Chapter XVIII: Prologue: Enter Prologue. Prologue I

Prologue, like your humble patience pray.
_Prologue_ I, _line 33._

SCENE.

The scene
Is now transported, gentles,
To Southampton.
_Prologue_ II, 34.

Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.
_Prologue_ II, _line_

Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought.
_Prologue_ II, _line 1._

And so our scene must to the battle fly.
_Prologue_ IV, _line 48._

STAGE.

A kingdom for a stage.
_Prologue_ I, _line 3._

Which oft our stage hath shown.
_Epilogue_, _line 13._

PROMPT.

Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story
That I may prompt them.
_Prologue_ V, _line 2._

THIS WOODEN O. SCAFFOLD. COCKPIT.

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 part of Mars; and at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles, all
The flat, unraised spirits that hath dar’d
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object; can this cockpit hold
The vasting fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?

SCAFFOLD.

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth.

In mediæval times the ecclesiastical plays were usually performed in churches or chapels upon temporary scaffolds erected for that purpose. The term survived even to the seventeenth century in the sense of a platform, or stage, on which theatrical performances took place. This is the only instance in which Shakespeare uses the word.

COCKPIT.

The name applied to a theatre and the pit of a theatre, deriving its name from a pit or enclosed area usually of a round formation in which gamecocks are set to fight for sport.

THIS WOODEN O.

All the early Elizabethan theatres were constructed in a circular or octagonal shape. An uncertainty prevails as regards the theatre intended. Quite possibly the reference might be to the newly erected Globe, which was opened in the summer of 1599, about the time “Henry V” was written, and was under the management of Shakespeare and his fellow actors belonging to the Lord Chamberlain’s company. Some critics favour the Curtain Theatre, in Shoreditch, as the original house in which “Henry V” was first produced.

HENRY VI