Henry IV (Part 1), Act 2

Please use this thread for discussing Henry IV (Part 1), Act 2.

The first scene of act two is to me why people can't stand the language of the Bard. (what is a Bard anyways?).

ITs fun to proffer really good lines from WS, but take on this!

enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand.

first Carrier

Heigh-ho! An it be not four by the day, I'll be hanged.
Charle's Wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed,-What ,ostler!

Ostler

Anon,anon

First Carrier

I prithee, Tom, best Cut's saddle. Put a few flocks in the
point, Poor jade is wrung in with withers out of all cess.

Speak English William, please! or at a minimum American if you will.

in short a delivery guy is up at 4 am with a gelded saddle sore horse and the horse still is not loaded with the days deliveries.

I have never read WS before in my life, and now realize I've missed out on something good.

What is a bard? The Welsh for poetry is barddoniaeth. So not sure if it is an English or Welsh or something other language. But it certainly means a poet

"Give me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man".

Gadshill: speaks as if there is honor among thieves, which is of course an oxymoron. (good thief)

exit act 2 scene 1

Taylor wrote:The first scene of act two is to me why people can't stand the language of the Bard..

The language really sets the tone, doesn't it? The lower class characters are almost impossible to understand without annotations. You can imagine the sort of Cockney accent the actors would use on stage.

There's an almost slapstick quality to these scenes that fall in contrast to other scenes of noblemen and kings discussing the strategies of war and other matters of state. Do you think Shakespeare was just trying to keep the folks in the cheap seats interested? I think that the Bard's plays work on many levels.

oops

Geo wrote:
Do you think Shakespeare was just trying to keep the folks in the cheap seats interested?

You can imagine the sort of Cockney accent the actors would use on stage.

Sometimes the accents are so thickly written in English lit that it becomes unbearable to attempt to pronounce while trying to understand whats even being presented in the text. its the same effect I get when reading Mark Twain.
We can surly jest that WS was keeping it real!
Act 2 for the most part carries that slapstick quality you mentioned.

I noticed that there really are no lines that could be cut without loosing something important to the dialog.
which is part of the pentameter or pace, every thing he puts in is important.

Would this be a comparison to say Hemingway who from my understanding was known for simple sentence structure?

Taylor wrote: I noticed that there really are no lines that could be cut without loosing something important to the dialog.
which is part of the pentameter or pace, every thing he puts in is important.

Would this be a comparison to say Hemingway who from my understanding was known for simple sentence structure?

I think both writers are very exact with language. We see Hal using 'thee' and 'thou' pronouns to address Falstaff, indicating a certain standoffishness (I think). Then again, Falstaff is not one for social conventions, and addresses the Prince informally. Shakespeare has the added burden of working in iambic pentameter. Or at least the noble folks talk in iambic pentameter. Falstaff and other low borns talk more in regular relaxed prose. Hal tends to speak in regular prose when he's with the guys, but in more of a formal iambic pentameter when he's with the other nobles.

For example:

The King:
"So Shaken Are We, So Wan With Care."

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

An iambic foot is da DUM. The stress is on the second syllable.

Iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

Presumably Shakespeare's audience was more in tune with this poetic aspect of the Bard's writing. I'm kind of tone deaf towards it myself. If you force yourself to read it aloud, the rhythm of iambic pentameter is more obvious.

Geo wrote:
I think both writers are very exact with language.

Your right of course. They are both exacting with words, I wrote "simple" to describe EH's sentence style but "exact" was what I was thinking. I don't always remember the words I'd like to use when writing or even talking sometimes.

Hal tends to speak in regular prose when he's with the guys, but in more of a formal iambic pentameter when he's with the other nobles.

Thanks for reminding me of something I was taught years ago in school.

"da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum da Dum"