“Thou owest God a death.”
Hanging with the no-goods, addicts, alcoholics, whores, thieves, people of the street – but commoners, bandits, rogues, real people, and the prince cavorts with them and with Falstaff. Harry explores an alternative edge for his own life, his own education, his own standing place. The father grieves. We have children, relate to these sentiments, hope and pray, give our lives to the next generation, to the world. When having children, you sacrifice parts of your life, work for them, and age as they rise. They grow as tall and then taller than you, they eclipse you and live their own lives, and parts of you die as they gain life. We age whether we want to or not, rise past our best physical talents, and yet still must climb the mountain. Give to our children, and hope they do right, achieve their solid happiness, their own arrival. And because of our hopes, we fear what the king fears here, and we know Harry’s troubles. But he, the son, must adventure his life, make self-chosen decisions. Yet cannot escape his context and will not. And he becomes his own version of the man, his own style of king, and experiences his heroic journey according to the first and last breath.
The quest according to our first and last breath. There is a circle, inhale to exhale. How these knots are tied. How we know the life pulse, our beating hearts. How we know our own mortality: we see it in one another’s eyes.
“Uneasy lies a head that wears a crown.”
Back in the bawdy house –
“You whoreson little valiant villain, you!”