Make way, unruly woman! [Exit. Duch. After, Aumerle! mount thee upon his horse; 111 115 Spur post, and get before him to the King, SCENE III. [Windsor Castle.] "Tis full three months since I did see him last. If any plague hang over us, 't is he. I would to God, my lords, he might be found. Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes, 6 11 Percy. My lord, some two days since I saw the Prince, And told him of those triumphs held at Oxford. Boling. And what said the gallant? 15 Percy. His answer was, he would unto the stews, And from the common'st creature pluck a glove, 20 I see some sparks of better hope, which elder Aum. Stay thy revengeful hand; thou hast no cause to fear. York. Within.] Open the door, secure, foolhardy King! Shall I for love speak treason to thy face? Enter YORK. 45 Hath held his current and defil'd himself! Thy overflow of good converts to bad, And thy abundant goodness shall excuse This deadly blot in thy digressing son. 63 York. So shall my virtue be his vice's bawd; And he shall spend mine honour with his shame, As thriftless sons their scraping fathers' gold. Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies, Or my sham'd life in his dishonour lies. Thou kill'st me in his life; giving him breath, The traitor lives, the true man's put to death. Duch. (Within.) What ho, my liege! for God's sake, let me in. Boling. What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry? 75 Duch. A woman, and thy aunt, great King; 't is I. Speak with me, pity me, open the door! And now chang'd to "The Beggar and the My dangerous cousin, let your mother in: Enter DUCHESS. 80 86 With all the rest of that consorted crew, Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels. To Oxford, or where'er these traitors are. They shall not live within this world, I swear, But I will have them, if I once know where. Uncle, farewell; and, cousin, adieu! Your mother well hath pray'd, and prove you true. 145 Duch. Come, my old son; I pray God make thee new. [Exeunt. [SCENE IV. Another room in the same.] Enter EXTON and SERVANT. Exton. Didst thou not mark the King, what words he spake, 'Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?" Was it not so? Serv. These were his very words. Exton. "Have I no friend?" quoth he. He spake it twice, And urg'd it twice together, did he not? Exton. And speaking it, he wistly look'd on me, As who should say, "I would thou wert the man That would divorce this terror from my heart; Meaning the King at Pomfret. Come, let's go. I am the King's friend, and will rid his foe. 11 [Exeunt. SCENE [V. Pomfret Castle. A ward room.] Enter KING RICHARD. K. Rich. I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And for because the world is populous In humours like the people of this world. 10 16 20 As thus, "Come, little ones," and then again, 30 35 40 45 With being nothing. Music do I hear? [Music. 50 65 For though it have holp madmen to their wits, Thanks, noble peer! dog 70 That brings me food to make misfortune live? Groom. I was a poor groom of thy stable, King, When thou wert king; who, travelling towards Of that proud man that did usurp his back? Enter KEEPER, with a dish. Keep. Fellow, give place; here is no longer stay. 95 K. Rich. If thou love me, 't is time thou Keep. My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton, who lately came from the King, commands the contrary. K. Rich. The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee! Patience is stale, and I am weary of it. 106 Exton. As full of valour as of royal blood! Both have I spill'd; O would the deed were good! 115 For now the devil, that told me I did well, Says that this deed is chronicled in hell. This dead king to the living king I'll bear: Take hence the rest, and give them burial here. [Exeunt. SCENE [VI. Windsor Castle.] Flourish. Enter BOLINGBROKE, YORK, with other Lords, and Attendants. Boling. Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear Is that the rebels hath consum'd with fire Welcome, my lord, what is the news? North. First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness. The next news is, I have to London sent With Cain go wander through the shades of night, 45 And never show thy head by day nor light. grow. Come, mourn with me for what I do lament, To wash this blood off from my guilty hand. 50 THE HISTORY OF HENRY THE FOURTH THE Historye of Henry IV was entered in the Stationers' Register in February, 1598, and the First Quarto of Part I was printed in the same year. Meres names the play, but does not indicate whether he refers to one part or both. Part II was entered and printed in 1600, but is referred to by Jonson in Every Man out of his Humour in 1599. These facts, taken along with the marks of maturity in style and metre, point to 1597 and 1598 as the respective dates of the two parts. Quartos of Part I were issued in 1598, 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613, and 1622, the version in the First Folio being taken from the Fifth Quarto. Of Part II only one quarto is known to have been issued; and the First Folio text was printed from a copy of this, revised with care but probably without authority. The basis for the present text is, for both parts, the First Quarto. The political action of the two plays is founded on Holinshed's Chronicles. Great freedom is used in converting historical into dramatic time, and the speeches, as usually in the English historical plays, are elaborated from the merest hints. The most marked creation in the serious plot of Part I, aside from the Prince, is the opposing figure of Hotspur, whom Shakespeare clearly conceived for the purpose of psychological contrast. There is no corresponding foil for Prince Hal in Part II; the political action is still more overshadowed by the comic than in the earlier part; and the serious interest centres in the relation of father and son, and the pathetic depression of Henry IV's closing years. For most of this, e. g., the plans for a crusade, and the famous crown scene," "Holinshed affords a basis; but the rich emotional quality is all Shakespeare's. 66 For the comic scenes Shakespeare gathered some names and incidents from The Famous Victories of Henry V, a very crude history-comedy printed in 1598, but licensed in 1594, and acted certainly as early as 1588. The robbery at Gadshill, the tavern in Eastcheap, Hal's relation to his boon companions and to the Lord Chief Justice, his reconciliation to his father. the episode of the crown, and the final banishing of his tavern friends, are all presented in a rude form in The Famous Victories. But the method of treatment is such as to offer hardly more suggestion than the bald narrative of Holinshed. The character of Falstaff, especially, owes little to any predeIn Henry IV as first written, Falstaff's name was Oldcastle, as it is in The Famous Victories. Sir John Oldcastle was a well-known peer of the time of Henry V, who was burned as a Lollard. But it is supposed that out of deference to Oldcastle's descendants Shakespeare changed the name to Falstaff before the play was printed, and added in the Epilogue to Part II the statement that "Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man." The new name seems to have been suggested by that of the historical Sir John Fastolfe, who, in 1 Henry VI, is represented (unjustly, as it seems) as a coward. But the creation is independent of any real or supposed historical prototype. cessor. con In the development of the Chronicle History as a distinct type of drama, the most notable feature of Henry IV is the importance in it of the element of comedy. For, although the co tinuation of the exposition of the character of the Bolingbroke of Richard II is of great psychological interest, yet the story of Henry's reign did not in itself afford material nearly so intense in interest or so appropriate for dramatic treatment as the author had found in the histories of Richard III and Richard II. So far as 1 Henry IV has a culmination at all, it is in the emergence of Prince Henry from his low surroundings as a brilliant warrior who slays Hotspur at Shrewsbury, rather than in his father's suppression of a rebellion. In Part II, the death of Henry IV is presented in the fourth act, and the real culmination of the play is in the new King's final throwing off of his old life and companions, and assuming worthily the dignities and duties of his royal office. Viewing the Prince, then, as the most important factor in the structure of the plays as a whole, we can regard the comic scenes, in which the lighter side of his duaracter is displayed, as more organically related to the main scheme than th y have usually been con ceived. |