Tuesday 2 December 2014

William Shakespeare – King Henry the Sixth

“Richard:
I cannot weep; for all my body’s moisture
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning burden;
Nor can my tongue unload my heart’s great
For selfsame wind that I should speak withal
Is kindling coals that fires all my breat,
And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.72).



“Richard:
I’ll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind;
And would my father had left me no more!
For all the rest is held at such a rate
As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.74).

“Richard:
This battle fares like to the morning’s war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind;
Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind:
Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;
Now one the better, then another best;
Both tugging to e victors breast to breast;
Yet neither conqueror nor conquered;
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
To whom God will, there be the victory.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.76).

“Richard:
O God! Methinks it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by pint,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run, -
How many makes the hour full complere;
How many hours brings about the day;
How many days will finish up the year;
How many years a mortal man may live.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.76).

“Lord Clifford:
And, Henry, hadst thouh sway’d as kings should do,
Or as thy father and his father did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York,
I and ten thousand in this luckless realm
Had left no mourning widows for our death.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.78).

“Earl of Oxford:
… while life upholds this arm,
This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.83).

“Early of Warwick:
Edward will always bear himself as king:
Though fortunate’s malice overthrow my state,
My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.88).

“King Henry:
Therefore, that I may conquer fortune’s spite,

By living low, where fortune cannot hurt me.” (Shakespeare, 1994, p.89).