Act and Scene Divisions were provided in the Folio in a much more thoroughgoing way than in the Quartos. Sometimes, however, they were erroneous or omitted; corrections and additions supplied by editorial tradition are indicated by square brackets. Five-act division is based on a classical model, and act breaks provided the opportunity to replace the candles in the indoor Blackfriars playhouse which the King's Men used after 1608, but Shakespeare did not necessarily think in terms of a five-part structure of dramatic composition. The Folio convention is that a scene ends when the stage is empty. Nowadays, partly under the influence of film, we tend to consider a scene to be a dramatic unit that ends with either a change of imaginary location or a significant passage of time within the narrative. Shakespeare's fluidity of composition accords well with this convention, so in addition to act and scene numbers we provide a running scene count in the right margin at the beginning of each new scene, in the typeface used for editorial directions. Where there is a scene break caused by a momentary bare stage, but the location does not change and extra time does not pass, we use the convention running scene continues. There is inevitably a degree of editorial judgment in making such calls, but the system is very valuable in suggesting the pace of the plays.
Speakers' Names are often inconsistent in Folio. We have regularized speech headings, but retained an element of deliberate inconsistency in entry directions, in order to give the flavor of Folio.
Verse is indicated by lines that do not run to the right margin and by capitalization of each line. The Folio printers sometimes set verse as prose, and vice versa (either out of misunderstanding or for reasons of space). We have silently corrected in such cases, although in some instances there is ambiguity, in which case we have leaned toward the preservation of Folio layout. Folio sometimes uses contraction ("turnd" rather than "turned") to indicate whether or not the final "-ed" of a past participle is sounded, an area where there is variation for the sake of the five-beat iambic pentameter rhythm. We use the convention of a grave accent to indicate sounding (thus "turned" would be two syllables), but would urge actors not to overstress. In cases where one speaker ends with a verse half line and the next begins with the other half of the pentameter, editors since the late eighteenth century have indented the second line. We have abandoned this convention, since the Folio does not use it, nor did actors' cues in the Shakespearean theater. An exception is made when the second speaker actively interrupts or completes the first speaker's sentence.
Spelling is modernized, but older forms are occasionally maintained where necessary for rhythm or aural effect.
Punctuation in Shakespeare's time was as much rhetorical as grammatical. "Colon" was originally a term for a unit of thought in an argument. The semicolon was a new unit of punctuation (some of the Quartos lack them altogether). We have modernized punctuation throughout, but have given more weight to Folio punctuation than many editors, since, though not Shakespearean, it reflects the usage of his period. In particular, we have used the colon far more than many editors: it is exceptionally useful as a way of indicating how many Shakespearean speeches unfold clause by clause in a developing argument that gives the illusion of enacting the process of thinking in the moment. We have also kept in mind the origin of punctuation in classical times as a way of assisting the actor and orator: the comma suggests the briefest of pauses for breath, the colon a middling one, and a full stop or period a longer pause. Semicolons, by contrast, belong to an era of punctuation that was only just coming in during Shakespeare's time and that is coming to an end now: we have accordingly used them only where they occur in our copy texts (and not always then). Dashes are sometimes used for parenthetical interjections where the Folio has brackets. They are also used for interruptions and changes in train of thought. Where a change of addressee occurs within a speech, we have used a dash preceded by a period (or occasionally another form of punctuation). Often the identity of the respective addressee is obvious from the context. When it is not, this has been indicated in a marginal stage direction.
Entrances and Exits are fairly thorough in Folio, which has accordingly been followed as faithfully as possible. Where characters are omitted or corrections are necessary, this is indicated by square brackets (e.g. "[and Attendants]"). Exit is sometimes silently normalized to Exeunt and Manet anglicized to "remains." We trust Folio positioning of entrances and exits to a greater degree than most editors.
Editorial Stage Directions such as stage business, asides, indications of addressee and of characters' position on the gallery stage are used only sparingly in Folio. Other editions mingle directions of this kind with original Folio and Quarto directions, sometimes marking them by means of square brackets. We have sought to distinguish what could be described as directorial interventions of this kind from Folio-style directions (either original or supplied) by placing them in the right margin in a different typeface. There is a degree of subjectivity about which directions are of which kind, but the procedure is intended as a reminder to the reader and the actor that Shakespearean stage directions are often dependent upon editorial inference alone and are not set in stone. We also depart from editorial tradition in sometimes admitting uncertainty and thus printing permissive stage directions, such as Aside? (often a line may be equally effective as an aside or as a direct address--it is for each production or reading to make its own decision) or may exit or a piece of business placed between arrows to indicate that it may occur at various different moments within a scene.
Line Numbers in the left margin are editorial, for reference and to key the explanatory and textual notes.
Explanatory Notes at the foot of each page explain allusions and gloss obsolete and difficult words, confusing phraseology, occasional major textual cruces, and so on. Particular attention is given to non-standard usage, bawdy innuendo, and technical terms (e.g. legal and military language). Where more than one sense is given, commas indicate shades of related meaning, slashes alternative or double meanings.
Textual Notes at the end of the play indicate major departures from the Folio. They take the following form: the reading of our text is given in bold and its source given after an equals sign, with "Q" indicating that it derives from the First Quarto of 1598, "Q5" that it derives from the Fifth Quarto of 1613, "Q7" from the Seventh Quarto of 1632, "F" from the First Folio of 1623, "F2" a correction introduced in the Second Folio of 1632, "F3" a correction introduced in the Third Folio of 1663-64, and "Ed" one that derives from the subsequent editorial tradition. The rejected Folio ("F") reading is then given. Selected Quarto variants and plausible unadopted editorial readings are also included. Thus, for example, "1.2.80 for...it = F. Q = for wisedome cries out in the streets and no man regards it" indicates that we have retained the Folio reading "for no man regards it," but that "for wisedome cries out in the streets and no man regards it" is an interestingly different reading in the First Quarto of 1598.
KEY FACTS
MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/ scenes on stage) Falstaff (20%/151/8), Prince Henry (18%/170/10), Hotspur (18%/102/8), King Henry (11%/30/6), Worcester (6%/35/7), Poins (3%/36/3), Glendower (3%/23/1). Several characters speak between 15 and 30 of the play's 3,000 lines: Douglas, Hostess Quickly, Gadshill, Vernon, Mortimer, Lady Percy, Bardolph, Blunt, Northumberland, Westmorland, Francis.
LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 55% verse, 45% prose.
DATE: Probably written and first performed 1596-97; registered for publication February 1598. Falstaff's name was originally Oldcastle; it was probably changed to Falstaff either during the months when William Brooke, Lord Cobham (an indirect descendant of the historical Sir John Oldcastle), was Lord Chamberlain (August 1596 to March 1597) or following the suppression of playing (July-October 1597) caused by a politically inflammatory play called The Isle of Dogs.
SOURCES: Based on the account of the reign of Henry IV in the 1587 edition of Holinshed's Chronicles, with some use of Samuel Daniel's epic poem The First Four Books of the Civil Wars (1
595). Thus, for instance, the historical Hotspur was twenty years older than Hal, but Daniel made them contemporaries for dramatic effect. The intermingling of historical materials and comedy, in the context of the prince's riotous youth, is developed from the anonymous Queen's Men play The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth (performed late 1580s), which includes characters who may be regarded as crude prototypes of Falstaff and Poins.
TEXT: Quarto 1598 (text probably based on a scribal transcript of Shakespeare's manuscript; two printings, one of them lost save for a few sheets), reprinted 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613, 1622 (indicating that this was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays). The Folio text was set from the Fifth Quarto, correcting some but nowhere near all of its mistakes. Oaths were systematically removed in accordance with the 1606 Parliamentary "Act to Restrain the Abuses of Players": since the Act applied to stage performances, not printed books, this suggests that a theatrical manuscript also lay behind the Folio text. There is therefore good reason to regard Folio as an autonomous text, with its own authority. Our text is based on Folio, but where there are manifest errors, either derived from the Quarto tradition or introduced by the Folio compositors, we restore readings from the First Quarto.
THE FIRST PART OF
HENRY THE FOURTH,
with the Life and
Death of Henry
Surnamed Hotspur
LIST OF PARTS
KING HENRY IV, formerly Henry Bullingbrook, Duke of Lancaster PRINCE HENRY, Prince of Wales, Hal or Harry Monmouth PRINCE JOHN, his younger brother, Lord of Lancaster Earl of WESTMORLAND
Sir Walter BLUNT
Sir John FALSTAFF
Edward or Ned POINS
PETO
BARDOLPH
Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND, Henry Percy Earl of WORCESTER, Thomas Percy, his younger brother HOTSPUR, Sir Henry (or Harry) Percy, Northumberland's son Lord Edmund MORTIMER, Earl of March, Hotspur's brother-inlaw Owen GLENDOWER, Welsh lord, Mortimer's father-in-law Earl of DOUGLAS, a Scots Lord Sir Richard VERNON
ARCHBISHOP of York, Richard Scroop SIR MICHAEL, member of Archbishop's household LADY PERCY (Kate), Hotspur's wife, Mortimer's sister LADY MORTIMER, Mortimer's wife, Glendower's daughter FIRST CARRIER (Mugs) OSTLER
SECOND CARRIER (Tom) GADSHILL
CHAMBERLAIN
FIRST TRAVELLER
SECOND TRAVELLER
FRANCIS, an apprentice drawer or tapster VINTNER
HOSTESS QUICKLY, landlady of a tavern SHERIFF
SERVANT
MESSENGER
Lords, Soldiers, other Travellers, and Attendants
Act 1 Scene 1
running scene 1
Location: the royal court. Henry Bullingbrook had usurped the English crown in 1399 when he forced his cousin, Richard II, to abdicate. Richard died shortly afterward in mysterious circumstances. The early years of Henry's reign were dominated by a determination to justify and consolidate his claim to the throne and by a number of insurrections. As the play opens, Henry voices his anxiety about civil unrest
Enter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, [the] Earl of Westmorland, with others
KING HENRY IV So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant,
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in strands afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood.
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,
Nor bruise her flow'rets with the armed hoofs
Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes,
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven,
All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery
Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks,
March all one way and be no more opposed
Against acquaintance, kindred and allies.
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,
As far as to the sepulchre of Christ --
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross
We are impressed and engaged to fight --
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,
Whose arms were moulded in their mother's womb
To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross.
But this our purpose is a twelvemonth old,
And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go:
Therefore we meet not now.-- Then let me hear
Of you, my gentle cousin Westmorland,
What yesternight our council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience.
WESTMORLAND My liege, this haste was hot in question,
And many limits of the charge set down
But yesternight, when all athwart there came
A post from Wales loaden with heavy news;
Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer,
Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight
Against the irregular and wild Glendower,
Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken,
And a thousand of his people butchered,
Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse,
Such beastly shameless transformation,
By those Welshwomen done as may not be
Without much shame retold or spoken of.
KING HENRY IV It seems then that the tidings of this broil
Brake off our business for the Holy Land.
WESTMORLAND This matched with other like, my gracious lord.
Far more uneven and unwelcome news
Came from the north and thus it did report:
On Holy Rood day, the gallant Hotspur there,
Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,
That ever-valiant and approved Scot,
At Holmedon met, where they did spend
A sad and bloody hour,
As by discharge of their artillery,
And shape of likelihood, the news was told,
For he that brought them, in the very heat
And pride of their contention did take horse,
Uncertain of the issue any way.
KING HENRY IV Here is a dear and true industrious friend,
Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse,
Stained with the variation of each soil
Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours,
And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news.
The Earl of Douglas is discomfited,
Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,
Balked in their own blood did Sir Walter see
On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took
Mordake, Earl of Fife, and eldest son
To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol,
Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.
And is not this an honourable spoil?
A gallant prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?
WESTMORLAND In faith, it is a conquest for a prince to boast of.
KING HENRY IV Yea, there thou mak'st me sad and mak'st me sin
In envy that my Lord Northumberland
Should be the father of so blest a son:
A son who is the theme of honour's tongue;
Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant,
Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride,
Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,
See riot and dishonour stain the brow
Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved
That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged
In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,
And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet:
Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.
But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz,
Of this young Percy's pride? The prisoners,
Which he in this adventure hath surprised,
To his own use he keeps, and sends me word
I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.
WESTMORLAND This is his uncle's teaching. This is Worcester,
Malevolent to you in all aspects,
Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up
The crest of youth against your dignity.
KING HENRY IV But I have sent for him to answer this.
And for this cause awhile we must neglect
Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.
Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we
Will hold at Windsor, and so inform the lords.
But come yourself with speed to us again,
For more is to be said and to be done
Than out of anger can be uttered.
WESTMORLAND I will, my liege.
Exeunt
Act 1 Scene 2
running scene 2
Location: in London, but unspecified; perhaps the prince's apartments
Enter Henry, Prince of Wales [and] Sir John Falstaff
FALSTAFF Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?
PRINCE HENRY Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack
and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon
benches in the afternoon, that thou hast forgotten to
demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a
devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours
were cups of sack and minutes capons and clocks the
tongues of bawds and dials the signs of leaping-houses and
the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured
taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous
to demand the time of the day.
FALSTAFF Indeed, you come near me now, Hal, for we that
take purses go by the moon and seven stars, and not by