Читать книгу The Life of King Henry the Fifth - Уильям Шекспир, William Szekspir, the Simon Studio - Страница 3

 CANTERBURY. My lord, I'll tell you: that self bill is urg'd

   Which in th' 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 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 alms-houses 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. 'T would 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,

   Seem'd to die too; yea, at that very moment,

   Consideration like an angel came

   And whipp'd 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 wilfulnes

   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 rend'red 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 obscur'd 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 ceas'd;

   And therefore we must needs admit the means

   How things are perfected.

 ELY. But, my good lord,

   How now for mitigation of this bill

   Urg'd 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 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 receiv'd, my lord?

 CANTERBURY. With good acceptance of his Majesty;

   Save that there was not time enough to hear,

   As I perceiv'd his Grace would fain have done,

   The severals and unhidden passages

   Of his true tides to some certain dukedoms,

   And generally to the crown and seat of France,

   Deriv'd from Edward, his great-grandfather.

 ELY. What was th' impediment that broke this off?

 CANTERBURY. The French ambassador upon that instant

   Crav'd 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