Summary, Analysis, and Original Text by Scene

Act III: Prologue

As with the previous Prologues, this one serves to explain a lapsed time period, and again it reminds the audience that they must continue to use their imaginations — this time, however, the language of the Prologue is more elaborately descriptive. The king embarks on a "fleet majestical" which bears the English forces to France, and the entire "brave fleet" is adorned and lighted by dawn:

. . . behold the threaden sails,

Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,

Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,

Breasting the lofty surge.

(10-13)

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