Night And Day In Henry Iv

Hall's ultimate conversion from the tavern to the court is punctuated regularly with the juxtaposition between the imagery of night and day. The day represents the realm of order over which the sovereign, the "sun" around which everything gravitates, presides, providing predictability through the symbolic roles he fulfils. Indeed, it is not the abstract constructions of honour and reputation en soi that are of import, but rather, the functions served by their appearance. Theatricality, therefore, plays a role in the monarch's pursuit of "the greater good" through esteem. On the other hand, the characters entrenched in imagery of night are ruled by the fluctuating moon. The moon represents changeability, the sensual, the earth-bound, the animal truth of things, real, tangible pleasures, natural as the tide; "governed as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon"(Act I, Scene 2). In the first part of Henry IV, a dialogue of the two worlds spiral about Hal, and the ascendancy of each side is advocated by a strong case. The temperament of most characters is such that the one world is incompatible with the other. Falstaff sees little "matter" with which to concern himself amidst the sphere of structured and officious policy and follows his hedonist impulses unreservedly, ruled by no conventions. This is put across when Hal asks him "What a devil hast thou to do with the time of day?" (Act I, Scene 2), referring to Falstaff's shameless indifference to anything that doesn't directly concern him. He is an eloquent advocator for his stance. A margin in which for Shakespeare to plead an interesting and refreshing apologia for those frequently scorned and dismissed as "low". Falstaff has a tendency to boil things down to their essence "what is that word honour? Air. A trim reckoning!" (Act V, Scene 4) and lacks interest and reverence for façade. This would seem paradoxical in regards to what a liar he repeatedly shows himself to be, but nonetheless, in terms of honesty of action, he is the most honest character throughout. Falstaff makes little secret of his self-serving and weakness: `Dost thou hear, Hal? Thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty` (Henry IV, III.3. I 5 I -54). That is to say, he acts truly, in direct conjunction with his motives, unhindered by concerns of propriety and the costume of dignity; an outwardly projected illusion which he believes to be hollow at its core, "The better part of valour is /discretion" (Act V, Scene 4) (In which phrase, "discretion" is cut to the next line, which emphases the cautious creeping). On the other side of the spectrum stand the King and Hotspur, both characters fuelled by the hot, dry humour of blood, and correspondently, are rash, bold, and extremely concerned with power and reputation. Because of this similarity of temperament Henry IV expresses the wish that Hotspur had been his son instead of the cool, nonchalant Hal, who makes an art of sprezzatura "my reformation, glittering o'er my fault/ Shal show more goodly and attract more eyes" (Act I, Scene 3). Henry IV and Hotspur are both driven and dominated by the idea of reputation, "He doth fill fields with harness in the realm,/ Turns head against the lion's armed jaws,/ And, being no more in debt to years than thou,/ Leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on/ To bloody battles./ What never-dying honour hath he got." (Act III, Scene 3) They do not acknowledge the essential frailty of the substance they seek, that, like gold, and the very "hollow crown" itself holds no intrinsic worth. As Richard II beautifully illustrates; "For God`s sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings; How some have been deposed; some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; Some poison`d by their wives: some sleeping kill`d; All murder`d: for within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, Allowing him a breath, a little scene, To monarchize, be fear`d and kill with looks, Infusing him with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable, and humour`d thus Comes at the last and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!" However, throughout the play, a case is made for the superiority of the artificial, a symbolic world created by mind rather than matter. Henry's eventual conversion from night to day may be read as it's victory, and the emergence of the sun, marked by his baptism in Hotspur's blood (and thereby symbolically allowing Hal to take on the somewhat blood-dominated temperament that a ruler must adopt) "In the closing of some glorious day,/ Be bold to tell you that I am your son;/ When I will wear a garment all of blood,/ And stain my favours in a bloody mask,/ Which, wash'd away, shall scour my shame with it" (Act III, Scene 3). As the King expresses, "playing the part" is not so much a moral obligation, but a question of seeming. The problem with authenticity, he holds, is quite simply that- it gets boring for your audience. Admitting humanity results in not recognition and respect, but tedium "seen, but with such eyes,/ As, sick and blunted with community,/ Afford no extraordinary gaze,/ Such as is bent on sunlike majesty,/ When it shines seldom in admiring eyes;/ But rather drows'd, and hung their eyelids down" (Act III, Scene2) The subtle point is made it is not passion or anger that is the prime evil to be guarded against, but indifference which, indeed, caused the dethroning of Richard II. Honour must be preserved for strategic purposes, in the same way that "Courtesy is an instrument, the object of the instrument is influence, and the purpose of that influence is virtue. Good and effective counsel, then, is the practical end of the courtier`s art" Indeed, when the King speaks against the tavern and Hall's associates in debauchery, it isn't rooted in ant puritanical value system condemning the actions themselves, but he warns that in time, if you're too visible, you will be seen through and eventually become disregarded. This echoes an earlier remark Hal made about the un-notability of that which is commonplace "wisdom cries out in/ the streets and no man regards it." (Act I, Scene 2) Similarly to the king's dismissal of common, earthly life, when Hotspur's wife asks him why he pays her no attention, he dismisses her- not with thoughts of sin but with lack of interest for all that which is maudlin, and to him sickly-sweet. "This is no world,/ To play with mammets and to tilt with lips:/ We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns" (Act II, Scene 4) Throughout, he reacts with fierce contempt against anything soft, lacking in backbone and honour. This comes across each time he launches an insult "Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dress'd,/ Fresh as a bridegroom [.] Perfumed like a milliner [.] With many holiday and lady terms/ He questioned me./ [.] He made me mad,/ to see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet, And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman" (Act I, Scene 3) "I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew,/ Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers:/ Or I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd,/ [.] And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,/ Nothing so much as mincing poetry:/ 'T is like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag." (Act III, Scene 2) King Henry IV points out to his son that people really don't want openness and authenticity (as exemplified by the fall of Richard II, made possible because his subjects could read him- thought him weak due to his naïve assumptions that he could take his right to rule for granted "Not all the water in the rough rude sea/ Can wash the balm off from an anointed king;/ The breath of worldly men cannot depose/ The deputy elected by the Lord") That the psychological makeup of the people sickens at even "a little more than a little" surfeit of "sweetness"(Act III, Scene 2) They want to be deluded, held in thrall. Indeed, the very duty of the Sovereign, here, accords with the Hobbesian understanding that the role is purely symbolic, not functional: "The word person [.] signifies the face, as persona in Latin signifies the disguise, or outward appearance of a man, counterfeited on the stage; and sometimes more particularly that part of it which disguiseth the face, as a mask or vizard: and from the stage hath been translated to any representer of speech and action, as well in tribunals as theatres. [.] to personate is to act or represent himself or another; and he that acteth another is said to bear his person, or act in his name [.] and is called in diverse occasions, diversely; as a representer, or representative, a lieutenant, a vicar, an attorney, a deputy, a procurator, an actor, and the like." To, through seeming; represent the Leviathan; "This is the generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defence. For by this authority, given him by every particular man in the Commonwealth, he hath the use of so much power and strength conferred on him that, by terror thereof, he is enabled to form the wills of them all, to peace at home, and mutual aid against their enemies abroad. And in him consisteth the essence of the Commonwealth; which, to define it, is: one person, of whose acts a great multitude" Understood this way, keeping the crown and calculated aura of mystery is a favour to the people as it lets them keep their gods up upon their pedestals and leaves the Leviathan potent to maintain the status quo, guard against a return to the "nasty brutish and short" State of Nature. After all, injected with enough belief and compliance, the theoretical develops its own reality, the symbolic in this case allowing the perpetuation of law and order. In this play therefore, maturity comes across, in part, as the ability to recognise the importance of symbols and of the public realm, since, not being able to retract the taste of the apple of knowledge, having gained consciousness and abstract ideas like good and evil, mere moon-driven animal life ceases to be interesting or productive. What you do is insubstantial beside who you seem to be "My presence, like a robe pontifical,/ Ne'er seen but wonder'd at: and so my state,/ Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast/ And won by rareness such solemnity."(Act III, Scene 2). Natural, base life is too sterile and predictable for Man, who wants more than the usual, "If all the year were playing holidays,/ To sport would be as tedious as to work:/ But when they seldom come, they wish'd-for come." (Act I, Scene 3) and so seeks salvation through mind and the symbolic. However, the futility of this is hinted at the death of Hotspur, the main advocator of discarding emotions and the vulgar in preferment of glory, who doesn't think the motives behind the game are of half so much import as how wholeheartedly you invest yourself in it, as conveyed through the violence and intensity with which he reacts to everything. Having long buried any trace of sentimentality and vulnerability- any remnants of "milk" in his character- he is stricken with the discovery of his humanity and the ultimate inconsequence of honour when he is overthrown by the prince. He finally has to face that "Percy, thou art dust,/ And food for- " (Act V, Scene 5) The fact that he dies before finishing his sentence and pronouncing "worms" emphasises how erasable Man is, further expounded upon by Hal; "Ill weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!/ When that this body did contain a spirit,/ A kingdom for it was too small a bound;/ But now, two paces of the vilest earth/ Is room enough" (Act V, Scene 5). Thus, though the symbolic mantle is accepted by Henry V, his acquaintance with the earthly world of night has given him a sense of proportion- an awareness that there is a hollow bottom to the ideals of power and reputation and that they are of questionable durability. "Who hath it? He that died o'Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No." (Act V, Scene 4) Falstaff's wisdom lies in his recognition that the meat components of Man are inescapable, a core reality that will always resurface at the end, making honour insignificant. He, a character well-padded with meat, has embraced his fullness through the lifestyle of excess. It is thanks to the prince's past association with Falstaff, that as a King, Hal is able to maintain the ideal balance. His consequent empathy and connection with the people ultimately allows the miraculous victory on Saint Crispin's Day.

References: Shakespeare, The Illustrated Stratford Shakespeare: Richard II, (Act III, scene 2), Italy: Chancellor Press, 1991 Thomas Hobbes: Leviathan, Yale University Press, 2010 Anthony La Branche, Shakespeare Quarterly -"If Thou Wert Sensible of Courtesy: Private and Public Virtue in Henry IV, Part One" -Folger Shakespeare Library Hygh Grady- The Modern Language Review, "Falstaff: Subjectivity between the Carnival and the Aesthetic", Modern Humanities Research Association Barbara Donagan, The Historical Journal, "The Web of Honour: Soldiers, Christians, and Gentlemen in the English Civil War", Cambridge University Press