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  • Title: Henry IV, Part 2 (Quarto 1, 1600)
  • Editor: Rosemary Gaby

    • Copyright Rosemary Gaby. This text may be freely used for educational, non-profit purposes; for all other uses contact the Editor.
    Author: William Shakespeare
    Editor: Rosemary Gaby
    Not Peer Reviewed

    Henry IV, Part 2 (Quarto 1, 1600)

    Henry the fourth.
    To lay downe likelihoods and formes of hope.
    Bard. We fortifie in paper, and in figures,
    Vsing the names of men in steed of men,
    Like on that drawes the model of an house,
    560Beyond his power to build it, who (halfe thorough)
    Giues o're, and leaues his part-created cost,
    A naked subiect to the weeping clowdes,
    And waste for churlish winters tyrannie.
    Hast. Grant that our hopes (yet likely of faire birth)
    565Should be stil-borne, and that we now possest
    The vtmost man of expectation,
    I thinke we are so, body strong enough,
    Euen as we are to equal with the King.
    Bard. What, is the King but fiue and twenty thousand?
    570Hast. To vs no more, nay not so much, Lord Bardolfe,
    For his diuisions, as the times do brawle,
    And in three heads, one power against the French,
    And one against Glendower perforce a third
    Must take vp vs, so is the vnfirme King
    575In three diuided, and his coffers sound
    With hollow pouertie and emptinesse.
    Bish. That he should draw his seuerall strengths togither,
    And come against vs in full puissance,
    Need not to be dreaded.
    580Hast. If he should do so, French and Welch he leaues his
    back vnarmde, they baying him at the heeles, neuer feare that.
    Bar. Who is it like should leade his forces hither?
    Hast. The Duke of Lancaster and Westmerland:
    585Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth:
    But who is substituted against the French
    I haue no certaine notice.
    Bish. Shall we go draw our numbers, and set on?
    Hast. We are Times subiects, and Time bids be gone. ex.

    615Enter Hostesse of the Tauerne, and an Officer or two.

    C Hostesse.
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