摘要

Henry IV is an important figure in Shakespeare’s history plays. Many of his personalities and ways of governing the state echo the Italian politician Machiavelli’s ideas of a good prince, who should be a fierce lion as well as an astute fox. But Henry IV is not a completely Machiavellian prince. His melancholy reflects Shakespeare’s concerns about the legal inheritance of the throne, which is essentially different from Machiavelli’s practical morality.