In Henry IV Part 1, Shakespeare heavily foreshadows events that will occur in later plays included in the Henriad, or the cycle of history plays centered upon Kings Henry IV and V. One seemingly light scene in the play foreshadows the darker turn that the later plays will take. Bardolph, one of the criminals in Falstaff’s gang, asks Prince Harry to interpret the pimples on his face:
BARDOLPH: My lord, do you see these meteors? Do you
behold these exhalations?PRINCE: I DO
BARDOLPH: What think you they portend?
PRINCE: Hot livers and cold purses.
BARDOLPH: Choler, my lord, if rightly taken.
PRINCE: No. If rightly taken, halter.
Bardolph compares the spots on his face to flaming meteors and implies that they can be “read” or “interpreted” in the manner of astrology. After Bardolph asks Prince Hal what the symbols on his face “portend” or predict, the prince responds, “Hot livers and cold purses,” implying that Bardolph is a drunkard, as it was generally believed in early modern England that excessive drinking would result in a warm liver. Prince Hal, then, insultingly suggests that alcoholism and poverty lie in Bardolph’s future.
Bardolph continues to push the prince for a serious answer, stating that he thinks “choler” or anger awaits him. The prince, however, responds with a grim joke that puns on the similarity of the words “choler” and “collar,” implying that Bardolph might some day find himself with a noose, or “halter,” around his neck. This seemingly insignificant joke foreshadows a key event in Henry V: when Bardolph is accused of looting a defeated French village, Prince Hal, then King Henry V, sentences his former friend to death for violating the law.
