King. This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
Sits not so easy on me as you think.
Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear:
This is the English, not the Turkish court;
Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,

But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,
For, to speak truth, it very well becomes you:
Sorrow so royally in you appears,
That I will deeply put the fashion on,
And wear it in my heart: why then, be sad;
But entertain no more of it, good brothers,
Than a joint burden laid upon us all.
For me, by heaven, I bid you be assured,
I'll be your father and your brother too;

Let me but bear your love, I'll bear your cares :
Yet weep that Harry's dead, and so will I;
But Harry lives that shall convert those tears
By number into hours of happiness.

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The Princes. We hope no other from your majesty. King. You all look strangely on me :- [to the Chief Justice] and you most:

:—

You are, I think, assured I love you not.

Chief Justice. I am assured, if I be measured rightly, Your majesty hath no just cause to hate me. King. No!

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How might a prince of my great hopes forget
So great indignities you laid upon me?
What! rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
The immediate heir of England! Was this easy?
May this be washed in Lethé, and forgotten?
Chief Justice. I then did use the person of your father;
The image of his power lay then in me:
And, in the administration of his law,
Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,
Your highness pleased to forget my place,
The majesty and power of law and justice,
The image of the king whom I presented,
And struck me in my very seat of judgement;
Whereon, as an offender to your father,
I gave bold way to my authority,

And did commit you. If the deed were ill,
Be you contented, wearing now the garland,
To have a son set your decrees at nought;

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To pluck down justice from your awful bench;
To trip the course of law, and blunt the sword
That guards the peace and safety of your person:
Nay, more; to spurn at your most royal image,
And mock your workings in a second body.
Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours;
Be now the father, and propose a son,
Hear your own dignity so much profaned,
See your most dreadful laws so loosely slighted,
Behold yourself so by a son disdained:
And then imagine me taking your part,
And, in your power, soft silencing your son:
After this cold considerance, sentence me;
And, as you are a king, speak in your state,
What I have done that misbecame my place,
My person, or my liege's sovereignty.

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[He kneels. King. You are right, Justice, and you weigh this well: Therefore still bear the balance and the sword: And I do wish your honours may increase, Till you do live to see a son of mine Offend you, and obey you, as I did.

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So shall I live to speak my father's words :
'Happy am I, that have a man so bold,
That dares do justice on my proper son;
And not less happy, having such a son,
That would deliver up his greatness so
Into the hands of justice.' You did commit me:
For which, [raising him] I do commit into your hand
The unstained sword that you have used to bear;
[Gives the sword.
With this remembrance-that you use the same
With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit
As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand.
[Gascoigne kisses the King's hand.
You shall be as a father to my youth:

My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear,
And I will stoop and humble my intents

To your well-practised wise directións.

And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you ;
My father is gone wild into his grave,
For in his tomb lie my affections;
And with his spirit sadly I survive,
To mock the expectation of the world,

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To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out
Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
Hath proudly flowed in vanity, till now:
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,
Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
And flow henceforth in formal majesty.
Now call we our high court of parliament,
And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
That the great body of our state may go
In equal rank with the best-governed nation;
That war or peace, or both at once, may be
As things acquainted and familiar to us ;-

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In which you, father [to the Chief Justice], shall have foremost hand.

And (God consigning to my good intents)

No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say,
God shorten Harry's happy life one day.

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[Exeunt, the Chief Justice carrying the sword before the King.

CHORUS I. THE POET'S PRELUDE.

An actor, called the Chorus, was sometimes used in old plays to bridge over the gap between two scenes or acts by explaining what had happened in the time between these. Oh, for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of inventión,

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,

Leashed 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 hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
Suppose, within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high uprearèd and abutting fronts

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IO

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The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance;

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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.

Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies:
Now thrive the armorers, and honour's thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man.
They sell the pasture now to buy the horse;
Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
With winged heels, as English Mercuries.
The French, advised by good intelligence
Of this most dreadful preparatión,
Shake in their fear and with pale policy
Seek to divert the English purposes.

O England! model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,

What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural!

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But see thy fault! France hath in thee found out
A nest of hollow bosoms, which he fills

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With treacherous crowns; and three corrupted men-
One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,
Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,
Sir Thomas Grey, knight of Northumberland-
Have, for the gilt of France, (O guilt indeed !)
Confirmed conspiracy with fearful France;
And by their hands this grace of kings must die
(If hell and treason hold their promises),
Ere he take ship for France, and in Southampton.
The sum is paid; the traitors are agreed;
The King is set from London; and the scene

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Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton;
There is the playhouse now, there must you sit :
And thence to France shall we convey you safe,
And bring you back, charming the narrow seas
To give you gentle pass; for, if we may,
We'll not offend one stomach with our play.

SCENE III. CONSPIRACY UNMASKED.

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The King, while ready at Southampton to sail for France, crushes a plot made against him by the Earl of Cambridge, Lord Scroop, and Sir Thomas Grey.

Enter the Duke of Exeter, uncle to the King, the Duke of Bedford, brother to the King, and the Earl of Westmoreland.

Bedford. 'Fore God, his grace is bold, to trust these traitors.

Exeter. They shall be apprehended by and by. Westmoreland. How smooth and even they do bear themselves!

As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,
Crowned with faith and constant loyalty.

Bedford. The King hath note of all that they intend, By interception which they dream not of.

Exeter. Nay, but the man that was his bedfellow, Whom he hath dulled and cloyed with gracious favours,That he should, for a foreign purse, so sell His sovereign's life to death and treachery!

IO

Trumpets sound. Enter King Henry, Lord Scroop, the Earl of Cambridge, Sir Thomas Grey, Lords, and Attendants.

King. Now sits the wind fair, and we will aboard. My Lord of Cambridge, and my kind Lord of Masham, And you, my gentle knight, give me your thoughts: Think you not, that the powers we bear with us ~15 Will cut their passage through the force of France, Doing the execution and the act

For which we have in head assembled them? Scroop. No doubt, my liege, if each man do his best

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