# Result number

Work The work is either a play, poem, or sonnet. The sonnets are treated as single work with 154 parts.

Character Indicates who said the line. If it's a play or sonnet, the character name is "Poet."

Line Shows where the line falls within the work.

The numbering is not keyed to any copyrighted numbering system found in a volume of collected works (Arden, Oxford, etc.) The numbering starts at the beginning of the work, and does not restart for each scene.

Text The line's full text, with keywords highlighted within it, unless highlighting has been disabled by the user.

1

Henry IV, Part II
[Prologue, 1]

Rumour

2

Open your ears; for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commenced on this ball of earth.
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.
I speak of peace while covert emnity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world;
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence,
Whiles the big year, swoln with some other grief,
Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,
And no such matter? Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
And of so easy and so plain a stop
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,
Can play upon it. But what need I thus
My well-known body to anatomize
Among my household? Why is Rumour here?
I run before King Harry's victory,
Who, in a bloody field by Shrewsbury,
Hath beaten down young Hotspur and his troops,
Quenching the flame of bold rebellion
Even with the rebels' blood. But what mean I
To speak so true at first? My office is
To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth fell
Under the wrath of noble Hotspur's sword,
And that the King before the Douglas' rage
Stoop'd his anointed head as low as death.
This have I rumour'd through the peasant towns
Between that royal field of Shrewsbury
And this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone,
Where Hotspur's father, old Northumberland,
Lies crafty-sick. The posts come tiring on,
And not a man of them brings other news
Than they have learnt of me. From Rumour's tongues
They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.

2

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 2]

Henry V

1112

Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the
of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. Is your master
London?

3

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 4]

Doll Tearsheet

1386

Away, you cut-purse rascal! you filthy bung, away! By
wine, I'll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps, an you play
saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale rascal! you
basket-hilt stale juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir?
God's light, with two points on your shoulder? Much!

4

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 4]

Falstaff

1503

Let them play. Play, sirs. Sit on my knee, Don. A
bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quick-silver.

5

Henry IV, Part II
[V, 5]

Dancer

3711

First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech. My fear, is your
displeasure; my curtsy, my duty; and my speech, to beg your pardons.
If you look for a good speech now, you undo me; for what I have
to say is of mine own making; and what, indeed, I should say will, I doubt,
prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the
venture.

Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the
end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to
promise you a better. I meant, indeed, to pay you with this; which if like an
ill venture it come unluckily home, I break, and you, my gentle
creditors, lose. Here I promis'd you I would be, and here I
commit my body to your mercies. Bate me some, and I will pay you some,
and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely; and so I kneel down
before you—but, indeed, to pray for the Queen.

If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command
me to use my legs? And yet that were but light payment—to dance out of
your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible
satisfaction, and so would I. All the gentlewomen here have
forgiven me. If the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree
with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly.

One word more, I beseech you. If you be not too much cloy'd
with fat meat, our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in
it, and make you merry with fair Katherine of France; where, for
anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already 'a
be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr and
this is not the man. My tongue is weary; when my legs are too, I will
bid you good night.