The only memorable thing in the fifth act is the new king's contemptuous dismissal of Falstaff: I think it appalling at least in matter:
“I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swelled, so old and so profane;
But being awake I do despise my dream.
- - - - - - - -
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest,
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
- - - - - - - -
Till then, I banish thee on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.”
In the old play, “The Famous Victories,” the sentence of banishment is pronounced; but this bitter contempt for the surfeit-swelled, profane old man is Shakespeare's. It is true that he mitigates the severity of the sentence in characteristic generous fashion: the King says:
“For competence of life I will allow you
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strength and qualities,
Give you advancement.”
There is no mention in the old play of this “competence of life.” But in spite of this generous forethought the sentence is painfully severe, and Shakespeare meant every word of it, for immediately afterwards the Chief Justice orders Falstaff and his company to the Fleet prison; and in “King Henry V.” we are told that the King's condemnation broke Falstaff's heart and made the old jester's banishment eternal. To find Shakespeare more severe in judgement than the majority of spectators and readers is so astonishing, so singular a fact, that it cries for explanation. I think there can be no doubt that the tradition which tells us that Shakespeare in his youth played pranks in low company finds further corroboration here. He seems to have resented his own ignominy and the contemptuous estimate put upon him by others somewhat extravagantly.
“Presume not that I am the thing I was;”
—is a sentiment put again and again in Prince Henry's mouth; he is perpetually assuring us of the change in himself, and the great results which must ensue from it. It is this distaste for his own loose past and “his misleaders,” which makes Shakespeare so singularly severe towards Falstaff. As we have seen, he was the reverse of severe with Angelo in “Measure for Measure,” though in that case there was better ground for harshness. “Measure for Measure,” it is true, was written six or seven years later than “Henry IV.,” and the tragedy of Shakespeare's life separates the two plays. Shakespeare's ethical judgement was more inclined to severity in youth and early manhood than it was later when his own sufferings had deepened his sympathies, and he had been made “pregnant to good pity,” to use his own words, “by the art of knowing and feeling sorrows.” But he would never have treated old Jack Falstaff as harshly as he did had he not regretted the results, at least, of his own youthful errors. It looks as if Shakespeare, like other weak men, were filled with a desire to throw the blame on his “misleaders.” He certainly exulted in their punishment.
It is difficult for me to write at length about the character of the King in “Henry V.,” and fortunately it is not necessary. I have already pointed out the faults in the painting of Prince Henry with such fullness that I may be absolved from again dwelling on similar weakness where it is even more obvious than it was in the two parts of “Henry IV.” But something I must say, for the critics in both Germany and England are agreed that “'Henry V.' must certainly be regarded as Shakespeare's ideal of manhood in the sphere of practical achievement.” Without an exception they have all buttered this drama with extravagant praise as one of Shakespeare's masterpieces, though in reality it is one of the worst pieces of work he ever did, almost as bad as “Titus Andronicus” or “Timon” or “The Taming of the Shrew.” Unfortunately for the would-be judges, Coleridge did not guide their opinions of “Henry V.”; he hardly mentioned the play, and so they all write the absurdest nonsense about it, praising because praise of Shakespeare has come to be the fashion, and also no doubt because his bad work is more on the level of their intelligence than his good work.
It can hardly be denied that Shakespeare identified himself as far as he could with Henry V. Before the King appears he is praised extravagantly, as Posthumus was praised, but the eulogy befits the poet better than the soldier. The Archbishop of Canterbury says:
... “When he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences.”