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 noble 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 "pricks 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
|