37, 38. and they are... life, and they will have to live at the gates of London and maintain themselves by beggary'. 42. Whose deaths, the antecedent is many a nobleman'. 44. Turk Gregory. Falstaff has in mind the famous Hidebrand, who took the papal name of Gregory VII, and who, while friar, astonished Europe with his military exploits. 53. What, is it... now? For once Falstaff's pleasantry does not prove welcome to the prince. 54 pierce, pronounce 'perce'. 56. carbonado, a rasher of meat. Cf. Coriolanus, iv. 5: "Before Corioli he scotched him and notched him like a carbonado". 57. grinning honour, the honour of grinning death. Fastaff harps on the word honour, mindful of his catechism on honour in v. I. Scene 4 The passage from Holinshed's Chronicle on which this scene is based has already been quoted, and the reader's attention drawn to the modifications made by Shakespeare. The dramatic action here arrives at its climax; the rival Harries meet in single combat, and victory rests with the "sword-andbuckler Prince of Wales", for whom Hotspur has shown such undisguised contempt. Hotspur's death, like his life, is honourable; the thought that death is imminent does not disturb him; his only regret is for the loss of honour which he has sustained through his defeat. The prince, generous as ever in his feelings for Hotspur, pays a chivalrous tribute to his dead foe: "this earth that bears thee dead Bears not alive so stout a gentleman". We reach here the region of the heroic; but Shakespeare, in the rare versatility of his mind, does not allow us to remain there long. There is, in fact, a rapid descent to comedy as the eye of the prince turns from the dead Percy to the seemingly dead Falstaff. The words, "I could have better spared a better man exactly express the prince's attitude towards the knight, while the two verses which follow suggest that a refor mation is beginning in the life of the prince; the cld-time vanities of life are losing their charm for him. Falstaff's defence of his counterfeiting is conceived with the same superb humour as his catechism on honour; his taking upon himself the credit of Hotspur's slaughter is a delightful piece of makebelieve. Incidentally, it throws some light upon Falstaff's character. It shows that the main purpose of all his lying is the playing of a huge joke; to maintain, as some have main tained, that he wishes his lies to be believed is in the present instance preposterous, and the same is true in the case of the lies which he tells after the Gadshill robbery. He lies from a keen sense of humour, and not with an intent to deceive. ... 2, 3. Harry... thou... Lord John of Lancaster. you. The king addresses his eldest son simply as Harry, and then uses the familiar thou; the younger son is given his full title and addressed as you. It would seem as though Shakespeare wished to indicate a real sense of comradeship between father and eldest son at this critical hour. 2. thou bleed'st too much. Holinshed relates that the prince was wounded in the face by an arrow. 5. make up, advance to your post as commander-in-chief. 6. amaze, alarm. 13. stain'd, blood-stained. 15. We breathe too long, we take too long a respite. 21. at the point, at spear's distance. 22. lustier maintenance, sturdier endurance. 23. such an ungrown warrior. Prince John was in reality only fourteen years old at this time, and Holinshed makes no reference to him in his account of the fight. 25. like Hydra's heads. The reference is to the well-known fable of the Lernean hydra, the cutting-off of whose nine heads was one of the labours of Hercules. 41. Shirley. Holinshed mentions Sir Hugh Shorlie as one of those slain on the king's side at the battle of Shrewsbury. 45, 46. Sir Nicholas Gawsey. Clifton. These are Holinshed's Sir Nicholas Gausell and Sir John Clifton, both slain at Shrewsbury while fighting for the king. 48. thy lost opinion, the reputation which you lost through your riotous conduct. 49. makest some tender of, hast some regard for. 52. hearken'd for, waited eagerly for news of. 54. The insulting. over you, the hand of Douglas, which was audaciously raised above your head to slay you. 55. in your end, in accomplishing your death. ... 65. Two stars . . sphere, "an allusion to the Ptolemaic system of astronomy in which several spheres, each having a planet set in it, were supposed to be swung bodily round the earth in twenty-four hours by the top sphere, the primum mobile" (Deighton). 77. my youth, my renown for youthful prowess. 81. But thought's... fool. Thought is in subjection to mortal life, and mortal life is the sport of time'. Q1 reads thoughts, the slaves of life, the words "the slaves of life" being in apposition to thoughts, while the predicate of this, as well as of what follows, is "must have a stop”. 83. I could prophesy. The idea of the power of prophecy possessed by dying men is best illustrated by the speech of the dying Gaunt in Richard II, ii. 1. 92. thee dead. This is the reading of Q7 and Q8; the earlier Qq. read the dead. 95. dear, hearty. 96. favours. The prince covers Hotspur's face with the scarf which he was wearing as knightly adornment. 105. should have a heavy miss of thee, should deeply miss thee. 108. dearer, of greater worth, with of course a pun on deer. 109. Embowell'd. Embowelling was resorted to in order to preserve the body until it could be embalmed. 112. powder, salt, pickle. 114. termagant. Termagant or Tervagant is the Italian Trivigante, a name supposed to be based on that of Diana Trivia. In the crusading times Termagant was supposed by crusaders to be the name of a false god of the Saracens. scot and lot. Still a current phrase with the force of 'utterly', 'out and out'. 121. gunpowder Percy. An admirable epithet to express the explosive outbursts which were so characteristic of Percy. 125, 126. Nothing confutes me but eyes. Only those who could see us could prove that I did not slay him.' 137. I am not a double man. Falstaff is carrying Percy on his back, and he applies the prince's words, “Thou art not what thou seem'st", to his seemingly double body. 148. I'll take it upon my death, I'll stake my life upon it. 155. do thee grace, help thee to win the king's favour. 158. the highest, the highest part. Scene 5 The victory of the king is now complete, and all that remains is to pass judgment upon the prisoners. Worcester and Vernon are sentenced to death, but the Prince of Wales, generous in all things, procures the freedom of Douglas, and then, with graceful courtesy, hands over to his brother John the privilege of delivering the earl from prison. The closing speech, uttered by the king, reminds us that the rebellion is as yet only partly quelled, and we realize that the two parts of Henry IV form in reality only one play which the limitations of time divided into two halves. 5. tenour, nature, the nature of the trust placed in you as kinsman of Percy. 15. Other offenders passing sentence upon the other offenders." upon. "We will pause before Compare Daniel's History of 20. Upon the foot of fear, fleeing in fear. 29. His valour shown the Civil Wars, iv. 56: "And Douglas, faint with wounds, and overthrown, Which took him, (by his noble valour shown 33. give away, announce. 44. leave, cease from action. APPENDIX METRICAL NOTES1 In the strictly dramatic portions of Shakespeare's plays we find blank verse, rhyming decasyllabic verse, rhyming octosyllabic verse, and prose. The use of octosyllabic verse is almost exclusively confined to supernatural beings, such as the Fairies in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, or the Witches in Macbeth. The rhyming couplets of decasyllabic verse, which in the early plays are very frequent—in Love's Labour's Lost there are almost twice as many rhyming as rhymeless verses,—become more and more rare as Shakespeare advanced in his career, until in what is his last, or almost his last, play, A Winter's Tale, they disappear entirely. In Henry IV rhyme is rare, and is chiefly reserved for the endings of some of the scenes, or of speeches which are followed by the departure of the speaker from the stage. (See i. 3. 301–302; iii. 2. 179–180; iv. 1. 131-136; v. 3. 28-29; v. 4. 105-110; v. 5. 41-44.) There remain for consideration only blank verse and prose. As a general rule, it will be found that the historical scenes are in blank verse, the comic scenes in prose. The king, who is throughout a formalist, always speaks in verse; Falstaff, except when he parodies the "Cambyses vein", or rounds off a scene with a single rhyming couplet, keeps to a prose diction; Prince Henry and Hotspur use both verse and prose, and turn from the one to the other with surprising ease and readiness. The blank verse of Prince Henry in his soliloquy in i. 2, coming as it does after a long scene of prose, furnishes an excellent illustration of the differences of character of these two forms of diction. Poetry is the diction of tension, prose of relaxation. Blank Verse.-Blank verse appeared for the first time 1 These notes are chiefly based on the "Outlines of Shakespeare's Prosody", appended to Professor Herford's Richard II Warwick Shakespeare. The student is referred to these "Outlines" for a fuller treatment of the subject. |