Shakespeare, Henry IV, 1 and 2; Henry V

There may be a touch of hubris--or perhaps just of laziness--in writing a single post about three separate Shakespeare plays, especially when we dedicated an entire post to one play last time. Yet the similarities among the Henries make them feel distinct from Richard II. For one thing, they relate the aftermath of Bolingbroke's usurpation of the throne, of the interruption of cosmic order by political savvy and physical force. For another, they are about a new political dynasty, that of Henry Bolingbroke and his son, Prince Hal. Even more significantly, they trace the development of Prince Hal, who is the true focus of all three plays, even the ones named for his father; the elder Henry, true to his advice to his son, remains aloof and largely unseen, both by his people and the audience. (Let's ignore the fact that I didn't much care for Henry V and don't have much to say about it except in relation to the Henry IVs.)

It is the interruption of order and the resulting chaos that I want to focus on, though it is by no means the only theme running through the plays. The recurring cosmological imagery, also present in Richard II, is another thread to follow. So, too, is the way in which power begets power, and falsehood falsehood; Henry's rise to the throne may have seemed unscrupulous and even Machiavellian in Richard II, but in these plays, Hal's political mind is revealed to be much greater than his father's, and the way in which he defines his own mythology, as the introduction put it, is fascinating and terrifying. The interruption of order, though, provides the best (or at least most interesting) lens through which to view the plays.

For example, the tension between order and chaos can be seen in the way that events through H4&5 repeat and, through repetition, devolve. The lively tavern scenes in 1H4 are bled of their mirth by H5; the ambition of Hotspur is replaced by the clowning of the soldiers under Henry V; and the miraculous faux-resurrection of the Falstaff only delays his silent off-screen death, a death that should remind us of the end that Mowbray feared in Richard II.

This post will be structured, then, not by chronology but by the different manifestations of this transition from order to chaos.  Let's listen to the words of Northumberland, at the opening of 2H4--the midpoint of the Henriad--upon discovering that his son died in battle:

“Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature’s hand / Keep the wild flood confined! Let order die! / And let this world no longer be a stage / To feed contention in a lingering act. / But let one spirit of the first-born Cain / Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set / On bloody courses, the rude scene may end, / And darkness be the burier of the dead!”


Truth and Falsehood

“We fortify in paper and in figures, / Using the names of men instead of men.”

We know from having previously read Othello that Shakespeare is inclined to thinking about the relationship of one's actions to one's self. Iago, a consummate actor, is not what he is, and this quality is also within the young Prince Hal, of whose carefully curated appearance very little can be said with certainty. 

Without a doubt the most obvious manifestation of his falsehood is in his treatment of Falstaff, who for all his bawdy wisdom cannot figure Hal out, or perhaps just does not wish to. Yet the fat knight dotes upon him, and it is impossible not to love their relationship, which seems built upon a mutual love of puns, wordplay, and debauchery. Apart from this, there are many other reasons for Falstaff to love Hal so. The most obvious is that Hal is a surrogate son for Falstaff, who instructs the prince carefully in the ways of parody and thievery. He also appreciates that the soon-to-be ruler of England enjoys the company of tavern-dwellers as much as he does, something the current King Henry does not.

Status also motivates Falstaff to a degree: not, however, the currency of social status that so many others long for, but the ability to sit at the right hand of the king and be set for life, so to speak. When Hal is about the be crowned king, Falstaff rushes to his friend, certain that both of their futures are secure. Yet in the most devastating act of falsehood, Hal denies Falstaff his acknowledgement: “I know thee not, old man… / I have long dreamt of such a kind of man, / So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane, / But, being awaked, I do despise my dream… / Presume not that I am the thing I was.” Falstaff becomes but a bad dream to the new king, and he plays that role well: by the time of Henry V, he is a shade, a man spoken of but never seen. (Similar, I think, to the way in which Henry IV is often heard about but rarely seen.)

To stay with this rejection for a moment, we should consider that some of the most heartbreaking scenes in literature focus on a rejection of knowledge: "Eveline" and "The Dead," two of Joyce's most famous short stories, close with rejection: the first, a fiancee's rejection of her betrothed ("Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition."); the second, the knowledge that a husband never even knew his wife at all. Similarly, Nora's decision to leave Torvald at the end of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" is motivated by her realization that her love for him and the life they built together is not as sure as she once believed. Perhaps there is no greater sorrow than that of betrayal, that sin for which one is devoured for eternity in the maw of Lucifer.

Perhaps Hal's rejection of Falstaff would have been difficult to predict, but one cannot deny that it was anticipated throughout 1H4 and 2H4. Hal was never "who he is," neither to Falstaff nor to his father. When Henry tells him how worried he is about his trajectory in life, Hal assumes the role of the faithful son, saying, “I shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord, / Be more myself.” We should be suspicious of people in Shakespeare who claim to be themselves, as if such a thing were simple to do. His uncertain selfhood is revealed all the more when he becomes king. When he tries to woo the French princess, Katherine, he asks her, "Do you like me," to which she tellingly responds, "Pardonnez-moi, I cannot tell wat is like me."

His most obvious rejection of the fixed nature of truth and self comes early on, in his first soliloquy, where he sets out his plan for becoming king, one which he follows with terrifying consistency: 

“I know you all [tavern-dwellers], 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, 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…” 

Notice, too, the shifting offices: sport is like work, work sport.

Moreover, when Hal asks Poins, hypothetically, what he would think of him if he--Hal--were to weep over his father's impending death, Poins responds that, since Hal clearly wants the throne, he would think him a hypocrite, and asks forgiveness for such a thought. Hal, however, does not begrudge him it: he says, "It would be every man's thought, and thou art a / Blessed fellow to think as every man thinks." Hal recognizes the utility of honestly believing what others believe, yet perhaps he is a little sullen that he himself does not.

Falstaff, too, is capable of falsehood, to a degree that surprises even Prince Hal. When Hal observes the fat knight seemingly lying dead only to see him later, alive, Hal is astounded: “I saw him dead, / Breathless and bleeding on the ground. Art thou alive? / Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight? / I prithee speak. We will not trust our eyes / Without our ears. Thou art not what thou seem’st.” Perhaps he did not expect his friend to be as protean as he; perhaps he feels he has underestimated him; and perhaps it is this recognition of Falstaff's cleverness that leads Hal to reject him when he gains power.


2Henry4Furious

Sequels in literature are few and far between. You have the Iliad and the Odyssey (and the fanfic spinoff, the Aeneid), but other than that, there aren't many examples. In order to help us elucidate the nature of the sequel, let's look to the wise words of the tagline of the film Scream 3: the first one makes the rules; the second one breaks the rules; the third one....there are no rules.

To put this idea in a more literary mode, let's see the introduction to 2H4: “Shakespeare returns to the familiar storyline of Henry IV, but in the process of satisfying our desire to revisit the past he causes us to examine our own appetite for such a return – and, ultimately, painfully, to renounce it... Shakespeare’s return to this world renders it both the same and irrevocably changed, a deliberate and distorted echo of its former self.”

Indeed, a feeling of devolution permeates the play, to the point that even the characters acknowledge it, however obliquely: "There is a history in all men's lives, / Figuring the nature of the times deceased, / The which observed, a man may prophesy, / With a near aim, of the main chance of things / As yet not come to life." (Cf. Machiavelli)

Though in these cases no one outright says, "Man, it feels like we're in a sequel, huh?" Although....

"Things must be as they may. Men may sleep, and they may have their throats about them at that time, and some say knives have edges. It must be as it may. Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I cannot tell." 

That's Nym, a knight in Henry V's retinue, speaking in the final play of the tetralogy. It sounds an awful lot like this speech...

"It's the final chapter. It could be fucking 'Reservoir Dogs' [i.e., bloody] by the time this thing is through...So in closing, let me say good luck, godspeed, and for some of you, I'll see you soon. Cause the rules say some of you ain't gonna make it."

That's Randy, speaking of the nature of trilogies from beyond the grave via videotape in Scream 3. Now, it's expected that a horror movie to talk about blood, in the same way that a play about war talks about blood. But the important thing is the acknowledgement. This is a conclusion.

There are other clues that we are in a sequel. Consider the trajectory of Hal. From the outset, we have been uncertain about who Hal is. Though we have access to him through his soliloquies, even they rang false considering the rich tapestries of lies he can weave in an instant. How can we trust the protagonist if we even doubt him at his most candid and vulnerable moments?

In the Henry IVs, we had access to his interior, however murky it was. In Henry V, when he is king, we don't, not truly. Hal becomes fully king, a bright sun shining in the sky. Unlike his father, whose comet showed its face on rare occasions, Hal is never "off": he is an actor who is always onstage. And from the way in which he handles himself and his people, he seems pretty damn good at it. And there's the rub. How good is he? Can we imagine that, though he never acknowledges it himself, he is still the boy sitting in the tavern with Falstaff, plotting robberies?

Imagination is an odd thing in these plays. H5 features a chorus, a rare feature in Shakespeare, that asks us to use our imagination when watching the battles, as Elizabethan theater did not have the special effects we take for granted today. (Or, you know, the scenery.) The battles, they say, are not life-size, and they ask us to imagine that they are greater than they seem.

What do we make of such a choice? Given that our focus has been on Hal's falsehood, perhaps the chorus is something of an open acknowledgement of the falseness of this final play. If the chorus begs us to take the bare stage for a battlefield, should we not also take Hal's play-acting of a king for a real king, one whose intentions we have no reason to question? Or how about his love for Katherine? Are we to take that at face value?

I should hope not. If Falstaff carries over, even as a shadow, it must be so that we will not forget what Hal is capable of, no matter how much the chorus praises him and his leadership, no matter how playful the scenes between him and Katherine are, no matter how charming and smart and skilled he is, we must remember that Hal is above all a liar. Hal is the boy who rejected Falstaff, and no amount of victories can erase such a sin.

Should we then not enjoy the play? Should we watch Hal play king with our arms crossed, scowling, hoping that he notices us and realizes that we know who he truly is?

Do we in real life? Do we call out hypocrisy, falseness, sin? Do we let evil flourish? Do we stop it? 

Doing Things With Words

Of course, Shakespeare wouldn't be Shakespeare without incredible wordplay, and in that regard, Hal and Falstaff are two of his most outstanding characters. Joyce's power over language was reflected in his love of puns, and so too do Hal and Falstaff demonstrate their command of language by constantly making puns. I won't quote any of them because most of their punning is lost on me; 400 years later, their jokes need to be heavily, heavily annotated. Suffice it to say that their words are very powerful weapons. What is important to understand is that puns, as noted in the introduction, "change the value of a heretofore stable and singular meaning of a word;" they are the very essence of disorder.

So, too, is the work that parody accomplishes. Hal and the tavern mercilessly parody the court, effectively neutering any power that the king's words could have held. Again, the introduction notes that parody makes it "difficult for us subsequently to regard the assumptions of king and rebels with the gravity with which they take themselves."

Outside of his puns and parodies, Hal does not cease to use language to great effect. To return briefly to the rejection of Falstaff, what is most devastating is that Hal is more a progeny of Falstaff than of Henry in this sense: that Hal is the only character in the plays who can move between the king's court and the tavern as well as Falstaff--truly, even better than Falstaff. Hal, despite getting along well with the miscreants in the tavern, is just as comfortable in the political world, “where power belongs to those best able to improvise in response to constantly changing circumstances.”

Politically gifted, Hal avoids the pitfalls of Kafka's characters, who mistake the trappings of authority with authority itself: Hal “never [takes] the sign of royalty for literal truth” and “can easily move among the necessary symbols as the occasion requires.” To be king “is to know how to manipulate signs and symbols and stories, to be master of all, but believe in none.” [All quotes from the introduction.]

Hal and Falstaff are not, however, the only characters in the play who command language. Hotspur, the analogue of Hamlet's Laertes, uses the language of knighthood in a world where the value and future of chivalry is uncertain. From the introduction: 

“Hotspur is the ‘theme of honor’s tongue’… [his] world is the traditional one of ‘History,’ a record of events written by the winners, of the doings of great men enacting God’s design, with little recognition of what goes on behind the scenes of battle. He is as ill at ease with political negotiation as he is with domestic life.” 

We have noted at other points in our reading that adhering to outmoded conceptions of honor is a sure way to disaster, and in this, “Hotspur is ultimately the tragic figure of the play, caught by his own flaws in a machinery larger than his own power to direct it.” The tragedy of Hotspur is exactly that his conception of a firm truth is simply not justifiable in the world of the plays. “The problem in this universe is that sincerity of speech or action—in the sense of originality and authenticity—is long gone, eroded by the climate of ever feebler echoes of long-lost first truths.”

It is hard, though, to feel all that bad for him: when, for example, he makes fun of soldiers for using “lady terms,” or when he talks about “fill[ing] up chronicles in time to come” with his deeds. His idea of honorable speech is just unrestrained ego: “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, /…/ And pluck up growned honor by the locks.” Of this speech, it is said: “He apprehends a world of figures here, / But not the form of what he should attend.” This, of course, is supremely different from Hal.

Yet as we learned from John of Gaunt in Richard II, nothing bequeaths command of language (or at least the appearance of such command) as effectively as death, and in death, at the hands of young Hal, Hotspur almost becomes a poet:

"O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth! / I better brook the loss of brittle life / Than those proud titles thou hast won of me. / They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh. / But thoughts the slaves of life, and life time’s fool, / And time, that takes survey of all the world, / Must have a stop. 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—" 

Yet he doesn't achieve the transcendence that Richard did: his speech is cut off in the middle.

(As an aside, notice that the speech is in verse. While R2 was completely in verse, the other plays of the Henriad are a mix of prose and verse, often (I think?) divided between prose tavern scenes and verse court scenes. This seems a characteristic of the same tendency toward disorder felt elsewhere in the play: the court tries to retain a sense of old-world decorum, while the tavern lives to subvert it.)

The killing of Hotspur by Hal feels like the only possible outcome in the world of the plays, for without such a decisive event (death may be the only remaining certainty, though Falstaff avoids it once) there would be no way to choose between their contending claims to the throne: we cannot arbitrate between them because neither owns “the language of right and order”: it is “just a language, to be spoken more or less convincingly by any speaker who chooses.” Language can provide semblance of order, but it is not order itself. As such, only the finality of death can settle the matter.

I often dislike climaxes (climaces?) that rely on one person living and another dying (since we can usually guess who will live, and when we can't it's somehow even more heavy-handed), but this is an example of the best way of handling such an ending. There could have been no other way of deciding the outcome, and as Judge Holden said in Blood Meridian, "This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one’s will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select."


Ambitions, Fulfilled and Unfulfilled

Alluded to at the end of R2, Jerusalem becomes something of a symbol in the remainder of the Henriad. Throughout Henry IV's kingship, he talks about going to Jerusalem to fight a holy war. Yet he always finds excuses to avoid it; his "holy purpose" is not holy enough for him to follow through. This is but a symptom of the decline of the king's office. As the introduction notes, once Henry overthrows Richard, “Politics is no longer a matter of high ideals and high tempers, but an ignoble and repetitive motion of declining momentum.” Henry's repeated putting-off of his crusade is not an anomaly, but a fact of this brave new world.

In the end, though, he does make it to Jerusalem, dying in a room of his palace so named, fulfilling a prophecy that he will die “in Jerusalem.” From the introduction: “It is a fulfillment that brilliantly figures the loss of the former sacred truths and their replacement by the far more mundane terms of realpolitik.” To Henry, “’Jerusalem’ has always meant the latter.” Notice, too, the devolution implicit in his death: Henry aims (or claims to aim) for Jerusalem, yet ends up dead in a parody of the holy city.

His son, however, is far more skilled in political campaigns than his father. Not only is he more convincing in his feigned religiosity--his first line in 2H4 is "Before God, I am exceedingly weary"--but we get the impression at the beginning of H5 that Hal will make it to Jerusalem: he effectively uses reverse psychology to convince the archbishop (who needs very little convincing) to bless the Jerusalem campaign: “And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord, / That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading.”


Stray Observations

• I expected my hubris to catch up to me, and in a way it did: there was far too much material in these plays to cover in one post. Yet the most fascinating material lies in the intersections between the plays. I do find it useful to see the way chaos seeps into every crack, and in that regard, a bird's eye view is useful. Yet the individual plays, particularly the Henry IVs, just have so much that I wish I could have looked at alone. Alas, another time.
• “There is some soul of goodness in things evil, / Would men observingly distill it out.”
• Falstaff: "A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true to one another." This is very similar to the opening of The Dark Knight, itself a sequel, wherein the manager of the bank the Joker robs says, "Oh, criminals in this town used to believe in things. Honor. Respect. Look at you! What do you believe in, huh?" Even among thieves, there is honor, yet Hal, who robs the robbers, seems to be a new breed of villain.
• Well, honor, what do you think of that, Falstaff? “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. What is honor? A word. What is that word honor? Air – a trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ‘Tis an insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction [slander] will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon [coat of arms]—and so ends my catechism.” 
• Wow, another Falstaff quote, you don't say: “Emboweled? If thou embowel me today, I’ll give you leave to powder me and eat me too tomorrow. ‘Sblood, ‘twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot [Hotspur] 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.”
• "Past and to come seems best, things present worst."
• Lol tennis balls.