Ch. Just. Go, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet: Take all his company along with him. Fal. My lord, my lord, Ch. Just. I cannot now speak: I will hear you soon. 100 Take them away. Pist. Si fortuna me tormenta, spero contenta. [Exeunt all but Prince John and the Chief-Justice. Lan. I like this fair proceeding of the king's: He hath intent his wonted followers Shall all be very well provided for; But all are banish'd till their conversations Appear more wise and modest to the world. Lan. The king hath call'd his parliament, my lord. Ch. Just. He hath. Lan. I will lay odds that, ere this year expire, We bear our civil swords and native fire As far as France: I heard a bird so sing, Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king. EPILOGUE. Spoken by a Dancer. 110 [Exeunt. First my fear; then my courtesy, last my speech. My fear is, your displeasure; my courtesy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me for what I have to say is of mine own making; and what indeed I should say will, I doubt, prove my own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture. Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a better. I meant indeed to pay you with this; which, if like an ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me some and I will pay you some and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? and yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me if the gen tlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France: where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a' be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will bid you good night: and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen. THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE FIFTH. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. KING HENRY the Fifth. DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, brothers DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King. SIR THOMAS GREY. SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, GOWER, PISTOL, NYM, BARDOLPH. A Herald. CHARLES the Sixth, King of LEWIS, the Dauphin. DUKES OF BURGUNDY, ORLEANS, The Constable of France. Governor of Harfleur. ISABEL, Queen of France. ALICE, a lady attending on her. SCENE: England; afterwards 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 unraised spirits that have dared On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth (281) 10 So great an object: can this cockpit hold And let us, ciphers to this great accompt, Suppose within the girdle of these walls Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them Who prologue-like your humble patience pray, Into an hour-glass: for the which supply, Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play." ACT I. 20 30 [Exit. SCENE 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 self bill is urged, Which in the eleventh year of the last king's reign But that the scambling and unquiet time 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: For all the temporal lands which men devout By testament have given to the church Would they strip from us; being valued thus: Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil, 10 A hundred almshouses right well supplied; And to the coffers of the king beside,. A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill. Cant. "Twould drink the cup and all. 20 Ely. But what prevention? Cant. The king is full of grace and fair regard. Cant. The courses of his youth promised it not. And whipp'd the offending Adam out of him, 30 To envelop and contain celestial spirits. Never was such a sudden scholar made; With such a heady currance, scouring faults; So soon did lose his seat and all at once Ely. We are blessed in the change. Cant. Hear him but reason in divinity, And all-admiring with an inward wish You would say it hath been all in all his study: You would desire the king were made a prelate: 40 List his discourse of war, and you shall hear The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears, To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences; 50 So that the art and practic part of life Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it, His companies unletter'd, rude and shallow, His hours fill'd up with riots, banquets, sports, Any retirement, any sequestration From open haunts and popularity. Ely. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best 60 |