SOURCE: Ruiter, David. “‘The Unquiet Time’ of 2 Henry IV: Festivity and Order in Flux.” In Shakespeare's Festive History: Feasting, Festivity, Fasting and Lent in the Second Henriad, pp. 103-41. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2003.

[In the following essay, Ruiter demonstrates how in Henry IV, Part 2 Prince Hal shrewdly manipulates the progression from feasting and festivity to the restoration of political order in an effort to maximize his political capital as the prodigal son who alters his behavior in order to become king.]

In 1 Henry IV, Hal creates a socio-political event which I have called the Feast of Falstaff. The prince is able to do so largely because his audience, both within and outside of the play, was familiar with a calendar that included feast days and, as participants in actual festive events, they would have recognized allusions to feasts and festivals within the plays.¹ In addition, as Leah Marcus has shown, the public, at least during the English Renaissance, would have understood the government funding of festive events; in fact, they may have even had a growing understanding of the politics behind the well-organized and well-attended holiday events (1-23). Within the context of 2 Henry IV, both the public knowledge of and participation in the Feast of Falstaff grows; at the same time, the feast begins to dwindle in political benefit for the young prince, largely because the delicate timing of his plan to ‘imitate the sun’ is disrupted.²

Having created and sustained this metaphorical feast with his rhetoric and finances, Hal mistakenly believes that he can also dictate the shift between this festive event and the serious political event of becoming the King of England; that is, as the creator and sponsor of the Feast of Falstaff, Hal assumes that he can limit the festivity within a politically beneficial time-frame. And this desire to so limit the ‘feast’ is understandable, for, as François Laroque points out in his book Shakespeare's Festive World, if there is no such time-frame, then festivity and its expected power inversions and social-leveling would better be classified as ‘riot’ or ‘revolution’ than as feast or holiday (220). At some point, if the event is to be politically stabilizing, Laroque demonstrates, the disorder and community that steadily grow at the outset of a feast must dissipate, and order and hierarchy return (220-221). This end to festivity and the return of clear, political hierarchy are parts of Hal's plan, as seen in his ‘imitate the sun’ speech early in 1 Henry IV. However, the issue, as Hal states in the same speech, is not only one of power (though it is certainly that), but also one of the need for recognizable change that festivity fulfills. Hal says,

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth like rare accidents.
So when this loose behavior I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes.

(1 Henry IV, 1.2.198-205)

In these lines, he clearly expresses his desire to highlight for the public his change from youthful rogue to glorious king. The festivity Hal creates must end, then, not only to restabilize political order, but also to mark the change from Hal as holiday youth to Henry V as everyday ruler. Laroque closely parallels Hal's own sentiments on this issue when the critic states, ‘The great value in festivity is that it ushers in a different kind of time whose limits are set in advance and which stands out against the backgrounds of everyday life’ (235). In this regard, the seasonal change from feast to Lenten reform, or from festive holiday to the political everyday, must be clear in order to be vital and useful. At the crux between Hal's need for political stability and his need for a clearly appreciated change from his festive youth to his royal adulthood lies the pendulous movement between festivity and politics which marks the entirety of 2 Henry IV.

This movement, which C. L. Barber and Neil Rhodes have explained as the victory of order over disorder (Barber 192-221), or the triumph of Lent over Carnival (Rhodes 89-130), actually does not so much represent a battle to be won or lost as a stage to be shared. Even in our own time, while the calendar may demarcate the periods of holiday from the periods of everyday, and certainly delineates the line between the feast of Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras), for instance, and the Lent which begins with Ash Wednesday, the practices and ideas of festivity, like Falstaff himself, cannot be so limited. That is, while people do enjoy the holiday feast on the prescribed days, they also experience the food and drink, the community, and even the disorder associated with these feasts on other occasions, as well, such as during an evening at the local tavern, at a family reunion, or during the celebration of the Eucharist. Sometimes these festive events occur even during times of official reform and order, similar to Hostess Quickly's illegal sale of meat during Lent (2 Henry IV, 2.4.343-346).

In understanding that the idea of the feast is not easily, or even usually, restricted to a sanctioned period of disorder, we must also realize, as Laroque explains, that political time and festive time are not the same, but can and do exist concurrently (201-203). Historical/political time is generally linear, Laroque argues, while festive time is more cyclic in nature. Considering this variance between these two types of time is useful in understanding the difficulties which Prince Hal experiences in his plan to use festive time for political advantage.³ We remember from Hal's ‘imitate the sun’ soliloquy that his scheme has several parts, which he plans to move through in order. First, he will ‘uphold’ the roguish behavior of Falstaff and the Boar's Head gang; he will do this for a period in order to ‘falsify men's hopes’; and finally, he will reform himself and become, unexpectedly, a glorious and popular king. Indeed, 1 Henry IV shows Hal at work on all parts of the plan: he does sustain Falstaff's and his own roguish behavior; he does gain the poor reputation he strives for; he does reform himself in his father's eyes; and he does gain glory, at least temporarily, through his defeat of Hotspur. It seems, then, that his life follows the linear plan that he establishes early in the play.

However, at the end of 1 Henry IV, the glory and the plan suddenly do not follow in such an orderly fashion, because Falstaff rises up, snatches the glory for the death of Hotspur, and reasserts his festive role. In addition, Hal is not about to become king because his father is still not only living, but in better political position than he has been throughout the play.⁴ The festive time of Falstaff is not over, and therefore it does not usher in the political time of Henry V; neither is the political time of Henry IV over, a fact which stands as a direct roadblock to the fulfillment of Hal's plans. Instead, the Feast of Falstaff and the reign of Henry IV co-exist throughout the majority of Part Two, and, as a result, Hal's planned reformation from roguish son to glorious sun/son remains in flux.

The evidence that the Feast of Falstaff continues into Part Two appears almost immediately when Lord Bardolph provides the rebel Northumberland with news of the Battle of Shrewsbury. Lord Bardolph, satisfying Northumberland's desire for a good report and a rebel victory, states that the result of the battle is

As good as heart can wish.
The King is almost wounded to the death,
And, in the fortune of my lord your son,
Prince Harry slain outright; and both the Blunts
Killed by the hand of Douglas. Young Prince John
And Westmoreland and Stafford fled the field,
And Harry Monmouth's brawn, the hulk Sir John,
Is prisoner to your son.

(1.1.13-20)

While Lord Bardolph's information regarding the outcome of the Shrewsbury battle is almost entirely incorrect (with the exception of the death of Walter Blunt), his identification of Falstaff as Hal's fattened pig is telling because now a character outside of the prince's immediate circle picks up on the idea of the Feast of Falstaff.⁵ In addition, Lord Bardolph correctly identifies ‘Harry Monmouth,’ Hal, as the feast's sponsor. Further, Hotspur, according to the erroneous account of Lord Bardolph, now possesses the fat ‘brawn’ Falstaff. In this regard, the feast and festivity associated with Falstaff (and especially with Hal's portrayal of Falstaff) survive, but appear to change into the possession of the supposed victors.⁶ To the victor go the spoils, among which is a witty, drunken knight representing community festivity. However, when the reality of Henry's triumph becomes apparent to the crafty Northumberland, we find that Falstaff is not a prisoner of the rebels but remains in the company of the true victors. Plump Jack remains both alive and unfettered, back in London.

In Act One, scene two, Falstaff continues the theme of the feast in his conversation with his thin page. When the page expresses that the doctor has made jokes about Falstaff's disease-ridden urine (1.2.3-5), Falstaff boldly replies,

Men of all sorts take a pride to gird at me. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter more than I invent or is invented on me. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath overwhelmed all her litter but one.

(1.2.6-11)

In these lines, he certainly reasserts his stature as fattened pig, a ‘sow,’ but he also recalls the festive, and therefore communal, atmosphere that his wit provides. In fact, his suggestion that ‘men of all sorts’ unite in their desire to make fun of him demonstrates, once again, his usefulness to Prince Hal's scheme; that is, Falstaff's fat wit, as much as his fat body, helps to provide a sense of community, a sense of politically productive leveling. In a bit of hyperbole, Falstaff even goes so far as to suggest that he is the source of their levity, that without him there is no laughter. While this statement seems untrue, a quick reading of 2 Henry IV suggests that without Falstaff there is no ‘wit,’ no mirth, to speak of, as I will demonstrate below. Nearly every instance of possible humor in Part Two includes Falstaff or becomes jocular only when the other characters discuss the fat knight or plan tricks on him. Unlike the situation in 1 Henry IV—which included Hotspur's mocking of Glendower, the banter between Kate and Hotspur, and Hal's attempted joke on the waiter Francis—2 Henry IV contains a growing breach between holiday festivity and political order, both for Hal and the other characters.

Evidence of this breach occurs throughout 2 Henry IV. For example, early in the play, the extremely orderly Chief Justice desires to discuss the issue of political order with Falstaff, but the fat knight will have nothing to do with such a topic. When the Chief Justice attempts to question Falstaff, Jack purposely misunderstands and ultimately claims to have the disease of ‘not listening’ (1.2.58-120). For this absurdity and for other crimes, the Chief Justice reprimands him.

CHIEF Justice:
Well, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.
FALSTAFF:
He that buckles himself in my belt cannot live in less.
CHIEF Justice:
Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.
FALSTAFF:
I would it were otherwise; I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

(1.2.135-141)

Here, as elsewhere, Falstaff seems unable to stop referencing his own fatness, and goes on to claim that he is ‘the fellow with the great belly’ (1.2.145). As in Part One, Falstaff uses his fatness and fat wit to confront all suggestions of his need for reform. Likewise, when the Chief Justice uses metaphors to make a serious point, Falstaff turns them to humor. When the official states that Sir John is ‘as a candle, the better part burned out,’ Falstaff clarifies, saying, ‘A wassail candle, my lord, all tallow. If I did say of wax, my growth would approve the truth’ (155-158). Here Falstaff takes a grave comment alluding to his death and turns it festive; the wassail candle, as Bevington states, is a ‘large candle lighted up at a feast,’ and ‘tallow,’ as discussed previously, is animal fat (812). Thus, in his clarification, Falstaff specifies the festive nature of the metaphor of ‘Falstaff as candle,’ changes the candle's substance from beeswax to fat, and, in doing so, changes a serious warning into light banter.

The Chief Justice, clearly not amused by the fat knight, rephrases, saying, ‘There is not a white hair on your face but should have his effect of gravity’ (159-160). Again, Falstaff lightens the warning, restating, ‘His effect of gravy, gravy, gravy’ (161). In attempting to enlighten Falstaff concerning his need for repentance and reform, the Chief Justice instead lights the wassail candle of the knight's fat wit; the result for the audience is the ‘gravy’ of good humor. Though the Chief Justice would appear to be the most unlikely participant in any disorderly festivity, his gravity is outdone and potentially undone by Falstaff's levity. In addition, once again, characters—here the Chief Justice and his servant—outside of the Boar's Head gang are being invited to see Falstaff as feast.

Moreover, in placing the Chief Justice and Sir John on the stage at the same time, Shakespeare both clarifies the opposition between the two and begins to prepare the audience for an outcome. Anita Hembold makes explicit that, by placing these two characters side by side, ‘Shakespeare heightens the tension inherent in Falstaff's relationship with the crown prince’ (88).⁷ Either the Chief Justice will arrest Falstaff and restore order, or Falstaff will remain unfettered and will, as a result, continue the general festivity that he represents; at the moment, however, the representative of order and reform is only allowed to share the stage (whatever space is left of it) with the representative of feasting and festivity. The Chief Justice sounds severe and threatening: he questions Sir John for not responding to the court summons in connection with the Gad's Hill robbery (1.2.100-105), offers to punish him (122-124), accuses the knight of misleading ‘the youthful Prince’ (143, 162-163), reminds him of his supposedly imminent death (177-184), and exhorts him to be honest (220-221). All of these suggest that the Chief Justice is about to restore order, but he does not. Instead, Falstaff ignores, purposefully misunderstands, cracks jokes, makes puns, and generally continues his jovial swagger towards ever-increasing festivity.

For example, Falstaff does not believe that the death of his body or lifestyle is imminent. While the Chief Justice asserts that the knight's ‘white beard’ and ‘increasing belly’ prove that he is ‘blasted with antiquity’ (1.2.180-183), Falstaff retorts that he ‘was born about three of the clock in the afternoon, with a white head and something of a round belly’ (185-187). In this response, Falstaff suggests that his date is not out any more than at any previous time in his life. Rather, he argues, he was born a plump, festive baby and has merely grown into a plump, festive man. In this sense, he demonstrates that his disorderly festivity is innate, continually oozing out like his own sweat on a hot day.⁸ It is not time to repent, he says, unless repentance, instead of ‘ashes and sackcloth,’ involves ‘new silk and old sack’ (195-196). And when he concludes the scene, saying, ‘A good wit will make use of anything’ (246-247), he has already proved this point; that is, he has turned the Chief Justice's words, including his severe warnings and calls for repentance, into more lively wit, more entertainment for himself and his audience.

Shortly later, Falstaff and the Chief Justice will meet again; once more, Falstaff will initially appear to have worn out his stay at the festive center of the action. Hostess Quickly has begun a lawsuit against Falstaff for bankrupting her tavern (2.1.1-2). In fact, she claims that Sir John ‘hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his’ and has broken his oath to ‘marry me and make me my lady thy wife’ (2.1.73-77, 83-101). Once again, the Chief Justice stands to rule on the life and crimes of the gluttonous Falstaff. Falstaff, up to his usual tricks, suggests that Hostess Quickly is insane (102). The Chief Justice, however, aware of Falstaff's rhetorical skills, says, ‘Sir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way’ (2.1.106-108). He then proceeds to rule against Falstaff, demanding that he ‘Pay her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done her. The one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current repentance’ (115-119). Immediately after announcing his verdict, however, the Chief Justice must turn his attention to national politics and the civil wars (130-134); in doing so, the Chief Justice becomes momentarily distracted from Falstaff. As a result, the audience never definitively hears whether or not Falstaff repents, but we do know that he surely does not repay the hostess. In addition, his possible repentance is made all the more unlikely by the hostess asking, ‘Will you have Doll Tearsheet meet you at supper?’ (161); despite the warnings, Falstaff's world is of a fabric with continued eating and carousing, with festivity in general. Soon, the Chief Justice returns to his rebuke of Falstaff, saying, ‘Now the Lord lighten thee! Thou art a great fool’ (192-193). However, following this chastening, the Chief Justice leaves with the messenger Gower, and Falstaff remains, planning on eating, drinking, and spending time with the prostitute Doll (155-186). The fat boar, the damned brawn, still walks before us, potently spreading his wit and festivity, even in the face of official rebuke.

To a great extent, he is allowed this action because of the ‘unquiet time,’ just as the Chief Justice has explained earlier (1.2.149). The suggestion is that this unquietness, this disorder, continues to overwhelm all attempts at order, just as that witty ‘sow’ Falstaff continues to overwhelm his ‘litter’—that is, his English community, including those who desire Jack's eventual reform.⁹ Certainly, the Chief Justice's warnings and rebukes are overwhelmed by Falstaff's wit, and Sir John himself remains at large. In fact, the warnings he receives, both legal and medical, seem to become only so much more grist in the mill of his humor.¹⁰ Still, the Chief Justice cannot be merely ignored by Falstaff, though the fat knight makes a strong effort not to hear him initially. Instead, Jack is, at least, forced to respond, even if he does so with much wit and without much sincerity or sobriety. While amusing to the audience, the warnings and responses, in their repetition, provide a certain tension between festivity and order. The audience will, of course, expect the drama to work to resolve this tension; presently, however, Falstaff retains his festive body and wit, though he does so now in the face of the Chief Justice and official order. In this sense, Falstaff's festive world is now being portrayed in clear contrast to the world of law and order. Both exist concurrently, but not without creating a palpable tension, a palpable flux.

This flux and the unquiet political times have certainly worn on Hal. He finally enters the play at Act Two, scene two, and he does so saying, ‘Before God, I am exceeding weary’ (2.2.1). Understandably, given his heroic actions at Shrewsbury, he feels fatigued, though Poins is surprised that ‘one of so high blood’ should wear down so quickly (2-3). Hal admits that ‘it discolors the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it [his fatigue],’ and then asks Poins, ‘Doth it not show vilely in me to desire small beer?’ (4-6). Certainly, Hal has desired ‘small beer’—representing the festive times of drinking, jesting, and cursing with Falstaff and the common people at the Boar's Head—many times in the past, and he has generally fulfilled that desire. Now, however, Hal is apprehensive, fearing that a return to the ‘small beer’ of festivity after his princely feats at Shrewsbury might be seen, in the eyes of public opinion, as a ‘low transformation’ (166-167). Hal's apprehension here demonstrates what will be a growing awareness of a snag in his plan to move from roguish son to glorious sun/son, from his created role as the festive son of Falstaff to his inherited role as future king of England.

To briefly recount, in 1 Henry IV, Hal used numerous metaphors to piece together the idea of the Feast of Falstaff. He did so because this ‘feast’ would allow him the sort of leveling necessary to secure the popular support so crucial to his coming kingship. Creating this feast involved upholding the ‘unyoked humor’ of Falstaff and the Boar's Head gang in an attempt to cloud his own reputation. Ultimately, however, Hal plans to throw the rascals off and break through with glorious actions leading to a popular kingship. He will soil his reputation, gain the ability to talk like and with the common persons of the kingdom, achieve military glory, and attain the greatness of kingship.

Indeed, he is currently tired as a result of those glorious military actions. Still, here he is complaining, riding along with Poins (one of the old gang), and desiring ‘small beer.’ In terms of his military success, his plan is working, but in terms of overall political success, it is not. That is, he defeated Hotspur and thereby unseated the ‘king of honor,’ but Falstaff received at least some of the credit for this action.¹¹ More important, the civil wars continue to drag on, and Henry still lives. Though it was surely honorable of Hal to defend his father at Shrewsbury, Henry's continuance threatens the delicate timing of Hal's plan. As a result, Hal now needs to hold onto Falstaff a while longer, if the prince is indeed going to attempt the political strategy of moving directly from rogue to glorious sun/son.

Poins responds to Hal's desire for small beer with concern. He says, ‘Why, a prince should not be so loosely studied as to remember so weak a composition’ (2.2.7-9). Poins's comments simultaneously take note of Hal's festive and political positions by suggesting that while Hal was the rogue at the Boar's Head in the past, he cannot—or, at least, should not—attempt to play that particular role again now that he has, at least partially, reestablished himself politically through his courageous defense of his father. After all, Hal has apparently risen above that old behavior and publicly reclaimed, through his defeat of Hotspur, his role as crown prince.¹² To return down to the roguish level, in Poins's view, is somewhat despicable, certainly not princely, and maybe even, as he will shortly suggest, hypocritical (2.2.50). In his objection to Hal's desires, Poins asserts that Hal can play the roles of the roguish son and glorious sun/son, can be both a festive sponsor/participant and a blooming political and military leader, but he cannot play both roles simultaneously. At least, the prince cannot do so without risk.

Hal catches the point of Poins's argument, but responds, saying, ‘Belike then my appetite was not princely got, for, by my troth, I do now remember the poor creature small beer. But indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness’ (2.2.9-11). The question here, as in the case with Hal's potential sorrow for his father's illness and death, is whether or not he can be authentic in either his self-created festive role or his inherited political role.¹³ Poins suggests not, but then he also feels that there is a certain, particular way for princes and kings to act. He wants Hal to act like a prince, and therefore not to act tired or desirous of beer, but he also does not quite believe that the victory over Hotspur is enough evidence, in itself, to prove that Hal has reformed and become the loving son of Henry, his natural and political father. When Hal questions Poins on this last idea, Poins suggests that Hal has been ‘so lewd and so much engraffed to Falstaff’ that the public will surely not believe in an instantaneous reform (2.2.58-59). The public, in Poins's view, will not forget Hal's bad reputation just because he has had a single glorious moment; the prince will need to provide further evidence of change to be convincing. Therefore, Poins here also suggests that Hal's plan to appear suddenly ‘as the sun’ is potentially flawed in its timing.

Under Poins's scrutiny, Hal buckles a bit. He swears that he truly is sorry for his father's condition, and says, ‘By this hand, thou thinkest me as far in the devil's book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try the man’ (2.2.42-44). The end that Hal speaks of almost certainly is his political end, the kingship and how he will act in that role. But Poins's comments remain appropriate, because they suggest that Hal's alternating between his festive and political roles distorts the picture of both the common, beer-swilling, sweet, young rogue of a prince, as well as the heroic, Hotspur-killing, Henry's son Hal. Either Hal is his father's political son, or he is Falstaff's festive child, as well as sponsor. He must be one or the other, but the shifting back and forth makes him seem a tensely disturbing ‘both.’

Because of Hal's plan, however, any attempt to resolve this issue of which role to play is complicated. His plan requires that he leap onto the scene in a brilliant moment of personal and political reformation. If he takes Poins's suggestion and fulfills the expectation of his ‘high birth’ now—that is, if he goes to the court and assumes many of his royal duties—this leap will become impossible and, instead, he will neatly and quietly slide into his father's role as king. Poins suggests that the prince's Boar's Head days are part of the past, not the present, but Hal wants those days maintained so that his kingly self will be adored in comparison to his former self. And yet, he does not want the consequence of continuing to appear ‘engraffed to Falstaff,’ and, arguably, he also does not want the consequence of being ‘engraffed’ to his father, whose reputation as the usurping king of England is also troublesome, as the ongoing civil war makes clear. Hal would prefer that ‘the end,’ his own political end, ‘try the man.’ In a certain sense, Hal believes he needs to retain the tiring tension between his festive and political roles, but he does not want the stain that association with either of his fathers, the political Henry or festive Falstaff, provides. In fact, in attempting to avoid appearing too attached to either, Hal only joins Falstaff (2.1) and his father (4.5) in one scene each.¹⁴ In Henry V, the end does try the man, and it turns out that Hal really becomes more glorious son/sun than roguish son (though not completely so); still, at this moment prior to his kingship, the issue remains unresolved, and the weary prince retains his festive role as a participant in his own creation, the Feast of Falstaff.¹⁵

In fact, the evidence that the feast continues appears almost immediately within this same scene. The conversation between Hal and Poins is cut short by the arrival of Bardolph and Falstaff's page, who come bearing a letter to Hal from the fat knight (2.2.66-94). Though Falstaff is not physically present, his festive presence is quickly accentuated when Poins questions Bardolph, saying ‘And how doth the martlemas, your master’ (95-96). According to J. Dover Wilson, in using this particular term, Poins compares Falstaff to the massive quantities of ‘fresh-killed meat’ which were a famous feature of the annual St. Martin's Day feast (30). In this regard, Poins not only continues the festive metaphors so prevalent in Part One, he also clarifies the nature of the food that Falstaff represents; that is, Sir John is not only food, but is the centerpiece of the feast.

Later in the same scene, Hal highlights Poins's reference when he asks concerning Falstaff, ‘Where sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?’ (2.2.138-139). Having created the fatted, holiday beast with his rhetoric, and having maintained him with his purse in 1 Henry IV, Hal still wants surety that ‘the old boar’ is being properly nourished. Hal also wants to make sure that his planned feast is well-attended, and therefore follows up by asking what type and gender of company Falstaff keeps in Eastcheap: ‘What company? […] Sup any women with him?’ (2.2.141, 143). Satisfied that Falstaff remains surrounded by criminals and whores, Hal responds, ‘Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull. Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?’ (149-150). Once again, then, Hal takes time to describe Falstaff in terms of edible animal flesh, to make sure that he keeps a certain social circle, and to join the festivity that surrounds the fat knight. He continues, in this way, to support and participate in the three most crucial elements of the feast—food, community, and festivity.

More and more, however, Hal is realizing the ‘heavy declension’ he makes in participating with the festive Boar's Head crowd (2.2.165). He states concerning his plan to disguise himself as a waiter at the bar, ‘From a prince to a prentice? A low transformation! That shall be mine, for in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned’ (166-167). Again, having told the audience of his planned reformation in 1 Henry IV, Hal's comments here return to that ‘purpose,’ both because of and despite its potential ‘folly.’ That is, the joke that he hopes to execute on Falstaff, a piece of folly, will be one more attempt to show that Hal understands the humor of the common people; on the other hand, as Poins makes clear at the beginning of this scene, this shifting around, moving up and down the political and social ladder, may indeed be foolish and hypocritical. In addition, Hal's attempt to outface Falstaff may also be a rare piece of folly, as the comical knight is rarely, if ever, outshone in matters of mirth.

Nonetheless, the point that Hal's ultimate purpose must counterbalance the folly of his plan suggests that Hal is, at least, aware that should his public ‘reformation’ work as he hopes, it will be worth the foolish, because at least partially unnecessary, risk of the plan backfiring.¹⁶ After all, having largely secured his coming kingship with his own military actions, this movement back to the common people is a risk, but one that Hal seems dedicated to take. The question, then, is why he remains dedicated to a plan which is wrought with folly by his own account.

Possibly Hal, like Poins, Bardolph, and others among the Boar's Head patrons, merely enjoys Falstaff's company and humor. In this sense, Hal would, like the theatre audience, feel a certain delight in participating in the entertainment of Falstaff—the swearing, drinking, play-acting, etc. But as the closing lines of the above scene suggest, ultimately Hal's ‘purpose’ is his primary concern. Moreover, the prince, on several occasions, becomes overtly impatient and even ominous in regard to Falstaff's lying and other shenanigans; from 1 Henry IV, one certainly recalls Hal's ‘I do, I will’ promise to banish Falstaff (2.4.476), and the prince's anger at Shrewsbury when he finds that Sir John's holster contains a bottle of sack rather than a pistol (5.3.53-55).¹⁷ Or Hal might actually feel a certain real friendship and devotion to the fat knight.¹⁸ The problem, of course, with this possibility is that the audience may likely bristle at the notion of calling Hal's scheming and well-orchestrated relationship with Falstaff a true friendship, even if it is beneficial to both parties;¹⁹ in this regard, Jack R. Sublette argues that Hal's ‘use of time does indicate a callousness to the feelings of other human beings and to natural human relationships’ (200).²⁰ Also, it should be recalled that Hal desires ‘small beer’ rather than, at least explicitly, the company of Falstaff. That is, Hal may merely want a relaxing break from his increasing responsibilities—beer at the bar, rather than wine at the court.²¹ Naturally, the lack of responsibility inherent in the Boar's Head environment, and especially in Falstaff, would be appealing to a young man about to take on the weight of a distressed nation.

Still, Hal's idea of attempting to balance ‘folly’ with ‘purpose’ seems almost oxymoronic. ‘Purpose’ suggests serious everyday business, while ‘folly’ seems just the opposite, the stuff of holiday. But the idea of feasting and festivity, even disorderly festivity, is serious business in several arenas, including the political and the religious. For example, in one of the more famous feast scenes in Shakespeare, Macbeth attempts to sanction his murderous usurpation of the Scottish throne with a banquet for several of the nation's leaders (3.4). Seeing a bloody body, that of Banquo's ghost, in his seat, Macbeth disrupts his own planned festivity, and the feast ends without the hoped-for result of renewed community. The failed feast leads to a failed kingship, the butcher is butchered, and the community is reformed with the evidence of the body and blood of the tyrant. As Daryl Palmer makes clear in terms of the use of the hospitable feast in Renaissance tragedy, ‘The progression of dramatic action pauses over this confluence of hopes and fears; and the host finds that he cannot control the entertainment, that hospitality has enabled his tragic end’ (175).²² While Macbeth can plan the feast, he cannot entirely plan the restoration of community; when the planned festivity fails, the whole undertaking deteriorates into tragic and politically damaging folly, what Laroque refers to as ‘festivity […] painted in its darkest colors’ (183). And yet, there seems to be no option for Macbeth: he needs to hold a state dinner upon the event of his coronation, and so he rolls the dice, takes the chance, and fails.

Likewise Hal, now having created his own feast, cannot simply dismiss it. The feast is part of his political plan, and it is well-constructed with his rhetoric, but once the table is set and the community is invited, the event must take place, and its result, as Macbeth finds out, is not guaranteed. Once the guests sit down to the table, load up their plates, fill their glasses, and ingest the martlemas and sack, the folly of the event may well become evident; as Laroque notes above, if the event escapes its prescribed time frame, the social-leveling and festive ritual may well degenerate into outright rebellion (220-221). Like Macbeth, even such a conniving caterer as Prince Hal cannot entirely control or even predict the result or the community's reaction. Considering the contrasting views of Falstaff, the Chief Justice, and Poins, as demonstrated above, the reaction is obviously mixed.

Before any true analysis of the community's reaction to Hal's festivity can be attempted, however, it must be clear that the entire community participates in the metaphorical Feast of Falstaff, even if that participation comes in the form of mere acknowledgement of its existence. Earlier Lord Bardolph demonstrates that the higher political community is aware of Hal's festive event, but the same is also true of the social strata that frequents the Boar's Head. For example, Mistress Doll Tearsheet generates much imagery to fill in the ‘Falstaff as Feast’ metaphor. As she sits with Hostess Quickly and Sir John, she refers to him as a ‘huge full hogshead’ and a ‘whole merchant's venture of Bordeaux stuff’ (2.4.62-64). The references surely highlight Falstaff's enormous size, and potentially—given Doll's occupation and her ongoing relationship to Sir John—his sexual potency and volume. But the metaphors are also, again, clearly festive, this time focusing on alcoholic drinks rather than on foods; a ‘hogshead’ is a keg which would generally hold wine, beer, or other liquor,²³ and ‘Bordeaux stuff’ clearly refers to French wine.²⁴ Therefore, the metaphors surrounding Falstaff now include festive drinks, as well as foods.

Further, Doll also concludes the references to Falstaff as fatted calf in 2 Henry IV. After Falstaff chases the contentious Pistol out of the Boar's Head, an appreciative Doll sits on his knee and says, ‘I' faith, and thou followedst him like a church. Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig […]’ (2.4.227-228). The comparison of Falstaff to a church both references his size and reiterates the sort of ironic Falstaff-as-order-or-Lent metaphor that the fat knight used so often in describing himself in 1 Henry IV. More significantly, Doll's image of Falstaff as ‘Bartholomew boar-pig’ clearly associates him, for the third time in the two plays, with the main course of a holiday feast; to recount, early in 1 Henry IV, Hal calls Sir John ‘the Manningtree ox with the pudding in its belly,’ and Poins, as seen above, labels the knight as a ‘martlemas.’ Still, Doll's reference, which clearly links Falstaff to the Bartholomew Fair, may be the most important. As Wilson explains, because this fair was ‘the most popular annual festivity of Elizabethan and Jacobean London,’ Doll's label associates Falstaff with ‘feasting on a vast and communal scale’ (30).

At this point, Hal's Feast of Falstaff appears to be a success. The whole social and political spectrum—from a lord, Bardolph, to a whore, Doll; from the crown prince, Hal, to a knight, Falstaff, down to a common person and soldier, Poins—participates in a metaphorical feast brought into existence by Hal's rhetorical ability. Indeed, while Falstaff's body and wit certainly inspire humor in others, it is Hal who shapes that humor for his own political purposes; within the prince's scheme, Falstaff is not only fat and funny, but he is also truly festive, and his presence provides a leveling feast of words and humor for those around him.

At present, everyone is, as it were, at table and enjoying the bounty of Hal's metaphorical feast. However, immediately after calling Falstaff the ‘Bartholomew boar-pig,’ Doll makes another telling remark; she questions the fat knight, saying, ‘[W]hen wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?’ (2.4.229-231). Here, at the height of the feast, the comment's tone seems out of place, and indeed Falstaff appears to find it so when he responds, ‘Peace, good Doll, do not speak like a death's head; do not bid me remember mine end’ (2.4.232-233). Doll's question bothers Falstaff, however, not because it is so inappropriate, but precisely because it is entirely appropriate at this moment. With all of the participation in the Feast of Falstaff, one may wonder, like Doll, just how long the ‘boar-pig’ will last. Clearly, eventually the feast must conclude with the fatted beast reduced, in all probability, to nothing but a carcass. Or, to put it another way, the festive time must lead to a time of reform.

In addition, the play has already provided evidence that Falstaff is not in good shape, beyond the damage caused by his obvious problems with obesity and gluttony. The doctor has already ruled that Sir John ‘might have more diseases than he knew for’ (1.2.4-5). Also, it is quite possible, as Hostess Quickly believes, that Pistol injures him in either the ‘groin’ or the ‘belly’ during their brief sword-play (2.4.207-208). Falstaff's unbridled lifestyle probably accounts for the diseases; yet it also accounts for his immense fatness and festive presence; that is, while creating some deterioration of the body, it also has provided a certain sustenance of girth and wit. The potential cut from Pistol, on the other hand, suggests the possibility of a bloody destruction of the body, even if Jack's humor will allow the party to continue. In fact, having driven out Pistol, Falstaff orders music to be played (2.4.224), Doll speaks lovingly to him (268-272), and the return of the Prince and Poins (281), ready to try another practical joke on Falstaff, completes both the old Boar's Head gang and sets up the return of the old, festive environment. In this sense, strangely, Falstaff's potentially broken body, even as much as his whole body, allows for the return and continuance of communal festivity.

In addition, while Doll's words certainly intimate the eventual end of the feast, they also point to the period which will follow its conclusion, a period of social, political, and spiritual reform. Doll believes that Falstaff must leave his festive and disorderly ways if he is to have some chance of being prepared for heaven. That is, Falstaff must reform his life and make the seasonal transition from feast to Lent. The Lenten season, of course, necessarily includes thoughts of one's end, for it includes Good Friday, the remembrance of Christ's own ‘end’ in crucifixion. But the metaphor of Christ's death and resurrection also makes clear the concept of the death of the old man and the birth of the new man.²⁵ Therefore, when Doll suggests that Falstaff quit his old life in preparation for the new, her suggestion is clearly Lenten.²⁶

In this regard, it comes as no particular surprise that while the discussion of Falstaff's needed reform is on the table, the metaphors immediately shift from festive to Lenten. Tellingly, Falstaff believes that Hal and Poins eat ‘conger and fennel,’ that is, a fish dish, appropriate for Lent (2.4.243). It must be remembered that in this scene Hal and Poins are listening to Falstaff's descriptions of them (231-281), and, as it turns out, Falstaff is aware of their presence, even as he boldly degrades them (305-308). Further, Falstaff appears to be right in his Lenten analysis of Hal, because the prince indeed provides threats and insults that seem directed at Falstaff's hoped-for reform. The outraged prince, once again foiled in his attempt to one-up the humor of the fat knight, exclaims, ‘Why, thou globe of sinful continents, what a life thou dost lead!’ (2.4.284-285). Hal also threatens to ‘draw’ Falstaff ‘out by the ears’ (288-289), a punishment, as Bevington makes clear, which would be appropriate for a ‘naughty child’ (824). In these rebukes, Hal reprises the previous words of the Chief Justice, and, in doing so, sets himself up as supporter more of political time and order than of the festive world he has helped to create and sustain. But Falstaff will not take Hal's hints, just as he would not take those of the Chief Justice, and merrily calls the prince a ‘whoreson mad compound of majesty,’ a title which the fluctuating Hal, shouting for reform in this den of festivity, may well deserve (293). Poins, preferring Falstaff's humor to Hal's self-righteous indignation, asks the prince to ease up, saying of Sir John, ‘My lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all to merriment, if you take not the heat’ (297-298). If Hal will not be offended, or take the hypocritical position of being politically or morally self-righteous, all may again be merry. But Poins's mild rebuke of Hal also demonstrates that the prince still is deficient in humor; not only could he not play a proper joke on Francis the waiter in Part One; he also cannot take a joke here. And once again, as in 1 Henry IV, it is obvious that Hal does not master ‘all humours,’ but that Falstaff does. This fact, that Hal still needs to learn the festive mastery inherent in Sir John—needs to learn Jack's ability to move among all classes, creating a sense of community and solidarity—provides further evidence for why the Feast of Falstaff continues in the plays.

Indeed, Hal does attempt to take Poins's advice and to return to a reasonably festive mood. He changes his tone to the ironic in addressing Falstaff and the not-so-virtuous Doll, saying, ‘You whoreson candle-mine you, how vilely did you speak of me even now before this honest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!’ (2.4.299-301). Though ‘whoreson’ is a mere repetition of Falstaff's own insult of Hal, ‘candle-mine,’ which Bevington describes as ‘a magazine or storehouse of tallow,’ represents a return to the meaty, fatty metaphors which Hal so consistently applies to Sir John (824). Within the context of 2 Henry IV, Hal's name-calling also restates the candle metaphor used by the Chief Justice, as discussed above; as such, even in coining a familiar, festive metaphor in reference to Falstaff, Hal also associates himself with the official order so clearly represented in the person and words of the Chief Justice. The result, I think, is that Hal highlights in this one line the tension between his festive self and his royal self. However, when Falstaff argues that he did not realize that Hal would be able to hear the insults and was, therefore, not purposefully trying the prince's patience, Hal returns to his anger and promises to ‘drive’ Sir John ‘to confess the willful abuse’ (2.4.310-311). Therefore, to summarize Hal's actions in this scene, we find that he revisits the festive setting of the Boar's Head, lowers his status to that of a waiter in attempting to play a joke on Falstaff, fails in the joke, angrily berates the knight for his ‘sinful’ life, returns to the use of festive metaphors, and then attempts to force Falstaff to confess and reform. In the course of several minutes, then, Hal wildly fluctuates between participating in festivity and attempting to initiate reform. Rather than moving clearly from festivity to reform, as his plan states, he teeters between the two positions. His actions do not redeem time, but merely keep it in flux.

And this idea that the time is unstable—that the division between festivity and reform is unclear, even potentially violated, at this time and place—soon is brought into even sharper focus. Falstaff, in attempting to defend his humorous indictment of this ‘wicked’ band of friends, alleges that Hostess Quickly has allowed ‘flesh to be eaten in [her] house, contrary to the law’ (2.4.343-344). As Bevington explains, Falstaff here alludes to the prohibition of meat sales during Lent, which Hostess Quickly has apparently violated (824). Indeed, she admits as much, saying in response, ‘All victuallers do so. What's a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?’ (2.4.345-346). This exchange emphasizes a certain duplicity inherent in the Boar's Head at this moment. Now that his costume and joke have failed to promote his own reputation, Hal is all for the reform of Falstaff, whom the prince has previously supported in all sorts of disorderly activity. In returning to the Boar's Head and donning the costume of the lowly drawer, Hal desires not only a swig of small beer, but participation in a humorous prank on the aging knight. When the joke does not work, a mounting problem for the prince, he no longer wants to play or participate in the social leveling, despite the fact that he initiated the situation, or at least his disguised and, therefore, lowered status within it. Instead, he now wants to reform the situation, regain his princely privilege, and thereby outface the fat knight with power if not with wit. Hal wants to, in essence, control the movement from the feast to Lent, to keep the movement consistent with his own change from madcap prince to glorious, sunshiny king. But at this moment, his control is shown to be less than complete, for just as the official policy of no meat during Lent is significantly refuted or ignored by ‘all victuallers,’ his princely power to change the season from festive to Lenten is significantly refuted or ignored by Falstaff and the gang.

It is little wonder, then, that Hal leaves this scene with one view of the current time—a view centered on reform—while Falstaff, desiring that the festive period be maintained, leaves with a quite opposite view. When news of the war arrives at the tavern, Hal immediately feels guilt for participating in festivity while such serious matters of war and politics call for his attention. He says, ‘By heaven, Poins, I feel much to blame / So idly to profane the precious time […]’ (2.4.361-362). He quickly arms, says goodnight, and leaves (365). Falstaff, on the other hand, feels not guilt but disappointment at the interruption of the festivity, saying, ‘Now comes in the sweetest morsel of the night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked’ (366-367). As one might expect, Hal welcomes the apparent end of the festive period, which he clearly no longer masters, while Falstaff mourns this incomplete conclusion to one more festive evening.

This exchange clarifies the potentially opposing views of Falstaff and Hal, and suggests that Hal's plan for the Feast of Falstaff has taken on a life of its own. The problem, of course, with the sort of festive leveling that Hal has so promoted throughout the course of 1 Henry IV and which he, at least by his mere presence back at the Boar's Head and his change into the costume of the drawer, continues to promote is that those at the top of hierarchy may well be exposed as hypocrites; as Kiernan Ryan states, the creation of ‘a prospect of egalitarian community’ may well discover ‘the national and royal principles of union as frauds’ (112).²⁷ Such seems to be the case in this scene, where Hal is back on location set to participate, but when the festive occasion works to promote the mirth of the funny Falstaff rather than the myth of the common, madcap prince, he no longer enjoys it. That is, when the festivity is no longer useful to him, Hal would prefer to leave the ‘holiday’ at the Boar's Head and return to the ‘everyday’ of English politics and the war.

Falstaff, of course, is not only not ready for such a shift, but is unwilling to accept its necessity. He will instead view the movement towards ‘serious business’ as an interruption, rather than an end, to festivity. In addition, Hal's desire that the festive time end if he is no longer in control of it parallels his father's desire to see the civil wars end so that he may go visit the Holy Land and help with the crusades, a penitential (i.e. Lenten) desire. But Hal, like his father, may plan the time—a trip to the Holy Land or a period of prodigality—but he cannot enforce the time, as it were. Henry plans and often discusses his wish to go to Jerusalem, but his arrival there, in a room named ‘Jerusalem’ rather than in the city, is ironic (4.5.234-240). Meanwhile, Hal's desire to control the metaphorical feast that he has created and sustained becomes fraught with irony, and for the same reasons. After all, Henry desires political harmony and unity, but it is he himself who, in usurping Richard's throne, disrupted England's politics. Richard gained the kingship through inheritance, but Henry gained the kingship through opportunism, popularity, and ability. Now, both Henry and Hal want the rule of inheritance restored, and Henry is willing to do penance in the Holy Wars to gild his faults, settle civil war, and generally distract the people from seeing Hal's inherited kingship as an irony.

In the same manner as his father, Hal creates the disorder for his benefit and then wishes to restore the old order for his benefit, as well. But just as Henry's rule remains cankered by the civil strife that he initially helped to create, Hal's attempt to move away from the feast he created, from the social leveling he encouraged, is not entirely possible. Like Northumberland, helping Henry to the throne but then remaining more loyal to rebellion than to any particular rule,²⁸ Falstaff, while helpful to Hal's festive and political strategy, remains far more loyal to festivity than to politics. Thus, Hal's wavering desire to move from small beer to royal majesty, from a season of prodigality to one of reform, remains, just as the English political situation and the time within the tavern, mixed and unstable.

After Hal and Falstaff leave their final meeting at the Boar's Head, they will retain their differing attitudes towards feasting, festivity, reform, and politics. The guilty Hal will work towards reconciliation with his political and penitential father, and the prince will attempt to end the metaphorical feast he has created as he rises towards the kingship. Falstaff, on the other hand, will continue to use his wit and find independent sponsorship to ensure the feast's continuance.²⁹

Justice Shallow will become this festive sponsor, and his willingness to function in such a role is initially born out of a nostalgia for earlier festive times with the young Falstaff. In reminiscing with Justice Silence, ‘lusty Shallow’ recalls,

And I may say to you, we knew where the bona robas were and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. […] The same Sir John, the very same. I see him break Scoggin's head at the court gate, when ‘a was a crack not thus high. And the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray's Inn. Jesu, Jesu, the mad days I have spent! And to see how many of my old acquaintances are dead!

(3.2.22-26, 29-35)

At this moment, Shallow has not seen his old companion, Falstaff, but the mere remembrance of young Jack refreshes memories of prostitution, fighting, and generally disorderly conduct. Even more, the most specific memory, of Shallow's fight with Sampson Stockfish, alludes to the English saturnalian rituals, and especially the Battle between Carnival and Lent, which Rhodes so clearly explains (16, 103, 115-117). Recalling his reckless social and sexual behavior, Shallow remembers himself in opposition to ‘stockfish,’ part of the Lenten diet. In remembering Falstaff, he remembers a time of festive plenty, a time of beating back Lenten deprivation. And while Shallow's present life is caught up in agricultural management—he twice asks after prices of livestock (3.2.39, 50)—his mind wavers from his everyday business to holiday memory.³⁰

Precisely at Shallow's moment of mental flux, Falstaff arrives. Shallow continues with his chattering nostalgia, ultimately forcing Falstaff to acknowledge that they ‘have heard the chimes at midnight’ (3.2.214). Those times, however, are both past and largely imagined, according to Falstaff (300-324). Nonetheless, Shallow's desire to be a part of whatever it is that Falstaff represents is clear: Shallow invites him to dinner (108, 218), hopes that Falstaff will make a return visit (293), and asks to go with him to the court (295). Certainly, it can be argued that Shallow has in mind his own political advantage as his final request makes clear, but the ridiculous pandering for Falstaff's attention also demonstrates a desire for the festivity, wit, and fullness which Falstaff represents in the past and in the present. Therefore, just as Hal creates the idea of the feast that Falstaff then more than accommodates, Shallow imagines a past and present brotherhood with Sir John, which the knight also accommodates. Obviously, Falstaff takes advantage of the situations, as he openly declares, saying, ‘If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him’ (328-330). If Shallow wishes to feed off Falstaff's festivity, then Falstaff feels free to feed off Shallow's misguided generosity. As Jack says, ‘Let time shape, and there an end’ (330-331).

This remark is crucial because it points out a philosophical difference between Hal and Falstaff. Hal makes clear in his 1 Henry IV soliloquy that he intends to shape the time for his own political end and advantage. Falstaff, on the other hand, fits his festive shape—plump since birth—into the space that time provides. When Hal needs a festive companion to fulfill his political plans, Falstaff is there, willing to fill the need. When Shallow wants the same, Falstaff is there again. Both Hal and Shallow attempt to shape their times and futures, while Falstaff is merely an opportunist, or, as Dennis Quinn states, ‘a great improviser, infinitely nimble at turning events and circumstances in his favor’ (107).³¹ For example, Hal means to kill Hotspur and gain his honor; Falstaff merely picks up the dead body and claims the credit. Hal wants to show off his wit and ability by playing jokes on Falstaff; Falstaff merely turns the jokes to his own advantage. Shallow wants to get political preference from his relationship to Falstaff; Falstaff merely makes him pay for the expectation.³² Clearly, within the political plans of both Hal and Shallow, there is space for Falstaff's festivity.

Falstaff also uses his old tricks to gain enough support to maintain his festive lifestyle. Following Prince John's treachery to foil Mowbray, Hastings, and the Archbishop of York, Falstaff arrives late on the scene and gladly accepts the cowardly surrender of Sir John Coleville (4.3.1-23). Falstaff credits his strange victory to his belly—the clearest bodily evidence of his festive life—claiming that Coleville recognizes the fat knight because of his well-known heft and surrenders to him based on his reputation (18-22). As he did in the case of Hotspur, Falstaff gets credit for doing nothing except being present, and he gains as a result. In fact, Prince John ultimately promises that he shall ‘better speak of you [Falstaff] than you deserve’ (4.3.84). The festive Falstaff, then, once again gains from sheer opportunism.

However, Falstaff realizes that Prince John represents a sort of Lenten sobriety that appears dangerous to the continuance of festivity. Prince John will do and say anything to maintain and restore the hierarchical order. Falstaff, on the other hand, works constantly and without conscience for a sort of social and political leveling. His wit represents this leveling, and he immediately notes that Prince John lacks ‘wit’ (4.3.85). Moreover, Falstaff states,

Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man cannot make him laugh. But that's no marvel; he drinks no wine. There's never none of these demure boys come to any proof, for thin drink doth so overcool their blood, and making many fish meals, that they fall into a kind of male greensickness, and then, when they marry, they get wenches.

(4.3.85-92)

His strange genetic theories aside, Falstaff does here provide a clear interpretation of the difference between Prince John and Sir John. Prince John is a serious-minded teetotaler; he drinks no wine, is not prone to levity, and eats too much fish. In other words, the political Prince John is, in comparison to the festive Falstaff, the representative of Lent; as Leo Salingar demonstrates, Falstaff's ‘antipathy to Prince John’ provides another instance in 2 Henry IV of Jack's interest in the ‘inequality between the Fat and the Lean’ (202-203).³³ And while Falstaff's fat guts may make Coleville surrender, the Lenten Prince John is still in charge of the campaign and holds the purse strings to any benefit Falstaff will receive for his military service.

The realization of being overmastered, at least in the military sphere, by a young, Lenten prince, prompts Falstaff to mock Lenten sobriety and extol the virtues of sack. Sack, he asserts, has two major qualities: it produces ‘excellent wit’ (4.3.101) and prompts military courage (101-115). The speech concludes by focusing on the benefit of sack to Prince Hal. Falstaff declares,

Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant, for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured and tilled with excellent endeavor of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

(4.3.115-123)

Remembering that the sober Prince John is the partaker of ‘thin drink’ (90), we understand Falstaff's hope that Hal will addict himself to that bombard of sack, Sir John himself. But the length of the speech and its overwrought persuasive tone suggest that Falstaff anxiously notes a conflict here between Hal's genetic ‘inheritance’ and his festive behavior. Falstaff wants Hal to continue nurturing his thin blood with festive sack, but the knight recognizes that by nature Hal, like Henry and John, is not a representative of feasting and festivity, but of sober politics.³⁴ Falstaff hopes here that his adopted son, Hal, has indeed become addicted to festivity, but like the audience, Jack is not sure.

And neither is Henry sure. In the following scene, the sickly king worries that Hal's ‘headstrong riot hath no curb’ and will lead the country into ‘unguided days / And rotten times’ (4.4.59-62). Warwick attempts to diffuse the king's worry, claiming that

The Prince but studies his companions
Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,
'Tis needful that the most immodest word
Be looked upon and learned, which, once attained,
Your Highness knows, comes to no further use
But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,
The Prince will in the perfectness of time
Cast off his followers, and their memory
Shall as a pattern or a measure live
By which His Grace must mete the lives of other,
Turning past evils to advantages.

(4.4.67-78)

Warwick's words here provide a concise explanation of Hal's own previously stated intentions and, therefore, seem accurate and insightful. However, like Falstaff, Henry questions which way Hal will ultimately turn—towards riot or right rule, towards festive sack or the thin potations associated with the sober Prince John. The question, then, for Henry and Falstaff, is not so much whether Hal has a political plan at work in his roguery. Rather, the question is whether or not, having created, sustained, and participated in the metaphorical Feast of Falstaff, Hal will be able to tear himself away from the festive occasion. He may find himself addicted to the spirit of community and festivity, as Falstaff hopes the prince is addicted to sack. In fact, Henry notes in reference to Hal, “Tis seldom when the bee doth leave her comb / In the dead carrion’ (4.4.79-80).

Henry's words here, so concisely stated, actually provide a summary for the concerns of Hal and the feast up to this point in the play. Hal's soliloquy early in 1 Henry IV explains his plan to use the Boar's Head gang as a present foil to planned reformation. Indeed, Hal may still believe in his plan to ‘imitate the sun,’ but clearly Falstaff and Henry remain skeptical. And why not? As noted, Poins has earlier directly stated to Hal that the prince's attempt to demonstrate filial devotion would appear hypocritical. Still, all of the public skepticism regarding Hal's behavior and reformation might be put to rest were it not for the desires of the prince himself. He still pines for ‘small beer,’ practical jokes, and the festive community which surrounds Falstaff. Further, he worries over the responsibility of the crown, which, he states, has proved ‘so troublesome a bedfellow’ for his father (4.5.22).

When Hal imprudently takes the crown from the pillow of his sleeping father, he finds, once again, that the low expectations, which he has fostered for his public image and political plan, are also engrained in his father's sensibilities.³⁵ Assuming his son's continued prodigality (4.5.64-79), Henry bitterly asks Hal,

Dost thou so hunger for mine empty chair
That thou wilt needs invest thee with my honors
Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth,
Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.

(4.5.94-97)

Strangely, the import of Henry's message here mirrors the image that Falstaff establishes early in the play. Falstaff, in referring to his witty self as a ‘sow,’ proclaims that he has ‘overwhelmed all her litter but one’ (1.2.12), and the idea seems to be that the remaining ‘one,’ Prince Hal, will also be overwhelmed by Sir John's fat wit shortly. Now, Henry states that he, or at least his kingly position, will overwhelm Hal, and with the same result. That is, while Falstaff desires that, with Hal at the head, the state will turn towards tolerant festivity,³⁶ Henry worries that his eldest son will encourage his citizenship to ‘swear, drink, dance, / Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit / The oldest sins the newest kind of ways’ (4.5.124-126). To the dying king, the combined weight of Falstaff's influence and the rigors of the kingship will crush Hal's kingdom into ‘riot’ (135). And while Hal refutes his father's concerns and attempts to explain his unruly behavior as part of his larger scheme, the issues Henry has raised are not so easily resolved (138-176). After all, in both parts of Henry IV, Henry has consistently returned to his worries about Hal's wild behavior. Falstaff, and many others from all segments of the social spectrum—such as Hotspur, Lord Bardolph, Poins, Justice Shallow, and Doll Tearsheet—also expect the continuance of Hal's roguery. And Hal himself, in his cravings for liquor and festivity and his still unbroken association with Falstaff, Poins, and others of the old gang, gives substance to these expectations. The lure of the feast—including its qualities of social leveling, laughter, wit, wine, and food—may be too much to give up. And it is this particular tension between politics and festivity that continues to hold sway at this moment late in 2 Henry IV.

But before Act Four concludes, the tone shifts clearly into the penitential. Henry, very near death, reflects on his life and confesses to Hal, ‘God knows, my son, / By what bypaths and indirect crook'd ways / I met this crown’ (4.5.183-185). In the same speech, he reasserts this theme, saying, ‘How I came by the crown, O God forgive, / And grant it may with thee in true peace live!’ (218-219). Having confessed to his son, he now prepares to die (240). In this sense, while Hal is trying to achieve the goal of his planned reformation, his father shows signs of authentic repentance.

Meanwhile, however, Falstaff is again in the middle of a feast, this time provided by Justice Shallow (5.1.25-27). Once again, Sir John's presence breaks in on Shallow's daily running of his business, but the justice gladly takes time out from his duties in hopes of using Falstaff for political advantage (28-31). At the same time, Falstaff plans to use Shallow, as well. Jack says that he ‘will devise matter enough out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of six fashions, which is four terms, or two actions, and ‘a shall laugh without intervallums’ (76-80). Falstaff hopes, then, that in feasting with Shallow, he can store up a quantity of mirth to keep Hal in a festive spirit.

The contrapuntal nature of the shifts between the spirit of festivity and the spirit of Lenten reform is useful in building the necessary suspense for the conclusion of the play. The constant shifting from the festive mirth of Falstaff, to the sobriety and repentance of Prince John and Henry, plays out like a tennis match between holiday and political everyday. Back and forth, the audience turns from the laughter of community to the serious business of running the state, the attraction of wit versus the responsibility of sound policy. Even the Lord Chief Justice, Warwick, Prince John, and Clarence see this tension, assuming that ‘all will be overturned’ (5.2.19). They believe that Hal will choose not the always sober and lawful Chief Justice, but the always-festive Falstaff, as his companion at court (33-34). Counter to their fears, however, Hal does embrace them, saying, ‘I'll be your father and your brother too’ (57). When the Chief Justice continues to explain himself and his previous attempts to curb the wild Prince Hal, the new king not only accepts the explanation, but tells the justice, ‘You shall be as father to my youth’ (118). Further, Henry V states, he will now reform himself and, in so doing, live to ‘mock the expectation of the world, / To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out / Rotten opinion who hath writ me down / After my seeming’ (126-129). Once again, the tide seems to shift back to Lenten reform, right rule, and order.

But almost as soon as the young king unveils his new, kingly self, the scene shifts back to Falstaff, and the audience is once again looking in on festivity and, specifically, a drunken feast at the home of Justice Shallow (5.3). The business-minded Shallow is intoxicated, and the formerly reserved Silence has, with the constant encouragement of Falstaff, become the life of the party. In fact, Silence's songs provide a bit of a summary of the current situation, as well as foreshadowing what is to come. In his first song, Silence says that current company shall

‘Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer,
And praise God for the merry year,
When flesh is cheap and females dear,
And lusty lads roam here and there
So merrily,
And ever among so merrily.’

(5.3.17-22)

Obviously, the song captures the essence of the current festivity and contrasts to the somber reformation that Henry V has promised in the previous scene. In addition, in suggesting that ‘flesh is cheap,’ Silence also notes that the time is clearly not Lenten, when meat prices would be largely irrelevant and highly inflated by the black market; if Silence is suggesting low prices for human flesh, then, similarly, he is celebrating the festivity of the tavern, as opposed to religious or political restraint.

And Silence, in his next ditty, goes on to specify the nature of the time, singing,

‘Be merry, be merry, my wife has all,
For women are shrews, both short and tall.
'Tis merry in hall when beards wags all,
And welcome merry Shrovetide.
Be merry, be merry.’

(5.3.32-36)

By mentioning Shrovetide, the three-day feast before Ash Wednesday, Silence notes the nature of the party. That is, the wild abandon, the drinking and carousing, the laughter and singing, are heightened by the expectation of their end. As Peter J. Seng points out, the drunken Silence appears to enjoy himself and his revelry all the more because he knows that the feast will conclude, giving way to a Lenten fast (31-40).³⁷ This prediction could easily be seen as being born out of Silence's basic understanding of liturgical time; the feast always gives way to the fast, and so why should the present circumstance proceed in any other manner?

Still, the audience does not witness such a clear liturgical progression. Instead, one scene earlier, they witnessed the beginnings of Prince Hal's Lenten reform, and yet the feast, with Falstaff still at the center, obviously continues and is even heightened here in the home of Justice Shallow. Are Henry V and his new counselors out of time in starting the Lent early, or is Falstaff out of time by continuing the feast? Just because the feast cannot last forever, as Doll, Silence, and others point out, can we assume that it is over because the new king says that it is over? The answer, clearly, is ‘no.’ Though Hal has the ability, just as his father did previously in usurping Richard's throne, to manipulate time and use it to his advantage, he does not bear ultimate sway over its shifts and movements. Festivity appears much easier to support than to dismantle and fits itself into available space, just as Falstaff fits his own opportunism into the spaces provided by Hal's and Shallow's political plans. Additionally, a period of reform is not always wanted or accepted just because the official documents say that it is time to switch seasons, as seen in Hostess Quickly's sale of meat during Lent. In fact, as J. Dover Wilson argues in terms of the two parts of Henry IV, ‘We are not to imagine that, because kings should be virtuous and society needs a framework of decency, order, and justice to hold it together, there shall be no more cakes and ale’ (127).³⁸

At the same time, the audience knows from the previous scene that Falstaff's becoming ‘one of the greatest men in the realm’ is unlikely in any sense but the physical (5.3.88-89). In addition, the revelers' hopes for the continuance of ‘pleasant days’ will shortly be quashed (144), or at least greatly modified. No matter how overwhelming the presence of Falstaff has been, Hostess Quickly is correct in saying that ‘right should thus overcome might’ in the sense that right rule appears to be gaining the advantage over the mighty wit and girth of Sir John (5.4.23).³⁹

All of these festive hopes and expectations seem frustrated in the play's final scene. As Henry V parades through the streets of London, Falstaff calls out to his benefactor and companion. Henry V coldly responds,

I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane,
But being awake, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing. Know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest.
Presume not that I am the thing I was,
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turned away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots.
Till then, I banish thee on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near my person by ten mile.
For competence of life, I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evils.
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give thee advancement.

(5.5.47-70)

Clearly, the king's words are full of warning and Lenten instruction. Although Henry V does promise Falstaff enough of a stipend to live on, it is clear that the king will no longer sustain the feast and festivity as in the past. In fact, the festivity that Falstaff represents will now be banished, as the young king fulfills the course of his planned reformation.

Ironically, however, Falstaff has already taken means to extend his disorderly living by borrowing a thousand pounds from Shallow and now refusing to pay it back (5.5.73-87). In addition, Sir John does not entirely believe in Henry V's harsh statement, hoping instead that the words are merely public play-acting, explaining that Henry ‘must seem thus to the world’ (77). Jack even goes so far as to claim to Shallow, ‘I will be the man yet that shall make you great’ (81-82). The audience, however, might find Falstaff's assurances hollow, as Shallow clearly does, except for the words of the Epilogue, which promise that the story will continue ‘with Sir John in it’ (26). And so the time of the feast is rebuked, maybe even reduced, but is not yet concluded. We may even, like Sir John, hold out hope that Henry V will still enlarge Falstaff and the feast and bring them to court.

Obviously, Hal does not do so. In fact, if he did, he would have to thwart the fulfillment of his own plan. That is, Hal establishes the feast to allow himself and the people to experience a sense of solidarity in a temporarily leveled social structure. But for Hal, who ultimately desires to ‘appear as the sun,’ to burst on the scene as a powerful and popular king, the class hierarchy most definitely needs to realign. Therefore, to step into the kingship, Hal knows he has to step away from the feast. To fulfill his plan, he must distance himself from his own creation, the Feast of Falstaff; once the festive device is no longer useful, he must banish the fat knight. Still, Hal's stepping away from the feast does not entirely or ultimately bring the festivity to an end. Shakespeare assures the audience, who may now find itself ‘cloyed with fat meat’ (25), that Falstaff will be back in Henry V. However, without his principal source of nourishment—Hal and his purse—‘Falstaff shall die’ (28). When he does, the Feast of Falstaff, though not festivity itself, will die with him, the time of flux will appear to end, and the Lent of Agincourt will quickly ensue.

Notes

1. For expansive discussions regarding festive time and festival celebration in Shakespeare's works and era, see especially François Laroque, Shakespeare's Festive World: Elizabethan Seasonal Entertainment and the Professional Stage, trans. by Janet Lloyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), R. Chris Hassel, Jr., Renaissance Drama and the English Church Year (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), C. L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom (New York: Meridian, 1963), and Naomi C. Liebler, Shakespeare's Festive Tragedy: The Ritual Foundations of Tragedy (New York: Routledge, 1995).

2. See Robert B. Bennett, ‘Four Stages of Time: The Shape of History in Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy,’ Shakespeare Studies 19 (1987): 61-85. In asserting that 2 Henry IV demonstrates the ‘purge of vice and folly’ (77), Bennett largely agrees with Neil Rhodes' perspective as discussed in the previous chapter, but Bennett also makes the general assertion that, within Part Two,

   Timing, which had been the talent enabling man to cope with immediate time, whether in wit, combat, political strategy, or martial encounter, is no longer within man's power and is no longer, at this stage of the historical cycle, a major factor in shaping events.

   (74)

   Concerning Hal's planned reformation, I would agree, though the statement appears overly broad, especially when we consider the extremely precise timing of Prince John's battlefield deception/defeat of the Archbishop, Mowbray, and Hastings (4.1).

3. See Paul Dean, ‘Forms of Time: Some Elizabethan Two-Part History Plays,’ Renaissance Studies 4 (1990): 410-430. Dean explains that the two-part play often allowed ‘the dramatist to oppose, or examine the relationship between, two visions of Time’ (419).

4. See Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of The Human (New York: Riverhead Books, 1980) 271-318. Bloom notes that, from the beginning of 1 Henry IV, Hal has three plans, to ‘wait for Henry IV to die (as quickly as possible), kill Hotspur and appropriate his “honour,” have Falstaff hanged’ (302-303).

5. According to the The Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 ed., and as explained in the previous chapter, ‘brawn,’ a term which Hal used earlier to describe Falstaff (1 Henry IV, 2.4.109), means ‘a boar (or swine) fattened for the table.’

6. See Paul M. Cubeta, ‘Falstaff and the Art of Dying,’ Studies in English Literature 27 (1987): 197-211. Cubeta states, ‘In the life of Falstaff, Shakespeare has embodied rituals, folk tales, conventions, festivals […] familiar to an Elizabethan audience […]’ (198).

7. Anita Hembold, ‘King of the Revels or King of the Rebels?: Sir John Falstaff Revisited,’ The Upstart Crow 16 (1996): 70-91. Hembold compares and contrasts Falstaff to several characters within the two parts of Henry IV, but the difference between Falstaff and the Chief Justice is, understandably, most stark.

8. Recall in 1 Henry IV that, when Hal and Poins steal Falstaff's horse at the Gad's Hill robbery, Hal says that Falstaff ‘lards the lean earth as he walks along,’ an event which produces laughter in the young prince (2.2.108).

9. See Jack R. Sublette, ‘The Distorted Time in 2 Henry IV,’ Essays on Shakespeare: In Honour of A. A. Ansari, ed. T. R. Sharma (Meerut, India: Shalabh Book House, 1986) 195-210. Sublette makes clear both the extent and impact of the ‘unquiet time.’

10. For a differing view on the communication between the Chief Justice and Falstaff, see Joseph A. Porter, The Drama of Speech Acts: Shakespeare's Lancastrian Tetralogy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979) 100-109. Porter believes that the Chief Justice scores a ‘victory’ over Falstaff in these scenes (109).

11. Though early in 2 Henry IV Morton provides Northumberland with an accurate account of Hal's victory over Hotspur (1.1.105-111), Hal himself allows Falstaff to take credit for the feat at the conclusion of Part One (5.4.155-156). In addition, Coleville's surrender to Falstaff is apparently based on Sir John's military reputation which, within the context of the plays, lacks any substance other than his self-proclaimed victory over Harry Percy (2 Henry IV, 4.3.1-23). Also see Maurice Hunt, ‘The Hybrid Reformations of Shakespeare's Second Henriad,’ Comparative Drama 32 (1998): 176-206. Hunt writes,

    Prince Hal has fallen into his former prodigal way of living partly because Falstaff cleverly wrested from him the credit for killing Hotspur, the deed upon which Hal's scripted reformation depended for its long-term credibility.

    (185)

12. In 1 Henry IV, Henry enumerates the ways in which Hal has ‘lost [his] princely privilege’ (3.2.29-91).

13. See Daniel Seltzer, ‘Prince Hal and the Tragic Style,’ Shakespeare Survey 30 (1977): 25-26. In explicating this scene, Seltzer shows how the conflict of Hal's political purpose versus his desire for ‘small beer’ makes him grow in ‘inner emotional content’ (26).

14. As Henry V, of course, he does share another scene with Sir John and publicly rejects him (5.5). For more on why Shakespeare keeps Hal and Falstaff apart in 2 Henry IV, see J. McLaverty, ‘No Abuse: The Prince and Falstaff in the Tavern Scenes of Henry IV,’ Shakespeare Survey 34 (1981): 105-110.

15. For an alternate interpretation, see Judith Mossman, ‘Plutarch and Shakespeare's Henry IV Parts 1 and 2,’ Poetica 48 (1997): 99-117.

16. Regarding the risky nature of Hal's shifting character, Mossman disagrees, saying that it is that very quality which ‘becomes the engine which drives the plot and leads to the downfall of the East Cheap characters’ (108).

17. I will cite further instances of Hal's negative reactions to Falstaff's wit in 2 Henry IV. Of these instances, Bloom goes so far as to say that ‘[n]o scholarly detractor of Falstaff, old- or new-style, is so disgusted by Sir John as Hal reveals himself to be’ (302).

18. See Derick R. C. Marsh, ‘Hal and Hamlet: the Loneliness of Integrity,’ Jonson and Shakespeare, ed. Ian Donaldson (Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1983) 18-34.

19. On this point, See G. K. Hunter, ‘Notes on the Genre of the History Play,’ Shakespeare's English Histories: A Quest for Form and Genre, ed. John W. Velz (Binghamton, New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1996) 229-240. Hunter succinctly states that ‘Falstaff is as keen to make political profit out of Hal as Hal is to make a killing out of Falstaff’ (238).

20. See also, especially, A. C. Bradley, ‘The Rejection of Falstaff,’ Oxford Lectures on Poetry (London: Macmillan, 1909) 247-273. For a somewhat harsher appraisal of Hal's treatment of Falstaff, see Bloom as listed above.

21. See John W. Blanpied, Time and the Artist in Shakespeare's English Histories (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983) 190-95. Blanpied discusses Hal's apprehensions concerning his coming kingship.

22. Daryl W. Palmer, Hospitable Performances: Dramatic Genre and Cultural Practices in Early Modern England (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1992).

23. According to The Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 ed., a ‘hogshead’ is specifically ‘a caskful of liquor; a liquid measure containing 63 old wine-gallons (equal to 52 1/2 imperial gallons).’

24. The Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 ed., specifies that ‘Bordeaux’ generally signifies ‘claret.’

25. See John 3:1-21, Ephesians 4:21-24, Colossians 3:8-10.

26. See Robin Headlam Wells and Alison Birkinshaw, ‘Falstaff, Prince Hal and the New Song,’ Shakespeare Studies 18 (1986): 111-112. Wells and Birkinshaw astutely point out that Falstaff should not be read merely as ‘a symbolic embodiment of the unregenerate man’ (111), nor as ‘the wild, untamed aspect of Hal's nature,’ because ‘the play is not an allegory’ (112).

27. Kiernan Ryan, ‘The Future of Henry IV,’ Henry IV, Parts One and Two, ed. Nigel Wood (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1995) 92-125.

28. In Richard II, Richard foreshadows Northumberland's continued rebellion when the deposed king tells him, ‘thou, which knowest the way / To plant unrightful kings, wilt know again […]’ (5.1.62-63).

29. See Michael Goldman, ‘History-Making in the Henriad,’ Shakespearean Illuminations: Essays in Honor of Marvin Rosenberg, ed Jay L. Halio and Hugh Richmond (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998) 203-219. Goldman states, ‘And so the scene ends, with a heightened sense of busyness, of new purpose, and of greater urgency. Both time and the effort to organize time are speeding up. Rapid movement in time and space are insisted on’ (209). This quotation would support this scene perfectly; unfortunately it is Goldman's comment on 1 Henry IV, 1.1. Nonetheless, the pressure Goldman feels in Henry's opening speech may very well provide the inertia that will eventually create the pendulous effect of 2 Henry IV.

30. Anita Helmbold finds that Falstaff's association with Shallow, whom Jack calls ‘the very genius of famine’ (312-313) complements the audience's image of Falstaff as the genius of feast (80, line numbers hers).

31. Dennis Quinn, ‘Pastimes of the Prince: Hal and Eutrapalia,’ Ben Jonson Journal 4 (1997): 103-114.

32. Palmer cites ‘Barabas, Don John, the Macbeths, and Lear's evil daughters’ as characters who use ‘hospitality against the host’ (36), though, obviously, in much more brutal ways than those employed by Falstaff.

33. Leo Salingar, ‘Falstaff and the Life of the Shadows,’ Shakespearean Comedy, ed. Maurice Charney (New York: New York Literary Forum, 1980) 185-205. As shown in the previous chapter, Falstaff plays with this idea throughout 1 Henry IV, as well.

34. See J. A. B. Somerset, ‘Falstaff, the Prince, and the Pattern of 2 Henry IV,’ Shakespeare Survey 30 (1977): 35-45. In noting Hal's ultimate rejection of Falstaff, Somerset states, ‘significantly, [Hal's] profligacy goes no farther than “the poor creature, small beer”—a far cry from the addiction to sack proposed by Falstaff!’ (44).

35. For more on this business of impatiently waiting to receive the king's crown, see Henry D. Janowitz, ‘Prince Hamlet and Prince Hal: The Trial of Crowns,’ Shakespeare Newsletter 50 (2000): 21. Janowitz states concerning Hal, ‘like his father, he has taken the crown too soon’ (21).

36. Falstaff's desire for festive tolerance is clear almost from the first moment when the two appear in 1 Henry IV; Jack tells the prince, ‘Do not, when thou art king, hang a thief’ (1.2.59-60).

37. See Peter J. Seng, ‘Songs, Time, and the Rejection of Falstaff,’ Shakespeare Survey 15 (1962): 31-40. Seng's essay provides an excellent analysis of how Shakespeare uses songs to elucidate characters and themes in 2 Henry IV.

38. J. Dover Wilson, The Fortunes of Falstaff (Cambridge: Macmillan, 1944).

39. Bevington suggests that the ‘hostess gets this [“right … might”] backward’ (846, bracket mine). In terms of the maxim, she does, though not in terms of the context.

Bibliography

Barber, C. L. Shakespeare's Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and its Relation to Social Custom. New York: Meridian, 1963.

Bennett, Robert B. ‘Four Stages of Time: The Shape of History in Shakespeare's Second Tetralogy.’ Shakespeare Studies 19 (1987): 61-85.

Bevington, David, ed. The Complete Works of Shakespeare. By William Shakespeare. Updated 4^th ed. New York: Longman, 1997.

Blanpied, John W. Time and the Artist in Shakespeare's English Histories. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983.

Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998.

Bradley, A. C. ‘The Rejection of Falstaff.’ Oxford Lectures on Poetry. London: Macmillan, 1909. 247-273.

Cubeta, Paul M. ‘Falstaff and the Art of Dying.’ Studies in English Literature 27 (1987): 197-211.

Dean, Paul. ‘Forms of Time: Some Elizabethan Two-Part History Plays.’ Renaissance Studies 4 (1990): 410-430.

Goldman, Michael. ‘History-Making in the Henriad.’ Shakespearean Illuminations: Essays in Honor of Marvin Rosenberg. Ed. Jay L. Halio and Hugh Richmond. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1998. 203-219.

Hassel, R. Chris Jr. ‘Fluellan: Wars of Discipline and “Disciplines of Wars.”’ Literature and Theology 12 (1998): 350-362.

———. Renaissance Drama and the English Church Year. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979.

Hembold, Anita. ‘King of the Revels or King of the Rebels?: Sir John Falstaff Revisited.’ The Upstart Crow 16 (1996): 70-91.

Hunt, Maurice. ‘The Hybrid Reformations of Shakespeare's Second Henriad.’ Comparative Drama 32 (1998): 176-206.

Hunter, G. K. ‘Notes on the Genre of the History Play.’ Shakespeare's English Histories: A Quest for Form and Genre. Ed. John W. Velz. Binghamton, New York: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1996. 229-240.

Janowitz, Henry D. ‘Prince Hamlet and Prince Hal: The Trial of Crowns.’ Shakespeare Newsletter 50 (2000): 21.

Laroque, François. Shakespeare's Festive World: Elizabethan Seasonal Entertainment and the Professional Stage. Trans. Janet Lloyd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Liebler, Naomi C. Shakespeare's Festive Tragedy: The Ritual Foundations of Tragedy. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Marcus, Leah. The Politics of Mirth: Jonson, Herrick, Milton, Marvell, and the Defense of Old Holiday Pastimes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.

Marsh, Derick R. C. ‘Hal and Hamlet: The Loneliness of Integrity.’ Jonson and Shakespeare. Ed. Ian Donaldson. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1983. 18-34.

McLaverty, J. ‘No Abuse: The Prince and Falstaff in the Tavern Scenes of Henry IV.’ Shakespeare Survey 34 (1981): 105-110.

Mossman, Judith. ‘Plutarch and Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2.’ Poetica 48 (1997): 99-117.

The Oxford English Dictionary. 2^nd ed. 1989.

Palmer, Daryl W. Hospitable Performances: Dramatic Genre and Cultural Practices in Early Modern England. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1992.

Porter, Joseph A. The Drama of Speech Acts: Shakespeare's Lancastrian Tetralogy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.

Quinn, Dennis. ‘Pastimes of the Prince: Hal and Eutrapalia.’ Ben Jonson Journal 4 (1997): 103-114.

Rhodes, Neil. Elizabethan Grotesque. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980.

Ryan, Kiernan. ‘The Future of History in Henry IV.’ Henry IV, Parts One and Two. Ed. Nigel Wood. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1995. 92-115.

Salingar, Leo. ‘Falstaff and the Life of the Shadows.’ Shakespearean Comedy. Ed. Maurice Charney. New York: New York Literary Forum, 1980. 185-205.

Seltzer, Daniel. ‘Prince Hal and the Tragic Style.’ Shakespeare Survey 30 (1977): 13-27.

Seng, Peter J. ‘Songs, Time, and the Rejection of Falstaff.’ Shakespeare Survey 15 (1962): 31-40.

Somerset, J. A. B. ‘Falstaff, the Prince, and the Pattern of 2 Henry IV.’ Shakespeare Survey 30 (1977): 35-45.

Sublette, Jack R. ‘The Distorted Time in 2 Henry IV.’ Essays on Shakespeare: In Honour of A. A. Ansari. Ed. T. R. Sharma. Meeerut, India: Shalabh Book House, 1986. 195-210.

Wells, Robin Headlam, and Alison Birkinshaw. ‘Falstaff, Prince Hal, and the New Song.’ Shakespeare Studies 18 (1986): 103-115.

Wilson, J. Dover. The Fortunes of Falstaff. Cambridge: Macmillan, 1944.