William Shakespeare
-
Tragedies
- Antony and Cleopatra
- Coriolanus
- Hamlet
- Julius Caesar
- King Lear
- Macbeth
- Othello
- Romeo and Juliet
- Timon of Athens
- Titus Andronicus
-
Histories
- King Henry IV Part 1
- King Henry IV Part 2
- King Henry V
- King Henry VI Part 1
- King Henry VI Part 2
- King Henry VI Part 3
- King Henry VIII
- King John
- Richard II
- Richard III
-
Comedies
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- All's Well That Ends Well
- As You Like It
- Cymbeline
- Love's Labour's Lost
- Measure for Measure
- Much Ado About Nothing
- Pericles, Prince of Tyre
- The Comedy of Errors
- The Merchant of Venice
- The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The Taming of the Shrew
- The Tempest
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- The Winter's Tale
- Troilus and Cressida
- Twelfth Night
-
Poetry
- A Lover's Complaint
- Sonnets 1 to 50
- Sonnets 50 to 100
- Sonnets 100 to 154
- The Passionate Pilgrim
- The Phoenix and the Turtle
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Venus and Adonis
King Henry V (1599)
, Henry V of England, Date unknown" style="width: 121px; height: 180px; float: right;" class="PopBoxImageSmall" title="Click to magnify/shrink" onclick="Pop(this,50,'/');"/>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,
- 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 spirits 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.
- 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 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;
- Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
- Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
[Exit.]
ACT ONE
SCENE 1. London. An ante-chamber in the KING's palace.
[Enter the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely.]
CANTERBURY.
- My lord, I'll tell you: that self bill is urg'd,
- Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign
- Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,
- But that the scambling and unquiet time
- Did push it out of farther question.
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,
- Would they strip from us; being valu'd 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 almshouses right well suppli'd;
- And to the coffers of the King beside,
- A thousand pounds by the year. Thus runs the bill.
ELY.
- This would drink deep.
CANTERBURY.
- 'Twould drink the cup and all.
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 promis'd it not.
- The breath no sooner left his father's body,
- But that his wildness, mortifi'd in him,
- Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment
- Consideration like an angel came
- And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him,
- Leaving his body as a paradise
- To envelope and contain celestial spirits.
- Never was such a sudden scholar made;
- Never came reformation in a flood
- With such a heady currance, 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.
CANTERBURY.
- 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 rend'red 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 honey'd 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,
- His hours fill'd 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,
- 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 the summer grass, fastest by night,
- Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
CANTERBURY.
- 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
- Urg'd by the commons? Doth his Majesty
- Incline to it, or no?
CANTERBURY.
- He seems indifferent,
- Or rather swaying more upon our part
- Than cherishing the exhibiters against us;
- For I have made an offer to his Majesty,
- Upon our spiritual convocation
- And in regard of causes now in hand,
- Which I have open'd to his Grace at large,
- As touching France, to give a greater sum
- Than ever at one time the clergy yet
- Did to his predecessors part withal.
ELY.
- How did this offer seem receiv'd, my lord?
CANTERBURY.
- 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
- Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms,
- And generally to the crown and seat of France
- Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.
ELY.
- What was the impediment that broke this off?
CANTERBURY.
- The French ambassador upon that instant
- Crav'd 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;
- 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.]
SCENE 2. The same. The presence chamber.
[Enter King Henry, Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter, Warwick, Westmoreland [and Attendants.]
KING HENRY.
- Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
EXETER.
- Not here in presence.
KING HENRY.
- Send for him, good uncle.
WESTMORELAND.
- Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?
KING HENRY.
- 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 the Bishop of Ely.]
CANTERBURY.
- God and his angels guard your sacred throne
- And make you long become it!
KING HENRY.
- Sure, we thank you.
- My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
- And justly and religiously unfold
- Why the law Salique 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
- 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.
- 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
- 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
- That what you speak is in your conscience wash'd
- As pure as sin with baptism.
CANTERBURY.
- Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
- That owe yourselves, your lives, and services
- To this imperial throne. There is no bar
- 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 Salique land;"
- Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
- 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 Salique is in Germany,
- Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
- Where Charles the Great, having subdu'd the Saxons,
- There left behind and settled certain French;
- Who, holding in disdain the German women
- For some dishonest manners of their life,
- Establish'd then this law, to wit, no female
- Should be inheritrix in Salique land;
- Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
- Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.
- Then doth it well appear the Salique law
- Was not devised for the realm of France;
- Nor did the French possess the Salique land
- Until four hundred one and twenty years
- After defunction of King Pharamond,
- Idly suppos'd the founder of this law,
- Who died within the year of our redemption
- Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
- Subdu'd the Saxons, and did seat the French
- Beyond the river Sala, in the year
- Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
- King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,
- Did, as heir general, being descended
- Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
- Make claim and title to the crown of France.
- Hugh Capet also, who usurp'd the crown
- Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
- Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
- To find his title with some shows of truth,
- Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,
- Convey'd himself as the heir to the Lady Lingare,
- Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
- To Lewis the Emperor, and Lewis the son
- Of Charles the Great. Also, King Lewis the Tenth,
- Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
- Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
- Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
- That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
- Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
- Daughter to Charles, the foresaid Duke of Lorraine;
- By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
- Was re-united to the crown of France.
- So that, as clear as is the summer's sun,
- King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim,
- King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
- To hold in right and title of the female.
- So do the kings of France unto this day,
- Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
- To bar your Highness claiming from the female,
- And rather choose to hide them in a net
- Than amply to imbar their crooked titles
- Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.
KING HENRY.
- May I with right and conscience make this claim?
CANTERBURY.
- The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
- For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
- When the man dies, let the inheritance
- Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
- Stand for your own! Unwind your bloody flag!
- Look back into your mighty ancestors!
- Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire's tomb,
- From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,
- And your great-uncle's, Edward the Black Prince,
- Who on the French ground play'd a tragedy,
- Making defeat on the full power of France,
- Whiles his most mighty father on a hill
- Stood smiling to behold his lion's whelp
- Forage in blood of French nobility.
- O noble English, that could entertain
- With half their forces the full pride of France
- And let another half stand laughing by,
- All out of work and cold for action!
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 liege
- Is in the very May-morn of his youth,
- Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.
EXETER.
- Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
- Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
- As did the former lions of your blood.
WESTMORELAND.
- 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
- And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France.
CANTERBURY.
- O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,
- With blood and sword and fire to win your right;
- In aid whereof we of the spiritualty
- Will raise your Highness such a mighty sum
- As never did the clergy at one time
- Bring in to any of your ancestors.
KING HENRY.
- 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.
CANTERBURY.
- They of those marches, gracious sovereign,
- Shall be a wall sufficient to defend
- Our inland from the pilfering borderers.
KING HENRY.
- We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,
- But fear the main intendment of the Scot,
- Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;
- For you shall read that my great-grandfather
- Never went with his forces into France
- But that the Scot on his unfurnish'd kingdom
- Came pouring, like the tide into a breach,
- With ample and brim fullness of his force,
- Galling the gleaned land with hot assays,
- Girdling with grievous siege castles and towns;
- That England, being empty of defence,
- Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighbourhood.
CANTERBURY.
- She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege;
- For hear her but exampl'd by herself:
- When all her chivalry hath been in France,
- And she a mourning widow of her nobles,
- She hath herself not only well defended
- But taken and impounded as a stray
- The King of Scots; whom she did send to France
- To fill King Edward's fame with prisoner kings,
- And make her chronicle as rich with praise
- As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
- With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
WESTMORELAND.
- But there's a saying very old and true,
- "If that you will France win,
- Then with Scotland first begin."
- For once the eagle England being in prey,
- To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot
- Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,
- Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,
- To tear and havoc more than she can eat.
EXETER.
- It follows then the cat must stay at home;
- Yet that is but a crush'd necessity,
- Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries,
And pretty traps to catch the petty thieves.
- While that the armed hand doth fight abroad,
- The advised head defends itself at home;
- For government, though high and low and lower,
- Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
- Congreeing in a full and natural close,
- Like music.
CANTERBURY.
- Therefore doth heaven divide
- The state of man in divers functions,
- Setting endeavour in continual motion,
- To which is fixed, as an aim or butt,
- Obedience; for so work the honey-bees,
- Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
- The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
- They have a king and officers of sorts,
- Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
- Others like merchants, venture trade abroad,
- Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
- Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
- Which pillage they with merry march bring home
- To the tent-royal of their emperor;
- Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
- The singing masons building roofs of gold,
- The civil citizens kneading up the honey,
- The poor mechanic porters crowding in
- Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,
- The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
- Delivering o'er to executors pale
- The lazy yawning drone. I this infer,
- That many things, having full reference
- To one consent, may work contrariously.
- As many arrows, loosed several ways,
- Come to one mark; as many ways meet in one town;
- As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea;
- As many lines close in the dial's centre;
- So many a thousand actions, once afoot,
- End in one purpose, and be all well borne
- Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege!
- Divide your happy England into four,
- Whereof take you one quarter into France,
- And you withal shall make all Gallia shake.
- If we, with thrice such powers left at home,
- Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,
- Let us be worried and our nation lose
- The name of hardiness and policy.
KING HENRY.
- Call in the messengers sent from the Dauphin.
[Exeunt some Attendants.]
- Now are we well resolv'd; and, by God's help,
- And yours, the noble sinews of our power,
- France being ours, we'll bend it to our awe,
- Or break it all to pieces. Or there we'll sit,
- Ruling in large and ample empery
- O'er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,
- Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,
- Tombless, with no remembrance over them.
- Either our history shall with full mouth
- Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
- Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
- Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph.
[Enter Ambassadors of France.]
- Now are we well prepar'd to know the pleasure
- Of our fair cousin Dauphin; for we hear
- Your greeting is from him, not from the King.
FIRST AMBASSADOR.
- May't please your Majesty to give us leave
- Freely to render what we have in charge,
- Or shall we sparingly show you far off
- The Dauphin's meaning and our embassy?
KING HENRY.
- We are no tyrant, but a Christian king,
- Unto whose grace our passion is as subject
- As is our wretches fett'red in our prisons;
- Therefore with frank and with uncurbed plainness
- Tell us the Dauphin's mind.
AMBASSADOR.
- Thus, then, in few.
- Your Highness, lately sending into France,
- Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right
- Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.
In answer of which claim, the prince our master
- Says that you savour too much of your youth,
- And bids you be advis'd there's nought in France
- That can be with a nimble galliard won.
- You cannot revel into dukedoms there.
- He therefore sends you, meeter for your spirit,
- This tun of treasure; and, in lieu of this,
- Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim
- Hear no more of you. This the Dauphin speaks.
KING HENRY.
- What treasure, uncle?
EXETER.
- Tennis-balls, my liege.
KING HENRY.
- We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.
- His present and your pains we thank you for.
- When we have match'd our rackets to these balls,
- We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
- Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
- Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
- That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
- With chaces. And we understand him well,
- How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
- Not measuring what use we made of them.
- We never valu'd this poor seat of England;
- And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
- To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common
- That men are merriest when they are from home.
- But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
- Be like a king, and show my sail of greatness
- When I do rouse me in my throne of France.
- For that I have laid by my majesty
- And plodded like a man for working days,
- But I will rise there with so full a glory
- That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
- Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
- And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
- Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
- Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
- That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows
- Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,
- Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
- And some are yet ungotten and unborn
- That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.
- But this lies all within the will of God,
- To whom I do appeal; and in whose name
- Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on
- To venge me as I may, and to put forth
- My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
- So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
- His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
- When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.—
- Convey them with safe conduct.—Fare you well.
[Exeunt Ambassadors.]
EXETER.
- This was a merry message.
KING HENRY.
- We hope to make the sender blush at it.
- Therefore, my lords, omit no happy hour
- That may give furtherance to our expedition;
- For we have now no thought in us but France,
- Save those to God, that run before our business.
- Therefore, let our proportions for these wars
- Be soon collected, and all things thought upon
- That may with reasonable swiftness add
- More feathers to our wings; for, God before,
- We'll chide this Dauphin at his father's door.
- Therefore let every man now task his thought,
- That this fair action may on foot be brought.
[Exeunt.]