Henry V

Act 1 Scene 1 running scene 1Enter the two Bishops of Canterbury and ElyCANTERBURY My lord, I'll tell you: that self bill is urged,Which in th'eleventh year of the last king's reignWas like, and had indeed against us passed,But that the scambling and unquiet timeDid push it out of further 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 devoutBy testament have given to the ChurchWould 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 ageOf 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 momentConsideration like an angel cameAnd whipped th'offending Adam out of him,Leaving his body as a paradise,T'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 wilfulnessSo soon did lose his seat, and all at once,As in this king.ELY We are blessèd in the change.CANTERBURY Hear him but reason in divinity,And, all-admiring, with an inward wishYou 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 hearA 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 earsTo steal his sweet and honeyed sentences,So that the art and practic part of lifeMust 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 sequestrationFrom open haunts and popularity.ELY The strawberry grows underneath the nettleAnd wholesome berries thrive and ripen bestNeighboured by fruit of baser quality.And so the prince obscured his contemplationUnder 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 meansHow things are perfected.ELY But, my good lord,How now for mitigation of this billUrged by the commons? Doth his majestyIncline to it, or no?CANTERBURY He seems indifferent,Or rather swaying more upon our partThan cherishing th'exhibitors against us,For I have made an offer to his majesty,Upon our spiritual convocationAnd in regard of causes now in hand,Which I have opened to his grace at large,As touching France, to give a greater sumThan ever at one time the clergy yetDid 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 passagesOf his true titles to some certain dukedomsAnd 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 instantCraved audience; and the hour I think is comeTo 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