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King Henry V

1951

William Shakespeare

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King Henry V

William Shakespeare

1951

British Literature, Classics of Literature, History - Royalty, History - Warfare, Plays/Films/Dramas

Shakespeare's most bracing examination of what nations owe their soldiers. Young King Henry V, recently a carousing prince, suddenly crowned and determined to claim France by right of lineage, leads his outnumbered army toward Agincourt. The play delivers the stirring rhetoric you'd expect, the "Once more unto the breach" speech, the St. Crispin's Day oration that still fires hearts, but it also dissects that rhetoric with surgical precision. We see bishops calculatedly pushing for war to delay a bill that would tax the Church. We watch common soldiers grumble about profit and plague. The French nobles mock the English with tennis balls before the battle, then beg for mercy after. Even Henry's famous speeches about honor carry a chill: he threatens to kill every French prisoner, then orders the execution of his own friend for a minor theft. The Chorus appears throughout, begging the audience to imagine sweeping cavalry charges on an empty stage, constantly reminding us that we're watching something we can never fully represent. This is Shakespeare's radical proposition: that glory and atrocity might be the same story, told by different people.

Project Gutenberg

A historical play believed to have been written in the early 17th century during the English Renaissance. The play cente...

Goodreads

Henry V is Shakespeare’s most famous “war play”; it includes the storied English victory over the French at Agincourt. S...

3.9(53K)

Editions

King Henry V
King Henry VCurrent
Project Gutenberg · 3 pages
EPUB
King Henry V: Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre
King Henry V: Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre
Project Gutenberg · 131 pages
EPUB
King Henry V
King Henry V
Project Gutenberg · 108 pages
EPUB
King Henry V
King Henry V
Project Gutenberg · 3 pages
EPUB

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“From this day to the ending of the world,But we in it shall be remembered-We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;For he to-day that sheds his blood with meShall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,This day shall gentle his condition;And gentlemen in England now-a-bedShall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.””

— William Shakespeare

“Thine face is not worth sunburning.””

— William Shakespeare

“All things are ready, if our mind be so.””

— William Shakespeare

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;Or close the wall up with our English dead.In peace there's nothing so becomes a manAs modest stillness and humility:But when the blast of war blows in our ears,Then imitate the action of the tiger;Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;Let pry through the portage of the headLike the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm itAs fearfully as doth a galled rockO'erhang and jutty his confounded base,Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,Hold hard the breath and bend up every spiritTo his full height. On, on, you noblest English.Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,Have in these parts from morn till even foughtAnd sheathed their swords for lack of argument:Dishonour not your mothers; now attestThat those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.Be copy now to men of grosser blood,And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,Whose limbs were made in England, show us hereThe mettle of your pasture; let us swearThat you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;For there is none of you so mean and base,That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:Follow your spirit, and upon this chargeCry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!””

— William Shakespeare

“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.””

— William Shakespeare

“When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes. ””

— William Shakespeare

“Men of few words are the best men."(3.2.41)””

— William Shakespeare

“You have witchcraft in your lips, there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they shouldsooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs.””

— William Shakespeare

“In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility; but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage.””

— William Shakespeare

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