HV • scene summary

× I

× 0-Prologue: metatheatricality and propaganda

× "this wooden O"; invocation of muse of fire; heroic representation; symbol's miracle "crooked figure (O) may attest in little place a million"; we are ciphers; one represents many; imagination magnifies; collaboration of audience; heros, gods and monarchs brought on stage; both time and space's elasticity; insistence on spectacle in mind's eye; imagery both of confining and of expansion; imagination and politics; military theatre

× i. in private: Bishops Canterbury and Ely plot to support war to protect their properties from commons

× contrast of tone; continuity with IIHIV-busy giddy minds with foreign wars

× center of scene: religious/idealistic encomium to the king, bracketed by realpolitik

× ii. in public: Lords urge war and provide justification; affront from the Dauphin and Henry's reply

× salique law; parable of the bees; scotland under control

× from boring legalism to tennis game of ramming it down throat; war as game

× II

× 0- Prologue--(more fire; stirring war fever)

× Now all the youth of England are on fire --

What mightst thou do today

× French fear and conspiracy

× i. Boar's Head crew; another ironic contrast

× mocks militaristic enthusiasm in Nym and Pistol; readiness to duel; mindless aggression and egotism; boasts and b rags

× sympathy for Falstaff's death; hostility to king for causing it

× ii. Apprehending the traitors

× king's nobility and policy; admirable combination; being and seeming; betrayers rejoice at their own entrapment [subversion supports authority];

× God on our side; war cries: no king of England, if not King of France

× iii. Falstaff in his death: God called also , babbling of green fields

× iv. France

× Dauphin mocks Henry so King can praise him,

× followed by Henry's Tamburlainlike challenge through Exeter

× III

× 0--vivid account of fleet's departure; getting youth to enlist;

× urging flight of imagination and involvement in war [cf. Hotspur--the imagination of some great exploit']

× i. Harfleur: Harry's oratory

× Tiger,tiger imagery--blast of war demands horribility; hormonal goad; erection

× Invocation of fathers, fatherland, mothers, absence of class distinction

× noble luster in the basest eye; contrast to distinctions in counting war dead

× Cry, "God for Harry, England and Saint george" --all allegiances; color war

× ii. Harfleur--the soldiers

× Mockery: they wont go; hide in rhetoric or the boy's straight fear;

× Boy's speech on corruption of these soldiers

× Fluellen wants academic discourse over the wars; macmorris and Jamy dispute nationality

× iii. King's bloody threat wins the battle

× iv. Katharine's English lesson

× she too yields to the barbaric sound--foot, count--brutality wins

× v. French put themselves down as impotent; then brag

× vi. Report of battle at bridge; Eng. triumph; Fortune's role; Bardolph's executed; Mountjoy's challenge

× vii. French camp--their decadence and boredom; obscenity of the nobles; Dauphin and his horse

× belongs in Act IV

× IV

× 0--description of battle fires; overconfidence of French; fear of English comforted by " a little touch of Harry in the night."

× political and interpretive principle: "mind true things by what their mockeries be"

× the battle over men's spirits is where victory is won; now mettle is issue, before it was justification

× i. English camp

× King makes occasion out of adversity to address negative odds and officer's fears; also spies; keeps touch with the populace, but in secret

× With Bates Court and Williams-in disguise

× Tells them King is human and needs to be encouraged to encourage his men. NB principle of rule

× King battles with their cynicism--they'd like to be home; King says this is best place to be, as long as cause is just

× Question of just cause and subject's duty vs. subject's interest gets sidetracked by king into religious question of salvation; Williams stays on track and concedes religious point but not secular one and ends up in challenging the king to duel

× King's soliloquy

× hard condition/ twin-born with greatness"--the burden of rule

× king has only ceremony to help him bear the burden=place, degree and form/ creating awe and fear in other men

× king must keep watch to maintain the peace while peasant happily sleeps

× prayer to god of battles

× steel soldiers hearts; think not on guilt of usurped crown

× penitence he can do is nothing worth since it implores pardon--no mention of keeping the reward; compare to Claudius' prayer

× ii. French camp--boast before battle

× iii. English camp: fear and courage

× King speaks: occasione: the few numbers will heighten the honor [Hotspur talk]; future fame and glory; privilege to be here

× Challenge to Mountjoy

× iv. Battlefield

× Pistol taking ransom--opposite to honor; Frenchman begs for life

× v. French in retreat

× vi. Report of Suffok's heroic death; king orders prisoners killed

× vii. French immediately kill the boys--battle's conclusion

× Gower and Fluellen change the order, claiming that prisoners killed afterward;

× evocations of Alexander the Pig; pig is great; Alexander killed his best friend just like Harry

× Harry now begins to wax angry; the French surrender

× King engineers battle between Fluellen and Williams over glove; accused of being traitor; then makes peace

× is this symbol of the war?

× Williams refuses to take money

× Juxtaposed to body count; working stiffs dont count; all glory to G

× V

× 0--allusion to Essex; glorious triumph in London; our gracious Empress mentioned; back to France

× i. Pistol vs. Fluellen; good vs. bad soldier

× ii. two doors entrance of English and French; ceremonial scene

× public resolution; griefs to love; war to peace

× the plot of war and the plot of comedy

× Burgundy's encomium to peace; rejection of war

× King: war bought with peace

× Woman's voice may do some good; Katharine is capital demand

× Henry and Kath. courtship

× protests plainness (loquaciously)

× soldier is king; begot in civil war

× appropriation of France and her; conquest

× indecent but amiable talk of procreation

× kiss on lips against custom; he is maker of custom

× official consent and celebration

× Epilogue--after achieving worlds best garden, left it to son who lost it and order in England

• critical notes

• film notes