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King Richard II
Richard II, who ascended to the throne as a young man, is a regal and stately figure, but
he is wasteful in his spending habits, unwise in his choice of counselors, and detached from his country and its common people.
He spends too much of his time pursuing the latest Italian fashions, spending money on his close friends, and raising taxes
to fund his pet wars in Ireland and elsewhere. When he begins to "rent out" parcels of English land to certain wealthy noblemen
in order to raise funds for one of his wars, and seizes the lands and money of a recently deceased and much respected uncle
to help fill his coffers, both the commoners and the king's noblemen decide that Richard has gone too far.
Richard has a cousin, named Henry Bolingbroke, who is a great favorite among the English commoners.
Early in the play, Richard exiles him from England for six years due to an unresolved dispute over an earlier political murder.
The dead uncle whose lands Richard seizes was the father of Bolingbroke; when Bolingbroke learns that Richard has stolen what
should have been his inheritance, it is the straw that breaks the camel's back. When Richard unwisely departs to pursue a
war in Ireland, Bolingbroke assembles an army and invades the north coast of England in his absence. The commoners, fond of
Bolingbroke and angry at Richard's mismanagement of the country, welcome his invasion and join his forces. One by one, Richard's
allies in the nobility desert him and defect to Bolingbroke's side as Bolingbroke marches through England. By the time Richard
returns from Ireland, he has already lost his grasp on his country.
There is never an actual battle; instead, Bolingbroke peacefully takes Richard prisoner in
Wales and brings him back to London, where Bolingbroke is crowned King Henry IV. Richard is imprisoned in the remote castle
of Pomfret in the north of England, where he is left to ruminate upon his downfall. There, an assassin, who both is and is
not acting upon King Henry's ambivalent wishes for Richard's expedient death, murders the former king. King Henry hypocritically
repudiates the murderer and vows to journey to Jerusalem to cleanse himself of his part in Richard's death. As the play concludes,
we see that the reign of the new King Henry IV has started off inauspiciously.
Henry V
The play is set in England in the early fifteenth century. The
political situation in England is tense: King Henry IV has died, and his son, the young King Henry V, has just assumed the
throne. Several bitter civil wars have left the people of England restless and dissatisfied. Furthermore, in order to gain
the respect of the English people and the court, Henry must live down his wild adolescent past, when he used to consort with
thieves and drunkards at the Boar’s Head Tavern on the seedy side of London.
Henry lays claim to certain parts of France, based on his distant roots in the French royal
family and on a very technical interpretation of ancient land laws. When the young prince, or Dauphin, of France sends Henry
an insulting message in response to these claims, Henry decides to invade France. Supported by the English noblemen and clergy,
Henry gathers his troops for war.
Henry’s decision to invade France trickles down to affect the common people he rules. In the Boar’s
Head Tavern in Eastcheap, some of the king’s former friends—whom he rejected when he rose to the throne—prepare
to leave their homes and families. Bardolph, Pistol, and Nim are common lowlifes and part-time criminals, on the opposite
end of the social spectrum from their royal former companion. As they prepare for the war, they remark on the death of Falstaff,
an elderly knight who was once King Henry’s closest friend.
Just before his fleet sets sail, King Henry learns of a conspiracy against his life. The three
traitors working for the French beg for mercy, but Henry denies their request. He orders that the trio, which includes a former
friend named Scrope, be executed. The English sail for France, where they fight their way across the country. Against
incredible odds, they continue to win after conquering the town of Harfleur, where Henry gives an impassioned speech to motivate
his soldiers to victory. Among the officers in King Henry’s army are men from all parts of Britain, such as Fluellen,
a Welsh captain. As the English advance, Nim and Bardolph are caught looting and are hanged at King Henry’s command.
The climax of the war comes at the famous Battle of Agincourt, at which the English are outnumbered
by the French five to one. The night before the battle, King Henry disguises himself as a common soldier and talks to many
of the soldiers in his camp, learning who they are and what they think of the great battle in which they have been swept up.
When he is by himself, he laments his ever-present responsibilities as king. In the morning, he prays to God and gives a powerful,
inspiring speech to his soldiers. Miraculously, the English win the battle, and the proud French must surrender at last. Some
time later, peace negotiations are finally worked out: Henry will marry Catherine, the daughter of the French king. Henry’s
son will be the king of France, and the marriage will unite the two kingdoms.
Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is about to marry Hippolyta, a lady warrior who he conquered.
Egeus brings his daughter Hermia to court. She and Lysander want to get married, but Egeus wants her to marry Demetrius, who
also wants to marry her. Because of the Athenian law, Hermia must marry the man her father chooses or she will be executed.
Theseus says he will enforce this law and gives everyone a few days to make her decision. Demetrius has seduced and abandoned
Helena, Hermia's friend, who he was in love with (as she is with him). Lysander and Hermia decide to elope and get married
in the next town, beyond the reach of Athenian law. (Theseus and everybody else expects them to.) Hermia tells Helena, who
tells Demetrius so that he will love her again. Hermia and Lysander go to the woods, where Demetrius follows them, and Helena
follows him.
In the forest, Oberon and Titania, the king and queen of fairyland, have argued over
who will raise an orphaned Indian boy. Oberon sends Puck to find a magic purple flower. Cupid's arrow, aimed at Queen Elizabeth,
was diverted and it hit the flower (a pansy). Now the flower's juice, when put on the sleeper's eyes, will make the person
fall in love with the first person they see. Puck brings the flower to Oberon, and he quickly applies some of it on Titania’s
eyes. After that Oberon tells Puck to put some more of it on Demetrius’s eyes, so that when he wakes up, and sees Helena
he will love her instead.
Meanwhile Hermia and Lysander walk into a clearing, and fall asleep a little way apart
from each other. Puck thinks Lysander is Demetrius and puts the love juice in his eyes. Helena then walks into the clearing
and sees Lysander, and thinks he may be hurt, so wakes him up. Lysander sees Helena and instantly falls in love with her.
Some skilled labourers have gone into the woods to rehearse a play for the wedding.
They rewrite it, replacing the lovers' parents by "the moon" and "a wall". Puck puts a donkey head on Bottom the weaver. Titania,
awakening, falls in love with him. (In Elizabethan times, the male donkey was proverbial for his generous sexual endowment.)
Demetrius and Lysander meet Helena and Hermia. Oberon sees what has happened, and
tells Puck to separate the two men, which he does by using ventriloquism. Lysander is lost in the dark and decides to sleep
it out. Demetrius is tired and rests, and Puck applies the love juice. Oberon applies the antidote to Lysander and Titania.
Demetrius wakes up and falls in love with Helena. Theseus enters, the now properly-paired lovers are united, and everybody
is happy. The humans wonder how much of the nights events have been real, and how much was a dream. The labourers perform
their play-within-a-play. Although it's bad, Theseus and the others appreciate the sincerity and effort.
Romeo And Juliet
For many years, an on-going feud between two families has caused much disruption in the city of Verona, Italy. The Capulets
and the Montagues cannot seem to get along, and there have been many deaths among the two families because of it. Prince Escalus
of Verona warns the two families that if the feud does not stop, the punishment will be death.
The stage opens with servants of the Capulet and Montague families. They get into a minor argument. Romeo, a Montague,
enters the stage. He has recently been denied the love of Rosaline. He is miserable over this. His friend and cousin, Benvolio,
enters and decides that they will go to the Capulet feast, in disguises, so he can prove to Romeo that other pretty women
exist. They all exit. At the feast, Romeo meets Juliet, the daughter of Capulet. Instantly, they fall in love. After the feast,
Romeo sneaks into the Capulet orchard and visits Juliet. Here, they proclaim their love for each other. They decide to marry
the next afternoon and they exit the stage. Romeo and his friend and confidant, Friar Laurence, enter. Romeo seeks the help
of Friar Laurence, who agrees to marry Romeo and Juliet, in hopes that the marriage will end the feud between the two families.
They exit.
Later that afternoon, Tybalt, a nephew of Lady Capulet, enters. He meets Romeo and starts a fight with him, as he is angry
that Romeo was at the Capulet feast. Mercutio, a friend of Romeo's, is angered by Tybalt and challenges him to a duel. Tybalt
kills Mercutio, and Romeo in response, kills Tybalt. He quickly flees the scene before he hears that the Prince has exiled
him from Verona. All exit.
Romeo and the friar enter. Hiding in Friar Laurence's cell, Romeo tries to commit suicide. The friar will not allow Romeo
to take his own life, and convinces him to go and see Juliet to say goodbye to her.
Capulet enters and arranges for Juliet to marry Paris in three days. She refuses, but her father says he will disown her
if she does not comply. They exit and Juliet enters in the friar's cell. He gives her a potion that will make it appear as
though she is dead. She exits. She reenters the stage (now at home) and agrees to marry Paris. Her father is so delighted
with her obedience that he decides to move the wedding up one day, to the very next day (Wednesday). All exit. The next morning,
Nurse enters and finds Juliet in her bed, apparently dead. The Capulets all enter with Paris and decide to have a funeral.
All exit. Romeo, who is in Mantua, enters. His servant Balthasar enters and tells Romeo that Juliet is dead. Balthasar exits.
Romeo doesn't know that it is a fake death because he never gets the message from the friar. He buys a vial of poison from
an apothecary and returns to Verona.
Romeo enters at the Capulet tomb and sees Juliet (apparently) dead. Paris, who had entered previously, but had been hiding,
recognizes Romeo as a Montague and challenges him. Romeo kills him, drinks the poison he bought, and dies. Just as Juliet
wakes up from the potion the friar gave her, the friar enters the tomb. He hears noises and tries to persuade Juliet to leave
with him. She refuses, sees Romeo dead next to her, stabs herself with Romeo's sword, and dies. The Capulets, Montagues, and
the Prince of Verona all enter the tomb and wonder what went on. Friar Laurence explains the story, and the Capulets and Montagues
agree to end their family feud.
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Hamlet
The king's outrageous reaction to the performance (which Horatio also notices) convinces Hamlet
of his guilt. Shortly afterwards, Claudius privately expresses his disgust at what he has done, and offers up a prayer of
repentance. Hamlet discovers him at prayer, and prepares to kill him, but then stops, reasoning that he does not want his
revenge to have the result of sending the repentant Claudius to heaven. In a double irony, after Hamlet slips away, Claudius
concludes that he is unable to repent in his current state of mind; thus, if Hamlet had not attempted to arrogate to himself
the destiny of Claudius's soul, rather than just his life, he would have gotten the ultimate justice he sought, though he
would have gone beyond the ghost's orders.
Hamlet confronts his mother about the murder of his father and her sexual relations with her new husband, and during their
conversation, he stabs Polonius, the king's Polish-born councillor, who has been hiding behind a tapestry, thinking it may
have been the King. King Hamlet's ghost makes a reappearance to chastise Hamlet for abusing his mother. The king, who has
realised that Hamlet knows about the murder he committed, sends Hamlet to England with a message to the English ordering his
death. On the way to England, Hamlet's ship is attacked by pirates, who take Hamlet prisoner but then return him to Denmark.
Meanwhile, Hamlet's romantic partner Ophelia goes mad, having been already disturbed by Hamlet's feigned rejection of her,
and by the death of Polonius, her father. She sings a number of rustic melodies that Shakespeare may have pilfered from the
English folk tradition. In what may have been a suicide attempt, she falls into a river and drowns. Hamlet, returning from
his voyage, meets Horatio in a graveyard outside Elsinore just as Ophelia's funeral cortege arrives there. Hamlet finds the
skull of Yorick (see skull as a symbol), and proclaims of it, "Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft."
Laertes, son of Polonius and brother of Ophelia, who is standing in an open grave when Hamlet lands on top of him, is determined
to kill Hamlet in revenge for the havoc that has been wreaked on his family. He and Claudius engineer a scheme to kill Hamlet
while making the death look like an accident. To this end, Claudius instructs Laertes to challenge Hamlet to a fencing match.
Unknown to Hamlet, Laertes will be fighting with a sharpened and poisoned foil, instead of the customary blunted blade. In
addition, Claudius prepares some poisoned wine for Hamlet to drink as a toast, in the event that Laertes is unable to hit
him.
While waiting for the match, Hamlet and Horatio jest with the diffident fop Oswald. After Hamlet wins the first two rounds
of the match, Gertrude inadvertently drinks the poisoned wine. Hamlet is pricked with the sword and fatally poisoned, but
in the ensuing brawl, he swaps blades with Laertes, and deals a deep wound to Laertes with the poisoned sword. Laertes dies
from the poison, and in his dying breaths, Laertes confesses the whole plot to Hamlet. Enraged, Hamlet kills Claudius with
the poisoned weapon, finally avenging his father's death.
Horatio, horrified at the turn of events, seizes the poisoned wine and proposes to join his friend in death, but Hamlet
wrestles the cup away from him and orders him to tell the true story of the royal family's troubles to the world at large,
thus restoring Hamlet's good name. Hamlet also recommends that the Norwegian prince, Fortinbras, be chosen as the rightful
successor to the Danish throne. Hamlet dies, and Horatio mourns his passing
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The Comedy Of Errors
The play opens with Aegeon, a merchant of Syracuse, being arrested in Ephesus because of enmity between
Ephesus and Syracuse. Aegeon tells Solinus, the Duke of Ephesus, his tale: he was shipwrecked many years ago while sailing
with his wife, Aemilia, and two pairs of identical twins—their twin sons, both named Antipholus, and twin servants,
both named Dromio. In the course of the storm, his wife, one of their sons, and one their servants, were lost. At eighteen,
Aegeon had allowed the remaining Antipholus and Dromio to leave Syracuse for Ephesus to search for their long-lost twins,
at which point both of them had disappeared as well. After five years, Aegeon had come to Ephesus to find them.
Solinus, moved by the old man's tale, postpones Aegeon's sentence; Aegeon has until nightfall to produce a
ransom, or he will be put to death. At this point in the action, Antipholus of Syracuse arrives in Ephesus, and the farce
commences as everyone—including the twins themselves—confuses the identities of the twins. Antipholus of Syracuse
ends up invited to dinner at the home of Antipholus of Ephesus and dines with his twin's wife, Adriana. Meanwhile, Angelo,
a merchant, gives a gold chain commissioned by Antipholus of Ephesus to Antipholus of Syracuse by mistake, telling him he'll
come back later for payment. When Antipholus of Ephesus refuses to pay later on, Angelo has him arrested. All this time, Adriana
and her sister, Luciana, are convinced that Antipholus and Dromio (of Ephesus) have gone mad, which leads them to forcibly
restrain them and take them to a doctor.
Of course, when Adriana later encounters Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse, she thinks they've escaped from
the doctor. The pair from Syracuse are forced to flee into a nearby abbey for refuge. In the meantime, Antipholus and Dromio
of Ephesus do escape from the doctor, and arrive to petition the Duke as Aegeon is being led to his death. In the midst of
everyone trying to tell their varying accounts of the day, Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse arrive with the abbess—who
turns out to be Aemilia, Aegeon's long-lost wife. The twins all sort out their stories in the presence of the Duke. In the
end, Aegeon is released from his death sentence and reunited with his wife and sons, Antipholus of Syracuse is set to marry
Luciana, and all has been put to right.
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