ARKCODEX
Dramatis Personae
1King Henry V Duke of Gloucester, brother to the King Duke of Bedford, brother to the King Duke of Exeter, uncle to the King Duke of York, cousin to the King Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, and Warwick Archbishop of Canterbury Bishop of Ely Earl of Cambridge Lord Scroop Sir Thomas Grey Sir Thomas Erpingham, Gower, Fluellen, Macmorris, Jamy, officers in King Henry’s army John Bates, Alexander Court, Michael Williams, soldiers in the same Pistol, Nym, Bardolph Boy A herald Charles VI, King of France Lewis, the Dauphin Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans, Bourbon The Constable of France Rambures and Grandpré, French lords Governor of Harfleur Montjoy, a French herald Ambassadors to the King of England Isabel, Queen of France Katharine, daughter to Charles and Isabel Alice, a lady attending on her Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap, formerly Mistress Nell Quickly, and now married to Pistol Lords, ladies, officers, soldiers, citizens, messengers, and attendants Chorus
2Scene: England; afterwards France.
Prologue
3
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, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that hath 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 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 the accomplishment of many years
Into an hourglass: 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.