Dusty:

Having now re-read Act 1 of 1 Henry IV, I am reminded why I have long thought this one of Shakespeare’s best plays. The first act lays out the two worlds of the play, the court of Henry IV, where the King has to contend with uprisings in the north and the west, and with former allies who helped him to his throne and now plot against him; and the tavern, where the King’s son is engaged with Falstaff, and a prospective double-robbery on Gads Hill. Shakespeare economically sets up parallels and contrasts between the worlds, especially Hal vs. Hotspur. He also makes clear that everybody is duplicitous.

I’ve always thought Bolingbroke/Henry IV a shrewd politician and ruler. He knows that a good way to distract attention from domestic conflict (which he candidly calls “intestine shock/ And . . . civil butchery”) is to redirect attention to a foreign enemy. Hence, his plan for another crusade. What became clearer to me this time is that at the outset Henry already knows that the plan will be postponed further. He asks Westmoreland what the council advises — he disingenuously compliments them by saying that he will act by their “decree” when it’s only the king who can decree — but in fact Henry has already decided that the crusade will be put off because he already knows (via Blunt) what Westmoreland tells him: that trouble is brewing in the north and west. In fact, he knows what Westmoreland doesn’t yet know — that Hotspur has won and is withholding prisoners. So in the stately iambs of his opening lines Henry is completely disingenuous and duplicitous with his loyal friends. What is his purpose?

It’s interesting — and surprising — that after reporting Blunt’s news, Henry says to Westmoreland that he is saddened by it, since Northumberland’s son Hotspur, “the theme of honor’s tongue,” makes his own riotous son look bad, compared to “so blessed a son.” I once imagined that Henry indeed wished that he and Northumberland could trade sons, but now I think that Henry is already very wary of “this young Percy’s pride,” and is determined to break him (as we soon find out in I.3). Henry only pretends to admire honor. So this shift from public concern to private concern is only apparent: Henry is still playing his cards carefully, and concealing his determination to denounce Hotspur.

It’s notable that I.2 begins with Falstaff asking Hal what time it is. This is not the trivial small talk that it first seems: Falstaff is in fact very concerned about time, and about how things will be different for him soon enough “when thou art king,” a phrase he repeats several times. Will they still be boon companions? Will Hal appoint him to some good office (“Diana’s foresters,” or public hangman), or have to disown him? And we soon find out that “time” matters a lot to Hal as well: he is the “heir apparent,” and is biding his time (though the clock is ticking), and at the end of the scene plans to “redeem” time “when men think least I will.”

Much of the exchange between Falstaff and Hal seems merely tavern talk, but it’s more than that: Falstaff resolves that “I must give over this life, and I will give it over.” Hal, who doubts Falstaff’s intentions, immediately proposes that they take a purse, and F. agrees, so Hal laughs ironically at Falstaff’s “good amendment of life.” This sets up Hal’s soliloquy, in which he too says he will amend his life, but shall make maximum benefit from his “reformation” by the timing of it. As generations of readers have sensed, Hal’s calculation makes us very ambivalent about him. He is playing a part which he plans to put off when it best suits him. So he is as duplicitous as his father, in his carousing (which he says is deliberate and politic, an “offense” that will prove a “skill”), and even with respect to his drinking pal, whom he and Poins plan to
doublecross and rob. The parallel between Henry and his son is extended at the beginning of 1.3, when Henry says “I will henceforth be myself,/ . . . Than my condition,” and will thereby win the “respect” that is my due. Hal is planning at some point to “be myself.”

The parallel between Hal and Hotspur is also extended: just as Falstaff says that a lord of the council “rated me . . . about you,” Hotspur says that he has been misrepresented at court, that he did not in fact “deny” prisoners. But in his hotheadedness Hotspur is just the opposite of cold, calculating Hal. Hotspur, like his father and uncle, is also duplicitous: they pretend to “love” the king, but as soon as he exits they denounce him. We now are reminded that Northumberland and Worcester helped Henry to the throne, when he was not in fact the true heir. They too, like Hal, are watching for the right moment to act. As Hotspur says, “yet time serves wherein you may redeem/ Your banished honors and restore yourselves/ Into the good thoughts of the world again.” The echoes of Hal’s soliloquy are clear: redeem, time.
You can’t trust anybody. Everybody’s got a hidden agenda.

Michael:
I agree about 1 Henry IV: one of the best of the plays, and in large part because of Falstaff, who is genuinely funny. But the political/historical elements are splendidly woven with the comedy to provide commentary, often ironic, on them. I’ll give some response to Act 1, the go on to the massive Act 2.

Yes, Henry’s intentions for a crusade seem already deferred because of the threats from the North. His pious language may sound outdated, and if the very idea of crusade seemed dated in the early fifteenth century, it certainly would sound so in Elizabethan times. Maybe the best commentary on Henry’s language and intentions here is what he would tell Hal in 2 Henry IV: “Therefore, my Harry, Be it thy course, to busy giddy minds/ With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,/ May waste the memory of the former days.” Hal’s famous soliloquy, “I know you all,” sets up his turn toward the serious and shows him a certain chip off the old block. Falstaff’s desire for euphemistic titles, “Diana’s foresters,” “minions of the moon,” “our noble and chaste mistress the moon,” goes daringly close to some of Elizabeth’s favored mythic titles. Amusing that he’s going all Spenserian on us. And after this he starts to sound comically Puritan, almost his default position; he’ll give over his dissolute life and repent, and then insists that robbery is simply laboring in his vocation. What follows gives us a good forecast of the Gad’s Hill trickery. Does this comic falling out among thieves find an political parallel in the following scene? Hotspur’s characterization verges on the comic, but only verges, in his tendency to fly off the handle in his language, which his elders try to calm. As we know the historical Hotspur was a few years older than the king, so what Sh. has done with him seems a brilliant dramatic stroke to make him a foil for Hal.

Michael:

Yes, Henry’s intentions for a crusade seem already deferred because of the threats from the North. His pious language may sound outdated, and if the very idea of crusade seemed dated in the early fifteenth century, it certainly would sound so in Elizabethan times. Maybe the best commentary on Henry’s language and intentions here is what he would tell Hal in 2 Henry IV: “Therefore, my Harry, Be it thy course, to busy giddy minds/ With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,/ May waste the memory of the former days.” Hal’s famous soliloquy, “I know you all”, sets up his turn toward the serious and shows him a certain chip off the old block. Falstaff’s desire for euphemistic titles, Diana’s foresters, minions of the moon, our noble and chaste mistress the moon, goes daringly close to some of Elizabeth’s favored mythic titles. Amusing that he’s going all Spenserian on us. And after this he starts to sound comically Puritan, almost his default position; he’ll give over his dissolute life and repent, and then insists that robbery is simply laboring in his vocation. What follows gives us a good forecast of the Gad’s Hill trickery. Does this comic falling out among thieves find an political parallel in the following scene? Hotspur’s characterization verges on the comic, but only verges, in his tendency to fly off the handle in his language, which his elders try to calm. As we know the historical Hotspur was a few years older than the king, so what Sh. has done with him seems a brilliant dramatic stroke to make him a foil for Hal.

Act 2 is massive, and the robbery and the tavern scene take up a good deal of text and playing time. The robbery begins with some portrayal of an inn yard and the kind of intelligence that would lead to the planning of highway men. Falstaff would give opportunity for some comic slapstick during the robbery of the thieves; his girth obviously makes him an unlikely highway man, and this is exploited at the end of the scene.

The scene of Hotspur and Lady Percy is effective on stage, an unexpected domestic scene that tends to humanize Hotspur in the banter with his wife. We presume that his reluctance to tell her of his planned rebellion is partly defensive, but also to keep her genuinely innocent of the treason involved if he and his counterparts fail. The insistence on his roan horse may have some thematic resonance, a red horse for the fiery warrior. The roan horse comes back up in Hals joking with Poins about Hotspur, who becomes a miles gloriosus in his parody.

Back to the tavern in 2.4 and 536 lines, surely the longest scene in the play — and most consequential in its comic reflection of the political scenes. The opening with Hal, Poins, and the drawer Francis doesn’t appear consequential for the narrative, but provides a bit of comic business when Francis is finally left perplexed between two customers. What it does is emphasize Hals aristocratic status even amid the tavern milieu, and maybe indicate his pleasure in his assumed identity. I imagine someone has found thematic relevance in the scene, but it doesn’t jump out at me. Falstaff’s account of the robbery of the robbers is the fun of the scene, even as he knows hes not fooling Hal and the others; it seems a kind of pure comedy that’s detached from an attempt at real persuasion, like the multiplying insults at l. 237 (which Falstaff seems to win), then the quick switch to knowing the true prince, which of course raises the unspoken question who is the true prince. No one can object to this without raising the uncomfortable question. But the unfailing nature of Falstaff’s invention is the heart of it all, and the wit just keeps rolling out.

Falstaff’s suggestion that Hal rehearse the answer hell give to his father in the morning prompts the closest involvement that the tavern has with the court. The very image of Falstaff impersonating the King with a pillow on his head and a dagger for a scepter is comic enough, but the language in King Cambyses’ vein makes it all the funnier. Its also in Lyly’s Euphuistic vein in the prose that follows. In fact its a brilliant parody of Euphues. When Hal and the prince trade places, the comic playing grows closer to what will become necessary in the court world, as Falstaff as Hal makes his plea for Falstaff’s retention, Banish plumb Jack, and banish all the world. And Hal’s chilling reply is “I do. I will.“ It’s almost as if this is the cue for the outer world to break into the tavern world. And as the sheriff and law come into the tavern, Falstaff behind the arras falls asleep. And the final comic bit is the list of Falstaff’s eating and drinking, and the absurdly small amount of food to the gallons of drink. Hal’s threat to take Falstaff out of the tavern world and push him into the political and military world will be the next way of commenting on the latter.

Dusty:

Further on Act I: yes, I think the falling out among thieves is like the falling out of political conspirators. And, more generally, the robbery roughly parallels the plot against the king. Interesting that Hal backs out of taking part in the robbery, like the conspirator — who is he? — who writes a letter to Hotspur backing out of the plot. (Later, in Act 2, Hal promises to pay back what was stolen. Is that a sign that his decency and principles are coming through, or just a sign that he takes care that he cannot be charged with a crime?) In various ways we are invited to compare Hal and Hotspur. But don’t we also compare Falstaff and Hotspur? In some ways they are opposite (e.g., concerning honor), but in others they are similar (e.g., their bombastic rhetoric — though maybe a careful analysis would show that they are bombastic in different ways; both, when challenged, falsely defend themselves — Falstaff often, and Hotspur with I did deny no prisoners).

On Act 2:

I agree that all the business about planning and executing the robbery is a reflection of the political situation. The recurrent references to true men, thieves who are not true to one another. Even the opening scene, with the house turned upside down since Robin Ostler died, seems to hint at the state of the nation, turned upside down since Richard was killed, especially with the apparently stray remark that great ones prey on the commonwealth. There’s a lot of wonderful comedy involving Falstaff. One of the best moments, as I think you once pointed out, is in 2.2 when Falstaff, told that the four thieves will be facing some eight or ten, fearfully asks “will they not rob us?” (Which turns out to be prescient.)

In 2.3, when Hotspur tells himself that the conspirators plan is a good plot, you get the sense that he cares more about the plotting and the fighting than about the ultimate purpose (of overthrowing Henry). Maybe a bit like Hal and Poins, who engage in the robbery not because they need the money but because they think its good sport — one of Hotspur’s words. I think the dialogue between Hotspur and Kate is very ingratiating. Yes, it humanizes him, but it also makes clear that, although like Hal he’s a bit boyish, unlike Hal he is a sexually mature man with a loving wife. By contrast, Hal seems to have no interest in women, and more interest in sweet Jack Falstaff. (I wonder if a director might be careful to have Hal steer clear of willing barmaids.) In 2.4 Hal is the king of courtesy, able to talk with the commoners (like Henry 5 at Agincourt), but the trick played on Francis the drawer seems to suggest that Hal is ready to make fun of common people — anything but courtesy. The scene with Francis does at first seem inconsequential. I think I remember an article about Francis as the man in the middle, called/drawn in two directions by Poins and Hal, just as Hal himself is drawn in two directions — toward the pleasurable life of the tavern, and his responsibilities as heir apparent and his future as Hotspur’s adversary. That may seem a stretch, and to rely too much on a stage direction: The Drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go. But Hal himself makes a connection between Francis and his situation when he, without apparent logic, says, out of the blue (and just after laughing at Francis), “I am not yet of Percy’s mind. Not yet.” Seven lines later he proposes playing a scene with Falstaff: “I’ll play Percy...”

Instead, Hal and Falstaff play out a scene between Henry and Hal, in which there is doubleness in every line: the two actors are making fun of each other, and of the king, but they sense, and we sense, how much is seriously at stake underneath their words. Hal’s “I do. I will is” indeed chilling. But I can imagine an actor (playing an actor) delivering that line in a flat chilled voice (followed by a Just kidding! sort of laugh), or in a jovial, or mockingly regal voice, as if extending the joke. Immediately following, there is a knocking at the door, and Hal is literally called to court. A director might make this a big moment, with a loud knocking, as ominous as the knocking at the gate in Macbeth.

Michael:

Yes, I think there is a thematic comparison intended in the Falstaff/Hotspur relationship, probably based on the humors. Hotspur is the fiery, irascible humor, bilious, more inclined to anger and battle than to the softness of love, so he and Kate tease and rough-house with one another. And hence the roan horse? Falstaff is phlegmatic and associated with drink and the sexuality of the bawdy house and tavern. So where will Hal end up?

Dusty:

The three scenes in Act 3 suggest that there are really three worlds in the play — court, tavern, and rebels — rather than the two I suggested earlier. In this act, Hal migrates (although not completely) from the tavern to the court.

3.1. invites us to reconsider the merits of the rebels. It now appears that they are concerned not with installing the rightful king but with dividing up the spoils of victory.

Hasty Hotspur, who had forgotten a name in Act 1, has now forgotten the map. And he picks a quarrel with Glendower over the latter’s claims that he was destined at birth to greatness. (Glendower is still linked to the old world of magic and portents; Hotspur — and Hal, and Henry — are modern men who make their own fate.) And then he quarrels with his allies over the lines drawn on the map. But it turns out that he doesn’t really care about the spoils of war: it’s the principle, and he would cavil over the ninth part of a hair when honor’s at the stake. He’s more concerned with his own honor than with victory. This is taking “honor” too far. Hotspur even quarrels with his own wife, and walks out on her. Worcester points out Hotspur’s defects as a leader of men.

Meanwhile, while Hotspur is “on fire,” Mortimer is too soft, too reluctant to leave his wife. And while Hal can “drink with any tinker in his own language,” Mortimer has not learned Welsh and thus can’t speak to or understand his wife.

In 3.2 Henry and Hal are reconciled. Henry, who seems to feel some guilt about what he has done, though not much — he says “mistreadings” rather than “misdeeds” — and regrets that Hal is committing Richard’s errors. He suggests that Hotspur has a “more worthy interest” in the state and knows how to lead lords and bishops to battle, but we already are thinking that Hotspur is in fact not a good leader. Hal vows to “redeem” all, but it is not at all clear that he has repented or reformed: he seems to be promising to implement the plan he announced in his soliloquy in Act 1. (There is strong similarity between the language of that soliloquy and Henry’s account of how he won popular favor.)

Again we hear from poor old Sir Walter Blunt, who brings news that Henry tells him is five days old. (Same thing happened in the first scene of the play.) Henry must have other sources of intelligence.

In 3.3. we get one more scene in the tavern, and it serves as a kind of parody of what took place in 3.1 and 3.2. Falstaff again thinks about repenting (as did Hal in the previous scene). He picks a quarrel with the hostess just as Hotspur picked quarrels with Glendower and his other allies. (And when the hostess says “the tittle [i.e., the tenth art] of a hair was never lost in my house before,” she echoes Hotspur’s “ninth part of a hair. The “I know you . . . . No, I know you” exchange between Falstaff and the hostess recalls Hal’s “I know you all.” Is the subsequent reconciliation between Falstaff and the hostess a parody of the reconciliation between Henry and Hal?

I’m not sure what to make of Falstaff’s long exchange with Bardolph, with his vivid description of the fiery face of the “Knight of the Burning Lamp,” but it may be a reflection of Glendower’s speech about portents. Is there a kind of subterranean link between Falstaff and Glendower? Falstaff’s preposterous claim that his pocket has been picked — and we already know from 2.4 what was in his pocket — serves to reduce him in our eyes. In Act 2 his preposterous claims about fighting off men in buckram were evidence of his improvisatory wit. Here they seem shabby, as Hal sees and says. It serves as a measure of Hal’s gradual separation from Falstaff.

Falstaff may be down but he is not out. He shows his resilience and adaptability in the closing lines of 3.3, where he prepares to take command of a “charge of foot,” even though he would rather remain in the tavern.

Michael:

There’s something darkly comic about Hotspur’s quarrelsomeness in the early scenes of Act 3, baiting Glendower, then fussing about the divisions in the map. We may be on his side in the teasing of the fantasies and boasting of Glendower, but it doesn’t bode well for his leadership, and when he’s finished with the map divisions, he indicates he doesn’t care anyway. But he’s already threatened to change the course of the Trent — does “charge” mean that he intends to blow up the river to change its course? But it’s just to irritate Glendower, as he does with the mocking of Welsh. His attitude toward the music and the singing is similarly both comic and disturbing. And again he quarrels comically with his wife. Sh. must have accessed a good Welsh singer among the boys he had for the women’s parts, and also the actor for Glendower.

Does Mortimer’s not understanding or speaking Welsh indicate something about the kingdom they are so eager to divvy up?

Henry’s speech to Hal does suggest the thinness of his legal claim to the throne; much of his description of the contrast of himself to Richard indicates the need for self-portrayal rather then legitimacy. As we’ve heard in his soliloquy in Act 1, Hal’s response similarly points to his desire to make his reformation a political achievement. He is his father’s son, but his course to the throne is simply the inversion of Henry’s.

Falstaff’s alleged dwindling seems a consequence of Hal’s emergence. Again, he’s going to repent, and the joke of course is that he’s been corrupted by “villainous company.” And his resolve is shown to be a wonderful sham. If Hal is malleable, Falstaff is consistent and unchanging. In his set-to with the hostess, he’s just as amusingly corrupt, and he spins circles around her in his comic claims and accusations. His departing “forgiveness” of the hostess and his moral words to her are quite wonderful. I guess I don’t find Falstaff shabby so much as entirely consistent with what we’ve come to see of him before. He cannot change; because he has more flesh, he must have more frailty. But “frailty” means something opposed to all morality; he must be the embodiment of all indecency. We can’t approve, but we can’t look away — or stop finding him preposterously amusing.

Michael:

At the beginning of Act 4 is Hotspur flattering the Douglas even as he denies he could ever flatter anyone? I think we’re meant to wonder if Northumberland is really sick, or has decided the rebellion is just too risky. Hotspur is initially alarmed, says it’s a perilous gash, but then immediately reverses himself and finds it an opportunity, a sort of back-up. Douglas goes along with this and insists that in Scotland there’s no word for fear. Then in the account of the king’s forces comes a description of Hal’s brilliant appearance, which annoys Hotspur. And then news of Glendower’s inability to come on time, which discomfits even the Douglas. Again Hotspur turns the bad news into a spur of his desire for honor, even in death: “Die all; die merrily.”

Scene 2 must be both frank characterization of Falstaff, his self-admitted corrupt administration of his pressing soldiers and satire of the whole system. Falstaff’s description of the process he’s followed is so frank and thoroughly corrupt that I don’t think we hold him as anything more than a representation of the worst that’s possible. Put someone like Falstaff in charge of the press, and this is what you get. When Hal says he never saw such pitiful rascals, Falstaff’s response, “good enough to toss; food for powder . . . mortal men, mortal men,” seems to express the futility of the whole matter of warfare. They seem to represent the “poor, bare, forked animal” that was Poor Tom (in Lear), but here described in another register. Lear in Falstaff, but in an absurdist, comic key? It seems to reflect back on the whole matter of the warfare among the aristocrats. They jostle back and forth, and the result is the loss of these absurd “soldiers” of Falstaff’s company.

Scene 3 begins with more of Hotspur’s overly eager desire for battle. Let’s fight tonight, now, whatever the cost. Again the Douglas is all in favor of Hotspur’s whim, and again he’s talked out of it. But the offer Blount brings seems initially to offer hope of avoiding battle, but then Hotspur pulls back the curtain and indicates the reality behind the whole matter of Henry’s kingship. Obviously there’s no way of resolving any of this, and Hotspur’s only recourse seems to be the abdication of Henry. This is where he ends up, and the death of Richard and Henry’s usurpation seem to render the whole thing impossible of resolution. Is this what I take back? Blount asks. Well, no, Hotspur responds; we’ll talk it over, and let him know in the morning.

The final scene of the act seems to indicate the futility of any negotiation, as the Archbishop of York and what seems to be his chaplain consider it. Ten thousand men will fight in the ensuing battle at Shrewsbury, and the King seems to have the numerical superiority. The next step will be Henry’s turning to the complicit Archbishop, so the latter must plan his next move, which seems utterly uncertain.

Dusty:

You read Hotspur as “darkly comic.” By that maybe you mean reckless and dangerous. I think of him as bold and irrepressible, maybe boyishly exuberant, and ill-fitted for the “political” world of the play. Better-suited to an older world of personal “honor.”

You find Falstaff primarily comic too, but more amusingly so. We disapprove but we enjoy him. You suggested it had to do with his consistency. I suggested that he seems increasingly shabby as the play goes along, which maybe means that it is we who change. I can imagine a director and actor could collaborate to produce a Falstaff who is comically irresponsible and irrepressible, and in whom we delight, as have many quite sobersided critics from Johnson to Bloom. Taking a cue from Hal, I can also imagine a director and actor who produce a seedy over-the-hill Falstaff who is not as funny as he thinks. He too is ill-fitted for the “political” world, and maybe as a figure of “Vice” better suited to an older more festive world.

In 4.1 Hotspur is the “king of honor,” but that doesn’t count for much in a world where Northumberland and Glendower, his crucial allies, have withdrawn or withheld their forces. I take Hotspur’s praise of Douglas as genuine. (I don’t think Northumberland is sick.) Why, in this scene, do we get such fulsome praise of Prince Hal from Vernon (who will effusively praise Hal again in V.2)? Shakespeare wants us to think better of Hal, but why should Vernon be the one who praises him? When you hear Hotspur press on, and look forward to “Doomsday” (by which I think he means the “day of doom or judgement”), and calls out “Die all, die merrily,” you wonder whether Hotspur cares whether he wins or not, so long as he fights bravely.

In 4.2 I wonder how best to present Falstaff’s soliloquy about his ragtag recruits. I don’t think he should sound like Iago, or the old “Vice” figure. Should he laugh his way through the speech, boasting about what he has done? Should he be rueful?

In 4.3, Hotspur disregards advice/warning from his allies, continuing to indicate that he’s out of step. But he makes a very strong case against King Henry, and is given a very long speech (ll. 52-85, 90-105) to do it. I’m not sure why we have a separate scene in 4.4, but I guess it’s to suggest that the Archbishop is showing the caution that Hotspur lacks, and is wavering.

Dusty:

In 5.1 we get another long denunciation of Henry, this time from Worcester, who makes his case in more than 40 lines. I don’t think the charges against Henry are ever really answered in the play. It’s a bit odd that Hal caps Henry’s offer of peace by proposing to settle the dispute by single combat, which seems as out of tune with political reality as Hotspur’s honor. In fact, it’s the sort of proposal Hotspur would make. Then follows Falstaff’s famous “catechism” — Q and A — about “honor,” which squarely opposes him to Hotspur. And insofar as Hal has offered praise of Hotspur, it also squarely opposes Falstaff to Prince Hal.

5.2 is another important scene: Worcester basically betrays Hotspur by withholding crucial information of Henry’s offer. The scene also brings more praise of Hal from Vernon, so effusive that Hotspur reasonably wonders is Vernon is “enamored” of the Prince. And Hotspur impatiently and foolishly does not take time to read letters which would have advised him to avoid battle. (Henry has good “intelligence,” and values it; Hotspur doesn’t pay enough attention to it.)

5.3 gives us a quick Homeric scene (with minimal vaunting) of individual combat, Douglas vs. Blunt, though Douglas thought he was killing Henry.Then, after the stage is briefly empty, Falstaff and Hal come in. Falstaff’s joke about his weapon (sack) — which can “sack a city” — is pretty feeble, or at least Hal, who is preoccupied with battle, thinks so.

5.4 is strange, with Douglas coming upon what he thinks is another Henry, wondering whether it is “another counterfeit.” This time it’s Henry himself, but the exchange invites us to consider whether Henry is in fact not a true king, but a counterfeit of a king. (Falstaff had earlier raised the idea of “counterfeit”). Hal is in heroic mode, first rescuing the King and then meeting Hotspur in more single combat. This time the combatants politely introduce themselves, and when Hal has won, they praise each other. I am not sure what it is that Hotspur would “prophesy” — maybe that Hal will become a good king. Immediately we turn from Hotspur to Falstaff, his great opposite, who lies beside him.

But he “riseth up.” You can’t keep him down. He says it was high time for him to “counterfeit” death, but then catches himself in a kind of internal dialogue: “Counterfeit? I lie; I am no counterfeit. To die is to be a counterfeit. . .” Maybe we are asked to consider the idea that Falstaff, despite his lies, is in fact not a counterfeit. Or as he says a bit later, “I am not a double man.” He is plainly and always “Jack Falstaff.” By contrast, both Henry and the Prince are counterfeiters, who seek to deceive, as are Worcester and Northumberland. But not Hotspur: he is always Hotspur and always the same. in that respect, he is linked with Falstaff. Falstaff has more soliloquies than anybody else in the play; Hal is the only other one, and he only gets one.

Hal knows perfectly well that it was he and not Falstaff who killed Hotspur, and oddly, it seems to me, is ready to “gild” Falstaff’s lie. (Maybe he can do that because he has proven his own worth to his father, his side has won, and he’s feeling confident and generous.)

5.5 seems to settle things. Rebellion has been rebuked. Worcester and Vernon are condemned. Hal frees Douglas, in another gesture that makes him seem like Hotspur. But Hal, unlike Hotspur, graciously (and with “high courtesy”) passes the “honorable bounty” to his brother, John of Lancaster. Hotspur is the “king of honor” but Hal is the “king of courtesy.”

But in fact things really aren’t settled. The war is still to be pursued. Is is worrisome that the king announces that “we divide our power”? Division was the problem at the outset of the play. And Falstaff has not been called to account. So we need Henry IV Part 2.

Michael:

I find Hotspur comic in his quick reversals, as when he seems to despair over the loss of support, then quickly pivots to finding it a spur to the rebellion in the challenge it represents. An audience must recognize the absurdity of Hotspur’s over-the-top valor. But “darkly comic” would better describe Falstaff’s description of his company, comic in the pathetic character of his “soldiers,” but dark in his estimate of their effectiveness or survival. We certainly disapprove of his admittedly damnable misuse of the king’s press. I guess I don’t imagine laughter so much as a recognition that Falstaff is absurdly out of place in the “serious” world of politics and warfare. But this must fold back over onto the political and martial world; how can that be accepted when Falstaff’s use of the king’s press is possible? I’m unsure how a good comic actor would play Falstaff’s soliloquy; no, not as a Vice, but he is boasting at the same time he recognizes the absurdity, indeed, the horror of it. How would this have engaged Elizabethan sensibilities? Onstage now it’s always effective, comic and horrible.

Part of the effect of Hotspur must be the way he slots into the world of realpolitik represented by Northumberland, Glendower, and Worcester. Bolingbroke’s usurpation is part of the realpolitik denounced by Worcester. And Falstaff’s catechism buts up against Hotspur’s honor and Hal’s offer of single combat with Hotspur.
A good deal of the effectiveness of the play must lie in this wonderful mix of positions on battle/war/honor/political legitimacy. I think we’re encouraged to find Hotspur foolish at the same time we admire his bravery, and of course he’s diametrically opposed to Falstaff, who’s not brave or in any way admirable, but funny in the way he mocks the aristocrats just by being there. The “wound” he give the dead Hotspur is shocking, but somehow what could be expected. Though it’s not apparent in the reading, Falstaff’s “death” is momentarily shocking onstage, as we think it’s real, and when he “riseth up” I suppose we’re relieved and amused and ready to respond to his argument about counterfeits. And of course we also think about the counterfeit versions of the king on the battlefield.

It’s interesting and significant that Hal somehow emerges from all this mix, with a sense of gallantry unmixed, or almost unmixed, with the lie of Falstaff and, apparently, with the dark realpolitik of his father’s usurpation. He has somehow taken over the valorous element of Hotspur and evaded whatever it is that Falstaff represents. So the king can now recognize him as he “true prince” that Falstaff said he saw at Gadshill.

Dusty:

You say that Falstaff “mocks the aristocrats.” Yes, there is a class difference between Sir John and the several royals and earls. But does he mock them as a class, or for their hypocrisy and pretense? (Glendower’s rank is not clear, is it?) Would the play have been different if Falstaff were not a knight? (There are a couple of other figures of Falstaff’s rank in the play, Sir Walter Blunt and Sir Richard Vernon. The former is loyal, but a little ineffective as gatherer of intelligence. The latter is good at intelligence, oddly lavishes praise on Hal, and is nonetheless sentenced to death by the King — maybe that’s a sign of Henry’s ruthlessness.)

I think you’re right that for a moment we think Falstaff is dead. The stage directions in my edition say that Falstaff “falls down as if he were dead” but the audience in the theatre of course doesn’t know the printed stage directions. A director could probably play the scene either way: Falstaff dead, or Falstaff taking an obvious cowardly dive.

And I think you’re right that Hal has “taken over” or at least demonstrated the ‘positive’ elements of Hotspur. But I remain troubled by other elements: his readiness to “gild” Falstaff’s lie, and his complicity with Henry’s politics. Yes, the King recognizes Hal as the “true prince,” but I am not sure that the audience does, which is why I find the ending of the play somewhat unsettling.