Henry IV, Part II by William Shakespeare (best way to read e books .TXT) ๐
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As the dust settles on the battlefield at Shrewsbury, news spreads that the rebel forces fighting against King Henry IV have suffered a terrible defeat. Their leader, Harry โHotspurโ Percy, was killed by Prince Hal. The rebel troops quickly abandon the fight after seeing their leader die. Two powerful cohorts, the Earl of Worcester and Douglas, are taken as prisoners by the Kingโs men. The Earl of Northumberland vows to avenge his sonโs death and plans to seek support from the Archbishop of York.
Meanwhile, the Archbishop has convened his group of alliesโThomas Mowbray, Lord Hastings, and Lord Bardolphโto plan the next battle against King Henry. If they want a chance of winning, they fight on three separate fronts: one to fight King Henryโs forces, one to fight the Welsh rebels led by Owen Glendower, and one to maintain the fight in France. They decide to follow this plan regardless of whether or not Northumberland lends them his army.
As the Princeโs merry team of misfits return to London, Falstaff continues to create mischief wherever he goes. After hearing that his father has fallen sick, Hal starts to regret the days when he used to drink and steal with Falstaff. If he is to be the next king, he must leave behind his past along with his partners in crime.
This Standard Ebooks production is based on William George Clark and William Aldis Wrightโs 1887 Victoria edition, which is taken from the Globe edition.
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- Author: William Shakespeare
Read book online ยซHenry IV, Part II by William Shakespeare (best way to read e books .TXT) ๐ยป. Author - William Shakespeare
York. The Archbishopโs palace.
Enter the Archbishop, the Lords Hastings, Mowbray, and Bardolph. ArchbishopThus have you heard our cause and known our means;
And, my most noble friends, I pray you all,
Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes:
And first, lord marshal, what say you to it?
I well allow the occasion of our arms;
But gladly would be better satisfied
How in our means we should advance ourselves
To look with forehead bold and big enough
Upon the power and puissance of the king.
Our present musters grow upon the file
To five and twenty thousand men of choice;
And our supplies live largely in the hope
Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns
With an incensed fire of injuries.
The question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus;
Whether our present five and twenty thousand
May hold up head without Northumberland?
Yea, marry, thereโs the point:
But if without him we be thought too feeble,
My judgment is, we should not step too far
Till we had his assistance by the hand;
For in a theme so bloody-faced as this
Conjecture, expectation, and surmise
Of aids incertain should not be admitted.
โTis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
It was young Hotspurโs case at Shrewsbury.
It was, my lord; who lined himself with hope,
Eating the air on promise of supply,
Flattering himself in project of a power
Much smaller than the smallest of his thoughts:
And so, with great imagination
Proper to madmen, led his powers to death
And winking leapโd into destruction.
But, by your leave, it never yet did hurt
To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.
Yes, if this present quality of war,
Indeed the instant action: a cause on foot
Lives so in hope as in an early spring
We see the appearing buds; which to prove fruit,
Hope gives not so much warrant as despair
That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,
We first survey the plot, then draw the model;
And when we see the figure of the house,
Then must we rate the cost of the erection;
Which if we find outweighs ability,
What do we then but draw anew the model
In fewer offices, or at last desist
To build at all? Much more, in this great work,
Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down
And set another up, should we survey
The plot of situation and the model,
Consent upon a sure foundation,
Question surveyors, know our own estate,
How able such a work to undergo,
To weigh against his opposite; or else
We fortify in paper and in figures,
Using the names of men instead of men:
Like one that draws the model of a house
Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,
Gives oโer and leaves his part-created cost
A naked subject to the weeping clouds
And waste for churlish winterโs tyranny.
Grant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,
Should be still-born, and that we now possessโd
The utmost man of expectation,
I think we are a body strong enough,
Even as we are, to equal with the king.
To us no
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