1, 2 Henry IV

1
1, 2 Henry IV

2
Honor

• Hotspur (1.3.201)
• By Heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,
• To pluck bright honour 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 honour by the locks
• So he that doth redeem her thence might wear
• Without corrival all her dignities
• But out upon this half-faced fellowship!

3
Honor

• Falstaff (5.1.128)
• Well, 'tis no matter honour pricks me on. Yea,
  but how if honour
• prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honor
  set-to a leg?
• no or an arm? no or take away the grief of a
  wound? no. Honour
• hath no skill in surgery then? no. What is
  honour? a word. What
• is that word, honour? air. A trim reckoning!Who
  hath it? he that
• died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth be
  hear it? no. Is it
• insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it
  not live with the
• living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it.
  Therefore I'll none
• of it honour is a mere scutcheonand so ends my
  catechism.

4
Imitation of Hotspur

• Hotspur (2.3.45)
• KATE Some heavy business hath my lord in hand,
• And I must know it, else he loves me not.
• HOT.
• What, ho!
• Enter a Servant.
• Is Gilliams with the packet gone?
• SERV.
• He is, my lord, an hour ago.
• HOT.
• Hath Butler brought those horses from the
  sheriff?

5
Imitation of Hotspur

• PRINCE
• What's o'clock, Francis?
• FRAN.
• Within. Anon, anon, sir.
• PRINCE.
• That ever this fellow should have fewer words
  than a parrot, and
• yet the son of a woman! His industry is up-stairs
  and down-stairs
• 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 kill'd to-day? Give my roan
  horse a drench,
• says he and answers, Some fourteen, an hour
  after,a trifle, a
• trifle. I pr'ythee, call in Falstaff I'll play
  Percy, and that damn'd
• brawn shall play Dame Mortimer his wife.

6
Henry IVs disgust with Hal

• Henry (Richard II 5.3.1 ff)
• Can no man tell me of my unthifty son?
• Tis full three months since I did see him last.
• If any plague hang over us, tis he.
• I would to God, my lords, he might be found.
• Inquire at London, mongst the taverns there,
• For there, they say, he daily doth frequent,
• With unrestrained loose companions,
• Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lands
• And beat our watch and rob our passengers,
• Which he, young wanton and effeminate boy,
• Takes on the point of honor to support
• So dissolute a crew.

7
Henry IVs disgust with Hal

• KING (1.1.80).
• 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 honour's tongue
• Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant
• Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride
• Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
• See riot and dishonour 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 call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet!
• Then would I have his Harry, and he mine

8
Henry IVs disgust with Hal imitated

• FAL.
• 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 camomile, the more it
  is trodden on,
• the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is
  wasted, the sooner
• it wears. . . . 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.

9
Euphuism

• A literary style popular found in John Lylys
  Euphues The Anatomy of Wit (1578), consisting in
  unnatural natural history (the camomile,
  pitch), and balanced, rhyming phrases.
• This young gallant, of more wit than wealth, and
  yet of more wealth than wisdom, seeing himself
  inferior to none in pleasant conceipts, though
  himself inferior to none in pleasant conditions.
• One drop of poison infecteth the whole run of
  wine one leaf of colliquintida marreth and
  spoileth the whole pot of porridge, one iron mole
  defaceth the whole piece of lawn fabric.
• The spider weaveth a fine web to hang the fly,
  the wolf weareth a fair face to devour the lamb,
  the merline striketh at the patridge, and the
  eagle often snappeth at the fly, men are always
  laying baits for women, which are the weaker
  vessels but as yet I could never hear man by
  such snares to intrap man.
• I would it were in Naples a law, which was a
  custom in Egypt, that women should always go
  barefoot, to the intent they might keep
  themselves always at home, that they should be
  ever like the snail which hath ever his house on
  his head.

10
Henry IVs disgust with Hal

• PRINCE (2.4.430).
• 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 of man is
  thy companion. Why
• dost thou converse with that trunk of humours,
  that bolting-hutch of
• beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies,
  that huge bombard of
• sack, that roasted Manningtree ox with the
  pudding in his belly, that
• reverend 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? wherein crafty, but in villany? wherein
  villainous, but in
• all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing?

11
Henry IVs disgust with Hal

• KING (3.2.95)
• For all the world,
• As thou art to this hour, was Richard then
• When I from France set foot at Ravenspurg
• And even as I was then is Percy now.
• . . .
• Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in
  swathing-clothes,
• This infant warrior, in his enterprises
• Discomfited great Douglas ta'en him once,
• Enlarged him, and made a friend of him,
• . . . .
• Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,
• Which art my near'st and dearest enemy?
• Thou that art like enough, . . .
• To fight against me under Percy's pay,
• To dog his heels, and curtsy at his frowns,
• To show how much thou art degenerate.

12
Henry IVs disgust with Hal

• KING (2 Henry IV 4.3.239 ff. after Hal, thinking
  his father has died, puts on his crown, then
  finds him alive)
• What, canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
• Then get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself,
• And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
• That thou art crownèd, not that I am dead.
• . . .
• Now neighbor confines, purge you of your scum!
• Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
• Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit
• The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?

13
Genre History has an element of tragedy

• In Romeo and Juliet, where a medicinal flower can
  also be poison, and ones best intentions can
  bring on the worst consequences, so is the crown.
• Here the crown seems precious but can prove
  poisonous
• Prince Henry (2 Henry IV 4.3.290)
• Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
• And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,
• I spoke unto this crown as having sense,
• And thus upbraided it, The care on thee
  depending
• Hath fed upon the body of my father
• Therefore thou best of gold are worse than gold.
• Other, less fine in carat, is more precious,
• Preserving life in medicine potable
• But thou, most fine, most honoured, most
  renowned,
• Hath eat thy bearer up.

14
Past injuries
15
Garden imagery, often related to the political
situation in England

• Hotspur (1.3.170)
• 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 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, Bolingbroke?
• Falstaff (2.4.293)
• Shall the blessed Sun of heaven prove a micher,
  and eat blackberries?
• a question not to be ask'd. Shall the son of
  England prove a thief,
• and take purses? a question to be ask'd.

16
Falstaffs unfitness

• FALSTAFF (4.2.60
• If I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused
  gurnet. I have misused the King's press damnably.
  I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty
  soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press'd
  me none but good householders, yeomen's sons . .
  . I press'd me none but such toasts-and-butter,
  with hearts in their bodies no bigger than
  pins'-heads, and they have bought out their
  services and now my whole charge consists of
  ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of
  companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the
  painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked
  his sores and such as, indeed, were never
  soldiers, but discarded unjust serving-men,
  younger sons to younger brothers, revolted
  tapsters, and ostlers trade-fallen the cankers
  of a calm world and a long peace.
• PRINCE (4.2.61 ff.).
• I did never see such pitiful rascals.
• FAL.
• Tut, tut good enough to toss food for powder,
  food for powder
• they'll fill a pit as well as better tush, man,
  mortal men,
• mortal men.
• Compare 2 Henry IV act 3, scene 2, where we
  actually see Falstaff take bribes.

17
Genre Comedy

• Some elements of comedy. See list at end of MSND
  notes. Word play, creation of social harmony,
  overcoming death, hints of heaven (sun and son
  and the kings relation to Gods justice).

18
Genre of History

• History tells us what happened, not what should
  have happened.
• Patriotic, sentimental but also serious
  recreations of real events with added episodes
  for audience appeal.
• Like Westerns, leading up to a final duel or
  battle, often with a sense of loss for a simpler
  past.
• But the history plays are not real comedies or
  tragedies. Falstaff is not really dead, only
  faking, and the moral decisions which give
  tragedy its peculiar effect are missing We
  imagine that Hotspur, had he to do everything
  over again, might have taken the kings offer.

19
Genre of History

• History involves a story.
• Christian Humanists saw history as the working
  out of a divine purpose or providence.
• But history also showed how human will could
  overcome Fortune, as Machiavelli recommended.

20
Subversion and Containment

• Who does not all along see, wrote Upton in the
  mid-eighteenth century, that when prince Henry
  comes to be king he will assume a character
  suitable to his dignity? My point is not to
  dispute this interpretation of the prince, as in
  Maynard Macks wods, an ideal image of the
  potentialities of the English character, but to
  observe that such an ideal image involves as its
  positive condition the constant production of its
  own radical subversion and the powerful
  containment of that subversion.
• (Stephen Greenblatt, Invisible Bullets, in
  Shakespearean Negotiations Berkeley U of
  California P, 1988, 41).

21
Edward Hall, The Union of Two Noble and
Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York
22
Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland

• Owen Glendower came from the county of Merioneth
  in North Wales, in a place called Glindourwie,
  which is as much to say in English, as The valley
  by the side of the water of Dee. He was first set
  to study the law of the realm. When Henry fought
  him Owe conveyed himself out of the way, into
  his known lurking places, and (as was thought)
  through art magic, he caused such foul weather of
  winds, tempest, rain, snow, and hail to be raised
  for the anoyance of the Kings army, that the
  like had not been heard of

23
Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland

• Henry, Earl of Northumberland, with his brother
  Thomas, Earl of Worcester, and his son the Lord
  Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, which were to King
  Henry in the beginning of his reign, both
  faithful friends, and earnest aiders, began now
  to envy his welath and felicity and especially
  they were grieved, because the King demanded of
  the Earl and his son such Scottish prisoners as
  were taken at Holmedon.

24
Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England,
Scotland, and Ireland

• And to speak a truth, no marvel it was, if many
  envied the prosperous state of King Henry, since
  it was evident enough to the world, that he had
  with wrong usurped the crown, and not only
  violently deposed King Richard, but also cruelly
  procured his death for th ewhich undoubtedly,
  both he and his posterity tasted such troubles,
  as put them still in danger of their states.

25
An Homily Against Disobedience and Willful
Rebellion (1571)

• That year seven-year old Shakespeare would have
  seen soldiers marched through Stratford to put
  down the Northern Rebellion of the Percies,
  fighting for Mary, Queen of Scots.
• Church attendance was obligatory Catholics and
  Protestant dissenters to the Church of England
  (Elizabeths way of uniting the country without
  looking into peoples private spiritual believs)
  could be fined.
• Governors are Gods deputies on earth Romans 13
  Let every soul be subject unto the higher
  powers, for there is no power but of God, and the
  powers that be, are ordained of God. (Pauls
  letters are the mainstay of Protestantism.)

26
The location of the theaters just outside London
reflected in the alternation of royal and tavern
scenes

• Putting on representations of monarchy, modern
  critics argue, strips away their sacred aura.
• Or it gives voice to political dissonance only to
  contain it, as Stephen Greenblatt argues in
  Invisible Bullets.

27
Taverns and women

• In England, in contrast to many other countries,
  women frequented alehouses and the theater.
• There was also regulated prostitution in London.

28
Social classes, from William Harrisons The
Description of England

• The greatest sort are princes, dukes, marquesses,
  earls, viscounts, and barons below them are
  knights, esquiers, and gentlemen.
• Knights be not borne, neither is any man a
  knight by succession . . . but they are made
  either before the battle, to encourage them the
  more to adventure try their manhood or after
  the battle. . . . His wife is by and by called
  madame or lady.
• Gentleman are so from their race and blood or at
  the least their virtues do make them noble and
  known.
• Citizens and burgesses have next place to
  gentlemen, who be those that are free with the
  cities, and are of somme likely substance to bear
  office the same. . . In the counties they bear
  but little sway or in Parliament, where the law
  are made. (Cf. modern America, where 15 of the
  population controls over 50 of the Senate.)

29
Social classes, from William Harrisons The
Description of England

• Yeomen are free born English, and may dispend
  of their own free land in yearly revenue, to the
  sum of forty shillings sterling. . . . They are
  for the most part farmers to gentlemen.
• The fourth and last sort of people in England
  are day labourers . . . and all artificers, such
  as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, brick makers,
  masons, etc. . . As for slaves and bondmen we
  have none, such is the privilege of our country
  by the especially grace of God, and bounty of our
  princes, that is any come hither from other
  realms, so soon as they set foot on land they
  become so free of condition as their masters,
  whereby all note of servile bondage is utterly
  removed from them.

30
John Stow, A Survey of London (1603)

• Now to return to the West bank, there be two
  Bear gardens. . . Next on this bank was sometime
  the Bordello or stews, a place so called of
  certain stew houses privileged there, for the
  repair of incontinent men to the like women.
• Under Henry II this law was passed,
• That no stewholder or his wife should let or stay
  any single Woman to go and come freely at all
  times.
• No stewholder to keep any woman to board, but she
  to board abroad at her pleasure.
• No single woman to be kept against her will that
  would leave her sin.
• No single woman to take money to lie with any
  man, but she lie with himmall night till the
  morrow.
• The Constables, Bailiff, and others every week to
  search every stewhouse.
• No stewholder to keep any woman that hath the
  perilous infirmity of burning, nor to sell bread,
  ale, flesh, fish, wood, coal, or any victuals.

31
Key passages in 1 Henry IV

• 1.2.1 Poins and Hal in the royal apartments
  (compare to 2 HIV 2.2, where Poins has to admit
  he curries favor with Hal, wants him to marry his
  sister)
• 1.2.186 Hal imitates the sun (son/sun)
• 1.3.93 Hotspur describes Mortimers duel with
  Glendower
• 1.3.110 Hotspur describes effeminate lord
• 1.3.188 Worcesters secret book
• 1.3.240 Hotspur gropes for Ravensburgh

32
Key passages in 1H4

• 2.1.18 the jordan (cf. Falstaffs water at 2H4
  1.2.1 and 2.4.35)
• 2.1.30 Gadshill asks for time, lantern
• 2.1.43 Chamberlain appears as if in a pantomime
• 2.1.68 other Trojans
• 2.2.29 lie down
• 2.2.80 us youth
• 2.2.99 counter-robbery

33
1H4 tavern scene

• 2.4.1 Is Hal drunk?Compare him and the tapsters
  to Bottom and the flower fairies. One of the
  boys.
• 2.4.1 Drawer stands amazed--see Stephen
  Greenblatt, Invisible Bullets, from
  Shakespearean Negotiations (Chicago, 1988),
  21-65.
• 2.4.89 Poins asks the point of the jest
• 2.4.99 break in the line playful, not for honor
• 2.4.115 difficult line Titan (Falstaff) melts
  butter (drinks sack), busying himself, blaming
  Francis for lime, so as not to directly accuse
  Hal of cowardice (knowing he himself was the
  coward).
• 2.4.188 my old ward
• 2.4.229 compulsion
• 2.4.254 Hal reveals the truth
• 2.4.261 Falstaff counters with instinct
• 2.4.337 The Douglass feats of horsemanship
• 2.4.388 review euphuism slide
• 2.4.534 money put back with interest

34
1H4 key passages

• 3.1.12-51 Glendowers nativity, front of
  heaven, vasty deep
• 3.1.90 Hotspurs moiety (cf. Pistols moys
  at Henry V 4.4.18) moiety my share, which is
  how Pistol understand moi, which means me in
  French. (Pourquoi, asks silly Sir Andrew
  Agucheek in Twelfth Night, Is that do or not
  do?--wrong on both counts).
• 3.1.240 Hotspur mocks Kates mild oath (nasty,
  perhaps, but what other couple shows such
  affection in any play?)

35
Falstaff Repentance and debt

• Falstaff is known for finding the right word to
  escape from a lie (vocation instinct).
• He also owes money to Mistress Quickly. 3.3.70
  and throughout.
• He also likes to say he will repent just before
  agreeing to the robbery in 1.2.93 (I must give
  over this life) and asking Bardolph for a bawdy
  song (Ill repent 3.3.5)--question is, how many
  times can a character do the same routine for an
  audience? Queen Elizabeth herself is said to have
  asked for a play about Falstaff, hence The Merry
  Wives of Windsor.

36
Key passages in 2 Henry IV

• 3.1.31 Then happy low, lie down / Uneasy lies
  the head that wears a crown
• 4.2.267-306 Elements of tragedy, esp. 290-295
  gold as poison and medicine
• 4.3.344 Henry recommends foreign quarrels (Holy
  Land, France)
• 5.1.69-75 Falstaff confesses his method to
  amuse Hal. Compare 2.2.117-135, where Poins also
  has an interest in entertaining Hal.
• 5.3.90-120 Pistol, a humor character.
• 5.4.15 Doll and Pistol have killed a customer
• 5.5.45 I know thee not

37
Key Passages in 2 Henry IV

• 1.ind.1-40 Rumor
• 1.1.1-48 Lord Bardolphs good news v. Harrys
  cold spur
• 1.2.1-243 (page hired by Prince, 12--compare
  2.2.65 debt to Master Dommelton, 28 security,
  36 Prince struck Lord Chief Justice (not shown),
  53 kings sickness (apoplexy), 105)
  Falstaffs nativity, 181 (compare Glendowers).

38
Falstaff arrested for debt, 2H4 2.1

• 2.1.30 my exion is entered, and my case so
  openly known to the world See Patricia Parker,
  Literary Fat Ladies (Routledge 1988) for the pun
  on case
• Note where Mistress Quickly claims Falstaff
  promised to marry her (84 ff.), yet also offers
  to procure Doll Tearsheet for him (159). She is
  called a road at 2.2.158.
• For the action of the scene, see the scene by
  scene summary.
• Note also act two scene 4, which you should
  watch, as it shows Falstaff at the height of his
  powers. It parallels the 1H4s tavern scene 2.4.

39
Key passages in 2 Henry IV