We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
In the middle of The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth, during the long nocturnal tavern scene, Shakespeare abruptly alters the elegiac mood by introducing a new character – Pistol. Significantly, his entrance is announced in advance: as soon as his name is mentioned Doll Tearsheet denounces him as 'a swaggering rascal' and 'the foul-mouthed'st rogue in England'. Her complaint instantly identifies his essential attribute, for like so many secondary characters in the second tetralogy, Pistol speaks a distinctive language.
PISTOL What, shall we have incision? Shall we imbrue?
[Snatches up his sword.]
Then Death rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days!
Why then, let grievous ghastly gaping wounds
Untwind the sisters three; come, Atropos, I say!
HOSTESS Here’s goodly stuff toward!
(2.4. 157–61)‘Stuff’ indeed. Attempting to pass himself off as a valiant warrior, the coward has filched the rhetoric of a hero, and we need look no further for the source of his grandiloquent speech than the Elizabethan playhouse.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
