- wanadjectiveChapter 1 →
Pale and sickly-looking, drained of colour or energy, often from worry or exhaustion.
“So shaken as we are, so wan with care, / Find we a time for frighted peace to pant.”
- frightedadjectiveChapter 1 →
Frightened or alarmed; an older contracted form of 'frightened,' here describing a peace that has been scared into breathless exhaustion.
“Find we a time for frighted peace to pant.”
- pantverbChapter 1 →
To catch one's breath after great exertion or fear; here used figuratively for a kingdom gasping for rest after turmoil.
“Find we a time for frighted peace to pant.”
- unyokedadjectiveChapter 1 →
Free from restraint or discipline, like an ox released from its yoke; here describing behaviour that is uncontrolled and undirected.
“I know you all, and will awhile uphold / The unyoked humour of your idleness.”
- humournounChapter 1 →
In Elizabethan usage, a person's prevailing mood or temperament, thought to be governed by bodily fluids; here it means the habitual idle disposition of Hal's companions.
“The unyoked humour of your idleness.”
- methinksverbChapter 1 →
An archaic expression meaning 'it seems to me' or 'I think'; the subject is an impersonal 'it' rather than the speaker.
“By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap / To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon.”
- pluckverbChapter 1 →
To snatch or seize something boldly and quickly; here used figuratively for winning glory as if grabbing it from the sky.
“To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon.”
- usurpationnounChapter 1 →
The act of seizing a throne or position of power by force or without legal right, rather than through proper succession.
- compulsionnounChapter 2 →
Being forced to do something against one's will; Falstaff uses it to refuse giving any explanation he has not chosen freely to offer.
“Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.”
- banishverbChapter 2 →
To officially expel or drive someone away permanently; here used dramatically to mean casting someone out of one's life or company entirely.
“Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.”
- redeemverbChapter 3 →
To make up for past faults or failures by performing a worthy act; to restore one's damaged reputation through honourable deeds.
“I will redeem all this on Percy's head, / And in the closing of some glorious day / Be bold to tell you that I am your son.”
- regardedadjectiveChapter 3 →
Paid attention to or taken seriously; here describing someone whose presence is noticed but whose words or authority are ignored.
“He was but as the cuckoo is in June, / Heard, not regarded.”
- vastyadjectiveChapter 3 →
An archaic or poetic form of 'vast,' meaning immeasurably large or deep, used here to describe the unfathomable depths from which spirits might be summoned.
“I can call spirits from the vasty deep.”
- beavernounChapter 4 →
The hinged front part of a helmet that could be raised or lowered to cover the face; here it signals that a knight is fully armed for battle.
“I saw young Harry with his beaver on, / His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed.”
- cuissesnounChapter 4 →
Pieces of plate armour that protect the front of the thighs; part of a knight's full battle equipment.
“His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed, / Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury.”
- gallantlyadverbChapter 4 →
In a brave, showy, and impressively martial manner; here describing the striking and heroic appearance of a fully armed warrior.
“His cuisses on his thighs, gallantly armed, / Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury.”
- food for powderphraseChapter 4 →
Cannon fodder; soldiers regarded as expendable bodies to be used up in battle, with no more value than the gunpowder that will kill them.
“Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder; they'll fill a pit as well as better.”
- tossverbChapter 4 →
To throw carelessly or discard; here used callously to suggest that the soldiers are fit only to be flung into danger and killed.
“Tut, tut; good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder.”
- merrilyadverbChapter 4 →
Cheerfully or with good spirits; used here with dark irony to urge soldiers to meet death in a bold, defiant, even festive frame of mind.
“Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.”
- honournounChapter 5 →
The public reputation for courage and integrity that a warrior earns; Falstaff's speech treats it as an empty word that offers no real protection or reward.
“Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No.”
- surgerynounChapter 5 →
Medical treatment of injuries, especially wounds; here used to test whether honour has any practical healing power, which Falstaff concludes it does not.
“Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No.”
- spherenounChapter 5 →
In Elizabethan cosmology, one of the hollow crystal shells revolving around the Earth, each carrying a planet; two stars cannot share one orbit without collision.
“Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere, / Nor can one England brook a double reign.”
- brookverbChapter 5 →
To tolerate or put up with something; here it means that England cannot endure having two rival claimants to power at the same time.
“Nor can one England brook a double reign / Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.”
- sparedverbChapter 5 →
Done without; to have spared someone means to have let them live or kept them from harm. Here Hal means he would rather have lost a more worthy man than Falstaff.
“I could have better spared a better man.”
Henry IV, Part 1Play by William Shakespeare