Toolbox



Textual Analysis

[ Go ]

Shakespeare on Stage
American Shakespeare Center, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 16, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, The Duchess of Malfi. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.
Folger Shakespeare Library, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 9, 2013.
More Performances…
‌

Henry IV, Part 1 (Quarto 1, 1598)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Rosemary Gaby
Not Peer Reviewed
of Henrie the fourth.
Per. Do so, and tis wel. What letters hast thou there?
2235I can but thanke you.
Mes. These letters come from your father.
Per. Letters from him, why comes he not himselfe?
Mes. He cannot come my lord, he is grieuous sicke.
Per. Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sicke
In such a iustling time, who leads his power?
Vnder whose gouernment come they along?
Mes. His letters beares his mind, not I my mind.
2245Wor. I preethe tel me, doth he keepe his bed?
Mes. He did my Lord, foure daies ere I set forth,
And at the time of my departure thence,
He was much fearde by his Phisitions.
Wor. I would the state of time had first been whole,
2250Eare he by sicknesse had bin visited,
His health was neuer better worth then now.
Per. Sicke now, droupe now, this sicknes doth infect
The very life bloud of our enterprise,
Tis catching hither euen to our campe,
2255He writes me here that inward sicknesse,
And that his friends by deputation
Could not so soone be drawn, nor did he thinke it meet
To lay so dangerous and deare a trust
On any soule remoou'd but on his own,
2260Yet doth he giue vs bold aduertisement,
That with our small coniunction we should on,
To see how fortune is disposd to vs,
For as he writes there is no quailing now,
Because the king is certainly possest
2265Of al our purposes, what say you to it?
Wor. Your fathers sicknesse is a maime to vs.
Per. A perillous gash, a very limbe lopt off,
And yet in faith it is not, his present want
Seemes more then we shal find it: were it good
2270To set the exact wealth of al our states
Al at one cast? to set so rich a maine
On the nice hazard of one doubtfull houre?
It were not good for therein should we read
H1.
The