HENRY V
CONTINUED
 
We have spoken much about polarities and they abound.  While the Harfleur attack began with raw aggression, the Agincourt battle is largely one of defense.  Note that in the Harfleur speech, Hal alludes to the slaughter of babes which compares with Herod's slaughter of the Innocents).  In some sense is not defense of a position the resolve of ultimate aggression (assertion, declaration, relentless putting forth) and passivity (yielding, acceptance, surrender to what comes at one?).  It is not that we proceed from right to wrong -- the war becomes no more just or unjust.

Rather, the movement from total aggression to defense allows courage to be presented as a more complex quality than mere determined energetic violence.  In the Crispian speech it is vital to take account of the King's no longer telling his men to imitate tigers or to make their brows bettle like rocks impeding rocks over eyes like brass canons (note the imagery is the substance rather than the language being simply a tool to convey the more important and distinct idea.  The idea would lose something WITHOUT the metaphorical imagery).  So too, the idea of unity between the men prefigures the idea of unity between Katherine and Hal as well as France and England.

But what about the place of rawness on one side and endless suffering (i.e. passive -- pathos) on the other? What is the place of each?  Raw violent energy is NEEDED in order to be transfigured.  (Put differently, we need the young to need to musy pit in order to develop into men and women of character).

So too, pathos has its place.  At Agincourt we have the images of family, brothers, we happy few.  Hardship and danger has made it so (note medieval notion of danger as peril, a test by experience, or an ordeal).  We have not spoken to Fluellen, but note there is disagreement on military matters with MacMorris (and Scot different than Welsh).  But both are committed to the campaign against France.  So too, Pistol and Bates, Court and Williams, persevere and maintain for their King (who represents font of justice and mercy, this is the key).

The Agincourt speech  calls the men to honor.  It is central to note a cultural shift many intellectual historians explore between a culture of shame as opposed to a culture of guilt.  In the warrior culture of old, there is a strong sense of both fate (an inability to control outcomes) as well as humility as to man's capacity to discern whether a cause be just or unjust.  Rather the focus was upon acting well in the circumstances one found oneself in.  To not shame oneself.

How? By being petty, cowardly, mean spirited, hypocritical, callous, or overly prideful.  What brought honor, was in short, honorable conduct.  Put differently, to die well was more important than seeking to avoid death (a blow to law and economics yes which sees the principle of avoiding harm is a "good" or a given of the human condition).

Why is it so important to tell the tale?  The young need conditions from which to act.  They will not be free to "be," (that is to be someone as opposed to anyone which is no one), only by having something concrete (such as laws, stories, customs, practices) from which to spring off from.  By following in example, or transforming in rebellion.  Either stance requires a past.  Humans require a past.

Note to the import of living forever within the transitory.  The Agincourt speech does not offer immortality pure (static, lack of change, fixed, unalterable, immutable) for men will die -- the transitory existence of human life will manifest.  But nor is it this mere transitoryness with endless change, alteration, and distinctiveness whereby nothing that is now would partake of what was.  RATHER, Hal calls his men to achieve transitory immortality.  Put differently, they will live forever, in the memory of transitory beings who will in the flow of time pass the story of courage on from father to son, father to son.