King Henry V
By William Shakespeare
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, Familiar as his garter; that, when he speaks, The air, a chartered libertine, is still, And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears, To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences; So that the art and practice part of life Must be the mistress to this theoric: Which is a wonder how his Grace should glean it Since his addiction was to courses vain, His companies unlettered, rude, and shallow, His hours filled up with riots, banquets, sports, And never noted in him any study, Any retirement, any sequestration From open haunts and popularity.
ELY. The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Neighbour’d by the fruit of baser quality, And so the Prince obscured his contemplation Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt, Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night, Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
CANTERBURY. It must be so; for miracles are ceased, And therefore we must needs admit the means of How things are perfected.
ELY. But, my good lord, How now for mitigation of this bill Urg’d by the commons? Doth his Majesty Incline to it, or not?
CANTERBURY. He seems indifferent, Or rather swaying more upon our part Than cherishing the exhibitors against us; For I have made an offer to his Majesty, Upon our spiritual convocation And in regard of causes now in hand, Which I have opened to his Grace at large, As touching France, to give a greater sum Than ever at one time the clergy yet Did to his predecessors part withal.
ELY. How did this offer seem receiv’d, my lord?
CANTERBURY. With good acceptance of his Majesty; Save that there was not time enough to hear, As I perceiv’d his Grace would fain have done, The severals and unhidden passages Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms, And generally to the crown and seat of France Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
ELY. What was the impediment that broke this off?
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William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor.
Biography.
He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon” (or simply “the Bard”). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith.
Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner (sharer) of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, later known as the King’s Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare’s private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of Shakespeare’s plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare’s, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare’s dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: “not of an age, but for all time”.
William Shakespeare
