22 forgot to forgotten how to

  23 argument theme, topic. Cf. 4.3.326–7.

  24, 25 heavy Cf. 14.

  28–9 you … sorrow your sorrowful visage is not feigned

  30 what … find what royal favour to expect

  31 ‘your hopes are bleakest’

  33 speak … fair address courteously, with respect

  18 vile] Q; vilde F 19 O God] Q; Alas F 20 SD] this edn

  34 swims … quality ‘affronts your sense of dignity’; adapted from the proverbial ‘To swim against the stream’ (Dent, S930.1)

  36 th’impartial the fair-minded, unimpeachable

  38 ragged base, beggarly. Cf. 3.2.142, 262.

  forestalled remission either (1) pardon certain to be refused even before requested, or (2) pardon secured in advance by some cowardly gesture of submission (such as the Chief Justice’s release of the thief and Prince’s servant in Famous Victories; see 7–8n. above); remission should be spoken as four syllables.

  41.1 *Prince QF’s reference to Henry as ‘Prince’ rather than ‘King’ in SPs throughout the scene, and Warwick’s calling him the Prince at 42, are puzzling. They may indicate that Shakespeare thought that Harry would assume the title of King only at his coronation; yet Warwick refers to him as the young King at 9, and Harry himself admits to feeling uncomfortable in his new role as majesty at 44–5.

  *and Blunt Q brings on Blunt as a mute attendant: cf. similar ghost appearances by Blunt at 3.1.31 and 4.2.73. I retain Q’s direction because it is unlikely that the new King would enter, as in F, unattended.

  44–5 new … me The metaphor of kingship as attire, a robe to be put on and taken off, counters the traditional belief that the king’s two bodies were indissolubly united – a belief underlying Richard’s mock divestiture of his own authority in R2 4.1.203–21. That kingship is now something less than sacramental is suggested in Henry V’s identification of it as an ‘idol ceremony’ (H5 4.1.237); and the metaphor of kingship as clothing reappears in the tragedy of the usurper Macbeth, whose title ‘Hang[s] loose about him, like a giant’s robe / Upon a dwarfish thief’ (Mac 5.2.21–2).

  36 th’impartial] Q; th’Imperiall F 38–9 remission. … me,] F; remission, … me. Q 39 truth] Q; Troth F 41.1] Enter the Prince and Blunt Q (opp. 41–2); Enter Prince Henrie. F; Enter the new King, attended. Capell; Enter King Henry V. / Malone 43 God] Q; heauen F 44 SP] K. Henry. / Theobald2; Prince. / QF passim

  48 a topical reference to the accession of Mohamet III to the Turkish Sultantate in January 1595. Just as his father Murad III (Amurath) had done at his own accession in 1574, Mohamet ordered all his brothers killed. The name Amurath had thus become a byword for barbaric tyranny, as in Jonson, The Case is Altered, 4.10.30–1: ‘I tell thee if Amurath the greate Turke were here I would speake, and he should here me’. The King seeks to reassure his brothers that in England, a civilized country, the succession will be decorous and their lives safeguarded. Richard Hillman, however, argues that the allusion to Amurath serves ‘as a powerful subversive emblem of the shadow-side of English monarchy’ under the Lancastrians (167).

  49 Harry, Harry The new King’s reference to himself as Harry confirms his ownership of the public name by which he and his father have been called throughout the play and marks a contrast with 1H4, in which he has more commonly been called Hal, the nickname by which his tavern companions presume familiarity with him. Notably, he is addressed as Hal only four times in 2H4, and exclusively by Falstaff, who employs that name most inappropriately to interrupt the King’s coronation procession (5.5.39); cf. also 2.4.317, 320, 327.

  52 deeply solemnly, feelingly. In yet another sartorial metaphor (cf. 44–5) Harry praises his brothers’ fashion of mourning and vows to ‘wear it in [his] heart’.

  54 entertain take upon yourselves

  56 For as for

  58 Let … bear1 if you’ll only let me have

  61 By number one by one

  46 mix] F (mixe); mixt Q 48 Amurath an Amurath] Q; Amurah, an Amurah F 50 by my faith] Q; (to speake truth) F 55 burden] Q; burthen F 59 Yet] Q; But F

  63 strangely in a cold or unfriendly manner, as one might look upon a stranger (OED adv. 2)

  65 measured judged

  67–71 For the incident of the Justice’s arrest of Prince Henry, see 1.2.56–7n.

  67 great hopes i.e. expectation to succeed my father as King

  69 rate berate, chide

  70 easy insignificant, of little importance (OED adj. 15)

  71 washed in Lethe In classical mythology, drinking from – not washing in – the water of Lethe, a river in Hades, induces oblivion in souls entering the underworld (Cam2). In Shakespeare, however, Lethe drowns memory: cf. R3 4.4.251–3: ‘So in the Lethe of thy angry soul / Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs / Which thou supposest I have done to thee’; and TN 4.1.61: ‘Let fancy still my sense in Lethe steep’. Scansion demands – and Q’s spelling ‘lethy’ confirms – that the final e in Lethe be pronounced. Cf. R3 4.4.251, Ham 1.5.33 and TN 4.1.61.

  72 did … of represented, acted in the name of. Technically, judges were thought to be personations of the king, himself the fountain of all justice. Humphreys cites a similar Latin phrase in John Case, Sphaera Ciuitatis (1588; 179), defining the locus of justice, ‘iudexque[m] inuadis personam tui patris gerit’. The Lord Chief Justice in Famous Victories utters an approximate translation of this sentiment to the Prince: ‘your father, whose lively person here in this place I do represent’ (4.79–80).

  73, 78, 88 image symbol

  62 otherwise] Q; other F 63 SD] Rowe (at 64), Johnson 71 Lethe] F, Q (lethy)

  75 busy … commonwealth working on behalf of the state. The Lord Chief Justice presided over the Court of King’s Bench.

  76 pleased thought it permissible (OED please v. 6a); pleasèd

  78 presented represented

  79 struck Shakespeare follows Holinshed here, where the Prince ‘had with his fist striken the cheefe iustice for sending one of his minions (vpon desert) to prison, when the iustice stoutlie commanded himselfe also streict to ward, & he (then prince) obeied’ (3.543). In Elyot and Stow, the Prince does not act on his threat to strike the Lord Chief Justice. Holinshed’s is the account reported in Famous Victories: see 1.2.56–7n.

  in … judgement literally, ‘even as I sat on the bench’; metaphorically, ‘in my position as upholder of the law of the land’

  80 as an offender This misplaced phrase modifies not the Justice himself (I, 81), but the Prince (you, 82).

  82 commit you sentence you to prison

  ill blameworthy

  83 Be you would you be

  garland crown. Cf. 4.3.330n.

  84 set … at naught violate

  85 awful worthy of respect or reverence. Though F’s spelling ‘awefull’ suggests this meaning, it would be aurally indistinguishable from Q’s awful in performance. See also 4.1.176n.

  bench See 75n.

  86 trip … law pervert justice. The image is from running a race.

  86, 102, 113 sword an emblem of justice: metaphorically, the power to enforce the law and punish offenders. Literally, as Davison observes, the Sword of Spiritual Justice is offered by the presiding Archbishop to the King at his coronation with the words, ‘With this sword do justice’.

  88 spurn at trample on, reject disdainfully (OED spurn v. 5, 3)

  75 commonwealth] Q (common wealth), F (Commonwealth) 79 struck] QF1–2 (strooke), F3 85 awful] Q, F (awefull)

  89 your … body ‘the performance of your royal will by a deputy’. On judges as the King’s second body, see 72n.

  91 propose imagine

  92 profaned debased, blasphemed. Any offence against the King’s holy personage was deemed a sacrilege (Cam2).

  93 dreadful inspiring awe or reverence; formidable. Cf. awful, 85.

  96 in your power with your authority

  soft gently

  97 cold considerance sober reflection, due consideration

  sentence me The Justice thinks it likely that the new King will imprison and execute him. Cf. 35–41.

  98 in your state impartially, according to your royal office

  101–2 The King’s decision to acquit the Justice as a consequence of his eloquent self-defence is Shakespeare’s invention. One may reasonably suspect, however, that the King has already decided to retain the Justice and is simply toying with him, forcing him – with a sadism characteristic of his humour – to plead for his life. By retaining the Justice as a surrogate ‘father to his youth’ (117), the King in effect displaces forever the anarchy of Falstaff, an assurance that lends even deeper irony to Falstaff’s bravado in 5.3. Although Stow (Annales, 547–8), notes the Prince’s willing submission to the Lord Chief Justice at the time of his arrest, he reports no further meeting between the two; and Holinshed, though observing that Henry V ‘elected the best learned men in the lawes of the realme, to the offices of iustice’ (3.543), makes no specific mention of the Lord Chief Justice. Shakespeare’s closest source is Famous Victories, in which the King appoints the Lord Chief Justice ‘Protector over my realm’ (9.145) during his expedition to France.

  101 *right, Justice Some editors, swayed by the lack of punctuation between these words in QF, argue that the phrase is an abstraction, ‘right Justice’ meaning an ideal personification of justice. In light of the previous dialogue’s emphasis on symbolic identity, their case has merit; but it would make more sense for the King, after listening to the Justice’s logic, to assure him that he is right, as a result of which he may keep his job.

  95 your] Q; you F 101 right, Justice] Hanmer; right Iustice QF

  weigh consider

  102 balance scales, emblem of judicial impartiality, picking up on weigh in 101. For the significance of the sword, see 86, 102, 113n.

  107–10 As Humphreys observes, King Henry’s speech, as recited by his son, resembles what is reported in Stow (Annales, 547 – 8), who drew nearly verbatim from Elyot’s Gouernour, and it also resembles the account in Case’s Sphaera Ciuitatis (see 72n.). How Harry remembers word for word a speech his father spoke when he was probably not present is unclear, but his quoting it is consistent with his ostensible reciting from memory his own speech to the crown, artfully altered, at 4.3.288–94, and with his father’s politically adept misquotation of Richard II at 3.1.70–7. Self-serving (mis)quotation appears to be a family habit.

  108 do justice on administer correction to, punish

  proper own

  110 deliver … greatness humble his eminence. Cf. 3.1.74.

  110–11 *so … justice Modern editors often prefer F’s punctuation, in which so (meaning ‘thus’) introduces the next line as a continuation of the sentence, ending with justice. Q’s punctuation, however, is equally logical, allowing for a rhetorical parallelism in the four lines quoted by the King as a complete sentence (107–10) and creating an epanalepsis in the next two lines addressed to the Justice: ‘Into the hands … you did commit me, / For which I do commit into your hand’ (111–12). Cf. 4.3.264–5.

  113 th’unstained the uncorrupted, never sullied by unjust use; unstainèd

  have … bear are accustomed to carry

  114 remembrance reminder

  115 like same

  109 not] Q; no F 110–11 so.’ / Into … justice you] Q subst.; so, / Into … Iustice. You F

  117 By adopting the Justice as a surrogate father, the King replaces his royal father, with whom he was reconciled only at his death, and also displaces Falstaff, who has provided a father figure less remote, more tolerant and more affectionate than his own. The way in which Harry wrestles with the authority of these three father figures has long been debated by psychoanalytic critics.

  118 ‘My decisions will reflect your advice.’

  119 stoop and humble bow and submit; a redundancy

  my intents what I want to do

  120 well-practised experienced

  122–3 Harry asserts that he has buried his youthful misrule with his father; thus his father, as the receptacle of his son’s riot, has ‘gone wild into his grave’. Harry apparently believes in a consensual transfer of wildness from the prodigal son to the usurping father which permits the ‘instantly reformed son to become the legitimate heir’ (Crewe, ‘Reforming’, 236). The term affections signifies primarily the passions and riotous behaviour for which King Henry has upbraided his son (4.3.249–67), but it may also refer to a natural disposition that now must be tutored by the civilizing influences of the court (OED affection sb. 3, 4). This speech bears a resemblance to Ephesians, 6.13–16, about shedding the old Adam and rising anew clad in ‘the whole armour of God’, and ‘taking the shielde of faith, wherewith ye may quenche all the fierie dartes of the wicked’.

  124 spirits character. The King suggests that he has replaced his own wild disposition with his father’s more serious one (his spirits), an idea expanded at 128–32. In essence, he claims that he and his father have exchanged personae: the father has assumed the son’s wildness in death; and in Harry, his father’s sobriety survives.

  sadly soberly, gravely

  125 mock disprove

  127–8 who … seeming ‘which has reviled me because of the way I appeared’; writ down means condemned or disparaged (OED write v. 14b). The implication is that past behaviour has not painted a true picture of the new King.

  128 blood passion

  129 proudly vigorously: the image is of a swelling floodtide. Cf. MND 2.1.88–92: ‘the winds … / … have suck’d up from the sea / Contagious fogs; which, falling in the land, / Hath every pelting river made so proud / That they have overborne their continents’.

  118 ear] QF (eare) 126 raze] Theobald; race QF; rase Pope; ’rase Capell

  131 state of floods majesty of oceans (Onions)

  133 we From this point on, the King speaks of himself in the plural: following his assurances to his brothers and the Justice in the more familiar first person singular, he now shifts to a more public form of address to discuss matters of state.

  134 limbs … counsel Cf. Holinshed: ‘he chose men of grauitie, wit and high policie, by whose wise counsell he might at all times rule to his honour and dignitie’ (3.543); limbs means members, anticipating the metaphor of the state as a body politic at 135.

  135–6 go … rank march side by side. For a metaphor of the state as a body in less robust health, see 3.1.38–43.

  137 That so that

  139 you, father In performance, these words are almost always addressed to the Justice, assuring him yet again (cf. 117) that he has won the contest with Falstaff over who will be the young King’s surrogate father and chief adviser. In some productions, however, the King looks away from the others to speak these words to the memory of the dead King, revealing an unresolved struggle with the father whose love he failed to win in life and whose will, for him, is still a dominant force. Harry’s decision to act on his father’s advice to make wars against France (5.5.104–7) lends some credibility to the idea that he addresses 137–9 to the memory of his father.

  140 accite summon. Cf. 2.2.57.

  141 remembered mentioned (OED v.1 3a)

  state men of rank, noblemen (OED sb. 26a)

  142 consigning to endorsing, setting His seal on (OED v. 5)

  139 you] Q(corr), F; your Q(uncorr) 142 God] Q; heauen F 144 God] Q; Heauen F SD] F; exit. Q

  5.3 The scene takes place in the garden of Shallow’s farm.

  0.1–2 F’s inclusion of Pistol, who does not enter until 82, is the kind of anticipation characteristic of F’s block entrances at 2.2.0 and 4.1.0. Throughout the scene, as in 3.2, Q uses the spellings ‘Scilens’ and ‘Silens’, thought to be idiosyncratically Shakespearean, for Silence. Cf. 3.2.88n.

  1 orchard See 1.1.4n.

  2 arbour shady retreat; grassy plot of ground

  last year’s pippin Humphreys cites Thomas Cogan, Haven of Health (1584), who considers ‘pepins’ among ‘the best Apples that we haue in England’ and advises that apples ‘may be eaten with least detriment, if they be gathered full ripe, and well kept untill the next winter, or the yeare following’ (89).

  3 graffing grafting. Cf. 2.2.60.

  caraways sweets made with caraway seeds, or just the seeds themselves. Cogan (see 2n. on last year’s pippin) cites flatulence as the reason for eating them: ‘We are woont to eate Carawayes or Biskettes, or some other kinde of Comfittes, or seedes together with Apples, thereby to breake winde engendred by them’ (89).

  5 goodly splendid or handsome, often with reference to size

  7–8 Barren … air With courteous modesty, Shallow deflects Falstaff’s compliment by claiming that the land yields little and its inhabitants live in poverty; all the place has to recommend it, he claims, is good air. Here and throughout, his most notable speech habit is repetition: see 5.1.4–6n.

  8 Spread set the table (OED v. 8b). Cf. 2.4.10n. (on cover).

  9 Well said well done. Cf. 3.2.276.

  11 husband steward or, in Davy’s case, manager of the farm

  5.3] Scene Tertia. F; not in Q 0.1–2] Q (Enter sir Iohn, Shallow, Scilens, Dauy, Bardolfe, page.); Enter Falstaffe, Shallow, Silence, Bardolfe, Page, and Pistoll. F 1 my] Q; mine F 2 mine] Q; my F 4 Silence] F; Scilens Q (also at 37, 48, 52, 128) 5 ’Fore God] Q; not in F 5–6 goodly … rich] Q; a goodly … a rich F 9 SD] this edn; Davy begins to spread the table Oxf; not in QF

  12 varlet literally, servant; but Shallow may be playing affectionately on its derogatory meaning, knave. Cf. 2.1.45n.

  16 Ah, sirrah an exclamation addressed to no one in particular and having the same force as ‘Yes, sir!’ F’s spelling Ah regularizes Q’s ‘A’.

  quoth ’a said he – often the preface to a proverb; here, to a song

  17–22 *All Silence’s songs, or snatches of song, are printed as prose in QF, with the exception of 32–6 which appear as verse in F. Although only one of the songs (see 73–5n.) can be identified, the others sound traditional and may have been familiar to an Elizabethan audience. John H. Long (86–9) speculates that the verses here and at 32–6 may be parts of the same Shrovetide wassail song, sung to the tune of ‘Be merry, be merry’. See also Duffin, 63–4.