Henry IV Part 2 begins with a speech by an allegorical figure named Rumor. Rumor is not a real human character in the play, but a figure who allegorically represents the concept of gossip. Shakespeare uses Rumor to illustrate the various rumors that have spread through London concerning the battle depicted at the end of Henry IV Part 1. Rumor states:
Open your ears, for which of you will stop
The vent of hearing when loud Rumor speaks?
I, from the orient to the drooping west,
Making the wind my post-horse, still unfold
The acts commencèd 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.
Rumor addresses the audience directly, commanding those listening to “open” their ears and bragging that nobody can stop his spread. He claims that his sphere of influence is global, from “orient to the drooping west,” and that the wind itself serves as his “post-horse,” conveying his messages quickly across the globe “in every language.” Overall, Shakespeare presents Rumor as a negative figure who slanders good men and “wounds the world” with his “false reports.”
The King meets with one of his allies, the Earl of Warwick, to discuss the ongoing rebellion lead by the Percy family. In their conversation, the King and Earl invoke the allegorical figure of the “body politic,” or in other words, a body that symbolizes the Kingdom:
KING
Have you read o’er the letter that I sent you?WARWICK
We have, my liege.KING
Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
How foul it is, what rank diseases grow,
And with what danger near the heart of it.WARWICK
It is but as a body yet distempered,
Which to his former strength may be restored
With good advice and little medicine.
The King suggests that “rank diseases” have grown in “the body of our kingdom,” or in other words, England. Not only has this body grown “foul,” but so too have these diseases reached the “heart” of the body. Warwick, however, insists that the body of the state is not yet fatally injured, but rather, “distempered.” Furthering the King’s allegory, Warwick suggests that the body may be “restored” to his “former strength” if it is given some “good advice and a little medicine.” Here, the King and Earl articulate their contrasting opinions with different portrayals of the body politic, a notable motif that runs throughout the play; while the pessimistic King feels that the body is dying, the Earl maintains that it will recover from the brief illness that is the rebellion.
