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similar imagery in Henry IV p. 1

similar imagery in Henry IV p. 1

Added by colin #442 on 2004-08-30. Last modified 2004-08-30 01:39. Originally created 2004-06-16. F0

Compare the following from Prince Hal in Henry IV part 1 lines 65-87 (Oxford Shakespeare):

I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyok’d humour of your idleness:
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wonder’d at,
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wish’d for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.


Colin Leath <>    

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