and Shakespeare speaks to us, too, when Prince Henry gives up Douglas to
his pleasure "ransomless and free." But not only does the poet lend the
soldier his own sentiments and lilt of phrase, he also presents him to
us as a shadowy replica of Hotspur, even during Hotspur's lifetime. We
have already noticed Hotspur's admirable answer when Glendower brags
that he can call spirits from the vasty deep:
"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 pass?"
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
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