Shakespearean Follies
Subject: Culturebox's Rusty Shakespeare
From: Guatam Makunda
Date: Thu Dec 23
Judith Shulevitz needs to brush up on her Shakespeare as well, I'm afraid. Fluellen's statement in Henry V, Act IV, Scene VII is, in full:
Kill the poys and the luggage! 'tis expressly
against the law of arms: 'tis an arrant a piece of
knavery, mark you now, as can be offert; in your
conscience, now, is it not?
To this statement Gower, another soldier, replies:
'Tis certain there's not a boy left alive; and
the cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha' done
this slaughter: besides, they have burn'd and
carried away all that was in the king's tent;
wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every
soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a
gallant king!
This then prompts an extended comparison on the part of Fluellen of Henry V and Alexander the Great. Thus, Fluellen's condemnation was for the French slaughter of the boys in the English baggage train--a slaughter conducted, apparently, by French soldiers who fled the battle. This is what Fluellen and Gower think provoked King Henry's command to kill England's French prisoners, and both soldiers fully approve of that command.
John Keegan's excellent book The Face of Battle also looks at the issue and concludes that his command was well within the norms of warfare for the period. Henry V is, in fact, Shakespeare's archetype of the perfect Hero-King precisely because of his Machiavellian qualities (which certainly are present)--Henry understands, as he explains during his tour of the army before Agincourt, that the moral demands upon a King are very different from those upon ordinary men.
