Enter CHORUS as Prologue.

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,
	Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
	Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
	The flat unraisd 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 crookd 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 upreard 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'th' receiving earth;
	For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
	Carry them here and there, jumping o'er times,
	Turning th' 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.

London. An Antechamber in the King's Palace.
 Enter the two Bishops of CANTERBURY and ELY.

Canterbury	My lord, I'll tell you. That self bill is urged
	Which in th' eleventh year of the last king's reign
	Was like, and had indeed against us passed,
	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 th' 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,
	Seemed to die too; yea, at that very moment
	Consideration like an angel came
	And whipped th' offending Adam out of him,
	Leaving his body as a paradise
	T' envelope 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 blessd 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.
	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 rendered 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 chartered libertine, is still,
	And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears
	To steal his sweet and honeyed 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 unlettered, rude, and shallow,
	His hours filled 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
	Neighboured 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 th' 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 opened 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 th' 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.
