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I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

      — King Henry IV. Part II, Act I Scene 2

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1-20 of 36 total

KEYWORD: very

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# 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
[I, 2]

Falstaff

430

Very well, my lord, very well. Rather an't please
is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking,
I am troubled withal.

2

Henry IV, Part II
[I, 2]

Lord Chief Justice

455

Your means are very slender, and your waste is
great.

3

Henry IV, Part II
[I, 3]

Archbishop Scroop

630

'Tis very true, Lord Bardolph; for indeed
It was young Hotspur's case at Shrewsbury.

4

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 2]

Edward Poins

998

Very hardly upon such a subject.

5

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 4]

Hostess Quickly

1321

If he swagger, let him not come here. No, by my faith!
must live among my neighbours; I'll no swaggerers. I am in
name and fame with the very best. Shut the door. There comes
swaggerers here; I have not liv'd all this while to have
swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.

6

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 4]

Hostess Quickly

1367

Do I? Yea, in very truth, do I, an 'twere an aspen
cannot abide swagg'rers.

7

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 4]

Hostess Quickly

1424

Good Captain Peesel, be quiet; 'tis very late, i'
beseek you now, aggravate your choler.

8

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 4]

Hostess Quickly

1434

By my troth, Captain, these are very bitter words.

9

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 4]

Falstaff

1527

Because their legs are both of a bigness, and 'a
quoits well, and eats conger and fennel, and drinks off
ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild mare with the boys,
jumps upon join'd-stools, and swears with a good grace, and
his boots very smooth, like unto the sign of the Leg, and
no bate with telling of discreet stories; and such other
faculties 'a has, that show a weak mind and an able body, for
which the Prince admits him. For the Prince himself is such
another; the weight of a hair will turn the scales between
avoirdupois.

10

Henry IV, Part II
[II, 4]

Henry V

1583

Very true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.

11

Henry IV, Part II
[III, 1]

Earl of Warwick

1803

It cannot be, my lord.
Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,
The numbers of the feared. Please it your Grace
To go to bed. Upon my soul, my lord,
The powers that you already have sent forth
Shall bring this prize in very easily.
To comfort you the more, I have receiv'd
A certain instance that Glendower is dead.
Your Majesty hath been this fortnight ill;
And these unseasoned hours perforce must ad
Unto your sickness.

12

Henry IV, Part II
[III, 2]

Robert Shallow

1853

The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break
Scoggin's head at the court gate, when 'a was a crack not
high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson
Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the
days that I have spent! and to see how many of my old
acquaintance are dead!

13

Henry IV, Part II
[III, 2]

Robert Shallow

1862

Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure. Death, as
Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good
of bullocks at Stamford fair?

14

Henry IV, Part II
[III, 2]

Robert Shallow

1904

It is well said, in faith, sir; and it is well said
too. 'Better accommodated!' It is good; yea, indeed, is it.
phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable.
'Accommodated!' It comes of accommodo. Very good; a good

15

Henry IV, Part II
[III, 2]

Robert Shallow

1923

It is very just. Look, here comes good Sir John. Give
your good hand, give me your worship's good hand. By my
you like well and bear your years very well. Welcome, good
John.

16

Henry IV, Part II
[III, 2]

Robert Shallow

1955

Ha, ha, ha! most excellent, i' faith! Things that are
mouldy lack use. Very singular good! In faith, well said, Sir
John; very well said.

17

Henry IV, Part II
[III, 2]

Falstaff

1993

Thou art a very ragged wart.

18

Henry IV, Part II
[III, 2]

Falstaff

2172

Fare you well, gentle gentlemen. [Exeunt JUSTICES] On,
Bardolph; lead the men away. [Exeunt all but FALSTAFF] As I
return, I will fetch off these justices. I do see the bottom of
justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this
vice of lying! This same starv'd justice hath done nothing but
prate to me of the wildness of his youth and the feats he hath
done about Turnbull Street; and every third word a lie, duer paid
to the hearer than the Turk's tribute. I do remember him at
Clement's Inn, like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring.
When 'a was naked, he was for all the world like a fork'd radish,
with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. 'A was so
forlorn that his dimensions to any thick sight were invisible. 'A
was the very genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the
whores call'd him mandrake. 'A came ever in the rearward of the
fashion, and sung those tunes to the overscutch'd huswifes that
he heard the carmen whistle, and sware they were his fancies or
his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a squire,
and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn
brother to him; and I'll be sworn 'a ne'er saw him but once in
the Tiltyard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the
marshal's men. I saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own
name; for you might have thrust him and all his apparel into an
eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a
court—and now has he land and beeves. Well, I'll be acquainted
with him if I return; and 't shall go hard but I'll make him a
philosopher's two stones to me. If the young dace be a bait for
the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap
at him. Let time shape, and there an end. Exit

19

Henry IV, Part II
[IV, 1]

Earl of Westmoreland

2235

Then, my lord,
Unto your Grace do I in chief address
The substance of my speech. If that rebellion
Came like itself, in base and abject routs,
Led on by bloody youth, guarded with rags,
And countenanc'd by boys and beggary-
I say, if damn'd commotion so appear'd
In his true, native, and most proper shape,
You, reverend father, and these noble lords,
Had not been here to dress the ugly form
Of base and bloody insurrection
With your fair honours. You, Lord Archbishop,
Whose see is by a civil peace maintain'd,
Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touch'd,
Whose learning and good letters peace hath tutor'd,
Whose white investments figure innocence,
The dove, and very blessed spirit of peace-
Wherefore you do so ill translate yourself
Out of the speech of peace, that bears such grace,
Into the harsh and boist'rous tongue of war;
Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,
Your pens to lances, and your tongue divine
To a loud trumpet and a point of war?

20

Henry IV, Part II
[IV, 1]

Archbishop Scroop

2258

Wherefore do I this? So the question stands.
Briefly to this end: we are all diseas'd
And with our surfeiting and wanton hours
Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,
And we must bleed for it; of which disease
Our late King, Richard, being infected, died.
But, my most noble Lord of Westmoreland,
I take not on me here as a physician;
Nor do I as an enemy to peace
Troop in the throngs of military men;
But rather show awhile like fearful war
To diet rank minds sick of happiness,
And purge th' obstructions which begin to stop
Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.
I have in equal balance justly weigh'd
What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,
And find our griefs heavier than our offences.
We see which way the stream of time doth run
And are enforc'd from our most quiet there
By the rough torrent of occasion;
And have the summary of all our griefs,
When time shall serve, to show in articles;
Which long ere this we offer'd to the King,
And might by no suit gain our audience:
When we are wrong'd, and would unfold our griefs,
We are denied access unto his person,
Even by those men that most have done us wrong.
The dangers of the days but newly gone,
Whose memory is written on the earth
With yet appearing blood, and the examples
Of every minute's instance, present now,
Hath put us in these ill-beseeming arms;
Not to break peace, or any branch of it,
But to establish here a peace indeed,
Concurring both in name and quality.

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