Hotspur: Honour in a Hurry
First appears: Act 1, Scene 3
Harry Percy (Hotspur) is the soldier King Henry IV wishes Hal was. He charges into everything, talks constantly, and cannot stand still when there is a fight happening somewhere else. The King says so directly in Act 1, Scene 1, which is the play's first cruel irony: the man Henry admires is about to rebel against him.
Hotspur talks too much and listens too little. His argument with Glendower in Act 3, Scene 1 about whether Glendower's birth actually caused earthquakes nearly destroys the rebel alliance before it starts. His wife Lady Percy knows this better than anyone. She tells him he talks of war even in his sleep.
His death at Hal's hands in Act 5, Scene 4 is the climax the play has been building toward. He dies in the middle of a sentence, and Hal finishes it for him. That gesture (a prince completing the last words of the man he has just killed) defines both of them.
Key Scenes
Famous Quotes
“By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon.”
Hotspur — Act 1, Scene 3
“But thought's the slave of life, and life, time's fool; and time, that takes survey of all the world, must have a stop.”
Hotspur — Act 5, Scene 4