Playwriting and Play Structure :
scenic juxtaposition...
Binaries / Antitheses [that paradoxically ‘become’ the other]:
Loyal/Rebel
Choleric/Phlegmatic
Credulous/Sceptical
Duty/Delinquency
Riot/Restraint
Prodigal/Careful
Old/Young
Fat/Thin
Satan/Angel
Horseback-breaker/Pull's Pizzle
Coward/Valiant
Honour/Dishonour
Active/Idle
Then/Now
True Thing/Counterfeit
Rare/Common
Bread/Sack
Gorging/Purging
Tutor/Misleader of Youth
Hotspur v Hal
[model/surrogate fathers:
Northumberland
Worcester
Glendower]
[model/surrogate fathers:
Bolingbroke
Falstaff
Lord Chief Justice]
FALSTAFF: There's villainous news abroad...you must to court
in the morning. That same mad fellow of the North, Percy, and he
of Wales that ... made Lucifer a cuckold ... what a plague call you him?
[Owain Glendower] ... and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old
Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs
a horseback up a hill perpendicular ... Worcester is stolen away tonight.
Thy father's beard is turned white with the news. You may buy land now
as cheap as stinking mackerel ... But tell me Hal, art not thou horribly
afeard? Thou being heir-apparent...?
PRINCE HAL: Not a whit, i'faith. I lack some of thy instinct.
Henry IV Part 1, 2.5.305-339
FALSTAFF Well, thou wert be horribly chid tomorrow when thou
comest to thy father: if thou love me, practise an answer.
PRINCE HAL Do thou stand for my father, and examine me upon the
particulars of my life.
FALSTAFF Shall I? content: this chair shall be my state, this dagger my
sceptre, and this cushion my crown… Give me a cup of sack…Harry, I
do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time but also how thou
art accompanied…There is a thing, Harry, which thou has often heard
of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch. This pitch,
as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou
keepest … yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy
company, but I know not his name … a goodly, portly man, ’ifaith, and a
corpulent…And now I remember me: his name is Falstaff… Him keep
with; the rest banish.
PRINCE HAL Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and
I’ll play my father.
(2.4.362 – 422)
As in Hamlet, a play-within-the-play stands at centre.
Imitation, substitution, alternative endings: Hal
‘does’ Hotspur, Falstaff ‘does’ Henry, Hal ‘does’
Father. Hal as the Hamlet of Eastcheap? Falstaff as
Yorick? Hal gets to rehearse two scenes: becoming king,
and banishing Falstaff.
The Sheriff’s arrival, the knock at the door, represents
the end of ‘play’, of substitution games, the start of ‘real’
action. (How many ‘knock knock’ moments in these
two plays?)
PRINCE HAL: What hast found?
PETO: Nothing but papers, my lord.
PRINCE HAL: Let's see what they be. Read them.
PETO [reads]:
Item: a capon.
2s.2d
Item: sauce.
4d
Item: sack, two gallons
5s.8d
Item: anchovies & sack after supper
2s.6d
Item: bread
ob.
PRINCE HAL: O monstrous! But one halfpennyworth of bread to this
intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close; we'll read it
at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I'll to the court in the
morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable.
I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot, and I know his death will be
a march of twelve score. The money shall be paid back again, with
advantage. Be with me betimes in the morning; and so good morrow, Peto.
PETO: Good morrow my lord. EXEUNT
3.1 ENTER HOTSPUR [et al.]
MORTIMER: These promises are fair, the parties sure
And our induction full of prosperous hope.
HOTSPUR: Lord Mortimer and cousin Glendower
Will you sit down? And Uncle Worcester?
A plague upon it, I have forgot the map!
GLENDOWER: No, here it is. Sit, cousin Percy, sit ...
Theatre Stuff:
Pieces of paper ...
Letter [Hotspur, 2.4]
Map [Hotspur, 3.1]
'Certain papers’ [Falstaff, 2.5]
More letters: Sent [York, 4.4: ‘…bear this
sealed brief…If you knew how much they
do import you would make haste]
Delivered: [Messenger, 5.2, ‘My lord,
here are letters for you.’ Hotspur: ‘I
cannot read them now. O gentlemen, the
time of life is short…’]
The final show-down...
The Battle of Shrewsbury
Messenger: These letters come from your father. Hotspur:
Letters from him? Why comes he not himself?
Messenger: He cannot come, my lord. He is grievous sick.
Hotspur: Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick
Vernon: The Earl of Westmorland, seven
In such a jostling time? Who leads his power? …
thousand strong,
Is marching hitherwards; with him Prince John. He writes me here…his friends by deputation could not
So soon be drawn…
…And further I have learned
Yet doth he give us bold advertisement
The King himself in person is set forth…
Hotspur:
Where is his son, That with our small conjunction we should on…(4.1.14-37)
The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales?...
Vernon:
All furnished, all in arms, Hotspur: O, that Glendower were come.
Vernon:
There is more news. I
I saw young Harry with his beaver on, …
learned in Worcester, as I rode along,
Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,
He cannot draw his power this fourteen days.(4.1.123-125)
And vaulted with such ease into his seat
As if an angel dropped down from the clouds
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus … 4.1.93-107) Sir Michael: Why, my good lord, you need not fear;
There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer.
Archbishop: No, Mortimer is not there. (4.4.20-22)
WORCESTER: O no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,
The liberal and kind offer of the King.
VERNON: 'Twere best he did.
WORCESTER:
Then we are all undone.
It is not possible, it cannot be,
The King should keep his word in loving us.
He will suspect us still, and find a time
To punish this offence in other faults.
Supposition all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes ...
Look how we can, or sad or merrily,
Interpretation will misquote our looks ...
My nephew's trespass may be well forgot;
It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood,
And an adopted name of privilege -A hare-brained Hotspur, governed by his spleen.
All his offences live upon my head,
And on his father's ... We ... shall pay for all.
Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know
In any case the offer of the King.
VERNON: Deliver what you will; I'll say 'tis so.
Henry IV Part I, 5.2.1-26
5.4
Alarum. Excursions. Enter King, Harry [wounded], John of Lancaster,
Westmoreland
King to Hal: Withdraw; you bleed.
Hal to King: [No way!]
John to Westmoreland: [Let's go] Exeunt John, Westmoreland to
fight.
Hal: [me too!] Exit to fight.
Enter The Douglas to King. ['Another king! They grow like Hydra’s
heads! ... What art thou that counterfeit'st the person of the king?'
'The King himself'.
Fight. The king being in danger, enter Prince. 'Hold up thy head,
vile Scot...'
Douglas flieth. '...this fair rescue': 'Thou hast redeemed thy lost
opinion'
Exit King
Enter Hotspur
Enter Hotspur. 'If I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.' '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'. 'I can no longer brook thy vanities'.
They fight
Enter Falstaff
Enter Douglas. He fighteth with Falstaff, who falls down...
The Prince killeth [Hotspur]
[He covers Hotspur's face]
He spieth Falstaff 'What, old acquaintance! Could not all this flesh / Keep
in a little life? ... Embowelled will I see thee by and by'
Falstaff riseth up 'Embowelled’? ... twas time to counterfeit ... Counterfeit?
... no counterfeit ... counterfeit ... counterfeit ... counterfeit ... counterfeit
... How ... counterfeit too and rise? ... better counterfeit … make him sure
... and swear I kill'd him ... new wound in your thigh.
He takes up Hotspur on his back
Enter Prince and John of Lancaster 'But soft: whom have we here?' 'Come,
bring your luggage nobly on your back.' [Making history …]
Henry IV Part 2
Or: Here we go again…
Prologue: Rumour ‘painted full of tongues’
Scene 1: Northumberland ‘crafty sick’
Scene 2: Falstaff: Sirrah you giant, what says
the doctor to my water?’
Page: He said, sir, the water itself was a good
healthy water; but for the party that owed it,
he might have moe diseases than he knew for.
ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: Let us on,
And publish the occasion of our arms.
The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
Their over-greedy love hath surfeited.
An habitation giddy and unsure
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.
O thou fond many, with what loud applause
Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bolingbroke,
Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!
And being now trimmed in thine own desires,
Thou, beastly feeder, art so full of him
That thou provok'st thyself to cast him up.
So, so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge
Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard;
And now thou wouldst eat thy dead vomit up
And howl'st to find it. What trust is in these times?
Henry IV Part 2, 1.3.85-100
Lord Chief Justice: You have misled the youthful Prince … Your day’s
service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night’s exploit on Gad’s
Hill…The king hath severed you and Prince Harry. [‘sirrah Giant…’]
Lord Chief Justice: Well, God send the Prince a better companion.
Falstaff: God send the companion a better prince.
********
Falstaff: My good lord! God give your lordship good time of day. I am glad
to see your lordship abroad, I heard say your lordship was sick. I hope your
lordship goes abroad by advice; your lordship, though not clean past your
youth, have yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of
time; and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have reverend care of
your health…I hear his Majesty … is fallen into this same whoreson
apoplexy…I have read the cause of his effects in Galen.
(2 Henry IV, 1.2)
DOLL TEARSHEET: Ah, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweatest! ...
Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig, when wilt thou leave fighting o'days,
and foining o'nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?
FALSTAFF: Peace, good Doll, do not speak like a death's head, do not bid me remember
mine end. ...
PRINCE HAL [behind, as Drawer]: Look whe'er the withered elder hath not his
poll clawed like a parrot.
POINS [behind, as Drawer]: Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive
performance?
FALSTAFF: Kiss me, Doll ... I am old, I am old….
[knocks at the door]
Mistress Quickly: Who knocks so loud at door?
Peto: I met … a dozen captains
Bareheaded, sweating, knocking at the taverns
And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.
Prince Harry: By heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame
So idly to profane the precious time…
Give me my sword and cloak.
Falstaff: More knocking at the door!
Henry IV Part II 2.4. 194 - 244
A play of old men, diseased…
KING HENRY: How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep? O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness? ...
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes ... ? give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy ... And ... Deny it to a king? ...
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. ...
O God, that one might read the book of fate
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea ... how chance's mocks
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors! O, if this were seen,
The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,
What perils past, what crosses to ensue,
Would shut the book and sit him down and die.
Tis not ten years gone
Since Richard and Northumberland ...
…were these inward wars once out of hand
We would, dear lords, unto the Holy Land. (Henry IV Part II. 3.1.4-103)
SHALLOW: Come on, come on, come on! Give me your hand, sir, give me your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood! And
how doth my good cousin Silence? … Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent! And to see how many of my old acquaintance
are dead.
SILENCE: We shall all follow, cousin.
SHALLOW: Certain, ’tis certain; very sure, very sure. Death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good
yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?
SILENCE: By my troth, I was not there.
SHALLOW: Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?
SILENCE: Dead, sir.
SHALLOW: Jesu, Jesu, dead! A’drew a good bow; and dead! A shot a fine shoot. John o’Gaunt loved him well, and betted
much money on his head. Dead! A would have clapped i’th’clout at twelve score and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen
and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man’s heart good to see. How a score of ewes now?
SILENCE: Thereafter as they be. A score of good ewes may be worth ten pound.
SHALLOW: And is old Double dead? [Enter Bardolph and the Page]
SILENCE: Here come two of Sir John Falstaff’s men, as I think. [Henry IV Part 2, 3.2.1-49]
SHALLOW O, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in Saint George's
field?
FALSTAFF No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.
SHALLOW Ha! 'twas a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?
FALSTAFF She lives, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW She never could away with me.
FALSTAFF Never, never; she would always say she could not abide Master Shallow.
SHALLOW By the mass, I could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba. Doth she hold
her own well?
FALSTAFF Old, old, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW Nay, she must be old; she cannot choose but be old; certain she's old; and had Robin
Nightwork by old Nightwork before I came to Clement's Inn.
SILENCE That's fifty-five year ago.
SHALLOW Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir
John, said I well?
FALSTAFF
We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
SHALLOW
That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith,
Sir John, we have: our watch-word was 'Hem boys!'
Come, let's to dinner; come, let's to dinner:
Jesus, the days that we have seen! Come, come.
FALSTAFF: [Exit Bardolph with Recruits] As I return, I will fetch off these
justices: I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. Lord, Lord, how subject we old
men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but
prate to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about
Turnbull Street: and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the
Turk’s tribute. I do remember him at Clement's Inn like a man made after
supper of a cheese-paring: when a’ was naked, he was, for all the world, like a
forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife: a' was so
forlorn, that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible: a’ was the very
genius of famine; yet lecherous as a monkey, and the whores called him
mandrake: a' came ever in the rearward of the fashion, and sung those tunes to
the overscutched huswives that he heard the carmen whistle, and swear they
were his fancies or his good-nights. And now is this Vice's dagger become a
squire, and talks as familiarly of John a Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother
to him; and I'll be sworn a' ne'er saw him but once in the
Tilt-yard; and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal's men. I
saw it, and told John a Gaunt he beat his own name; for you might have thrust
him and all his apparel into an eel-skin; the case of a treble hautboy was a
mansion for him, a court: and now has he land and beefs. Well, I'll be
acquainted with him, if I return; and it shall go hard but I will make him a
philosopher's two stones to me: if the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I
see no reason in the law of nature but may snap at him. Let time shape, and
there an end. (Henry IV Part 2, 3.2.295-325)
Is this man dangerous?
‘Give me life’
‘On bacons on…’
Carnival v Lent (Brueghel, 1559)
Clay-brained guts
Horse-back-breaker
Vanity in Years Blasted with antiquity
Knotty-pated fool
Trunk of humours
Bed-presser
CARNIVAL/
Sanguine coward
Reverend Vice
Huge hill of flesh
CARNIVORE
Swollen parcel of dropsies
Old white-bearded Satan
Grey Iniquity
‘MOTHER’
Sweet creature of bombast
Abominable misleader of youth Greasy tallow-catch
‘you that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young’; ‘in the vaward of our youth’
‘on bacons on: young men must live’
‘my soldiers…Tut, tut, good enough to toss, food for powder, food for powder. They’ll fill a pit as well as
better. Tush, man, moral men, mortal men.’
‘Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me … I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other
men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one.’ ‘my womb, my
womb, my womb undoes me’
‘honour pricks me on. Yea, but what if honour prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honour set-to a
leg? … What is honour? A word… Who hath it? He who died o’Wednesday. Honour is a mere scutcheon. And
so ends my catechism.’
‘Soft, who are you? – Sir Walter Blunt. [dead] There’s honour for you. Here’s no vanity … I like not such
grinning honour as Sir Walter hath. Give me life … and there’s an end.’
‘Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man cannot make him laugh. But
that’s no marvel; he drinks no wine … valour comes of sherry … If I had a thousand sons, the first human
principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.’
‘Master Shallow – my lord Shallow – be what thou wilt, I am fortune’s steward—get on your boots; we’ll ride all night … I
know the young King is sick for me. Let us take any man’s horses – the laws of England are at my commandment.’
The old men
Northumberland
Worcester
Owen Glendower
Archbishop of York
Bolingbroke
Falstaff
Slender
Shallow
Lord Chief Justice
WARWICK Will't please your grace to go along with us?
PRINCE HENRY No; I will sit and watch here by the king. Exeunt all but PRINCE HENRY
Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,
Being so troublesome a bedfellow?
O polish'd perturbation! golden care!
That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide
To many a watchful night! sleep with it now!
Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet
As he whose brow with homely biggen bound
Snores out the watch of night. O majesty!
When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit
Like a rich armour worn in heat of day,
That scalds with safety. By his gates of breath
There lies a downy feather which stirs not:
Did he suspire, that light and weightless down
Perforce must move. My gracious lord! my father!
This sleep is sound indeed, this is a sleep
That from this golden rigol hath divorced
So many English kings. Thy due from me
Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,
Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,
Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously:
My due from thee is this imperial crown,
Which, as immediate as thy place and blood,
Derives itself to me. Lo, here it sits,
Which God shall guard: and put the world's whole strength
Into one giant arm, it shall not force
This lineal honour from me: this from thee
Will I to mine leave, as 'tis left to me.
Exit KING HENRY IV awakes
PRINCE HAL I never thought to hear you speak again.
KING Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:
I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.
Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honours
Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!
Thou seek'st the greatness that will o'erwhelm thee.
Stay but a little; for my cloud of dignity
Is held from falling with so weak a wind
That it will quickly drop: my day is dim.
Thou hast stolen that which after some few hours
Were thine without offence; and at my death
Thou hast seal'd up my expectation:
Thy life did manifest thou lovedst me not,
And thou wilt have me die assured of it.
Thou hidest a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,
Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,
To stab at half an hour of my life.
What! canst thou not forbear me half an hour?
Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,
And bid the merry bells ring to thine ear
That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.
Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse
Be drops of balm to sanctify thy head:
Only compound me with forgotten dust
Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.
Pluck down my officers, break my decrees;
For now a time is come to mock at form:
Harry the Fifth is crown'd: up, vanity!
Down, royal state! all you sage counsellors, hence!
From every region, apes of idleness!
Now, neighbour confines, purge you of your scum:
Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,
Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit
The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?
Be happy, he will trouble you no more;
England shall double gild his treble guilt,
England shall give him office, honour, might;
For the fifth Harry from curb'd licence plucks
The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog
Shall flesh his tooth on every innocent.
O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!
When that my care could not withhold thy riots,
What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?
O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,
Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!
PRINCE HAL O, pardon me, my liege! … There is your crown;
And He that wears the crown immortally
Long guard it yours! If I do feign,
O, let me in my present wildness die
And never live to show the incredulous world
The noble change that I have purposed!
Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,
And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,
I spake unto this crown as having sense,
And thus upbraided it: 'The care on thee depending
Hath fed upon the body of my father; …
Hast eat thy bearer up.' Thus, my most royal liege,
Accusing it, I put it on my head,
To try with it, as with an enemy
That had before my face murder'd my father,
The quarrel of a true inheritor. (4.3.220 – 297)
KING HENRY: God knows, my son,
By what bypaths and indirect crook'd ways
I met this crown; and I myself know well
How troublesome it sat upon my head.
To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
Better opinion, better confirmation;
For all the soil of the achievement goes
With me into the earth. It seemed in me
But as an honour snatched with bois'trous hand; ...
For all my reign hath been but as a scene
Acting that argument.
Henry IV Part II 4.3. 312-326
PRINCE HARRY: This new and gorgeous garment, majesty,
Sits not so easy on me as you think.
Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear.
This is the English, not the Turkish court;
Not Amurath an Amurath succeeds,
But Harry Harry...
You all look strangely on me and [to LORD CHIEF JUSTICE] you most....
How might a prince of my great hopes forget
So great indignities you laid upon me?
What – rate, rebuke, and roughly send to prison
Th’immediate heir of England?...
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: I then did use the person of your father.
The image of his power lay then in me…
The image of the King … I presented…
Question your royal thoughts, make the case yours,
Be now the father, and propose a son;
Hear your own dignity so much profaned…
Behold yourself so by a son disdained;
And then imagine me taking your part…
PRINCE HARRY: You are right Justice, and you weigh this well.
Therefore still bear the balance and the sword.
And I do wish your honours may increase
Till you do live to see a son of mine
Offend you and obey you as I did…There is my hand.
You shall be as a father to my youth…
(Henry IV Part II 5.2.44-49; 63;67-70;72-78;90-95; 101-105; 116-117)
FALSTAFF; …banish Peto, banish Bardoll,
banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind
Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack
Falstaff, and therefore more valiant being as
he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy
Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s
company. Banish plump Jack and banish all
the world.
PRINCE HAL: I do; I will.
Henry IV Part 1(2.4.463-468)
Falstaff: God save thee, my sweet boy! …
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest;
King: I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. Presume not that I am the thing I was.
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
That I have turn’d away my former self...
So surfeit-swell’d, so old, and so profane;
The tutor and feeder of my riots …
But being awak’d I do despise my dream.
… I banish thee, on pain of death…
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Falstaff: Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
pound.
For thee thrice wider than for other men.