henry v

It’s so tempting to recite or record monologues from Will’s works. I was poking around Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet’s Shakespeare blog (yes, there are other people blogging about this topic!) and found this link to Shakespeare monologues.

I think we need to stop kidding ourselves: Shakespeare is confusing and boring out of context.

I can’t blame people for wanting to share their readings of famous passages from the plays; once you fall in love with these stories you want other people to love them, too, but you know they won’t sit down and read/watch/listen to the whole play so you try to feed them monologues: little kernels of enjoyment from the larger picture, Quality of Mercy or Romeo, Romeo, Wherefore Art Thou. Hell, I’ve memorized a couple of monologues myself and occasionally try to force them on people. But you know what? They don’t care. Because they don’t know what’s going on around the monologue. They don’t know the story. They’re not attached. You can’t enjoy the Saint Crispin’s Day Speech unless you’ve marched to Agincourt with Henry’s hungry men. You can’t enjoy To Be or Not to Be unless you’ve anguished with Hamlet over the death of his father.

I almost tried recording some of The Bard’s monologues and posting them for you to enjoy. But then I realized you wouldn’t enjoy them. No, if I’m going to give you something then I should give you something you can actually wrap your head around.

We’ll see. I’ve got some ideas.

If you’re going to put someone through 90 seconds of Shakespeare, let them hear a sonnet. Those, at least, are meant to stand alone.

PISTOL
Fortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him;
For he hath stolen a pax, and hangéd must ‘a be—
A damnéd death!
(HV.III.6.38-40)

One summer, I lived with a good friend of mine in a two-story house near the New Hampshire seacoast. I didn’t really live with him, I only rented a room in his house when he had nobody else to help him pay the rent. He’d squandered an entire inheritance on sex, drugs, and beer and now he was lonely and broke. As much as I could manage, working an hour-and-a-half away, I’d stay at the house and spend the evening drinking, smoking, and watching movies. We hit on girls, frequented the 24-hour store across the river, and made lots of noise at indecent hours of the evening. The house was a mess. And the best part: we didn’t really care that the life we were living wasn’t all that serious. I had just had a breakup with a live-in girlfriend and I hated the responsibility my job put on my shoulders. So I let go. One of my favorite life memories is smoking a cigar on the roof of that house with my friend, shirtless and probably hung-over, in the hot afternoon sun. We had stopped taking life seriously and decided to take things slowly.

When, though, does life become serious? When does maturity and a sense of duty to life’s importances catch up with such a slow-paced, carefree existence?

One of the most interesting relationships in Shakespeare’s histories is that between young Harry of Monmouth, who would one day become King Henry V of England, and Falstaff, a drunken, cowardly, crude, yet endearing knight, and his two cohorts, Bardolph and Pistol. As a young man, Harry does not take life very seriously (unlike his brother, John of Lancaster, who seems to wear his responsibility with pride at a young age), and so he frequently partakes in mischievous–and sometimes criminal–acts with Falstaff, Bardolph, and Pistol. Yet, upon his father’s death in Henry IV Part II, young Harry turns a new leaf and forsakes his former friends. With responsibility finally forced upon him, he discovers that the weight of the world is not so burdensome if carried with purpose; the duties of a king not so wearisome if carried out with grace.

The girl I had left before living in that dirty house has since taught me something about patience. She taught me that an enjoyable youth need not be a flight from responsibility; that even those who decide to march forth and face life’s challenges may do so with careful thought and the benefits of a gracefulness. One must only maintain a leisurely state of mind to accomplish this. Harry, I think, does just that. Even as he rushes forth to invade France, fulfilling the wishes of his dead father, the young king seems to exude grace, patience, and good judgment. In his head, he is moving slowly: traitors are dealt with fairly, French cities are won with patience, and even the night before the Battle of Agincourt, the King can be found wandering the camp, musing upon the weight of his own responsibility.

Upon the king! Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children, and our sins, lay on the king!
We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing! What infinite heart’s ease
Must kings neglect that private men enjoy?
(HV.IV.1.223-230)

And how does he overcome the weight of those sovereign responsibilities illuminated in this lamentation? By delivering one of the greatest speeches ever written, the Saint Crispin’s Day Speech, which not only shifts the responsibility of death in battle and general hardship to the shoulders of his troops themselves, but also makes them glad of it. “Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, | But he’ll remember, with advantages, | What feats he did that day” (IV.3.50-52). By the end of the address, every man present would give his life for the chance to live many long, leisurely years wearing, with pride, the scars that symbolize the heavy burdens of the impending battle.

When you awake, one day, to find that you are glad of your responsibilities and wish to face them with grace and a healthful pride, what will you do with those who are still wasting time for a living? Even though you find them endearing, when it comes time to make a sacrifice for them, will you? Or will you be forced to leave them behind?

When Bardolph stole from a church against general orders, Henry had him hanged. What will you decide?