Henry IV, Part 1Shakespeare’s First Folio
Scans: Bodleian Libraries, Arch. G c.7.
The First Folio
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On the page
Source transcription. Original spelling retained.
Reading Henry IV, Part 1
Histories · First Folio, 1623
Henry IV, Part 1 brings the business of governing into contact with the improvisations of tavern life. Prince Hal moves between his father's expectations and Falstaff's company while rebellion develops around Hotspur. These settings do more than contrast seriousness with pleasure. Both require people to judge performances of honour, loyalty, and competence. Read Hal's exchanges with Falstaff beside the court's accounts of him, keeping track of who is present for each version of the prince. The Folio offers a particularly direct way to follow how a reputation can be rehearsed before it is publicly tested.
The King's opening speech imagines an end to civil conflict and a campaign abroad. News from Wales and the north interrupts that imagined settlement. The scene then turns toward the comparison between Hal and Hotspur, showing how political anxieties become entangled with a father's judgment of his son.
Context: Henry IV, Part 1 at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Scans and transcription: Bodleian Libraries, Arch. G c.7.
On the opening page
The First Part of henry the Fourth, with the life and Death of HENRY Sirnamed HOT‑SPVRRE. Actus Primus. Scԓna Prima. [Act 1, Scene 1] Enter the King, Lord Iohn of Lancaster, Earle of Westmerland, with others. King. SO shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted peace to pant And breathe shortwinded accents of new broils To be commenc'd in Stronds a‑farre remote: No more the thirsty entrance of this Soile, Shall daub her lippes with her owne childrens blood: No more shall trenching Warre channell her fields, Nor bruise her Flowrets with the Armed hoofes Of hostile paces. Those opposed eyes, Which, like the Meteors of a troubled Heauen, All of one Nature, of one Substance bred, Did lately meet in the intestine shocke, And furious cloze of ciuill Butchery, Shall now in mutuall well‑beseeming rankes March all one way, and be no more oppos'd Against Acquaintance, Kindred, and Allies. The edge of Warre, like an ill‑sheathed knife, No more shall cut his master. Therefore Friends, As farre as to the Sepulcher of Christ, Whose Souldier now vnder whose blessed Crosse We are impressed and ingag'd to fight, Forthwith a power of English shall we leuie, Whose armes were moulded in their mothers wombe, To chase these pagans in those holy Fields, Ouer whose acres walk'd those blessed feete Which fourteene hundred yeares ago were nail'd For our aduantage on the bitter Crosse. But this our purpose is a tweluemonth old, And bootlesse 'tis to tell you we will go: Therefore we meete not now. Then let me heare
An opening excerpt from the Bodleian transcription, with original spelling retained. Continue in the reader. Text CC BY 3.0.