How did Moses' mother save him as a baby?

Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Eve Tushnet

Home
Catholic
Religious Music & Entertainment

Last updated on: December 9, 2004 at 7:24 pm by Eve Tushnet

2004-12-09T19:24:00-04:00 Eve Tushnet

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

FALSTAFF: Sir John Falstaff’s story is also shaped by his role as a sidekick to Prince Hal, and in his case his death is not even a precursor of a larger tragedy but in fact a precursor of Hal’s triumph. Falstaff shares many other characteristics with Mercutio–and manages to steal Hal’s fire even more often than Mercutio stole Romeo’s–but adds to them a greater sense of a life lived for the purpose of living, of the satisfaction of the body serving to satisfy the soul. Shakespeare does not present him as a man without a soul, and does not condemn him as Hal and his ministers do; his excesses of the flesh come from his decision to live with gusto. Especially in the second part of Henry IV, he is an old man who wants to enjoy himself and to cheat death for as long as he can. He lives against death; upon Bardolph’s reminder that “you are so fretful you cannot live long” (1H4 III.iii.11), he agrees but quickly turns his attention to bawdy songs, merrymaking, and jests about his earlier life of “virtue,” in which he “went to a bawdy-house not above once in a quarter–of an hour” (1H4 III.iii.15-6). He denies that he is a sinner on the grounds that “If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned: if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine are to be loved” (1H4 II.iv.465-8). Not just his vitality, but also his quick wit and his love for Hal give the lie to the Prince’s insinuations that he is merely a lump of fat and bad wine. Their relationship starts off jokingly and only slightly more antagonistic than Romeo and Mercutio’s; just as Romeo, without malice, describes his friend as “A gentleman… that loves to hear himself talk and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month” (II.iv.149-51), so Hal disparages Falstaff as “so fat-witted… that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know” (1H4 I.ii.2-5) without the audience hearing any real discord. Falstaff responds to Hal’s barbs in Mercutio’s fashion, with his cascades of words, and does Mercutio one better by mixing in classical, Biblical, and canting references to create a wryly grandiloquent manner of speaking. He also gets his own digs in at Hal, saying that “grace thou wilt have none… not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter” (1H4 I.ii.18-21) and overturning the conventions of his morality-play forebears by proclaiming that Hal is “indeed able to corrupt a saint” and has “done much harm upon me… God forgive thee for it” (1H4 I.ii.88-90). In fact, both Falstaff and Hal subvert the morality-play framework; Vice is not nearly so vicious, nor Virtue so virtuous, as we might expect. Falstaff claims that “Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me” (1H4 III.iii.9-10), turning the “youth is corrupted by aged sin, and at last repents” storyline on its head.

As the representative of the un-heroic, anti-abstract faith, Falstaff provides not only a lusty vitality but also a running commentary on heroes, ideals, and politics which is far more subtle and sophisticated than the earlier malcontent archetype could have presented. Just as he undermines the conventions of the morality play with his wit and his good-hearted loyalty, he also undermines the conventions of the morality play with his wit and his good-hearted loyalty, he also undermines the conventions of the history play, in which the main purpose is the glorification of the state. While Hal, once he becomes Henry V, is given all the reverent, mythologizing treatment befitting a king and a leader in war, throughout the first two plays Falstaff has been there to deflate all the grand ideals of national honor and royal greatness. He has no respect for Prince Henry, saying, “By the Lord, I’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king” (1H4 I.ii.141); his love is for Hal the man, not the crown that man will wear. To him, the next king of England is “the most comparative rascalliest sweet young prince” (1H4 I.ii.78-9), well-loved but not revered. He pokes fun at the idea that kings are any better than his band of thieves: “There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in three, nor thou cam’st not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings” (1H4 I.ii.135-7). In this terrific overturning sentence, Hal’s willingness to rob is a proof of his royalty. Falstaff shows similar irreverence toward every pillar of a stable society; he talks of “the rusty curb of old father Antic the law” (1H4 I.ii.59), and even in a solemn conference of war he is irrepressible, responding to Worcester’s “I have not sought the day of this dislike” with his own “Rebellion lay in his way, and he found it” (1H4 V.i.26, 28). Falstaff has a well-developed morality of his own, one in which pleasure is valued higher than battlefield honor. When it comes to taking action, “I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion” (2H4 I.ii.219-21). His view of Hal’s pursuit of glory is summed up in the line, “I would ’twere bed-time, Hal, and all well” (1H4 V.i.125). For honor he can say only,

Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? A word. …What is that word honour? Air. …Who hath it? He that died a-Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. …Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon–and so ends my catechism. (1H4 V.ii.131-41)

In all Henry V’s fiery words about honor, victory, and the glory of England, there is nothing which can answer this speech.

Hal’s rejection of Falstaff, which was in the workings from their first scene together, overshadows the play and turns Sir John’s story into what would be a tragedy, if only the lusty knight were the hero. Hal sees his time with Falstaff as an exhilarating sojourn in Vice, like a trip to a foreign country, and he is preparing for his return home all the time that he is there. From the first, his verbal thrusts at Falstaff are far more threatening than anything he receives in return; her talks of “the ridge of the gallows” (1H4 I.ii.38), the buff jerkin of the constable which is “a most sweet robe of durance” (1H4 I.ii.42) and the “suits” obtained by the hangman from felons, all in his first scene with Falstaff. Falstaff knows that his own position is tenuous in a way that Hal’s never will be; he has good reason to say, “as thou art prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp” (1H4 III.iii.145-6). Hal readily acknowledges this difference: “I am good friends with my father and may do anything” (1H4 III.iii.180). When Hal has Falstaff play at being the rebellious prince, while he pretends to be his own father the King, no one pays attention to his promise to banish Falstaff, set out so plainly–“I do, I will” (1H4 II.iv.475)–as to be unbelievable; yet it comes to pass, because Hal wills it. By the second part of Henry IV, Falstaff’s powers are failing him in Hal’s absence; the Lord Chief Justice gives his wits more trouble than he expected, and Doll Tearsheet talks as if he is soon to die and must “patch up [his] old body for heaven” (2H4 II.iv.229-30). When at last the rejection comes, it is public and cruel, with Hal naming Falstaff “that vain man” (2H4 V.v.43) and banishing him, “Not to come near our person by ten mile” (2H4 V.v.65). Although Hal provides Falstaff with money and a chance at reinstatement if he “reform” (which is unimaginable), it is the banishment which breaks Sir John’s heart; the thieves may have joked about hanging, but the upright King Henry V proved to be Falstaff’s gallows in the end. Henry goes on to become his old companion’s opposite; when Henry V opens, Canterbury remarks that “Consideration like an angel came/And whipped th’offending Adam out of him,/Leaving his body as a paradise” (I.i.28-30)–nothing could be further from old Falstaff, who indulged his body but never attempted to purify it. Hal’s reformation, which required the rejection of Falstaff, “killed his heart” (II.i.79), leaving it “fracted and corroborate” (II.i.112), and causing his death. Henry goes on to win glory and a wife in his war with France, but the figure which provided the heart of the two earlier plays has gone. In Henry IV, part 1 Falstaff warned Hal, “Banish plump Jack, and you banish all the world” (II.iv.473-4); what the Prince banished when he became King was in fact a way of seeing the world which Shakespeare brought to prominence and which Falstaff embodied, the viewpoint of the tragic sidekick.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

December 9, 2004

Next Post

December 9, 2004

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Best-Of Gay Catholic Whatnot Mackerel-Snapping self-obsessed Too much is never enough Uncategorized

Select a Month November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

How did Moses' mother save him as a baby?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Dressed him as a girl Sent him to another city Hid him in a cave Placed him in a basket on the river