English 211
Quiz #6: Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 1, Acts III-V
1) Edmund Mortimer and his wife, Owen Glendower's daughter, have a communications problem. What is it?
2) Before the battle (IV.ii), Falstaff admits that he has done something wrong in his position as commander of a detatchment of footsoldiers. In your own words, what has he done?
3) In the course of the battle, the same man is "killed" twice. By which two combatants is he "killed" and how is that possible?
Extra Credit: What abstract quality ("X" below) does John Falstaff describe in this speech?
"Can X set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. X hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is X? A word. What is in that word X? What is that X? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o'Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. 'Tis insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it; X is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism."
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