[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, and gentles all,
	The flat unraised spirits that have dared
	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 confined 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 on 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]

	KING HENRY V

ACT I

SCENE I	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 urged,
	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 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,
	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 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 promised it not.
	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 the offending Adam out of him,
	Leaving his body as a paradise,
	To envelop 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: