Act 5, Scene 1

The King's Camp near Shrewsbury.

[Enter King Henry, Prince Henry, Lancaster, Sir Walter Blunt, and Sir John Falstaff.]
King Henry IV
2322 How bloodily the Sun begins to peer
2323 Above yon busky hill! the day looks pale
2324 At his distemperature.
Prince Hal
2325 The southern wind
2326 Doth play the trumpet to his purposes;
2327 And by his hollow whistling in the leaves
2328 Foretells a tempest and a blustering day.
King Henry IV
2329 Then with the losers let it sympathize,
2330 For nothing can seem foul to those that win.—
[The trumpet sounds. Enter Worcester and Vernon.]
King Henry IV
2331 How, now, my Lord of Worcester! 'tis not well
2332 That you and I should meet upon such terms
2333 As now we meet. You have deceived our trust;
2334 And made us doff our easy robes of peace,
2335 To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel:
2336 This is not well, my lord, this is not well.
2337 What say you to't? will you again unknit
2338 This churlish knot of all-abhorred war,
2339 And move in that obedient orb again
2340 Where you did give a fair and natural light;
2341 And be no more an exhaled meteor,
2342 A prodigy of fear, and a portent
2343 Of broached mischief to the unborn times?
Earl of Worcester
2344 Hear me, my liege:
2345 For mine own part, I could be well content
2346 To entertain the lag-end of my life
2347 With quiet hours; for I do protest,
2348 I have not sought the day of this dislike.
King Henry IV
2349 You have not sought it! why, how comes it, then?
Sir John Falstaff
2350 Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it.
Prince Hal
2351 Peace, chewet, peace!
Earl of Worcester
2352 It pleased your Majesty to turn your looks
2353 Of favour from myself and all our House;
2354 And yet I must remember you, my lord,
2355 We were the first and dearest of your friends.
2356 For you my staff of office did I break
2357 In Richard's time; and posted day and night
2358 To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand,
2359 When yet you were in place and in account
2360 Nothing so strong and fortunate as I.
2361 It was myself, my brother, and his son,
2362 That brought you home, and boldly did outdare
2363 The dangers of the time. You swore to us,—
2364 And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,—
2365 That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state;
2366 Nor claim no further than your new-fall'n right,
2367 The seat of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster:
2368 To this we swore our aid. But in short space
2369 It rain'd down fortune showering on your head;
2370 And such a flood of greatness fell on you,—
2371 What with our help, what with the absent King,
2372 What with the injuries of a wanton time,
2373 The seeming sufferances that you had borne,
2374 And the contrarious winds that held the King
2375 So long in his unlucky Irish wars
2376 That all in England did repute him dead,—
2377 And, from this swarm of fair advantages,
2378 You took occasion to be quickly woo'd
2379 To gripe the general sway into your hand;
2380 Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster;
2381 And, being fed by us, you used us so
2382 As that ungentle gull, the cuckoo-bird,
2383 Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest;
2384 Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk,
2385 That even our love thirst not come near your sight
2386 For fear of swallowing; but with nimble wing
2387 We were enforced, for safety-sake, to fly
2388 Out of your sight, and raise this present head:
2389 Whereby we stand opposed by such means
2390 As you yourself have forged against yourself,
2391 By unkind usage, dangerous countenance,
2392 And violation of all faith and troth
2393 Sworn to tis in your younger enterprise.
King Henry IV
2394 These things, indeed, you have articulate,
2395 Proclaim'd at market-crosses, read in churches,
2396 To face the garment of rebellion
2397 With some fine colour that may please the eye
2398 Of fickle changelings and poor discontents,
2399 Which gape and rub the elbow at the news
2400 Of hurlyburly innovation:
2401 And never yet did insurrection want
2402 Such water-colours to impaint his cause;
2403 Nor moody beggars, starving for a time
2404 Of pellmell havoc and confusion.
Prince Hal
2405 In both our armies there is many a soul
2406 Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,
2407 If once they join in trial. Tell your nephew,
2408 The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world
2409 In praise of Henry Percy: by my hopes,
2410 This present enterprise set off his head,
2411 I do not think a braver gentleman,
2412 More active-valiant or more valiant-young,
2413 More daring or more bold, is now alive
2414 To grace this latter age with noble deeds.
2415 For my part,—I may speak it to my shame,—
2416 I have a truant been to chivalry;
2417 And so I hear he doth account me too:
2418 Yet this before my father's Majesty,—
2419 I am content that he shall take the odds
2420 Of his great name and estimation,
2421 And will, to save the blood on either side,
2422 Try fortune with him in a single fight.
King Henry IV
2423 And, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture thee,
2424 Albeit considerations infinite
2425 Do make against it.—No, good Worcester, no;
2426 We love our people well; even those we love
2427 That are misled upon your cousin's part;
2428 And, will they take the offer of our grace,
2429 Both he, and they, and you, yea, every man
2430 Shall be my friend again, and I'll be his:
2431 So tell your cousin, and then bring me word
2432 What he will do: but, if he will not yield,
2433 Rebuke and dread correction wait on us,
2434 And they shall do their office. So, be gone;
2435 We will not now be troubled with reply:
2436 We offer fair; take it advisedly.
[Exit Worcester with Vernon.]
Prince Hal
2437 It will not be accepted, on my life:
2438 The Douglas and the Hotspur both together
2439 Are confident against the world in arms.
King Henry IV
2440 Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge;
2441 For, on their answer, will we set on them:
2442 And God befriend us, as our cause is just!
[Exeunt the King, Blunt, and Prince John.]
Sir John Falstaff
2443 Hal, if thou see me down in the battle, and bestride me,
2444 so; 'tis a point of friendship.
Prince Hal
2445 Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship.
2446 Say thy prayers, and farewell.
Sir John Falstaff
2447 I would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well.
Prince Hal
2448 Why, thou owest God a death.
[Exit.]
Sir John Falstaff
2449 'Tis not due yet; I would be loth to pay Him before His day.
2450 What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me?
2451 Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour
2452 prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honor set-to a leg?
2453 no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour
2454 hath no skill in surgery then? no. What is honour? a word. What
2455 is that word, honour? air. A trim reckoning!—Who hath it? he that
2456 died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth be hear it? no. Is it
2457 insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the
2458 living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none
2459 of it: honour is a mere scutcheon:—and so ends my catechism.
[Exit.]

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Notes

TLN 2323archaic vocab
“busky hill! the day looks pale At his distemperature”
'Busky' means bushy or wooded. 'Distemperature' is a disorder of the body or of nature — here the King reads the blood-red dawn and pale daylight as signs that the natural world itself is disturbed, a standard Elizabethan belief that heavenly irregularities foreshadowed earthly calamity.
TLN 2325archaic vocab
“southern wind Doth play the trumpet to his purposes”
The southern wind was associated in Elizabethan weather-lore with storms, rain, and foul air. Hal says it 'plays the trumpet' to the sun's purposes -- meaning it announces and heralds the tempest the way a trumpet announces a king's arrival. The whole speech is a rhetorical weather-omen: nature itself is predicting a violent day.
TLN 2339historical topical
“obedient orb again Where you did give a fair and natural light; And be no more an exhaled meteor”
The King uses Ptolemaic astronomy as a political metaphor. Each planet moved in its own 'orb' (a crystal sphere), giving off light in its proper order; a 'meteor' was a fiery fragment violently exhaled from the earth into the sky, not part of the ordered heavens. Henry is telling Worcester that he should return to his assigned orbit of loyalty instead of acting as a dangerous rebel-comet blazing outside the ordained order.
historical The great chain of being (order and degree)
TLN 2342archaic vocab
“prodigy of fear, and a portent Of broached mischief”
A 'prodigy' here means an omen or unnatural sign — something born outside normal course that predicts disaster. 'Portent' is a warning sign foreboding calamity. 'Broached' means opened or tapped, like a cask of wine being broached: the mischief has been unsealed and is now flowing. Henry is calling Worcester a walking catastrophe-omen for future generations.
TLN 2350rhetorical device
“Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it”
Falstaff interjects with a deadpan one-liner that deflates Worcester's long self-exculpation. His quip turns the high rhetoric of political grievance into a joke about stumbling over something by accident, as if rebellion were a rock on the road rather than a deliberate conspiracy. It is the play's comic voice puncturing solemnity at a tense moment.
TLN 2351archaic vocab
“Peace, chewet, peace”
A 'chewet' (also spelled 'chough') was a jackdaw or chattering crow — a bird famous for noisy, senseless babbling. Hal is telling Falstaff to shut up: you are nothing but a chattering bird, and this is no moment for your jokes.
TLN 2356historical topical
“my staff of office did I break In Richard's time; and posted day and night To meet you on the way”
Worcester recalls that under King Richard II he resigned or broke his ceremonial staff of office — the physical symbol of a royal appointment — to show his loyalty to Bolingbroke (the future Henry IV). He then rode day and night to join Bolingbroke on his march into England. This is a specific historical grievance: Worcester sacrificed his position under the old king to help the new one, and now feels betrayed.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 2363historical topical
“You swore to us,— And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,— That you did nothing purpose 'gainst the state”
When Bolingbroke landed in England (1399), he met the Percys at Doncaster in Yorkshire and swore that he came only to claim his inheritance as Duke of Lancaster, not to take the crown. Worcester is reminding Henry that the promise he made to secure Percy support at Doncaster was broken the moment the crown was within reach.
historical Holinshed's Chronicles
TLN 2382cultural context
“that ungentle gull, the cuckoo-bird, Useth the sparrow; did oppress our nest; Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk”
The cuckoo lays its eggs in another bird's nest; the hatched cuckoo chick is larger than the sparrow's own young and shoves them out, yet the sparrow continues to feed it until it dwarfs the nest. 'Gull' here means a gaping, easily cheated creature (the sparrow), not a seabird. Worcester is saying Henry was nursed to power by the Percys and then grew so big he crowded them out and turned on them.
TLN 2394archaic vocab
“you have articulate, Proclaim'd at market-crosses, read in churches, To face the garment of rebellion With some fine colour”
'Articulate' is used as a past tense verb meaning 'set out in formal articles or charges.' 'Market-crosses' were the stone crosses at the center of town markets where public proclamations were read. 'Face the garment' means to trim or decorate it; 'colour' means plausible pretext or disguise. Henry is saying Worcester has dressed up his rebellion in pretty justifications, posted them publicly, and read them from pulpits to win over the gullible.
TLN 2399archaic vocab
“gape and rub the elbow at the news Of hurlyburly innovation”
'Rub the elbow' was an Elizabethan gesture of self-congratulation or glee — the way someone hugs themselves and rubs their own arm in excitement. 'Hurlyburly' means tumult and violent disorder. 'Innovation' in this period meant not novelty but revolution — the dangerous overturning of settled order. Henry is sneering that malcontents hug themselves with excitement at any news of violent upheaval.
TLN 2410syntax grammar
“This present enterprise set off his head, I do not think a braver gentleman”
'Set off his head' means 'removed from his account, not counting against him' — the way you set aside a debt before calculating a balance. Hal is saying: leave aside the current rebellion, and Hotspur is the bravest gentleman alive. The construction is archaic; a modern reader would say 'apart from this enterprise' or 'discounting his current treason.'
TLN 2416historical topical
“I have a truant been to chivalry; And so I hear he doth account me too”
Chivalry was the formal code of knightly conduct: military training, honorable combat, courtly service. A nobleman who neglected martial discipline was a 'truant' to his rank's central obligation. Hal is openly confessing that his years in the taverns with Falstaff have made him a disgrace to his class by chivalric standards — and he says Hotspur thinks so too. This is the scene's most direct acknowledgment of the prince's reform arc.
TLN 2421historical topical
“will, to save the blood on either side, Try fortune with him in a single fight”
Hal is proposing a formal trial by single combat — judicial duel between champions — as an alternative to a general battle. This was a recognized medieval practice: two armies would nominate individual fighters whose contest would decide the quarrel, sparing thousands of lives. Though increasingly rare by 1400, it remained a legal and chivalric ideal.
historical Trial by combat and the gage
TLN 2445classical allusion
“Nothing but a colossus can do thee that friendship”
The Colossus of Rhodes was a bronze statue of the sun-god Helios, over a hundred feet tall, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Falstaff has asked Hal to stand over him (bestride him) if he falls in battle, to protect him from being trampled or slaughtered. Hal's answer is a savage joke: only a giant statue could straddle your enormous body, Falstaff.
classical The Colossus of Rhodes
TLN 2448wordplay
“thou owest God a death”
Hal's line puns on 'debt': every person owes God the death of their mortal body — it is an unavoidable debt that must eventually be paid. Falstaff then picks up the word-game: he 'would be loth to pay him before his day,' meaning he would rather not die now while the debt is not yet due. The exchange turns the impending battle into a comic ledger of mortality.
TLN 2451rhetorical device
“honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honor set-to a leg?”
Falstaff's speech is structured as a formal catechism — the question-and-answer method used in religious instruction to teach doctrine. He poses a series of questions ('Can honour set-to a leg? no...') and answers each with 'no,' systematically demolishing every claim honour makes, the way a debater refutes a position point by point. The device makes a roguish argument sound rigorous.
TLN 2459archaic vocab
“honour is a mere scutcheon:—and so ends my catechism”
A 'scutcheon' (or escutcheon) is a painted funeral shield — a small heraldic panel bearing a dead person's coat of arms, hung at the church door or carried in a funeral procession. It was the only visible sign of honour left after death. Falstaff's conclusion is brutal: honour is nothing but a painted board on your coffin, useful only to the dead who can no longer feel it, and he will have none of it. 'And so ends my catechism' is the mock-solemn close of the Q&A, imitating the closing formula of a real catechism.