Falstaff's ‘Honour’: Homeric Burlesque in 1 Henry IV (1597–8)

Sine Dolore

“…Falstaff deforms, laughably, the virtue of bravery in a Christian kingdom by rationalizing his own cowardice in a manner that parodies not only a 'catechism' but perhaps also a scene from book XI of the Iliad in which Odysseus convinces himself successfully to stand firm on the side of honour against the impulse to survive, as Steven Doloff has suggested. 27 Christopher McDonough has argued that Falstaff's reference to honour as 'a mere scutcheon' -actually a piece of 'armament' itself and not just a 'decorative device' -situates him 'squarely in the classical motif of the rhipsaspis or "shield-tosser"', a pathetic, if empathetic, scenario in which the soldier gives in to 'the instinct for self-preservation' despite its shame. 28 It is not the 'contrariety' that Robert Weimann and Douglas Bruster link with clowning, where a clown embodies the heterogeneity especially of author's pen embodied in actor's voice.…”