But thou dost in thy passages of life
Make me believe that thou art only mark’d
For the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven
To punish my mistreadings. Tell me else,
Could such inordinate and low desires,
Such barren pleasures, rude society,
As thou art match’d withal and grafted to,
Accompany the greatness of thy blood
And hold their level with thy princely heart?
PRINCE HENRY
So please your majesty
Find pardon on my true submission. (kneels)
KING HENRY IV
God pardon thee! Yet let me wonder, Harry,
At thy affections, which do hold a wing
Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.
The hope and expectation of thy time
Is ruin’d. Harry, thou has lost thy princely privilege
With vile participation: Not an eye
But is a-weary of thy common sight,
Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more.
PRINCE HENRY (touched and surprised)
I shall hereafter be more myself.
KING HENRY IV
For all the world
Percy now leads ancient lords and reverend bishops on
To bloody battles and to bruising arms.
Thrice hath this Hotspur, Mars in swathling clothes,
Discomfited great Douglas, ta’en him once,
And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,
The Archbishop’s grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer,
Capitulate against us and are up.
PRINCE HENRY
I will redeem all this on Percy’s head,
And, 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 favors in a bloody mask,
Which, washed away, shall scour my shame with it.
And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights,
That this same child of honor and renown,
This gallant Hotspur, this all-praisèd knight,
And your unthought-of Harry chance to meet.
For every honor sitting on his helm,
Would they were multitudes, and on my head
My shames redoubled! For the time will come
That I shall make this northern youth exchange
His glorious deeds for my indignities.
This in the name of God I promise here,
The which if He be pleased I shall perform,
I do beseech your Majesty may salve
The long-grown wounds of my intemperance.
If not, the end of life cancels all bands,
And I will die a hundred thousand deaths
Ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.
KING HENRY IV stands and helps PRINCE HENRY to his feet. They hold a long handshake and eye contact.
KING HENRY IV
A hundred thousand rebels die in this:
Thou shalt have charge and sovereign trust herein.
Exit KING HENRY IV stage right. PRINCE HENRY follows.
I directed this performance of Henry IV, Part 1 in 2008 with a group of high school seniors. Young actors love this production for its generational conflicts. The clash between the older and younger characters is particularly attractive to adolescents and young adults.
As detailed in the “Performing Shakespeare” essay, performers and directors can use Wordle.net (www.wordle.net/create) to create a “word cloud” graphic that emphasizes which words appear with greatest frequency in a character’s speech. Actors can use this information to color their words and shape their characters. What others say about a Shakespearean character provides additional clues as to his nature—and allows us to a portray a three-dimensional living, breathing person, with faults as well as good qualities, i.e., someone like ourselves!
HENRY IV, PART 1: ACT III, SCENE II
Interestingly, art imitated life in this short scene (Act III, Scene II) during our production of Henry IV, Part 1. The actor playing Hal in this scene had recently been expelled from school and then reinstated. He had just spent a lot of time apologizing for his behavior, and now he was playing a son apologizing for the same. Needless to say, I encouraged him to use recent occurrences as inspiration as his character begged for his father’s pardon.
We do not always have the opportunity for the play’s exact mirroring of our own experiences, but with a bit of searching, it is not difficult to find conflicts in our own lives or others’ that are similar to those in Shakespeare’s texts. Sometimes it takes imagination or a metaphorical leap. In this particular case, the young actor playing Hal simply had to act the same way he had been acting in his real life: genuinely contrite and apologetic. When he stood up and looked straight out at the audience, saying, “This, in the name of God, I promise here,” I believed he meant it.
There is no secret answer to how to prevent the unexpected in theater, nor are we guaranteed the audience response we desire. But by delving into the text, committing to the characters, and playing with passion, your group can deliver a production that not only brings joy and satisfaction to audiences, but also builds performers’ confidence, opening them up to the vivid worlds that Shakespeare creates. Henry IV, Part 1 is a magnificent story of a young king and his friends—but it is also a story about how we all grow up and, in doing so, change.
ACT III, SCENE II: PRINCE HAL MONOLOGUE
The first three words in this monologue—“I will redeem”—set the tone for what is to follow: Prince Hal’s promise to turn his shame into glory at Hotspur’s expense. It is important to know how Hal has behaved up until this point: wasting his time in the company of drunkards. However, there have been hints that this was not the “real” Prince Hal or at least not his sum total.
When performing a monologue, it is essential to know where the character has been and what has brought him to this point. The monologue might stand alone when you perform