Henry IV Part OneHenry IV Part One and the and the Ideology of ControlIdeology of Control

Shakespeare turned Henry into a box-office hero and a romantic lead. The myth became more important than the man.

Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

As Shakespeare wrote it, The Chronicle History of Henry the

Fifth is an intensely masculine, simple, sanguine drama of

kinghood and war. Its more eloquent theme is a young king's

coming of age. Once an endearingly wild Prince of Wales,

Henry V (at 28) had to prove his worthiness for the scepter by

leading his army in war. He invaded France, England's longtime

enemy. He captured Harfleur, then tried to withdraw his

exhausted and vastly outnumbered army to Calais. The French

confronted him at Agincourt. In one of Shakespeare's most

stirring verbal sonnets, Henry urged his soldiers on to

incredible victory. . . . With victory came the courtly

peacemaking at Rouen, and Henry’s triumphant courtship of

the French Princess Katherine.

James Agee, Review of Henry V, dir. Laurence Olivier, Time

Magazine, 8 April, 1946

I know thee not, old man, fall to thy prayers.How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester!I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,So surfeit-swell’d, so old, and so profane;But being awak’d, I do despise my dream.Make less thy body (hence) and more thy grace,Leave gormandizing, know the grave doth gapeFor thee thrice wider than for other men.Reply not to me with a fool-born jest,Presume not that I am the thing I was,For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,That I have turn’d away my former self;So will I those that kept me company.

Henry IV Part Two, 5.5.47-59

And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew nigh to Damascus; and suddenly a light from heaven shined round about him. And falling on the ground, he heard a voice saying to him: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?. . . . And he was there [Damascus] three days, without sight, and he did neither eat nor drink.

Acts 9.3-9

In his youthe he had bene wylde recheles and spare nothyng of his lustes ne desires . . . but as sonne as he was crouned enoynted and sacred anone sodenly he was chaunged in to a new man.

Anon. chronicle, 15th cent. (BL Cotton MS Claudius A.8)

In his youthe he had bene wylde recheles and spare nothyng of his lustes ne desires . . . but as sonne as he was crouned enoynted and sacred anone sodenly he was chaunged in to a new man.

Anon. chronicle, 15th cent. (BL Cotton MS Claudius A.8)

After [Henry IV’s] death the prince . . . called to him a vertuous Monke of hholie conursacion, to whome he confessed himselfe of all his offences, trespasses and insolencies of times past. And in all things at that time he reformed and amended his life and his manners.

Titus Livius, The First English Life of King Henry the Fifth

Hal’s “redemption” is as inescapable and inevitable as the outcome of those practical jokes the madcap prince is so fond of playing. Indeed, the play insists, this redemption is not something toward which the action moves but something that is happening at every moment of the theatrical representation.

Stephen Greenblatt, ‘Invisible bullets’

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

To smother up his beauty from the world,

That when he please again to be himself,

Being wanted, he may be more wond’red at

By breaking through the foul and ugly mists

Of vapors that did seem to strangle him.

1.2.197-203

Beholde I sende you forthe as shepe amonge

wolves. Be ye therfore wyse as serpentes and

innocent as doves. Beware of men for they shall

deliver you vp to the counsels and shall scourge you

in their synagoges. And ye shall be brought to the

heed of rulers and kynges for my sake in witnes to

them and to the gentyls.

Matthew 10.16-18 (trans. William Tyndale)

All snakes can be coiled and twisted, thus their name (anguis)

because they are always angular and never straight. Snakes

(serpens) are also so called because they move with hidden

steps, using small exertions of their scales. Snakes have as

many poisons as there are kinds; cause as many deaths as there

are species; resulting in as many griefs as they have colours.

. . . .

Snakes have a certain sharpness of sense; as is said in Genesis

(3:1) "The snake was wiser than all the beasts of the earth".

Isidore of Seville (7th cent.), Etymologies, 12.4

Snakes usually travel in mated pairs, and if one of the pair is

killed the other will go to great lengths to take revenge on the

killer, finding him even in crowds, traversing great distances and

overcoming all obstacles, being stopped only by rivers.

Pliny the Elder (1st cent.), Natural History, 8.35

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,

Who doth permit the base contagious clouds

To smother up his beauty from the world,

That when he please again to be himself,

Being wanted, he may be more wond’red at

By breaking through the foul and ugly mists

Of vapors that did seem to strangle him.

1.2.197-203

I know you all, and will a while upholdThe unyok’d humour of your idleness,Yet herein will I imitate the sun,Who doth permit the base contagious cloudsTo smother up his beauty from the world,That when he please again to be himself,Being wanted, he may be more wond’red atBy breaking through the foul and ugly mistsOf vapors that did seem to strangle him.

1.2.197-203