Henry V E-Book

William Shakespeare

• Herausgeber: Krill Press
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 140

Beschreibung

William Shakespeare is almost universally considered the English language's most famous and greatest writer. In fact, the only people who might dispute that are those who think he didn't write the surviving 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems still attributed to him. Even people who never get around to reading his works in class are instantly familiar with titles like King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo & Shakespeare.

Leseprobe

HENRY V

..................

William Shakespeare

MASQUERADE PRESS

Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the author.

This book is a work of nonfiction and is intended to be factually accurate.

All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

Copyright © 2015 by William Shakespeare

Interior design by Pronoun

Distribution by Pronoun

TABLE OF CONTENTS

King Henry V

Characters of the Play

Act I

Prologue

Scene I. London. An ante-chamber in the King’s palace.

Scene II. The same. The Presence chamber.

Act II

Prologue

Scene I. London. A street.

Scene II. Southampton. A council-chamber.

Scene III. London. Before a tavern.

Scene IV. France. The King’s palace.

Act III

Prologue

Scene I. France. Before Harfleur.

Scene II. The same.

Scene III. The same. Before the gates.

Scene IV. The French King’s palace.

Scene V. The same.

Scene VI. The English camp in Picardy.

Scene VII. The French camp, near Agincourt:

Act IV

Prologue

Scene I. The English camp at Agincourt.

Scene II. The French camp.

Scene III. The English camp.

Scene IV. The field of battle.

Scene V. Another part of the field.

Scene VI. Another part of the field.

Scene VII. Another part of the field.

Scene VIII. Before King Henry’s pavilion.

Act V

Prologue

Scene I. France. The English camp.

Scene II. France. A royal palace.

Epilogue

Henry V

By

William Shakespeare

Henry V

Published by Masquerade Press

New York City, NY

First published 1600

Copyright © Masquerade Press, 2015

All rights reserved

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

About Masquerade Press

Masquerade Presspublishes the greatest dramas ever written and performed, from the Ancient Greek playwrights to icons like Shakespeare and modern poets like Oscar Wilde.

KING HENRY V

..................

CHARACTERS OF THE PLAY

..................

King Henry V,

Dukes of Gloucester and Bedford, brothers of the King.

Duke of Exeter, uncle to the King.

Duke of York, cousin to the King.

Earls of Salisbury, Westmoreland, Warwick and Cambridge.

Archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop of Ely.

Lord Scroop.

Sir Thomas Grey.

Sir Thomas Erpingham.

Gower, Fluellen, Macmorris and Jamy, officers in the English army.

John Bates, Alexander Court, Michael Williams, soldiers in the English army.

Pistol, Nym, Bardolph.

Hostess Quickly, wife of Pistol.

Boy,

Herald,

Charles the Sixth, King Of France,

Louis, the Dauphin,

Dukes of Burgundy, Orleans and Bourbon.

The Constable of France.

Rambures and Grandpre, French Lords.

Governor of Harfleur.

Montjoy, a French herald.

Queen Isabel of France.

Katharine, her daughter.

Alice, maid to Katherine.

Chorus,

Ambassadors, Soldiers, Messengers, &.c.

ACT I

..................

PROLOGUE

..................

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

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:

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

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!

King Henry V

Sure, we thank you.

My learned lord, we pray you to proceed

And justly and religiously unfold

Why the law Salique that they have in France

Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim:

And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,

That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,

Or nicely charge your understanding soul

With opening titles miscreate, whose right

Suits not in native colours with the truth;

For God doth know how many now in health

Shall drop their blood in approbation

Of what your reverence shall incite us to.

Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,

How you awake our sleeping sword of war:

We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;

For never two such kingdoms did contend

Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops

Are every one a woe, a sore complaint

’Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords

That make such waste in brief mortality.

Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;

For we will hear, note and believe in heart

That what you speak is in your conscience wash’d

As pure as sin with baptism.

Canterbury

Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,

That owe yourselves, your lives and services

To this imperial throne. There is no bar

To make against your highness’ claim to France

But this, which they produce from Pharamond,

‘In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant:’

‘No woman shall succeed in Salique land:’

Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze

To be the realm of France, and Pharamond

The founder of this law and female bar.

Yet their own authors faithfully affirm

That the land Salique is in Germany,

Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;

Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French;

Who, holding in disdain the German women

For some dishonest manners of their life,

Establish’d then this law; to wit, no female

Should be inheritrix in Salique land:

Which Salique, as I said, ’twixt Elbe and Sala,

Is at this day in Germany call’d Meisen.

Then doth it well appear that Salique law

Was not devised for the realm of France:

Nor did the French possess the Salique land

Until four hundred one and twenty years

After defunction of King Pharamond,

Idly supposed the founder of this law;

Who died within the year of our redemption

Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great

Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French

Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,

King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,

Did, as heir general, being descended

Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,

Make claim and title to the crown of France.

Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown

Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir male

Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,

To find his title with some shows of truth,

Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,

Convey’d himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,

Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son

To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son

Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,

Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,

Could not keep quiet in his conscience,

Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied

That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,

Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,

Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorraine:

By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great

Was re-united to the crown of France.

So that, as clear as is the summer’s sun.

King Pepin’s title and Hugh Capet’s claim,

King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear

To hold in right and title of the female:

So do the kings of France unto this day;

Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law

To bar your highness claiming from the female,

And rather choose to hide them in a net

Than amply to imbar their crooked titles

Usurp’d from you and your progenitors.

King Henry V

May I with right and conscience make this claim?

Canterbury

The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!

For in the book of Numbers is it writ,

When the man dies, let the inheritance

Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,

Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;

Look back into your mighty ancestors:

Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire’s tomb,

From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,

And your great-uncle’s, Edward the Black Prince,

Who on the French ground play’d a tragedy,

Making defeat on the full power of France,

Whiles his most mighty father on a hill

Stood smiling to behold his lion’s whelp

Forage in blood of French nobility.

O noble English. that could entertain

With half their forces the full Pride of France

And let another half stand laughing by,

All out of work and cold for action!

Ely

Awake remembrance of these valiant dead

And with your puissant arm renew their feats:

You are their heir; you sit upon their throne;

The blood and courage that renowned them

Runs in your veins; and my thrice-puissant liege

Is in the very May-morn of his youth,

Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.

Exeter

Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,

As did the former lions of your blood.

Westmoreland

They know your grace hath cause and means and might;

So hath your highness; never king of England

Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,

Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England

And lie pavilion’d in the fields of France.

Canterbury

O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,

With blood and sword and fire to win your right;

In aid whereof we of the spiritualty

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum

As never did the clergy at one time

Bring in to any of your ancestors.

King Henry V

We must not only arm to invade the French,

But lay down our proportions to defend

Against the Scot, who will make road upon us

With all advantages.

Canterbury

They of those marches, gracious sovereign,

Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.

King Henry V

We do not mean the coursing snatchers only,

But fear the main intendment of the Scot,

Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us;

For you shall read that my great-grandfather

Never went with his forces into France