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 render'd 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 obscured 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 ceased;
	And therefore we must needs admit the means
	How things are perfected.

ELY	But, my good lord,
	How now for mitigation of this bill
	Urged 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 received, my lord?

CANTERBURY	With good acceptance of his majesty;
	Save that there was not time enough to hear,
	As I perceived 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
	Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.

ELY	What was the impediment that broke this off?

CANTERBURY	The French ambassador upon that instant
	Craved 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]

	KING HENRY V

ACT I

SCENE II	The same. The Presence chamber.

	[Enter KING HENRY V, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER,
	WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants]

KING HENRY V	Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?

EXETER	Not here in presence.

KING HENRY V	Send for him, good uncle.

WESTMORELAND	Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?

KING HENRY V	Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved,
	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!