Henry V
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About this ebook
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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Reviews for Henry V
2,268 ratings37 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I liked this one. There is some good banter at the beginning, the speeches over Caesar’s body are wonderful, and the scenes set at the battle of Philippi felt appropriately hopeful or despondent. Caesar is a bit of a non-entity, though, and I’d have wanted a little more friction between Mark Antony and Octavian Caesar. But a very enjoyable play on the whole.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A 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.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Enh I don't know what I can tell you about this. Antony's funeral oration is fairly amusing.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5'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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I 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.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cassius 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.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5My favourite part of this play is the "Antony is an honest man" speech. Excellent.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5So dry. What a mistake to cram this down 15-year old throats just because it's short. How many 10th graders have been completely turned off by Shakespeare because this is over their head. I really didn't care much for this. Many of his history plays are far superior. Should've been called "The Rise and Fall of Brutus" because Caesar is such a minor character -- no development either.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When 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!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/51599, 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I think everyone knows parts of this play: "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears." The first part of it is maybe not so well known, but I think most people know something of Mark Antony's speech after Caesar's death. I think this might be my favourite Shakespeare play so far -- possibly partly due to already loving to read about Caesar, but also because of the strength of the rhetoric in it.
I have actually seen parts of this performed -- the speech I referred to, actually -- and when I'd read it, I looked on youtube for performances of my favourite parts. I'd go see this play in a heartbeat.
So, anyone remember why I disliked Shakespeare before...? I do wish schools wouldn't shove Romeo and Juliet down people's throats: it's far from my favourite. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Julius 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and one that I have read and reread over the years in addition to seeing several performances of the play. The classic story is informed by history as we know from Roman accounts about the life and death of Julius Caesar. Shakespeare adhered closely to the version of the story in Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. In comparing prominent figures from Greek and Roman history , Plutarch presented history as a compendium of the deeds of great men, portraying the characters with all the ambiguities and idiosyncrasies that were present in their lives. The writings of Marcu Tullius Cicero also informed Shakespeare. Cicero was a staunch republican and his dislike of Caesar preceded the conspiracy that led to his assassination, which conspiracy Cicero did not directly participate in. A final source for Shakespeare was the Roman historian Appian who chronicled the civil wars as part of his longer history of Rome. All of these sources inform the dramatic tension within this play adding a historical realism to Shakespeare's own dramatic genius. I especially like the relationship between Caesar and his wife. I also found the psychology of the characters, particularly Brutus, an important aspect of the drama. This helps make many of the characters from Brutus and Cassius to Mark Antony as memorable as the title character. It is one of the great Roman plays in Shakespeare's works, and it is both an historical and a dramatic achievement.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I 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?
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Great Play, could easily see this as a modern re-telling set in the Italian Mob or as hotile financial take over...I see Macbeth the same way.But betrayal is a hell of a thing.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is the best William Shakespeare that I have ever read. I haven't read much but this one was really appealing to me. Even though I knew the ending, I couldn't put the book down until the end.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look." This was one of Shakespeare's more excellent books in my opinion. While historical it wasn't as bad as one of the Richard books--it had a timeless story without being too historical or too political, especially British-ly political. One of the original eponymous tragedy, a story of a man's success and betrayal. A wonderful masterpiece and underrated.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forgive me that it took me eight months to finish Shakespeare's shortest play. I kept picking it up, reading the first act, and then forgetting. It's strange reading about Roman history through compound filters: dramatization, Shakespearean England, what we know of the Roman Republic, modern norms. One gets so twisted around that nary an eyebrow is raised in Act 2 when Caesar asks "What is't o'clock?" (Brutus: "Caesar, 'tis strucken eight.") Such a tangle that it might not jump immediately to mind that there were probably not a whole lot of chiming clocks in the first century BC. We've got Centurions herein acting like they're on Queen Elizabeth's court. Strange.This play is brief. Brief enough that it doesn't feel like a story so much as a string of exchanges. Brutus (who refers to himself in the third person and thus puts me in the mind of Tarzan or other deep-voiced simpleton) seems instantly swayed to subterfuge. Caesar is full of lofty exaltations but kind of amounts to nothing when you think about it. Marc Antony does show a bit of craftiness, and Cassius is devious. I do like the way Casca responds to Cassius' invitation to dinner and I hope I can use it myself sometime: "Ay, if I be alive, and your mind hold, and your dinner worth the eating."I do feel like that sometimes.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5did an adaptation of a scene of this! love it!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Had to read the play, cause I love the history. Im not a big fan of Shakespeare, but the loved the play because of the charectors.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wow that Brutus was one sneaky guy he just wanted to be like Caesar. and then the scene when they killed Caesar was like WOW
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The first Shakespeare I ever read. I am wildly in love with Marc Antony (odd, because I actively despise him in [book: Antony and Cleopatra]).
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This was great fun, although it was quite hard keeping all the characters straight in my mind because so many of them had unfamiliar Roman/Latin names.
Book preview
Henry V - William Shakespeare
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
CHORUS
KING HENRY THE FIFTH
DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, brother to the King
DUKE OF BEDFORD,
DUKE OF EXETER, Uncle to the King
DUKE OF YORK, cousin to the King
EARL OF SALISBURY
EARL OF WESTMORELAND
EARL OF WARWICK
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
BISHOP OF ELY
EARL OF CAMBRIDGE, conspirator against the King
LORD SCROOP,
SIR THOMAS GREY,
SIR THOMAS ERPINGHAM, officer in the King’s army
GOWER,
FLUELLEN,
MACMORRIS,
JAMY,
BATES, soldier in the King’s army
COURT,
WILLIAMS,
NYM,
BARDOLPH,
PISTOL,
BOY A HERALD
CHARLES THE SIXTH, King of France
LEWIS, the Dauphin DUKE OF BURGUNDY
DUKE OF ORLEANS DUKE OF BRITAINE
DUKE OF BOURBON THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE
RAMBURES, French Lord
GRANDPRE,
GOVERNOR OF HARFLEUR MONTJOY, a French herald
AMBASSADORS to the King of England
ISABEL, Queen of France
KATHERINE, daughter to Charles and Isabel
ALICE, a lady attending her
HOSTESS of the Boar’s Head, Eastcheap; formerly Mrs. Quickly, now married to Pistol
Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Messengers, Attendants
SCENE: England and France
ACT I
PROLOGUE
Enter Chorus
Chorus
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, and 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 on 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.
Exit
SCENE I. LONDON. AN ANTE-CHAMBER IN THE KING’S PALACE.
Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP OF ELY
CANTERBURY
My lord, I’ll tell you; that self bill is urged,
Which in the eleventh year of the last king’s reign
Was like, and had indeed against us pass’d,
But that the scambling and unquiet time
Did push it out of farther question.
ELY
But how, my lord, shall we resist it now?
CANTERBURY
It must be thought on. If it pass against us,
We lose the better half of our possession:
For all the temporal lands which men devout
By testament have given to the church
Would they strip from us; being valued thus:
As much as would maintain, to the king’s honour,
Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,
Six thousand and two hundred good esquires;
And, to relief of lazars and weak age,
Of indigent faint souls past corporal toil.
A hundred almshouses right well supplied;
And to the coffers of the king beside,
A thousand pounds by the year: thus runs the bill.
ELY
This would drink deep.
CANTERBURY
‘Twould drink the cup and all.
ELY
But what prevention?
CANTERBURY
The king is full of grace and fair regard.
ELY
And a true lover of the holy church.
CANTERBURY
The courses of his youth promised it not.
The breath no sooner left his father’s body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem’d to die too; yea, at that very moment
Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipp’d the offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise,
To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Never was such a sudden scholar made;
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady currance, scouring faults
Nor never Hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat and all at once
As in this king.
ELY
We are blessed in the change.
CANTERBURY
Hear him but reason in divinity,
And all-admiring with an inward wish
You would desire the king were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say it hath been all in all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render’d you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter’d libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears,
To steal his sweet and honey’d sentences;
So that the art and practic part of life
Must be the mistress to this theoric:
Which is a wonder how his grace should glean it,
Since his addiction was to courses vain,
His companies unletter’d, rude and shallow,
His hours fill’d up with riots, banquets, sports,
And never noted in him any study,
Any retirement, any sequestration
From open haunts and popularity.
ELY
The strawberry grows underneath the nettle
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour’d by fruit of baser quality:
And so the prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness; which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.
CANTERBURY
It must be so; for miracles are ceased;
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
ELY
But, my good lord,
How now for mitigation of this bill
Urged by the commons? Doth his majesty
Incline to it, or no?
CANTERBURY
He seems indifferent,
Or rather swaying more upon our part
Than cherishing the exhibiters against us;
For I have made an offer to his majesty,
Upon our spiritual convocation
And in regard of causes now in hand,
Which I have open’d to his grace at large,
As touching France, to give a greater sum
Than ever at one time the clergy yet
Did to his predecessors part withal.
ELY
How did this offer seem received, my lord?
CANTERBURY
With good acceptance of his majesty;
Save that there was not time enough to hear,
As I perceived his grace would fain have done,
The severals and unhidden passages
Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms
And generally to the crown and seat of France
Derived from Edward, his great-grandfather.
ELY
What was the impediment that broke this off?
CANTERBURY
The French ambassador upon that instant
Craved audience; and the hour, I think, is come
To give him hearing: is it four o’clock?
ELY
It is.
CANTERBURY
Then go we in, to know his embassy;
Which I could with a ready guess declare,
Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.
ELY
I’ll wait upon you, and I long to hear it.
Exeunt
SCENE II. THE SAME. THE PRESENCE CHAMBER.
Enter KING HENRY V, GLOUCESTER, BEDFORD, EXETER, WARWICK, WESTMORELAND, and Attendants
KING HENRY V
Where is my gracious Lord of Canterbury?
EXETER
Not here in presence.
KING HENRY V
Send for him, good uncle.
WESTMORELAND
Shall we call in the ambassador, my liege?
KING HENRY V
Not yet, my cousin: we would be resolved,
Before we hear him, of some things of weight
That task our thoughts, concerning us and France.
Enter the ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, and the BISHOP of ELY
CANTERBURY
God and his angels guard your sacred throne
And make you long become it!
KING HENRY V
Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold
Why the law Salique that they have in France
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim:
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop