but Prince Henry immediately doffs this kingly mood to imitate Hotspur. He goes on:
"I am the Prince of Wales, and think not, Percy, To share with me in glory any more; Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, Nor can our England brook a double reign Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales ..."
And so the bombast rolls, and one brags against the other like systole and diastole which balance each other in the same heart. But the worst of the matter is, that Prince Henry and Hotspur, as we have already noticed, have both the same soul and the same inspiring motive in love of honour. They both avow this again and again, though Hotspur finds the finer expression for it when he cries that he will "pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon."
To the student of the play it really looks as if Shakespeare could not imagine any other incentive to noble or heroic deeds but this love of glory: for nearly all the other serious characters in the play sing of honour in the same key. King Henry IV. envies Northumberland
"A son who is the theme of honour's tongue,"
and declares that Percy hath got "never-dying honour against renownéd Douglas." The Douglas, too, can find no other word with which to praise Hotspur--"thou art the king of honour": even Vernon, a mere secondary character, has the same mainspring: he says to Douglas:
"If well-respected honour bid me on, I hold as little counsel with weak fear As you or any Scot that this day lives."
Falstaff himself declares that nothing "pricks him on but honour," and bragging Pistol admits that "honour is cudgelled" from his weary limbs. The French, too, when they are beaten by Henry V. all bemoan their shame and loss of honour, and have no word of sorrow for their ruined homesteads and outraged women and children. The Dauphin cries:
"Reproach and everlasting shame Sits mocking in our plumes."
"Shame and eternal shame, nothing but shame."
It is curious that Bourbon falls upon the same thought which animated Hotspur. Just before the decisive battle Hotspur cries:
"O, gentlemen! the time of life is short; To spend that shortness basely were too long."
And when the battle turns against the French, Bourbon exclaims:
"The devil take order now! I'll to the throng: Let life be short; else shame will be too long."