For the first two acts of the play, King Henry IV and his son, Prince Hal, do not share the stage. Their first meeting takes place in Act 3, as the King summons Prince Hal to court and berates him for behavior that he considers unbefitting of a future monarch. In his speech, King Henry uses a series of similes to describe his own carefully calculated approach to presenting himself publicly as King:
By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But like a comet I was wondered at,
That men would tell their children “This is he.”
Others would say “Where? Which is Bolingbroke?”
And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dressed myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts [...]
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new,
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne’er seen but wondered at, and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast
And won by rareness such solemnity.
Hal, his father suggests, has lost the respect of the people by making himself too familiar to them, hanging out in low-class taverns, socializing freely with drunkards and criminals, and failing to uphold the majesty of the monarchy. He outlines his own policy, describing himself first as a comet, a notable motif in the play: “Like a comet I was wondered at,” he states, “That men would tell their children ‘This is he.’” Because comets are so infrequently seen, they are an object of wonder and mystery to the public, and likewise, the King only permits himself to be seen on rare occasions.
Similarly, he describes himself as being "like a robe pontifical"—or, in other words, the clothing worn by priests for important religious rituals. In yet another complementary simile, he characterizes his presence as being “like a feast” that occurs only on special occasions or holy days in the Church. Through these similes, Henry argues that a King should be “seldom but sumptuous,” maximizing his impact by maintaining sufficient distance between himself and his subjects.
