in greatness and originality: but he rightly notes that the Poet's hero would have appeared still more noble, if his antagonists had been made to seem less despicable.

THOMAS BEAUFORT, Duke of Exeter, A Boy, Servant to them. A Herald. his Uncle.

Chorus.

CHARLES VI., King of France.
LOUIS, the Dauphin.

DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS,
and BOURBON.

CONSTABLE of France.

RAMBURES and GRANDPRE, Lords.
MOUNTJOY, a French Herald.
Governor of Harfleur. Ambassadors
to England.

ISABEL, Queen of France.

Officers in CATHARINE, Daughter of Charles. the King's

ALICE, a Lady attending her.

Mrs. PISTOL, late Mrs. Quickly.

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

Attendants.

SCENE. - At the beginning of the play, in England; afterwards, in France.

PROLOGUE.

Enter Chorus.

Chor. 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 unraisèd spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit 2 hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques 3
That did affright the air of Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crookèd 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 confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high-upreared and abutting fronts

1 Readers may like to be told that the image is of three eager hounds held back with a leash or strap, till the huntsman sees the time has come for letting them fly at the game. The Poet has repeated allusions to this old warlike trio. So in Julius Cæsar, iii. 1: "And Cæsar's spirit, ranging for revenge, shall in these confines with a monarch's voice cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war."

2 A cockpit was a small area enclosed for cocks to fight in. The pit of a theatre was the space immediately in front of the stage. The occupants of it had nothing between their feet and the ground; hence were sometimes called "groundlings." In the text, however, cockpit seems to be put for the stage itself.

3 The Wooden O was the Globe Theatre on the Bankside, which was circular within.-"The very casques" is, "so much as the casques," or "merely the casques." So in The Taming of the Shrew: "Thou false deluding slave, that feed'st me with the very name of meat."

4 Imaginary for imaginative; the passive form with the active sense. An usage occurring continually in these plays.

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 th' accomplishment of many years

Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me chorus to this History;5

Who, prologue-like, your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

[Exit.

ACT I.

London. An Ante-chamber in the King's Palace.

Enter the Archbishop of CANTERBURY and the Bishop of ELY.

Cant. My lord, I'll tell you: That self1 bill is urged
Which in th' eleventh year of the last King's reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass'd,

But that the scambling2 and unquiet time

5 That is, "admit me as chorus to this History." A chorus, in one sense of the term, is an interpreter; one who explains to the audience what might else be dark or unmeaning to them.- Supply, I take it, is here used in the sense of supplement or completion. So that "for the which supply" is equivalent to for the completing of which.

1 Self for self-same: a frequent usage.

2 The more common form of this word is scrambling.— Question, in the next line, is discussion or consideration.

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 possessions;

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 lazars3 and weak age,

Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil,
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the King, besides,

A thousand pounds by th' year:4 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,
And a true lover of the holy Church.

Ely. The courses of his youth promised it not.
Cant. 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;

8 Lazars here means the same as in Paradise Lost, xi. 479: “A lazar

house it seem'd, wherein were laid numbers of all diseased."

4 This is taken almost verbatim from Holinshed.