The three previous posts of this young blog can be summarized thus: 1. It is very important for the reader to make his or her own judgements, and not to be overly influenced by those of others. 2. Making cuts in a Shakespeare play is not a good idea. (By the way, one of the few filmed Shakespeares that includes a complete text is Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet from 1996. It's great to watch with a copy of the play in hand.) Now, for the next few posts, I'm going to focus on some of the things that I've learned regarding the reading of Shakespeare. At the top of the list is the importance of the imagination.

Ideally, the words in a text can be combined into appropriate groups that create images and arguments. It's a challenge to do this with writing as poetic and sophisticated as Shakespeare's. But, that's what makes it fun. There's a lot to be learned about this idea in the prologue to Henry V:

Essentially, the playwright is speaking through a narrator (called a chorus, in those days) who comes out on the stage and apologizes to the audience for the very existence of the play. He says that he wishes that materials appropriate to the subject matter were available, and that a small troupe in a small theatre ("this wooden O") cannot possibly stage a story that treats a war between France and England. Unless the audience uses their imaginations. Then, everything is possible (on the stage and elsewhere):

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,

The flat unraised spirits that have dared

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object: can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France? or may we cram

Within this wooden O the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincourt?

O, pardon! since a crooked figure may

Attest in little place a million;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,

On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose within the girdle of these walls

Are now confined two mighty monarchies,

Whose high upreared and abutting fronts

The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;

Into a thousand parts divide one man,

And make imaginary puissance;

Think when we talk of horses, that you see them

Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;

For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,

Turning the accomplishment of many years

Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,

Admit me Chorus to this history;

Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,

Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

As a reading (or listening) lesson, I've never come across its equal.

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.)