Further to yesterday, another section cut from Kenneth Branagh's film version of Henry V, although shorter than yesterday's example, is just as painful to think about. Later in the same scene (4.1), the king is visiting his soldiers the night before the battle, but he's doing it disguised with the help of a hooded cloak. At one point he enters into a lengthy debate with two soldiers regarding the moral issues involved with a king asking his subjects to fight for his cause. Now in medieval warfare, the capture of highly ranked prisoners was considered much more desirable than killing them, because they could then be ransomed back to their people for huge sums. (I suppose this is where checkmate in chess comes from.) If the battle were to go badly, therefore, an unscrupulous leader could save his own life by allowing himself to be captured and ransomed. The disguised king, in trying to pick up the spirits of the two (Bates and Williams), begins the exchange by saying the following:

I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.

WILLIAMS

Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but

when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we

ne'er the wiser.

KING HENRY V

If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.

WILLIAMS

You pay him then. That's a perilous shot out of an

elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can

do against a monarch! you may as well go about to

turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a

peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word

after! come, 'tis a foolish saying.

The italics are mine. What a wonderful illustration of futility - an individual getting angry at a monarch is the equivalent of trying to "turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock's feather". It may be the best example of hyperbole I've ever come across, and it was cut from the movie! Here's my suggestion for those directing Shakespeare: Don't cut anything. (That being said, I do want to mention that this version of Henry V is my favourite movie. I recommend it without reservation, cuts and all.)