forms, could find small satisfaction in the rigid etiquette of
a loveless court so long as it offered him an opportunity for little
more than formal activity. When the rebellion of the Percies showed
him that he could do the state real service, he seized his opportunity
gladly, gayly, modestly. On his father's cause he centered the
energies which he had previously scattered. With this new demand to
meet, he no longer had time for his old companions. His old life was
thrown off like a coat discarded under stress of work. {156} Even
before that time came, however, Hal was not one who could enjoy
ordinary low company; but the friends which had distracted him were far
from ordinary. In Falstaff, the leader of the riotous group,
Shakespeare created one of the greatest comic figures in all
literature. Never at a loss, Falstaff masters alike sack,
difficulties, and companions. He is an incarnation of joy for whom
moral laws do not exist. Because he will not fight when he sees no
chance of victory, he has been called a coward, but no coward ever had
such superb coolness in the face of danger. Falstaff's conduct in a
fight is explained by his contempt for all conventions which bring no
joy--a standard which reduces honor to a mere word. So full of joy was
he that he inspired it in his companions. To be with him was to be
merry.

+Date+.--The play was entered in the Stationers' Register, and a quarto
was printed in 1598. Meres mentions the play without indicating
whether he meant one part or both. The evidence of meter and style
point to a date much earlier than Meres's entry, so that 1597 is the
year to which Part I is commonly assigned.

+Source+.--For the serious plot of this play, Shakespeare drew upon
Holinshed. He had no scruples, however, against altering history for
dramatic purposes. Thus he brings within a much shorter period of time
the battles in Wales and Scotland, makes Hal and Hotspur of
approximately the same age, and unites two people in the character of
Mortimer. The situations in the scenes which show Hal with Falstaff
and his fellows are largely borrowed from an old play called _The
Famous Victories of Henry V_, but this source furnished only the barest
and crudest outlines, and gave practically no hint of the characters as
Shakespeare conceived them. The reference in Act I, Sc. ii, to
Falstaff as the 'old lad of the castle' shows that his name was
originally {157} Oldcastle, as in _The