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प्रश्न
Based on your reading of King Richard’s speech, answer the following questions in about 100 - 150 words each. You may add your own ideas if required to present and justify your point of view.
How are eternal truths and wisdom brought to the reader here?
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उत्तर
Human’s glorious life gets reduced to graves, epitaphs, and worms. Men are left with nothing but their mortal remains to gift to the earth. The earth only serves as a paste and cover to the dead bodies. Great kings too have had inglorious death. Duncan was killed in bed. Hamlet was poisoned to death. Macbeth was slain in the war. Death gives freedom to monarchs from monarchizing the country.
The king realizes with a shudder that Death has occupied a prominent position right inside the crown. He scoffs at the pomp and show of the temporal kings. Even the most powerful monarch who feels as strong as a brass castle is brought down by just a pinprick of death. Death is a great leveler who makes kings believe that they are also ordinary mortals with wants, need for friends, and the need to taste grief.
“Life is a brief intermission between Birth and Death. Enjoy it.”
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संबंधित प्रश्न
Guess what friendly words these two gentlemen exchange when shaking hands.
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Explain the following line with reference to the context.
There will be no thrice.
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The poet is satisfied just watching the heroic deeds of others. What could be the reason?
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- connected together
- spread over the surface of the ground in a straggling manner
- make out or understand
- slender woody shoots growing from branches or stems of trees
Explain the following line with reference to the context in about four to five sentence each.
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Their thoughts I cannot measure.
Read the poem once again. Identify the rhyme scheme and pick out the rhyming pairs of words.
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Why does the poet think that the birds were happy?
The poet experiences sadness because ______.
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Read the given line and answer the question that follow.
Honour is a property, common to all: In dignity and pride no one need to be poor.
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- Name a few wars and battles you have read about.
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The historical background:
The poem is an extract from William Shakespeare’s play King Richard the Second. The play is based on true events that occurred towards the end of the 14th century.
Richard II was crowned the King of England in the year 1367. He continued to be the British Monarch until 1399, when he was deposed by his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, who crowned himself King Henry the Fourth in the same year. Shakespeare’s play is a dramatic rendition of the last two years of King Richard II’s life. In this brief span of time, he was ousted from his royal position and sent to prison, where he died in captivity.
The following extract is set in the Coast of Wales. King Richard and some of his followers awaited the arrival of the Welsh army [after facing defeat at the hands of his cousin, Bolingbroke], of about 10000 warriors. But to their shock and surprise, they received the message that the army was not coming to their rescue. His followers tried to boost their King’s courage against the news, only in vain. When Richard came face to face with the reality of his terrible fate, he spoke the following verse, famously known as the “Hollow Crown” speech in theatrical circles. In it, King Richard is reminded of the power of Death that overshadows everything else, including the power of rulers, and renders them as powerless as any commoner at a moment’s notice.
What do the three words, ‘graves, worms and epitaphs’, refer to?
What hides within the crown and laughs at the king’s grandeur?
Explain the following line with reference to the context in about 5 to 8 line:
“How can you say to me, I am a king?”
Read the poem once again carefully and identify the figure of speech that has been used in each of the following line from the poem:
“And yet not so – for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?”
Based on your reading of King Richard’s speech, answer the following questions in about 100 - 150 words each. You may add your own ideas if required to present and justify your point of view.
What are the causes for King Richard’s grief?
