“But if the cause be not good, the King himself hath a heavy reckoning to make when all those legs and arms and heads chopp’d off in a battle shall join together at the latter day and cry all “We died at such a place”: some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; who to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.”
--Henry V, IV, i
Faith, I am much put in heart by a learned dispute that took place amongst the great and good of Washington DC, there at my Theatre where the honest players do know me right well. A dispute it was of the rights and wrongs of the invasion of one country by another: in specific, that of France by King Harry the Fifth in the year of our lord 1415. And the arbiter was that august lady Dame Judi Dench, whom I esteem full high, and who late made such noble work of my Countess in All’s Well that Ends Well. An thou wouldst see ministers and newsminions make antics of themselves, go thou there. (Be warned: those scurvy dogs of the broadsheet may require a registration of thee.)
And thyself, gentle reader? Hast seen my Henry V play’d, or read it perchance? Think’st thou I favour, or disfavour these wars? I wit well that since my time, many masters of play have order’d it play’d one way or t’other. Master Olivier and young Master Branagh had each their differing ideas, certes. Now truly, what is thine? That I would know.
Here, gentles, may ye see Master Silber (he of the Light of Reason) speak most feelingly of another playwright, that wordmaster-royal Sir Noel Coward, and of an almost-lost play in which he crieth out upon war. Truly 'tis much unlike my Troilus or Henry Fifth, but no less worthy for that.
And if ye would feed the body as well as the soul, why then look no further than the House of Gode Cookery, where ye may find Pokerounce, Tartes of Flesshe, and one way to make a Foole. (I am certain, gentles, ye know many another.)
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And mark what discord follows! Each thing melts
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe;
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead;
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong--
Between whose endless jar justice resides--
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite,
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself.
I wrote then of the war for Troy, but hath it not a familiar sound?
Ulysses, in my Troilus and Cressida, speaks these words: an thou wouldst see war stripped bare of glory or any moralising claim of right, in this play is it shown forth. By God, had any the heart to play it now, 'twould be timely done.
Yet e'en in the midst of war, a man must laugh: and if it cannot be at saucy English fellows eating raw leek at the hands of overweening Welshmen, then it had best be at this: Jean-Luc Picard his Galliard. That same Patrick Stewart hath a most pleasing dulcet voice, whether he intoneth the Klingon tongue or indeed mine own sonnets 147, 141 and 18. For myself, I have but small Klingon, and less geek.
And whiles we speak of sonnets, Master Petrarch, cold in his grave, lacks a head. I wonder whether to mention it when I see him next?
Perchance not. Dante and Boccaccio will so by this have plagu'd him that I were best merely to pour him a cup of wine. And no gibes about his having no head for liquor, neither.