury ? Ely.

We are blessed in the change. Ere. Not here in presence. Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity,

K. Hen. Send for him, good uncle. And, all-admiring, with an inward wish

West, Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege ? You would desire, the king were made a prelate:

K. Hen. Not yet, my cousin; we would be resolvid, Hear bim debate of commonwealth affairs,

Before we hear him, of some things of weight, You'd say,—it hath been all-in-all his study : That task our thoughts, concerning us and France. List his discourse of war, and you shall hear A fearful battle render'd you in musick:

Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBUP. Y and Bishop Turn him to any cause of policy,

of Ely. The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,

Cant. God and his angels guard your sacred Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks,

throne, The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,

And make you long become it! And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,

K. Hen.

Sure, we thank you. To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences;

My learned lord, we pray you to proceed; Si that the art and practick part of life

And justly and religiously unfold, Must be the mistress to this theorick :

Why the law Salique, that they have in France, Which is a wonder, how bis grace should giean it; Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim. Since his addiction was to courses vam:

And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, His companies unletter'd, rude, and shaliuw; That you should fashion, rest, or bow your reading, His hours fill'd up with riots, banquels, sports; Or nicely charge your understanding soul And never noted in him any study,

With opening titles miscreate, whose right Any retirement, any sequestration

Suits not in native colours with the truth; Fiom open haunts and popularity.

For God doth know, how many, now in health, Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle: Shall drop their blood in approbation And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best, Of what your reverence shall incite us to : Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality :

Therefore take heed how you impawn our person, And so the prince obscur'd his contemplation How you awake the sleeping sword of war: Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt, We charge you in the name of God, take heed: Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, For never two such kingdoms did contend, Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops Cant. It must be so; for miracles are ceas'd; Are every one a woe, a sore complaint, And therefore we must needs admit the means, 'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the swores How things are perfected.

That make such waste in brief mortality. Ely.

But, my good lord, Under this conjuration, speak, my lord: Ilow now for mitigation of this bill

And we will hear, note, and believe in heart, Urg'd by the commons ? Doth his majesty That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd Incline to it, or no ?

As pure as sin with baptism.

lpeering Cant. He seems indifferent;

Cant. Then hear me, gracious sovereign, -and you Or, rather, swaying more upon our part

That owe your lives, your faith, and services, Than cherishing the exhibiters against us:

To this imperial throne ;-There is no bar For I have made an offer to his majesty,-

To make against your highness' claim to France, Upon our spiritual convocation,

But this, which they produce from Pharamond, And in regard of causes now in hand,

In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant, Which I have open'd to his grace at large, No woman shall succeed in Salique land: As touching France,-to give a greater sum Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze, Than ever at one time the clergy yet

To be the realın of France, and Pharainond Did to his predecessors part withai.

The founder of this law and female bar. Ely. How did this offer scem receiv’d, my lord ? Yet their own authors faithfully affirm,

Cunt. With good acceptance of his majesty; That the land Salique lies in Germany, Save, that there was not time enough to hear Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe ;

Where Charles the great, having subdued the Saxons, 'You are their heir, you sit upon their throue;
There left behind and settled certain French; The blood and courage, that renowned thein,
Who, holding in disdain the German women Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege
For some dishonest nianners of their life,

Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
Establish'd there this law,—to wit, no female Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprizes.
Should be inheritrix in Salique land;

Ere. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala, Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, Is at this day in Germany call'd-Meisen. As did the former lions of your blood. Thus doth it well appear, the Salique law

West. They know, your grace hath cause, and Was not devised for the realm of France;

means, and might; Nor did the French possess the Salique land So hath your highness; never king of England Until four hundred one and twenty years

Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects; After defunction of king Pharamond,

Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England, Idly supposed the founder of this law;

And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.
Who died within the year of our redumption Cant. o, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the great With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your right:
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty
Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum,
Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say, As never did the clergy at one time
King Pepin, which deposed Childerick,

Bring in to any of your ancestors. (French; Did, as heir general, being descended

K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the Of Blithild, which was daughter to king Cl thair, But lay down our proportions to defend Make claim and title to the crown of France. Against the Scot, who will make road upon us Hugh Capet also,—that usurp'd the crown

With all advantages. or Charles the duke of Lorrain, sole heir male Cant. They of those marches, gracious sovereign, Of the true line and stock of Charles the great, - Shall be a wall sufficient to defend To fine his title with some show of truth,

Our inland from the pilfering borderers. (only, (Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,) K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers Convey'd hiinself as heir to the lady Lingare, But fear the main intendment of the Scot, Daughter to Charlemain, who was the sou

Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us; To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son

For you shall real, that my great grandfather or Charles the great. Also king Lewis the tenth, Never went with his forces into France, Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,

But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom Could not keep quiet in his conscience,

Came pouring, like the tide into a breach, Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied With ample and brim fulness of his force; That fair qucen Isabel, his grandmother,

Galling the gleaned land with hot essays : Was lineai of the lady Ermengare,

Girding with grievous siege, castles and towns ; Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorrain : That England, being empty of defence, By the which marriage, the line of Charles the great Hath shook, and trembled at the ill-neighbourhood. Was re-united to the crown of France.

Cant. She hath been then more feard than harm'd, So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,

my liege : King Pepin's title, and Hugh Capet's claim, For hear her but exampled by herself, King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear

When all her chivalry hath been in France, To hold in right and title of the female :

And she a mourning widow of her nobles, So do the kings of France unto this day;

She hath herself not only well defended, Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law, But taken, and impounded as a stray, To bar your highness claiming from the female ; The king of Scots; whom she did send to France, And rather choose to hide them in a net,

To fill king Edward's fame with prisoner kings; Than amply to imbare their crooked titles And make your chronicle as rich with praise, Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

As is the ooze and bottom of the sea K. Hen. May 1, with right and conscience, make With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries. this claim ?

West. But there's a saying, very old and tru?, Cant. The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!

If that you will France win, For in the book of Numbers is it writ,

Then with Scotland first begin; When the son dies, let the inheritance

For once the eagle England being in prey, Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord, To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag ; Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs; Look back unto your mighty ancestors :

Playing the mouse, in absence of the cat, Go, my dread lord, to your great grandsire's tonub, To spoil and havock more than she can eat. From wbom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit, E.ce. It follows then, the cat must stay at home: And your great uncle's, Edward he black prince; Yet that is but a curs'd necessity; Who on the French ground play d a tragedy, Since we have locks to safeguard neccssaries, Making defeat on the full power of France; And pr-tty traps 9 catch the petty thieves. Whiles his most mighty father on a hill

While that the armed hand doth fight abroad, Stood smiling, to behold his lion's whelp

The advised head defends itself at home : Forage in blood of French nobility.

For government, though high, and low, and lower, O noble English, that could entertain

Put into parts, doth keep in one consent ; With half their forces the full pride of France; Congruing in a full and natural close, And let another half stand laug bing by,

Like musick. All out of work, and cold for action !

Cant. True: therefore doth heaveo divide Ely Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, The state of man in divers functions, And with your puissant arm renew their feats : Setting endeavour in oontinual motivo,

[graphic]

with us;

To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,

That can be with a nimble galliard won; Obedience : for so work the honey bees;

You cannot revel into dukedoms there : Creatures, that, by a rule in nature, teach

He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit, The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this, They have a king, and officers of sorts:

Desires you, let the dukedoms that you claim Where some, like magistrates, correct at home; Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks. Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad; K. Hen. What treasure, unele ? Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,

Ere.

Tennis-balls, my liege. Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;

K. Hen. We are glad, the Dauphin is so pleasant Which pillage they with merry march bring home To the tent-royal of their emperor:

*His present, and your pains, we thank you for; Who, busicd in his majesty, surveys

When we have match'd our rackets to these balls, The singing masons building roofs of gold; We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set, The civil citizens kneading up the honey;

Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard: The poor mechanic porters crouding in

Tell him, he hath made a match with such a wrangler, Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;

That all the courts of France will be disturb’d The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum,

With chaces. And we understand him well, Delivering o'er to executors pale

How he comes o'er us with our wilder days, The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,

Not measuring what use we made of them. That many things, having full reference

We never valu'd this poor seat of England; To one consent, may work contrariously;

And therefore, living hence, did give ourself As many arrows, loosed several ways,

To barbarous license; As 'tis ever common, Fly to one mark;

That men are merriest when they are from home. As many several ways meet in one town;

But tell the Dauphin-1 will keep my state, As many fresh streams run in one self sea;

Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness, As many lines close in the dial's centre;

When I do rouse me in my throne of France :
So many a thousand actions, once afoot,

For that I have laid by my majesty,
End in one purpose, and be all well borne And plodded like a man for working-days;
Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege. But I will rise there with so full a glory,
Divide your happy England into four;

That I will dazzle all the eyes of France, Whereof take you one quarter into France, Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us. And you withal shall make all Gallia shake. And tell the pleasant prince,-this mock of his If we, with thrice that power left at home,

Hath turn’d his balls to gun-stones; and his soul Cannot defend our own door from the dog,

Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance Let us be worried; and our nation lose

That shall fly with them : for many a thousand wiThe name of hardiness, and policy. [phin.

dows K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the Dau- Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands; [Exit an Attendant. The King ascends his Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down: throne.

And some are yet ungotten, and unborn, Now are we well resolv'd; and, -by God's help; That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn. And yours, the noble sincws of our power,

But this lies all within the will of God, France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe, To whom I do appeal; And in whose name, Or break it all to pieces : Or there we'll sit, Tell you the Dauphin, I am coming on, Ruling, in large and ample empery,

To venge me as I may, and to put forth O'er France, and all her almost kingly dukedoms, My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause. Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,

So, get you bence in peace; and tell the Dauphin, Tombless, with no remembrance over them : His jest will savour but of shallow wit, Either our history shall, with full mouth,

When thousands weep, more than did laugh at it.Speak freely of our acts; or else our grave, Convey theni with safe conduct.-Fare you well. Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,

(Exeunt Ambassadors. Not worship'd with a waxen epitaph.

Ere. This was a merry message.
Enter Ambassadors of France.

K. Hen. We hope to make the sender blush at it.

(Descends from his throne. Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for, we hear,

That may give furtherance to our expedition : Your greeting is from him, not from the king. For we have now no thought in us but France:

Amb. May it please your majesty, to give us leave Save those to God, that run before our business. Freely to render what we have in charge ; Therefore, let our proportions for these wars Or shall we sparingly show you far off

Be soon collected ; and all things thought upon, The Dauphin's meaning, and our embassy? That may, with reasonable swiftness, add

K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king; More feathers to our wings; for, God before, Unto whose grace our passion is as subject, We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door. As are our wretches fetter'd in our prisons: Therefore, let esory man now task his thought, Therefore, with frank and with uncurbed plainness That this fair action may on foot be brought. Tell us the Dauphin's mind.

(Exeunt Amb.

Thus then, in few.
Your highness, lately sending into France,
Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right

ACT II.
Of your great predecessor, king Edward the third.
In answer of which claim, the prince our master

Enter Chorus.
Says,-that you savour too much of your youth; Chor. Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And bids you be advis’d, there's nought in France And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies;

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »