ABSTRACT
At the end of Richard II, Shakespeare's ambitious figures become versions of primal criminals such as Oedipus and Cronus, whose myths associate father/son rivalry with political rebellion. The Henry IV plays use this association to study the evolution of filial identity, the individual's imperative and dangerous growth toward sovereignty. The rebels in the Henry IV plays suffer their own versions of the ambitious syndrome when they try to replace the reigning king. In I Henry IV, Hotspur and Worcester discuss in suggestive terms the news that Northumberland will not appear for the battle. In 2 Henry IV, the implication that rebellion is born only through a dangerous distortion of the procreative process becomes more explicit. Lord Bardolph worries that unless Northumberland's forces arrive, the rebellion will resemble a man's 'part-created' construction that must be left 'A naked subject to the weeping clouds' of 'churlish winter's tyranny.
