O, I could
prophesy,
But
that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies
on my tongue: no, Percy, thou art dust
And
food for--
-Hotspur
King Henry IV, Part I Act V, Scene iv, Line 86
Okay, this is Hotspur’s last line. Hotspur is Henry
Percy, cousin to Prince Hal, and he’s referring to himself when he says ‘no, Percy’. Hal, of
course, is the fellow who’s going to be Henry V in the next play, and he’s also
the one who has just slain Hotspur/Percy in battle. The next word in the text
is ‘[Dies]’. That’s a pretty common stage direction in Will’s plays. I’d love
to know how many times that particular stage direction appears in his plays.
And it’s interesting that it’s always just ‘dies’, and nothing else (actually, I'm not sure about that. I'll have to go on a little search sometime and see how many times that one-word stage direction shows up). And yet
each death is so different. Was there a bunch of oral stage direction given
regarding how to die? I dunno.
The next line in the play is Hal’s. Now keep in mind that
Hal is King Henry IV’s son, and he’s heir to the throne. Hal has spent a lot of
time in this play hanging out in the bar with Falstaff, and his father’s not
really pleased about this. In fact, at one point earlier in the play Henry the
IV is wishing he had Hotspur as a son instead of Hal. But now that there’s a
faction that’s trying to overthrow Henry IV (and Hotspur is part of that
faction), Hal has risen to the occasion. As I said, he’s the one who has slain
Hotspur in battle, and now he’s going to finish Hotspur’s sentence.
For worms, brave
Percy: fare thee well, great heart!
So he’s singing the praises of the guy he just killed, but
just the same he’s noting that Hotspur is nothing more than food for the worms
now. I’m guessing that Hotspur may have had ‘worms’ in mind
anyway. What else would he have been thinking to end the sentence with? Can you think of anything?
Maybe a vulture? Food for a vulture? Wait, do they even have vultures in England?
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