Thoughts on Henry V
Nov. 2nd, 2008 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexxkayI recently reread Shakespeare's Henry V. As with all the best stories, it has grown with me; coming to it a different man, I see different qualities within it. Three main observations this time.
1) I did not recall I.i. as being such naked politicking. And it's more relevant today than ever. One could easily cast it in modern terms.
CEO A: Congress is saying that our industry has too much money, and they're trying to nationalize us.
CEO B: Damn Commies! What does the President think about it.
CEO A: He could go either way on this. But I think I've worked out a way to get him solidly on our side. First, I've had my lawyers work out a casus belli for that war he's been wanting to have.
CEO B: I dunno, isn't that a little thin?
CEO A: Hey, we're the experts here, people will trust us. Second, we offer up a bribe of $BIGNUM to 'help the war effort', all patriotic-like.
CEO B: (whistles) That's a lot of money.
CEO A: Yeah, but it's just a one-time payment. If it gets him to leave our *business* intact, it's a bargain for us. It'll pay for itself in no time.
2) My goodness, Hal is a total moral coward. Brave enough in physical terms, but terrified of responsibility. First he tells the clergy that the moral responsibility for the war is theirs (which they readily accept). Next, he tells the French Herald that the Dauphin's insults caused the war (patently untrue). In Southhampton, he manipulates the traitors into effectively pronouncing their own sentences, so he doesn't have to feel guilty about it. At Harfleur, he tells the town that, if they don't surrender, he won't be responsible for the rapine and slaughter that will follow.
And, of course, in his disguised wanderings the night before Agincourt, he argues vehemently that the King is not responsible for the deaths of his soldiers.
Even in victory, he can't bring himself to take credit, but leaves it all up to God.
3) I see a message in this play which I never saw before: Trust no one.
In practically every scene, people say things which are clearly untrue. I'm not just talking about outright lies, either. Mistakes, misunderstandings, and malapropisms are at least as prominent. And those which are lies come in every shade, from polite white lies all the way to high treason.
Even the Prologue is not exempt. He spends his whole second speech talking about "Now let us go to Southampton. Look, here we are in Southampton. Southhampton, Southampton, Southampton!" And the curtain rises on... London. At first I thought this a careless error on Will's part (or his editors'), but looking back, I saw how it fit into the general theme.
The matter of the Agincourt prisoners is also of interest here. Three scene-lets pass in quick succession. In the first, Hal says (approximately) "The French are getting reinforcements, so tell everyone to kill their prisoners." Then, we see soldiers discussing the slaughter of the boys at the baggage cart, and claiming that *that* caused Hal to order the prisoners slain. Then the scene shifts back again to Hal, who clearly has *just now* heard about the slaughter of the boys. To confuse matters further, he then asks how many prisoners were taken, with an implication (to me, at least) that they weren't executed after all!
The soaring rhetoric that the play is famous for is no less full of misspeaking. As already mentioned, Hal's speech to the French Herald in I.ii. is, at base, a lie. When he tells "we happy few" that whoever fights with him "shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,/ This day shall gentle his condition" he is again lying, as the post-battle scene with Pistol clearly demonstrates. Even when the words sound sweet, don't trust them.
No significant character in the play is without notable errors or lies. No one can be fully trusted. Perhaps God can, but he doesn't actually say anything in the play; his earthly representatives don't seem especially trustworthy.
1) I did not recall I.i. as being such naked politicking. And it's more relevant today than ever. One could easily cast it in modern terms.
CEO A: Congress is saying that our industry has too much money, and they're trying to nationalize us.
CEO B: Damn Commies! What does the President think about it.
CEO A: He could go either way on this. But I think I've worked out a way to get him solidly on our side. First, I've had my lawyers work out a casus belli for that war he's been wanting to have.
CEO B: I dunno, isn't that a little thin?
CEO A: Hey, we're the experts here, people will trust us. Second, we offer up a bribe of $BIGNUM to 'help the war effort', all patriotic-like.
CEO B: (whistles) That's a lot of money.
CEO A: Yeah, but it's just a one-time payment. If it gets him to leave our *business* intact, it's a bargain for us. It'll pay for itself in no time.
2) My goodness, Hal is a total moral coward. Brave enough in physical terms, but terrified of responsibility. First he tells the clergy that the moral responsibility for the war is theirs (which they readily accept). Next, he tells the French Herald that the Dauphin's insults caused the war (patently untrue). In Southhampton, he manipulates the traitors into effectively pronouncing their own sentences, so he doesn't have to feel guilty about it. At Harfleur, he tells the town that, if they don't surrender, he won't be responsible for the rapine and slaughter that will follow.
And, of course, in his disguised wanderings the night before Agincourt, he argues vehemently that the King is not responsible for the deaths of his soldiers.
Even in victory, he can't bring himself to take credit, but leaves it all up to God.
3) I see a message in this play which I never saw before: Trust no one.
In practically every scene, people say things which are clearly untrue. I'm not just talking about outright lies, either. Mistakes, misunderstandings, and malapropisms are at least as prominent. And those which are lies come in every shade, from polite white lies all the way to high treason.
Even the Prologue is not exempt. He spends his whole second speech talking about "Now let us go to Southampton. Look, here we are in Southampton. Southhampton, Southampton, Southampton!" And the curtain rises on... London. At first I thought this a careless error on Will's part (or his editors'), but looking back, I saw how it fit into the general theme.
The matter of the Agincourt prisoners is also of interest here. Three scene-lets pass in quick succession. In the first, Hal says (approximately) "The French are getting reinforcements, so tell everyone to kill their prisoners." Then, we see soldiers discussing the slaughter of the boys at the baggage cart, and claiming that *that* caused Hal to order the prisoners slain. Then the scene shifts back again to Hal, who clearly has *just now* heard about the slaughter of the boys. To confuse matters further, he then asks how many prisoners were taken, with an implication (to me, at least) that they weren't executed after all!
The soaring rhetoric that the play is famous for is no less full of misspeaking. As already mentioned, Hal's speech to the French Herald in I.ii. is, at base, a lie. When he tells "we happy few" that whoever fights with him "shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,/ This day shall gentle his condition" he is again lying, as the post-battle scene with Pistol clearly demonstrates. Even when the words sound sweet, don't trust them.
No significant character in the play is without notable errors or lies. No one can be fully trusted. Perhaps God can, but he doesn't actually say anything in the play; his earthly representatives don't seem especially trustworthy.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-03 02:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-03 02:56 am (UTC)No, he's a national leader, and his words must achieve ends beyond simply stating what is in his own heart.
First he tells the clergy that the moral responsibility for the war is theirs (which they readily accept).
What, you'd prefer leaders absolve those who give them advice and intelligence of moral responsibility for it? One word: Iraq. 'Nuff said.
Next, he tells the French Herald that the Dauphin's insults caused the war (patently untrue).
This is not fear of personal moral responsibility as statesmanship. As a leader of men, Hal needs to justify his war to his people - and this scene sets up his plausible reasoning.
In Southhampton, he manipulates the traitors into effectively pronouncing their own sentences, so he doesn't have to feel guilty about it.
I disagree with the interpretation. He does it out of a sense of poetic justice and vengeance. These guys betrayed him, endangering his person and the safety of his nation. You don't expect he'd like to see them hoist with their own petards?
At Harfleur, he tells the town that, if they don't surrender, he won't be responsible for the rapine and slaughter that will follow.
This is not him dodging fear, but inflicting it. Simple psychological warfare. And it works - Harfleur surrenders. Hal effectively saves lives and violence through this act. Good tactics don't flow from cowardice.
And, of course, in his disguised wanderings the night before Agincourt, he argues vehemently that the King is not responsible for the deaths of his soldiers.
Um, no. That's not what he says at all.
The issue at hand isn't death itself, but the state of the soul - the soldiers didn't generally get last rites. The question is whether the King is responsible for them going to God with sins on their heads, and perhaps being damned for all eternity. That is, in the theology and ethics of the time, a rather different matter than him being responsible for their deaths.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-03 03:12 pm (UTC)"Good tactics don't flow from cowardice."
That's a plausible assertion, but not a provable one.
I didn't accuse Hal of *physical* cowardice. Clearly, he's very brave on that front.
"The issue at hand isn't death itself, but the state of the soul - the soldiers didn't generally get last rites. The question is whether the King is responsible for them going to God with sins on their heads, and perhaps being damned for all eternity. That is, in the theology and ethics of the time, a rather different matter than him being responsible for their deaths."
I spoke, perhaps, too briefly. That's where their conversation ends up, certainly. But I would argue that Hal deliberately drove the conversation in that direction, precisely to avoid the original question, which was (I think) of their deaths alone. I admit that the point could be argued otherwise. (googles...)
"WILLIAMS: But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection."
Hm. On second read, you may be right. Williams seems to be at least partially arguing about sin here.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-03 03:36 pm (UTC)Well, yeah. This isn't mathematics, or something. Ain't nothing provable in literature.
But, as an additional support, I refer you to Frank Herbert's Dune for the pithy comment: "Fear is the mind-killer."
Cowardice is allowing your fear to control you. It doesn't matter what you are fearful of, if your brain is too busy with fear, you don't think straight about much of anything. Thus, good tactics don't come from fear.