The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life Story Part 12

"_Hot_. Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come, when you do call for them?"

The same love of truth is given to Prince Henry in the previous act:

"_Fal_. Owen, Owen,--the same;--and his son-in-law, Mortimer; and old Northumberland; and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill perpendicular,--

_P. Hen_. He that rides at high speed, and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying.

_Fal_. You have hit it.

_P. Hen_. So did he never the sparrow."

But this frank contempt of lying is not the only or the chief characteristic possessed by Hotspur and Harry Percy in common. Hotspur disdains the Prince:

"_Hot_. Where is his son, The nimble-footed mad-cap Prince of Wales, And his comrades that daffed the world aside And bid it pa.s.s?"

and the Prince mimics and makes fun of Hotspur:

"_P. Hen._ He that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands and says to his wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.'"

Then Hotspur brags of what he will do when he meets his rival:

"_Hot._ Once ere night I will embrace him with a soldier's arm, That he shall shrink under my courtesy."

And in precisely the same strain Prince Henry talks to his father:

"_P. Hen._ The time will come That I shall make this northern youth exchange His glorious deeds for my indignities."

It is true that Prince Henry on more than one occasion praises Hotspur, while Hotspur is content to praise himself, but the differentiation is too slight to be significant: such as it is, it is well seen when the two heroes meet.

"_Hot._ My name is Harry Percy.

_P. Hen._ Why, then I see A very valiant rebel of that name."

but Prince Henry immediately doffs this kingly mood to imitate Hotspur.

He goes on:

"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 our England brook a double reign Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales ..."

And so the bombast rolls, and one brags against the other like systole and diastole which balance each other in the same heart. But the worst of the matter is, that Prince Henry and Hotspur, as we have already noticed, have both the same soul and the same inspiring motive in love of honour. They both avow this again and again, though Hotspur finds the finer expression for it when he cries that he will "pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon."

To the student of the play it really looks as if Shakespeare could not imagine any other incentive to n.o.ble or heroic deeds but this love of glory: for nearly all the other serious characters in the play sing of honour in the same key. King Henry IV. envies Northumberland

"A son who is the theme of honour's tongue,"

and declares that Percy hath got "never-dying honour against renowned Douglas." The Douglas, too, can find no other word with which to praise Hotspur--"thou art the king of honour": even Vernon, a mere secondary character, has the same mainspring: he says to Douglas:

"If well-respected honour bid me on, I hold as little counsel with weak fear As you or any Scot that this day lives."

Falstaff himself declares that nothing "p.r.i.c.ks him on but honour," and bragging Pistol admits that "honour is cudgelled" from his weary limbs.

The French, too, when they are beaten by Henry V. all bemoan their shame and loss of honour, and have no word of sorrow for their ruined homesteads and outraged women and children. The Dauphin cries:

"Reproach and everlasting shame Sits mocking in our plumes."

And Bourbon echoes him:

"Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame."

It is curious that Bourbon falls upon the same thought which animated Hotspur. Just before the decisive battle Hotspur cries:

"O, gentlemen! the time of life is short; To spend that shortness basely were too long."

And when the battle turns against the French, Bourbon exclaims:

"The devil take order now! I'll to the throng: Let life be short; else shame will be too long."

As Jaques in "As You Like It" says of the soldier: they are "jealous in honour" and all seek "the bubble reputation, even in the cannon's mouth."

It is only in Shakespeare that men have no other motive for brave deeds but love of honour, no other fear but that of shame with which to overcome the dread of death. We shall see later that the desire of fame was the inspiring motive of his own youth.

In the "Second Part of King Henry IV." there is very little told us of Prince Henry; he only appears in the second act, and in the fourth and fifth; and in all he is the mouthpiece of Shakespeare and not the roistering Prince: yet on his first appearance there are traces of characterization, as when he declares that his "appet.i.te is not princely," for he remembers "the poor creature, small beer," whereas in the last act he is merely the poetic prig. Let us give the best scene first:

"_P. Hen_. Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

- - - - - - - - - - _P. Hen_. Marry, I tell thee,--it is not meet that I should be sad, now my father is sick: albeit I could tell to thee--as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend--I could be sad, and sad, indeed, too.

_Poins_. Very hardly upon such a subject.

_P. Hen._ By this hand, thou think'st me as far in the devil's book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency: let the end try the man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick; and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in reason taken from me all ostentation of sorrow.

_Poins_. The reason?

_P. Hen_. What would'st thou think of me if I should weep?

_Poins_. I would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

_P. Hen_. It would be every man's thought; and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks; never a man's thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed.

And what accites your most wors.h.i.+pful thought to think so?

_Poins_. Why, because you have been so lewd, and so much engraffed to Falstaff."

By far the best thing in this page--the contempt for every man's thought as certain to be mistaken--is, I need hardly say, pure Shakespeare.

Exactly the same reflection finds a place in "Hamlet"; the student-thinker tells us of a play which in his opinion, and in the opinion of the best judges, was excellent, but which was only acted once, for it "pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general."

Very early in life Shakespeare made the discovery, which all men of brains make sooner or later, that the thoughts of the million are worthless, and the judgment and taste of the million are execrable.

There is nothing worthy to be called character-drawing in this scene; but there's just a hint of it in the last remark of Poins. According to his favourite companion the Prince was very "lewd," and yet Shakespeare never shows us his lewdness in action; does not "moralize" it as Jaques or Hamlet would have been tempted to do. It is just mentioned and pa.s.sed over lightly. It is curious, too, that Shakespeare's _alter ego_, Jaques, was also accused of lewdness by the exiled Duke; Vincentio, too, another incarnation of Shakespeare, was charged with lechery by Lucio; but in none of these cases does Shakespeare dwell on the failing.

Shakespeare seems to have thought reticence the better part in regard to certain sins of the flesh. But it must be remarked that it is only when his heroes come into question that he practises this restraint: he is content to tell us casually that Prince Henry was a sensualist; but he shows us Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet engaged at lips' length. To put it briefly, Shakespeare attributes lewdness to his impersonations, but will not emphasize the fault by instances. Nor will Shakespeare allow his "madcap Prince" even to play "drawer" with hearty goodwill. While consenting to spy on Falstaff in the tavern, the Prince tells Poins that "from a Prince to a prentice" is "a low transformation," and scarcely has the fun commenced when he is called to the wars and takes his leave in these terms:

"_P. Hen._ By Heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame, So idly to profane the precious time When tempest of commotion, like the south Borne with black vapour, doth begin to melt And drop upon our bare, unarmed heads."

The first two lines are priggish, and the last three mere poetic balderdash. But it is in the fourth act, when Prince Henry is watching by the bedside of his dying father, that Shakespeare speaks through him without disguise: