| | A company of soldiers enters through the audience, singing. |
| | Music: ‘Brown Eyes’. |
| | The company then delivers the first CHORUS, divided (like the subsequent ones) between them. |
| CHORUS 1 | (Taking the crown from one of the ammunition boxes.) |
| | O for a muse of fire, that would ascend |
| | The brightest heaven of invention: |
| CHORUS 2 | A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, |
| | And monarchs to behold the swelling scene. |
| CHORUS 3 | 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. |
| CHORUS 4 | But pardon, gentles all, |
| | The flat unraisèd spirits that hath dared |
| | On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth |
| | So great an object. |
| CHORUS 5 | Can this cock-pit hold |
| | The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram |
| | Within this wooden O the very casques |
| | That did affright the air at Agincourt? |
| CHORUS 6 | O pardon: since a crookèd figure may |
| | Attest in little place a million, |
| | And let us, ciphers to this great account, |
| | On your imaginary forces work. |
| CHORUS 7 | Suppose within the girdle of these walls |
| | Are now confined two mighty monarchies, |
| | Whose high uprearèd and abutting fronts |
| | The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder. |
| CHORUS 8 | Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts: |
| CHORUS 9 | Into a thousand parts divide one man, |
| | And make imaginary puissance. |
| CHORUS 10 | Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them, |
| | Printing their proud hoofs i’th’ receiving earth; |
| CHORUS 11 | 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 hourglass; |
| CHORUS 12 | For the which supply, |
| ALL | Admit us Chorus to this history, |
| CHORUS 13 | Who Prologue-like your humble patience pray |
| | Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play. |
