Henry V (play)

It tells the story of King Henry V of England, focusing on events immediately before and after the Battle of Agincourt (1415) during the Hundred Years' War.

The original audiences would thus have already been familiar with the title character, who was depicted in the Henry IV plays as a wild, undisciplined young man.

The Chorus encourages the audience to use their "imaginary forces" to overcome these limitations: "Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts ... turning the accomplishment of many years / Into an hour-glass".

Act I deals largely with Henry and his decision to invade France, persuaded that, through ancestry, he is the rightful heir to the French throne.

In Act II, he describes the country's dedication to the war effort: "Now all the youth of England are on fire... / Now thrive the armorers, and honor's thought / Reigns solely in the breast of every man".

The French king, says the Chorus, "doth offer him / Katharine his daughter, and with her, to dowry, / Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms", but Henry is not satisfied.

Daylight comes, and Henry rallies his nobles with the famous St Crispin's Day Speech: "we ... shall be remember'd; / We few, we happy few, we band of brothers".

Though the French in one scene complain that "Tout est perdu" ("all is lost"), the outcome is not clear to Henry until Montjoy reappears and declares that the "day is yours".

Henry soon discovers it was a deeply lop-sided victory: the French suffered 10,000 casualties, while the English lost only a Duke, an Earl, a knight, a squire, and "of all other, but five and twenty".

(In Laurence Olivier's 1944 film adaptation, this line is modified to "of all other men, but five and twenty score", since historians believe the English toll was approximately 600).

As in many of Shakespeare's history and tragedy plays, a number of minor comic characters appear, contrasting with and sometimes commenting on the main plot.

In one scene of extended French dialogue, Princess Katharine tries to learn some basic English words for body parts from her maid.

Edward Hall's The Union of the Two Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York appears also to have been consulted, and scholars have supposed that Shakespeare was familiar with Samuel Daniel's poem on the civil wars.

Henry V himself is sometimes seen as an ambivalent representation of the stage machiavel, combining apparent sincerity with a willingness to use deceit and force to attain his ends.

[10] Some denounce the question as anachronistic, arguing that contemporary legal terminology cannot be applied to historical events or figures like those depicted in the play.

For instance, Christopher N. Warren looks to Alberico Gentili's De armis Romanis, along with Henry V itself, to show how early modern thinkers (including Shakespeare) were themselves using juridical approaches to engage with the past.

– and describes in graphic detail the violence they will do to the townsfolk if his demands are not met: The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, And the flesh'd soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand shall range With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass Your fresh, fair virgins and your flowering infants.

He also admits to his past mistakes: "did give ourselves to barbarous licence" and is shown to have great confidence: "I will rise there with so full a glory that I will dazzle all the eyes of France".

A mock trial of for the crimes associated with the legality of the invasion and the slaughter of prisoners was held in Washington, DC in March 2010, drawing from both historical record and Shakespeare's play.

Titled The Supreme Court of the Amalgamated Kingdom of England and France, participating judges were Justices Samuel Alito and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The court was divided on Henry's justification for war, but unanimously found him guilty on the killing of the prisoners after applying "the evolving standards of the maturing society".

The first, Henry V (1944), directed by and starring Laurence Olivier, is a colourful and highly stylised version which begins in the Globe Theatre and then gradually shifts to a realistic evocation of the Battle of Agincourt.

[21] The second major film, Henry V (1989), directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, attempts to give a more realistic evocation of the period, and lays more emphasis on the horrors of war.

The piece premiered at Danspace Project in New York, where it was compared favorably to a production of Henry IV (parts 1 and 2) at Lincoln Center.

The soloist for the premiere performances with the New Jersey Symphony was former October Project lead singer (and former Sony Classical artist) Mary Fahl.