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SECOND PART

OF

KING HENRY IV.

BY

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.

From the Text of the Rev. Alexander Dyce's
Second Edition.

OYS

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JERSE

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Lords and Attendants; Porter, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, &c. Rumour, the Presenter.

A Dancer, speaker of the epilogue.

SCENE - England.

INDUCTION.

Warkworth. Before Northumberland's castle.
Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.

will stop you

Rum. Open your ears; for which of
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 enmity,
Under the smile of safety, wounds the world:
And who but Rumour, who but only I,
Make fearful musters and prepar'd defence,
Whilst 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 wavering 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 pleasant towns

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