…So shaken are we, so wan with care…
…There lives not three good men unhang’d in England, and one of them is fat and grows old…
…I am not in the roll of common men…
…I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you call for them?…
…Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath…
…He was but as the cuckoo in June,
Heard, not regarded…
…The time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long…
…But thoughts, the slaves of life, and life, time’s fool,
And time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop…
…The better part of valour is discretion; in which better part I have saved my life…
    It could be argued by the purists that I have slighted William Shakespeare but all such quibbles must now be set aside and the Bard began to move toward his peak. In Henry IV Part One, he takes a small piece of history concerning the attempt by one young man named Henry to usurp the throne from another also named Henry—a most routine chain of events for the time—and turns it into a lively and powerful play. It is characterisation that achieves his effect. King Henry is a good bloke but given to elicit revelry with his mates down the pub, headed up by what many regard as his best character, Falstaff – the fat, blustering, cowardly man who is the true hero of the story. But there is too a likeable rogue in the villain, Henry Percy, called Hotspur, a witty and adventurous young chap who possibility would make a better King than his rival. They meet on the battlefield at Shrewsbury as equals, one must die but the death of either will be a tragedy and Hotspur goes down bravely and with a witticism on his tongue that his slayer finishes for him…
…But that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies on my tongue; no Percy, thou art dust,
And food for ---  [Dies
For worms, brave Percy; fare thee well, great heart !
Ill-weaved ambition, how much thou art shrunk…
Knock out stuff.
Shakespeare Scoreboard:
Original plays (good) 2. (MacBeth) (Henry IV Part One)
Plays ripped off from others:  1. (Merchant of Venice from Marlowe’s Jew of Malta)