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M.C. GARDNER

Wherefore, I say let a man be of good cheer about his soul – who has adorned the soul in her own proper jewels which are temperance, and justice, and courage and nobility and truth – in these arrayed she is ready to go on her journey to the world below when her time has come. ¹

– this by Socrates in the hour of his death.

Before an impending battle a Prince counsels an old Knight: “Thou owest God a death.” The old man contemplates the claim. He replies:

Tis not due yet, I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? [1]

– this by Falstaff before the battle of Shrewsbury.

Two thousand years separate these sentiments. In the first scene we have a crucifixion four centuries before the drama of the Cross – an old philosopher expostulates among friends and accepts death in a proffered dram of hemlock. In the second, an old man walks the tail end of his wit with a friend, on the eve of battle – shortly before rejection, banishment and death. ⁽³⁾ In the first the philosopher rejects any plan that might forestall is demise. In the second the old man pleads for his friend’s continued affection:

Banish Peto, Banish Bardolph, Banish Poins… but banish plump Jack and banish all the world.

 Prince Hal, thereafter as King Henry V, the mirror of all Christian Kings,  banished the old sot and by metaphoric extension, crucified – all the world. Henry’s celebrated epithet is among the most perverse in the history of drama. ⁽⁴⁾

To compare Falstaff to Socrates will seem, to some – equally perverse. We are conjecturing an echo in time. An echo Shakespeare may have discerned as he conjured the language to properly bury the fond old Knight. Socrates had been a soldier during the Pelopennesian War. At Delium, in 424 BC he was the last Athenian to retire in retreat. It was reported that he saved himself by glaring at the approaching Spartans.

 At Potidaea, he saved the life of Alcibades and then refused a prize for his valor^.

In exact opposition to those reports Shakespeare gives us the exploits of Sir John. Far from a frightful glare Falstaff feigns death to survive the ferocity of the battle sighted above. He then discovers the body of the Prince’s rival, Hotspur. He loads the dead man on his shoulder and takes credit for the kill. He then proclaims his own fitness for the battle’s prize of valor. And yet, mayhaps these contraries such unity do hold.  What, if not Socratic, is Falstaff’s dialectic on honor:

Can honour set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word…Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. ‘Tis sensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No… Therefore, I’ll none of it. (7)

A mirror is as pointed a metaphor as any in a poet’s arsenal. Shakespeare’s glass not only reflects but, as well, inverts. It is here that we intuit the conjunction of a drunkard, cutpurse, coward, glutton and cheat with the advocate of temperance, justice, courage, nobility and truth. History and drama fuse in nine plays that chronicle four centuries of Shakespeare’s Kings – Comedy and tragedy commingle in the three that report the life and death of England’s most uncommon commoner.

In the scene immediately preceding the report of Falstaff’s death – the King, fresh from his coronation, calls upon God’s witness while pronouncing death to three conspirators. Before the end of his speech he will invoke Deity three additional times ⁽⁸⁾  The final invocation is to advance the imperial disposition for the rapine of France:

Cheerily to sea, the signs of war advance.                                                                                                No King of England if not King of France.

In Mistress Quickly’s account of Falstaff’s death she says she heard him cry out “God, three or four times.” The echo is distinct – the image and morality are inverted. The inversion becomes increasingly evident in each subsequent reading of the plays. It is then that Quickly’s description of Falstaff as a “christom child” stands in stark contrast to the mirror of all Christian Kings, designated by the chorus in Henry V.

When we hear the slow witted Bardolph declare of his lost companion:

Would that I were with him wheresome’er he is, in heaven or in hell –

– the King’s perfidy is thrown into even higher relief. The King’s father, Henry IV, is most famously remembered for the Murder of Richard II and the shadowy guilt that plagues him in his soliloquy on sleep: “Then happy low lie down / uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” ⁽¹⁰⁾ The King’s insomnia is contrasted with Falstaff’s. Shakespeare avers that the betrayed knight sleeps in Arthur’s bosom. To what bosom Henry V is consigned is left to our conjecture. The idiomatic prose that the poet glories for the death scene suggests the regard in which he holds the broken-hearted old profligate. Shakespeare not only hears an echo from the past but also anticipates a metaphor that will resonate in the apotheosis of his art, shortly after a storm blasts an unprotected heath and cuts a willful King to the brains – The stage direction reads:

Enter Lear, fantastically dressed in wild flowers.

In the raiment of a child he ascends to a loftier throne than any he had occupied in Medieval England:

I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause? –

None does offend, none I say, none ⁽¹¹⁾

In like manner Mistress Quickly consoles Sir John. He need not think of an imagined judgment. At the hour of death he plays with flowers and smiles upon his finger’s ends, as if a child. Socrates, Falstaff and Lear – not a bad trio they – and, in death and the poetic imagination of Shakespeare, companions all…

From London, circa 1597:

PISTOL: Bardolph, be blithe; Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins; Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff is dead, and we must yearn therefore:

BARDOLPH: Would that I were with him, wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or hell!

HOSTESS: Nay, sure, he’s not in hell: he’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. A’ made a finer end and went away ‘ad it had been any christom child; a’ parted even just between twelve and one, even at the turning o’ the tide: for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers and smile upon his fingers’ ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as red as a pen, and a’ babbled of green fields. “How now, Sir John! Quoth I; “what, man! Be o’ good cheer.” So a’ cried out “God, God, God!” three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a’ should not any such thoughts yet. So a’ bade me lay more clothes on his feet: I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone; then I felt his knees, and they were as cold as any stone, and so upward and upward, and all was cold as any stone.” ⁽¹²⁾

And from Athens, circa 399 BC:

Be of good cheer, then, my dear Crito, and say that you are burying my body only, and do with that as is usual, and as you think best. When he had spoken these words, he arose and went into the bath-chamber with Crtio, who bid us wait; and we waited, talking and thinking… of the greatness of our sorrow; he was like a father of whom we were being bereaved, and we were abut to pass the rest of our lives as orphans… Now the hour of sunset was near… Soon the jailer… entered and stood by him, saying: – To you, Socrates, whom I know to be the gentlest and best of all who ever came to this place, I will not impute the angry feelings of other men, who rage and swear at me, when in obedience to the authorities, I bid them drink the poison – indeed, I am sure that you will not be angry with me; for others, as you aware, and not I, are the guilty cause. And so fare you well, and try to bear lightly what must needs be; you know my errand.

Then bursting into tears he turned away and went out.  Socrates looked at him and said: I return your good wishes, and will do as you bid.  Then turning to us, he said, How charming the man is: since I have been in prison he has always been coming to see me, and at times he would talk to me, and was as good as could be to me, and now see how generously he sorrows for me. But we must do as he says, Crito; let the cup be brought…You my good friend who are experienced in these matters, shall give directions how I am to proceed. The man answered: You have only to walk about until your legs are heavy, and then to lie down, and the poison will act. At the same time he handed the cup to Socrates… then (Socrates) holding the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully… drank off the poison.

And hitherto most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast … Nor was I the first, for Crito, when he found himself unable to restrain his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed; and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the time broke out into a loud cry which made cowards of us all.

Socrates alone retained his calmness… Be quiet then and have patience.

When we heard this, we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and he walked about until… his legs began to fail, and then he lay on his back, according to the directions, and the man who gave the poison now and then looked at his feet and legs; and after awhile he pressed his foot hard, and asked him if he could feel; and he said, No; and then his leg, and so upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold and stiff… he said:

When the poison reaches the heart, that will be the end. He was beginning to grow cold about the groin, when he uncovered his face… and said ( they were his last words ) – he said: Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt: The debt shall be paid, said Crito; is there anything else? There was no answer to this question; but in a minute or two a movement was heard, and the attendants uncovered him – his eyes were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth. Such was the end Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest, and the justest, and the best of all the men whom I have ever known. ⁽¹³⁾

 In an imagined echo we might hear a companion ruefully note:

Would that I were with him, wheresome’er he is …

NOTES:

1.  Phaedo, page 268, Works of Plato, Jowett Translation, Tudor Publishing

2,  The First Part of Henry IV Act V Scene 1, W. Shakespeare

3.  The First Part of Henry IV Act II Scene IV, W. Shakespeare

4.  Henry V Act II Chorus, W. Shakespeare. The fact that the chorus announces the epithet makes it immediately suspect. Its war clamor is far from any such sentiment we find in Shakespeare. If there is any doubt look at Scene III of Act III. You will be hard pressed to find any more horrific war-threat than that which proceeds from the mouth of the Mirror of All Christian Kings.

5.  The Life Of Greece, page 365, W. Durant, Simon & Schuster,     NY, 1939

6.  Ibid.

7.  The First Part of Henry IV Act V Scene IV, W. Shakespeare

8. Harold C. Goddard’s The Meaning of Shakespeare. I share with another Harold, Professor Harold Bloom, an affection and debt to Goddard’s insightful reading of the plays. Goddard died in 1950. His book was published in the year of my birth, 1951 and later divided into two volumes.

9.   Henry V Act II Scene II, W. Shakespeare

10.  The Second Part of Henry IV Act III Scene I, W. Shakespeare

11.  King Lear Act IV Scene VI, W. Shakespeare

12.  Henry V Act II Scene III

13. Phaedo, pages 268-271 Works of Plato, Jowett Translation, Tudor Publish

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