# 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

956

Belike then my appetite was not-princely got; for, by
troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But
indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with
greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to remember thy name,
to know thy face to-morrow, or to take note how many pair of
stockings thou hast—viz., these, and those that were thy
peach-colour'd ones—or to bear the inventory of thy shirts-
one for superfluity, and another for use! But that the
tennis-court-keeper knows better than I; for it is a low ebb
linen with thee when thou keepest not racket there; as thou
not done a great while, because the rest of thy low countries
have made a shift to eat up thy holland. And God knows
those that bawl out of the ruins of thy linen shall inherit
kingdom; but the midwives say the children are not in the
whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily
strengthened.

3

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.

4

Henry IV, Part II
[IV, 3]

Prince John

2608

The heat is past; follow no further now.
Call in the powers, good cousin Westmoreland.
[Exit WESTMORELAND]
Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?
When everything is ended, then you come.
These tardy tricks of yours will, on my life,
One time or other break some gallows' back.