Henry V (Annotated by Henry N. Hudson with an Introduction by Charles Harold Herford)

By William Shakespeare

Believed to have been written in 1599, William Shakespeare’s “Henry V” forms the final installment of a tetralogy of plays which includes “Richard II”, “Henry IV, Part I”, and “Henry IV, Part II”. The play focuses on the events surrounding the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years’ War. Henry, who is introduced in the earlier plays as a wild and undisciplined youth, has now come of age and ascended to the thrown following the death of his father, King Henry IV. At the outset of the play we find the English fleet embarking for France in pursuit of conquest of the nation just across the English Channel. At this time a plot to assassinate the King by the Earl of Cambridge and two others is discovered. Henry’s cleverness in uncovering the plot and the ruthlessness in which he deals with the conspirators exhibits that his immaturity of youth, exhibited in earlier plays, has now past and that he has grown into a competent monarch. “Henry V”, along with the other plays of the tetralogy, provides an incredible dramatic portrayal of an important chapter in the long military conflict between two of the most powerful of European nations, England and France. This edition includes a preface and annotations by Henry N. Hudson and an introduction by Charles Harold Herford.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781420954616

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is arguably the most famous playwright to ever live. Born in England, he attended grammar school but did not study at a university. In the 1590s, Shakespeare worked as partner and performer at the London-based acting company, the King’s Men. His earliest plays were Henry VI and Richard III, both based on the historical figures. During his career, Shakespeare produced nearly 40 plays that reached multiple countries and cultures. Some of his most notable titles include Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. His acclaimed catalog earned him the title of the world’s greatest dramatist.

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HENRY V

By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Preface and Annotations by

HENRY N. HUDSON

Introduction by

CHARLES HAROLD HERFORD

Henry V

By William Shakespeare

Preface and Annotations by Henry N. Hudson

Introduction by Charles Harold Herford

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5460-9

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-5461-6

This edition copyright © 2017. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of a Portrait of King Henry V (1387-1422) (oil on canvas), Benjamin Burnell (1769-1828) / Private Collection / Photo © Philip Mould Ltd, London / Bridgeman Images.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PREFACE

HENRY V

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

PROLOGUE

ACT I.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

ACT III.

PROLOGUE.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

SCENE VI.

ACT IV.

SCENE I.

SCENE II.

SCENE III.

SCENE IV.

SCENE V.

SCENE VI.

SCENE VII.

SCENE VIII.

SCENE IX.

ACT V.

SCENE I.

Introduction

The earliest edition of Henry V. was printed in Quarto in 1600, with the following title:—

The | Cronicle | History of Henry the fift, | with his battell fought at Agin Court in | France. Togither with Auntient | Pistoll. | As it hath bene sundry times playd by the Right Honorable | the Lord Chamberlaine his servants. | LONDON. | Printed by Thomas Creede, for Tho. Milling- | ton, and John Busby. . . . 1600.’

Other editions of this Quarto (printed for Thomas Pavier instead of for Millington) appeared in 1602 and 1608.

All these texts, however, differed widely from that published by Shakespeare’s executors in the Folio of 1623, and their relation to it was for long a burning question, as in the analogous cases of Romeo and Juliet, The Merry Wives, Henry VI., and Hamlet. But the problem is here a relatively simple one, and scholars are now almost unanimous in holding the Folio text to represent substantially Shakespeare’s MS., and the Quarto to be a surreptitious version of the acting edition, ‘hastily made up from notes taken at the theatre during the performance and subsequently patched together.’ The variations in the Quarto are all, with the trifling exceptions noticed below, easily explicable from one of these two sources of corruption:

(1) The five Choruses and Epilogue, with three unessential scenes (i. 1., iii. 1., iv. 2.), are omitted. This would be an obvious expedient for curtailing a lengthy play. It is certain from the allusion in Prol. v. to Essex, that these are as old as March to September 1599, the probable date of the entire play. It is pretty safe to assume then that they formed part of the original draft and were omitted in performance.

(2) Several characters are omitted, their speeches being sometimes omitted also, sometimes transferred. Thus in i. 2. Canterbury and Ely coalesce in a single ‘Bishop,’ though a tell-tale stage direction at the head of the scene describes the entry of ‘2 bishops.’ Similarly in iv. 3. Westmoreland’s part is made over to Warwick, while Erpingham, save for a mutilated semblance of his name in a stage direction (‘Epingham’) disappears altogether. These changes were an obvious stage-manager’s shift to reduce the number of actors required. It is less easy to explain why in the same scene a new character, Clarence, should be introduced (for Bedford), and in iii. 7. another new one, ‘Gebon,’ for Ramburé, and why in the latter scene and in iv. 5. Bourbon should take the place of the Dauphin.{1} These serve no obvious stage interest, nor are they the kind of changes which occur to a botching editor or a speculative printer. It is difficult to resist the inference that Shakespeare did perform some slight redistribution among these in the main faintly distinguished parts. But even this was not thorough-going,—witness the inconsistency still remaining in v. 2. 84, where the Duke of Clarence is addressed as present.

(3) The whole text of the Quarto is barely half the length of the Folio;{2} and its brevity is not that of a first sketch, but of imperfect note-taking. It is not an unexpanded germ, but a cento of scraps. Scarcely a single passage of more than a few lines is reported continuously; catching phrases reappear, complexities of thought or phrase vanish, fidelity for a line or two is purchased by the total loss of the following lines.

The date of Henry V. falls within narrow limits. The reference to Essex’s expected return from Ireland (Prol. to Act V.) shows that it was acted, and in part at least written, between March 27, 1599, when he left London, and September 28, the date of his summary and fatal return. In the Epilogue to 2 Henry IV. Shakespeare had promised to ‘continue the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katharine of France’; and the promise is so imperfectly kept that it is clear the entire plan of Henry V. had still to be formed when the Epilogue was written. But, as we have seen, the Second Part of Henry IV. belongs to the latter half of 1598; while this part of the Epilogue, written after the change from Oldcastle to Falstaff had been made, may be yet later. Hence the general conclusion can scarcely be assailed, that Henry V. was written in the early part of 1599, and acted with prologues and epilogue that summer. It is probable, however, that a fragment of one of the least striking scenes in the play as we have it was added at a time when the accession of James had given an occasion for complaisance to the Scotch such as we know that Shakespeare did not always disdain to display.{3} The dialogue of the Scotch and Irish captains in iii. 2. 72 f. is not represented in Qq, and the presence of a Scottish captain in Henry’s army is undoubtedly surprising after the strong anti-Scottish animus exhibited in i. 2.—an animus not entirely supported by Holinshed. Simpson saw in this colloquy of the four captains—English, Scotch, Welsh, Irish—a dramatic plea for Essex’s policy of composing drastic differences, and especially of uniting Scotland with England. Mr. Fleay prefers to regard the passage as an insertion for the Court performance, Christmas 1605, ‘to please King James, who had been annoyed that year by depreciation of Scots on the stage.’{4}

In Henry V. as in Henry IV, its magnificent and long-drawn prelude, Shakespeare follows the Chronicles of Holinshed and Hall with singular fidelity, adding, as there, a few touches from The Famous Victories. The ‘Harry’ of the Chronicles is in substance his. Here, in a fuller sense than in any other of the Histories, Shakespeare meant to recall the actual past. It was the real Harry that he strove to paint, the real Agincourt that he bade his audience reconstruct in imagination from his ‘cockpit’ and ‘vile and ragged foils,’ ‘Minding true things by what their mockeries be.’{5} But these two, the great King and the great victory, exhaust Shakespeare’s interest in the reign. All personality in the play is pale beside Henry’s, and all event is ancillary to the French campaign.

Even as described in Holinshed the reign was remarkably poor in opportunities for the dramatist, and it would seem that Shakespeare deliberately made light of some that he found, in order to give his heroic subject in its magnificent simplicity full way without the distractions of intrigue and counterplot. The play is strictly no drama, but an epic in dramatic form. Shakespeare seems to hint as much by the use of the Chorus, an expedient to which he no longer resorted when dealing with the vaster distances and the more colossal warfare of Julius Cæsar and Antony and Cleopatra.

Only one other drama entirely his own—The Whitens Tale—contains a chorus; and there it serves to announce an interval of dramatic time far greater than Shakespeare has anywhere else approached. Except in a single instance (Act V.), the Chorus in Henry V. announces only trifling intervals either of space or time,—a journey from London to Southampton, from Southampton to Harfleur, and so on. But the Chorus to Act IV. has no such role to perform; and this Chorus, the most splendid and high-wrought of all, serves to show that Shakespeare introduced this machinery not for the sake of bridging intervals of time and space,—which elsewhere his audience crossed ‘on imagined wings’ with the utmost unconcern,—but as the most obvious means of bringing home the outward semblance of an event of absorbing interest.{6} In Coriolanus, in Antony and Cleopatra, there are brief bursts of battle-poetry exceeding in sublimity anything in Henry V.; but that is chiefly because they are penetrated with a dramatic passion for which in Henry V. there was simply no room. The subject was epic, and Shakespeare fell back upon the epic poet’s method. No scene in the drama paints so vividly as a few lines in the Chorus the transforming spell of the master presence, which made the handful of worn-out men a weapon of adamant against the serried ranks of chivalry:—

A largess universal like the sun

His liberal eye doth give to every one,

Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all

Behold, as may unworthiness define,

A little touch of Harry in the night.

Henry’s own character is devoid of strictly dramatic elements. It derives none of its extraordinary fascination from inner conflict. He is at one with himself. Even the inherited sin of his house, so burdensome to his father, passes completely into the background. In none of the Histories does it play so slight a part. His naive faith in his right to France is perplexed by no scruple about his right to England. Mortimer, the legitimate heir, is never mentioned; and the conspiracy of Cambridge and Scroop and Grey on his behalf is credited to the gold of the French King.{7} Before Agincourt Henry prays that the guilt of his father’s usurpation may not that day be visited upon him; but his fervour is not troubled like Claudius’ by any suspicion that he ought to resign the usurped throne. Not only is there no foreboding of the tragic Nemesis which the authors of Henry VI. read in the impending ruin of the house of Lancaster; we move in a world in which tragic Nemesis has no place, and another, more Shakespearean, conception of human affairs controls the action. Henry is not irrevocably bound by the guilt of his ancestors: his sheer soundness and strength of character emancipate him at once from the inherited taint and the paralysing self-distrust; if ruin follows in the next reign, it is not the guilt of the dead but the weakness of the living that brings it on.

All the other characters serve in their degree to set off the King’s; but none are even distantly his rivals. The English commanders, the prelates, the traitor nobles, are slightly sketched, and either implicitly fall in with or but faintly disturb the onward sweep of Henry’s course. The conspiracy of Cambridge and Scroop was in reality a dangerous symptom of distrust: a dramatist bent upon plot-interest would have made us tremble for the King’s life. Shakespeare announces it with a quiet assurance that there is no danger, for all is known, and the conspirators themselves hasten to deprecate any further anxiety by expressing their heart-felt penitence. The whole episode serves simply to exhibit Henry’s bearing as man and King,—the stern Roman fortitude humanised with Germanic pity and regret—when discharging the duty of sentencing an old comrade and friend to death.

The one formidable rival of the King is no single figure, but the ‘bad neighbour’ at whom he dashes his little force, the assembled power of France. And the French are drawn collectively, in slightly modulated shades of the same conventional hue. The brush which had painted the rival of Henry’s youth, now dashes off with far less care and delicacy the foes of his manhood. The vapouring chivalry, the fantastic self-conceit which so fatally alloyed Hotspur’s sturdy Saxon strength, reappear with more of blatant flourish in men of finer wit but weaker fibre. The Dauphin, less

Reviews for Henry V (Annotated by Henry N. Hudson with an Introduction by Charles Harold Herford)

[lieslmayerson · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Are you allowed to not like anything by Shakespeare? So many great, enjoyable Shakespeare reads, but this is not one of them in my opinion. Definitely offers value from a literary and historical perspective, but I honestly would choose many other of his works above this.

[leslie398 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Overall, I found this an exciting play with some of Shakespeare's most rousing speeches. On the minus side, it is a tad long and some of the scenes (such as Princess Katherine learning English) could have been eliminated or shortened to make for a tighter play.

[tysonadams · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It just doesn't get any better than this!!

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 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-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'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 spirit
To 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 fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That 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 here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That 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 charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

[publiusdb-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Just finished Henry V...worth the read.

[tiffanyak_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a play I chose to read for my Play Analysis paper for my Intro. to Drama class. The language is extremely powerful and memorable, the characters are compelling, and the play itself is exceptional. I definitely highly recommend it for anyone with any interest at all in drama. It is, without question, one of the greatest examples of the genre ever written. As to the edition itself, I found it to be greatly helpful in understanding the action in the play. It has a layout which places each page of the play opposite a page of notes, definitions, explanations, and other things needed to understand that page more thoroughly. While I didn't always need it, I was certainly glad to have it whenever I ran into a turn of language that was unfamiliar, and I definitely appreciated the scene-by-scene summaries. Really, if you want to or need to read Shakespeare, an edition such as this is really the way to go, especially until you get more accustomed to it.

[glennbell_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not very interesting and uses obsolete language as in all Shakespeare's books/plays. This one recounts a battle between England and France. Not recommended.

[amerynth · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked Shakespeare's "Henry V" a lot.... it has a few great speeches and the action moves along nicely. The play picks up shortly after Henry V ascends to the throne of England and follows him to France for the Battle of Agincourt. The play skips around from place to place a bit, which might be a bit jarring if not for the chorus smoothing over the rough edges. I understand this was one of Shakepeare's later historical plays -- fit in to cover the period between others -- and it shows as the writing is pretty tight and the story well-paced.

[booksbooks11 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a wonderful way to present Shakespeare. An audio book with added commentary explaining the more difficult language, all the historical context and how the people of Shakespeare's day would have reacted to each part. Absolutely fabulous, I can't wait to get into the other ones they've published.

[nicolesch-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I actually really enjoy Shakespeare. Especially King Lear (of the few I've read so far) I just didn't like Henry V as a character, which severely stunted my ability to enjoy the play. Only the Saint Crispin's Day Speech stopped me from giving this just one star.

I'm not altogether certain that I'm understanding the historical context, but it seems to me that Henry's war does not have just cause. Simply because he has a doubtful claim to France's throne, and the prince of France--the Dauphin--insulted him? My dislike of Henry's war, and therefore Henry himself may be helped along by the fact that the responsibility of Joan of Arc's unfair death seems to be evenly divided between him and Charles VII, the king of France whom Joan served.

I'm not a pacifist, but I agree with J.R.R. Tolkien; "War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." (Somewhere, and I cannot for the life of me remember where, I read sort of summary of Tolkien's feelings on war; that he felt that war was evil, but sometimes necessary to protect the good things in life)

I think the reason that Henry's first speech bugs me is because he is manipulating his countrymen into fighting an unjustified war. Henry started this war because he wanted to be king of France as well as England, and because the Dauphin insulted him. This means that the English are trying to take over a country, while the French are defending their homeland. When I'm presented with this scenario I will almost always side with the defenders, rather than the attackers. I think that the French had a reason to fight; to protect their homeland, but I don't think the English did, and Henry whipping them into a bloodthirsty frenzy to be sure that they wouldn't show mercy was wrong. Returning to the Tolkien theme, sometimes showing pity can save your world, as with Bilbo sparing Gollum.

Henry has ethos because he is a figure of authority. He is the king. One thing that I think gives the speech extra pathos and ethos, and it may be the only time that I see logos in it, is when Henry does appeal to them not to let the fallen Englishmen have fallen in vain. If they lost the war then those people would have died for nothing. This is the way that I feel about the Vietnam War. America pulled out just when we could've won. Of course I am looking back on it, without having lived through it, so maybe I shouldn't be one to judge what the right decision was at the time.

It's not just Henry V that I dislike though. The Archbishop of Canterbury urged Henry into this war, and might very well have been responsible for Joan of Arc's false heresy sentence and death. And the French Dauphin. Regardless of how Henry was in his youth, it was wrong of him to insult him, especially since Henry was in a position of power so that he could start a war over an insult.

So I guess the two main reasons why I don't like the speech or Henry is because of my feelings about the reasons for the start of the war, and because of the feeling of manipulation.

This speech is more rousing by far than the previous one. Henry made this speech when he was outmatched, cold, sick, hungry, desperate and afraid... and so this speech had a ring of truth to it. Henry was asking his men to fight for their lives. I actually felt inspired by this speech. I do thing that Henry had some character growth in act IV. He faced his own guilt in his discussion with Williams. He defended himself, which I found annoying, but then when he was alone he had an eloquent soliloquy that I felt truly showed that, despite his defending his own actions, showed that he had taken some of what Williams said to heart.

The Saint Crispin's Day Speech is really interpretable, however, so I'm going to compare four different interpetations, and how the different recitations affected me. I like to listen to the plays while following along, and in the fully casted AudioGo, Arkangel recording, the actor spoke quietly, as though the speech was personal, mainly for Gloster, Bedford, Exeter, Westmoreland and the other officers. The result of this was that when Montjoy came, I felt Henry should have given in to save his men's lives. Of the three film-versions of the speech I watched on Youtube, Tom Hiddleston's performance most closely echoed that of the audiobook. He seemed to be speaking mainly to his high officers, but he had a lot more feeling in his words than the actor in the recording. He had a lot of sadness in his voice, like he was preparing to die, and coming from him, it didn't seem so unreasonable that he would not accept the French request for his ransom. Lawrence Olivier actually seemed to be addressing all his men, but to me at least, he didn't seem to have a lot of emotion, so I didn't find his version of the speech very compelling, though I did like it better than the audiobook. He was at a disadvantage to the other film versions, though, because Lawrence Olivier's version of the speech was the only one that didn't have music accompanying it. It's incredible, what a good soundtrack can do to add or bring emotion. The last version I'll look at is Kenneth Branagh's. This version was my favorite (once I got over the fact that Gilderoy Lockhart was wearing bright red and blue livery) but the majority of the comments on Youtube seem to disagree with me, prefering Olivier's version. I liked this version because I felt that, played by Branagh, King Henry was addressing his entire army, but at the same time, trying just as hard to give himself courage. Branagh had the most emotional performance of all of them. I could hear his courage, and his desperation. The music, by Patrick Doyle, added to the emotion, it sounded hopeful almost to the point of triumph, yet without undermining the feeling of urgency. With Branagh, not only did I not feel that Henry should have handed himself over, I actually felt that if he had tried, his troops wouldn't have let him do so, and I liked that about this performance. Though I do prefer all of the the film versions to the audio, it is obnoxious to me that all three of them cut out parts of the speech, especially the newer Branagh and Hiddleston versions.

Henry's war was still unjust, but now, because he had truly faced the hardships of war, and heard the complaints of some of his people, and, just maybe, started to take some of the blame for himself, I felt much more inspired. The reasons for the war were unfair, but the reasons for that one battle were acceptable.

As with the last speech, this one's main components are pathos and ethos, but there is quite a bit of logos to the speech, and the three elements are balanced much better than before. Henry has more ethos than he did before, because, not only is he king, but he too is about to enter a battle he doesn't expect to win. This gives him much more credibility. Instead of simply ordering his men to go into battle, he is going with them. With pathos Henry brings hope to a situation that seemed hopeless. "If we are mark'd to die, we are enow/To do our country loss; and if to live,/The fewer men the greter share of honour." Henry also gives them the desire to tell their children stories about this day; "This story shall the good man teach his son;/And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,/From this day to the ending of the world,/But we in it shall be remembered." There is also logic in this speech, because if they fight they will probably die, but if they don't fight the certainly would, after all, they were described as many being sick, and the French were blocking them from going somewhere to rest.

I think that my preference of this speech can be traced to the desperate situation that Henry's men face. This is the kind of speech I would expect to hear from the defenders, rather than the attackers. But then, right now the French are attacking. Henry is still to blame for the whole situation, but this time, he and his men are defending something--their lives. I did not find this speech to be manipulating, because this time, Henry's men know exactly what they are up against.

I still don't like Henry, or the war he started, but I do like the Saint Crispin's Day Speech.


PS. This review is made up of patched together answers I made in discussion posts for an online class. The questions for the discussion posts were mostly regarding Henry's two motivational speeches in Act III. Scene I, and IV. Scene III.

[soylentgreen23 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I hadn't read Shakespeare since school when I decided to give this, one of his historical plays, a chance. At first I struggled to get into it, but then, by using the voices of the characters from the TV show 'A Game of Thrones', I found that I could make it all more dramatic and interesting, and from that point on it was plain sailing.

[dinadansfriend · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful rhetoric, good characterization, I believe this writer will have a successful career! The portrait of the king is a wonderful presentation about the good things of one man rule. I seem to have watched it more than I read it, but still five times, and ready to do it again. My favourite speech is "Upon the King...". Aside from the pageant-style Henry VIII, Shakespeare is ready to move on to more personal drama, and this is his last historical play.Internl evidence places this play in the period of late May, 1599.

[alanwpowers · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have argued, with support from a couple of my senior Shakespeareans at SAA, that Henry V is the comedy Shakespeare promised at the end of 2 Henry 4, epilog: "to continue the story, with Sir John [Falstaff] in it. But after the actor who played Falstaff disappeared (Will Kemp--probably to tour Germany), Shakespeare created a very different kind of comedy, a reconciliation of conflicting nationalities in the usual comic resolution, however preposterous: marriage. And in a thoroughly modern (even modernist) touch, the spirit of comic reconciliation pervades the play through its linguistic playfulness. This is Shakespeare's only play using national accents: French, Welsh, Scottish, Irish and of course English. I would speculate that the "Great Britain" only enshrined around a century later (1705?) was initiated under James I, and here in Shakespeare's Henry the Fifth, previewed. The comic interlude of Fluellen and Jamy, etc, features the strong Scottish and Welsh accent, where for instance Fluellen says, "Alexander the Pig." He is corrected, "Don't you mean Alexander the Great?" F, "The great, or the pig, are all one reckonings..."Later in the play, the King "claims kin" with F's despised Welsh minority; "For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman" (4.7.105). And Fluellen may speak English "funny," but he is an excellent soldier, and very knowledgeable about the history of warfare, especially Roman. Well, all this is available in Fran Teague, Acting Funny in Shakespeare, which I heartily recommend with self-interest.

[bertiemch · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite Shakespeare play about Henry' V's victory at Agincourt. Henry is a complicated character who appears innocent but is actually a master manipulator. Great speeches including the famous "we happy few, we band of brothers" one.

[jmcgarry2011 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I finished this edition today. This edition has the text on the right side, and the explanation on the left side. I saw this at the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona, MN. They used most of the text, which some the essays have said is unusual. The stage was bare, except for occasional tables and chairs. It was performed in a "wooden O" on stage. I think this fits in with Shakespeare's original productions. The book also had the translations of the French scenes, which definitely helped. I could follow a little bit, but not entirely. When I read the book, I could really understand what Katherine was saying, which made it even more of comic relief. I also couldn't help but think of all the times the English and the French fought over the years, especially here in America, but that now that's gone. There's the Chunnel connecting England and France, and next year's Tour de France will start in England. Amazing how times change.

[michael_rose-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One begins to understand cultural references the more one reads Shakespeare, and Julius Caesar is no exception to this rule (this is perhaps especially true for Star Trek fans). The fault being not in our stars but in ourselves is a great bit of poetry that everyone should heed.

[clancy.coonradt · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A wonderful classic that truly speaks to the duality of man and his eternal search for not only power, but those that are truly pure at heart. Amazing how many quotes and sayings have come from this piece of literature.

[martinbodek · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

'Tis happened upon chance that mine eyes have read the tale of Julius Caesar. For sooth, a great tragedy were 't. Yet happiness was clutch't betwixt mine hands that such wordsmithings are imbued into my corpus of knowledge. Brutus was not a noble understood, know that I now. It has cometh to pass that Royal Antony's quotes sitteth in upon my vernacular at the ready. What pleasure shall I give mine eyes to scan upon next? Be it, I prayeth, one of Sir William's comedies, for these tragedic readings have ravaged vexings upon my soul. Twelfth Night? Much Ado About Nothing? Instruct me, fellow plebeians.

[rfewell_3 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I read this play during my Sophomore year of high school. I loved it! "Et tu, Brute!" I thought of it again because I'm reading "A Long Way Gone", and this play is referenced frequently.

[carterchristian1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I hope to see this again soon. The first time I saw it as a high school play, the next time in 1997 at a Pub theater (more members of the cast than the audience) next to the railroad station in Greenwich England...with a wonderful redo as a Mafia, Chicago script.

[delta351 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I love the Folger editions w awesome illustrations from the library. This is a larger sized paperback which is easy on the eyes. I have to say that Shakespeare is fairly neutral in presenting the main characters.Was happy to see "Let loose the dogs of war", though I previously thought that was from one of the Henry's.

[lhlogan1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Good story.

[mstrust · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cassius is quickly able to plant the idea of overthrowing Julius Caesar in the mind of Brutus, a man who claims to love Caesar. Cassius and Brutus gather a group of the Caesar's friends, who they join together to murder the leader, then tell each other that they did the man a favor and will be remembered for their courage in removing a tyrant. But then Marcus Antony gives a clever eulogy at the funeral, which causes the public to question the motives of the assassins, the conspirators no longer trust one another and Brutus finds his position threatened.A good example of how power corrupts, as even the good guy, Antony, tries to manipulate his friends to gain more for himself.

[locriian · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

My favourite part of this play is the "Antony is an honest man" speech. Excellent.

[joy_f-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When I initially attempted to read this, I couldn't understand what was going on, but after careful study and rereading, I was very proud to see I could comprehend it. I found it exciting and dramatic!

[maxernst11 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

1599, meest klassieke tragedie, bron is Plutarchus; perfecte tekst (bijna helemaal rijm), later verketterd als schooltekstBrutus is de hoofdrolspeler, maar Caesar beheerst wel de handeling. Brutus is een idealist die ten onder gaat door een gebrek aan praktisch doorzicht; het tegendeel is Cassius, maar toch meer medevoelen met hem; Antonius is de gehaaide opportunist, demagoog. Brutus? motieven: II,1 (p 820)Moord III,1Verheven pathetiek van Marcus Antonius na de moord, p 826, 827 (maar wel vals)Redevoeringen bij begrafenis III,2 vormen het hoogtepunt, vooral die van Antonius (p 828-29): opruiend door details over de dood van Caesar en een verwijzing naar zijn testament, tegelijk vriendelijk ten aanzien van de samenzweerders.

[sly_wit · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Julius Caesar is the first Shakeaspeare I ever read (in English I). I didn't remember much of it when I picked it up again in preparation for a performance at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, but was pleasantly surprised by how modern and relevant it seemed.

[seraphinac.b4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the book Julius Caesar, a group of conspirators lead by a man named Brutus plot to kill Julius Caesar. After succeeding in killing him, Brutus sees Julius Caesar's ghost who promises to see him in Philippi. On a battlefield in Philippi, Brutus fights with Cassius's army. Cassius being overthrown, commits suicide. When one member of Cassius's army finds Cassius dead, he then also kills himself. Brutus is defeated and runs upon his sword. Conflict in Rome is at an end. As a twelve year old this wasn't the best book I've ever read. It was a little confusing with a lot of characters and action. I thought the book was going to be about Julius Caesar but it was more about the conspirators getting rid of him. One of the morals was don't murder anyone because you will have to live with the guilt the rest of your life. This play taught me a little about Rome and war. I really enjoy reading Shakespeare. Overall this was a good book.

[milti_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the most powerful of his plays. Yes, the characters are set in black and white in true Shakespearean style and there is no room for hman error, but therein lies the beauty and power of this drama.

[john257hopper · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this play just after finishing Goldsworthy's excellent biography of Caesar. The play focuses much more on the conspirators, especially Brutus and Cassius, rather than the titular subject, who indeed hardly appears in person and is only about three scenes, one of them as a ghost. It is splendid stuff, largely, at least in the initial acts based on the premise that the conspirators were freeing Rome of a tyrant through their act; only, when Antony makes his famous "friends, Romans, countrymen" speech does a more nuanced view of Caesar's positives and negatives enter the scene. Not one of the meatier plays, but a good supplement to other reading about the period.

[bibliophile26 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this due to my interest in HBO's Rome series (which has been cancelled after only 2 seasons - why TV gods, WHY???). Anyway, as an English major I read tons of Shakespeare, so it wasn't a challenging read for me and I found my mind analyzing language/passages as I would have been required to do in school. Let's just say the history plays have never been my favorites; maybe knowing the ending spoils the play?