In a comedic scene suffused with dramatic irony, Falstaff presents a highly distorted version of recent events depicted in the play. Poins, a companion of Prince Hal, earlier devised a scheme to embarrass Falstaff. After giving Falstaff directions to rob some traveling Christian pilgrims, he and Prince Hal don disguises and then rob Falstaff of his ill-gotten gains. After Poins’s plan has been completed, he, Hal, and Falstaff watch in amusement as Falstaff spins a web of outrageous lies:
FALSTAFF: Nay, that’s past praying for. I have peppered
two of them. Two I am sure I have paid, two rogues
in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a
lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my
old ward. Here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four
rogues in buckram let drive at me.PRINCE: What, four? Thou said’st but two even now.
FALSTAFF: Four, Hal, I told thee four.
POINS: Ay, ay, he said four.
FALSTFF: These four came all afront, and mainly
thrust at me. I made me no more ado, but took all
their seven points in my target, thus.PRINCE: Seven? Why there were but four even now.
Prince Hal and Poins are quick to point out the inconsistencies in Falstaff’s story: he first describes “two rogues in buckram suits,” and by the end of that same paragraph, the number of enemy swordsmen has doubled to “four rogues in buckram.” Shortly later, the number has increased yet again to seven. An amused Prince Hal pokes at the holes in his account, reminding him that there “were but four” earlier in the story.
The humor of the scene stems from Shakespeare’s employment of dramatic irony. The audience knows something that Falstaff does not: Prince Hal and Poins orchestrated this attack for their own amusement and can see right through his lies. As Falstaff exaggerates his account further and further, the irony of the scene grows increasingly pointed.
Prince Hal defeats his rival, Hotspur, at the conclusion of the bloody Battle of Shrewsbury, which sees heavy losses on both sides. During the battle, Prince Hal taunted Hotspur mercilessly as they fought, even threatening to rip the “honors,” or chivalric tokens, off of his opponent’s helmet to create a “garland” for his own. After he defeats and kills Hotspur, however, Hal reflects somberly on this violent act, meditating on the ironies of human ambition:
Fare thee well, great heart.
Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound,
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead
Bears not alive so stout a gentleman.
When Hotspur was alive, Hal claims, his spirit was so large and forceful that a “kingdom for it was too small a bound.” Here, he references Hotspur’s ambitious desire to take possession of the Kingdom of England and to sit on its throne as unquestioned ruler. In death, however, Hotspur requires nothing more than “two paces of the vilest earth,” just enough space to be buried in. In this speech, he accords a surprising amount of respect to his vanquished foe while nevertheless commenting ironically on the self-defeating nature of the desire for power. In his goal to gain control of the kingdom, Hotspur has lost what he already had and now possesses no more than the small space of a grave.
