William Shakespeare's "Richard II" was first presented at the Globe Theatre in London on this day in 1601

 "Our poems

like milestones

must line the road."

By Hickmet, translated by John Berger, in ' I WOULD SOFTLY TELL MY LOVE', Jan., 2002

岡特的約翰：“六個冬天算什麼？它們很快就過去了。” 博林布魯克：“對人們來說，歡樂只是一小時，但悲傷卻使一小時變成十小時。” ——威廉‧莎士比亞的《理查二世》於 1601 年的今天在倫敦環球劇院首次上演 威廉·莎士比亞在他的第二輪歷史劇創作中達到了作為藝術家的輝煌成熟期。憑藉精彩的戰鬥場面；他們出色的主要角色和次要角色；他們關於野心、篡奪、罪惡感和救贖的故事；以及對社會秩序的深刻思考，這些劇作充分展現了伊莉莎白時期的歷史劇魅力。由於《亨利四世》第一部分和第二部分，我們的文學以放蕩而自負的騎士約翰·福斯塔夫爵士的形象創造了舞台史上最偉大的喜劇作品之一。本卷包含理查二世；亨利四世，第一部；亨利四世，第二部；亨利五世；和亨利八世。該文本由西爾萬·巴內特（Sylvan Barnet）權威編輯，並附有文本註釋、參考書目、莎士比亞生平和時代的詳細年表、蘭開斯特家族和約克家族的有用家譜，以及一份內容豐富的介紹，其中著名學者托尼·坦納（Tony Tanner）對每部戲劇進行了單獨討論並結合莎士比亞的作品進行了討論

John of Gaunt: "What is six winters? they are quickly gone."

Bolingbroke: "To men in joy; but grief makes one hour ten."

--from William Shakespeare's "Richard II" was first presented at the Globe Theatre in London on this day in 1601

William Shakespeare arrived at his splendid maturity as an artist in his second cycle of history plays. With their superb battle scenes; their magnificent major and minor characters; their stories of ambition, usurpation, guilt, and redemption; and their profound ideas about the social order, these plays represent the Elizabethan historical drama in its full glory. And thanks to parts one and two of Henry IV our literature is graced—in the figure of the dissolute and boastful knight Sir John Falstaff—with one of the greatest comic creations in the history of the stage. This volume contains Richard II; Henry IV, Part One; Henry IV, Part Two; Henry V; and Henry VIII. The texts, authoritatively edited by Sylvan Barnet, are supplemented with textual notes, a bibliography, a detailed chronology of Shakespeare’s life and times, a helpful family tree of the Houses of Lancaster and York, and a substantial introduction in which acclaimed scholar Tony Tanner discusses each play individually and in the context of Shakespeare’s oeuvre.