Henry V Act Three – “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead.”

Henry V Act Three – “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead.”

If we were in any doubt of the genius that Shakespeare is by 1599, then the beginning of Act 3 of ‘Henry V’ should put all doubts to rest. The wonderfully poetic descriptions of the English sailing to France are contrasted well with the descriptions of battles by The Chorus. We hear that King Henry V will accept no compromise or offers including the King of France’s off of his own daughter Catherine in marriage.

In the sea of the siege, at the foot of the walls of Harfleur, King Henry V ties to rally his troops:

“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…”

This speech is famous and well-known and when I read it again after a number of years, it still has a striking impact. It is a rallying speech to soldiers and also a plea. Yes, it does glorify war and is terrifying because even a pacifist like me feels something primordial rise within the heart. It is invested with imagery, aided by alliteration and mangled with metaphors of war’s wild animals fueled with ferocity of firey feeling:

“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…”

Patriotism paints with a broad brush as it is exploited through the mention of long gone battles, yet a neo-egalitarianism is also alluded to as King Henry rallies his underdogs on to greater heights, “For there is none of you so mean and base / That hath not noble lustre in your eyes…” (III.i.29–30).

It is ironic that this stirring speech is followed by the reaction of the common soldiers who are under-whelmed by the speech and hanker after the confines of a warm and safe alehouse in London. A Welsh officer, Fluellen declares the cowards and they go off. The Boy stays and sees that to become a man he must leave the company of such lowlifes and he decides that he must look for a better job and better company.

Tunnels are being dug under the walls and we begin a wonderful scene where an Englishman, A Scotsman, An Irishman and a Welshman discuss the tactics of war, Accents ascend and lingo lingers and they show unusual admiration for one another and their cultural traits.

Trumpets sound and before the gates of Harfleur, King Henry V tires to shock and reason the inhabitants of Harfleur into surrender. The imagery and threats are brutal, “… [t]he blind and bloody soldier with foul hand / Defil the locks of your still-shrieking daughters…[y]our naked infants spitted upon pikes…” Henry reminds the Governor of Harfleur that his men are now savage killing machines. The Governor of Harfleur opens the gates and surrenders. Henry then announces his intention to march on the very next day to Calais.

I have often thought that the character of the French Princess Catherine, daughter of King Charles was very tokenistic in this play but now reading the play within the sequence of the canon, I get the sense of her pivotal function in the rhythm of the whole piece. She acts not only as a counterpoint to the battles of the play but also as a rhythmic counterpoint to Henry himself. We hear her speaking almost entirely in French in this scene, where she tries to get Alice, her maid who has spent some time in England, to teach her the English language. This scene is comic but ironic, since it is Catherine who realizes that she must learn to communicate to the English king to save her country. They start by learning the body parts. The scene and the language lesson reach a climax when Catherine mispronounces English words such that they sound like French swear words. She frustratedly concludes that English is a poor, corrupt, fat and shameful or obscene language:

“…de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique…”

Meanwhile, the arrogance and self-assuredness of the Dauphin and many men of the French court is disappearing. They cannot fathom where the tenacity and ferocity has come from in Henry V and his forces. A Constable asks and declaims what the nobles cannot:

“Dieu de batailles! where have they this mettle?

Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull…

And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,

Seem frosty?”

The nobles even are derided by their own wives. They are shown to be petty and contemptuousness of the English only serves to ironically mock the French themselves and make the audience more intent on seeing an English victory. Ever the pragmatist, King Charles says that he will meet this English force with even greater numbers and he names twenty noblemen and asks them to conscript the numbers needed to defeat the English quickly:

“Now forth, lord constable and princes all,

And quickly bring us word of England's fall.”

We switch back to the English, but not initially to the King and nobles but to Old Pistol the Welsh Captain Fluellen who is with the English Captain Gower. Pistol begs for Fluellen to plea to the Duke of Exeter for the life of  Bardolph who has been caught looting a local French town in direct contravention of King Henry V’s order. This crime carries the death penalty. Fluellen refuses seeing that discipline and order is what is most needed at these times. Gower says that he recognizes Pistol from back in England and that he pretends more to be the true soldier when he is back at home than on a real battlefield. Fluellen says that he will keep an eye out for Pistol in future.

King Henry V arrives and asks Fluellen how the battle went and how many men were lost. Fluellen replies that thanks to the Duke of Exeter, the bridge was taken with no loss of British lives except for the looter Bardolph who has been sentenced to death for his crime. We know that King Henry recognizes Bardolph’s name from his earlier misdirected youth yet his approval for the death sentence for Bardolph shows that discipline and the honourable conduct of his troops is more important than old friendships.

A message arrives from the French telling King Henry V that King Charles and the French are coming to punish Henry and his forces and the messenger Montjoy asks for King Henry’s reply and his ransom. Henry replies:

“My people are with sickness much enfeebled,

My numbers lessened…

Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;

My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk,

My army but a weak and sickly guard…

We shall your tawny ground with your red blood

Discolour: and so Montjoy, fare you well.

The sum of all our answer is but this:

We would not seek a battle, as we are;

Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it:

So tell your master.”

Act Three ends by switching back to the French nobles on the night before the battle. They discuss horses and the upcoming battle. A messenger enters telling them that the English are camped close, within fifteen hundred paces. As the night grows so does their bravado and mockery of the English and King Henry V himself.