Henry IV, Part 1

Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare. It is the second of Shakespeare's four-play series that deals with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV (2 plays) and Henry V. Henry IV, Part I was probably first performed early in 1597.

Act I

• So shaken as we are, so wan with care.
  • King Henry, scene i

• In those holy fields,
  Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,
  Which, fourteen hundred years ago, were nail’d
  For our advantage, on the bitter cross.
  • King Henry, scene i

• Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know.
  • Prince Henry, scene ii

• Diana’s foresters, Gentlemen of the shade, Minions of the moon.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• Old father antic the law.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• Thou hast the most unsavory similes; and art, indeed, the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• I would to God, thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• O, Thou hast damnable iteration; and art, indeed, able to corrupt a saint.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• And now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• ’T is my vocation, Hal; ’t is no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his bargain; for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs: he will give the devil his due.
  • Prince Henry, scene ii

• There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou cam'st not of the blood royal, if thou dar'st not stand for ten shillings.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• If all the year were playing holidays,
  To sport would be as tedious as to work.
  • Prince Henry, scene ii

• So, when this loose behaviour I throw off,
  And pay the debt I never promised,
  By how much better than my word I am,
  By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
  And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
  My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
  Shall show more goodly, and attract more eyes,
  Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
  • Prince Henry, scene ii

• Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap’d,
  Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home;
  He was perfumed like a milliner,
  And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held
  A pouncet-box, which ever and anon
  He gave his nose, and took ’t away again.
  • Hotspur, scene iii

• And, as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,
  He called them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
  To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
  Betwixt the wind and his nobility.
  • Hotspur, scene iii

• God save the mark!
  • Hotspur, scene iii

• And telling me, the sovereign’st thing on earth
  Was parmaceti, for an inward bruise;
  And that it was great pity, so it was,
  This villanous saltpetre should be digg’d
  Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
  Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d
  So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
  He would himself have been a soldier.
  • Hotspur, scene iii

• O! the blood more stirs,
  To rouse a lion, than to start a hare.
  • Hotspur, scene iii

• By heaven, methinks, it were an easy leap,
  To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon,
  Or dive into the bottom of the deep,
  Where fathom-line could never touch the ground,
  And pluck up drowned honour by the locks;
  So he, that doth redeem her thence, might wear
  Without corrival, all her dignities:
  But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!
  • Hotspur, scene iii

Act II

• I know a trick worth two of that.
  • 1st Carrier, scene i

• If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest for ever.
  • Prince Henry, scene ii

• Falstaff sweats to death,
  And lards the lean earth as he walks along.
  • Prince Henry, scene ii

• Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
  • Hotspur, scene iii

• I could brain him with his lady’s fan.
  • Hotspur, scene iii

• A Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy.
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

• A plague of all cowards, I say.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• There live not three good men unhanged in England; and one of them is fat, and grows old.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• Call you that, backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing!
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• I have peppered two of them: two, I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face; call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward: here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me —
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• Three misbegotten knaves, in Kendal green.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• Give you a reason on compulsion! If reasons were as plenty as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down.
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

• I was now a coward on instinct.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• No more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me!
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• What doth gravity out of his bed at midnight?
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses’ vein.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swoln parcel of dropsies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years?
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

• Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• I do; I will.
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

• Play out the play.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• O, monstrous! but one half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

Act III

• Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth
  In strange eruptions.
  • Hotspur, scene i

• I am not in the roll of common men.
  • Glendower, scene i

• Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
  But will they come, when you do call for them?
  • Scene i

• While you live, tell truth, and shame the devil.
  • Hotspur, scene i

• I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew,
  Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.
  • Hotspur, scene i

• But, in the way of bargain, mark ye me,
  I’ll cavil on the ninth part of a hair.
  • Hotspur, scene i

• Such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff.
  • Hotspur, scene i

• Exceedingly well read.
  • Mortimer, scene i

• A good mouth-filling oath.
  • Hotspur, scene i

• A fellow of no mark, nor likelihood.
  • King Henry, scene ii

• To loathe the taste of sweetness, whereof a little
  More than a little, is by much too much.
  • King Henry, scene ii

• An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a pepper-corn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.
  • Falstaff, scene iii

• Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn, but I shall have my pocket picked?
  • Falstaff, scene iii

• Rob me the exchequer.
  • Falstaff, scene iii

Act IV

• This sickness doth infect
  The very life-blood of our enterprise.
  • Hotspur, scene i

• Where is his son,
  The nimble-footed mad-cap prince of Wales,
  And his comrades, that daff'd the world aside,
  And bid it pass?
  • Hotspur, scene i

• All plum'd like estridges, that with the wind;
  Baited like eagles having lately bath'd;
  Glittering in golden coats, like images;
  As full of spirit as the month of May,
  And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer;
  Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.
  I saw young Harry, with his beaver on,
  His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly arm’d,
  Rise from the ground like feather’d Mercury,
  And vaulted with such ease into his seat,
  As if an angel dropp’d down from the clouds,
  To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus,
  And witch the world with noble horsemanship.
  • Vernon, scene i

• The cankers of a calm world, and a long peace.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• A mad fellow met me on the way, and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets, and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scare-crows. I’ll not march through Coventry with them, that’s flat: nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on; for, indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There’s but a shirt and a half in all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins, tacked together, and thrown over the shoulders like an herald’s coat without sleeves.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• Food for powder, food for powder; they’ll fill a pit, as well as better.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

• To the latter end of a fray, and the beginning of a feast,
  Fits a dull fighter, and a keen guest.
  • Falstaff, scene ii

Act V

• For nothing can seem foul to those that win.
  • King Henry, scene i

• Falstaff: I would it were bed-time, Hal, and all well.
  Prince Henry: Why, thou owest God a death. [Exit.]
  Falstaff: 'Tis not due yet: I would be loth to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, 'tis no matter; Honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if Honour prick me off when I come on? how then? 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. A trim reckoning! — Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it sensible then? Yes, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it: therefore I'll none of it. Honour is a mere 'scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.
  • Scene i

• An if we live, we live to tread on kings;
  If die, brave death, when princes die with us!
  • Hotspur, scene ii

• Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

• O, Harry, thou hast robb'd me of my youth!
  • Hotspur, scene iv

• This earth, that bears thee dead,
  Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

• Thy ignominy sleep with thee in the grave,
  But not remember’d in thy epitaph!
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

• I could have better spar'd a better man.
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

• The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• Full bravely hast thou flesh'd
  Thy maiden sword.
  • Prince Henry, scene iv

• Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you, I was down and out of breath; and so was he: but we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

• I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly.
  • Falstaff, scene iv

External links

• Henry IV, Part 1 quotes analyzed; study guide with themes, character analyses, literary devices, teaching resources