HENRY IV, PART 1
The following material is based upon an audio lecture available on the web page for English 154. Although this text material is not identical to the audio lecture, it is essentially the same information. You should have read the play before you begin this lecture. The text referred to is the Folger Library paperback edition of the play, a book you should have open as you read this material.
INTRODUCTION
Date of the Play
Henry IV, Part 1 was probably written in 1596-97, first performed at that time and then officially registered in 1598. Almost as soon as the play appeared, Elizabethans started commenting on it, especially the memorable character of Falstaff. Shakespeare’s reputation was growing, his company doing well enough so that in a year or two they would be able to move into their new theater, the Globe. It was around this time that Shakespeare’s father, John, was granted a coat-of-arms, undoubtedly due to his son’s prominence in London society. William and John were officially given the title of “gentlemen,” authorized to be addressed with a “Mister” and an “Esquire” and accepted into the recognized upper class. To better understand this remarkable play, we need to place it in a larger context.
The Second Tetralogy
When he first began writing for the stage, in the late 1580’s, Shakespeare had written a interrelated group of four plays, called a tetralogy. These history plays covered a 50-year period of intense conflict in 15th Century England, first with a protracted war in France and then with a bloody civil war, the War of the Roses. The four plays culminated in one of Shakespeare’s first big successes, Richard III. These plays had covered a lot of historical events with an emphasis on physical action (battles, murders, etc.) and with characters who were vividly drawn but rather two-dimensional.
Then in the mid 1590’s Shakespeare returned to his examination of English history with this remarkable second tetralogy: Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V. This set of plays is like a prequel to the histories he had written earlier, like a George Lucas’ film that does back to show us how Darth Vader turned to the Dark Side. The four plays were written between 1595 – 1599, and they trace the fortunes of the English throne over a period of about 20 years before King Henry VI ascended to the throne. More particularly, Shakespeare’s tetralogy creates an arc beginning with an inept monarch, Richard II, who is forced from the throne and in the process discovers his own humanity. It ends with the triumph of England’s greatest king, Henry V, who vanquishes the French and unites the kingdoms of France and England. While this set of plays also contains a lot of battles and other physical action, the emphasis is really on the psychological effects of political power and the consequences among people of all social classes. The tetralogy also looks closely at an issue which obsessed people in those days: how is a great king educated? That is the focus of the two Henry IV plays. When you lived in an absolute monarchy, the psychological state and moral values of the ruler were of enormous importance, so you really wanted to know what made the difference between one king and another. Shakespeare’s audience knew that Henry V would be the “mirror of all Christian kings,” the greatest of all English monarchs. What was it in his experience as a youth that made it possible for him to attain such success? It’s important to remember that everyone in Shakespeare’s audience knew how the story would come out, so they were looking for hints of Prince Henry’s future greatness.
Sources of the Play
As with all of Shakespeare’s plays about English history, the primary source was the Chronicles of England, a massive compilation by Holinshed of legends, stories, character sketches and morality tales based on English history. It was from Holinshed that Shakespeare got the basic historical events and some ideas about most of the major characters. In addition, he consulted a long historical poem about this historical period, The First Four Books of the Civil War Between the Houses of Lancaster and York by Samuel Daniel. From Daniel in particular, Shakespeare took the idea of an intense competition between Hal and Hotspur. In addition to these specific literary sources, there was a very strong tradition of folklore about the wild youth of Prince Hal, how he drank, caroused and even broke the law on occasion. Shakespeare incorporated these tales in the character of the “playboy Prince” at the beginning of the play.
At this point we need to remember that Shakespeare’s attitude toward history was not the same as ours. Whereas a modern historian is expected to rely on accurate data in order to make judgments about the past, Shakespeare never let facts get in the way of a good story. People in those days routinely twisted history to score political or moral points. As a general rule in the histories, Shakespeare would simplify the complexities of events; he would take a few relevant details and use them to spin a clear, easily grasped conflict. He would compress the period of time in which things took place; the events alluded to in this play actually happened over several years, but without being too exact about the time, Shakespeare creates the illusion that things are taking place very quickly. When he needed to, he would create fictional details, events and even characters. For example, in historical reality, Hotspur was the same age as Hal’s father; to heighten the conflict Shakespeare makes Hal and Hotspur the same age. In point of fact there is no proof that the 16 year-old prince killed the great warrior Hotspur in single combat in the battle at Shrewsbury; Shakespeare makes Hal’s victory over Percy the dramatic climax of the play. Actually, there was no character named “Sir John Falstaff” that misled the youthful Hal into a life of sin; Shakespeare not only created the character out of whole cloth but then gave him a name that, while it referred to a real person, was totally irrelevant.
Characters
One of the things that makes this play one of the best that Shakespeare wrote is the vividness of the characters. They were so successful that many of them reappeared in other plays. In fact the only sequel that Shakespeare ever wrote was his comedy Merry Wives of Windsor which he reportedly wrote specifically at the request of Queen Elizabeth because she so enjoyed the character of Falstaff and his comic cohorts, despite the fact that he had killed almost all of them off in Henry V. Let’s look at the major characters.
Hal: Technically he is Henry of Monmouth, the Prince of Wales, but everyone calls him Hal in the opening scenes. At first he appears to be a blank tablet, a young man who just hangs out with his friends and seems easily swayed by whatever they suggest. The audience, of course, knew he would emerge as an almost supernatural figure in English history, King Henry V. He would not rule for very long, nor did he achieve especially important developments in the government of the realm. But he did what the English people believed was the greatest thing of all – kick the crap out of the French. For this, he was widely hailed as the finest of monarchs. Hal is shown to have an adversarial relationship with his father, the King. For the parent he seems to have rejected, he appears to have adopted a father-figure – the Lord of Misrule, Falstaff. In reality, Hal is shown to be a very smart, calculating figure who finds himself in the cross-hairs of history and is working feverishly to figure out how to survive. Everyone around him points to different models for how he should behave; he will make his own decisions and carve out a path of his own. Hal is very quick-witted and irreverent, trading constant jests with Falstaff and his other low-life friends. Despite facing terrible dangers, he refuses to take his plight seriously – until he changes at his own time and in his own way.
King Henry: We see the making of this monarch from Richard II through his death at the end of Henry IV, Part 2. He is a very serious, ambitious power seeker, even when he is friendless and hunted. He is the quintessential politician, masking his feelings and using language as a manipulation. Henry seems to take little pleasure in anything other than the retention of power. He certainly lacks Hotspur’s intense joy in battle and winning honor, nor does he have any of Falstaff’s enormous appetite for life. Henry does portray a profoundly disappointed parent, as almost any father of a teenager can relate to. Shakespeare uses Henry to portray the elaborately formal language and ritual of the royal court; he also uses Henry to illustrate the ways in which political people shade the truth and hold on to power.
Hotspur: Henry Percy, the heir of a powerful noble family from northern England, is nicknamed “Hotspur.” That name suggests some of the dominant qualities about this great warrior. He is quick to anger or irritation; he is a man of action who lives for the glory of battle and the winning of honor. He is also rash and ill-considered in many of his actions; he has all the social skills of a raging bull. He believes himself to be plain-spoken and ordinary in his language, but in reality he is incredibly eloquent and has the power to inspire others to share his vision and act on his command. There is much about Hotspur that is very attractive and we come to understand why people like the King hold him up as a model for the Prince to emulate. But we also see his short-comings and he is in some respects the worst kind of person to be the future king of the country. Like King Henry or Falstaff, Hotspur is given a particular personality that is reflected in his language.
Falstaff: He is “Sir John Falstaff,” a legitimate knight of the realm, a man trained from his youth to be one of the stalwart pillars of that society. Very early on in his life, however, something went terribly wrong or wonderfully right, depending on your point of view. Falstaff has never done an honest day’s work. He lives down in the taverns and brothels of the London underworld, making a kind of living through petty theft, scams and borrowing money for drinks. In his own mind he is a desperado, a romantic master criminal. Falstaff is wildly witty and inventive and absolutely irresponsible. He has a free-ranging imagination that enables him to take any challenge and turn it into a game. The figure of Falstaff seems to owe a lot to the stock figure of Vice in the morality plays of the late medieval period. (You can read more about the morality plays in the Shakespeare background material on the course web site.) The character of Vice in the allegories that made up the morality plays was usually a very comic figure who made no secret of his sins but would come up with very inventive excuses for his excesses. Vice was also often shown as a misleader of impressionable youth. Falstaff not only fits the part; in several places in the text he is literally identified with the character. At the same time Falstaff represents a kind of celebration of life, the glory of throwing off social constraints and artificial goals. He is the polar opposite of Hotspur, except that the two figures, both models for Prince Hal to consider, share a number of qualities.
Almost from the beginning Falstaff captured the imagination of the age. There are many references to him among Shakespeare’s contemporaries and over the centuries he seems to have taken on a life of his own. When people act as if a literary creation is a human being with the power to make certain choices and behave with free will, you know that original creation was a success. Falstaff almost from the beginning became Shakespeare comic masterpiece. There are some very interesting connections with real life in this character’s background. First, his name in the original version of the play was “Sir John Oldencastle.” We know this from contemporary records, from traces of the name in an early quarto and from a reference in Act I of the current text of the play. There was a historic John Oldencastle, and his descendents were politically powerful in Shakespeare’s time. They objected to the perceived slander on the family name, so “Oldencastle” gave way to “Falstaff,” a fortuitous choice with its suggestion of failing male virility. (Interestingly, there was also a “Sir John Falstaff” in the 1400’s, a man who was executed for heresy and was honored by the Puritans as a pre-Reformation martyr, but Shakespeare got away with the revision.) The other real life connection is one the Shakespearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt made recently in his work Will in the World. Greenblatt argues that the real life model for John Falstaff was Shakespeare’s fellow dramatist Robert Greene. He was the wit who branded Shakespeare an “upstart crow” and accused him of stealing his ideas from his social betters. (There’s more about Greene and his connection to Shakespeare in the background section on the class web site.)
Not only are the major characters in this play vivid and engaging, the secondary figures have a particular vitality as well. Whether it is Hotspur’s conniving uncle Worcester, who understands how to push his nephew’s hot buttons, or the pompous yet mysterious Welsh freedom fighter, Owen Glendower, the characters have something that sets them apart. That identifying quality may be physical, as with Falstaff’s companion Bardolph who has a red bulbous nose from a lifetime of heavy drinking, or it may be psychological, as with Hotspur’s long-suffering wife, Kate, who tries to deal rationally with her husband but always grows so exasperated she is reduced to treating him as a wayward child.
Interconnections
It is not just the memorable characters in this play, the structure of the work is really amazing. At first glance we seem to have two separate worlds – the court of the King and the tavern with Falstaff – and there is little in the way of connection. (It’s interesting that King Henry doesn’t even know who Falstaff is.) Upon closer examination we find all kinds of parallels among seemingly disparate characters and events. I’ll mention just a few to watch for. The play is structured around two major events which have far-reaching ramifications – the rebellion by the Percy family and the robbery of some travelers at Gad’s Hill. In both cases, the actions are in direct violation of the law of the land. Those involved in each event end up being betrayed by those they trusted. Each criminal act is led by a charismatic, eloquent figure, Hotspur and Falstaff. Both have a habit of exaggerating feats of derring-do and combat against all odds. Both forget names while telling a story and getting very irritated as a result. And both of these characters are held up as models for possible emulation by young Prince Hal. At the climatic point in the play, Hal will literally stand between the two men.
The play is a fascinating series of juxtapositions. King Henry begins the play with a vision of a harmonious nation, but each of the other characters challenges that vision. Watch how the conflicts between fathers and sons play out in the drama. Falstaff and the King exist in two different worlds, but Falstaff does a brilliant parody of Henry’s pomposity, and the King shares Falstaff’s profound sense of disappointment in the Prince. “Honor” is a key concept in the play: notice how Falstaff, Hotspur and Hal each define it in their own way. Other key words that appear at various places in the text and recall the other characters are action and vanity. This is a play filled with echoes which help us draw sometimes startling connections and challenge us to examine our moral absolutes.
Productions
Unfortunately there aren’t many productions of this play available. The main one is a BBC production of about 25 years ago on video. It starred Anthony Quayle as Falstaff, Tim Piggott-Smith as Hotspur, Jon Finch as King Henry and David Gwillim as Prince Hal. It’s good for a straight-forward presentation of the story. Two other films use the story of the play in imaginative ways. Orson Wells did a film back in the 1950’s that combined the material in both Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2 to explore the Falstaff-Hal relationship: Chimes at Midnight. More recently the indie film maker, Gus Van Sant, made a film about a young drifter and an older wastrel called My Private Idaho. Now to the play itself.
Act I, Scene 1
This scene introduces us to the title character, King Henry IV, and establishes the political challenges which face him, soon after he had usurped the throne and had himself crowned. At one level it is a straight-forward dramatization of a conversation between King Henry and his chief military advisor, the Earl of Westmoreland. Beneath the surface, however, is an elaborate political subtext. The king begins by affirming his intention to fulfill his promise to lead a Crusade to the Holy Land, made when news of the death of the previous king, Richard, under mysterious circumstances became public. However, Henry learns of alarming developments at home which preclude his plan to leave his throne to fight in Jerusalem. The king’s speech is very formal because he is making a public declaration to his court. What pronoun indicates to us that this is an official statement? What has just concluded? What is the elaborate way by which Henry tells us the approximate date? What are the two military threats he faces? [Act I, Scene 1, lines 1 – 61]
SCENE I. London. The palace. Enter KING HENRY, LORD
JOHN OF LANCASTER, the EARL of WESTMORELAND, SIR WALTER BLUNT, and
others KING HENRY IV: So shaken as we
are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant [catch
her breath],
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands [shores] afar
remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
Nor more shall trenching [digging a trench] war
channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors [signs of celestial
upset] of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine [internal] shock
And furious close [hand-to-hand combat] of
civil butchery
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming [orderly]
ranks,
March all one way and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred and allies.
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulcher of Christ [in
Jerusalem],
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engaged [conscripted and
pledged] to fight,
Forthwith a power [army] of English shall we
levy;
Whose arms were molded in their mothers' womb
To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose now is twelve month old,
And bootless [useless] 'tis to tell you we
will go:
Therefore we meet not now [That’s not the
point of our meeting]. Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin [noble kinsman] Westmoreland,
What yesternight our council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience
[urgent enterprise]. WESTMORELAND: My liege, this haste was hot in question [being discussed],
And many limits of the charge [apportionment
of the task] set down
But yesternight; when all athwart [interfering]
there came
A post [messenger] from Wales loaden with
heavy news;
Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild [guerilla
fighter] Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
A thousand of his people butchered;
Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done as may not be
Without much shame retold or spoken of. KING HENRY IV:
It seems then that the tidings of this broil
Brake off our business for the Holy Land. WESTMORELAND: This, match'd with other, did, my gracious lord;
For more uneven and unwelcome news
Came from the north and thus it did import:
On Holy-rood Day [September 14], the gallant
Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon met, where they did spend
A sad and bloody hour,
As by discharge of their artillery,
And shape of likelihood [probability] the
news was told;
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention [highpoint of
the battle]did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue [outcome] any way.
In the opening line here the pronoun provides us with a clue about what follows. When a monarch uses the royal “we,” he is making an official statement for public consumption. We see that pronoun signal again at lines 22 and 48. The other thing that makes this clearly a prepared communication by the king is the formality of his language. Henry begins by describing the civil war following his overthrow of King Richard, a conflict which has just concluded. He describes this fighting in an elaborate and vivid comparison called a conceit beginning at line 5. It likens the combat to literal self-destruction, the earth of England drinking its own children’s blood, the conflict digging up the flesh of the country, the war horses crushing the flowers. At line 9 it gets downright bizarre as Henry pictures the eyes of the opposing soldiers, like meteors signaling a cosmic upheaval, now finding peace and marching “all one way and be no more opposed.” The image of the eyeballs on parade is very strange! The point of the conceit is clear, though: civil war is terribly destructive of the nation.
At line 19 Henry now reminds his court of the solemn promise he had made a year before that he would atone for the death of Richard (who had been murdered while in Henry’s custody) by raising an army and going off to fight the Muslims who controlled Jerusalem. This idea of rescuing the Holy Land from the pagans was the professed purpose of the many crusades during the Middle Ages. (It also helps explain why so many people in the Middle East were shocked when George Bush announced that the invasion of Iraq was a “crusade.”) Notice how the king at line 25 identifies the Holy Land and at the same time gives us a general idea of the date – “Over whose acres walked those blessed feet/ Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed/ For our advantage on the bitter cross.” That is, 1400 A.D. Henry makes it clear at line 30 that he is not changing his plans – he’s leaving for the front right now and has asked Westmoreland to make it happen!
Westmoreland drops the apparent bombshell that there is trouble brewing at home. An English army has been defeated in Wales and its commander, a man named Mortimer, has been captured. Here’s a brief history lesson: England has always had difficulties with its neighbors, and throughout the centuries often when there was internal conflict in the nation, Ireland, Scotland and Wales used that opportunity to strike back at what they saw has their oppressors. These hostilities continue right up to this day in the tensions over Northern Ireland and the establishment of a separate Scottish parliament. For their part the English saw these traditional enemies as savages that required English dominance. So the leader of the Welsh forces, Glendower, is characterized as “wild and irregular”; he doesn’t fight according to the rules of chivalry, he must be uncivilized. In Wales Glendower is hailed as a liberator of his country, and when we meet him later in the play he is at greats pains to show the English how cultured and civilized he is. But, we are told at line 44 we are told of the “beastly shameless transformation” done by the Welsh women on the corpses of the English dead – the Englishmen were probably castrated. Westmoreland adds this detail to emphasize for the English court how uncivilized the Welsh are and, by implication, how terrible it is that they hold a noble Englishman, Mortimer, captive.
“Golly,” exclaims the apparent surprised monarch at line 47, “I guess this means I can’t go liberate Jerusalem. I’ve got to stay home and take care of business. Darn, and I had promised to lead that crusade!”
Westmoreland has more bad news. The Scots have also been busy causing trouble. A Scottish army invading Northern England met an English force led by a famous warrior, Harry Percy, nicknamed Hotspur. The messenger who brought the news has no idea how the battle turned out. This was a common problem in those days when information could only travel as fast as the speed of a horse. This double threat to the kingdom will really put the brakes on any plans to use the English army to go off thousands of miles to the Holy Land.
In the second part of this scene ask yourself what did King Henry know about all of this and when did he know it. What difference does it make? What are the political and personal implications of these two events? [Act I, Scene 1, line 62 – 107]
KING HENRY IV: Here is a dear, a true industrious
[loyally zealous]friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse.
Stained with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours
[the palace];
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited;
Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,
Balked [heaped up or thwarted] in their own
blood did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake the Earl of Fife, and eldest son
To beaten Douglas; and the Earl of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith:
And is not this an honorable spoil?
A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?
It is a conquest for a
prince to boast of. HENRY: Yea, there thou makest
me, sad and makest me sin
In envy that my Lord Northumberland
Should be the father to so blest a son,
A son who is the theme of honor's tongue,
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant;
Who is sweet Fortune's minion [companion] and her
pride:
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonor stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet [Henry’s
family name]!
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz
[cousin],
Of this young Percy's pride? The prisoners,
Which he in this adventure hath surprised [taken]
To his own use he keeps; and sends me word,
I shall have none but Mordake, Earl of Fife.
WESTMORELAND : This is his uncle's teaching,
this is Worcester,
Malevolent to you in all aspects [like
the influence of an evil planet],
Which makes him prune [preen, like a hawk] himself,
and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.
HENRY: But I have sent for him to answer this;
And for this cause awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.
Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windsor, so inform the lords:
But come yourself with speed to us again;
For more is to be said and to be done
Than out of anger can be uttered [stated
in public].
WESTMORELAND : I will, my liege. Exit
As this second part of this scene unfolds it becomes clear that King Henry knew about the battle with the Scots all along. He had received the news of the English victory from a second messenger, Sir Walter Blunt. Notice that he knows the exact details – 10,000 killed, of whom 22 were “knights” or members of the nobility, and the names of the titled captives, who will be ransomed at high price to finance the next war that the King decides to wage. At line 75 you can hear his excitement about the victory: “A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?” (By the way, in Shakespeare’s day the term “cousin” was used to denote any relative beyond an immediate family member; Westmoreland may be a distant relation to the king or just considered part of his extended family.) Henry knows the details of the victory including the troubling fact that the leader of his army, Harry Percy, a.k.a. “Hotspur,” will not give the King his prisoners to be ransomed. That payment was a major factor in financing wars, and Hotspur is violating the established protocol. Westmoreland declares the trouble stems from Hotspur’s uncle, Worcester, who envies the King and is always causing problems, like a malevolent planet.
So if King Henry was already aware of the difficulties that were going to keep him from leaving his throne to go off to Jerusalem, what were the first 61 lines of this scene all about? They were a form of political theater where a politician pretends that he wants to honor a commitment he has made but instead is “forced” by circumstances to break his campaign promise. “I know I promised to cut taxes, and I would, except my Secretary of the Treasury tells me that we cannot lower tax revenue at this time. We must fully fund our strategic missile system and NASA needs a dozen new toilets for the space station.” Henry knew all along he would not be going on a crusade. Besides these immediate challenges from the Welsh and Scots, Henry’s hold on the English throne (since he overthrew the previous king) is not that strong. He would be extremely foolish to run off to the Holy Land for two or three years and give his enemies a chance to overthrow him!
The threat of the Welsh and Scots, the defiance of Hotspur and the enmity of Worcester are all bad enough as challenges to Henry’s power. He has a personal problem as well – his son, also called “Harry” or Prince Hal. The proper place for a prince is at the front, leading a triumphant army. Instead “riot and dishonor strain the brow” of Prince Hal, who has a reputation as a wild playboy. The King is so upset with his son that he wishes publicly that it could be proven that Hal had been exchanged as a baby with Hotspur, something that fairies are alleged to do. This remarkable idea (something that parents have often wished about their teenagers) shows us two important things:
1.) Henry is so angry with the prince that he would gladly dump him. Later, in Act III Henry accuses Hal of plotting to fight against him in a rebellion, the worst thing a father might say to his own son; it’s important to keep in mind that Dad was the first one to contemplate betraying his offspring.
2.) The model for how a prince of the royal blood should act is Hotspur, at least in the minds of the members of the court. You can imagine Henry telling his son all the years he was growing up, “Why can’t you be more like Northumberland’s son, that Hotspur?” One of the interesting questions which this play will answer is why Hotspur is not someone a future king of England should model himself on.
As we leave this scene let’s list the qualities of King Henry that we have observed:
A.)In public situations, when he is making official pronouncements, he tends to be overly formal and long-winded, using elaborate conceits which he draws out in great detail so that everyone understands the point he’s making.
B.)There are occasions when he slips and we can see the genuine emotion behind the mask, such as when he tells about the victory at Holmedon or complains about Hal. But most of the time he is very tight-lipped.
C.)He is calculating. He goes through the charade of being forced to break his promise about the crusade when he had already decided to do just that. At the end of the scene, at line105, he tells us that he doesn’t want to reveal too much in the heat of his anger.
D.) He is really angry about his son.
Act I, Scene 2
This scene introduces us to the playboy prince, Hal, and his drinking buddy, Sir John Falstaff. Hall will come across as a self-absorbed hedonist whose greatest pleasure is putting down his friend; Falstaff, who is almost three times Hal’s age, comes across as a good-natured shirker who only worries about where his next drink is coming from and his reputation as a dangerous “gangsta.” However, just as the last scene had a subtext, a kind of alternative message beneath the literal meaning of the words, so too here. In the opening lines of this scene, what is it that Falstaff really wants from the future King of England? What is the message that Hal is giving Falstaff under all the jokes? [Act I, Scene 2, line 1 – 40]
London. Lodging of the Prince. Enter PRINCE and
FALSTAFF
FALSTAFF: Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad? HAL:
Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack [Spanish wine]
and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon
benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to
demand that truly which thou wouldst truly
know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time
of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and
minutes capons and clocks the tongues of bawds
and dials [sundials] the signs of leaping-houses[brothels], and
the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame- colored
taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be
so superfluous [irrelevant] to demand the time of
the day. FALSTAFF: Indeed,
you come near me now, Hal, for we that
take purses go by [travel at night or governed by] the moon and the seven
stars [Pleiades] and not by Phoebus [sun] he, “that wandering knight
so fair.” And, I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art
king, as, God save thy Grace -- Majesty I should say, for grace
thou wilt have none -- HAL:
What, none? FALSTAFF:
No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to
be prologue to an egg and butter. HAL:
Well, how then? Come, roundly, roundly [Get to the point] FALSTAFF
: Marry [mild oath] then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let
not us that are squires of the night's body [pun on “knight” and
“squire] be called thieves of the day's beauty. Let us be Diana's
[goddess of the moon and of the hunt for “booty”]
foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions [companions] of
the
moon; and let men say we be men of good government
[self-control],
being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and
chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we
steal [sneak/rob]. HAL:
Thou sayest well, and it holds well [makes sense] too, for the
fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and
flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is,
by the moon. As, for proof now: a purse of gold most resolutely
snatched on Monday night and most
dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with
swearing “Lay by” [“hands up”] and spent with crying “Bring
in;” [“drinks for all”]; now in as low an ebb
as the foot of the ladder,
and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows
The humor here is as rich and complex as any that Shakespeare ever wrote. On the surface two good friends are enjoying insulting each other with elaborate putdowns and literary allusions. The subtext is more pointed and serious. Here we go.
Falstaff starts by innocently asking what time it is. Hal’s response (lines 2 – 12) is a putdown of the old slacker; he, of all people, has no reason to be asking about the time. The elaborate insult tells us a lot about Falstaff’s way of life. First, he’s a drunk, imbibing a Spanish wine called “sack” and probably grabbing the drinks that people don’t finish (“old sack”). Falstaff often overeats and has to unbutton his britches, just like you do after Thanksgiving dinner. He frequently falls asleep on benches for his afternoon nap. It’s just wrong of him to ask what time it is. These two guys are very smart and quite irreverent, as we see at line 5: “thou hast forgotten/ to demand that truly which thou wouldst/ truly know.” When this play was written, London had a number of charismatic Puritan preachers who would attract great crowds to their sermons. The sermons were usually based upon about some pious aphorism, such as this. In several places in the play we hear Hal and Falstaff mock the piety of such moralists by using their stock phrases in situations that were hardly holy. (It might help you to get a flavor of this mockery by saying this line as if you were Pat Robertson; the Puritan preachers were the televangelists of their age.) The only way Falstaff would seriously be interested in the time of day is if hours were “cups of sack” and minutes were “capons” (the Elizabethan equivalent of KFC). In Falstaff’s world “bawds” (the people who worked as look-outs for prostitutes) were more important than clocks. In those days because most people were illiterate, commercial establishments, such as taverns and stores, had signs rather than names; so Falstaff’s favorite emporium, a whorehouse, might have a sundial for its sign. (How much more elegant the language was in those days – a brothel was called “a leaping house!”) The sun itself, arbiter of time, could be a working girl in an orange dress. Falstaff’s request for the time is simply “superfluous” or irrelevant to his life.
By my count there are about ten separate insults in Hal’s speech. You or I might react to this onslaught of invective by saying something clever, like, “Same to you, buddy.” Not Falstaff, he agrees with Hal, and launches into his own dissertation on time – the connection between the moon and his activities as a master criminal. Over the course of the three plays that Falstaff appears in we see that the extent of his criminal career is mostly just petty misdemeanors – swindling widows and rolling drunks. But he talks a good game, like a rapper who’s a gangster wannabe. For Falstaff mugging people is his vocation, but he feels it suffers from bad press. Robbery can be elevated if you associate it with Diana, the Roman goddess of the night and of the hunt. He rejects the sun as his moral model, using the Greek name “Phoebus,” and even quoting a line from a ballad (now lost) about “that wandering knight so fair” to make his comparison sound more classy. It isn’t until line16 that he gets around to returning the Prince’s insult: he refuses to use the phrase “Your Grace” that was normally used when addressing members of royalty, because, as he says in a wonderful pun, Hal doesn’t have enough “grace” (a pun on the prayer before a meal) to serve as the “prologue to an egg and butter.” We can imagine that such a combination is the smallest meal Falstaff can think of; it also explains his elevated cholesterol readings. At line 22 Hal urges Falstaff to get to the point he’s trying to make, but he does so with a clever reminder of the knight’s considerable girth – “Come, roundly, roundly.”
Falstaff’s point is a wonderful proposal. When Hal follows his father to the throne, he needs to decree that robbers will have new names. Because they operate at night (with a pun on “knight”), they are like knights’ assistants, called “squires” or “body squires.” So those who use the cover of darkness should be called “squires of the night’s body” rather than “thieves of the day’s beauty.” Call them “Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon.” Next time you get mugged when you’re out clubbing in the city, think of your assailants as “gentlemen of the shade”; it makes it much less traumatic. In fact these people aren’t criminals; they are simply responding to the influence of their “noble and chaste mistress, the moon,” much as the ocean’s tides do.
Hal does not disagree but picks up Falstaff’s idea and expands on it. He says he too is one of the “moon’s men,” and he develops a conceit on the idea of criminals behaving under lunar influence like the tides. He envisions a robber taking money on Monday night and spending his loot in a tavern or whorehouse on Tuesday morning. He gets the money by demanding “Lay by,” (“Drop your weapons and put up your hands”) and spends it by shouting “Bring in” (“Drinks for everyone.”) The third similarity between a life of crime and the tides is the fact that your sins bring you to “the foot of the ladder” leading up to the gallows and then propel you to “the ridge of the gallows” when you are hanged for your life of crime.
What is the subtext in this passage? There is a question which hangs over the seemingly happy friendship between the old reprobate and the young prince, a question that neither of them seems to want to address directly, so they explore it through their humor. What is the future of their relationship when Hal, as he must, becomes King? Falstaff wants reassurance that nothing will change, and Hal warns him, over and over, that the knight must eventually face the consequences of his choices. Behind Hal’s comic exaggeration in the speech at lines 2 – 12 is a warning that Falstaff is running out of time. Falstaff’s response, behind all the clever bandying of insults, is the serious question: ”What will happen to me when you become King?” To his credit, Prince Hal never tries to hide the future that his friend faces when he becomes responsible for enforcing England’s laws.
In this next sequence see how Falstaff initially tries to change the subject. Why? The knight keeps coming back to that central question of the future of their relationship. Where are a couple of places where he seeks some indication? Why does Falstaff become depressed? On what does he blame his current sinful life style? [Act I, Scene 2, lines 41 – 109]
FALSTAFF: By the Lord, thou sayest true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?
HAL: As the honey of Hybla [fine honey from Sicily] my old lad of the castle [Falstaff was originally “Oldencastle”]. And is not a buff jerkin [leather coat worn by a constable] a most sweet robe of durance?
FALSTAFF: How now, how now, mad wag! What, in thy quips and thy quiddities [witty mood]? What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?
HAL: Why, what a pox [syphilis] have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?
FALSTAFF: Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning [settling a bill] many a time and oft.
HAL: Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?
FALSTAFF: No; I'll give thee thy due. Thou hast paid all there.
HAL: Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and where it would not, I have used my credit.
FALSTAFF: Yea, and so used it that were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent--But, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? And resolution thus fubbed [the robber’s courage denied its reward] as it is with the rusty curb of old father Antic [“that old screwball”] the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.
FALSTAFF: Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave [first-rate] judge.
HAL: Thou judgest false already: I mean, thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman.
FALSTAFF: Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my
humor [fits my mood] as well as waiting in the court, I can
tell you.
HAL: For obtaining of suits [petitions for royal favor or clothes of those hanged]
FALSTAFF: Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman
hath no lean wardrobe. 'Sblood [short for “God’s blood”],
I am as melancholy as a gib-cat [tomcat] or
a lugged [teased] bear.
HAL: Or an old lion, or a lover's lute.
FALSTAFF: Yea, or the drone [whine] of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.
HAL: What sayest thou to a hare, or the melancholy of
Moorditch [open sewer in London]?
FALSTAFF: Thou hast the most unsavory similes and art indeed the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince. But, Hal, I prithee, trouble me no more with vanity [worldly considerations]. I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity [supply] of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the council rated [rebuked] me the other day in the street about you, sir, but I marked him not, and yet he talked very wisely, but I regarded him not, and yet he talked wisely, and in the street, too.
HAL: Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the
streets, and no man regards it [paraphrase of a verse from
Proverbs].
FALSTAFF: O, thou hast damnable iteration [wicked way of citing the
Bible] and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou
hast done much harm upon me, Hal, God
forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee,
Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if
a man should speak truly, little better than one
of the wicked [one of those whom God has condemned]. I must give over
this life, and I will give it over. By the Lord, an [if] I
do not, I am a villain. I'll be damned for never a king's son in
Christendom.
HAL: Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?
FALSTAFF: 'Zounds [short for “God’s wounds”] where thou wilt, lad. I'll make one. An [If] I do not, call me villain and baffle [hang] me.
HAL: I see a good amendment of life in thee -- from praying to purse-taking.
FALSTAFF: Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation [God’s calling], Hal. 'Tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation.
It is not surprising that Falstaff seeks to change the subject at line 42. Talk about the consequences of his many sins makes him uncomfortable, especially the possibility of being hanged. For a man of Falstaff’s size the gallows would be a gruesome way to die. So he switches to talking about the Hostess of the tavern, a simple-minded but accommodating woman who is very familiar with the sins of her customers. Falstaff’s ploy makes Hal angry. He agrees that the Hostess is as sweet “As the honey of Hybla,” a reference to famous honey in ancient Greece, which is comically incongruous when linked to the commonplace working woman in question.
At line 44 Hal refers to Falstaff as “my old lad of the castle.” This may be a mocking reference to the Castle, one of the well-known houses of prostitution in London and an establishment that Falstaff would have frequented. (Remember that Shakespeare was writing these plays for a specific audience in London who would have been very familiar with the local references.) The other significance of “old lad of the castle” is even more intriguing. It appears that in the original version of this play the old knight’s name was “Sir John Oldencastle.” However, the Oldencastle family, prominent citizens, caught wind of Shakespeare’s choice and objected; there is a contemporary reference to an unknown playwright having to change the name of one of his main characters to avoid legal action. So Shakespeare came up with the inspired choice of “Falstaff.” There was a historical figure named “Sir John Falstaff” during the 15th Century wars in France, but he had been branded a traitorous heretic, so there was less danger some noble family would object to this name choice. The name also suggests an older man whose “staff” (in the sexual sense) had fallen. Hal forces Falstaff back to the point at hand by asking him if the leather jacket (“buff jerkin”) of a constable isn’t “a sweet robe of durance.” This is a fancy way of saying such a garment “endures,” while also suggesting that if you mess with the law you may end up in prison (“durance”).
Falstaff now erupts in anger, calling Hal a “mad wag” or crazy jokester. The prince’s attempt at humor he dismisses as “quips and quiddities” and asks “What a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?” Even the mention of possible legal consequences makes Falstaff nervous. Hal’s response plays on the word “plague”: “Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?” “Plague” could refer to any serious infection, including bubonic plague; the “pox” at this time referred almost exclusively to the rampant pandemic of syphilis, a disease the hostess and the women who work for her and their customers would be very familiar with.
Falstaff can’t go too far in his anger with the prince, and he acknowledges at line 52 that Hal has always paid for the fun they had at the tavern; “called her to a reckoning,” not surprisingly, has a sexual connotation as well, although there is no evidence in any of the plays that Hal used the services of any “leaping house.” Later in this scene we will learn that Hal has in a way been using Falstaff and his buddies, so it is important here to establish that Hal has paid for whatever activities he’s been involved with. The prince has paid so much that he has been forced to use his credit for all the fun and games. Falstaff tries to make a lame pun out of Hal’s expense account at line 60:”were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent,” but his heart just isn’t in it, and he returns to the question of their future relationship: “shall there be gallows standing in England/ when thou art king?” At one level there is a simple policy question: “What will your position be on capital punishment when you’re on the throne?” At another level, most importantly, this is a personal question: “What about me and my way of life?” The old knight proceeds to characterize the conflict between crime and punishment by imaging the criminal as a youthful entrepreneur, filled with “resolution” but being thwarted by “the rusty curb [restrictions] of old father Antic the law,” a legalistic dingbat who just says no! At line 65 he pleads when Hal, ”Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.”
The prince’s response is wonderfully ambiguous: “No, thou shalt.” It can mean “You will hang because you are a thief,” which Falstaff undoubtedly understands, so the knight chooses to interpret it as “You will be responsible for hanging thieves,” and assumes it means the prince is offering him a job as a judge. The image of Falstaff dispensing justice (for a fee) is wonderfully comic. Hal now chooses a third interpretation of his line and declares that Falstaff will be the hangman. A word about being a hangman in Elizabethan England: It wasn’t a job that you would list on your resume, which is one of the reasons the hangman usually wore a hood to protect his identity. If you were scheduled to be hanged, you wanted to wear your best outfit because when you went to the gallows, you would leave your clothes to the executioner who, in turn, would see to it that the noose was correctly tied to ensure your quick demise; the alternative was to stiff the hangman and run the risk of slowly strangling at the end of the rope, much to the amusement of the throngs of people who gathered for the execution. A good hangman could keep some poor guy jerking and twisting for a quarter of an hour and pick up tips from the crowd. Falstaff accepts this career choice as an alternative to functioning as a courtier at the royal palace, trying to “obtain suits,” that is receiving royal rewards. Notice at 76 Prince Hal even anticipates the pun Falstaff was going for about “suits.”
Falstaff’s efforts to get reassurance from the Prince have failed, and so at line 78 he is suddenly struck by a profound depression (“melancholy”). We know this is serious because Shakespeare has Falstaff signal it by the use of a taboo word, “’Sblood,” which is a shortened form of “God’s blood.” Really bad curse words in Shakespeare’s time were not sexual but irreligious, forms of blasphemy. Shakespeare almost always has a character use these taboo words to drive home a dramatic point, as here. Falstaff follows up “’Sblood” with two imaginary comparisons showing how depressed he is – a “gib-cat or a lugged bear,” a bear which is tied to a stake and set upon by dogs as a form of entertainment. The prince makes it a game, suggesting the melancholy of an “old lion or a lover’s lute.” Love songs, often played on a lute in those days, were usually sad, and in the menagerie at the Tower of London was an aged lion that apparently didn’t look too happy. Falstaff now tries to best Hal’s comparisons with the most depressing thing he can think of – the droning whine of a bagpipe. But the prince tops that with a hare. (According to folklore in the spring the English hares suffered from serious depression, so much so that they were supposedly crazy, hence the character of the “March Hare” in Alice in Wonderland .) Then Hal nails the game with the ultimate comparison – as melancholy as Moorditch, the putrid sewer that ran through London.
Falstaff at line 84 is angry with his friend, ostensibly for winning the contest of comparisons but in reality for not giving Falstaff the answer he wanted about the future of their relationship. He objects to Hal’s “unsavory similes” and calls him “rascalliest.” But you have to be careful insulting the next King of England, so Falstaff suddenly concludes with “sweet young prince.”
Back at line 5 we saw how Hal use a kind of mock piety for comic effect. Now at line 86 Falstaff does something similar: “I prithee, trouble me no more with vanity.” This idea was a favorite of the Puritans who saw everything worldly as “vanity” But Falstaff doesn’t say this as a joke; we’ll see that he really believes it, at least at this moment. He worries that he and the prince have very bad reputations because of their public excesses and wonders where they can buy “a commodity of good names.” (They’re so bad they need a whole boatload, “commodity,” of resurrected reputations, a lot like Paris Hilton.)
Falstaff then relates how a member of the royal council scolded him about his friendship with the prince. This apparently really bothered Falstaff because he mentions it three times between lines 89 and 93 and concludes that the confrontation was “in the street too,” that is, in public. We’ve seen that Falstaff worries about what will happen when Hal becomes king; there is a related concern: what will the prince say when his father tells him to quit hanging out with Falstaff and the boys? This eventuality weighs heavily upon the old knight, as he envisions the King seething with anger as he follows the misadventures of Hal and Falstaff. (Watch for the passage in Act III where King Henry finally mentions Hal’s friends.)
The entire exchange between Hal and Falstaff up to this point has been, on the surface at least, light-hearted. Now in his concern about the “old lord of the council” and his public rebuke, Falstaff grows serious. Hal refuses to treat the subject solemnly; we will see him refuse to be serious with Falstaff until late in the play. At line 94 he picks up the idea of crying out in the streets, rephrases as a line from the Bible, and turns it into a piece of pious mockery, as though Falstaff were a Puritan preacher, calling down fire and brimstone. Falstaff again is angered and accuses the prince of blasphemy at line 96: “O, thou hast damnable iteration [wicked way of citing the Bible]/ and art indeed able to corrupt a saint.” The reference to “saint” is especially telling; that was how Puritans referred to themselves, because they firmly believed God had singled them out for salvation, as opposed to the great mass of sinners which were doomed to burn in Hell.
Now Falstaff shows us one of his common forms of denial: it’s not my fault; someone else is responsible. At line 97 this debauched, corrupted old reprobate who hasn’t done an honest day’s work in his life accuses the young prince, one third his age, of doing “much harm upon me.” He adds, in all seriousness, “Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now/ am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than/ one of the wicked [one of those whom God has condemned].”
Falstaff has another way to deflect responsibility for his sins: he vows to change his life. “I must give over this life, and I will give it over! By the Lord, an [if] I do not, I am a villain! I'll be damned for never a king's son in Christendom.” He is absolutely committed to leaving his sinful life behind. He will not endanger his immortal soul just because the prince tempts him to do evil.
So at line 105 Hal tests his new resolve by asking where the two of them will “take a purse,” that is, to rob someone. Falstaff jumps at the chance, signaling how important it is to carry out such a robbery by using the taboo word “Zounds.” He then adds a promise to show just how much he is committed: “An [if] I do not, call me a villain and baffle me.” Where have we heard that phrase before? Five lines before.
Hal points out the apparent inconsistency in a sarcastic way: “I see a good amendment of life in thee -- from / praying to purse-taking.” While the prince is laughing at Falstaff, the old man turns the argument around: “Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation [God’s calling], Hal. 'Tis no sin/ for a man to labor in his vocation.” This is wonderful shot at the uptight Puritans. For all their concern about worldly “vanity,” the Puritans were absolutely committed to making money. In an interesting theological twist, they believed that the amount of money you made was a measurement of how much God favored you. (Think about it – Donald Trump as one of America’s truly holy men.) No wonder many of the early capitalists were staunch Puritans. So Falstaff in effect declares that his job is being the best darn robber there is. God would want him to follow this career choice.
In the next part of the scene the friends are joined by a young man named Poins who has been working on plans for a highway robbery, the most notorious kind of crime in those days. Poins has employed a criminal named Gadshill to check out travelers to find some possible victims. In this exchange how do you account for the hostility between Poins and Falstaff? How does this passage continue the theme of betrayal that we will see throughout the play? [Act I, Scene 2, lines 112 – 201]
[Enter POINS] FALSTAFF: Poins! Now shall we know
if Gadshill have set a match [arranged a
robbery]. O, if men were to be saved by merit [good works],
what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the
most omnipotent villain that ever cried “Stand!” to
a true [honest] man. HAL:
Good morrow, Ned. POINS:
Good morrow, sweet Hal. -- What says Monsieur Remorse?
What says Sir John Sack and Sugar? Jack, how
agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good-Friday
last for a cup of Madeira
and a cold capon's leg? HAL:
Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have
his bargain, for he was never yet a breaker of
proverbs. He will give the devil his due.
POINS : Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with the devil. HAL: Else he had been damned for cozening [cheating] the devil.
POINS: But, my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning, by four o'clock
early at Gad’s Hill [notorious place for robberies] there are pilgrims
going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders
riding to London with fat purses. I have vizards
[masks]
for you all. You have horses for yourselves. Gadshill lies tonight in Rochester. I have bespoke supper tomorrow night
in Eastcheap [London district]. We may do it as secure
as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns.
If you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.
FALSTAFF: Hear ye, Yedward [nickname for Edward], if I tarry at home and go not, I'll hang you for going.
POINS: You will, chops [fat cheeks]?
FALSTAFF: Hal, wilt thou make one?
HAL: Who, I rob? I a thief? Not I, by my faith.
FALSTAFF: There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou camest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.
HAL: Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap.
FALSTAFF: Why, that's well said.
HAL: Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home.
FALSTAFF: By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king.
HAL: I care not.
POINS: Sir John, I prithee, leave the prince and me alone. I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall go.
FALSTAFF: Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and
him the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may
move and what he hears may be believed, that
the true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a
false thief; for the poor abuses of the time want
countenance [lack protection] Farewell. You
shall find me in Eastcheap.
HAL: Farewell, thou latter spring [Indian summer]! Farewell, All-hallown summer [good weather around November 1] Exit Falstaff
POINS: Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us
tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot
manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto and Gadshill
shall rob those men that we have already waylaid
[set a trap for].
Yourself and I will not be there. And when they
have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut
this head off from my shoulders.
HAL: How shall we part with them in setting forth?
POINS: Why, we will set forth before or after them, and
appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at
our pleasure to fail; and then will they adventure
upon the exploit themselves; which they shall have
no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them.
HAL:
Yea, but 'tis like that they will know us by our
horses, by our habits [clothes] and by every
other
appointment [piece of equipment], to be
ourselves.
POINS: Tut, our horses they shall not see; I'll tie them
in the wood. Our vizards we will change after we
leave them. And, sirrah [term of affection],
I have cases of buckram
for the nonce [disguises for the occasion]
to immask our noted outward garments.
HAL: Yea, but I doubt [suspect] they will be too hard for us.
POINS: Well, for two of them, I know them to be as
true-bred cowards as ever turned back; and for the
third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll
forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the
incomprehensible [innumerable] lies that
this same fat rogue will
tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty, at
least, he fought with; what wards
[sword-fighting stances] what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof [debunking] of this
lies the jest.
HAL: Well, I'll go with thee. Provide us all things
necessary and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap.
There I'll sup. Farewell.
POINS: Farewell, my lord. Exit Poins
In this passage we meet Poins, a young gentleman who is a friend of the Prince. Throughout the play we see Poins and Falstaff engage in mutual teasing and insults, something that we would expect among friends. However, there is an edge to the jocular humor; Poins and Falstaff are in competition for Hal’s friendship and favor. At line 113 Falstaff uses another Puritan tag line – “if men were saved by merit”; that is, if men could save their souls from damnation by their good works (a doctrine the Puritans rejected). Poins does nothing good and is destined for the deepest hole in Hell. Poins returns the insult by calling Falstaff “Monsieur Remorse” (that is, a guy who is always sorry after it’s too late) and “Sir John Sack and Sugar” (a reference to the custom of sweetening your wine). The best insult is his assertion that Falstaff sold his soul to the Devil on Good Friday (the holiest day of the Christian calendar) for a cup of good wine from the island of Madeira and a chicken leg. Hal and Poins laugh at the idea that Falstaff was careful not to break his promise and so, in words of the old adage, “gave the Devil his due.” The Prince is once again reminding Falstaff and us that the old man is headed for Hell.
Poins is in charge of arranging a robbery, and Shakespeare’s audience would have immediately recognized the location he selected – Gad’s Hill on the road from London to Dover. It was apparently a favorite spot for highway robbery of people headed with offerings to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Beckett, just as a modern day robber might frequent the parking lot of an Indian casino. The guy that Poins has casing the scene is named “Gadshill.” Do you get the joke? The crime scene and the criminal have the same name. Apparently this was a real knee-slapper for Shakespeare’s audience.
Poins at line 137 uses that “If you…., I will ….” construction that we saw Falstaff use earlier; he promises “purses full of crowns,” of coins. Falstaff’s rejoinder at line 140 is interesting; he says if he is left behind, he will see that Poins is hanged for going. What he is suggesting here is that Falstaff is prepared to rat out his friends if he has to. Falstaff asks if Hal will join them for the robbery.
At face value this is just an innocent question – do you want some of this action? But with the subtext we have seen so far in this scene, we can see how this is loaded with significance. If the future king of England takes part in a robbery (which was a capital crime in those days and would get you hanged), how can he then turn around and allow gallows to be used once he’s on the throne? Once again we’re back to that question of Falstaff’s future which underlies his relationship with Hal. When Hal, in mock horror, rejects the idea of being a thief, Falstaff’s comeback at line 145 is a real zinger: “thou camest not of the blood/ royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings.” If you’re not willing to hold some guy up for ten shillings, you obviously aren’t of the “blood royal.” The joke is that King Henry IV had, in effect, stolen the crown; he had been a thief at a national level. Hal toys with them by agreeing and then disagreeing to go. The strong suggestion here is that he has not engaged in this kind of criminal activity in the past, keeping his reputation at least partly unsullied. He’s just a “gangsta wannabe.” Falstaff at line 152 threatens to become a traitor when Hal is king, a reminder of this theme of betrayal and treason that runs throughout the play.
When Poins tells Falstaff to leave them alone so he can convince Hal to join them, the old knight goes off with one more Puritan mockery. The lines from 157 to 160 are right out of the Puritan handbook, here used to abet the commission of a crime, even though Falstaff makes clear it’s just for fun,” recreation sake.” Furthermore, he implies Hal needs to do something about the terrible state of crime in the kingdom: “the poor abuses of the time” lack royal protection; the Mafia needs a government bailout, just like the big mortgage banks got. For his pains, as he is leaving, Hal makes fun of his age, calling him “latter spring,” a late season hot spell just before it starts to snow.
From line 167 Poins lays out the plot of an elaborate practical joke he wants to play on Falstaff and the other robbers. He asks Hal to be a participant. (It’s interesting to note that by robbing the robbers the prince is technically not breaking the law.) How many objections or questions does Hal raise about the plot? How does Poins answer them? What is the point of this joke? Notice that once again we get this idea of betrayal, now in a comic context.
In the final sequence in this scene we see a dramatic change of tone and a radically different interpretation of what we just saw. How does Shakespeare signal this dramatic change in the form of the language? [Act I, Scene 2, lines 199 – 221]
Hal: I know you all, and will
awhile uphold
The unyoked humor of your idleness.
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That, when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted [lacked], he may be more wondered
at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapors that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents
[unexpected events].
So when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes
[expectations];
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground
[dark background],
My reformation, glitt’ring o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I'll so offend to make offense a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will. Exit
Prince Hal does a complete change of identity in this passage. He is not at all what he seemed to be in the rest of the scene, a kind of light-hearted, shallow playboy. Shakespeare signals the seriousness of this transformation by having him speak in blank verse rather than prose, which is what he had used throughout the scene to this point. Hal is a very serious political creature who is anticipating how he will appear to the people he must rule when he becomes king. He is, in effect, using Falstaff and Poins as a kind of cover for his anticipated transformation.
There is a kind of coldness in Hal’s demeanor: “I know you all, and will awhile/ Uphold the unyoked humor of your idleness.” “I know you are all bums, but I will go along with your games for a little while.” He sees himself as imitating the sun, the symbol of royalty, which allows clouds to cover him at times, just so when he breaks through he will be more magnificent. At line 211 he introduces another comparison: he will be like the infrequent holiday that makes everyone happy because it is so uncommon, a “rare accident.” The third comparison is at line 219; he will be like “bright metal on a sullen ground.” Jewelers use dark material on which to display their precious metals and jewels because the background makes their wares seem more attractive. Everything about the prince is calculated, designed to put him in the best possible light when he assumes power.
It is easy for modern audiences to find the Prince of Wales’ behavior here despicable. He seems like the worst kind of political charlatan, a type we have seen far too often in our own time. But we don’t see the larger picture. First, Hal has no choice but to assume the throne upon his father’s death. He was never asked if he wanted to be the next King of England; in fact he refers to it at line 216 as “the debt I never promised.” What he faces is literally a life-or-death choice. Even if he were to renounce the crown, some powerful man would seize the power, just as his own father had done, and Hal’s chances of surviving such a coup would be about as good as King Richard’s were when Henry IV became king. Furthermore, because of the criminal way by which his father took power, once Henry is out of the way, Hal is a ready target for any ambitious person who would like to become King. In order to save his life and his family honor, Hal must become the best king possible, holding power in such a way that he does not allow any competitors to unseat him. In the final line he even echoes a line from the Bible about “redeeming time” through righteousness; there is no mockery or blasphemy suggested here as he is deadly serious.
Now it becomes important to remember what we learned earlier in this scene: if Hal is using Falstaff and the rest of the boys, he is paying for the privilege by covering their expenses and allowing them latitude for their crimes and misdemeanors. At every turn he reminds them of the consequences of their actions; it’s not his fault if they don’t pay attention.
Finally, despite all the stern denunciation here and the veiled threats in the subtext between Hal and Falstaff, there is a real affection that comes through. The prince really does enjoy spending time with these guys. Soon enough Hal is going to have to get serious and take care of business. Until then Falstaff is like the wild, fun-loving father figure who lets him do what he wants. The real poignancy in their relationship is not that Hal is taking advantage; it is that both the prince and the knight know that their friendship is doomed.
Act I, Scene 3
In this scene we meet the other major character in the play, Harry Percy or Hotspur. King Henry has ordered the great warrior to the palace to answer for his disobedience in not turning over his prisoners to the King. Hotspur is accompanied by his father, Northumberland, and his uncle, Worcester. What are some of the qualities of character that make Percy’s nickname of “Hotspur” appropriate? Why is King Henry so stubborn about the question of the prisoners? What are the two different views of the actions of Mortimer? [Act I, Scene 3, line 1 – 126]
Enter the KING, NORTHUMBERLAND, WORCESTER, HOTSPUR, SIR WALTER BLUNT, with others
KING: My blood hath been too cold and temperate,
Unapt to stir at these indignities,
And you have found me [found me out], for accordingly
You tread upon my patience. But be sure
I will from henceforth rather be myself [that is, a
king],
Mighty and to be feared, than my condition [my basic
nature];
Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,
And therefore lost that title of respect
Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud.
WORCESTER: Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves
The scourge of greatness to be used on it,
And that same greatness too which our own hands
Have holp [helped] to make so portly
[magnificent].
NORTHUMBERLAND: My lord --
KING: Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see
Danger and disobedience in thine eye.
O sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,
And majesty might never yet endure
The moody frontier [rampart, as of a castle] of a
servant brow.
You have good leave to leave us. When we need
Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. Exit Worcester
You were about to speak. To Northumberland
NORTHUMBERLAND: Yea, my good lord.
Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded,
Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,
Were, as he says, not with such strength denied
As is delivered to your Majesty.
Either envy [malice], therefore, or misprision
[misunderstanding]
Is guilty of this fault, and not my son.
HOTSPUR: My liege, I did deny no prisoners.
But I remember, when the fight was done,
When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,
Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,
Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed,
Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reaped
Showed like a stubble land at harvest home [a field
after harvest].
He was perfumed like a milliner,
And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held
A pouncet box [perfume box], which ever and anon
He gave his nose and took't away again,
Who [his nose] therewith angry, when it next came there,
Took it in snuff [inhale the snuff or perfume, but also,
took offense] and still he smiled and talked,
And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse [corpse]
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
With many holiday and lady [fastidious and effeminate] terms
He questioned me, amongst the rest demanded
My prisoners in your Majesty's behalf.
I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay [chattering parrot],
Out of my grief and my impatience,
Answered neglectingly I know not what --
He should, or he should not; for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet
And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman
Of guns and drums and wounds--God save the mark
[indignant phrase]!--
And telling me the sovereignest [best] thing on earth
Was parmacety [extract found in whales] for an inward
bruise [unhappy love], And
that it was great pity, so it was,
This villainous saltpeter [gunpowder ingredient] should
be digged
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good tall [brave] fellow had destroyed
So cowardly, and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed [trivial] chat of his, my lord,
I answered indirectly [absent-mindedly], as I said,
And I beseech you, let not his report
Come current [be accepted] for an accusation
Betwixt my love and your high Majesty.
BLUNT: The circumstance considered, good my lord,
Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said
To such a person and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest retold,
May reasonably die and never rise
To do him wrong [be held against him] or any way impeach
What then he said, so [provided] he unsay it now.
KING: Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,
But with proviso and exception
That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;
Who, on my soul, hath willfully betrayed
The lives of those that he did lead to fight
Against that great magician, damned Glendower,
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers then
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason, and indent [bargain] with fears
[cowards, but also traitors who, through fear,
become dangerous to the king]
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve,
For I shall never hold that man my friend
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer.
HOTSPUR: Revolted Mortimer!
He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,
But by the chance of war. To prove that true
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
Those mouthed wounds [wounds that speak for him], which
valiantly he took
When on the gentle Severn's sedgy [filled with sedges] bank,
In single opposition, hand to hand,
He did confound [contend] the best part of an hour
In changing hardiment [battling] with great Glendower.
Three times they breathed [rested] and three times did they
drink,
Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood,
Who [the river] then, affrighted with their bloody
looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds
And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank,
Bloodstained with these valiant combatants.
Never did base and rotten policy [cunning]
Color [disguise] her working with such deadly wounds,
Nor never could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly.
Then let not him be slandered with revolt [treason].
KING: Thou dost belie [misrepresent] him, Percy, thou dost belie
him.
He never did encounter with Glendower.
I tell thee, he durst as well have met the devil alone
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah [insult here], henceforth
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,
Or you shall hear in such a kind from me
As will displease you. -- My Lord Northumberland,
We license [give permission] your departure with your
son.--
Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it. Exit
King Henry, Blunt, and train
The last time we saw King Henry he made clear that he didn’t want to reveal too much of his feelings which he would if he showed his anger. Now we see that anger in action; he is very controlled but he makes clear what he expects on the issue of Hotspur’s prisoners. Worcester, Hotspur’s uncle, jumps right into the discussion, protesting that their “house” or family doesn’t deserve the “scourge of greatness.” Most unforgivably, he reminds the King that the Percies had been among the first noble families to support his rise to power to the throne. He owes them. You don’t want to put the political squeeze on someone who has power over you. King Henry savages Worcester, saying he is “too bold and peremptory,” being open in his defiance. At line 15 he dismisses Worcester and says, in effect, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” Northumberland tries to defend his son, claiming that the conflict over the prisoners is bogus: “Either envy [malice], therefore, or misprision [misunderstanding]/ Is guilty of this fault and not my son.”
Hotspur now defends himself, and we see a high spirited, eloquent and imaginative man who can be very appealing. He blames the disagreement over the prisoners on the “certain lord” who asked for them in the King’s name. Notice how vivid and detailed Hotspur’s description of this lord is: He is “neat and trimly dressed,” like a bridegroom. We get the picture of his freshly shaved face, compared with the stubble after a harvest. (You can imagine how dirty and unshaven the soldiers were after a long campaign.) He tells us how he smelled, perfumed like a milliner, a maker of hats. We get a fascinating description of the lord’s habit of using a “pouncet-box,” filled with perfume to keep the noisome odors of the battlefield from his nose. (He even has a little joke about the lord’s nose taking the perfumed powder called “snuff” in an angry reaction.) He objects to the soldiers bringing bodies by him while he uses “holiday and lady terms,” suggesting the lord is more like a “waiting gentlewoman.” He shares a revealing detail about this lord: He stands on a battlefield covered with piles of bodies (remember, the Scots lost ten thousand men at Holmedon.), talking about how to use an expensive medicine to get over an unhappy love affair. He finally says he is would have been a soldier himself, but he objects to the use of gunpowder. Hotspur has made his frustration and disgust with the “certain lord” almost palpable through his 40 lines of wonderful description.
The king’s close advisor, Sir Walter Blunt, buys Hotspur’s version and observes that he can’t be blamed for his reaction on the battlefield, provided he now agrees to give up his prisoners. But King Henry is not so forgiving. He reveals that Hotspur is trying to hold him up, forcing him to ransom Mortimer, the Earl of March, who is Hotspur’s brother-in- now law. Mortimer was captured in fighting the Welsh leader Glendower, but Henry tells us that he has married Glendower’s daughter. He refuses to buy the freedom of “revolted Mortimer,” accusing him of willfully sacrificing the lives of his own men.
This sets off Hotspur and his powerful imagination again, describing the furious battle between Mortimer and Glendower in hand-to-hand combat. At line 95 he begins his account of Mortimer’s struggle, calling his many wounds “mouths” to confirm his story. The two men fought for an hour They would have been using very heavy broadswords, and swinging them for that long would have been superhuman. Three times the combatants paused and drank from the Severn River, the traditional boundary between England and Wales. Hotspur personifies the river, showing it being frightened by the bloody looks of the men. He denies that Mortimer was anything but honorable and straightforward in the performance of his military duties and he has multiple wounds to prove it!
The King simply denies this account, telling Hotspur he “belies” Mortimer, that is, he’s fibbing. Who’s telling the truth about the Earl of March? Keep this question in mind when we finally meet Mortimer in Act III, Scene 1. At line 121 the king declares that he does not want to hear anyone “speak of Mortimer.” He demands that Northumberland and Hotspur give him their prisoners or suffer the consequences. Finally he dismisses the two men as he storms out.
In the rest of this scene we see the three members of the Percy family conspire to overthrow King Henry. What more do we learn about Hotspur? What are his “hot buttons?” In what ways is this sequence similar to the planning of the Gad’s Hill robbery in the preceding scene? [Act I, Scene 3, lines 126 – 313]
HOTSPUR: An if the devil come and roar for them,
I will not send them. I will after straight
And tell him so, for I will ease my heart,
Albeit I make a hazard of my head.
NORTHUMBERLAND: What, drunk with choler [anger]? Stay
and pause awhile.
Here comes your uncle. Re-enter WORCESTER
HOTSPUR: Speak of Mortimer?
'Zounds, I will speak of him; and let my soul
Want mercy if I do not join with him:
Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins
And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust,
But I will lift the downtrod Mortimer
As high in the air as this unthankful king,
As this ingrate and cankered [infected] Bolingbroke
[king’s previous name].
NORTHUMBERLAND: Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad.
WORCESTER: Who struck this heat up after I was gone?
HOTSPUR: He will forsooth have all my prisoners,
And when I urged the ransom once again
Of my wife's brother, then his cheek looked pale,
And on my face he turned an eye of death,
Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.
WORCESTER: I cannot blame him. Was not he proclaimed
By Richard, that dead is, the next of blood?
NORTHUMBERLAND: He was; I heard the proclamation.
And then it was when the unhappy king --
Whose wrongs in us [at our hands] God pardon! -- did set
forth
Upon his Irish expedition;
From whence he, intercepted [interrupted], did return
To be deposed and shortly murdered.
WORCESTER: And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth
Live scandalized and foully spoken of.
HOTSPUR: But soft, I pray you, did King Richard then
Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer
Heir to the crown?
NORTHUMBERLAND: He did; myself did hear it.
HOTSPUR: Nay then, I cannot blame his cousin king
That wished him on the barren mountains starve.
But shall it be that you that set the crown
Upon the head of this forgetful man
And for his sake wear the detested blot
Of murderous subornation [conspiracy] -- shall it be
That you a world of curses undergo,
Being the agents or base second means,
The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?
O, pardon me that I descend so low
To show the line [degree] and the predicament
[category]
Wherein you range under this subtle [conniving] king.
Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,
Or fill up chronicles in time to come,
That men of your nobility and power
Did gage [pledge] them both in an unjust behalf
(As both of you, God pardon it, have done)
To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,
And plant this thorn, this canker [inferior rose],
Bolingbroke?
And shall it in more shame be further spoken
That you are fooled, discarded, and shook off
By him for whom these shames you underwent?
No, yet time serves wherein you may redeem
Your banished honors and restore yourselves
Into the good thoughts of the world again,
Revenge the jeering and disdained contempt
Of this proud king, who studies day and night
To answer all the debt he owes to you
Even with the bloody payment of your deaths.
Therefore I say --
WORCESTER: Peace, cousin, say no
more.
And now I will unclasp a secret book,
And to your quick-conceiving [responsive] discontents
I'll read you matter deep and dangerous,
As full of peril and adventurous spirit
As to o'erwalk a current roaring loud
On the unsteadfast footing of a spear.
HOTSPUR: If he fall in, good night, or sink or swim [he’s doomed
whether he sinks or is swept away by the current]!
Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honor cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
NORTHUMBERLAND: [to Worcester] Imagination of some
great exploit
Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.
HOTSPUR: By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap
To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon,
Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
And pluck up drowned honor by the locks;
So [provided] he that doth redeem her thence
might wear
Without corrival [equal] all her dignities.
But out upon this half-faced fellowship
[sharing honors equally]!
WORCESTER: He apprehends a world of
figures [fancies] here,
But not the form of what he should attend. --
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.
HOTSPUR: I cry you mercy[apologize].
WORCESTER: Those same noble Scots
That are your prisoners --
HOTSPUR: I'll keep them all.
By God, he shall not have a Scot of them;
No, if a Scot [pun on small payment] would
save his soul, he shall not.
I'll keep them, by this hand!
WORCESTER: You start away
And lend no ear unto my purposes.:
Those prisoners you shall keep --
HOTSPUR: Nay, I will. That's flat!
He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer.
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I'll hollo “Mortimer!”
Nay, I'll have a starling shall be
taught to speak
Nothing but “Mortimer,” and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion.
WORCESTER: Hear you, cousin, a word.
HOTSPUR: All studies here I solemnly defy
[reject]
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke.
And that same sword-and-buckler [low class] Prince
of Wales --
But that I think his father loves him not
And would be glad he met with some mischance --
I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.
WORCESTER: Farewell, kinsman. I'll
talk to you
When you are better tempered to attend.
NORTHUMBERLAND: Why, what a wasp-stung
and impatient fool
Art thou to break into this woman's mood,
Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own!
HOTSPUR: Why, look you, I am whipped and scourged
with rods,
Nettled and stung with pismires [ants], when
I hear
Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke.
In Richard's time -- what do you call the place?
A plague upon it! It is in Gloucestershire.
'Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept
[resided],
His uncle York, where I first bowed my knee
Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke.
'Sblood, when you and he came back
from Ravenspurgh.
NORTHUMBERLAND: At Berkley castle.
HOTSPUR: You say true.
Why, what a candy deal [ a lot of sugary
talk] of courtesy
This fawning greyhound then did proffer me:
“Look when his infant fortune came to age,”
And “gentle Harry Percy,” and “kind cousin.”
O, the devil take such cozeners [cheats]! --
God forgive me!
Good uncle, tell your tale. I have done.
WORCESTER: Nay, if you have not, to
it again.
We will stay your leisure.
HOTSPUR: I have done, i' faith.
WORCESTER: Then once more to your Scottish prisoners.
Deliver them up without their ransom straight,
And make the Douglas' son your only mean
For powers in Scotland, which, for divers
reasons
Which I shall send you written, be assured
Will easily be granted. -- You, my lord, To
Northumberland
Your son in Scotland being thus employed,
Shall secretly into the bosom creep
Of that same noble prelate well beloved,
The Archbishop.
WORCESTER: True, who bears hard
His brother's death at Bristol, the Lord
Scroop.
I speak not this in estimation [as a
guess],
As what I think might be, but what I know
Is ruminated, plotted and set down,
And only stays but to behold the face
Of that occasion that shall bring it on.
HOTSPUR: I smell it [like a hound I catch the scent]. Upon my life it will do well.
NORTHUMBERLAND: Before the game is afoot, thou still let'st slip [unleash].
HOTSPUR: Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot;
And then the power of Scotland and of York,
To join with Mortimer, ha?
HOTSPUR: In faith, it is exceedingly well aimed.
WORCESTER: And 'tis no little
reason bids us speed
To save our heads by raising of a head
[an army],
For, bear ourselves as even [carefully] as
we can,
The King will always think him in our debt,
And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,
Till he hath found a time to pay us home
[get revenge on us].
And see already how he doth begin
To make us strangers to his looks of love.
HOTSPUR: He does, he does. We'll be revenged on him.
WORCESTER: Cousin, farewell. No
further go in this
Than I by letters shall direct your course.
When time is ripe, which will be suddenly
[speedily],
I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer,
Where you and Douglas and our powers at once,
As I will fashion it, shall happily meet,
To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,
Which now we hold at much uncertainty.
NORTHUMBERLAND: Farewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.
HOTSPUR: Uncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short
Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport! Exit
King Henry had stormed out demanding that Hotspur give up his prisoners. Now at line 127 Hotspur explodes in rage and defiance. He wants to rush after the king to tell him how he feels, even if it might mean he loses his head. With this kind of hot-headedness, it’s a miracle Hotspur has survived as long as he has. You don’t indulge in blowups at a man who has absolute power over you, no matter how good it makes you feel. At line 131 Northumberland calls his son’s reaction “drunk with choler.” Hotspur has a habit of fixating on a single thought that feeds his anger. Back at line 121 the King had forbade anyone to speak about Mortimer. Now at line 133, as his uncle, Worcester, returns, Hotspur repeats the line and tells us he will join with Mortimer and will give his life, if necessary, to lift his downtrodden brother-in-law, “As high in the air as this unthankful king,/ As this ingrate and canker'd [infected] Bolingbroke [king’s previous name].” It is bad enough to called the monarch “cankered” or diseased; it is a mark of total disrespect to refuse to use the king’s royal title and instead identify him with his name from before he took the throne. To emphasize his rage Hotspur uses the taboo word “Zounds” at line 134.
Worcester and Northumberland understand immediately the political motivation behind King Henry’s action: the previous king, Richard, had supposedly named Mortimer as the heir to his throne when he went off to put down a rebellion in Ireland. (It was during his absence that Bolingbroke retuned from exile and raised an army to overthrow Richard; you see why Henry is not really keen on going off to Jerusalem, no matter what he says.) Henry is not going to do anything to help a possible rival to the throne. The two older men grasps this political angle at once, but it takes Hotspur a little while to get it. At line 158 he finally makes the connection, which he has to spell out in detail at line 162, as though the other men had to have it explained to them. Hotspur is like your friend who is always about two beats behind, who has to have the joke explained to him, who is oblivious to what other people are thinking.
Back at lines 151 and 156 both Northumberland and Worcester express regret for having been part of the overthrow of Richard. (In reality they had both been among the earliest and most strident opponents of Richard.) Now at line 164 Hotspur begins to scold his father and uncle for their part in putting Henry on the throne. (When he calls the king “subtle” at line 173, that’s an insult, like calling Richard Nixon “Tricky Dick” or Bill Clinton “Slick Willie.”) Hotspur harangues his father and uncle for opposing King Richard, who is now “that sweet, lovely rose.” His tirade goes on for 26 lines, as he heaps blame upon them for their part in the coup and urges them to redeem their bad opinion in the eyes of the world by joining him in opposing Henry. In his play Richard II Shakespeare showed an enthusiastic teenaged Hotspur as one of Bolingbroke’s chief supporters; we get the same message implied here in the passage at lines 260 – 264. Hotspur suffers from a kind of selective amnesia, forgetting whatever is inconvenient for him to be reminded of.
Hotspur is a hot-head, “drunk on choler”; he does not have a reliable memory; he is extremely judgmental and prone to act precipitously. Yet remember that King Henry back in the opening scene wished his son was more like Hotspur. Is this really the model of a successful ruler? Would you want this guy in the Oval Office with his finger on the nuclear button? But Hotspur is an outstanding military leader, and if Worcester is going to be successful in seizing power from King Henry, he needs Hotspur. So at line 191 he begins a speech intended to induce Hotspur to action. How many words or phrases in this seven-line speech could be said to stimulate Hotspur’s imagination?
Look at these images: *“unclasp a secret book” – Hotspur loves intrigue and plots.
* “quick-conceiving discontents” – we see that Hotspur often feels aggrieved.
* “matter deep and dangerous” – Hotspur loves danger and big causes.
* “as full of peril and adventurous spirit” – that’s what Hotspur lives for.
* “o’erwalk a current….” -- this pictures someone crossing a raging torrent by placing a long spear over the stream and then balancing his way across it, the kind of daredevil stunt that Hotspur would love to do, as long as people were watching.
One of Hotspur’s attractive qualities is his powerful imagination and eloquence; we saw these attributes in the account of “the certain lord” and the fight between Glendower and Mortimer. But sometimes a powerful imagination can overpower your reason and your sanity. That’s what happens at lines 199 –213. The “hot button images” in Worcester’s speech are too much, and Hotspur flips out. We know this because at lines 204 and 214 his father and uncle tells us he does. Speaking of him in the third person, because he is obviously not aware of their presence, Worcester says, “He apprehends a world of figures [fancies] here,/ But not the form of what he should attend.” And what “figures” they are! Picking up on Worcester’s image of a man crossing a torrent on a spear, Hotspur declaims:
If
he fall in, good night, or sink or swim [he’s doomed whether he sink
or is swept away by the current]!
Send danger from the east unto the west,
So honor cross it from the north to south,
And let them grapple. O, the blood more stirs
To rouse a lion than to start a hare!
Hotspur begins by telling us the spear-walking trick is a life-or-death matter; if he falls in, he’s going to drown or be crushed by the rocks. He envisions “danger” as if it were a person, traveling east and west, until it collides with another personification, “honor,” and they fight. Such adventure is more appropriate for enraging the king of beasts than it is for scaring a bunny.
In the continuation of Hotspur’s speech at lines 206 -- 213 we see more clearly what it is that has him so excited. For Hotspur the purpose of life is achieving honor, and he feels that hunger so palpably that he could jump up and grab “bright honor from the pale-faced moon” or dive to the depths of the sea to “pluck drowned honor by the locks.” What for ordinary people is an abstraction is real enough to touch for Hotspur. But he does not want to share – “out upon this half-faced fellowship.” He wants it all for himself. Keep this passage in mind when we get to the final scenes of the play and see how Falstaff and Prince Hal react to the demands of “honor.”
Trying to carry on a conversation with someone who lapses into temporary insanity is difficult at best. When Worcester tries to explain his plan for the prisoners, it sets Hotspur off again. He refuses to give up a single one. Now at line 229 he comes back again to Henry’s injunction against mentioning Mortimer again. He proposes to yell “Mortimer” in his ear while the king is sleeping. Better yet, he will have a starling, a bird capable of mimicking human speech, trained to say nothing but “Mortimer.” Hotspur is not anything if not ingenuous in his plans for revenge. Once again, at line 237 he uses the insulting name of “Bolingbroke” and now adds an intriguing touch. His revenge will include Hal:
And
that same sword-and-buckler [low class] Prince of Wales,
But that I think his father loves him not
And would be glad he met with some mischance,
I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.
The important thing here is that the king’s displeasure with his son is common knowledge. Hotspur doesn’t think much of Hal either, whom he has never met. First, he describes him as “sword-and-buckler.” At this time in England, gentlemen wore rapiers, and only low-class people still carried swords and bucklers; gentlemen drank wine, low-class people ale. The implication is that Hal is more likely to die of the effects of drinking than he is in a sword fight. Watch later on how Hal returns the favor and does an derisive mockery of Hotspur.
Worcester is tired of Hotspur’s irrational rants and starts to leave at line 242. Northumberland chides his son by calling his emotional behavior a “woman’s mood.” Hotspur says he cannot help it; he is “whipped and scourged with rods,/ Nettled and stung with pismires,” or ants. His outburst is not his fault, according to Hotspur. He then starts a story about his first meeting with Bolingbroke, but he forgets the name of the castle where they met. The name of the castle is immaterial to the story, but Hotspur flies into a rage because he cannot remember it. We’ve all had friends who do something like this – get hung up on some detail that is immaterial to the story. But most of our friends don’t get consumed with anger because of the lapse. He rants for six lines in his frustration, signaling his agitation by terms such as “plague” and “’Sblood,” the ultimate taboo word. Notice the contrast between Hotspur’s rough, plain-spoken anger and what he characterizes as Bolingbroke’s “candy deal of courtesy” with phrases such as “Gentle Harry Percy” and “kind cousin.” Bolingbroke’s behavior was a trick or “cozenage,” in Hotspur’s view. But we begin to wonder about this man’s mental balance.
At line 256 Worcester lays out his plot. Hotspur will have to give up his prisoners after all, despite Worcester’s assurances to the contrary earlier. But the Percies will begin to build a coalition of people disgruntled by Henry’s rule, including the Archbishop of York (whose brother had died at Henry’s command), Mortimer and Glendower in Wales and Douglas, the leader of the Scottish forces. Notice how many times from line 287 to the end of the scene Hotspur expresses support for the plan. His enthusiasm is instantaneous, so much so his father at line 288 warns:” Before the game is afoot, thou still let'st slip [unleash].” The image here is from hunting where an overeager hunter takes the leash off the dog too early. The comment (especially the adverb “still” which means “always” in this context) suggests that this is standard procedure for Hotspur. He psyches himself up with any action he undertakes. We’ll see him do the same thing just before the battle which costs him his life.
Worcester warns him not to do or say anything about the plan until he directs Hotspur. We’ll see that the head-strong soldier ignores the injunction. In fact the final lines of the scene are very revealing: “O, let the hours be short/ Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport!” Hotspur doesn’t want to wait, but what he looks forward to most is not some revenge on the king or a topping of a political order. He wants the fighting; that’s what turns him on. Hotspur is a War Lover in a profound sense. Throughout this scene Shakespeare has sketched the qualities of this pre-eminent young leader that attract followers but which make us pause in considering him a model for the next king of England. Shakespeare has also given us a kind of serious parallel to the comic betrayal of the Gad’s Hill robbery, where the robbers will get robbed.
Act II, Scene 1
We now join the Gad’s Hill robbery plans in progress. The robbery will take place at Gad’s Hill, which is very near the town of Rochester on the road from London to the Shrine of St. Thomas a Beckett in Dover. Remember that the guy setting the robbery up is also named Gadshill. The scene takes place in an inn in Rochester where we see two unnamed carriers who haul merchandise by horseback around the country. Think of them as two long-distance truckers staying in a Motel 6 in Bakersfield. Why are these ordinary working men so wary of Gadshill’s questions? [Act II, Scene 1, line 1 – 51]
Rochester. An inn yard. [Enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand ] First Carrier: Heigh-ho! An it be not four by the day [4:00 a.m.], I'll be hanged. Charles' Wain [Charles’ wagon, i.e., the Big Dipper]is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed. -- What, ostler! Ostler: [Within] Anon, anon. First Carrier: I prithee, Tom, beat [soften by beating] Cut's saddle. Put a few flocks in the point[some padding on the pommel]. Poor jade [nag] is wrung in the withers out of all cess [excessively chafed in the shoulders] [Enter another Carrier with a lantern] Second Carrier: Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next [easiest] way to give poor jades the bots [worms]. This house is turned upside down since Robin Ostler died. First Carrier: Poor fellow, never joyed since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him. Second Carrier: I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas. I am stung like a tench [fish with red spots]. First Carrier: Like a tench? By the mass, there is ne'er a king christen could be better bit than I have been since the first cock [midnight]. Second Carrier: Why, they will allow us ne'er a jordan [chamber pot], and then we leak in your chimney [fireplace], and your chamber-lye [urine] breeds fleas like a loach [prolific fish]. First Carrier: What, ostler, come away and be hanged. Come away! Second Carrier: I have a gammon [haunch] of bacon and two razors [root] of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross. First Carrier: God's body, the turkeys in my pannier [basket] are quite starved. -- What, ostler! A plague on thee! Hast thou never an eye in thy head? Canst not hear? An 'twere not as good deed as drink, to break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged! Hast thou no faith in thee? Enter GADSHILL GADSHILL: Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock? First Carrier: I think it be two o'clock. GADSHILL: I pray thee lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable. First Carrier: Nay, by God, soft [not so quick]! I know a trick worth two of that, i' faith. GADSHILL: [to Second Carrier] I pray thee, lend me thine. Second Carrier: Ay, when? Can'st tell [“Whatever”] Lend me thy lantern, quoth he. Marry, I'll see thee hanged first! GADSHILL: Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London? Second Carrier: Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee. Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentleman. They will along with company, for they have great charge [valuable cargo]. Exit carriers
In a few places in the plays Shakespeare will gives us a tantalizing look at how ordinary people lived their lives in those days, and this is one of those places. It’s early morning, and the carriers are waiting for the ostler (the guy who takes care of the horses at the inn) to bring their packhorses in. The first carrier tells us it’s about 4:00 a.m., determining time from the position of “Charles’ Wain” (what we call the Big Dipper) over the chimney of the inn. People in Shakespeare’s day were much more familiar than we with the constellations and positions of the stars. He shouts to the ostler to hurry up and at the same time wants him to soften the pack saddle of his horse Cut because the sores on its shoulders are terrible. The second carrier comes in complaining about the feed given the horses, damp peas and beans, which he assures us cause worms. They both blame the decline in service on the death of the previous ostler, named appropriately Robin Ostler. (A lot of people’s last names, such as Farmer or Taylor, came originally from the occupation that one of their ancestors followed.) They believe poor Robin died because the price of oats went so high, much like soaring gas costs these days.
These two guys complain about everything, and now, at line 15, they turn their attention to the condition of their rooms: there are too many fleas. The Second Carrier claims he was bitten so much, he resembles a “tench,” a fish covered with red spots. The First Carrier tops that by saying there is no king in Christendom who has ever received more flea bites than he has just since midnight. They both agree that the cause for the fleas is that the innkeeper is too cheap to provide a chamber pot (a “jordan”), and so guests have to piss in the fireplace. According to the folklore of that time, this “chamber-lye” is what breeds fleas. We learn the Second Carrier is carrying some ginger and a large haunch of bacon. (Bacon does not come neatly sliced in the real world.) The First Carrier has turkeys in baskets that he’s carrying, and they’re both headed for Charing Cross, still a landmark in downtown London. They comically curse the ostler for making them wait.
At line 35 Gadshill comes in. Now he is casing these carriers to see if they have anything of value his criminal friends can take in a holdup. Falstaff, Poins and the others talk a good criminal career, but this exchange at lines 35 – 51 demonstrates that they are inept amateurs. Gadshill’s clumsy attempts to get information from the carriers are unsuccessful; they spot him for a ringer immediately. When he asks for the time, the First Carrier, who just told us it was 4:00 a.m., tells him it’s 2:00. When he asks to borrow a lanterns both men scoff at him and suggest he is up to no good and, at line 44, may be on his way to the gallows. (They suspect Gadshill may want to use the light to check out what merchandise they are carrying.) When he tries a direct approach and asks when they plan to arrive in London, they give him a facetious answer: “Time enough to go to bed with a candle.” Then they make a point of telling him that they will be traveling with gentlemen who have “great charge,” that is they have valuables and so will be heavily armed. If Gadshill had any idea of holding up the carriers on the London road, he has been dissuaded.
Now the Chamberlain, the guy who takes care of the rooms in the inn, comes in with information on a possible robbery target. Who is to be robbed and why might Shakespeare’s audience not feel particularly sympathetic with the victims? Who does Gadshill imply is a member of the gang of robbers and why might this be important information for the Chamberlain? [Act II, Scene 1, lines 51 – 103]
GADSHILL: What, ho, chamberlain!
Chamberlain: [Enter Chamberlain] “At hand, quoth pick-purse.” [“Ready!” says the pickpocket]
GADSHILL: That's even as fair as “At hand, quoth the
Chamberlain,” for thou variest no more from picking
of purses than giving direction doth from laboring:
thou layest the plot how. Enter Chamberlain
Chamberlain: Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current
[true] that I told you yesternight: there's a franklin in
the Wild of Kent [name of room in the inn] hath brought three
hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him tell it to one
of his company last night at supper --
a kind of auditor [tax collector], one that hath
abundance of charge too, God knows what.
They are up already, and call for eggs and butter.
They will away presently.
GADSHILL: Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas'
clerks [highwaymen], I'll give thee this neck.
Chamberlain: No, I'll none of it; I pray thee keep that for
the hangman; for I know thou worshippest St. Nicholas
as truly as a man of falsehood may.
GADSHILL: What talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I
hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows; for if I hang, old
Sir John hangs with me, and thou knowest he is
no starveling. Tut, there are other Troyans [good old boys] that thou
dreamest not of, the which for sport sake are
content to do the profession some grace; that would,
if matters should be looked into, for their own
credit sake, make all whole. I am joined with no
foot-landrakers [vagabonds], no long-staff sixpenny strikers
[strong-arm robbers who mugged horsemen], none of these mad mustachio
purple-hued malt-worms [purple-faced drunkards];
but with nobility and tranquility [people who are noble
and even higher], burgomasters and great oneyers [important
citizens], such as can hold in [keep a
confidence], such as will strike sooner than speak [say “Hands up”]
and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray, and yet, zounds,
I lie, for they pray continually to their saint the
commonwealth; or rather, not pray to her, but prey
on her, for they ride up and down on her and make
her their boots [play on “booty”].
Chamberlain: What, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold out water in foul way [muddy road]?
GADSHILL: She will, she will! Justice hath liquored [greased or gotten drunk] her. We steal as in a castle [with complete security], cocksure. We have the receipt of fern-seed [recipe for fern-seed, thought to make you invisible], we walk invisible.
Chamberlain: Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible.
GADSHILL: Give me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in our purchase [loot from the robbery], as I am a true man.
Chamberlain: Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.
GADSHILL: Go to. 'Homo' is a common name to all men
[“I am still a man, regardless of my honesty”]. Bid the
ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell,
you muddy [dull-witted] knave. Exit
If Gadshill was supposed to set up a robbery, he wasn’t able to do a very good job. Fortunately for his friends waiting to rob somebody, he has enlisted the help of the Chamberlain, the guy who takes care of the lodging in the inn. Chamberlains had a reputation for fleecing or robbing travelers, so it’s a natural arrangement. Gadshill and the Chamberlain banter throughout this exchange, mostly about how bad the other person is. At line 53 the Chamberlain announces his arrival, “’At hand, quoth the pickpurse,” that is, “I’m standing next to you because I’m picking your pocket.” Gadshill points out with chamberlain’s bad reputation, he just could have said “At hand, quoth the chamberlain”; he will be “giving direction” for the upcoming robbery, while others do the actual physical labor.
Who are the targets of this crime? Two people for whom Shakespeare’s audience is not likely to feel much sympathy. The first is a “franklin,” or rich farmer, who is stupid enough to announce in public that he is carrying 300 gold coins. Do you think New Yorkers would feel sorry for a tourist who got on the subway, got out his wallet to count his money and subsequently was mugged? Neither did the London sophisticates in Shakespeare’s audience. The other victim is an “auditor,” a kind of official accountant and tax collector. Would the public nowadays be upset to hear that someone held up the IRS? The two bad guys laugh about these travelers meeting “Saint Nicholas’ clerks,” a fancy name for highwaymen.
When the Chamberlain brings up the possibility of the gallows, Gadshill seeks to impressed upon him the quality of the members of the criminal band. He makes no secret of Falstaff, saying if he hangs, the old fat man will hang as well. He then wants to tease the Chamberlain about the identity of the newest member of the gang, Prince Hal, but he knows better than to come right about and say it. So he says there are “other Troyans” (lively guys) in the gang that the Chamberlain hasn’t even dreamed of. These Troyans, who are doing the robbery just for sport, would, if they had to, repay all that was stolen. He identifies three colorful but petty criminal types from line 78 -- 81. He wants to tell the Chamberlain his accomplices are high in social rank, so he says they are “nobility,” but they’re even more than that. The only word he can come up with that is higher than “nobility” is one he makes up: “tranquillity.” These criminals mean business – they strike sooner than speak, speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray. In fact when they pray, they “prey.” They turn the commonwealth into their “booty.” The boys exchange an elaborate pun on “boots” at lines 89 – 91. When Gadshill assures the Chamberlain he will have his reward, “as I am a true man,” the Chamberlain tells him to pay, “as you are a false thief.” Gadshill ends the scene declaring that whatever his honesty, he is a man, under the Latin category of “homo.” (And no, that is not a reference to being gay.)
Act II, Scene 2
What is the joke Hal and Poins play on Falstaff before the robbery? Describe Falstaff’s behavior in committing the crime itself? What is Hal’s reaction to Falstaff after he and Poins steal the booty? [Act II, Scene 2]
The
highway, near Gad’s Hill. Enter PRINCE HENRY and POINS POINS: Come, shelter, shelter
[Hide]! I have removed Falstaff's
horse, and he frets like a gummed velvet [chafing, pun on frayed
velvet]. HAL: Stand close. [They step aside] Enter
FALSTAFF FALSTAFF: Poins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins!
HAL: [comes forward] Peace, ye fat-kidneyed rascal! What
a brawling dost thou keep! FALSTAFF: Where's
Poins, Hal? HAL: He is
walked up to the top of the hill. I'll go seek
him. [steps aside] FALSTAFF:
I am accursed to rob in that thief's company. The
rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not
where. If I travel but four foot by the square
[measure] further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not
but to die a fair death for all this, if I
'scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have
forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-
twenty years, and yet I am bewitched with the
rogue's company. If the rascal hath not given me
medicines [potions] to make me love him, I'll be hanged.
It could not be else: I have drunk medicines. -- Poins!
Hal! A plague upon you both!-- Bardolph! Peto! --
I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further. And 'twere
not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man and to
leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that
ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven
ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me,
and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough.
A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to
another! [They whistle] Whew! A plague upon you all!
[Enter Hal, Poins, Peto, Bardolph] Give me my horse, you
rogues; give me my horse, and be hanged! HAL: Peace,
ye fat-guts! Lie down, lay thine ear close to
the ground and list if thou canst hear the tread of
travelers. FALSTAFF:
Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down?
'Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot
again for all the coin in thy father's exchequer.
What a plague mean ye to colt [trick] me thus?
HAL: Thou liest; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted
[unhorsed]. FALSTAFF: I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to
my horse, good king's son.
HAL: Out, you rogue! Shall I be your ostler?
FALSTAFF: Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent
garters [Prince of Wales was in the Order of the Garter]! If I be
ta'en, I'll peach [inform on you] for this. An I have not ballads
made on you all and sung to filthy tunes, let a
cup of sack be my poison -- when a jest
is so forward, and afoot too! I hate it. [Enter GADSHILL]
GADSHILL: Stand!
FALSTAFF: So I do, against my will.
POINS: O, 'tis our setter [set-up man]. I know his voice. BARDOLPH:
What news? GADSHILL: Case
ye, case ye! On with your vizards. There 's
money of the King's coming down the hill. 'Tis going to
the King's Exchequer. FALSTAFF: You
lie, ye rogue! 'Tis going to the King's Tavern.
GADSHILL: There's enough
to make us all. FALSTAFF: To be hanged!
HAL: Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane;
Ned Poins and I will walk lower. if they 'scape
from your encounter, then they light on us.
PETO: How many be there of them? GADSHILL:
Some eight or ten. FALSTAFF:
'Zounds, will they not rob us? HAL:
What, a coward, Sir John Paunch? FALSTAFF:
Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt [Hal’s grandfather, with pun on the opposite
of “paunch], your grandfather, but yet no coward, Hal. HAL:
Well, we leave that to the proof [test].
POINS: Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge.
When thou needest him, there thou shalt find him.
Farewell, and stand fast. FALSTAFF:
Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged.
HAL: [Aside] Ned,
where are our disguises? POINS: [Aside]Here,
hard by. Stand close. Exit PRINCE HENRY and POINS FALSTAFF: Now,
my masters, happy man be his dole [May we have success], say
I. Every man to his business. Enter the Travelers First
Traveler: Come, neighbor. The boy shall lead our horses
down the hill; we'll walk afoot awhile, and ease
our legs. Thieves:
Stand! Travelers:
Jesus bless us! FALSTAFF: Strike;
down with them; cut the villains' throats! Ah, whoreson
caterpillars [miserable parasites]! Bacon-fed [country
food] knaves! They hate us youth. Down with them! Fleece them!
Travelers: O, we are undone, both we and ours for-
ever! FALSTAFF:
Hang ye, gorbellied [great bellied] knaves, are ye undone? No,
ye fat chuffs [misers]. I would your store [treasure] were here! On,
bacons, on! What, you knaves! Young men must live.
You are grand-jurors [respectable citizens] are ye? We'll jure
ye, 'faith. Here they rob them and bind them. Exit Re-enter
PRINCE HENRY and POINS in disguise HAL:
The thieves have bound the true men. Now could
thou and I rob the thieves and go merrily to London, it would be argument [conversation] for a week, laughter for
a month and a good jest for ever. POINS:
Stand close! I hear them coming. Enter the Thieves again FALSTAFF:
Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse
before day. An the Prince and Poins be not two
arrant [utter] cowards, there's no equity stirring. There's
no more valor in that Poins than in a wild-duck. [As
thy are sharing, Hal and Poins attack.] HAL:
Your money! [The thieves run away.] POINS:
Villains! [Falstaff, after a blow or two, runs away too.] HAL:
Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse.
The thieves are all scattered and possessed with fear So
strongly that they dare not meet each other. Each
takes his fellow for an officer. Away,
good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death, And
lards the lean earth as he walks along. Were
't not for laughing, I should pity him.
POINS: How the rogue roared! Exit
You would think that the robbery, with the real danger of being hanged if they are caught, would instill in the criminals with some seriousness and attention to detail. Instead they treat it as a prolonged practical joke. It begins with Poins and Hal hiding Falstaff’s horse, so that he has to walk up Gad’s Hill. In addition to being funny, it’s one of three places in this scene where we are given an excuse for there not being a horse on stage. Falstaff seems to blame Poins for his being afoot, telling us at line 16 he has forsworn his company for the last 22 years, which is a good trick, considering that Poins is probably not yet 22. It is characteristic of Falstaff’s gift for exaggeration. The old man concludes that Poins must have drugged him to make him love his false friend. (Notice how often Falstaff uses that formulaic sentence we saw him use before: “If I don’t do x, I’ll do y.”) Falstaff even threatens to stop drinking and reform himself at line 22, one of many such promises he makes and breaks with great regularity,
Falstaff continue to complain bitterly about being on foot, telling us at line 25,” Eight yards of uneven/ ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me;/ and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough.” Again we have the comic exaggeration. When Prince Hall tells him to lie down and put his ear to the ground to listen for the tread of travelers, Falstaff asks if Hal has got levers to lift him up again, being down. This is followed by an elaborate pun on “colt” and “uncolt,” playing on the meaning of “playing a trick.”
At line 46 the exasperated Falstaff tells the prince to “hang yourself in your own heir-apparent garters.” The crown prince was by tradition a member of one of the most exclusive fraternities in the world – the Order of the Garter – and wore a fancy pair of garters on ceremonial occasions. Falstaff goes on to threaten his fellow criminals at line 46: “If I be ta'en, I'll/ peach [inform on you] for this. And I have not/ ballads made on you all and sung to filthy tunes,/ let a cup of sack be my poison.” If he is caught, he will “give up” his accomplices. In fact he will do more than rat them out; he will hire a ballad maker and have incriminating, insulting songs written about them and then sung throughout the city, using the tunes of really gross music, such as “Greensleeves.’ That’s right, that “lovely” Elizabethan melody is actually about a prostitute (wearing the insignia of her profession) who has stood up one of her regular customers; sometimes I enjoy destroying people’s illusions. I think the idea of hiring a ballad maker to do a hit piece on someone is a very creative way of getting revenge; it’s the Shakespearean equivalent of You Tube. Hal and Falstaff trade insulting titles for each other: “Sir John Paunch” versus “John of Gaunt,” Hal’s grandfather. (Actually John of Gaunt was a powerful English noble who was a patron of Geoffrey Chaucer around 1400 and who was actually named for the French city of Ghent.)
Once the travelers approach and Hal and Poins hide to one side, Falstaff is all business. At line 79 he wishes his comrades good luck –“happy man be his dole.” When Falstaff waddles into the robbery, he is transformed from the whining, cowardly guy we have known before into a master criminal. He is filled with a ferocious verbal hostility, but notice how many of the epithets he hurls at his terrified victims are actually projections of his own shortcomings: * “Ah, whoreson caterpillars!” (Social parasites) * “Bacon-fed knaves!” (Bacon was considered a food of the lower-classes.) * “They hate us youth!” (This from a guy who is way too old to be doing this.) * “Gorbellied knaves” (villains with big bellies.) * “Fat chuffs” (Miserly people who don’t pay for drinks in a tavern.) * “Young men must live!” (Youth must rise up against the tyranny of age.) * “You are grandjurors, are ye? We’ll jure ye!” (Respectable citizens served on the local Grand Jury, much as they still do. Falstaff will reverse the justice system.)
Despite all the verbal violence, no one is in danger of being hurt, and the clueless victims allow themselves to be robbed, tied up and led off stage. Falstaff and his confederates now split the booty, planning to stiff Hal and Poins; Falstaff even declares that they are cowards and that Poins has “no more valor than a wild duck,” a bird considered silly and easily spooked. Poins and Hal now appear in disguise and proceed to rob the robbers without any trouble at all. Falstaff may make a gesture or two with his sword, but he too runs. The two robbers laugh at how easy it was. At line 114 Hal says of his old friend, “Falstaff sweats to death, And lards the lean earth/ as he walks along. Were 't not for laughing, I should pity/ him.” This may be a foreshadowing of Hal’s inevitable break with the old knight, suggesting that he does have strong feelings for his mentor.
Act II, Scene 3
We are now at Hotspur’s castle. He enters reading a letter. Who is the letter from? How has the writer learned of the plot which Worcester laid out in Act I, Scene 3? What is likely to be the outcome of this knowledge? How does Hotspur react to the letter and its writer? [Act II, Scene 3, line 1 –36]
[Enter HOTSPUR, alone, reading a letter] HOTSPUR: “But for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house [family].” He could be contented; why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house -- he shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. “The purpose you undertake is dangerous.” Why, that's certain. 'Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my Lord Fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. “The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain; the time itself unsorted [unsuitable], and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.” Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow cowardly hind [menial], and you lie. What a lack-brain is this! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid, our friends true and constant -- a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this! Why, my Lord of York [Archbishop of York] commends the plot and the general course of the action. 'Zounds, an I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle and myself? Lord Edmund Mortimer, my Lord of York and Owen Glendower? Is there not besides the Douglas? Have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month, and are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan [faithless] rascal is this -- an infidel! Ha, you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the King and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself and go to buffets [fisticuffs], for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honorable an action! Hang him, let him tell the King! We are prepared. I will set forward tonight.
When we last saw Hotspur at the end of Act I, Scene 3 he could hardly wait for the fighting to begin, despite the warnings of his uncle and father not to do anything until they gave him the word. So naturally, being that rash, hot-tempered person we saw, he rushed to his home at Warkworth Castle and wrote everyone he could think of to invite them: “Rebellion next month on the ninth. Armor optional. Join us.” He did the medieval equivalent of sending an e-mail to everyone in his address book. Because, naturally, everyone would jump at a chance to start a bloody war against the King. Now he has gotten a response to his invitation and discovers that not everyone thinks it’s a great idea. Hotspur starts out talking about the unnamed lord in the third person, but by the end of his long speech, he will conjure up the ungrateful coward and rail at him directly. Hotspur picks up on one phrase, just as he did with King Henry’s “Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer!” At the beginning, it is “the love I bear your house,” or your family. The angry Hotspur observes at line 5 “he loves his own barn better than he loves our house.”
When the reluctant invitee declares that the purpose is dangerous, Hotspur rejects the warning, saying that it’s dangerous to catch a cold, to sleep or to drink. He has convinced himself that the Percies must act against the king now to keep themselves safe. The letter writer raises some very compelling objections at line 11: “’ The purpose/ you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have/ named uncertain; the time itself unsorted [unsuitable], and/ your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so/ great an opposition.’” Look how Hotspur reacts to this assessment. First he becomes so angry he addresses the writer as if he were there: “Say you so, say you so?” and then curses him as a low-class (hind) coward. He then psyches himself up about the plan: the plot goes from being “a very good plot” to “an excellent plot”; his allies from “good friends” to “very good friends.” Hotspur is his own cheering section. The first authority he cites as approving the plan is the Archbishop of York; a churchman may not be the best military expert. Using the taboo signal of “Zounds” to let us know how upset he is, Hotspur issues his ultimate insult at line 23: “and I were now by this rascal,/ I could brain him with his lady's fan.” Just as he did with the “certain lord” who pissed him off at Holmedon, Hotspur impugns the manhood of the letter writer. He proceeds to list the seven major allies who have joined together in the conspiracy. Who are the seven rebel leaders? What do they have in common? What might separate them? Can you assess the chances of a complex military campaign with so many different participants?
Hotspur guesses at line 31 the likely consequence of his ill-conceived letter revealing the plot: “you shall see now, in very sincerity of fear and cold/ heart, will he to the king and lay open all our proceedings.” Well, of course he will! He would be a fool not to tell the all-powerful King about the letter. This doesn’t bother Hotspur at all. He’ll simply go to the battle a little earlier, like that very night. (We don’t know all the logistics of the upcoming battle, but we guess that Hotspur’s unfortunate security breach will make it difficult for all seven of the rebel groups to join forces.)
Now Hotspur’s wife, Kate, enters and tries to engage her husband in serious conversation. What are some indications she has that something is bothering Hotspur? How does he react to her expressions of concern? [Act II, Scene 3, lines 37 – 77]
Enter LADY PERCY
HOTSPUR: How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.
LADY PERCY: O, my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offence have I this fortnight been
A banished woman from my Harry's bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is 't that takes from thee
Thy stomach [appetite], pleasure and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth
And start so often when thou sit'st alone?
Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks
And given my treasures and my rights of thee
To thick-eyed musing and curst [peevish] melancholy?
In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched [lain awake],
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,
Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talked
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes [defenses made of stakes], frontiers [forts],
parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin [types of artillery],
Of prisoners' ransom and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents [events] of a heady [violent] fight.
Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war
And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep,
That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow
Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream,
And in thy face strange motions have appeared,
Such as we see when men restrain their breath
On some great sudden hest [command]. O, what portents are these?
Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
And I must know it, else he loves me not. HOTSPUR:
What, ho! [Enter Servant] Is
Gilliams with the packet gone? Servant: He is, my
lord, an hour ago. HOTSPUR: Hath Butler brought
those horses from the sheriff?
Servant: One horse, my lord, he brought even now. HOTSPUR:
What horse? A roan, a crop-ear, is it not? Servant: It
is, my lord. HOTSPUR: That roan
shall by my throne.
Well, I will back him straight: O Esperance [“Hope” is part of Percy motto]!
Bid Butler lead him forth into the park. [Exit Servant]
Hotspur needs major work with Dr. Phil on his interpersonal communications skills. When his long-suffering wife comes in, he brusquely announces that he’s leaving in two hours. Lady Hotspur’s heart-felt speech at 39 – 67 gives us a glimpse of what it would be like to be married to this guy. Look all the signs she notices that something is on his mind. 1.) He has not had sex with her for the last two weeks. 2.) He has lost his “appetite (sexual drive), pleasure and golden sleep.” 3.) He seems distracted with “thick-eyed musing.” 4.) Most of all she is tipped off by his behavior at night which keeps her from sleeping:
In
thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched,[lain awake]
And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars;
Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed;
Cry “Courage! To the field!” And thou hast talked
Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes [defenses made of stakes], frontiers
[forts], parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin [types of artillery],
Of prisoners' ransom and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents [events] of a heady [violent] fight.
It’s a wonder the poor woman ever gets any rest! Her crazy husband keeps her up all night fighting major battles in his sleep. Given his obsessive behavior up to this point, it’s no surprise that he has disturbed sleep patterns.
And how does Hotspur respond to his wife’s profound concern about these “portents” in her husband’s behavior? He calls for a servant to see if someone named Gilliams has gone with a packet or letter. He then gets all excited about what horse he will ride off on to battle. Yes, Dr. Phil would need an extra long session to deal with this guy’s serious dysfunction.
In the final sequence in the scene, why does Hotspur refuse to share his plans with his wife? How does she try to force him to reveal where he is going? How would you characterize this relationship? What larger consequences might this behavior portend? [Act II, Scene 3, lines 78 – 123]
LADY PERCY: But hear you, my lord.
HOTSPUR: What say'st thou, my lady?
LADY PERCY: What is it carries you away [from home; from your usual self]?
HOTSPUR: Why, my horse, my love, my horse.
LADY PERCY: Out, you mad-headed ape! A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen [caprice] As you are tossed with. In faith, I'll know your business, Harry, that I will. I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir About his title, and hath sent for you To line [support] his enterprise, but if you go --
HOTSPUR: So far afoot, I shall be weary, love.
LADY PERCY: Come, come, you paraquito [parrot], answer me Directly unto this question that I ask. In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, an if thou wilt not tell me all things true.
HOTSPUR: Away! Away,
you trifler. Love, I love thee not.
I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world
To play with mammets [dolls] and to tilt [duel] with
lips.
We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns [broken
heads, and also coins which are disfigured],
And pass them current [are accepted as real coins] too
-- God's me, my horse! --
What say'st thou, Kate? What would'st thou have with me?
LADY PERCY: Do you not love me? Do you not indeed?
Well, do not then, for since you love me not,
I will not love myself. Do you not love me?
Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.
HOTSPUR: Come, wilt thou see me ride?
And when I am a-horseback, I will swear
I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate,
I must not have you henceforth question me
Whither I go, nor reason whereabout. Whither
I must, I must; and to conclude
This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate.
I know you wise, but yet no farther wise
Than Harry Percy's wife; constant you are,
But yet a woman; and for secrecy,
No lady closer, for I well believe
Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,
And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.
LADY PERCY: How? So far?
HOTSPUR: Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate:
Whither I go, thither shall you go too.
Today will I set forth, tomorrow you.
Will this content you, Kate?
LADY PERCY: It must of force. Exit
A concerned Lady Percy asks her husband what “carries him away,” and he, having not heard a word she had said before, answers simply, “My horse.” She has tried to deal with him as an adult without success, and now in her exasperation she switches to treating him as a willful child. From line 82 on she calls him names: “ape,” “weasel,’ “paraquito,” all animals. That may suggest how she sees him. Lady Percy is reduced to threatening to “break thy little finger” in line 87.
Hotspur explodes in anger at his wife’s questioning. At line 95 he shifts back to verse to show he is making a serious statement, one in which he rejects the demands of love for the glories of violence and war. He asks her what she wants from him. His wife’s response at line 102 shows us her capitulation in this contest of wills:
Do
you not love me? Do you not, indeed?
Well, do not then; for since you love me not,
I will not love myself. Do you not love me?
Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no.
Here in the space of four lines she reveals her insecurity by asking Hotspur four different times if he really doesn’t love her. She backs down. Hotspur is in charge and he sets the terms for where they go from here. He refuses to share anything about his plans, telling her she must be content with not knowing. The main reason is, of course, as a woman she cannot be trusted. She would undoubtedly blab the planned rebellion all over. As he so eloquently states it:” constant you are --/ But yet a woman; and for secrecy,/ No lady closer; for I well believe/ Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know.” As a sop to her, he does tell her that wherever he is going, he will take her along and she must be satisfied with that.
Now the inconsistency in Hotspur’s behavior here is just too blatant to miss. He won’t tell his long-suffering wife about the plot, but he blabs it all over the kingdom himself. At one level it is easy to dismiss this as just comic male chauvinism, the boorish husband who really does love his wife. However, what Shakespeare is really doing here is showing us one more piece of Hotspur’s personality which will lead us to see why Prince Hal should choose not to emulate the great warrior. Hotspur may be fun to watch, but he has the self-awareness of a rock. In a subtle way Shakespeare is showing how Hotspur’s shortcomings with his wife are symptomatic of his larger failing as a human being.
Act II, Scene 4
This is the dramatic heart of the play. We see the payoff of the practical joke of the Gad’s Hill robbery, but more importantly we see the dramatic shift in the complex relationship between Hal and Falstaff. In this opening sequence, what has Prince Hal been doing while he and Poins wait for the arrival of Falstaff and the other thieves? Of what practical use is this for a future king of England? Why does the prince single out the boy named Francis for a practical joke? [Act II, Scene 4, lines 1 – 37]
Hal has spent the afternoon in an infamous tavern, The Boar’s Head, down in the slums of London. He has apparently been entertaining himself by talking to the “drawers,” the kids who worked in the tavern drawing drinks of wine and ale and serving them. He is almost like an anthropologist studying an exotic culture, except that the three young men he interacts with are impressed by the Crown Prince and treat him as a regular guy, one not much older than they are. He observes the customs of the tavern and learns some of the specialized jargon of the place – how heavy drinkers are said to “dye scarlet” because of the effect liquor has on their complexions, and how in the drinking contests you lose points if you have to pause to take a breath. Like a good anthropologist, Hal has discovered that the key to most human activities is learning the right words to show you belong to a group. Not content with his afternoon of slumming, Hal now wants to play a practical joke on one of the drawers, a kid named Francis, who is the target simply because he had the temerity to give the prince a small piece of sugar, a perk in a place where the wine often had to be sweetened.
So what are we to make of this sequence? Is this just fluff, showing us a couple of young men around town wasting their youth? Actually this whole scene goes to the heart of the play, showing us something very important about the education of the future King of England. What we see Hal doing is in stark contrast to both of the models he has for how to behave – Hotspur and Falstaff.
Shakespeare’s audience was well aware that in a few years the young prince would become king and would be called upon to lead an invasion of France, designed to consolidate his hold on the throne of England while adding foreign territory to his empire. To create an army, he in fact had to “command all the good lads of Eastcheap,” who made up much of his force. How did he accomplish this feat and use these soldiers to win a stunning victory over the flower of French chivalry? Part of the answer is found here: Hal was effective as a king because he was able to understand and communicate with all the subjects of his kingdom. Imagine Falstaff in this situation. He would be figuring out how to get away without paying. What would Hotspur do in a tavern for an afternoon? He would be so impatient to get out and start fighting he wouldn’t pay any attention to what was going on around him. In fact, Shakespeare has a sly zinger at Hotspur at line 20: “I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honor, that thou/ wert not with me in this action.” Remember Hotspur going ballistic about “honor” in Act I, Scene 3. Here Hal equates his afternoon with the drawers to the “action” of a battle like Holmedon which brings honor to the victor. In Hal’s mind figuring out how somebody like Francis ticks is as important in its way as winning wars. It’s a concept that would simply never occur to people like Falstaff or Hotspur.
In this next sequence Hal plays out the practical joke on poor Francis. What is the point of the joke? What might the Prince of Wales and the drawer Francis have in common? Who is it that Hal says Francis is trying to “rob”? How does Hal explain the “cunning match” of the jest on the drawer? How is Francis similar to Falstaff and Hotspur? [Act II, Scene 4, lines 38 – 115]
Enter
FRANCIS FRANCIS: Anon,
anon, sir. -- Look down into the Pomgarnet [another room], Ralph.
HAL: Come hither, Francis.
FRANCIS: My lord?
HAL: How long hast thou to serve [as an apprentice], Francis?
FRANCIS: Forsooth, five years, and as much as to-- POINS:
[Within] Francis! FRANCIS:
Anon, anon, sir. HAL:
Five year! by'r Lady [by the Virgin], a long lease for the clinking
of pewter. But, Francis, darest thou be so
valiant as to play the coward with thy indenture [contract of apprenticeship]
and show it a fair pair of heels and run from it?
FRANCIS: O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon
all the books in
England, I could find in my heart --
POINS: [Within] Francis!
FRANCIS: Anon, sir.
HAL: How old art thou, Francis?
FRANCIS: Let me see. About Michaelmas [September 29] next I shall
be—POINS: [Within] Francis!
FRANCIS: Anon, sir. -- Pray stay a little, my lord.
HAL: Nay, but hark you, Francis, for the sugar thou
gavest me -- 'twas a pennyworth, wast't not? FRANCIS:
O Lord, I would it had been two! HAL:
I will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me
when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it. POINS:
[Within] Francis! FRANCIS:
Anon, anon. HAL:
Anon, [“Right now”] Francis? No, Francis. But tomorrow, Francis;
or, Francis, o’ Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when
thou wilt. But, Francis --
FRANCIS: My lord?
HAL: Wilt thou rob this leathern jerkin, crystal-button,
not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter,
smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch -- FRANCIS:
O Lord, sir, who do you mean? HAL:
Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink,
for look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet
will sully. In Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so
much. FRANCIS: What,
sir? POINS: [Within]
Francis! HAL:
Away, you rogue! Dost thou not hear them call? {Here they both
call him; the drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go] Enter
Vintner Vintner:
What, standest thou still, and hearest such a
calling? Look to the guests within. [Exit Francis] My
lord, old Sir John, with half-a-dozen more, are
at the door. Shall I let them in?
HAL: Let them alone awhile, and then open the door. [Exit Vintner]
Poins! [Re-enter POINS]
POINS: Anon, anon, sir.
HAL: Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at
the door. Shall we be merry?
POINS: As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark you, what
cunning match have you made with this jest of the
drawer? Come, what's the issue [point or outcome]?
HAL: I am now of all humors [moods] that have showed themselves
humors since the old days of goodman Adam to the
pupil age [right now] of this present twelve o'clock
at midnight. Re-enter FRANCIS
What's o'clock, Francis? FRANCIS:
Anon, anon, sir. [Exit]
HAL: That ever this fellow should have fewer words than
a parrot, and yet the son of a woman! His industry is upstairs
and downstairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning.
I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of
the north, he that kills me some six or seven
dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his
hands, and says to his wife “Fie upon this quiet
life! I want work.” “O my sweet Harry,” says she,
“how many hast thou killed today?” “Give my roan
horse a drench [dose of medicine],” says he; and answers
“Some fourteen,” an hour after; “a trifle, a trifle.”
I prithee, call in Falstaff: I'll play Percy, and that
damned brawn [fat boar] shall play Dame Mortimer his wife. “Rivo
[drinking cheer]!” says the drunkard. Call in Ribs, call in Tallow.
The point of the practical joke on Francis is obscure to a modern audience, so much so that many productions leave it out. But to members of Shakespeare’s audience it is a trenchant comment on Prince Hal and how he is preparing himself to become king. First, the point of the joke is not immediately clear to the other characters. At line 92 even Poins asks what the point or “issue” is. The answer varies: Francis will see one thing, Hal another and we in the audience a third point. We tend to be shocked that the Prince would humiliate and tease a young man simply because he had shown a kindness to Hal – giving him that sugar. When Hal asks him if the gift had been “a pennyworth,” poor Francis at line 62, embarrassed by the meagerness of what he could give, declares, “O Lord! I would it had been two.” What Hal does to Francis is cruel; it was an age in which power relationships were often grounded in cruelty. While we rightfully feel that Hal is mistreating someone who cannot fight back, Francis would probably be overjoyed to be noticed, even if it was just for abuse.
However, there is a larger point that the Prince is making. At the time this play was written, the vast majority of boys at a young age were separated from their families and sent off to serve as apprentices. Their families would, in effect, sell them into a form of slavery; they would have to work for a master for a specified period of time, as long as ten years, under the terms of a contract, called an “indenture.” They would receive no pay and they could be overworked and taken advantage of. If they were lucky, they might learn a skill with which they could make a living when they finally finished their apprenticeship, but there were no guarantees! The apprenticeship system was fraught with abuse and injustices, but it continued to be used throughout Europe right down to the 20th Century. (Charles Dickens’ novels often explored the social consequences of the apprenticeship system in the 19th Century.) One common response by those trapped in the system was to run away. The problem was so serious that in London the masters tried to shut down the public theaters because their apprentices were running off to watch plays instead of working. These masters, often men of newly made wealth, turned to the courts and the government to enforce the terms of the contracts. The King was the chief magistrate whose ultimate responsibility was seeing to it that the indentures were obeyed. Prince Hal will soon be the chief enforcer. In a few years Hal will become that chief enforcer.
There is another angle of the apprenticeship system, specific to these two young men. Hal and Francis are both apprentices; neither one was asked if he wanted to take on the career that has been mapped out for him. Remember at the end of Act I, Scene 2 when Hal referred to becoming King as paying “the debt I never promised.” Hal asks Francis at line 47, “darest thou be so valiant/ as to play the coward with thy indenture and/ show it a fair pair of heels and run from it?” Of course Francis has thought long and hard about running away. He shows us the depth of his feeling at line 50 by declaring , “O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon all the books in/ England, I could find in my heart –“ For someone like Francis who is illiterate and will probably never learn to read, books represented power: the priest read from a book in church admonishing people on their souls; in court the witnesses had to “kiss the book” (swear on a Bible) before they could testify. Objectifying the political power bound up in the idea of “books,” Francis offers to swear on all of them that he has thought about running away.
Hal asks Francis about his age. It was customary for people to measure their birthdays by the religious holiday nearest their actual birth date, so Francis answers “Michaelmas next….” but is unable to tell us his age because he is interrupted by Poins’ call. Now Hal does something we should find nasty. At line 63 he offers to give Francis a thousand pounds for the gift of the sugar. To someone like Francis a thousand pounds was a sum of wealth beyond his imagination. In the course of his entire life he would probably never earn more than a couple of hundred pounds. The tasteless joke is, of course, to use his response to Poins’ incessant calling to tease him: “Anon,[“Right now”] Francis? No, Francis; but tomorrow,/ Francis; or, Francis, a Thursday; or indeed, Francis, when/ thou wilt. But, Francis –“ In some productions Hal will eventually be seen giving Francis some kind of gift and in one production Francis is shown marching in the coronation when Hal becomes king, but these attempts to soften Hal’s cruelty are not in the text.
Francis may want to run
from his obligation, but Hal is telling him he cannot. Just as the prince must
go ahead and become king, the apprentice must abide by the terms of the
indenture and serve his time. And when he becomes king, Hal will have to
enforce the law for all the unhappy apprentices. As he tells Francis at line 71
to do otherwise would be a form of theft from the man who owns and operates the
Boar’s Head Tavern. Hal describes this “vintner” sarcastically as a man of newly
acquired wealth: “Wilt thou rob this leathern jerkin, crystal-button,/ not-pated,
agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter,/
smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch?” The tavern owner, like the constable in a “buff
jerkin” back in Act I, Scene 2, wears a plain leather jacket or “jerkin,”
probably because he could get a lot of wear out of it, but to show his new
wealth, he has had fancy “crystal buttons” sewn on it. In the style of many
members of the middle class, his hair is cropped short (“not-pated”), but he
has an expensive ring with a carved agate. His stockings are of unadorned dark
wool (“puke”) and he holds them up with plain worsted garters. As a successful
member of the merchant class, the vintner is “smooth-tongued” and able to
converse with his customers in a pleasing way, but his whole identity is
encapsulated in the fancy Spanish leather purse in which he proudly carries his
money. Hal may sneer at him, but he is duty-bound to protect his investment in
his apprentices.
At line 75 Hal descends into gibberish to further confuse the young drawer, speaking as if he were imparting some secret knowledge of drinking the prince had picked up in his conversation. Both Poins and Hal end up calling Francis simultaneously to his utter confusion, and the vintner comes in and chews the apprentice out for not tending to his customers. He also brings word that Falstaff and the thieves have arrived. But before we can move on to the next piece of merriment, Hal is called upon to explain the “jest of the drawer.”
He begins at line 95: “I am
now of all humors [moods] that have showed themselves/
humors since the old days of goodman Adam to the/ pupil age [right now] of
this present twelve o'clock at midnight.” At one level, Hal is saying he’s
ready for any kind of a joke. At a more serious level the prince seems to be
saying here that he has deliberately sought many different kinds of people and
experiences as a way of broadening his knowledge and preparing to lead a nation
of diverse individuals.
We see this idea more clearly in the long speech at line 101. Commenting on poor Francis, he marvels at the limitations which restrict the apprentice’s experience: “His/ industry is upstairs and downstairs, his eloquence the/ parcel of a reckoning.” His whole life is consumed with running around the tavern delivering drinks and figuring out people’s bills, “reckonings.” Francis, of course, has no choice but to be overworked and undereducated, to have “fewer words than a parrot.” Now at line 104 we get to the larger “issue” of the “jest of the drawer.” Hal links the limited Francis with the limited Hotspur! The one cannot see beyond the walls of the tavern; the other cannot see beyond the walls of his self-imposed prison of warfare and honor. In that world Hotspur would not deign to even acknowledge a creature like Francis and the apprentice would have nothing to talk about with the warrior. The Prince sees that to be successful he must avoid limitations on his perception and understanding; he must be able to communicate with both Hotspur and Francis.
Hal now begins a wonderfully cutting parody of Hotspur at line 105. Hotspur gets up, kills some “six or seven dozen Scots at a breakfast” and then complains to his wife that he wants some real “work,” i.e. killing. His wife asks him how many he killed, and he ignores her question, ordering her to dose his favorite roan horse with medicine. Now we saw in his interactions with his wife in Act II, Scene 3, that Hotspur does indeed delay answering her questions, changing the subject; he does have a favorite roan horse. According to Hal, an hour after she asked the question he finally answers her, dismissing his carnage of Scots as “a trifle, a trifle.” It is amazing how both Hotspur and Hal, who have never met one another, have this keen sense of the other’s personality which allows them to perform these astounding parodies.
Now at line 112 Prince Hal expands his parody of experience-challenged models for his behavior in the future by bringing Falstaff into the equation. Despite his charm and quick wit, the old knight is as limited as the apprentice and the warrior in understanding how people tick and how to lead them effectively. Hal refers to him as a “damned brawn” or fat male pig and suggests that they will do some role-playing for fun with Hal playing the part of Hotspur (as his father wants him to do) and Falstaff the part of Lady Percy. Hal ends his exposition on flawed models by recalling one of the arcane pieces of lore about the art of drinking that he just learned – the drunkard’s motto is “Rivo.” (Feel free to use that in place of “Cheers” next time you’re doing shots.) He gets a couple of gratuitous insults in about Falstaff, calling him “Ribs” and “Tallow,” as if the most important thing about his friend is his size and bodily composition.
In the next sequence we see the payoff of the practical joke of the Gad’s Hill robbery. What is Falstaff’s attitude at the beginning about the robbery and what accounts for it? How many times does Falstaff expand the comic exaggerations of his story? How does Hal trip him up? Explain how Falstaff’s explanation for his behavior here puts the prince at a disadvantage. [Act II, Scene 4, lines 113 – 295]
[Enter
FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO; FRANCIS with wine] POINS: Welcome,
Jack. Where hast thou been? FALSTAFF: A plague of
all cowards, I say, and a venge- ance
too! Marry and amen! -- Give me a cup of sack,
boy. -- Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew netherstocks [stockings] and
mend them and foot them too. A plague of all cowards!
-- Give me a cup of sack, rogue! -- Is there no virtue
extant? [He drinks] HAL:
Didst thou never see Titan [sun] kiss a dish of butter
-- pitiful-hearted Titan! -- that melted at the sweet
tale of the sun's? If thou didst, then behold that
compound. FALSTAFF: You
rogue, here's lime [used to improve bad wine] in this sack too.
-- There is nothing but roguery to be found
in villainous man, yet a coward is worse than a
cup of sack with lime in it. A villainous coward! Go thy
ways, old Jack, die when thou wilt; if manhood, good
manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth,
then am I a shotten herring [empty fish]. There live not three
good men unhanged in England, and one of them
is fat and grows old. God help the while! A bad world,
I say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms
[Puritan hymns] or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still.
HAL: How now, wool-sack, what mutter
you? FALSTAFF: A king's son! If I do not beat
thee out of thy
kingdom with a dagger of lath [stage prop], and drive all thy
subjects afore thee like a flock of wild-geese, I'll never
wear hair on my face more. You Prince of Wales?
HAL: Why, you
whoreson round man, what's the matter?
FALSTAFF: Are
not you a coward? Answer me to that --
and Poins there? POINS: 'Zounds,
ye fat paunch, an ye call me coward, by
the Lord, I'll stab thee. FALSTAFF: I
call thee coward? I'll see thee damned ere call
coward, but I would give a thousand pound
I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight
enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees
your back. Call you that backing of your friends?
A plague upon such backing! Give me them that
will face me. --Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue,
if I drunk today. HAL: O
villain, thy lips are scarce wiped since thou
drunkest last.
FALSTAFF: All's one for that. [He drinks] A plague of
all cowards, still say I. HAL:
What's the matter?
FALSTAFF: What's the matter? There be four of us here have
ta'en a thousand pound this day morning. HAL:
Where is it, Jack, where is it? FALSTAFF: Where is it? Taken from us it is.
A hundred upon poor four of us.
HAL: What, a hundred, man? FALSTAFF:
I am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword [infighting] with
a dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scaped
by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the
doublet [upper garment], four through the hose [breeches], my buckler
[small shield] cut through and through; my sword hacked
like a hand-saw. Ecce signum [“Here’s the
proof!”] I never dealt better since I was a man. All
would not do. A plague of all cowards!
Let them speak. If they speak more or less than
truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness.
HAL: Speak, sirs; how was it? GADSHILL: We four set upon some dozen. FALSTAFF: Sixteen at least, my lord. GADSHILL: And bound them.
PETO: No, no, they were not bound. FALSTAFF: You rogue, they were bound, every
man of them, or I am a Jew else,
an Ebrew Jew. GADSHILL: As we were sharing, some
six or seven fresh men set upon us. FALSTAFF: And unbound the rest, and then
come in the other [others]. HAL:
What, fought you with them all? FALSTAFF: All? I know not what you call all,
but if I fought not with fifty of
them, I am a bunch of radish
[symbol of leanness]. If there were not two or three and fifty upon
poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.
HAL: Pray God you have not
murdered some of them. FALSTAFF:
Nay, that's past praying for. I have peppered two
of them. Two I am sure I have paid [settled], two rogues
in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell
thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my
old ward [fighting stance]. Here I lay and thus I bore my point. Four
rogues in buckram let drive at me. HAL: What,
four? Thou saidst but two even now.
FALSTAFF: Four, Hal, I told thee four. POINS: Ay, ay, he said four. FALSTAFF: These four came all a-front, and mainly
[mightily] thrust at me. I made me no more ado
but took all their seven points in my target
[shield], thus. HAL: Seven? Why, there were
but four even now. FALSTAFF:
In buckram?
POINS: Ay, four, in buckram suits.
FALSTAFF: Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else. HAL: [Aside to
Poins] Prithee, let him alone. We shall have more
anon. FALSTAFF:
Dost thou hear me, Hal? HAL:
Ay, and mark thee too, Jack.
FALSTAFF: Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine
in buckram that I told thee of -- HAL:
So, two more already. FALSTAFF: Their points being broken -- POINS: Down fell their hose
[“Points” were suspenders to hold the breeches up]. FALSTAFF:
Began to give me ground, but I followed me close,
came in foot and hand; and with a thought [as fast as thought], seven
of the eleven I paid. HAL:
O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two! FALSTAFF:
But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten
knaves in Kendal green came at my back and let
drive at me, for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst
not see thy hand. HAL:
These lies are like their father that begets them,
gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou
clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated [blockheaded] fool, thou
whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch [grease pan under a
roast] –FALSTAFF: What, art thou mad? Art
thou mad? Is not the truth
the truth?
HAL: Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal
green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy
hand? Come, tell us your reason. What sayest thou
to this? POINS: Come, your reason, Jack,
your reason. FALSTAFF: What,
upon compulsion? 'Zounds, an I were at
the strappado [instrument of torture] or all the racks in the world, I would
not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason
on compulsion! If reasons [pun on “raisin”] were as plentiful as
blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon
compulsion, I.
HAL: I'll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine [ruddy,
courageous]
coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker,
this huge hill of flesh -- FALSTAFF: 'Sblood, you starveling, you eel-skin,
you dried
neat's [ox] tongue, you bull's pizzle [penis], you stock-fish
[dried cod]! O for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor's-yard
[yardstick], you sheath, you bowcase, you vile standing-tuck
[upright rapier] -- HAL: Well, breathe
awhile, and then to it again, and
when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons,
hear me speak but this.
POINS: Mark, Jack.
HAL: We two saw you four set on four and bound them,
and were masters of their wealth. Mark now, how
a plain tale shall put you down. Then did we two
set on you four; and, with a word [only a verbal threat], out-faced you from
your prize, and have it, yea, and can show it you
here in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your
guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared
for mercy and still run and roared, as ever I
heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword
as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight!
What trick, what device, what starting-hole [hiding place], canst
thou now find out to hide thee from this open and
apparent shame? POINS: Come, let's hear, Jack; what
trick hast thou now? FALSTAFF:
By the Lord, I knew you as well as he that made you.
Why, hear you, my masters. Was it for me to kill
the heir-apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince?
Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules,
but beware instinct. The lion will not touch
the true prince. Instinct is a great matter.
I was now a coward on instinct. I shall think the
better of myself and thee during my life -- I
for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But,
by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money.
-- Hostess, clap to the doors. -- Watch to- night,
pray tomorrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of
gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you!
What, shall we be merry? Shall we have a play
extempore? HAL:
Content, and the argument [subject] shall be thy running
away. FALSTAFF:
Ah, no more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!
To explain his failure at Gad’s Hill, Falstaff has decided to play an elaborate charade, creating the illusion of a violent fight over the booty. He and his fellow thieves have put holes in their clothes and hacked notches in their swords. To accompany this play-acting, Falstaff adopts an attitude of extreme anger, blaming his loss on Hal and Poins. It’s also useful for allowing him to cadge free drinks, his favorite activity, and he does so at line 118. Falstaff has a way of turning his momentary problems into major life-changing crisis, and so at line 119 he threatens to give up a life of crime to take up the humble occupation of sewing, darning and wearing stockings. (It’s an interesting career choice!) At line 123 Hal responds with a comic exaggeration based on his friend’s appearance, primarily his red complexion. Comparing Falstaff’s face to the sun, represented by the god Titan, Hal declares that as the sun melts butter, Falstaff absorbs sack.
Falstaff’s “pent-up” anger explodes at line 127, as he accuses the drawer (probably poor Francis!) of having doctored his wine with lime, which gave it a sparkling appearance and a dry taste. What he is doing here is the same thing people do when they claim to have found an insect in a salad at Appleby’s as a way of getting out of paying. Then he expresses the real object of his rage – the debilitating effects of cowardice! Except, notice that he does not at first accuse any one person of lacking courage. He simply generalizes about “villainous cowards” as opposed to “good manhood,” implying that Hal and Poins are the cowards. In fact, at line 133 we learn that there are only three good men in all of England (the rest, apparently having been hanged by the uptight, virtuous people) and of those three one is “Fat and grows old.” Who could he be referring to? Once again we see Falstaff’s habit of taking his own specific condition at that moment and generalizing it into a universal assessment. He is so disgusted by the loss of “good manhood” that he threatens to completely change his life, just he had done back in Act I, Scene 2 at line 101 and again in Act II, Scene 2 at line 22. Now he is going to the opposite extreme from his criminality, proposing become a weaver, many of whom were Puritans, and sing psalms.
Hal rises to the bait, calling Falstaff a “woolsack,” a stuffed container. The old knight finally acknowledges his anger with Hal. He threatens to drive Hal out of his kingdom with a stage prop, a “dagger of lath” that was used in the old morality dramas to beat the Devil. (Remember that Falstaff was associated with the character of Vice from those morality plays.) For one of the few times in the play Falstaff uses his friend’s royal title, “Prince of Wales,” but he does so here as an ironic contrast between his mighty pedigree and his personal cowardice. Hal refuses to accept the insult and demands the specifics of the accusation. At line 147 Falstaff asserts that Hal and Poins are cowards; the hot-tempered Poins responds with a taboo word, “Zounds,” and a threat to stab Falstaff.
Having just accused the two of being cowards, Falstaff at line 151 does a complete reversal, denying that he ever did, the kind of comic inconsistency that we have come to expect from the old knight. It also prepares us for the wildly inflated contradictions we are about to get from Falstaff. He does get one good zinger in on Poins at line 152: “I would give a thousand pound/ I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight/ enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your/ back. Call you that backing of your friends?” He’s not calling them cowards, but they have all the characteristics. Now at line 157 Falstaff tries to cadge another free drink: “Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue, if I drunk today.” When Hal points out the inconsistency, Falstaff gives him the Elizabethan equivalent of “What ever!” when he says, “All is one for that.”
Falstaff has just been waiting to tell the tale of the robbery, and Hal gives him the opening at line 163 by asking what the matter is. The 300 marks that they took from the franklin have grown into a thousand pounds. The two robbers who took their loot have now morphed into a hundred at line 167. Let’s call that the first comic exaggeration. Falstaff doesn’t claim he fought with all of them, but he does say he was in close combat, “at half sword,” for a half hour with a dozen of them – exaggeration #2. He now reveals the proof of his story: the cut clothing and the hacks in his sword. He calls on his fellow crooks, Gadshill, Peto and Bardolph, to substantiate his account. Notice what happens to the story between lines 181 and 191. Falstaff’s wild imagination begins to affect his partners in crime. Gadshill starts out with twelve victims, probably because Falstaff has already established that number at line 171. Not to be undone, Falstaff now increases it to 16, exaggeration #3. Gadshill continues that they bound the victims, and Peto, caught up in the spirit of the lie, denies that, suggesting that the number of armed, angry victims outnumbered the robber four to one. But this is Falstaff’s story, so he insists that they were bound. To heighten the veracity of his account he throws in a piece of casual anti-semitism at line 187: “or I am a Jew – an Ebrew Jew.” Such expressions of prejudice against Jews were common in Shakespeare’s time, although ironically there were supposedly no Jews then living in England; they had been officially expelled several hundred years earlier. Gadshill joins in the process of exaggeration by telling us six or seven robbers now arrived to take the loot, and Falstaff quickly adds to the crowd by having the newcomers untie the 16 who were bound, and then the others arrived. Let’s call this exaggeration #4.
Having established the larger context for the fight at Gadshill, Falstaff is now on a roll. He comes up with an interesting number for the opponents he faced at line 194. Check your footnotes for the explanation of why he claims “three and fifty.” The number of the attackers he has killed starts at “two rogues in buckram suits,” an accurate count for the number and costumes of his attackers, the last accurate count for the next 34 lines! From the beginning two, Falstaff imaginatively inflates the number six more times before Hal finally calls a stop to the game. Notice at line 218 Falstaff excitedly asks Hal if he hears the story, to which Hal replies, “Ay, and mark thee too.” It means to pay close attention, but it also has the implication of seeing through the exaggerations. Falstaff inflates the difficulties of fighting so many people at once by having the night so dark he cannot see his hand. This proves to be the inconsistency that trips him up, since he could not possibly know his assailants were wearing green.
Prince Hal at line 234 lets loose with a choice invective, calling Falstaff the father of the gross lies, a blockhead and an “obscene greasy tallow-catch,” the receptacle that catches the animal fat from roasting meat. Falstaff responds with outraged indignation that his story is not accepted as truth. When Hal and Poins point out the flaw in his story, they demand that he reveal the “reasons” for his obvious lies. At line 245 Falstaff’s response is characteristic: he will refuse to reveal his “reasons” on principle, even if he is tortured. He then turns “reasons” into a pun on “raisins.” (The two words were pronounced the same in those days.)
Back in Act I, Scene 2 Falstaff and Hal got into a competition over who could come up with the most “unsavory similes.” Now at line 251 they begin a similar contest of insults based on size. Hal fires the first salvo with the oxymoron of “sanguine coward”: he looks as if he should be brave because of his ruddy complexion but he isn’t. This is followed by “bed-presser,”” horseback-breaker” and “huge hill of flesh.” These are pretty good, but Falstaff wins the fight with a string of nine creative insults based on Hal’s being skinny at line 254:
'Sblood, you starveling, you eel-skin,
you dried
neat's [ox] tongue, you bull's pizzle [penis], you stock-fish
[dried cod] -- O for breath to utter what is like thee! –
you tailor's-yard [yardstick], you sheath, you
bowcase; you vile standing-tuck [upright rapier] --
I particularly like “bull’s pizzle” and “stock-fish.” Falstaff runs out of breath or else he could have kept going.
Hal now lays out the details of the double-cross, mocking Falstaff’s running and roaring from fear and acknowledging that he and Poins know how the old knight tried to create the illusion of valor. He demands that Falstaff admit to “this open and apparent shame.” But the wily old criminal has an ace up his sleeve. At line 278 he offers an explanation which stalemates Hal’s efforts at humiliation:
By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he
that made ye. Why, hear you, my masters. Was
it for me to kill the heir-apparent? Should
I turn upon the true prince? Why,
thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules,
but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the
true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was now a
coward on instinct. I shall think the better of
myself and thee during my life -- I for a valiant
lion, and thou for a true prince.
This far-fetched excuse is a double-edged sword for Hal; he can’t object too strenuously to it. Falstaff chose to let the “true prince” live rather than killing him. We already know that Hal’s claim to the throne is tenuous at best because his father stole the crown. Falstaff claims he is like the lion, the king of beasts, that instinctively recognizes the genuine heir to the throne, according to ancient folklore. If Hal rejects this argument and says Falstaff is no lion but a devout coward, he would, in effect, be arguing against his own royalty. So Falstaff is allowed to deflect the dishonor of his actions by announcing he was “a coward on instinct.” He sums up his point at the end of this passage – Falstaff is a “valiant lion” if Hal is the “true prince.”
What’s most important for Falstaff is that Hal and Poins have the money and they can all party. At line 288 he even finds a piece of Scripture (Matthew 26:41) subverted in the cause of his celebration: “Watch [in the sense of stay up all night drinking] tonight, pray tomorrow.” There’s always time later on to repent. Falstaff now proposes that for entertainment they perform a “play extempore.” This suggestion will shape the next long sequence and lead to the most serious revelation about the future of the friendship of these two.
In this next sequence what is the news from the palace and why is it of particular concern to Hal? How do you account for his attitude toward the news and the pending showdown with his father? Why does Falstaff want Hal to “practice an answer” to what he is likely to encounter when the prince meets the king? How accurate a parody of King Henry does Falstaff do? What is it about this game of play-acting that allows Falstaff and Hal, finally, to speak openly about their future together? What will that future be? [Act II, Scene 4, lines 296 – 499]
[Enter Hostess] Hostess: O Jesu, my lord the prince -- HAL: How now, my lady the hostess! What sayest thou to me? Hostess: Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door would speak with you. He says he comes from your father. HAL: Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again to my mother. FALSTAFF: What manner of man is he?
Hostess: An old man.
FALSTAFF: What doth Gravity [old age] out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his answer?
HAL: Prithee do, Jack.
FALSTAFF: 'Faith, and I'll send him packing. [Exit FALSTAFF]
HAL: Now, sirs. By'r lady, you fought fair. -- So did you, Peto -- So did you, Bardolph. -- You are lions too. You ran away upon instinct. You will not touch the true prince. No, fie! BARDOLPH: 'Faith, I ran when I saw others run.
HAL: 'Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's
sword so hacked?
PETO: Why, he hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to do the like.
BARDOLPH: Yea, and to tickle our noses with spear-grass to
make them bleed, and then to beslubber our garments
with it, and swear it was the blood of true men.
I did that I did not this seven year before: I blushed
to hear his monstrous devices.
HAL: O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner [caught with the goods], and ever since thou hast blushed extempore. Thou hadst fire [red complexion] and sword on thy side, and yet thou ran’st away. What instinct hadst thou for it?
BARDOLPH: My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you behold
these exhalations [meteorological omens]?
HAL: I do.
BARDOLPH: What think you they portend?
HAL: Hot livers and cold purses [two effects of excessive drinking].
BARDOLPH: Choler [anger], my lord, if rightly taken.
HAL: No, if rightly taken, halter [the gallows]. [Re-enter FALSTAFF]
Here
comes lean Jack. Here comes bare-bone. --
How now, my sweet creature of bombast [cotton stuffing].
How long is't ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine
own knee?
FALSTAFF: My own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal,
I was not an eagle's talon in the waist; I could have
crept into any alderman's thumb-ring. A plague of
sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder.
There's villainous news abroad. Here was Sir
John Bracy from your father. You must to the court
in the morning. That same mad fellow of the north,
Percy, and he of Wales, that gave Amamon [a demon] the
bastinado [beating] and made Lucifer cuckold,
and swore the
devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh
hook [a weapon without a cross] --what a
plague call you him?
FALSTAFF: Owen, Owen, the same, and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs a-horseback up a hill perpendicular --
HAL: He that rides at high speed and with his pistol
kills a sparrow flying.
HAL: So did he never the sparrow.
FALSTAFF: Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him. He will not run.
HAL: Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so
for running?
FALSTAFF: A-horseback, ye cuckoo, but afoot he will not budge a foot.
HAL: Yes, Jack, upon instinct.
FALSTAFF: I grant you, upon instinct. Well, he is there too,
and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps [Scots]
more.
Worcester is stolen away to-night. Thy father's
beard is turned
white with the news. You may buy land
now as cheap as stinking mackerel.
HAL: Why then, it is like if there come a hot June, and this civil
buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads
as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds.
FALSTAFF: By the mass, lad, thou sayest true. It is like we
shall have good trading that way. But tell me, Hal,
art not thou horrible afeard? Thou being heir- apparent, could the
world pick thee out three such enemies
again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and
that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly
afraid? Doth not thy blood thrill [shiver] at it?
HAL: Not a whit, i' faith. I lack some of thy instinct.
FALSTAFF: Well, thou wert be horribly chid tomorrow when thou comest to thy father. If thou love me, practice an answer.
HAL: Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life.
FALSTAFF: Shall I? Content. [He sits down] This chair shall be my state [throne], this dagger my scepter, and this cushion my crown.
HAL: Thy state is taken for [seems to be] a joined-stool, thy
golden
scepter for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich
crown for a pitiful bald crown.
FALSTAFF: Well, an the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved. -- Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein [melodramatic rant].
HAL: Well, here is my leg [bow].
FALSTAFF: And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.
Hostess: O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i' faith!
FALSTAFF: Weep not, sweet queen; for trickling tears are vain.
Hostess: O, the father, how he holds his countenance [plays the part]!
FALSTAFF: For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful [sad] queen,
For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes.
Hostess: O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry [scurvy]
players as ever I see!
FALSTAFF: Peace, good pint-pot; peace, good tickle-brain. --
Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy
time, but also how thou art accompanied. For though
the chamomile [aromatic herb], the more it
is trodden on, the faster it grows, so youth, the
more it is wasted the sooner it wears. That thou
art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly
my own opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick [twitch] of
thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip,
that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me,
here lies the point: why, being son to me,
art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven
prove a micher [truant] and eat blackberries? A question
not to be asked. Shall the son [pun on “sun”] of England prove a thief and take purses? A question
to be asked. There is a thing,
Harry, which thou hast often
heard of, and it is known to many in our land
by the name of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers
do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest.
For, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink
but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion, not
in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is a
virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company,
but I know not his name.
HAL: What manner of man, an it like your majesty?
FALSTAFF: A goodly portly [stately] man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble carriage, and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r lady, inclining to three score; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be lewdly given [inclined toward evil], he deceiveth me, for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily [decisively] I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff; him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?
HAL: Dost thou
speak like a king? Do thou stand for me,
and I'll play my father.
FALSTAFF: Depose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker [baby rabbit] or a poulter's hare.
FALSTAFF: And here I stand. Judge, my masters.
HAL: Now, Harry, whence come you?
FALSTAFF: My noble lord, from Eastcheap.
HAL: The complaints I hear of thee are grievous.
FALSTAFF: 'Sblood, my lord, they are false! -- Nay, I'll tickle ye for a young prince, i' faith.
HAL: Swearest thou, ungracious boy? Henceforth ne'er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace. There is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man. A tun [hogshead] of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humors [receptacle of bodily fluids] that bolting-hutch [sifting bin] of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies [diseases], that huge bombard [wine bag] of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree [a town where cattle were roasted] ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend [solemn] vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft [dishonesty]? Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?
FALSTAFF: I would your grace would take me with you [be more clear]. Whom means your Grace?
HAL: That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.
FALSTAFF: My lord, the man I know.
FALSTAFF: But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity; his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine [cows] are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
HAL: I do, I will. [A knocking heard]
Events in the outside world come knocking on the door throughout this passage. Yet Prince Hal seems to treat them comically, until the very end of the sequence. At line 296 the “hostess” of the tavern comes in with a message. She is a simple-minded soul who dabbles in prostitution on the side, but Hal bestows on her the mock title, “my lady of the tavern,” as if she were a noblewoman. She brings word that the day of reckoning is at hand: the inevitable message from the king has arrived and the prince will have to answer for his misadventures. At line 302 Hal turns this somber event into a joke, a pun on “noble” and “royal,” the names of two coins in those days. He will continue to refuse to take the threat seriously. It is as if Hal, keeping his true feelings secret, resists revealing anything before his friends in Eastcheap. When he rejects the message, Falstaff insists; what will happen to Hal when he returns to the palace is of supreme importance to the old knight. He asks about the messenger and is surprised that an old man (“Gravity”) would be up so late – self-awareness is not one of Falstaff’s strong suits. He volunteers to go deal with the unwelcome intruder and “send him packing.”
Hal now gets the other thieves to reveal the details of the charade in the aftermath of the botched Gad’s Hill robbery. They quickly tell how Falstaff made them hack their swords and cause nosebleeds to get blood all over themselves so it looks as if they have fought. Poor Peto is not smart enough to invent a good lie; at line 314 he confesses that he ran when he saw others running. Bardolph is a habitual drunk who has a bright red face and bulbous nose of an alcoholic. He claims that Falstaff’s deceptions caused him to blush, but Hal asserts that Bardolph has been “blushing” for years, ever since he stole his first pot of ale. Hal makes a joke of the fact that a red complexion was normally associated with physical courage, yet Bardolph and the others ran away. Bardolph angrily insists that his face with its “meteors” and “exhalations” is like the omens in the heavens, portending some cataclysmic outburst of rage (“choler”). Hal jokes that it’s not choler but “halter,” another word for a “collar,” sometimes used to refer to a noose. It is a piece of foreshadowing because in the play Henry V, Hal, now king, will condemn Bardolph to hang for theft.
When Falstaff returns at line 338, Hal turns his savagely comic wit on his friend, calling him “my sweet creature of bombast.” It’s a wonderful insult because it has two meanings: Falstaff is certainly bombastic in his overly dramatic speech; “bombast” was cotton stuffing used to fill out the costumes of ranting stage actors, hence leading to the connection between the physical and verbal bombast. Hal’s next zinger is the question, how long “since thou sawest thy own knee?” As we have seen with Falstaff before, rather than bristling at the implication of the question, he plays along and turns it to his own advantage. When he was Hal’s age he was as skinny as an eagle’s talon, but he has suffered from “sighing and grief” and it has blown him up “like a bladder.” His pitch for pity here may related to the serious news he must now deliver.
The message from the king is that the national crisis over the pending rebellion makes it imperative that Hal return to the palace and assume his duties as the crown prince. This is serious news indeed for everyone. At line 351 Falstaff is cataloguing all enemies that his friend faces, but he can’t remember Glendower’s name and he grows irritated and won’t finish his story until he gets it. Who does this personality trait remind you of? Why do you think Shakespeare draws a parallel between these two characters? Falstaff runs down all the enemies, including the Scotsman Douglas whom Falstaff invests with a mythical heroism as he rides up perpendicular hills and shoots a sparrow with a pistol. At line 360 Hal deflates this hyperbolic exaggeration. More to the point, look at the prince’s reaction to the state of shock his father has suffered at line 370: “thy father’s hair is turned white with the news.” The entire country is in shock: “you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mack’rel.” Your property is worth no more than a rotting fish. If you heard that the economy was plunged into a depression and more immediately the effect on your father was physically devastating, you would probably get very serious. Apparently Hal doesn’t react in the same way; he treats the situation as a joke. At line 373 he asserts that if the civil war continues through the heat of the summer, it will be a sexual boon, since virgins, excited by the season and the prospect of their boyfriends going off to war, may willingly give up their maidenheads. This is a very odd reaction, but it fits with his previous insistence on not revealing his true feelings to his friends.
Falstaff agrees with the joke about the trade in maidenheads, but he won’t let Hal off the hook. As the heir apparent, isn’t he terribly afraid of “that fiend Douglas, that spirit Hotspur, and that devil Glendower”? Notice that Falstaff has conveniently stepped out of the picture: these are Hal’s enemies, not his. This may give us a hint about why Hal is less than forthcoming about his real feelings with this crew. The prince makes the obligatory joke about lacking some of Falstaff’s “instinct.”
At line 385 Falstaff asks Hal to practice an answer to his father when he returns to court the next day; even here we see the old knight’s self-centeredness: ”If thou love me, practice an answer.” Falstaff is most concerned about what the king will say about their friendship. So it is that the two finally agree to perform that “play extempore” that they have been mentioning for the last hundred lines. One of the techniques sometimes used by modern psychotherapists is to have their patients play-act parts to help them understand relationship problems. Here is Shakespeare, 300 years before Sigmund Freud, doing the same thing.
Falstaff first plays the king. He tells what he is using for props, a cushion, a dagger and a stool. He also uses the occasion to cadge his third free drink in the last 250 lines; he needs more sack to make his eyes look red from weeping. Behind the joke there is an indirect acknowledgement of what Hal’s father must be feeling. The Hostess is absolutely thrilled by the performance and laughs until she cries. At line 404, in his character as King Henry, Falstaff begs her to stop her “trickling tears” and then adds, “For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful [sad] queen;/ For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes.” This is the only place in all three plays which involve Falstaff that the character speaks in blank verse, and he only does so here because he is imitating the king. When his attempt at eloquence doesn’t work, he reverts to type and tells the Hostess to shut up, calling her “pint pot” and “tickle brain,” both references to her frequent drunkenness.
Falstaff’s long speech at lines 410 – 446 is a masterful parody at a couple of different levels. First, it sounds like King Henry, especially back in the opening scene when he was making his speech about ending the civil war in England:
No
more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood;
Nor more shall trenching [digging a trench] war channel her
fields,
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors [signs of celestial upset] of a troubled
heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine [internal] shock
And furious close [hand-to-hand combat] of civil butchery
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming [orderly] ranks,
March all one way and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred and allies.
We see the same kind of elaborate, overly formal speech in Falstaff’s mockery at line 425:
There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest. For, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in passion, not in words only, but in woes also.
Just as King Henry, Falstaff takes seven lines to say something he could have said in two. Where in the speech does Falstaff hint that Hal may have trouble severing his relationship with his friends in Eastcheap?
The second way this speech is a parody is that Shakespeare deliberately has Falstaff imitate the ornate writing style of an influential writer, John Lyly, whose major work was a triumph of stating the obvious in the most self-conscious kind of overblown prose. The title of that book, Euphues, gave rise to the term euphuism which we still use to describe language which avoids being directly and skirts unpleasant topics. We see the mockery of Lyly also in the patterns of repetition Falstaff uses: “For, Harry, now I do not speak to/ thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in/ passion, not in words only, but in woes also.” Do you see the three repeated constructions here? Right out of John Lyly’s style book. And yet mixed in with the intellectual mockery, we still see Falstaff’s ribald wit, as in his joke about Hal’s similarity to his father at line 415.
The major thing we see, however, is that behind the mockery and jokes, Falstaff is using the play-acting to plead directly for himself and his future with the Prince. His description of the “goodly portly man” has about as much subtlety as a Mack truck. He knows what is in store and he begs that Hal banish everyone else except the old knight. It is as if Falstaff has crossed a line with this request. Up to this point both men have been carefully to talk about their future indirectly: “Will there be gallows standing in England when thou art king?”
Now at line 447 Hal takes over as the king and the old man plays the youthful prince. They will use the mask of play-acting to explore the further ramifications of their complex relationship. Falstaff kicks it off by playing an outrageous prince. At line 456 he tells the king he has just come from Eastcheap – not at all the kind of place the royal prince should be hanging out! He follows this by denying the charges against Hal, telling the king “’Sblood, my lord, they are false.” Using a taboo word to your father and your king is just wrong at many different levels, but Falstaff enjoys the provocation. At line 462 the prince speaking as his father launches into the most thorough-going condemnation of Falstaff so far in the play. It’s a collection of insults about his size, his behavior and his immoral attitudes, all delivered with the same kind of pattern repetitions that Falstaff had used in his parody of Lyly. In this next passage, how many “that” phrases does Hal use to skewer Falstaff? How many “wherein…but…” constructions does he use?
There is a devil haunts thee in the like- ness of an old fat man; a tun [hogshead] of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humors [receptacle of bodily fluids] that bolting-hutch [sifting bin] of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies [diseases], that huge bombard [wine bag] of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree [a town where cattle were roasted] ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend [solemn] vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning, but in craft [dishonesty]? Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?
There are some specialized kind of references here, like the “roasted Mnningtree ox with pudding in his belly,” recalling for Shakespeare’s audience a specific country fair with a tradition of Elizabethan barbeque. Notice that the last four of the “that” phrases are all oxynorons, and particularly appropriate for Falstaff. Notice the use of alliteration in the second “that” phrase. Finally notice the kind of rhythmic buildup in the “wherein….but….” constructions, leading to the dramatic conclusion. This is Hal’s eloquence at his best.
But it equaled by Falstaff’s response at line 477. As we have seen several times before, Falstaff deflects humor aimed at him. Here he first expresses puzzlement about who the king is referring to. He acknowledges that he knows Falstaff and then proceeds to defend him against the charges, uttering things that the old knight wishes the young prince would say about him. It finally gives way into a kind of orgy of special pleading and self-pity that is designed to tug at Hal’s heartstrings.
But
to say I know more harm in him than in myself,
were to say more than I know. That he is old, the
more the pity, his white hairs do witness it; but
that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster,
that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help
the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then
many an old host that I know is damned. If to be
fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine [cows] are to
be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish Bardolph,
banish Poins: but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind
Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff,
and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old
Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish
not him thy Harry's company, banish plump
Jack, and banish all the world.
Falstaff begins by claiming that he and Hal are moral soul mates: “But to say I know more harm in him than in myself,/ were to say more than I know.” Falstaff is indirectly arguing that Hal can’t condemn him for the same sins the prince has supposedly committed. Then we get the plea for pity as Falstaff, for one of the only times in the play, acknowledges he is old. This is followed by a hilarious denial: he may be guilty of many things, but he doesn’t live off the earnings of prostitutes; at least it hasn’t been proven. Falstaff then points to persons of girth who are positive, like the “hosts” who ran many of the inns in England and ate well. Then he argues by the negative: if it’s a bad thing to be fat, then you must be extolling skinny things, like the starving cattle of Egypt mentioned in the Book of Exodus. Then once again he comes back to the theme of banishment, offering up all his supposed friends for exile. And then the final plea for cutting Jack Falstaff some slack because he is “sweet,” “kind,” “true,” “valiant,” and all the more because he is “old.” He repeats his admonition not to banish Falstaff twice and ends with the wonderful line: “Banish/ plump Jack, and banish all the world.” This is an eloquence unmatched by anything else in the play.
Hal’s four word response at line 499 is devastating: “I do, I will.” Sometimes the first two words are delivered as if they were a joke in the spirit of the moment, and then the last two words are an absolute denial of any future for the friendship once Hal becomes king. Hal finally and irrevocably pronounces the sentence on his friend. They will continue to go through the motions of joking and being best buddies, but this looms over them. King Henry V will hold to his promise; his first official act will be to banish Falstaff from his presence on pain of death.
The final sequence of the play is the aftermath of the Gad’s Hill robbery as Hal has to cover for his friends. How do you account for Falstaff’s reaction to the Prince’s rejection? What’s the comic point of picking Falstaff’s pocket? [Act II, Scene 4, lines 500 – 570]
[Exit Hostess,
FRANCIS, and BARDOLPH] [Re-enter BARDOLPH] BARDOLPH:
O, my lord, my lord! The Sheriff with a most
monstrous watch [police force] is at the
door. FALSTAFF: Out, ye rogue. -- Play
out the play, I have much to
say in the behalf of that Falstaff. [Re-enter
the Hostess] Hostess: O Jesu, my lord, my lord -- HAL:
Heigh, heigh! the devil rides upon a fiddlestick [The
devil is leading this dance]! What's the
matter? Hostess: The Sheriff and all the watch are at the door. They
are come to search the house. Shall I let them
in? FALSTAFF:
Dost thou hear, Hal? Never call a true piece of
gold a counterfeit. Thou art essentially made
without seeming so. HAL:
And thou a natural coward without instinct. FALSTAFF:
I deny your major [major premise]. If you will deny the Sheriff,
so; if not, let him enter. If I become not a cart
[hangman’s cart] as well as another man, a plague on my bringing
up. I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a
halter as another. HAL:
Go, hide thee behind the arras [tapestry]. The rest walk up
above. Now, my masters, for a true face and good
conscience. FALSTAFF:
Both which I have had; but their date is out, and
therefore I'll hide me. HAL:
Call in the Sheriff. [Exeunt all except PRINCE HENRY and
PETO] [Enter Sheriff and the Carrier] Now, Master
Sheriff, what is your will with me? Sheriff: First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry
Hath followed certain men unto this house. HAL:
What men? Sheriff:
One of them is well known, my gracious lord.
A gross fat man. Carrier:
As fat as butter. HAL:
The man, I do assure you, is not here,
For I myself at this time have employed him.
And, Sheriff, I will engage my word to thee
That I will by tomorrow, dinner time,
Send him to answer thee or any man,
For anything he shall be charged withal.
And so let me entreat you leave the house. Sheriff:
I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen
Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks. HAL:
It may be so. If he have robbed these men,
He shall be answerable; and so farewell. Sheriff:
Good night, my noble lord. HAL:
I think it is good morrow, is it not? Sheriff:
Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock. [Exit
Sheriff and Carrier] HAL: This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. Go,
call him forth. PETO:
Falstaff! -- Fast asleep behind the arras, and
snorting [snoring] like a horse. HAL:
Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.
[He searcheth his pockets, and findeth certain papers] What
hast thou found? PETO:
Nothing but papers, my lord. HAL:
Let's see what they be. Read them. PETO:
[Reads] Item, A capon,. . 2s. 2d.
Item, Sauce,. . . 4d.
Item, Sack, two gallons, 5s. 8d.
Item, Anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d.
Item, Bread, ob. HAL: O monstrous! But one
halfpennyworth of bread to
this intolerable deal [lot] of sack! What there is else,
keep close. We'll read it at more advantage. There
let him sleep till day. I'll to the court in the morning.
We must all to the wars, and thy place shall
be honorable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge
of foot [infantry company], and I know his death will be a
march of twelve-score [twelve score paces].
The money shall be paid
back again with advantage [interest] Be with
me betimes [early] in
the morning; and so, good morrow, Peto. PETO: Good morrow,
good my lord. [Exit]
At a climatic moment in this play, as Hal rejects Falstaff, there comes a knock at the door. It is as if the outside world is demanding attention, as if all the petty crimes and misdemeanors were coming home to roost. (Shakespeare uses this same device to great effect in plays like Othello and Macbeth.) It also breaks the tension of the confrontation between the two friends. Bardolph runs in with the news that the law is at the door, but Falstaff is so fixated on what Hal has just said, he demands that the play continue so he can offer some arguments against his banishment. However, when the Hostess rushes in to say the Sheriff is demanding to come in and search, everyone realizes that it is serious and the confrontation over the future is temporarily shelved. At line 505 Hal in effect acknowledges that events are out of his hands: “Heigh, heigh! the devil rides upon a fiddlestick,” i.e., “I’m no longer in control of what’s happening.” Falstaff’s immediate concern is whether Hal will turn him over to the sheriff. The passage at lines 510 -- 517 is pretty obscure, but what seems to be happening is that Falstaff asserts that he is a genuine friend, despite his unsavory appearance (“counterfeit”) and that Hal is no better. When Hal chides him about being afraid of the gallows, Falstaff gives us a typical bravado claim that he will be hanged as bravely as the next man. At line 519 Hal agrees to cover for the robbers and tells Falstaff to hide behind a curtain and for the rest to put on a “true face and a good conscience.” Falstaff replies that he has both qualities, but their “date is out,” that is their shelf life has expired.
When the Sheriff and one of the crime victims enter, the language shifts from prose to verse, signaling the seriousness of the situation. Falstaff and his confederates have passed themselves off as arch criminals, and I have suggested that in several ways we are shown that they are rank amateurs. We see that again here. If Falstaff had any kind of active criminal life, he would have been arrested long before this; he is so easily recognized. At line 546 Hal says his friend is “known as well as Paul’s,” that is St. Paul’s Cathedral, the largest building in London at that time. The sheriff has followed him to the inn and describes him as “a gross fat man,” to which the carrier who was robbed adds, “As fat as butter.” Hal tells a small fib when he says Falstaff is not there (he’s behind the curtain) but he agrees to produce Falstaff the next day to answer for his alleged crimes. When the law leaves, the arras is drawn revealing a sleeping, snoring Falstaff.
Why does Shakespeare have Falstaff fall asleep just when he has been shocked to learn of his eventual banishment and when the Sheriff is looking for him? Often this is cited as evidence of Falstaff’s utter disregard for consequences; only someone absolutely amoral could fall asleep under these circumstances. However, there is another way to look at Falstaff’s reaction. Doctors often observe people who suffer some great shock will react by falling asleep, often in unusual places. The next time we see Falstaff awake, later in Act III he will still be in a kind of daze from his confrontation here.
Whatever the reason for Falstaff’s little nap, it does provide an opportunity to play one more joke on the old knight, Hal has Peto pick his pockets. The point of all the receipts and the amounts that he spent is to graphically demonstrate Falstaff’s debauchery. It would be the equivalent of somebody spending about $100 on drinks and nachos and a quarter for one dinner roll.
In his final speech in the scene it is apparent that Hal has to take care of business. He will return to the palace in the morning and will answer to his father; he will go off to fight the rebels, and he will make his friends join the army. (Notice that he does not ask them if they will volunteer; he just assumes they are in.) He does prepare us for Falstaff’s assignment in charge of an infantry unit, which will provide lots of laughs at the reluctant marcher. What seems most important in this final passage is that Hal has obviously thought out what his actions will be in these circumstances; he doesn’t waste any time weighing options or asking his friends’ opinions. He just acts. Such quick action will be the hallmark of his command of the army as king.
Act III, Scene 1
In the third act the fortunes of the rebels begin to decline, while Prince Hal and his father are reconciled. Everyone prepares for battle. In Act III, Scene 1, we see Hotspur’s interactions with his most important ally, the great Welsh warrior Glendower. In the opening sequence ask yourself which version of the battle between Mortimer and Glendower described in Act I, Scene 3 seems to have been most accurate? In how many different ways does Hotspur manage to insult and anger Glendower? What do you think will be the consequences of his actions? [Act III, Scene 1, line 1 – 197]
[Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, MORTIMER, and GLENDOWER ]
MORTIMER: These promises are fair, the parties sure,
And our induction [beginning] full of prosperous hope.
HOTSPUR: Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower, Will you sit down? And uncle Worcester -- . A plague upon it, I have forgot the map.
GLENDOWER: No, here it is. Sit, cousin Percy; Sit, good cousin Hotspur, for by that name as oft as Lancaster [King Henry] doth speak of you his cheek looks pale and with a rising sigh He wisheth you in heaven.
HOTSPUR: And you in hell, As oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.
GLENDOWER: I cannot blame him. At my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets [beacons], and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shaked like a coward.
HOTSPUR: Why, so it would have done At the same season, if your mother's cat Had but kittened, though yourself had never been born.
GLENDOWER: I say the earth did shake when I was born.
HOTSPUR: And I say the earth was not of my mind,
If you suppose as fearing you it shook.
GLENDOWER: The heavens were all on fire; the earth did tremble.
HOTSPUR: O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,
And not in fear of your nativity.
Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth
In strange eruptions; oft the teeming earth
Is with a kind of colic pinched and vexed
By the imprisoning of unruly wind
Within her womb, which, for enlargement [freedom] striving,
Shakes the old beldam [grandmother] earth and topples
down
Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth
Our grandam earth, having this distemperature [disease],
In passion [pain] shook.
GLENDOWER: Cousin, of many men
I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave
To tell you once again that at my birth
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields.
These signs have marked me extraordinary,
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.
Where is he living, clipped in [embraced] with
the sea
That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales,
Which calls me pupil, or hath read to [tutored] me?
And bring him out that is but woman's son
Can trace [follow] me in the tedious ways of art
[magic]
And hold me pace in deep experiments.
HOTSPUR: I think there's no man speaks better Welsh.
I'll to dinner.
MORTIMER: Peace, cousin Percy. You will make him mad.
GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
GLENDOWER: Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command
the devil.
HOTSPUR: And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
By telling truth. Tell truth and shame the devil.
If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,
And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.
O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!
MORTIMER: Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.
GLENDOWER: Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head
Against my power; thrice from the banks of Wye
And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him
Bootless [unsuccessful] home and weather-beaten back.
HOTSPUR: Home without boots, and in foul weather too!
How 'scapes he agues [fevers], in the devil's
name?
GLENDOWER: Come, here's the map. Shall we divide our right [the
kingdom we hope to conquer]
According to our threefold order ta'en?
MORTIMER: The archdeacon hath divided it
Into three limits [regions] very equally:
England, from Trent and Severn hitherto,
By south and east is to my part assigned;
All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,
And all the fertile land within that bound,
To Owen Glendower; and, dear coz, to you
The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.
And our indentures tripartite [three-way agreement] are
drawn,
Which being sealed interchangeably [all three agreed
upon] --
A business that this night may execute --
Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I
And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth
To meet your father and the Scottish power,
As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury.
My father Glendower is not ready yet,
Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.
[To Glendower] Within that space you may have drawn
together
Your tenants, friends and neighboring gentlemen.
GLENDOWER: A shorter time shall send me to you, lords;
And in my conduct shall your ladies come,
From whom you now must steal and take no leave,
For there will be a world of water shed
Upon the parting of your wives and you.
HOTSPUR: Methinks my moiety [portion], north from Burton here,
In quantity equals not one of yours.
See how this river comes me cranking [winds] in,
And cuts me from the best of all my land
A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle [piece] out.
I'll have the current in this place dammed up;
And here the smug [smooth] and silver Trent shall run
In a new channel, fair and evenly.
It shall not wind with such a deep indent,
To rob me of so rich a bottom [valley] here.
GLENDOWER: Not wind? It shall, it must! You see it doth.
MORTIMER: Yea, but mark how he bears his course, and runs me up With
like advantage [disadvantage] on the other side,
Gelding the opposed continent [cutting off the other
side] as much As on the other side it takes from
you.
WORCESTER: Yea, but a little charge [gunpowder] will trench [channel]
him here
And on this north side win this cape of land,
And then he runs straight and even.
HOTSPUR: I'll have it so. A little charge will do it.
GLENDOWER: I'll not have it altered.
HOTSPUR: Will not you?
GLENDOWER: No, nor you shall not.
HOTSPUR: Who shall say me nay?
GLENDOWER: Why, that will I.
HOTSPUR: Let me not understand you, then; speak it in Welsh.
GLENDOWER: I can speak English, lord, as well as you,
For I was trained up in the English court, Where,
being but young, I framed to the harp
Many an English ditty lovely well
And gave the tongue a helpful ornament [beautified the
language] --
A virtue that was never seen in you.
HOTSPUR: Marry, and I am glad of it with all my heart.
I had rather be a kitten and cry “mew”
Than one of these same meter ballad-mongers [singers of
doggerel].
I had rather hear a brazen can’stick turned [brass
candlestick lathed].
Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree,
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing [affected] poetry.
'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.
GLENDOWER: Come, you shall have Trent turned.
HOTSPUR: I do not care. I'll give thrice so much land
To any well-deserving friend;
But in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
Are the indentures drawn? Shall we be gone?
GLENDOWER: The moon shines fair. You may away by night.
I'll haste the writer and withal
Break with [inform] your wives of your departure hence.
I am afraid my daughter will run mad,
So much she doteth on her Mortimer. [Exit
GLENDOWER]
MORTIMER: Fie, cousin Percy! How you cross my father!
HOTSPUR: I cannot choose. Sometime he angers me
With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant,
Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies,
And of a dragon and a finless fish,
A clip-winged griffin and a moulten raven,
A couching lion and a ramping [rearing] cat,
And such a deal of skimble-skamble [meaningless] stuff
As puts me from my faith. I tell you what --
He held me last night at least nine hours
In reckoning up the several [various] devils' names
That were his lackeys. I cried “Hum,” and “Well, go to!”
But marked him not a word. O, he is as tedious
As a tired horse, a railing wife,
Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live
With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far,
Than feed on cates [delicacies] and have him talk to me
In any summer house [vacation home] in
Christendom.
MORTIMER: In faith, he is a worthy gentleman,
Exceedingly well read, and profited
In strange concealments [skilled in magic arts], valiant as
a lion
And as wondrous affable, and as bountiful
As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin?
He holds your temper in a high respect
And curbs himself even of his natural scope
When you come 'cross his humor [thwart him]. Faith, he
does.
I warrant you, that man is not alive
Might so have tempted him as you have done
Without the taste of danger and reproof.
But do not use it oft, let me entreat you.
WORCESTER: In faith, my lord, you are too willful-blame [blamable for
being too willful],
And since your coming hither, have done enough
To put him quite beside his patience.
You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault.
Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood
[spirit] --
And that's the dearest grace it renders you --
Yet oftentimes it doth present [indicates] harsh rage,
Defect of manners, want of government [self-control],
Pride, haughtiness, opinion [arrogance] and disdain.
The least of which, haunting a nobleman,
Loseth men's hearts and leaves behind a stain
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,
Beguiling them of commendation.
HOTSPUR: Well, I am schooled. Good manners be your speed [bring you success]!
Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.
We are at the high level meeting of the rebels at Glendower’s headquarters in Wales. The principals have agreed on the arrangements and all is harmony. Mortimer refers to Hotspur as his “brother” (remember, he is Lady Percy’s brother) and Hotspur and Glendower call each other “cousin,” a sign that they are treating each other with the familiar respect you would extend to a member of your family. Both laugh that King Henry finds the other his worst enemy. It doesn’t take long for Hotspur to destroy the sense of unity and mutual respect. We get a foretaste in the flash of Hotspur’s old practice of getting irritated over the small stuff, like forgetting the map.
To understand how badly Hotspur insults Glendower, you must understand that the Welsh are a proud people who put great store in magic and supernatural forces. In addition, Glendower, despite his importance in his own country, feels as if the English are looking down on him and he bristles at any suggestion of a slight. His whole identity is tied up in the idea that his life has been marked by supernatural omens which have proclaimed his greatness. His statement to that effect at lines 13 – 17 is put in verse to emphasize the significance of the language. Hotspur blatantly insults Glendower at line 18 – the same heavenly events would have happened if your mother’s cat had had kittens. (Watch throughout this entire scene how characters will shift from verse to prose and back as a subtle message about how seriously they take what is being said.) Glendower continues to insist three times on his being special and Hotspur denies it each time. At lines 28 -- 36 he offers an explanation which would have been considered “scientific” in those days. It’s always useful when you point out to someone that their deeply held beliefs are simply wrong; it makes them really eager to work with you. At lines 36 –51 Glendower offers as proof his lifetime of achievement in the magical arts as a learned wizard. Hotspur’s retort at line 52 –“I think there’s no man speaks better Welsh” – is actually an insult; the English have always mocked the Welsh about their “strange” language, just as they frequently do to Americans.
Remember throughout this passage that the larger purpose is for the Welsh army to join Hotspur’s forces in the field. At this point what do you think the chances are that the two armies will unify to fight for a common cause?
From line 55 to line 65 Glendower and Hotspur continue to act like two kids: “Did not! “Did so!” At line 59 Glendower claims his magic is so powerful he can control the Devil; this assertion is based on the idea that magic and supernatural forces were most commonly associated with Satan. (That’s one of the reasons that dabbling in magic was a capital offense in England at this time.) Hotspur’s retort at line 60 – 65 is a self-righteous rant that Glendower needs to “tell the truth and shame the devil.” The implication is, of course, that the Welshman is deliberately lying. Mortimer finally tries to interrupt this unproductive bickering. Glendower tries a new tack, bragging that he and his army defeated Henry’s efforts to invade their country and sent him “bootless home,” that is, without success. Hotspur’s effort to make a joke of this is an insult to the victories Glendower is obviously proud of: “Home without boots, and in foul weather too!/ How 'scapes he agues [fevers], in the devil's name?”
Mortimer now brings out the map and goes over the division of the territory they plan to wrest from King Henry. This passage, at lines 73 – 82, would have set off alarm bells in Shakespeare’s audience for two reasons. First, any discussion of “dividing the kingdom” would prompt a very negative reaction in Shakespeare’s time, when the central tenet in English politics was holding the country together; it would have had about the same impact as a politician tearing an American flag in two to make a political point for us. Secondly, the idea of dividing the spoils up before you actually win the battle is a little premature – “Don’t count your chickens….” But Mortimer goes through the division of the country which the rebels have apparently entrusted to a churchman, an “archdeacon,” on the assumption that he would be impartial. He moves on after line 82 to discuss the timing of their campaign and the fact that he and Hotspur will have to leave their wives behind. Then Glendower confirms his timing in joining forces with the other rebels at Shrewsbury before King Henry can raise a force to oppose them. He also prepares us for the emotional leave-taking that will occur with the wives.
Now at line 100, almost 20 lines after everyone has moved on past the discussion of the division issue, Hotspur suddenly raises an objection. We saw how Hotspur was about three beats behind everyone else back in Act I, Scene 3, at line 156 when he belatedly figured out the reason for King Henry’s reluctance to pay Mortimer’s ransom. Here at line 105 his solution to what he sees as the unfair distribution of land based on the winding course of the River Trent is very simple: change the course of the river. Glendower is enraged and yells, “Not wind? It shall, it must! You see it doth.” Mortimer tries to pacify the situation by pointing out that the same winding river gives Hotspur more ground elsewhere. But Hotspur’s contrary spirit is infectious, and at line 116 Worcester talks about “correcting” the course of the Trent, as if the only problem was a technical one of how much gunpowder to use. When Glendower refuses to allow the change, Hotspur at line 125 again indirectly insults Glendower’s language, saying in effect, “Rather than risk a confrontation with me by telling me ‘no’ in plain English, speak in the gobbledygook you Welsh call a language.”
This last insult sets Glendower off on a new rant. He wants to impress upon Hotspur that he is not some ignorant savage. He was raised in the English court and learned to speak and sing English quite eloquently, a skill that Hotspur does not demonstrate. (To this day the Welsh people are famed for their singing, and one of the most popular competitions in Britain is an annual singing competition in Wales.) Hotspur and Glendower finally find something they agree upon at line 131: Harry Percy is no poet!
Marry,
and I am glad of it with all my heart!
I had rather be a kitten and cry mew
Than one of these same meter ballad-mongers [singers of
doggerel].
I had rather hear a brazen can’stick turned [brass candlestick
lathed].
Or a dry wheel grate on the axletree;
And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,
Nothing so much as mincing [affected] poetry:
'Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.
Several times in Shakespeare’s plays he will have his most eloquent character declare that he is without skill in using language. It is an interesting insight into that character’s self-perception, as is the case here. This is the same man who back in Act I, Scene 3 uttered the impassioned speech about plucking honor from the pale-faced moon and gave us such a vivid description of “a certain lord,” we could see that person in our mind’s eye. And yet, he sees himself as the most antipoetic person in all of England. Except, notice that he makes his declaration speaking verse and in stark and memorable imagery: “I had rather hear a brazen can’stick turned/ Or a dry wheel on an axletree.” You can just hear the jarring sounds he evokes. But he believes that he has no skill in using poetic language. In one way it is fairly charming to see this bumptious blindness to his own ability. In another it suggests a lack of self-awareness on Hotspur’s part that we have seen throughout the play. Glendower backs down and agrees to the river’s change, and Hotspur says he would gladly give even more to a good friend, but that he prides himself on being a tough bargainer. It turns out the whole upset in the last 40 lines has been over nothing; Hotspur doesn’t care. Remember, the main purpose of this meeting is to reassure these allies so that everyone will fight on the same side. How do you think it’s going?
As Glendower goes off to get Hotspur and Mortimer’s wives so the men can say goodbye and leave for the battlefield, Mortimer chides Hotspur about his deliberate upset of the Welsh leader. Hotspur describes additional reasons for his attitude in his speech at lines 152 – 169. Glendower had spoken to him at considerable lengths about prophecies. Naturally, Percy had not paid much attention, but here we see how Shakespeare used specific material from Holinshed’s Chronicles to flesh out his text. Scholars have found the prophecy which Glendower apparently believed came from King Arthur’s wizard Merlin – Hotspur (represented by the heraldic figure of the lion or cat), Glendower (by the dragon) and Mortimer (by the wolf) would defeat the mole, representing King Henry, and divide his kingdom. This is obviously important to Glendower, but Hotspur dismisses it as “skimble-skamble stuff.” Then Glendower listed all the devils he could summon and control. (There were literally hundreds of different devils listed in the publications of the day.) Once again, Hotspur is not impressed. Then at line 164 Hotspur starts listing a series of wonderful comparisons to express his irritation with his Welsh ally: a tired horse, a railing wife, a smoky house. (Hotspur might do pretty well in a contest with Hal and Falstaff for the “most unsavory similes.”) He would rather live alone in a windmill (you can imagine how noisy it would be to live in such a place) than to spend any time talking to Glendower in a “summer house.”
Mortimer at lines 170 – 181 praises Glendower for his learning, magical skills, courage, affability and generosity. He warns Hotspur that the Welsh leader is being very restrained in the face of Hotspur’s provocations and urges Percy not to push it. Worcester joins in at lines 182 – 195, giving us the most cogent description of his nephew’s flaws and their possible consequences:
In
faith, my lord, you are too willful-blame [blamable for being too
willful];
And since your coming hither have done enough
To put him quite beside his patience.
You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault.
Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood [spirit] --
And that's the dearest grace it renders you --
Yet oftentimes it doth present [indicates] harsh rage,
Defect of manners, want of government [self-control],
Pride, haughtiness, opinion [arrogance] and disdain.
The least of which haunting a nobleman
Loseth men's hearts and leaves behind a stain
Upon the beauty of all parts besides,
Beguiling them of commendation.
Look at what they older man says about Hotspur: he is “too willful-blame,” i.e. too head- strong and determined to pursue his own course. It may be proof of greatness and courage, but when you’re trying to build a coalition, it’s not so good. It indicates rage, lack of civility and self-control, arrogance and disdain, any one of which flaws haunts a gentleman, ruins his character and spoils all his other accomplishments. This is the most comprehensive condemnation of Hotspur’s character faults in the play. Look at how he responds to this criticism at line 196. All he hears is that his manners could be better; the larger implications of his failings pass him by completely.
Before we move on, let us go back and examine a central question raised in Act I, Scene 3, when Hotspur gave us a picture of Mortimer’s superhuman efforts against Glendower in single combat, a fight that at the least must have left him permanently crippled. King Henry rejected that version and declared that Mortimer had betrayed his own men and made a deal with Glendower. Based on the evidence we see in this scene, who appears to have been correct?
Act III, Scene 1, lines 198 – 276
In this scene we see the wives of Hotspur and Mortimer. Compare the two marriages. What evidence do we see of Glendower’s magical power and what is Hotspur’s reaction to it? What aspects of Hotspur’s character are emphasized in this sequence, and why? [Act III, Scene 1, lines 199 –276]
[Re-enter
GLENDOWER with the ladies] MORTIMER: This is
the deadly spite [ill-fortune] that angers me:
My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh. GLENDOWER:
My daughter weeps; she will not part with you.
She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars. MORTIMER:
Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy
Shall follow in your conduct speedily. [Glendower
speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers him in the same] GLENDOWER:
She is desperate here. a peevish self-wind harlotry [brat], One
that no persuasion can do good upon. [The lady speaks in Welsh] MORTIMER:
I understand thy looks. That pretty Welsh [that is, her tears]
Which thou pourest down from these swelling heavens [her
eyes]
I am too perfect in, and but for shame
In such a parley [meeting of tears] should I answer
thee. [The lady speaks again in
Welsh] I understand thy
kisses, and thou mine,
And that's a feeling disputation [powerful
communications];
But I will never be a truant, love,
Till I have learned thy language; for thy tongue
Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penned
[beautifully written],
Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower,
With ravishing division [musical notes], to her lute. GLENDOWER:
Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad. [The
lady speaks again in Welsh] MORTIMER: O, I
am ignorance itself in this! GLENDOWER: She
bids you on the wanton [luxurious] rushes lay you down
And rest your gentle head upon her lap,
And she will sing the song that pleaseth you
And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep [make sleep
sovereign],
Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness,
Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep
As is the difference betwixt day and night
The hour before the heavenly-harnessed team [the horses
of the sun]
Begins his golden progress in the east. MORTIMER:
With all my heart I'll sit and hear her sing.
By that time will our book [agreement], I think, be
drawn. GLENDOWER: Do so, and those musicians that shall play to
you
Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence,
And straight they shall be here. Sit and attend. HOTSPUR:
Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down. Come,
quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap. LADY
PERCY: Go, ye giddy goose. [The music plays] HOTSPUR:
Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh,
And 'tis no marvel he is so humorous [capricious].
By'r Lady, he is a good musician. LADY
PERCY: Then should you be nothing but musical,
for you are altogether governed by humors. Lie still,
ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh. HOTSPUR: I
had rather hear Lady, my brach [bitch hound] howl in Irish. LADY
PERCY: Wouldst thou have thy head broken? HOTSPUR: No. LADY
PERCY: Then be still. HOTSPUR: Neither;
'Tis a woman's fault. LADY
PERCY: Now God help thee! HOTSPUR: To
the Welsh lady's bed. LADY PERCY: What's
that? HOTSPUR: Peace, She
sings. [Here the lady sings a Welsh song] HOTSPUR: Come,
Kate, I'll have your song too. LADY
PERCY: Not mine, in good sooth [truth]. HOTSPUR:
Not yours, in good sooth! Heart, you swear like
a comfit-maker's [candy maker] wife. “Not you, in good sooth,”
and “as true as I live!” and “as God shall mend
me,” and “as sure as day”--
And givest such sarcenet surety [silken security] for
thy oaths
As if thou never walk’st further than Finsbury [resort
for middle-class people in London].
Swear me, Kate, like a lady as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath, and leave “in sooth,”
And such protest of pepper-gingerbread [crumbling in the
mouth]
To velvet-guards [merchants] and Sunday-citizens.
Come, sing. LADY
PERCY: I will not sing. HOTSPUR:
'Tis the next way to turn tailor [famed for singing at their work]
or be red-breast teacher [singing master for
birds]. An the indentures be drawn, I'll away within these
two hours; and so, come in when you will. [Exit] GLENDOWER:
Come, come, Lord Mortimer; you are as slow
As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.
By this our book is drawn. We'll but seal,
And then to horse immediately. MORTIMER:
With all my heart. [Exit]
It would be difficult to find two more different marriages than those shown in
this sequence. Mortimer and his wife cannot speak the same language and are
desperately in love; Hotspur and Kate do speak the same language and are
portrayed here as a bickering couple from a bad TV sit-com. He takes delight
in teasing her, and she treats him like an unruly child. It will be the last
time these two will be together, and yet all they are capable of is a kind of
game-playing as a substitute for real intimacy. Elsewhere in this lecture I
have told you Shakespeare mixes up his historical “Mortimers.” He compounds
the problem at line 195 by not remembering that Lady Percy is this Mortimer’s
sister, not aunt, not an important mistake.
Shakespeare was fascinated by foreign languages, especially in this phase of his career. In his play Henry V he has a scene entirely in French, and in Merry Wives of Windsor he plays with different dialects and accents. He tells us that Lady Mortimer speaks in Welsh but doesn’t try to reproduce it in the text. In performance it can be a powerful reminder of the linguistic gulf between the English and the Welsh. The husband and wife must communicate with their expressions and gestures and through her father. At line 220 when he describes her helping her husband to sleep, we see an excellent example of the kind of poetic eloquence Glendower was bragging about. At line 231 Glendower evokes invisible musicians in the sky to serenade the two couples. (In Shakespeare’s theater the musicians were in a small space above the upper stage, hidden from view.)
Hotspur has spent this entire scene scoffing at the idea that Glendower has any magical powers at all. Confronted with tangible evidence that he was mistaken, does he acknowledge his error and actually change his mind? Of course not! He turns the phenomenon into a tasteless joke, declaring that the devil understands Welsh, which explains why he is so capricious in the way he treats humans. Hotspur’s point seems to be that knowledge of the Welsh language messes up your mind, makes you “humorous” or moody. His wife take his remark at line 239 to refer to the “humors” of musicians, who could be very temperamental, and so at line 241 she declares that he is “nothing but musical,” since he is governed by his moods. (Notice that Lady Percy, just as she did in Act II, Scene 3, deals with her husband as a child, calling him a “goose” and a “thief.”) They banter back and forth. When she tells him to be quiet, he replies at line 249 that to be still would make him womanish. Notice the little exchange at line 250 - 253: Hotspur implies that, given the chance, he would cheat on his wife. It is probably meant as a joke, as the same kind of threat to withdraw his affection that we saw him use on her back in Act II, Scene 3.
When Mortimer’s wife sings in Welsh, Hotspur wants Kate to sing as well. Embarrassed, she demurs, using the phrase at line 255 “in good sooth,” or “to tell the truth.” Hotspur pounces on this phrase, equating it to the kind of “holiday and lady terms” the certain lord used in Act I, Scene 3, the effeminate and affected speech that so angered him in the aftermath of the battle at Holmedon. He identifies this kind of prissy speech with middle class people, the “wife of the comfit-maker,” the kinds of members of the newly rich like the vintner Prince Hal made fun of in the previous scene. Hotspur gives us four additional examples of this kind of verbal affectation at lines 250-2. He calls these speakers “velvet guards and Sunday citizens,” as if they are always on their best behavior when they gather in places like Finsbury, a resort near London. If we remember that he is about to go off to war and they may never see each other again, it does seem a very strange topic of conversation. We are struck by Hotspur’s inability to accept real intimacy, substituting humor and bluster. Just as he did in Act II, Scene 3, he suddenly announces at line 270 that he is leaving and walks out. Glendower at line 272 sums up the stark contrast between Mortimer and Hotspur in the way they deal with their wives and their emotions.
In this scene we are reminded again that Hotspur may be funny and entertaining but he is a limited human being. His behavior here has not helped the chance for the rebels’ cause, and his interaction with his wife has reinforced the notion that he is simply not skilled at human relations. Is this the man upon whom Prince Hal should pattern himself in preparing for the throne?
Act III, Scene 2
In this scene we will see the fortunes of King Henry begin to turn for the better. Hal and his father, after a bitter confrontation, are reconciled. In the opening sequence what are the specific charges the King makes against his son? Where does Henry acknowledge Falstaff’s influence on Hal? What is Hal’s response to the charges his father makes? [Act III, Scene 2, lines 1 – 95]
London. The palace. Enter KING HENRY IV, PRINCE HENRY, and others
KING: Lords, give us leave; the Prince of Wales and I
Must have some private conference; but be near at hand,
For we shall presently have need of you. Exit Lords]
I
know not whether God will have it so
For some displeasing service I have done,
That, in His secret doom [judgment], out of my blood
[heirs]
He'll breed revengement and a scourge for me.
But thou dost in thy passages [courses] of life
Make me believe that thou art only marked
For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven
To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,
Could such inordinate [out of order] and low desires,
Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts,
Such barren pleasures, rude society
As thou art matched withal and grafted to,
Accompany the greatness of thy blood,
And hold their level with thy princely heart?
HAL: So please your majesty, I would I could
Quit [acquit myself] all offences with as clear excuse
As well as I am doubtless I can purge
Myself of many I am charged withal.
Yet such extenuation let me beg,
As, in reproof of many tales devised,
Which oft the ear of greatness needs must hear,
By smiling pickthanks [tattle-tales]and base
newsmongers,
I may, for some things true, wherein my youth
Hath faulty wandered and irregular,
Find pardon on my true submission.
KING: God pardon thee. Yet let me wonder, Harry,
At thy affections [tastes], which do hold a wing
Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.
Thy place in council thou hast rudely lost,
Which by thy younger brother is supplied,
And art almost an alien to the hearts
Of all the court and princes of my blood.
The hope and expectation of thy time [reign]
Is ruined, and the soul of every man
Prophetically doth forethink thy fall.
Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common-hackneyed in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company,
Opinion [public opinion], that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession [of King Richard]
And left me in reputeless banishment,
A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But like a comet I was wondered at;
That men would tell their children “This is he!”
Others would say “Where? Which is Bolingbroke?”
And then I stole all courtesy from heaven [I became
almost godlike in my demeanor],
And dressed myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men's hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned king.
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne'er seen but wondered at; and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast
And won by rareness such solemnity.
The skipping King, he ambled up and down
With shallow jesters and rash bavin [inflammatory] wits,
Soon kindled and soon burnt; carded [debased] his state,
Mingled his royalty with cap’ring fools,
Had his great name profaned with their scorns,
And gave his countenance, against his name [royal
title],
To laugh at gibing boys and stand the push [put up with
impudence]
Of every beardless vain comparative [dealer in insults],
Grew a companion to the common streets,
Enfeoffed himself to popularity [Tied himself to low
company],
That, being daily swallowed by men’s eyes,
They surfeited with honey and began
To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
More than a little is by much too much.
So when he had occasion to be seen,
He was but as the cuckoo is in June,
Heard, not regarded; seen, but with such eyes
As, sick and blunted with community [by familiarity],
Afford no extraordinary gaze,
Such as is bent on sunlike majesty
When it shines seldom in admiring eyes,
But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down,
Slept in his face, and rendered such aspect
As cloudy [sullen] men use to their adversaries,
Being with his presence glutted, gorged and full.
And in that very line, Harry, standest thou;
For thou has lost thy princely privilege
With vile participation [companionship]. Not an eye
But is aweary of thy common sight,
Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more;
Which now doth that I would not have it do,
Make blind itself with foolish tenderness [tears].
HAL: I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord,
Be more myself.
At the opening of this King Henry is careful not to confront his son with other people around, so he sends everyone out of the court. We saw this reluctance to reveal his emotions back in the first scene when he said, “More is to be said and to be done/ Than out of anger can be uttered.” Once the witnesses are gone he can give free rein to his strong feelings. He starts at line 5 with a powerful condemnation: you must be God’s punishment for me because of something bad I have done. Why else do you behave as you do? He lists all of his son’s sins and, in the process, includes Falstaff and the rest of the crew down in Eastcheap at line 16 as simply “rude society.” Given how important the old knight believes he is in the life of the Prince, he would probably be disappointed that the King doesn’t even mention him by name.
At line 20 Hal says he can acquit himself of the lies that others have told about him – “smiling pickthanks and base newsmongers,” gossips and telltales. These are the Elizabethan equivalents of our tabloids and celebrity news shows. But Dad doesn’t want to hear any excuses. In his long speech at lines 31 – 93, he catalogues how Hal has disappointed him: 1.) by his bad behavior he has broken with family tradition and honor; 2.) he has lost his place on the royal council to his younger brother; 3.) he has managed to alienate all the members of the court; 4.) he has ruined his reputation even before he has ascended the throne; 5.) everyone firmly believes he will fail when he becomes king.
What most bothers King Henry about his son’s behavior is spelled out beginning at line 41. The Prince is not behaving as Henry did when he maneuvered to seize the crown back when he was plain old Bolingbroke. In a candid account he explains the calculated way by which he undermined King Richard. Hal is like Richard in that he has become too “common-hackneyed in the eyes of men.” Henry remained out of common view and wondered at so that when he chose to appear he was like a rare comet (line 49) or a “robe pontifical” (line 58), the garment of a high churchman. As a result of his manipulated public image Bolingbroke “did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts” (line 54). King Richard made it easy for Henry because he “mingled his royalty with cap’ring fools” (line 65). At line 73 the King describes how men had had too much of King Richard, like a surfeit of sweets. Instead of being so much in the public eye, the king should be like the sun. (Interestingly, Hal uses the same image to describe his plan to assume a new identity back in the final speech in Act I, Scene 2.)
King Henry ends his long indictment of Hal by pointing out that his son has made the same mistakes as King Richard. Everyone is tired of looking at him, except his father who now weeps because his son has been gone for so long. Hal’s response to this powerful condemnation and Henry’s tears is a rather lame excuse at line 94: “I shall hereafter, my thrice gracious lord,/ Be more myself.” Every father of a teen-aged son has heard the same thing many times: “Sorry Dad, I’ll be better.”
In the final part of this scene father and son dramatically reconcile. What is the worst thing that King Henry accuses his son of? What is it in Hal’s response that wins his father over? What does the King promise his son as a result of their reconciliation? [Act III, Scene 2, lines 93 – 180]
KING:
For all the world
As thou art to this hour was Richard then
When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh;
And even as I was then is Percy now.
Now, by my scepter and my soul to boot,
He hath more worthy interest [claim based on worth] to
the state
Than thou, the shadow of succession;
For of no right, nor color [pretense] like to right,
He doth fill fields with harness [armor] in the realm,
Turns head against the lion's armed jaws,
And, being no more in debt to years than thou,
Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on
To bloody battles and to bruising arms.
What never-dying honor hath he got
Against renowned Douglas, whose high deeds,
Whose hot incursions and great name in arms
Holds from all soldiers chief majority [preeminence]
And military title capital [highest]
Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ.
Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swaddling clothes,
This infant warrior, in his enterprises
Discomfited great Douglas; ta'en him once,
Enlarged him and made a friend of him,
To fill the mouth of deep defiance up [increase the
chorus of defiance]
And shake the peace and safety of our throne.
And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,
The Archbishop's Grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer,
Capitulate [join forces] against us and are up
[in arms].
But wherefore do I tell these news to thee?
Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,
Which art my nearest and dearest [most beloved or most
expensive] enemy?
Thou that art like enough, through vassal fear,
Base inclination, and the start of spleen,
To fight against me under Percy's pay,
To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns,
To show how much thou art degenerate.
HAL: Do not think so. You shall not find it so.
And God forgive them that so much have swayed
Your Majesty's good thoughts away from me.
I will redeem all this on Percy's head
And, in the closing of some glorious day,
Be bold to tell you that I am your son,
When I will wear a garment all of blood
And stain my favors [features] in a bloody mask,
Which, washed away, shall scour my shame with it.
And that shall be the day, whene'er it lights,
That this same child of honor and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praised knight,
And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet.
For every honor sitting on his helm,
Would they were multitudes, and on my head
My shames redoubled! For the time will come
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
Percy is but my factor [agent], good my lord,
To engross [hoard] up glorious deeds on my behalf;
And I will call him to so strict account
That he shall render every glory up,
Yea, even the slightest worship of his time [honors
gained in his life],
Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.
This in the name of God I promise here,
The which if He be pleased I shall perform,
I do beseech your majesty may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.
If not, the end of life cancels all bands [promises],
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths
Ere break the smallest parcel [item] of this vow.
KING: A hundred thousand rebels die in this.
Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein. [Enter
BLUNT]
How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed.
BLUNT: So hath the business [the news I bring must be dealt with speedily] that I
come to speak of.
Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word
That Douglas and the English rebels met
The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury.
A mighty and a fearful head they are,
If promises be kept on every hand,
As ever offered foul play in the state.
KING: The Earl of Westmoreland set forth today,
With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster,
For this advertisement [intelligence] is five days old.
--
On Wednesday next, Harry, you shall set forward.
On Thursday we ourselves will march. Our meeting
Is Bridgenorth. And, Harry, you shall march
Through Gloucestershire; by which account,
Our business valued [having sized up the situation], some
twelve days hence
Our general forces at Bridgenorth shall meet.
Our hands are full of business. Let's away.
Advantage feeds him [itself] fat while men delay. [Exit]
Dad’s just getting warmed up. We all probably have been in a similar situation where, once the dam breaks, the accumulated resentments come pouring out. Henry now moves to his major question – why can’t Hal be more like Hotspur? He even draws a parallel: Hal is just like Richard and Hotspur is just like Henry when he returned from exile to force a showdown with Richard. (Henry had been banished from England, and he landed in the small port of Ravenspurgh when he returned to raise opposition to Richard.) King Henry details Hotspur’s achievements: 1.) he has more of a claim on the throne than does Hal, based just on his worthy actions; 2.) he is no older than Hal (an “infant warrior”) and yet he leads older men into battle; 3.) he has gained great honor by his previous victories; 4.) he defeated Douglas three times and then made an ally of him;
Henry then reaches the crescendo of his anger at line 126 when he asks rhetorically, “wherefore do I tell these news to thee?/ Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,/ Which art my nearest and dearest enemy?” The play on the word “dearest” here reflects the King’s anguish: he loves his son, and yet his behavior has turned him into a very expensive foe. He then imagines what his son will do in the coming battle for the crown at line 129:
Thou that art like
enough, through vassal fear,
Base inclination and the start of spleen,
To fight against me under Percy's pay,
To dog his heels and curtsy at his frowns,
To show how much thou art degenerate.
He thinks there are three qualities in Hal that lead him to make this astounding accusation: “vassal fear” is fright that makes a person lose any sense of honor; “base inclination” is a naturally evil disposition; “start of spleen” is an irrational whim to do something despicable. Henry really doesn’t think much of Hal. Of course, it may be possible that the calculating King is making this wild charge to see what his son’s reaction is, to test him.
If that is the case, Hal’s response at lines 134 – 164 certainly reassures his father. First he denies the charge that he would betray his father and blames others for having ruined his reputation with the King. At line 137 he takes an oath that he will “redeem all this on Percy’s head.” He offers a dramatic description beginning at line 138 of how “in the closing of some glorious day” of battle, he will “wear a garment all of blood” which will scourge away his shames and past transgressions. This is a foreshadowing of what will happen in the final scenes of the play. Hal welcomes Hotspur’s honor and achievements because they will make his triumph all the greater. Then at line 152 he makes what I think is the most telling point: “Percy is but my factor.” In other words, he is using Hotspur as a kind of dupe to make himself look good in his victory. Why is this so revealing? What it means to King Henry is that Hal is indeed his son – a calculating, self-aware power-seeker just like the Old Man. Hal ends with a restatement of his vow to accomplish all this or die in the process.
Note that throughout this speech by Hal he has spoken in verse, something he didn’t do that much up to this point in the play. Furthermore, he has expressed himself powerfully and effectively with a kind of eloquence that moves his father profoundly. He will use the same gift of eloquence when he rallies his army at the Battle of Agincourt in Henry V. Hotspur is often eloquent, but his is language used without self-awareness. Hal is showing how he can beat Hotspur at his own game.
At line 165 the King is convinced: “A hundred thousand rebels die in this.” He bestows upon his son responsibility and trust in the upcoming battle. At this point Sir Walter Blunt comes in with the news that Douglas and the English rebels have met in Shrewsbury with what promises to be a mighty army. From this point on events move quickly. Henry already knew about the rebels meeting and has sent part of his army north to prepare for battle. Hal is sent to gather troops and march through Gloucestershire. The King is clearly in control.
At this point how would you assess the chances of King Henry in the coming battle with the rebels? He and his allies seem to be coming together even as the rebels are showing signs of discord.
Act IV, Scene 1
In this scene we see the last of the Boar’s Head Tavern in this play. How do you account for Falstaff’s frame of mind at the beginning of the scene? What behavior patterns does he exhibit that we have seen before? What is his problem with the Hostess? [Act IV, Scene 1, lines 1 – 94]
Eastcheap. The Boar's-Head Tavern. [Enter FALSTAFF and BARDOLPH]
FALSTAFF: Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last
action? Do I not bate [lose weight]? Do I not dwindle? Why,
my skin hangs about me like an like an old lady's loose
gown! I am withered like an old apple-john [apple with wrinkled skin].
Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some
liking [have some flesh left]. I shall be out of heart
shortly, and then I
shall have no strength to repent. An I have not forgotten what
the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn
[something small], a brewer's horse [something decrepit]. The inside
of a
church! Company, villainous company, hath been the
spoil of me.
BARDOLPH: Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.
FALSTAFF: Why, there is it! Come sing me a bawdy song, make me merry. I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous enough: swore little; diced not above seven times -- a week; went to a bawdy-house not above once in a quarter -- of an hour; paid money that I borrowed -- three of four times; lived well and in good compass [order]; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.
BARDOLPH: Why, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs
be out of all compass -- out of all reasonable
compass, Sir John.
FALSTAFF: Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life.
Thou art our admiral [flagship], thou bearest the lantern in
the poop, but 'tis in the nose of thee. Thou art the
Knight of the Burning Lamp.
BARDOLPH: Why, Sir John, my face does you no harm.
FALSTAFF: No, I'll be sworn, I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death's-head [ring with a skull] or a memento mori [reminder of death]. I never see thy face but I think upon hellfire and Dives [rich man from the Bible] that lived in purple; for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face. My oath should be “By this fire, that's God's angel!” But thou art altogether given over; and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran’st up Gad’s Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus [will-o’-the-wisp] or a ball of wildfire [fireworks], there's no purchase in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph [celebration with torches], an everlasting bonfire-light! Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links [flares] and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern; but the sack that thou hast drunk me would have bought me lights as good cheap [cheaply] at the dearest chandler's [candle-maker’s] in Europe. I have maintained that salamander [lizard thought to live in fire] of yours with fire any time this two and thirty years; God reward me for it!
BARDOLPH: 'Sblood, I would my face were in your belly!
FALSTAFF: God-a-mercy! So should I be sure to be heart-burned! [Enter Hostess]
How now, Dame Partlet [traditional name for a hen] the hen, have you inquired yet who picked my pocket?
Hostess: Why, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John, do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The tithe [tenth] of a hair was never lost in my house before.
FALSTAFF: Ye lie, hostess. Bardolph was shaved and lost many a hair, and I'll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman, go.
Hostess: Who, I? No, I defy thee. God's light, I was never called so in mine own house before.
FALSTAFF: Go to, I know you well enough.
Hostess: No, Sir John; you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John. You owe me money, Sir John; and now you pick a quarrel to beguile me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.
FALSTAFF: Dowlas, filthy dowlas [coarse linen]. I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters [sieves] of them.
Hostess: Now, as I am a true woman, holland [fine linen] of eight
shillings an ell [measurement]. You owe money here
besides, Sir
John, for your diet and by-drinkings [drinks between
meals] and money lent you, four and twenty pound.
FALSTAFF: [pointing to Bardolph] He had his part of it. Let him pay.
Hostess: He? Alas, he is poor. He hath nothing.
FALSTAFF: How, poor? Look upon his face. What call you
rich?[reference to his gold and copper hues]. Let them coin his nose.
Let them coin his cheeks. I’ll not pay a denier [small coin] What, will
you make a younker [greenhorn] of me? Shall I not take mine case in mine
inn but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a
seal ring of my grandfather's worth forty mark.
Hostess: [to Bardolph] O Jesu, I have heard the Prince tell him, I know not how oft, that ring was copper.
FALSTAFF: How? The Prince is a jack, a sneak-up. 'Sblood, an he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.
The last time we saw Falstaff he had just receive the two shocks of Prince Hal’s rejection and the arrival of the Sheriff. It is no wonder that he appears subdued and depressed at the beginning of this scene. Remember back in Act I, Scene 2 when Hal reminded him of the gallows which awaited him? He had a sudden attack of melancholy at that time as well. Here Falstaff expresses his discomfort by imagining that he is losing weight, dwindling away. Notice at line 2 that he refers to all that had happened before as “this last action.” It’s the same kind of mock heroic term Prince Hal had used in Act II, Scene 4 at line 21, an echo of Hotspur and his obsession with battles. Another echo from previous scenes with Falstaff is his sudden urge to repent at line 5. He is filled with self-pity because it has been so long since he was in a church, and he emphasizes the point by saying if he has not forgotten what that was like, he is a peppercorn (something very small) or a tired old horse. The religious moment passes quickly and by line 14 he is asking Bardolph to sing him a bawdy song to lift his spirits. Bardolph has seen this kind of behavior many times, and he knows how to play the game, telling Falstaff at line 12 that he is so “fretful” he cannot live long.
Falstaff takes moral stock of his life at lines 15 – 21. As he says, “I was as virtuously given as a gentleman/ need to be.” He then proceeds to list the things he did; their humor really depends on the pause before he adds the qualifier: “paid money that I borrowed – two or three times.” At line 20 he concludes that he now lives a life out of order, “out of all compass.” Bardolph then makes a pun on “compass” to refer to Falstaff’s waist measurement. That sets off a veritable torrent of jokes about Bardolph’s complexion – discolored by rampant alcoholism. No one does insult better than Falstaff, and this catalogue at lines 25 – 50 is a triumph of imaginative exaggeration:
· Bardolph’s red nose is like the lantern on the admiral’s flagship.
· Bardolph’s face is a character called “The Knight of the Burning Lamp.”
· Bardolph’s red complexion reminds Falstaff of the hellfire after death.
· The purple in his face suggests the rich robes worn by Dives, a wealthy man in the Bible who burned in hell.
· Some angels were thought to be composed of fire, so Bardolph’s face is like God’s angel.
· Bardolph is hardly angelic; he is the son of darkness, except for his face.
· At the Gad’s Hill robbery, Falstaff thought Bardolph was a will-o’-the-wisp or a human firework running through the darkness.
· Bardolph serves as a bonfire, a torch or a candle for Falstaff.
· Falstaff considers Bardolph a salamander, an animal thought to live in fire.
When the Hostess enters at line 55, Falstaff shifts his comic attack to her without missing a beat. He calls her “Dame Partlet,” a common nickname for a hen that clucks and fusses just like the Hostess. Falstaff has accused her or someone in her employ of picking his pockets while he slept behind the arras. (We know it was Hal and Peto.) She bristles at the suggestion that any crime was committed, but she is at an intellectual disadvantage when she tries to match wits with the old knight. He runs verbal rings around her, and she always assumes he is insulting her in his fancy language. So she responds in ways that make her look stupid while providing unintended double entendres for the amusement of everyone. At line 65 he calls her “a woman,” to which she objects and declares she’s never been called that before in her own house. When he says he knows her, she objects and says he doesn’t know her (with the suggestion of carnal knowledge), but she knows him. Indeed, she has figured out that Falstaff is trying to pick a fight so he can avoid paying money he owes her. He denies it, then tries to push the debt onto Bardolph. Hostess declares that she bought him a dozen shirts, which he dismisses as “dowlas,” a cloth close to burlap. He gave them away for bakers to use in sifting flour. She counters that they were “holland,” a particularly fine linen, and she even knows how much they cost.
Like a person nowadays inflating his losses for an insurance scam, Falstaff starts exaggerating what he is missing from his pocket. When he claims that he had an expensive ring of his grandfather’s, used for sealing letters with wax, the Hostess counters that Hal has repeatedly said the ring was a cheap piece of copper. At line 92 Falstaff condemns the Prince, calling him a “jack,” or rascal, and a “sneak-up,” or sneaking coward. He throws in a taboo “’Sblood” to show everyone how serious he is and threatens to beat Hal “like a dog” if he would ever say that. Even as he utters the threat, Hal and Poins come marching into the room.
In the next sequence what parallels do you see with Falstaff’s behavior in Act II, Scene 4? How is the Hostess made the butt of a joke? What assumption does Hal seem to make about his friends in the upcoming battle? At what point in the scene does the tone change to something serious? Why? [Act III, Scene 3, lines 95 –219]
[Enter PRINCE HENRY
and PETO, marching, and FALSTAFF meets them playing on
his truncheon, officer’s short staff, like a life] FALSTAFF:
How now, lad? Is the wind in that door [blowing in that direction], i'
faith? Must we all march? BARDOLPH:
Yea, two and two, Newgate [London prison] fashion. Hostess:
My lord, I pray you, hear me. HAL:
What sayest thou, Mistress Quickly? How doth thy
husband? I love him well; he is an honest [honorable] man. Hostess:
Good my lord, hear me. FALSTAFF:
Prithee, let her alone, and list to me. HAL:
What sayest thou, Jack? FALSTAFF:
The other night I fell asleep here behind the arras
and had my pocket picked. This house is turned
bawdy house; they pick pockets. HAL:
What didst thou lose, Jack? FALSTAFF:
Wilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds
of forty pound apiece, and a seal ring of my
grandfather's. HAL:
A trifle, some eight-penny [paltry] matter. Hostess:
So I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your
Grace say so. And, my lord, he speaks most vilely
of you, like a foul-mouthed man, as he is; and said
he would cudgel you. HAL:
What, he did not! Hostess: There's
neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in
me else. FALSTAFF: There's
no more faith in thee than in a stewed
prune [dish served in brothels], nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn
[pursued] fox, and for womanhood, Maid Marian may be
the deputy's wife of the ward to thee. Go, you thing,
go Hostess: Say,
what thing, what thing? FALSTAFF: What
thing? Why, a thing to thank God on. Hostess: I am
no thing to thank God on, I would thou
shouldst know it! I am an honest man's wife, and,
setting thy knighthood aside [your knighthood excepted]
thou art a knave to call me so. FALSTAFF:
Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast
to say otherwise. Hostess: Say,
what beast, thou knave, thou? FALSTAFF: What
beast? Why, an otter. HAL: An
otter, Sir John. Why an otter? FALSTAFF:
Why, she's neither fish nor flesh; a man knows
not where to have her. Hostess:
Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or any
man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou. HAL:
Thou sayest true, hostess; and he slanders thee most
grossly. Hostess:
So he doth you, my lord, and said this [the] other day
you owed him a thousand pound. HAL:
Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound? FALSTAFF: A
thousand pound, Hal? A million. Thy love is worth
a million; thou owest me thy love. Hostess: Nay,
my lord, he called you “jack,” and said he
would cudgel you. FALSTAFF:
Did I, Bardolph? BARDOLPH: Indeed,
Sir John, you said so. FALSTAFF: Yea, if he
said my ring was copper. HAL: I
say 'tis copper. Darest thou be as good as thy word
now? FALSTAFF: Why,
Hal, thou knowest, as thou art but man,
I dare, but as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear
the roaring of a lion's whelp. HAL:
And why not as the lion? FALSTAFF:
The King is to be feared as the lion. Dost
thou think I'll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay,
an I do, I pray God my girdle break. HAL:
O, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy
knees! But, sirrah, there's no room for faith,
truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine. It is all
filled up with guts and midriff [diaphragm]. Charge an
honest
woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou whoreson,
impudent, embossed [swollen] rascal, if there were anything
in thy pocket but tavern reckonings, memorandums
[souvenirs] of bawdy houses, and one poor pennyworth
of sugar candy to make thee long-winded, if
thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries
[things that could be lost] but these, I am a villain. And yet you will
stand to it [persevere]. You will not pocket up wrong! Art thou
not ashamed? FALSTAFF: Dost
thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state
of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack
Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I
have more flesh than another man, and therefore more
frailty. You confess then, you picked my pocket? HAL:
It appears so by the story. FALSTAFF:
Hostess, I forgive thee. Go, make ready breakfast,
love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish
thy guests. Thou shalt find me tractable to
any honest reason. Thou seest I am pacified still [always].
Nay, prithee, be gone. [Exit Hostess] Now
Hal, to the news at court. For the robbery,
lad, how is that answered [taken care of]? HAL:
O, my sweet beef, I must still be good angel to
thee. The money is paid back again. FALSTAFF:
O, I do not like that paying back. 'Tis a double labor. HAL:
I am good friends with my father and may do anything. FALSTAFF:
Rob me the Exchequer the first thing thou doest,
and do it with unwashed hands [immediately] too. BARDOLPH: Do,
my lord. HAL:
I have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot [command of an infantry
unit]. FALSTAFF: I would it had been of horse [cavalry]. Where
shall I find one that can steal well? O, for a fine
thief of the age of two and twenty
or thereabouts! I am
heinously unprovided [ill-equipped]. Well, God be
thanked for these rebels, they offend none but the virtuous.
I laud them; I praise them. HAL:
Bardolph! BARDOLPH:
My lord. HAL:
Go bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, To
my brother John; this to my Lord of Westmoreland. [Exit
Bardolph] Go, Peto, to horse, to horse,
for thou and I Have thirty
miles to ride yet ere dinner time. [Exit Peto] Jack,
meet me tomorrow in the Temple Hall At
two o'clock in the afternoon;
There shalt thou know thy charge, and there receive
Money and order for their furniture [equipment].
The land is burning. Percy stands on high,
And either we or they must lower lie. [Exit
HAL] FALSTAFF: Rare words! Brave [splendid] world! --
Hostess, my breakfast, come. --
O, I could wish this tavern were my drum! [Exit]
Throughout this sequence Hal never asks any of his friends if they want to join him in the army, fighting the rebels. He just assumes command and expects everyone to do their part. As he and Peto come marching in, Falstaff, despite having just threatened to cudgel the Prince, joins in the charade, playing his short staff as if it were a battle fife and he was going off to battle. At line 97 Bardolph describes the men marching as going in “Newgate fashion,” a reference to the notorious London prison. (To this day criminals are often moved around shackled in pairs.) At line 100 Hal identifies the Hostess as Quickly and asks about her husband, whom he describes as “an honest man.” This line undoubtedly got a big laugh in Shakespeare’s time. First, the tavern runs a profitable prostitution ring on the side, and the Hostess’ name, “Quickly,” was what the bawds or lookouts whispered as the whore and her trick did their thing in dark corners. Quickly’s husband, who may be the Vintner we met back in Act II, Scene 4, would be the Elizabeth equivalent of a used car salesman – hardly someone who had a reputation for being honest or honorable.
Before Quickly can tell Hal what Falstaff just said about him, the old knight interrupts and tells the Prince how much he lost when his pockets were picked. When he tries to inflate his losses again, Hal dismisses the value of the missing ring as “an eightpenny matter,” not worth much. At line 115 Hostess repeats Falstaff’s threat to cudgel the Prince, and she swears by her “faith, truth and womanhood.” Falstaff responds at line 119 with one of his great comic comparisons. She has no more faith than a “stewed prune.” (In one of the more bizarre beliefs in those times, stewed prunes were associated with brothels, which often displayed them in the front window, perhaps in the belief that they would cure syphilis.) She has no more truth than a “drawn fox.” (When a fox was flushed in a hunt, it would usually dodge and feint trying to escape.) As for her womanhood, next to her, Maid Marian looks like the “deputy’s wife of the ward.” Maid Marian, of Robin Hood fame, was a stock figure for a promiscuous woman; the deputy of a ward was a prominent, respectable figure in the neighborhood, and his wife would be above reproach. In other words, Quickly has no moral standing whatsoever, at least according to Falstaff. He ends up calling her a “thing.”
Hostess is irate and demands to know what kind of a “thing” Falstaff is calling her. Poor Quickly once again walks into the buzz saw of Falstaff’s wit. When he says she is “a thing to thank God on,” what he is saying is deliberately ambiguous: “She is as God made her.” Quickly doesn’t understand his answer, but rejects it in a knee-jerk reaction: “I am no thing to thank God on, I would thou/ shouldst know it!” It is as if she were hitting herself in the face with a pie. She condemns Falstaff, after carefully excepting or “setting aside” his status as a knight. He responds at line 130: “Setting thy womanhood aside, thou art a/ beast to say otherwise.” What he is saying here at one level is simply a statement of fact; in Shakespeare’s time, if you took away a person’s humanity, what you were left with was a beast. Quickly knows she is being insulted and demands to know what kind of a beast, to which Falstaff responds, “An otter,” because otters were thought to be part mammal (“flesh”), part fish and, therefore, “a man knows not where to have her.” In denying this suggestive slur, the Hostess once again manages to make it even worse: “Thou art an unjust man in saying so. Thou or/ any man knows where to have me, thou knave, / thou!” More than we really needed to know!
Hal sticks up for poor Quickly, and she now reveals all the Falstaff has said. He had declared that the Prince owed him a thousand pounds, but when Hal confronts him about it, Falstaff says that it was really a million because his love is worth a million, and Hal owes him his love. A nice save! Then the Hostess says Falstaff called him a “jack” or rascal and said he would cudgel him. First, Falstaff tries to weasel out by getting Bardolph to deny it, but to no avail. Then the old knight claims that he would only beat Hal if he were to maintain that his missing ring was copper. Hal affirms that the ring was worthless and asks if Falstaff intends to follow through on his threat. Falstaff reaches back to his excuse in Act II, Scene 4 and says he can’t because he fears the Prince as he fears the “lion’s whelp.” The king alone must be feared as the lion.
In his speech at line 161 – 173 Hal now blasts Falstaff’s failings and reveals that he had picked the old man’s pockets of “tavern-reckonings,/ memorandums [souvenirs] of bawdy houses, and one poor/ pennyworth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded.” Once again Falstaff is on the spot to come up with an excuse for his actions at line 174:
Dost thou hear,
Hal? Thou knowest in the state
of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack
Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I
have more flesh than another man, and therefore more
frailty.
Because he has so much flesh, and therefore is subject to more temptation in these “days of villainy,” Falstaff cannot be held responsible for lying and conniving.
Having been caught in multiple lies and trickery, does Falstaff apologize for trying to get over on the Hostess? Of course not! At line 181 he forgives her. He then gives her moral precepts, as if she were the wayward sinner and not him: “love thy husband, look to thy servants, cherish thy guests,” but first go fix my breakfast! As he says, he is always “tractable to any honest reason.” What a guy!
Falstaff is anxious to find out how the meeting between Hal and his father went. The country may be facing crisis, Hal’s life may be in danger from the rebels, but Falstaff’s first concern is what is happening with the possible charges of robbery. Falstaff can always be counted on to put his own well-being first. Hal tells him he has repaid the money and made the danger of arrest go away, but the old knight is not grateful. When Hal tells him he has been reconciled with his father “and may do anything,” Falstaff and Bardolph both ask the Prince to rob the royal treasury (“Exchequer”) and to do it immediately. Hal tells Falstaff he will be in command of an infantry unit (“charge of foot”) and as he anticipated, the old knight isn’t happy about it. He wishes it had been a cavalry unit, so he wouldn’t have to walk. At line 199 he wishes he had a young thief who could steal stuff for him. (This may be a veiled reference to Hal who is about the right age and whom Falstaff may be reminding about his past criminal activity.) For Falstaff war is not an opportunity to win glory and honor, as it was for Hotspur; it’s not a necessary action to save the throne and the country, as it is for King Henry and Hal. It is strictly a chance for looting and plunder; it is the Gad’s Hill robbery on a grand scale. (Vice-President Dick Cheney and his old company Halliburton would appreciate this sentiment.) Therefore, Falstaff praises the rebels for starting a war and helping him to more criminal opportunities.
At line 204 everything changes. The Prince suddenly becomes deadly serious. He issues a number of commands to Bardolph, Peto and Falstaff. Events are moving quickly and he can’t waste any more time with the old gang. They have to start doing their part in the war effort as well. Shakespeare reinforces this change of mood by having Hal deliver these action-filled lines in blank verse, the form of language used for serious utterances. After telling Falstaff to meet him for his orders and equipment for his troops, Hal rushes off to the front at line 215, leaving the stage with one of those rhymed couplets that I’ve told you signal the end of a scene ” The land is burning. Percy stands on high,/ And either we or they must lower lie.” It’s the end of the scene as far as Hal is concerned, but not for Falstaff who is not eager to leave the comfort of his home or risk his life on the battlefield. So at line 217 Falstaff gives us his own rhymed couplet to end the scene in his own inimitable way: “Rare words! Brave [splendid] world! Hostess, my breakfast, come!/ O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!” Hal’s powerful words are “rare” and moving, the vision he projects of a life of action evokes a “brave world.” But Falstaff’s priority is his stomach; he’s not going anywhere until he has his breakfast. Then, as he thinks about forsaking the confines of the Boar’s Head Tavern, he wistfully wishes he could take it along with him to the front as if it were his drum. At this point how do you think the battle between the king’s forces and the rebels will turn out? How do you think Falstaff will perform in battle?
Act IV, Scene 1
In this scene at Shrewsbury we rejoin the rebels and meet the Scottish warrior, Douglas, for the first time. Hotspur, Worcester and Douglas receive some bad news about their chances in the upcoming battle: Northumberland and his army cannot join them. What is Hotspur’s initial reaction to this news? How and why does that reaction change during the course of the scene? How about Worcester’s reaction? Douglas’ reaction? [Act IV, Scene 1, lines 1 – 89]
[Enter HOTSPUR, WORCESTER, and DOUGLAS ]
HOTSPUR: Well said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth
In this fine [crafty] age were not thought flattery,
Such attribution [credit] should the Douglas have,
As not a soldier of this season's stamp [coinage]
Should go so general current [generally acceptable] through
the world.
By God, I cannot flatter. I do defy
The tongues of soothers [flatterers]. But a braver
[more worthy] place
In my heart's love hath no man than yourself:
Nay, task [challenge] me to my word; approve [test]
me, lord.
DOUGLAS: Thou art the king of honor.
No man so potent [powerful] breathes upon the ground
But I will beard [defy] him.
HOTSPUR: Do so, and 'tis well. [Enter a Messenger with letters]
What letters hast thou there? [to Douglas] I can but thank you.
Messenger: These letters come from your father.
HOTSPUR: Letters from him! Why comes he not himself?
Messenger: He cannot come, my lord. He is grievous sick.
HOTSPUR: 'Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick
In such a justling [unquiet] time? Who leads his power
[army]?
Under whose government [command] come they along?
Messenger: His letters bear his mind, not I, my lord.
WORCESTER: I prithee, tell me, doth he keep his bed?
Messenger: He did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,
And, at the time of my departure thence
He was much feared by his physicians.
WORCESTER: I would the state of time [the joining of our forces] had
first been whole
Ere he by sickness had been visited.
His health was never better worth [greater value] than
now.
HOTSPUR: Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect
The very lifeblood of our enterprise.
'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.
He writes me here, that inward sickness --
And that his friends by deputation [by deputies] Could
not so soon be drawn, nor did he think it meet [right]
To lay so dangerous and dear a trust
On any soul removed but on his own [on anyone but
himself];
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement [warning to be
bold],
That with our small conjunction [force] we should on
[proceed],
To see how fortune is disposed to us,
For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,
Because the king is certainly possessed
Of all our purposes [knows all our plans].What say you to
it?
WORCESTER: Your father's sickness is a maim to us.
HOTSPUR: A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off! And
yet, in faith, it is not. His present want [absence]
Seems more than we shall find it. Were it good
To set the exact wealth of all our states
All at one cast [throw of the dice]? To set so rich a main
[army or wager]
On the nice hazard [risky venture] of one doubtful hour?
It were not good, for therein should we read
The very bottom and the soul of hope,
The very list [limit], the very utmost bound
Of all our fortunes.
DOUGLAS: 'Faith, and so we should, where now remains A
sweet reversion [comforting hope]. We may boldly spend Upon
the hope of what is to come in.
A comfort of retirement [some hope if we must retreat] lives
in this.
HOTSPUR: A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.
If that the devil and mischance look big [threatening]
Upon the maidenhead [beginning] of our affairs.
WORCESTER: But yet I would your father had been here.
The quality and hair [nature] of our attempt
Brooks [can tolerate] no division. It will be thought
By some, that know not why he is away
That wisdom, loyalty and mere dislike
Of our proceedings kept the Earl from hence:
And think how such an apprehension [fear]
May turn the tide of fearful faction
And breed a kind of question in [doubt about] our
cause.
For well you know we of the off’ring side [the
party that started the fight]
Must keep aloof from strict arbitrament [rigorous, fair
judgment]
And stop all sight-holes, every loop [loophole] from
whence
The eye of reason may pry in upon us.
This absence of your father's draws [opens] a
curtain.
That shows the ignorant a kind of fear
Before not dreamt of.
HOTSPUR: You strain too far
[exaggerate the danger].
I rather of his absence make this use:
It lends a luster and more great opinion [reputation],
A larger dare [daring], to our great enterprise
Than if the Earl were here, for men must think
If we without his help can make a head [lead an army]
To push against a kingdom, with his help
We shall o'erturn it topsy-turvy down.
Yet all goes well; yet all our joints are whole.
DOUGLAS: As heart can think. There is not such a word
Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.
In the opening exchange Hotspur and Douglas form a mutual admiration society, much as Hotspur and Glendower had back at the beginning of Act III, Scene 1, before things fell apart. They both speak in a kind of courtly language which sounds stilted to us but was a sign both men belonged to the upper classes in their societies. Hotspur, at line 6, declares that he cannot flatter, even as he tells Douglas how much he admires him. Douglas returns the favor, calling Hotspur at line 10 “the king of honor.” At line 14 a messenger comes in with the first bad news: Northumberland is sick and cannot come to Shrewsbury nor send his army. (Armies at this time were often personal forces, in the command of a single nobleman for whom they fought.) The news that Northumberland is sick creates consternation for Hotspur, Worcester and Douglas. Rather than expressing concern about his father’s health, Hotspur asks, “'Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick/ In such a justling [unquiet] time?” The taboo word signals that he is really upset. The warriors are suddenly struck with a loss of confidence. At line 30 Hotspur laments, “Sick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect/ The very life-blood of our enterprise.” Northumberland’s letter to his son continues by urging the men to fight bravely since the King certainly knows what their plans are. (I wonder how King Henry found out what the rebels were going to do?) Worcester concludes “Your father's sickness is a maim to us,” and Hotspur at line 46 agrees, “A perilous gash, a very limb lopped off!”
Then he suddenly does a complete turnabout. He dramatically decides that his father’s absence is a good thing for the rebel cause. It will be good because they will not be risking everything on a single battle. Douglas agrees and at line 59 says that if they have to retreat (“retirement”), Northumberland will provide a fallback position. We saw Hotspur do this same kind of psyche job in Act II, Scene 3, when he is reading the letter and convinces himself that they have “an excellent plot.” Worcester is the brains of this outfit, and he is not so easily convinced to ignore the reality of their situation. Northumberland’s absence is bad because it suggests a “division” or disunity in the rebel cause when they need the image of a united front. At line 67 he says that casual observers will assume Northumberland is absent because he does not think the rebellion has any chance. It opens up the opportunity for all kinds of speculation. Hotspur’s reaction is characteristic of him. Worcester’s argument is based on a sound strategic assessment of the situation; Hotspur argues that taking on the King with only a fraction of their forces will make it appear that they aren’t afraid of what Henry can do. It will show a kind of bravado that will impress people and signal that if they had all their soldiers they could certainly destroy the King. Douglas, caught up in Hotspur’s enthusiasm for a desperate battle, agrees at line 88: “There is not such a word/ Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.” Nothing will stop these two valiant warriors!
In the next sequence, how do you explain the reaction of Hotspur to the description of Prince Hal? What does Hal do that so impresses Vernon and Hotspur? Do the reactions to the coming battle change at all, and if so, why?
[Enter
SIR RICHARD VERNON] HOTSPUR: My cousin Vernon, welcome, by my soul. VERNON: Pray God my news be
worth a welcome, lord.
The Earl of Westmoreland, seven thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John. HOTSPUR:
No harm, what more? VERNON: And further, I have learned,
The King himself in person is set forth,
Or hitherwards intended [intends to come here] speedily,
With strong and mighty preparation. HOTSPUR:
He shall be welcome too. Where is his son,
The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,
And his comrades, that daffed [thrust] the world aside
And bid it pass? VERNON:
All furnished [equipped], all in arms;
All plumed like estridges [ostriches, whose feathers
were symbols for the Prince of Wales] that with the
wind
Baited [beat their wings] like eagles having lately
bathed,
Glittering in golden coats, like images [golden effigies
on nobles’ tombs],
As full of spirit