Henry IV

LibriVox is a fantastic free resource where public-domain works are recorded by volunteers from around the world, at home on their computers. Their selection of Shakespeare includes:

Henry IV Part 1
King Lear
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Richard II
Romeo and Juliet

There’s lots more on LibriVox, including sonnets and works in progress.

I had a lot of fun last night: the world premier of Panoply, an original play by 11:11 Theatre, opened on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, MA, and I was part of it. Magnificent fun, acting. But surprising as well. Not only does one learn a lot about themselves when they act, but they also learn quite a bit about audiences.

Audiences are just people, but they’re a particular mix of people, living in a particular time and place. Their reactions to the story being told to them may vary depending not only on the day of the week and hour of the performance, but also the much larger social and historical contexts of their lives. Also, their reactions depend heavily on the quality of the story’s authorship and its storytellers.

You already know all this. But it provides a context for the observation that Shakespeare’s humorous moments aren’t necessarily funny to a modern audience. “Yes, duh,” you mutter as your mouse drifts to the Close button on your browser. But wait! This is important: it’s not just that we read a Shakespearean joke and judge it to be either 1) funny or 2) not funny. Rather, there are several layers of humor that, as they go deeper, become more and more invisible to us but, if understood, could lead you to a much deeper understanding of Will’s world and his plays (mind you, I’m not implying here that I have anything beyond a shallow understanding of these things–I am also a student, not an expert, of Shakespeare’s works, so let’s learn together!).

Before I list the layers, I feel it’s appropriate to quote Donald Rumsfeld:

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are “known knowns”; there are things we know we know. We also know there are “known unknowns”; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also “unknown unknowns” — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
(Thanks, ‘Pedia.)

People laughed at this quote because the word “know” is repeated 14 times in some form or another, but they shouldn’t have laughed. Its message is important and relevant to understanding almost anything. To illustrate, I will now (finally) make up, I mean explain the four layers of humor in Will’s plays:

1. Humor we get
2. Humor we know we don’t get (for instance, when you don’t know what “maidenhead” means, you can’t quite get the pun @ Rom.I.1.39, even though it’s probably obvious to you that a pun takes place at that spot)
3. Humor we know is probably humor but is going over our heads (for instance, you naturally assume that everything Falstaff says in Henry IV is supposed to be funny but you’re not quite able to tell why)
4. Humor we didn’t even know was supposed to be humor

It’s layer #4 that I came across while reading The Merry Wives of Windsor, inspiring me to write this post. An insult, delivered by Pistol, labels Falstaff as a “Base Phrygian Turk” (Wiv.I.3.86). If I hadn’t glanced at the Pelican’s footnotes, I never, ever would have recognized this as a funny thing to say. In fact, I had to go back to the ‘Pedia and do research to figure out why this is funny. It turns out that although Phrygia does, in fact, exist in Turkey, it would have been remembered by Elizabethans as a mostly mythological region in ancient Turkey that acted as an ally to Troy in the fabled Trojan War. So calling Falstaff a “Base (low) Turk” would have been one thing, but calling him a “Base Phrygian Turk” makes no sense, crisscrossing times and places, and demonstrates the ill-educated nature of Pistol’s wit.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I know. It’s not all that funny. And I didn’t even know it was supposed to be funny to begin with! But that illustrates my point: Pistol says a lot of things similar to this, and in order to fully appreciate his character you have to educate yourself to recognize jokes an Elizabethan would get but a modern reader/observer would miss. Otherwise, you’ll think Pistol’s a complete waste of space, and he’s not; he’s a strong comic presence.

Try a handful of simple things:

1. Look up words you don’t know. Sometimes this will lead you recognize humor you didn’t know was there.
2. Pay attention to the presence of misspellings and homophones.
3. When a line seems to come from nowhere, investigate. There’s probably a reason for its existence, and it may be humorous. To your inner-Elizabethan.
4. Read annotated versions of the plays (it’s actually hard to find non-annotated versions of the plays) and pay attention to the notes. After a while you’ll start to pick up on patterns yourself.
5. Go watch good Shakespearean actors perform the plays. If they really are doing their job, they’ll somehow let you know when humor is afoot. Then you can investigate afterwards if you like. (Kenneth Branagh in Much Ado comes to mind: when Benedick is talking about “hanging his bugle in an invisible baldrick” (Ado.I.1.230) Ken delivers the line whimsically even though most of us have no freaking idea what he’s talking about.)

The world premiere of Panoply went smashingly well, I think, and both the actors and the audience were pleased with the way it turned out. But I was still shocked by the points at which the audience responded with laughter versus the points at which they responded with silence. I suppose audiences are all unique, just like the stories that are told to them, and we can’t always see all the layers of humor, emotion, and social context at play before them.

This BYKI List covers Falstaff’s confusing vocabulary in Henry IV, Part I, Act III.

Be sure to check out my lists for Act I and Act II as well.

To put together these definitions I checked several sources:

• The Online Etymology Dictionary
• The About.com Shakespeare Glossary
• Google’s define: feature
• Shakespeare’s Words by David and Ben Crystal
• Wikipedia (of course)

The first 50 lines of Henry IV, Act II Scene 2 are saddled with horse-related puns and wordplay. I was tempted to include phrases with double-meanings in the accompanying BYKI list, but that would have overwhelmed the rest of the content. Rather, have some fun exploring the dialogue yourself when you have a moment to relax. It’s good for a chuckle… and more than a few groans.

(In general I find that lots of Shakespeare’s puns are horribly far-fetched. Yet, strangely, when delivered by a skilled actor, they’re quite hilarious. Usually. Try to hear it all spoken aloud in your head while you read… you may do more chuckling and less groaning.)

“If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord: banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore most 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!”
(HIV.II.4.455-464)

PISTOL
Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him;
For he hath stolen a pax, and hangéd must ‘a be—
A damnéd death!
(HV.III.6.38-40)

One summer, I lived with a good friend of mine in a two-story house near the New Hampshire seacoast. I didn’t really live with him, I only rented a room in his house when he had nobody else to help him pay the rent. He’d squandered an entire inheritance on sex, drugs, and beer and now he was lonely and broke. As much as I could manage, working an hour-and-a-half away, I’d stay at the house and spend the evening drinking, smoking, and watching movies. We hit on girls, frequented the 24-hour store across the river, and made lots of noise at indecent hours of the evening. The house was a mess. And the best part: we didn’t really care that the life we were living wasn’t all that serious. I had just had a breakup with a live-in girlfriend and I hated the responsibility my job put on my shoulders. So I let go. One of my favorite life memories is smoking a cigar on the roof of that house with my friend, shirtless and probably hung-over, in the hot afternoon sun. We had stopped taking life seriously and decided to take things slowly.

When, though, does life become serious? When does maturity and a sense of duty to life’s importances catch up with such a slow-paced, carefree existence?

One of the most interesting relationships in Shakespeare’s histories is that between young Harry of Monmouth, who would one day become King Henry V of England, and Falstaff, a drunken, cowardly, crude, yet endearing knight, and his two cohorts, Bardolph and Pistol. As a young man, Harry does not take life very seriously (unlike his brother, John of Lancaster, who seems to wear his responsibility with pride at a young age), and so he frequently partakes in mischievous–and sometimes criminal–acts with Falstaff, Bardolph, and Pistol. Yet, upon his father’s death in Henry IV Part II, young Harry turns a new leaf and forsakes his former friends. With responsibility finally forced upon him, he discovers that the weight of the world is not so burdensome if carried with purpose; the duties of a king not so wearisome if carried out with grace.

The girl I had left before living in that dirty house has since taught me something about patience. She taught me that an enjoyable youth need not be a flight from responsibility; that even those who decide to march forth and face life’s challenges may do so with careful thought and the benefits of a gracefulness. One must only maintain a leisurely state of mind to accomplish this. Harry, I think, does just that. Even as he rushes forth to invade France, fulfilling the wishes of his dead father, the young king seems to exude grace, patience, and good judgment. In his head, he is moving slowly: traitors are dealt with fairly, French cities are won with patience, and even the night before the Battle of Agincourt, the King can be found wandering the camp, musing upon the weight of his own responsibility.

Upon the king! Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children, and our sins, lay on the king!
We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s ease
Must kings neglect that private men enjoy?
(HV.IV.1.223-230)

And how does he overcome the weight of those sovereign responsibilities illuminated in this lamentation? By delivering one of the greatest speeches ever written, the Saint Crispin’s Day Speech, which not only shifts the responsibility of death in battle and general hardship to the shoulders of his troops themselves, but also makes them glad of it. “Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, | But he’ll remember, with advantages, | What feats he did that day” (IV.3.50-52). By the end of the address, every man present would give his life for the chance to live many long, leisurely years wearing, with pride, the scars that symbolize the heavy burdens of the impending battle.

When you awake, one day, to find that you are glad of your responsibilities and wish to face them with grace and a healthful pride, what will you do with those who are still wasting time for a living? Even though you find them endearing, when it comes time to make a sacrifice for them, will you? Or will you be forced to leave them behind?

When Bardolph stole from a church against general orders, Henry had him hanged. What will you decide?

One of the most difficult types of characters to understand for newcomers to Shakespeare are the comic figures and clowns (at least, that’s how it was for me). Being vulgar in speech and full of archaic¹ colloquialisms², I often find myself glancing at footnotes more than reading actual dialog when these characters are on stage. To help readers with this dilemma, I’ve decided to post, periodically, BYKI lists to help prepare your brain for this ancient vernacular³.

Pay special attention to scene I.2, where Falstaff drops the line, “Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.” (I.2.60-61) Henry V fans will be able to spot the situational irony (remember English class?) revealed in this future scene.

¹archaic: old ²colloquialism: term used in informal conversation ³vernacular: plain talk of common people