ACT V
SCENE i
Worcester and Vernon visit the King’s camp, where Henry, Hal, Prince John, Blunt, and Falstaff are gathered. Henry remarks that the rebellion has made him “doff our easy robes of peace” and “crush our old limbs in ungentle steel” (V.i.12-13). Worcester reviews the history of Henry’s usurpation, using a conceit in which Henry operates like a cuckoo: he “did oppress our nest, / Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk” (V.i.61-62). Henry dismisses all this as an excuse to rebel,
To face the garment of rebellion
With some fine color that may please the eye
Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,
Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
Of hurly-burly innovation….
(V.i.74-78)
(Worcester’s words might aptly have been those of a Vere ancestor to Henry VII.)
King Henry shoots down the idea of single combat between Hotspur and Hal, the latter admitting, “I have a truant been to chivalry” (V.i.94; cf V.ii.67f), an acknowledgement worth pointing out (Ogburn and Ogburn 721).
Henry’s deal is that he’ll pardon the rebels if they lay down their weapons. Hal anticipates Hotspur and Douglas rejecting this offer.
Falstaff requests that Hal stick close to him. He offers a soliloquy on the ridiculousness of the notion of honor when Hal remarks — paraphrasing the Earl of Essex at his sentencing “I owe God a death” (Chiljan 25) — that Falstaff owes God a death/[debt]:
‘Tis not due yet; I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter; honor pricks me on. Yea, but how if honor 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. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What ishonor? A word. What is in that word honor? What is that honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ‘Tis insensible, then. Yea, to the dead. But will[‘t] not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it, honor is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism. (V.i.127-140)
“It is almost unavoidable to feel embarrassed at Falstaff’s ‘cowardly’ downgrading of honor, but as the centuries have passed and as wars have grown steadily more terrible, the Falstaffian view is making sense to more and more men” (Asimov, II 372).
SCENE ii
Worcester recommends to Vernon that they remain silent about the King’s offer. It’s all over for the older rebels politically anyway:
For treason is but trusted like the fox;
Who, ne’er so tame, so cherished, and lock’d up,
Will have a wild trick of his ancestor.
(V.ii.12-14)
Consideration of treason being a “trick of ancestors” is “clearly suggestive of the line of Howards” (Clark 694; cf. Ogburn and Ogburn 93, 715). Oxford was “heard to ‘affirm to divers that the Howards were the most treacherous race under heaven,’ and ‘my Lord Henry Howard the worst villain that lived in this earth'” (Ogburn and Ogburn 93, cf. 715).
In particular, “hare-brain’d Hotspur, govern’d by a spleen” (V.ii.19), should not be informed about the proposed truce. “We as the spring of all shall pay for all” (V.ii.23).
Hotspur, momentarily dreading that Worcester asked King Henry for mercy, is made to believe that the King is resolved for war. Vernon mentions the aborted plan for single combat with Hal, and Hotspur snorts at his report of Hal’s noble bearing and dignity:
If he outlive the envy of this day,
England did never owe so sweet a hope,
So much misconstrued in his wantonness.
(V.ii.66-68)
Although it is time for a rallying speech, Hotspur claims not to be a man of words:
Better consider what you have to do
Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,
Can lift your blood up with persuasion.
(V.ii.76-78)
With Hotspur’s cries of “Esperance!” (the Percy family motto) and “Percy!” (V.iii.96), the rebels embrace and depart for battle.
SCENE iii
Trumpets announce the battle. Douglas has killed the Lord of Stafford who was armed in the likeness of King Henry. Now Blunt is similarly dressed and Douglas thinks this is Henry. They fight and Blunt is killed. Hotspur comes by and tells Douglas it isn’t the King: “The King hath many marching in his coats” (V.iii.25). Douglas vows, “Now by my sword, I will kill all his coats; I’ll murder all his wardrop, piece by piece, / Until I meet the King” (V.iii.26-28).
Falstaff could do without all this danger. All but a few of his men have been killed and the few survivors have turned to begging in town. Prince Hal is a model of seriousness and asks for Falstaff’s sword. Falstaff claims to have bested Hotspur, but Hal knows this isn’t true. So Falstaff keeps his sword but offers to lend his encased pistol: “‘Tis hot, ’tis hot” (V.iii.54). Hal pulls out a bottle of sack instead, so he pitches a fit: “is it a time to jest and dally now?” (V.iii.56). He throws the bottle at Falstaff and rushes off. Falstaff resolves not to court death and end up like Blunt: “I like not such grinning honor as Sir Walter hath. Give me life, which if I can save, so; if not, honor comes unlook’d for, and there’s an end” (V.iii.59-62).
SCENE iv
Henry wants Hal and John to rest but Hal won’t. Hal tells his brother John, “now I do respect me as my soul” (V.iv.19), which in retrospect later will prove grim.
Douglas encounters Henry and asks, “What art thou / That counterfeit’st the person of a king?” (V.iv.26-27). “The King himself,” responds Henry (V.iv.28), acknowledging that Douglas until now has met only “shadows” (V.iv.29). They do battle, and Henry is in trouble when Hal enters, challenges Douglas, and sends him running. Henry is pleased: “Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion” (V.iv.47). Henry returns to battle.
The random reference to a “Nicholas Gawsey” (V.iv.44) may play a part in the inspiration for Falstaff. Sir Nicholas Gawsey may be a combination of Nicholas Dawtrey and Sir Robert Gausell, killed on king’s side, the inclusion “done in the hope of placating the fat captain in the Irish Service for the caricature made of him in the Falstaff part” (Clark 699).
“Shakespeare, who never displays much understanding of battle tactics, confines himself to describing single combats” (Asimov, II 373). Duh. He’s working in theater!
Hal then encounters Hotspur:
I am the Prince of Wales, and think not, Percy,
To share with me in glory any more.
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere,
Nor can one England brook a double reign
Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.
(V.iv.62-66)
Such battlefield pronouncements are unlikely, but on November 17, 1584, Oxford and Arundel would have had such an exchange at the tilting tournament (Clark 695).
They fight, Hal cheered by Falstaff, until Douglas returns and fights with Falstaff, who falls down pretending to be dead. Douglas leaves. After combat with Hal, Hotspur falls, beginning his own eulogy — “O, I could prophesy, / But that the earthy and cold hand of death / Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust, / And food for –” (V.iv.82-85). “For worms, brave Percy” (V.iv.86), finishes Hal, adding a noble tribute to Hotspur’s valor.
“In Hotspur’s sense, ‘honor’ passes from loser to victor…. And it is the title of champion that Hotspur bewails the loss of, not life itself” (Asimov 377). Historically, we don’t know who killed Hotspur at the Battle of Shrewsbury on 21 July 1403 (Asimov, II 378).
Hal then sees Falstaff lying as if dead and offers a eulogy for him too: “Could not all this flesh / Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell! / I could have better spar’d a better man” (V.iv.101-103).
Hal leaves and Falstaff gets up, rationalizing about his cowardice.
‘Sblood, ’twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too. Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit. To die, is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life. ‘Zounds, I am afraid of this gunpowder Percy, though he be dead. How if he should counterfeit too and rise? By my faith, I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit. Therefore I’ll make him sure, yea, and I’ll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Therefore, sirrah [stabbing him], with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me. (V.iv.112-128)
“In peace Falstaff is an immensely beguiling figure, but war reveals a darker side to his opportunism, as if Shakespeare were helping us to sympathize with the Prince’s inevitable rejection of his values” (Wells 145).
However, in a sense, “Falstaff, not Prince Henry, did kill Hotspur. He ended the outworn conception of honor for which Hotspur stood” (Goddard, I 188).
Falstaff hoists the dead Hotspur onto his back just as Hal and John enter. John is surprised to see Falstaff alive, given Hal’s report a moment ago. Falstaff takes the credit for killing Hotspur and expects this will earn him a title: “If your father will do me any honor, so; if not, let him kill the next Percy himself” (V.iv.140-142). Hal says he’ll not refute Falstaff’s lie: “For my part, if a lie may do thee grace, / I’ll gild it with the happiest terms I have” (V.iv.157-158). They all leave, Falstaff saying,
I’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, God reward him! If I do grow great, I’ll grow less; for I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do. (V.iv.162-165)
SCENE v
The rebellion quelled, Henry chides Worcester for failing to deliver word to the rebels of his offer of peace. He orders Worcester and Vernon killed. Hal requests mercy for the valorous Douglas (who is not an Englishman anyway) and it is granted. Henry sends Prince John and Westmorland with one army to fight Northumberland and Archbishop Scroop. Henry and Hal will take another army to Wales to fight Glendower and Mortimer. Rebels never prosper.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway,
Meeting the cheque of such another day,
And since this business so fair is done,
Let us not leave till all our own be won.
(V.v.41-44)
FINAL PERSPECTIVE
Although Hal seems to have shaped up by the end of this play, he’ll regress in order to provide some interest to Henry IV, Part 2. Opinions differ.
Hal does indeed consort with low companions, but he does and says nothing really disgraceful. He participates in a robbery, … but only as part of a practical joke, and he makes amends for it. He drinks, to be sure, but is never shown the worse for liquor, let alone actually drunk. Most of all, he is never tarred with sexual immorality. Shakespeare never shows him as anything worse than a young man with a keen sense of humor and a liking for horseplay. (Asimov, II 331)
“From the targeting of particular constituencies to the learning of regional languages and customs, the artful insinuations about ‘character’ and fitness for office, and the prodigal-son trajectory of a wastrel-turned-patriot-and-hero, the story of Prince Harry, or Hal, who will become the legendary Henry V, is a model of the making of a national icon” (Garber 314). So goes the critical insistence, but if Hal gradually “shapes up,” he shapes up into what? At least admit that Prince Hal is “by role and by nature himself a ‘double man,’ a living perspective painting, which takes one form when viewed directly and another when viewed awry” (Garber 342). A wretch when viewed directly, so you’d better move to the far side if you insist on hero.
So we never see Hal drunk, but “It is significant that we never see Falstaff drunk. His wit still scintillates practically unabated throughout” (Goddard, I 181). We love “his tendency to expand, both in girth and in imagination” (Garber 317).
Fun-loving Falstaff always speaks in prose and is a “free artist of himself” (Bloom 271): a “Glutton, drunkard, coward, liar, lecher, boaster, cheat, thief, rogue, ruffian, villain,” or “the very incarnation of charm, one of the liberators of the human spirit, the greatest comic figure in the history of literature” (Goddard, I 175), “Imagination conquering matter, spirit subduing flesh” (Goddard, I 178). Bloom insists that the role must have surprised Shakespeare and ran away from the original smaller intention, and the poet in the sonnets is a Falstaff figure suffering in relation to a Hal-like noble young man in the “Fair Youth.” Falstaff represents how badly you can behave if you’re a gentleman and get away with it, so he embodies a class system joke. He teaches us not to moralize, and he doesn’t beat up on himself. “The Greeks incarnated in their god Dionysus the paradox of wine, its combined power to inspire and degrade” (Goddard, I 180).
“Sir John is a comic Socrates” (Bloom 275), which will be especially true during the description in Henry V of his non-comic end. Shakespeare will eventually kill him off: “Falstaff’s irreverence is life-enhancing but state-destroying” (Bloom 282), even if “he is an excellent antidote to unrealistic idealism” (Garber 327). The Falstaff of Merry Wives, by the way, “is an operatic imposter” (Bloom 276; cf. Goddard, I 175) and does not count.
Falstaff knows he will benefit in the future from his association with Hal. But he always says it is he who is misled by the youth. Falstaff provides part of the father role that is impossible between Hal and Henry IV. He takes admirable delight in a deconstruction of “honor.” But it is difficult to admire him when he stabs Hotspur’s corpse in the leg and claims he killed the warrior. At the end of the play, Falstaff may be at his worst and the Prince at his best. Or so it seems.
Is there any activity of man that involves the same factors that we find present in this Falstaff: complete freedom, an all-consuming zest for life, an utter subjugation of facts to imagination, and an entire absence of moral responsibility? Obviously there is. That activity is play…. Play is not sport. The confusion of the two is a major tragedy of our time. A crowd of fifteen-year-old schoolboys ‘playing’ football on a back lot are indulging in sport. They are rarely playing…. [But]
Falstaff goes through life playing. He coins everything he encounters into play, often even a play. (Goddard, I 183-184)
And one more word: “The opposite of war is not ‘peace’…. what it has come to mean on our lips is just the absence of war. The opposite of war is creative activity, play in its loftier implications” (Goddard, I 186). So, Shakespeare represents the very best of huan engagement in the world.