“What is honour?” (Henry IV). Though it is one of the principal themes of the play, the concept of honour is never given a consistent definition in 1 Henry IV. In fact, the very multiplicity of views on honour that Shakespeare explores suggests that, in the end, honour is merely a lofty reflection of an individual’s personality and conscience. In other words, honour seems to be defined less by an overarching set of guidelines and more by an individual’s personal values and goals. Thus runs the argument of Hotspur, a quick-tempered and military-minded young man. He feels that honour has to do with glory on the battlefield and with defending one’s reputation and good name against any perceived insult.
For the troubled and contemplative King Henry IV, on the other hand, honour has to do with the well-being of the nation and the legitimacy of its ruler. One of the reasons Henry is troubled is that he perceives his own rebellion against Richard II, which won him the crown, to be a dishonourable act.
Falstaff delivers this diatribe against honour during the battle at Shrewsbury, just before the climax of the play. Linking honour to violence, Falstaff, who is about to go into battle, says that honour “pricks him on” to fight, meaning that honour motivates him; he then asks what he will do if honour “pricks him off,” that is, kills or injures him. He says that honour is useless when one is wounded: it cannot set an arm or a leg, or take away the “grief of a wound,” and it has “no skill in surgery.” In fact, being merely a word, honour is nothing but thin air—that is, the breath that one exhales in saying a word. He says that the only people who have honour are the dead, and it does them no good, for they cannot feel or hear it. Furthermore, honour doesn’t “live with the living” because honour is gained through death. Falstaff therefore concludes that honour is worthless, “a mere scutcheon,” and that he wants nothing to do with it. In a play obsessed with the idea of honour, this speech comes out of nowhere to call into question the entire set of moral values on which most of the characters base their lives. It is one of the remarkable aspects of Falstaff’s character that he is able to live so far outside the normal mores and expectations of his society; this speech epitomizes Falstaff’s independent streak.
