Quiz on King Henry IV, Part I

English 305

Dr. Fike

1.                                 Those opposèd 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.   

2.  My liege, I did deny no prisoners.                                   

But I remember when the fight was done,

When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,

Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

Came there a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed,

Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reaped

Showed like a stubble land at harvest home.

3.  Percy is but my factor, good my lord,                 

To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf;

And I will call him to so strict account

That he shall render every glory up,

Yea, even the slightest worship of his time,

Or I will tear the reckoning from his heart.

4.  What is honor?  A word.  What is in that word "honor"?  What is that "honor"?  Air.  A trim reckoning!  Who hath it?  He     that died o' Wednesday.  Doth he feel it?  No.  Doth he hear it?  No.  'Tis insensible, then?  Yea, to the dead.  But will it not live with the living?  No.  Why?  Detraction will not suffer it.  Therefore I'll none of it.  Honor is a mere scutcheon.  And so ends my catechism.

5.  In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watched

And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,

Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed,        

Cry, "Courage!  To the field!"  And thou hast talked

Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents,

Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,

Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,

Of prisoners' ransom, and of soldiers slain,

And all the currents of a heady fight.

6.  O Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth!        

I better brook the loss of brittle life

Than those proud titles thou hast won of me;

They wound my thoughts worse than the sword my flesh.

7.                                   Tell me else,                        

Could such inordinate and low desires,

Such poor, such bare, such lewd, such mean attempts,

Such barren pleasures, rude society,

As thou are matched withal and grafted to,

Accompany the greatness of thy princely heart?

8.  I pressed me none but such toast-and-butter, with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins' heads, and they have brought out their services; and now my whole charge consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies—slaves as ragged as Lazarus in the painted cloth, where the glutton's dogs licked his sores, and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen, younger sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters, and hostlers trade-fallen, the cankers of a calm world and a long peace, ten times more dishonorable-ragged than an old feazed ancient.                                                                               

9.  For my part, I may speak it to my shame,                                 

I have a truant been to chivalry;

And so I hear he doth account me too.

Yet this before my father's majesty:

I am content that he shall take the odds

Of his great name and estimation,

And will, to save the blood on either side,

Try fortune with him in a single fight.

10.  Explain how it might be argued that Hal’s motive for being in the tavern is power.