Passage Analysis
Both Richard and Henry give lengthy speeches within their respective plays, but they are used in very different manners.
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 remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. (Henry V. IV. iii.)
Henry, while his main goal is to become heir the the throne of France, does great things to help the soldiers that are fighting for his cause through their battles. This St. Crispin’s Day speech is one of Shakespeare’s most famous, and it is used by Henry to rouse his troops and give them courage and strength to fight against the French army who greatly outnumbered the English. Everything that Henry does while in France is for his troops, and that makes them feel like they really belong where they are and that they should be proud to be there, like calling them his “band of brothers” or sitting around a fire with them, even though the soldiers don’t know who Henry really is.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mewed up,
About a prophecy, which says that 'G'
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be. (Richard III. I. i.)
It is almost as if Richard has given up on himself; if he “cannot prove a lover” then what better things does he have to do than plot against and kill off the majority of his family and friends to become king? Richard does things only for himself (the complete opposite of Henry) and for his name to be immortalized.
Richard uses this speech at the opening of the play to give background, but also to warn them about what a treacherous person he is. Richard knows that he is a villain, and he wouldn’t have it any other way if he couldn’t be manipulative and antagonistic. He has no conscience to get in the way of his well laid plans and how they will ruin the lives of everyone around him, Richard never does anything for the good of his country, only for the good of himself. Who knows what would have become of England if he had become the king like he had planned to do? There is only so much that he could have attained at that point, especially considering the fact that there was no longer anyone that he could confide in, there were only those left who either hated him or whom he could hire to carry out his bidding.
Commentary on Histories
If these histories did not have the action and entertainment factor that Shakespeare added to them, they would be fairly dull and uninteresting. The way that Shakespeare romanticizes both Henry V and Richard III to both extremes, though, keeps the audiences interested and kept the current monarch of England happy, depending on their ancestry and the house that they belonged to, such as Queen Elizabeth the Tudor House.
During his time, Richard was cruel and did kill people to get closer to the throne, but he was not nearly as horribly deformed as Shakespeare made him out to be and, while he did kill quite a few people, not as many as in the play. He has absolutely no conscience and has people killed only for his own good, which makes it that much easier to hate him. Buckingham, for instance, was the person who was the closest to Richard, but he, too, ended up executed for the smallest thing, hesitation to kill the two young princes. The thing that makes it the easiest to hate Richard is the fact that he knows how antagonistic and manipulative that he is, and he knows he is ruining the lives of everyone around him.
Henry was a good, fair king who always looked out for his people, and he was depicted that way. The bonds that he had with those around him were very strong and he always held them high above his own concerns. People like Falstaff, who Henry was friends with during his wilder days, Henry cut ties off with because he wasn’t a good person for a king to be friends with. Henry was very kind about this, he didn’t have Falstaff executed like Richard would have done. Henry was also much more easy to relate to in the sense that he wanted to know what it was like to be a common man and to be able to walk down the street unrecognizable.
Personal Reflection
I thoroughly enjoyed reading both histories, and both for different reasons. Henry V was a good story about a noble king fighting for his right to a throne. Henry had a frivolous youth, but now that he had to take on the responsibilities of a king, he took them very seriously and did all that he could for his countrymen.
Through reading Richard in class, I think that I took a lot more away from it than reading on my own. Being able to hear different voices when reading a play make it much easier to understand how Shakespeare intended each character to act and think and recognize the devices used to make that character who they are. It was great watching Richard become less and less interested in who he was murdering and becoming more and more focused on his goal of becoming king of England. It was also great to finally figure out where the famous line “my kingdom for a horse!” came from.
