The Life of King Henry V. William Shakespeare

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 valu’d 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 promis’d 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 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 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’ exhibitors 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.]

      SCENE II. The same. The presence chamber.

      Enter King Henry, Gloucester, Bedford, Clarence, Warwick, Westmorland, Exeter and Attendants.

      KING HENRY.

       Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?

      EXETER.

       Not here in presence.