Henry V: The play that came to define our ambiguous relationship with warfare

Guy Keleny kicks off the final week of our Shakespeare series with a reflection on Henry V

Jude Law plays Henry V in a 2013 stage production (Johan Persson)

You cannot sum up Shakespeare’s greatest plays – the tragedies, The Tempest, in one word each. But many of the second-rank masterpieces you can. Romeo and Juliet is a play about love; A Midsummer Night’s Dream is about sex; The Merchant of Venice is about justice. And Henry V is Shakespeare’s play about war: the glory of war, the horror of war, the absurdities and the moral dilemmas. All are given due weight; Shakespeare, being a dramatist, not a moralist, does not judge between them.

All those things make Henry V a play eminently suited to the temperament of a 10-year-old boy. My mother knew what she was doing when she took me to a cinema in 1950s London to see Laurence Olivier’s film of Henry V. I have since come to appreciate it as the most successful screen adaptation of Shakespeare – thanks to its framing of the story at three levels of artifice: first at a performance of the play at the Globe, then moving into a world of studio sets based on 15th-century book illustrations, and finally into full cinematic “reality” for Agincourt.

All that passed me by at my first viewing. But this was exciting stuff – lots of chaps in armour and a terrific cavalry charge. The idea that Shakespeare was a Good Thing was planted in my mind.

I didn’t know then that Olivier’s 1944 film left out most of the horrible stuff and so turned the play into more of a wartime morale-booster than Shakespeare wrote. Cut, for instance, was Henry’s blood-curdling speech to the Governor of Harfleur, demanding the town’s surrender, and expounding the medieval rules of siege warfare:

“This is the latest parle we will admit ….” So, no more negotiations after this. Surrender now or when we fight our way into the town there will be no mercy: there will be a sack, with normal military discipline suspended.

“Therefore, you men of Harfleur,

Take pity of your town, and of your people,

Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command....

If not, why, in a moment look to see

The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand

Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters....

Your naked infants spitted upon pikes ...”

It goes on for 53 lines of horror upon horror: the kind of thing that was all too familiar in the religious wars that racked France and the Netherlands in Shakespeare’s time. And, says Henry, none of it will be his fault, if the men of Harfleur, “guilty in defence”, bring it all upon themselves. Again and again, Henry lays the blame on others for the terrible consequences of his own actions.

And that criminal trait is just as real as the intense comradeship of the army Henry addresses before Agincourt – “For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother” – or the comic cowardice of Pistol and Henry’s other disreputable old drinking pals from his misspent youth.

The play opens with the admission that the theatre cannot present a war. “Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France?” asks the Chorus, in a speech that goes on to demonstrate how the trick is done: by working upon the imagination.

And it is an exhilarating ride, as a dramatis personae of captains and kings, heroes and cowards, lords, ladies and low-lifes, switches between palaces, camps and battlefields.

The final Chorus speech reminds us that Henry’s triumphs would come to nothing in the end.

A few of the original audience must have been old enough to remember the fumbling loss in 1558 of Calais, last fragment of England’s French empire – no longer ago then than the Suez debacle is today.

Shakespeare at a glance: Henry V

Laurence Olivier’s 1944 wartime call to arms

Plot

The new King Henry – formerly the dissolute Prince Hal in the Henry IV plays – is off to France with his mighty fleet. After evading assassination at Southampton, and heading into the breach at Harfleur, he rouses his men to a glorious victory at Agincourt, then woos Princess Catherine of Valois and is adopted as heir to the French throne. Henry’s dissolute youth is far behind him, but he still seems to have issues with his moral compass.

Themes

Power and responsibility; bravery against the odds; war, war, war.

Background

The final part of a four-play series, preceded by “Richard II” and the two “Henry IV” plays. Thought to have been written in 1599, it may have been the first play to be performed at the Globe – the “wooden O” mentioned in the prologue. Laurence Olivier’s film version made the play a patriotic symbol during the Second World War. Other notable portrayals include those by Kenneth Branagh (1989), Tom Hiddleston (2012) and Jude Law (2013).

Key characters

King Henry: valiant young King, leading his nation to glory.

Chorus: ever-present narrator, guiding the audience’s imagination.

Pistol: Falstaff’s friend offers comic relief.

Key quotes

“O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention.” The Chorus apologises for the lack of special effects. Act 1 Prologue

“They sell the pasture now to buy the horse.” The Chorus describes England’s dedication to the war effort. Act 2 Prologue

“He’s in Arthur’s bosom, if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom.” Mistress Quickly mourns the death of Sir John Falstaff. Act 2 Scene 3

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead!” Henry urges on his men at Harfleur. Act 3 Scene 1

“Cry – God for Harry! England and Saint George!” More of the same. Act 3 Scene 1

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.” Henry’s pep talk at Agincourt. Act 4 Scene 3

Echoes

William Walton’s Suite from Henry V is one of the composer’s best-loved works. Darryl Kubian also wrote an orchestral version, “O for a Muse of Fire”. The King’s oration has been used more than once (with mixed results) to inspire England rugby teams; the RSC’s Geoffrey Streatfeild gave a notable dressing-room performance in Paris in 2007 (England beat France 14-9).

Luke Barber