Henry V, the wide vessel of the universe, love is blind, band of brothers

Henry V

   As usual with the historic plays of Shakespeare, the chronology and plot are mostly secondary to the real issues: the interplay of characters, moral dilemmas, and commentary (poetry) about life.  As with Henry IV, Part 2, I was surprised at the ending, in this play by the romance and in the former by the pathos of the exclusion of Falstaff from the newly minted King Henry’s life.

     Here are some iconic quotes: 

          Love is blind...in so many words.   “so I shall catch the fly, your Cousin, in the latter end, and she must be blind too.”  King Henry  “As love is, my lord, before it loves.”  Duke of Burgundy to King Henry.  5.2.326-328

          Also ‘band of brothers”

     I gravitate (so to speak) to collecting Shakespeare's comments about the moon with all its beauty, and I was so happy to find one here: “a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, or rather, the sun, and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly. ” 

     I love Shakespeare’s deferential, ironic thoughts on how difficult it is to be a poet as he indirectly denies his prowess through the character of  the Archbishop of Canterbury: “his sweet and honeyed sentences.”   “I have neither words nor measure (meter)…nor gasp out my eloquence.”  And the best: “these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favors”   Of all writers, Shakespeare is the fellow of ‘infinite tongue.”

       This play has the most devastating, gruesome  images of the cruelty of war.  An education in itself.  Some phrases I just could not quote, but who can forget “impious war” or “With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass Your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring infants.”

    The poetic description of Fortune is worthy of his sonnets: “Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you…that she is turning and inconstant, and  mutability, and variation; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls.” 

    I do love what I call his “wisdom” portrayals: the white hair, gray beards and equanimity that hopefully comes with age; a moral compass for me to aim at.  As was my favorite in As You Like It with Duke Senior so filled with aequanimity in his ironic exile in the forests of Arden, similarly is this:  “black beards will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow; but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, or rather, the sun, and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.  If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king.  And what say’st thou then to my love?  Speak, my fair – and fairly, I pray thee.” 

      And lastly, but most powerfully, are his portrayals of love.  Whose heart will not open at King Henry’s expression of devotion to Katherine, the daughter of the King France?  Not only that, but to speak to her in French: “la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon tres chere et devin deese”  (the fairest Katherine in the world, my dearest and divine goddess).  Or in English:  “You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch in them than in the tongues of the French Council.”

    Yes, reading this play, reading Shakespeare, gives me “the promise of greener days” and opens my heart up to “the wide vessel of the universe.” 

Quotes:

(the moon):

“a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, or rather, the sun, and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly. ”  King Henry to Katherine.  5.2.167-168

(love is blind) 

“so I shall catch the fly, your

Cousin, in the latter end, and she must be blind too.”  King Henry

“As love is, my lord, before it loves.”  Duke of Burgundy to King Henry.  5.2.326-328

(poetry, on being a poet):

“his sweet and honeyed sentences.”   Archbishop of Canterbury.  1.1.50

“I have neither words nor measure (meter)…nor gasp out my eloquence.” King Henry to Katherine.  5.2.137-138

“these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favors”  King Henry to Katherine.  5.2.160-161

“band of brothers”  King of France.  4.3.60

There are many explicit, even horrifying, descriptions of war:

“should famine, sword and fire

Crouch for employment.”  Prologue.  7,8

“…this hungry war

Opens his vast jaws; and on your head

Turning the widow’s tears, the oprhans’ cries,

The dead man’s blood, the pining maidens’ groans,

For husbands, fathers, and betrothed lovers

That shall be swallowed in this controversy.”  Duke of Exeter. 2.4.104-109

“That makes such waste in brief mortality.”  King Henry.  1.2.28

“And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,

In liberty of bloody hand shall range

With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass

Your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring infants.

…impious war.”  King Henry.  3.3.11-15

“…the filthy and contagious clouds

Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy

bloody soldier with foul hand”  King Henry.  3.3.31-34

“His hours filled with riots, banquets, sports,

Any retirement, any sequestrations

From open haunts and popularity.”  Archbishop of Canterbury.  1.1.56-59

“For in the book of Numbers is it writ:

When the man dies, let the inheritance

Descend unto the daughter.   Gracious lord…” Archbishop of Canterbury to King Henry.  1.2.98-100

“…the very May-morn of his youth

Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.” Bishop of Ely.  1.2. 120,121

“Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,

That knew’st the very bottom of my soul.”  King Henry.  2.2.96, 97

“I can never win a soul so easy as that Englishman’s

…are they spare in diet, free from gross passion, or of mirth and anger,

Constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood,

Garnished and decked in modest complement,

Not working with the eye without the ear.”  King Henry.   2.2.124-135

“the promise of his greener days”  Duke of Exeter.  2.4.136

   (see “salad days”) 

“On, on, on, on, on, on, to the breach”  Bardolph.  3.2.1

“Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you…that she is turning and inconstant, and  mutability, and variation; and her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls.”  Fluellen.  3.6.32-37

“I do partly understand your meaning.”  Fluellen. 

“Why then, rejoice therefore!”  Pistol.  3.6.31-33

“Fills the wide vessel of the universe.”  Chorus, 4.1. 3

“in this best garden of the world,

Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage.”  Duke of Burgundy.  5.2.36, 37

(Descriptions of love)

King Henry and Katherine, daughter of the King of France

“Do you like me, Kate?”  King Henry

“Pardonney-moi, I cannot tell wat is ‘like me.’”  Katherine

“An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.”  King Henry.  5.2. 107-111

“I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say, “I love you.”  King Henry to Katherine.  5.2. 128, 129

“I have neither words nor measure (meter)…I have no strength in measure…nor gasp out my eloquence.” King Henry to Katerine.  5.2.137-138

“these fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favors”  King Henry to Katherine.  5.2.160-161

“a black beards will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow; but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, or rather, the sun, and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.  If thou would have such a one, take me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier, take a king.  And what say’st thou then to my love?  Speak, my fair – and fairly, I pray thee.”  King Henry to Katherine.  5.2.164-173

“I will tell thee in French, which I am sure will hang upon  my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband’s neck, hardly to be shook off.”  King Henry to Katerine, trying to express his love for her.  5.2.184-187

“la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon tres chere et devin deese”  (the fairest Katherine in the world, my dearest and divine goddess).  King Henry to Katherine.  5.2.224-225

“I cannot tell wat is ‘baiser’ en Anglais.”  Alice.

“To kiss.”  King Henry.  5.2.274-275

“You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch in them than in the tongues of the French Council.”  King Henry, upon finally kissing Katherine.  5.2.288-291

Vocabulary

Hydra

Gordian knot

Celerity

‘on’ – repeated 5 times

Licentious

Bootless

dialogues written in French  Act III, Scene IV; Act IV. IV; Act V, Scene II.  

Agamemnon

Marc Antony

Elysium

band of brothers

love is blind