Note that the tavern world is entirely absent in Act 4,
though its chief remnant, Falstaff, does make an appearance in 4.2 along with
Hal who also is mostly absent. But this brief encounter between the prince and
his tavern companion is not to be ignored.
I want to pause here to offer some observations about
Shakespeare’s greatest comic figure. Though unique, the character of Falstaff
nevertheless is a combination of well-known dramatic types:
Miles
gloriosus: A Latin phrase meaning “boastful soldier,”
this is a character who brags and lies about his military exploits but
who in reality has no stomach for battle.
I’d like us to concentrate on these latter two aspects
of Falstaff’s character, for they are most prominent in the final two acts.
Recall that Richard paradoxically rises in eminence as
a compelling character even as his political fortunes are in decline. Indeed,
his greatest achievement as a thinker and poet is the prison soliloquy just
before he is ignominiously slain. Falstaff similarly becomes more fascinating
when his power and influence with the Prince of Wales is on the wane.
Look now at 4.2.11-45, the first of several prose
soliloquies offered by Falstaff in the play’s final acts. This one is the
“king’s press” soliloquy. Hal has secured for Falstaff an officer’s
position in his father’s army as well as the authority (and money) to
“press” into service (i.e., to recruit) soldiers of his choosing.
What does he do with this power? He begins by recruiting only inexperienced but
well-off gentry, men who are rather comfortably middle-class, and then releases
them from duty in exchange for bribes—they have “bought out their
services” (21-22). Having thus kept the press money and earned more
through extortion, Falstaff then recruits men of little means—including
the unemployed; “younger sons to younger brothers” (27), i.e., the
second-born sons of second-born sons who receive no family inheritance (because
it all went to the first-born); and ex-prisoners who are so destitute that they
look like corpses cut down from the “gibbets” (35) and who stagger
in their marching because they’re accustomed to wearing ankle irons or
“gyves” (37-39).
This is despicable behaviour, yes? What is likely to
happen to these poor fellows in battle? As Falstaff says a few lines later, they
are “good enough to toss, food for powder, food for powder. They’ll fill a
pit a well as better” (62-63). Now, before we simply condemn Falstaff for
callous cruelty, we might consider his behaviour a trenchant critique of the
social dimension of the war. After all, of what benefit is the war to the vast
majority of soldiers who will die in it? What is the just cause of this war?
Well, it’s Henry’s effort to consolidate his power, to prevent his
usurped-from-Richard throne from being usurped in turn (by the Percy rebellion).
This is a good cause, yes, and worth dying for? In calling the king’s soldiers
mere “food for powder,” is not Falstaff just saying aloud what is
true but what Hal and Henry would never openly admit? Many will die this day and
“fill a pit” so that Henry rather than Mortimer will be king. What
care the lowly soldiers whether Henry or Mortimer or Richard is King? What
difference will it make for them? Will not the poor continue to be poor,
regardless of who’s in charge?
Examine the rest of this brief encounter between
Falstaff and Hal. Falstaff’s remark at lines 67-69 implies that someone IS
responsible for widespread poverty and suffering, or at least for not doing more
to alleviate it—i.e., the king! And yet Harry will not let Falstaff get
away with this. His response (70-71), to paraphrase, is “Don’t you dare
pretend to speak for the poor, you bleeding-heart liberal. You’re fat and
comfortable. What do you know of poverty?”
This exchange raises one of the central questions about this play: whether it is an endorsement or rather critique of the House of Lancaster’s rise to power. These, after all, are Elizabeth I’s ancestors. Is the play a celebration of the history it documents, or is it in any way critical of Henry and Hal and the status quo they represent? Another way of asking the same question: how would Shakespeare have us regard Falstaff?