Northumberland, father of Henry Percy (“Hotspur”) who was slain at the climax of Henry IV Part 1, alludes to the Trojan war upon learning of the defeat of the rebels at the Battle of Shrewsbury:
How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest, and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woebegone,
Drew Priam’s curtain in the dead of night
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy’s death ere thou report’st it.
Previously, Lord Bardolph claimed that the rebels had defeated the King’s troops, while the servant Travers insisted that the King had been victorious in battle. When Morton enters the scene, his pale face and nervous demeanor immediately indicate to Northumberland that he bears bad news. “The whiteness in thy cheek,” Northumberland states, “is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.”
He then alludes to the Fall of Troy, noting that a similarly “faint” and “spiritless” man must have once drawn “Priam’s curtain in the dead of night” to tell him “half his Troy was burnt.” Just as Priam saw the fire before the messenger could say anything, Northumberland does not need to hear Morton’s words to know the outcome of the battle. Northumberland’s allusion suggests that the rebel lords imagine themselves not as outlaws, but as defenders of England, and that they use ancient history to understand their current situation.
After Prince Harry and his companion Poins hear that Falstaff is enjoying an extravagant dinner with Mistress Quickly and Doll Teersheet, the two young men decide to pull a prank on their older friend, disguising themselves as waiters to listen to his conversation. In accepting the plan, Harry alludes to Greek and Roman mythology:
PRINCE
How might we see Falstaff bestow himself
tonight in his true colors, and not ourselves be
seen?POINS
Put on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and
wait upon him at his table as drawers.PRINCE
From a god to a bull: a heavy descension. It
was Jove’s case. From a prince to a ’prentice: a low transformation that shall be mine, for in everything the purpose must weigh with the folly. Follow me, Ned.
Prince Harry’s response to the plan is, at first, somewhat cryptic and unclear. He notes that in assuming the uniform of a waiter, a common job far beneath the station of a crown prince, he mirrors the transformation of Jove (the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Zeus) into a bull, which he further describes as a “heavy descension” or demotion. Here, he alludes to a common myth in Ancient Greece and Rome in which Zeus disguises himself as a bull in order to abduct the Phoenician princess, Europa. Harry’s allusion, then, underscores the gap between his own class and the silly pranks he pulls in his adolescence.
In a comic scene, a drunk Falstaff enjoys a rowdy dinner in Eastcheap, a low-class neighborhood in the play, with Mistress Quickly, the hostess of a tavern to whom he owes a good deal of money, and Doll Tearsheet, a prostitute. Teasing Falstaff, Doll alludes to a series of figures from Greek mythology and medieval history:
Ah, you sweet little rogue, you. Alas, poor ape,
how thou sweat’st! Come, let me wipe thy face.
Come on, you whoreson chops. Ah, rogue, i’ faith, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,
worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better
than the Nine Worthies. Ah, villain!
Here, Doll mixes insult with praise, first insulting him for being sweaty but then affectionately wiping the sweat off of his face. Teasingly, she claims that Falstaff is not only “as valorous as Hector of Troy” but also “worth five of Agamemnon” and even “ten times better / than the Nine Worthies.” Here, she alludes first to Hector, the greatest soldier in the Trojan army in Homer’s Iliad. Next, she compares Falstaff to Agamemnon, a king who, in the Iliad, leads the Greek army in the siege of Troy. Finally, she alludes to the “Nine Worthies,” or nine men from history and legend who were understood in medieval England to exemplify the virtues of “Chivalry,” including Alexander the Great and King Arthur. Doll’s praise exemplifies verbal irony; in hyperbolically comparing him to these famous and worthy men, she ironically emphasizes Falstaff’s cowardly and self-serving nature.
