Henry's Greatest Hits: The Siege of Harfleur
How yet resolves the governor of the town?This is the latest parle we will admit;Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves;Or like to men proud of destructionDefy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier,A name that in my thoughts becomes me best,If I begin the battery once again,I will not leave the half-achieved HarfleurTill in her ashes she lie buried.The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart,In liberty of bloody hand shall rangeWith conscience wide as hell, mowing like grassYour fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants.What is it then to me, if impious war,Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,Do, with his smirched complexion, all fell featsEnlinked to waste and desolation?What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,If your pure maidens fall into the handOf hot and forcing violation?What rein can hold licentious wickednessWhen down the hill he holds his fierce career?We may as bootless spend our vain commandUpon the enraged soldiers in their spoilAs send precepts to the leviathanTo come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,Take pity of your town and of your people,Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command;Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of graceO'erblows the filthy and contagious cloudsOf heady murder, spoil and villainy.If not, why, in a moment look to seeThe blind and bloody soldier with foul handDefile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;Your fathers taken by the silver beards,And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls,Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confusedDo break the clouds, as did the wives of JewryAt Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed?
Henry the Fifth opens this speech to the governor of Harfleur with three single-line independent clauses, each kicked off with a stressed opening trochee: short, clipped statements. The fourth line, too, includes a trochee (this one midway through the line, to MEN PROUD of). While the next line is regular iambic, it's not pentameter; it has six feet, with an additional feminine ending. A long line. Why?
"Defy us to our worst: for, as I am a soldier"
A long line, especially one with an additional unstressed syllable, usually points to a line filled too much with thoughts. What's the thought tagged onto the end of a regular iambic pentameter line?
"a soldier"
This is the extra thought.
"Soldier" is the "name that in (Henry's) thoughts becomes (him) best"; it's what he CLAIMS is what he is.
[of course, remember, Hal's always been a bit of an actor... the governor of Harfleur knows no better... but we do, don't we?]
He claims to be a soldier who will leave the city buried in its own ashes.
Henry the goes on to describe an even more frightening soldier, one who, "rough and hard of heart" will mow down "like grass // Your fresh-fair virgins and flowering infants." The babes and young girls will be killed. But the governor doesn't respond. So Henry ratchets up the rhetoric. He makes it sound as if it doesn't matter to him: "What is it then to me... What is't to me..." Notice the second time he uses the phrase, he elides the "is it" to "is't", quickening the pace, stressing the urgency. If killing the young girls isn't bad enough, what if "your pure maidens fall into the hand // Of hot and forcing violation?" Henry threatens to allow his soldiers to rape the virgins of Harfleur, after all what control does he have over "licentious wickedness"?
Henry gives the "men of Harfleur" another option, while his soldiers are still in his command. He could easily unleash them (those "greyhounds in the slips" [III.i.31] from just two scenes earlier), but he could also allow the
cool and temperate wind of graceO'erblows the filthy and contagious cloudsOf heady murder, spoil, and villainy.
I think it's no accident that Henry recalls a phrase he used when we first met him in The First Part: "base contagious clouds // (that) smother up (the sun's) beauty from the world" (1HIV, I.ii.191). Of course, then, HE was the sun's beauty (the son), and the tavern-mates were the contagious cloud. Now, his soldiers are the clouds, and Henry is the temperate wind of grace. He can save Harfleur, or at least save them from "the blind and bloody soldier" who will "defile...your shrill-shrieking daughters" (again, with the rape!), dash in the brains of their "most reverend" fathers, and "spit...upon pikes" the infants of the town, all causing the "mad mothers...howl."
He gives them the choice one last time: "What say you? will you yield, and this avoid, // Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed?"
Of course, the question I have is: if Henry says that he considers himself a soldier, is HE the "blind and bloody soldier" in question?
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