Play of the Month: Henry V

I just finished studying my sixteenth Shakespeare play, Henry V, a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599. It is the last part of the Henriad tetralogy, preceded by Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, and Henry IV, Part 2. This was a coveted milestone that I could barely dream of when begining my self-study journey of Shakespeare’s plays 17 months ago.  I look forward to exploring another Shakespearean tetralogy—the First Tetralogy—comprising Henry VI, Parts 1–3, and Richard III.

In this play, Prince Hal has been crowned King Henry V, having matured after his father’s death. In order to demonstrate his military might and unite his country, recently recovering from civil war, Henry V plans to reclaim lands in France that once belonged to England. He leads his troops across the English Channel, and aims to woo Katherine, daughter of King Charles VI of France. The play ends with a marriage between Henry V and Katherine, following the English army's decisive victory over the French at Agincourt.

The Battle of Agincourt, fought in 1415, ended with an unexpected victory of the vastly outnumbered English troops against the numerically superior French army. It boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France, and started a new period of English dominance in the Hundred Years' War that would last for 14 years until England was defeated by France in 1429 during the Siege of Orléans.

In addition, I was intrigued by another war that took place nearly 70 years earlier, fought at Crécy by an English army led by Henry V's great grandfather, Edward III, and his great-uncle, Edward the Black Prince, against a French army led by King Philip VI. The Battle of Crécy took place on 26 August 1346 in northern France, with the French attacking the English while they were traversing northern France during the Hundred Years' War, resulting in an English victory and heavy loss of life among the French. 

I was equally fascinated to learn about the Salic law, an ancient Frankish code compiled around AD 500 by Clovis, the first Frankish king.  In the play, the origin of the law is even traced back to Pharamond, a legendary king of the Franks in the early fifth century. This is both educational and helpful because I'm interested in studying French history and literature, too.

Here are some of the passages and soliloquies that impressed me most, presented in modern English translation.

ACT I, Scene 2

HENRY V:

Thank you. Wise lord, please tell us truly and religiously why the Salic law that they have in France either does or does not stand in the way of my claim to the throne. And God forbid, dear and faithful nobleman, that you twist your interpretation out of shape or make up minor distinctions that don't lead to the truth. Because God knows how many healthy people will shed their life's blood for this business of yours. So be careful about what you put me under the obligation of doing and about encouraging us to go to war when we are now at peace. In the name of God, I'm ordering you to be careful, because two such kingdoms as England and France never fought without a lot of bloodshed. Each innocent drop of blood is a tragedy, and each one is a terrible blame to the person who begins the fight that takes so many lives, when life is so short already. Now that I've said this, speak, my lord. I will hear, pay attention to, and believe completely that you say the things you do with a conscience as innocent as a baby's that has just been baptized.

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: 

Then listen to me, kind king, and you lords who owe your lives and duties to his power. There is nothing standing in the way of your Highness's claim to France except this, which they found in the writings of Pharamond: “In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant” (no woman will inherit anything in the Salic land). Wrongly, the French say that the Salic land is the country of France, and that Pharamond is the inventor of this law keeping women from inheriting. But their scholars write truthfully that the Salic land is in Germany, between the rivers Sala and Elbe, where Charles the Great defeated the Saxons and left some French men there to settle the land. They, looking down on the German women because of their dirty way of life, made this law then: that no woman should inherit anything in the Salic land. As I said, the "Salic land" is in Germany between the Elbe and Sala and is now called Meissen. So it's clear that the Salic law was not made for the country of France. The French didn't even own the Salic land until four hundred and twenty-one years after King Pharamond's death, who was wrongly thought to be the inventor of this law. He died in the year 426 AD and Charles the Great defeated the Saxons and settled the French beyond the river Sala in the year 805. Besides, their writers say that King Pepin, who took the throne from Childeric, was descended from Blithild, King Clothair's daughter, and laid claim to the crown of France. Hugh Capet also, who took the crown from Charles the duke of Lorraine, the only male heir descended from Charles the Great, claimed to be the heir of the Lady Lingare, daughter of Charlemagne, who was the son of Emperor Lewis, who was the son of Charles the Great. He said this so he would seem to have a claim to the title of king, but he actually invented this and it was worth nothing as proof. Also King Lewis the Tenth, who was the only heir to the greedy Capet, felt uneasy wearing the crown of France until he made sure that beautiful Queen Isabel, his grandmother, was descended from the Lady Ermengare, daughter of the aforementioned Charles duke of Lorraine. By their marriage the family of Charles the Great got the crown of France back. So it's as clear as the sun on a summer day that King Pepin's, Hugh Capet's, and King Lewis's claims to the throne all depend on inheriting it from a woman. And that's what the kings of France do to this day, although they hold up this Salic law to keep you from making a claim based on inheriting from a woman, your Highness. They're hiding the truth to protect the power that they stole from you and your ancestors.

ACT I, Scene 2

AMBASSADOR: 

So, in few words: Your Highness lately wrote to France to lay claim to some dukedoms in the name of your great ancestor, King Edward the Third. In answer to this claim, our master the prince says that you show your youth and wants you to know that there's nothing in France that can be won by dancing well. You can't party your way into dukedoms there. So he sends you this chest of treasure as a better fit for your personality, and in return for this asks you not to mention the dukedoms you lay claim to anymore. That's what the Dauphin said.

HENRY V:

I'm glad the Dauphin is so light-hearted around me. Thank you for his present and the trouble you've taken. When we have hit these balls with our rackets, we will (if God wills it) play a set that will put his father's crown into play. Tell him he's playing a match with such a fighter that we'll be chasing balls through all the courts of France. I understand him well when he holds my wilder days over me, not considering what I learned from them. I never used to value poor England and, living outside of it, spent all my time behaving badly, as men always do when they're away from home. But tell the Dauphin I will keep calm like a king should, and show my greatness when I rise to the throne of France because I have set aside my dignity and worked like a manual laborer. But I will rise to the throne with such glory that I will dazzle all the eyes in France, so that it will strike the Dauphin blind to look at me. And tell the light-hearted prince that this joke of his has turned these balls into bullets, and he will be to blame for the wasteful revenge that will fly with them. For this joke will joke many thousands of widows out of their beloved husbands, joke mothers out of their sons, joke castles down, and some people are not yet conceived and born who will have good reason to regret the Dauphin's jokes. But this will all only happen if God wishes it to, and I appeal to him. Tell the Dauphin it's in God's name that I am coming to take revenge if I can and to fight for a holy cause. So go peacefully. And tell the Dauphin his joke won't seem funny when thousands more cry than laughed at it. 

ACT II, Scene 2

DUKE OF EXETER:

I arrest you of high treason, Richard, Earl of Cambridge. I arrest you of high treason, Henry, Lord Scr oop of Masham. I arrest you of high treason, Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.

LORD SCROOP:

God has justly revealed our plots and I repent my crime more than my death. I beg Your Highness to forgive it, although my body will pay the price of it.

EARL OF CAMBRIDGE: 

The French gold didn't seduce me, although I took it as an excuse to do what I wanted sooner. But may God be thanked for preventing us from acting. I will be happy about that while being tortured, asking God and you to pardon me.

SIR THOMAS GREY:

No faithful subject was more joyful at the discovery of dangerous treason than I now am joyful that I was prevented from a damned action. Pardon my crime, not my body, king.

HENRY V:

May God be merciful on you. Hear your sentence: you plotted against me, joined with a declared enemy, and from him received money to kill me. You would have sold your king to death, his princes and nobles to slavery, his subjects to oppression and hatred, and his whole kingdom to destruction. I don't look for revenge for myself, but I have to take care of the safety of my kingdom, which you wanted to ruin. So I deliver you over to its laws. Go to your deaths, poor miserable men. May God in His mercy give you patience to bear it, and true repentance for all your terrible sins. 

[To guards] Take them away.

ACT II, Scene 4

KING OF FRANCE:

So the English are coming with a large army to fight us, and it's right for us to defend ourselves royally, rather than cautiously. So the Dukes of Berri and of Britanny, of Brabant and of Orléans, will head out, and you, Prince Dauphin, as quickly as possible, to fortify our towns for war and fill them with brave men and with means to defend themselves. The king of England's approach is as fierce as a whirlpool sucking down water. It's right for us to be careful, because fear shows us recent examples of what happened on our battlefields when we underestimated the English.

LEWIS THE DAUPHIN:

Let's go see the sick and weak parts of France. And let's do it without seeming afraid—no, more as if we heard that England were busy dancing. Because, my good king, England has such a lazy king, a vain, unpredictable, shallow, moody young man who uses his power so irrationally that there's no reason to fear England. My respected father, it's right for us to prepare to fight the enemy, because peace shouldn't be allowed to make a kingdom weak, even if there were no war or conflict that might bring one about. Defenses, militias, and preparations should be maintained, assembled, and collected as if a war were expected. So I say it's right for us all to head out.

ACT III, Scene 3

HENRY V:

What has the mayor of the town decided? This is the last truce we will grant. So surrender to us or, like men proud of destroying themselves, dare us to do our worst. Because, as sure as I am a soldier, which I think is the most fitting thing for me to call myself, if I begin the attack once again, I will not leave half-defeated Harfleur until it's buried in its own ashes. The gates of mercy will be shut, and the bloody soldiers, rough and hard-hearted, free to do whatever terrible deeds they want, will wander around with the willingness to do anything, mowing down like grass your beautiful young girls and your growing babies. What is it to me if unholy war, dressed in flames like the devil, with a scorched face, does all the horrible things that go along with destruction and loss? What is it to me, since you yourselves are to blame, if your pure young women are raped? What kind of control can you have over immoral evil when it's charging fiercely on as though running down a hill? We could just as uselessly give pointless orders to looting angry soldiers as send instructions to the sea-monster Leviathan to come to shore. So, you men of Harfleur, have pity on your town and on your people while my soldiers are still under my control, while the cool and mild wind of kindness is stronger than the dirty and unhealthy clouds of wild murder, looting, and evil. If not, in a moment expect to see a blind and bloody soldier reaching with a dirty hand towards the hair of your piercingly-shrieking daughters, your fathers grabbed by their silver beards and their wise heads smashed against the walls, your naked babies stabbed on pikes while the crazed mothers break the clouds with their confused howls, like the Jewish wives did at Herod's bloody murderers. What do you say? Will you surrender and avoid this or, guilty of these crimes because you continue to defend yourselves, be destroyed in this way?

GOVERNOR OF HARFLEUR:

Our hopes end today. The Dauphin, whom we begged to help us, replies that his forces are not yet ready to end such a strong siege. So, great King, we surrender our town and lives to your kind mercy. Enter our gates, do what you want with us and what we own, because we can no longer defend ourselves.

ACTIII, Scene 6

MONTJOY:

My king says this: "Tell Harry king of England that although we seemed dead, we were just asleep. Having the advantage is a better thing in war than foolhardiness. Tell him we could have taught him a lesson at Harfleur, but we didn't think it would be worth hitting a bruise until it was completely ripe. Now it's time for us to speak, and our voice is royal. The king of England will regret his folly, see his weakness, and admire our patience. So ask him to consider what his ransom will be, which must pay for the losses we suffered, the subjects we lost, the shame we were subjected to, which if we paid him back in kind would completely overwhelm his minor kingdom. As for our losses, his treasury is too poor; as for the bloodshed, his kingdom doesn't have enough inhabitants; and as for our shame, making him kneel at our feet would be only a weak and worthless revenge. To this, add our scorn for him and tell him, finally, he has betrayed his followers, who will be punished." That's what my king and master said. Now I've done my job.

HENRY V: 

You do your job well. Turn back  and tell your king I'm not looking for him now but could be willing to march on to Calais without fighting. To tell the truth, although it's not wise to confess so much to an enemy who is so crafty and has such an advantage, my people have been weakened by sickness. I've lost soldiers and the few I have left are almost worth no more than as many Frenchman. When they were healthy, I tell you, messenger, I thought that one pair of Englishmen was worth three Frenchmen. But forgive me, God, for bragging in this way. Your French air has blown this sin into me. I must repent. So go, tell your master: here I am. My ransom is this weak and worthless body, my army is a weak and sickly force, but God willing, tell him we would come fight him even if France itself and another country of the same size stood in our way. There's payment for your work, Montjoy. Go ask your master to consider: if we can keep going, we will. If we are stopped, we will stain your dark ground with your red blood. So, Montjoy, farewell. The summary of my answer is this: we wouldn't go looking for a fight as we are, but, as we are, we say we won't avoid one. Tell your master that.

ACT IV, Scene 3

EARL OF WESTMORELAND:

I wish we now had here just ten thousand of the men in England who aren't working today.

HENRY V:

Who wishes that? My cousin Westmoreland? No, good cousin. If we are doomed to die, there are enough of us to harm our country by our loss; and if to live, the fewer men there are, the greater share of honor each one gets. By God, please don't wish for even one more man. By God, I don't desire gold and I don't care who takes my money to pay for food; I don't mind if men wear my clothes; I don't desire such worldly things. But if it's a sin to desire honor, I am the most sinful man alive. No, really, cousin, don't wish for a single man from England. God, I wouldn't give up so great a share of honor as one more man, I think, would take from me, in exchange for getting my greatest wish. Don't wish for one more! But, Westmoreland, announce to my army that anyone who doesn't feel like fighting should leave. We'll give him a passport and money to pay for his travel back. I don't want to die in the company of a man who is afraid to die in mine. This day is the feast day of Crispin. Anyone who lives through this day and gets home safely will stand on tiptoe when the day is mentioned and jump up at the name of Crispin. Anyone who lives through this day and lives to old age will hold a feast for his neighbors on the day before and say "Tomorrow is Saint Crispin's day." Then he will raise his sleeve and show his scars and say, "I got these wounds on Crispin's day." Old men forget; but everything else will be forgotten and he'll still remember, with additions, all the deeds he did that day. Then our names, familiar to him as household words, Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester, will be remembered by them as they drink. The good man will teach his son that story, and Saint Crispin's day will never go by, from this day to the end of the world, without us being remembered—we few, we lucky few, we band of brothers. Because anyone who sheds his blood today with me will be my brother. However low-born he is, this day will make him a nobleman. And gentlemen now in their beds in England will be miserable that they were not here, and they will think that they are not real men when anyone is speaking who fought with us on Saint Crispin's day.

ACT IV, Scene 6

DUKE OF EXETER: 

Looking like that, the brave soldier lies, covering the field with blood, and by his bloody side, with equal honorable wounds, the noble earl of Suffolk also lies. Suffolk died first, and York, mangled all over, came to where he lay swimming in gore and took him by the beard, kissed the cuts that gaped all over his face, and cried aloud, "Wait, my cousin Suffolk. My soul will keep yours company on the way to heaven. Wait, dear soul, for mine; then fly together, just as in this glorious and well-fought-for field we rode together." At these words I came and tried to cheer him up. He smiled at me, grabbed me by the hand, and gripping me weakly, said, "My dear lord, tell my king what I have done." So he turned, and threw his wounded arm over Suffolk's neck and kissed his lips. So, married to death, he sealed with blood a will of nobly dying love. The beautiful way he did this forced me to cry even though I wished I could stop, but I didn't have enough man in me, and my mother came into my eyes and made me cry.

HENRY V: 

I don't blame you because, hearing this, I have to bargain with my wet eyes, or they'll let out tears. (Alarum)

Listen, does this new signal mean? The French have reinforced their scattered troops. Every soldier should kill his prisoners. Tell the army that.

ACT IV, Scene 8

HENRY V:

This note tells me about ten thousand Frenchmen lying dead in the field. Among these, one hundred twenty-six princes and nobles carrying banners lie dead. Added to these, eight thousand four hundred knights, esquires, and gentlemen, of which five hundred were dubbed knights only yesterday. So among the ten thousand they lost were only sixteen hundred mercenaries. The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires, and gentlemen of good family. The names of their nobles who lie died are: Charles Delabreth, high constable of France, Jaques of Chatillon, admiral of France, the Master of the Crossbows, Lord Rambures, Great Master of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dauphin, John, duke of Alençon, Anthony, duke of Brabant, the brother of the duke of Burgundy, and Edward, duke of Bar. Of brave earls: Grandpré and Roussi, Faulconbridge and Foix, Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrale. This is a noble fellowship of dead people. Where is the list of our dead Englishmen?

HERALD shows him another paper

Edward the duke of York, the earl of Suffolk, sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, esquire. No one else with a title, and just twenty-five other men. Oh God, this was your work, and I don't give the credit to us but only to you! When, without trickery, was there ever known such a great loss on one side and such a small one on the other? God, we dedicate this victory to you, because this was your doing.

DUKE OF EXETER: 

It's amazing.

HENRY V: 

Come one, let's go in a parade to the village. And have it announced to the army that boasting about this or trying to take the praise that belongs to God for this will be punished by death.

ACT V, Scene 2

DUKE OF BURGUNDY: 

My obedience to you both, whom I love equally, great kings of France and England. Both sides can bear witness that I have worked with all my wit and strength and made every effort to bring your royal Majesties to this royal meeting. I have done part of my job in bringing you face to face and royal eye to eye. Allow me to ask in front of all you royals what impediment there is to naked, poor, and mangled peace, which allows the arts, plenty, and joyful births to flourish, showing her beautiful face in this most beautiful garden of the world, our fertile France? Sadly, she has been chased from France for too long, and all her crops lie in heaps, rotting. Her vine, which makes the heart happy, dies uncared-for. Her evenly cut hedges, like prisoners with wildly-growing hair, sprout disorderly twigs. Grass, hemlock, and other weeds grow on her fields, while ploughs rust which should get rid of these wild things. The flat meadow, on which formerly grew sweet plants like the freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, needing to be mowed, completely uncorrected and neglected, grows useless things, and produces nothing but hateful docks, rough thistles, hollow plants, burrs - losing both beauty and usefulness. And just as our vineyards, fields, meadows, and hedges, grow wild because of defects in their natures, so our houses and our children and we ourselves have lost, or do not learn because there is no time, the knowledge that we should to help our country, but instead grow like savages. Just as soldiers who do nothing but think about blood start to swear and look stern, dress messily, and do everything that seems unnatural. You are assembled to bring us back to the way we were, and I ask you to tell me what stands in the way of gentle peace getting rid of these inconveniences and blessing us the way she used to.

HENRY V:

If, Duke of Burgundy, you want the peace, lack of which allows the imperfections you mentioned to grow, you must buy that peace by agreeing fully to all my just demands, which you have, written down, with details and explanations, in your hands.

ACT V, Scene 2

KING OF FRANCE: 

Take her, son, and have her give birth to heirs for me, so that the fighting kingdoms of France and England, whose shores look pale with envy of each other's happiness, will cease hating each other. May this match make them neighborly and make them agree like Christians, so that bloody war never arises again between England and beautiful France.

HENRY V:

Now welcome, Kate.  You are all witnesses that here I kiss her as my queen.

QUEEN ISABEL: 

May God, the best matchmaker, combine your hearts in one, your countries in one. Just as man and wife, although they are two people, become one, so may there be between your kingdoms such a marriage that ill will and terrible jealousy, which often trouble blessed marriage, never thrust themselves between these two joined kingdoms to divorce them. May Englishmen and Frenchmen treat each other as though they come from the same country. May God speak this "amen"!

HENRY V:

Let's prepare for our marriage, and on that day, my Lord of Burgundy, we'll have you and all the noblemen swear an oath to honor our alliance. Then I will swear to Kate, and you to me, and may our oaths be kept well and be fortunate.