PRINCE HAL AND FALSTAFF From HENRY IV, PART I CHARACTERS IN THE PLAY HENRY (hĕn'ri), PRINCE OF WALES. SIR JOHN FALSTAFF (fôl'stǎf). POINS (poinz). GADSHILL (gǎdz'hil). BARDOLPH (bär'dôlf). Hostess of the Boar's Head Tavern. Sheriff. Three Travelers.* 10 roles.* SETTING: England. TIME: 1402 A.D. Scene 1. In Boar's Head Tavern, London. Falstaff and the Prince of Wales. Poins. Scene 2. The next night. The highway near Gadshill, scene of the prospective robbery. The Prince and Poins. Falstaff, Gadshill, Bardolph. The Travelers. Scene 3. Later that night. The Tavern. PROLOG-INTRODUCTION1 The playlet is from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I.2 Prince Hal was Shakespeare's favorite hero of the English kings. It was Prince Hal who, after he became Henry V, won the glorious victories from France. Prince Henry's name had a ring for the * Cast reducible to 8 by doubling. The sheriff and hostess, disguised with long dark cloaks, may make two of the travelers. 1 Prolog-Introduction. The prolog lines may be taken by Poins. 2 Henry IV, Part I. Dr. Johnson in the latter half of the eighteenth century remarked that no plays were then read more than the first and Elizabethan ear that roused the vision of English dominion and supremacy. However, while his father lived, the young prince spent a wild youth. Seeking convivial companions, he shunned the court and frequented taverns and places too common for his royal blood. Still it was no ordinary companionship he sought. The taverns were the meeting places of the wits. As a young actor-poet, Shakespeare himself had lived a Bohemian life in London not one, probably of debauchery, but one of thrills and overflowings of vivacious wit. The taverns were the scene, no doubt, of many a humorous encounter of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other dramatists. As a stage representative of this tavern wit, packed, crowded, jammed into one man, and yet characterized in the subtlest way into an individual of marked personality, Shakespeare presents Falstaff. In the opinion of the critics, Falstaff is the greatest comic character of any literature, of any time. He is a fat, dissolute old knight, who sometime was a page to John of Gaunt, a member of the royal family. And now he is too old and almost too fat to walk. He lives at the tavern, by his wits and what the Prince gives him—and by thefts. He is given to lying, drinking, stealing, and every other vice. Yet he is fascinating in his wickedness. He lies without expecting to be believed; he steals though he cannot hope not to be identified; because both make additional demands upon the friendship of the Prince and his own wit. The scene is the Boar's Head Tavern, in London, and the characters are the Prince, Falstaff, and their associates. Falstaff. Scene 1 In Boar's Head Tavern, London Falstaff [R.] and Prince Hal [L.]. Sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night be called thieves. Let us be Diana's second parts of Henry IV, and that perhaps no author ever in two plays afforded so much delight. These are the true Falstaff plays. The Merry Wives of Windsor was written, someone has surmised, at the request of Queen Elizabeth, who wished to see the old knight in love. This throws him really out of his original character. foresters, favorites of the moon; and let men say we be of good government, being governed, as the tide is, by the moon. Prince. Thou sayest well as the tide is; for now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder, and by and by in as high a flow as the gallows. Falstaff. But shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief. Prince. No; thou shalt. Falstaff. Shall I? O rare! I'll be a brave judge. Prince. Thou judgest false already. I mean thou shalt be hangman. Falstaff. Well, Hal, well; and in some sort I like it — as well as waiting in the court. But, Hal, I would thou and I knew where good names were to be bought. An old lord of the council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir, but I regarded him not; and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too. 1 Prince. Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets,1 Prince. Where shall we steal a purse tomorrow, Jack? Prince. I see a good change for the better in thee; from praying to stealing. 1 wisdom cries out in the streets. See Proverbs i, 20, 24. 2 Zounds (zounz). An interjection coined to avoid the oath "God's wounds." Falstaff. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal. "Tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation. Poins arrives [L.]. Prince. Good morrow, Poins. Poins. Good morrow, sweet Hal. Jack! how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday last for a cup of wine and a cold fowl? Prince. Sir John stands to his word; he will give the devil his due. Poins. But, my lads, tomorrow morning, by four o'clock, early at Gadshill! There are traders riding to London with fat purses. Falstaff. Hal, wilt thou make one? Prince. Who? I rob? I a thief? Not I. Falstaff. There's neither honesty nor manhood in thee. Poins. Sir John, leave the Prince and me alone. I will lay him down such reasons that he shall go. [Exit Falstaff R.] Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow; I have a trick to play that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, and Gadshill shall rob those men; yourself and I will not be there; and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them! [Laughs.] Prince. Yea, but they will know us by our horses and by our clothes to be ourselves Poins. Tut! our horses they shall not see; I'll tie them in the wood; our masks we will change after we leave them; and I have suits of buckram for us two, to mask our other clothes. Prince. Well, I'll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary and meet me there tomorrow night. Farewell. [Exeunt Prince L., Poins R.] 1 Gadshill (gădz'hîl): a hill on the highroad between London and Canterbury. |