Henry V

by

William Shakespeare

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Henry V Character Analysis

Read our modern English translation.
King of England. Though Henry V lived a wild, reckless youth (portrayed in Shakespeare’s Henry V “prequels” of 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV, he enters the play a changed man. His rise to the throne has turned Henry into a moderate, dignified, eloquent monarch who rules with equal parts strength and mercy. Though he confesses privately to the struggles of being king, he is publicly optimistic and assured, repeatedly inspiring his countrymen to military triumph and moral rectitude. He modestly attributes all personal successes to God and is considered a model king.

Henry V Quotes in Henry V

The Henry V quotes below are all either spoken by Henry V or refer to Henry V. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Kingship Theme Icon
).
Act 1, Scene 1 Quotes

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbored by fruit of baser quality.
And so the prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Related Characters: Bishop of Ely (speaker), Henry V
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 1.1.63-69
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 2 Quotes

Therefore take heed how you impawn our person
How you awake our sleeping sword of war:
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sort complaint
‘Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;
For we will hear, note and believe in heart
That what you speak is in your conscience wash’d
As pure as sin with baptism.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Archbishop of Canterbury
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 1.2.24-36
Explanation and Analysis:

Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.

Related Characters: Duke of Exeter (speaker), Henry V
Page Number: 1.2.127-129
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 2 Quotes

If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink’d at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chew’d, swallow’d and digested,
Appear before us?

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham, Richard Earl of Cambridge, Sir Thomas Grey
Page Number: 2.2.55-59
Explanation and Analysis:

Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. Their faults are open:
Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practices!

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham, Richard Earl of Cambridge, Sir Thomas Grey
Page Number: 2.2.144-151
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 4 Quotes

O peace, Prince Dauphin!
You are too much mistaken in this king:
Question your grace the late ambassadors,
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counselors,
How modest in exception, and withal
How terrible in constant resolution,
And you shall find his vanities forespent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly.

Related Characters: The Constable of France (speaker), Henry V, Lewis the Dauphin
Page Number: 2.4.31-40
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 1 Quotes

For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 3.1.32-37
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 3 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Governor of Harfleur
Page Number: 3.3.10-14
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 6 Quotes

…and we give express charge, that in our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 3.6.110-116
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 1 Quotes

I think the king is but a man, as I am.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Michael Williams, John Bates, Alexander Court
Related Symbols: Accents
Page Number: 4.1.105-106
Explanation and Analysis:

He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a night as ‘tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck.

Related Characters: John Bates (speaker), Henry V
Page Number: 4.1.117-119
Explanation and Analysis:

Then I would [Henry V] were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men’s lives be saved.

Related Characters: John Bates (speaker), Henry V
Page Number: 4.1.125-127
Explanation and Analysis:

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place.’

Related Characters: Michael Williams (speaker), Henry V
Page Number: 4.1.138-142
Explanation and Analysis:

The king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 4.1.160-164
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 3 Quotes

If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 4.3.23-25
Explanation and Analysis:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 4.3.62-69
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 7 Quotes

Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 4.7.92
Explanation and Analysis:

All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty’s Welsh plod out of your pody, I can tell you that: God pless it and preserve it as long as it pleases his Grace and his Majesty too.

Related Characters: Captain Fluellen (speaker), Henry V
Related Symbols: Accents
Page Number: 4.7.112-114
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 2 Quotes

But, before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my eloquence, nor have I no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths; which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Katherine
Page Number: 5.2.148-152
Explanation and Analysis:

Your majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle dat is en France.

Related Characters: Katherine (speaker), Henry V
Related Symbols: Accents
Page Number: 5.2.227-228
Explanation and Analysis:

Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up
Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms
Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
With envy of each other’s happiness,
May cease their hatred.

Related Characters: King Charles (speaker), Henry V, Katherine
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 5.2.360-364
Explanation and Analysis:
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Henry V Quotes in Henry V

The Henry V quotes below are all either spoken by Henry V or refer to Henry V. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Kingship Theme Icon
).
Act 1, Scene 1 Quotes

The strawberry grows underneath the nettle
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbored by fruit of baser quality.
And so the prince obscured his contemplation
Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt,
Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,
Unseen, yet crescive in his faculty.

Related Characters: Bishop of Ely (speaker), Henry V
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 1.1.63-69
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 1, Scene 2 Quotes

Therefore take heed how you impawn our person
How you awake our sleeping sword of war:
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed
For never two such kingdoms did contend
Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops
Are every one a woe, a sort complaint
‘Gainst him whose wrong gives edge unto the swords
That make such waste in brief mortality.
Under this conjuration, speak, my lord;
For we will hear, note and believe in heart
That what you speak is in your conscience wash’d
As pure as sin with baptism.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Archbishop of Canterbury
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 1.2.24-36
Explanation and Analysis:

Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth
Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,
As did the former lions of your blood.

Related Characters: Duke of Exeter (speaker), Henry V
Page Number: 1.2.127-129
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 2 Quotes

If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink’d at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chew’d, swallow’d and digested,
Appear before us?

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham, Richard Earl of Cambridge, Sir Thomas Grey
Page Number: 2.2.55-59
Explanation and Analysis:

Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem:
And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,
To mark the full-fraught man and best indued
With some suspicion. I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. Their faults are open:
Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practices!

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Henry, Lord Scroop of Masham, Richard Earl of Cambridge, Sir Thomas Grey
Page Number: 2.2.144-151
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2, Scene 4 Quotes

O peace, Prince Dauphin!
You are too much mistaken in this king:
Question your grace the late ambassadors,
With what great state he heard their embassy,
How well supplied with noble counselors,
How modest in exception, and withal
How terrible in constant resolution,
And you shall find his vanities forespent
Were but the outside of the Roman Brutus,
Covering discretion with a coat of folly.

Related Characters: The Constable of France (speaker), Henry V, Lewis the Dauphin
Page Number: 2.4.31-40
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 1 Quotes

For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 3.1.32-37
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 3 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Governor of Harfleur
Page Number: 3.3.10-14
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3, Scene 6 Quotes

…and we give express charge, that in our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 3.6.110-116
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 1 Quotes

I think the king is but a man, as I am.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Michael Williams, John Bates, Alexander Court
Related Symbols: Accents
Page Number: 4.1.105-106
Explanation and Analysis:

He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a night as ‘tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck.

Related Characters: John Bates (speaker), Henry V
Page Number: 4.1.117-119
Explanation and Analysis:

Then I would [Henry V] were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men’s lives be saved.

Related Characters: John Bates (speaker), Henry V
Page Number: 4.1.125-127
Explanation and Analysis:

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place.’

Related Characters: Michael Williams (speaker), Henry V
Page Number: 4.1.138-142
Explanation and Analysis:

The king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose not their death, when they purpose their services.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 4.1.160-164
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 3 Quotes

If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 4.3.23-25
Explanation and Analysis:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 4.3.62-69
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4, Scene 7 Quotes

Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker)
Page Number: 4.7.92
Explanation and Analysis:

All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty’s Welsh plod out of your pody, I can tell you that: God pless it and preserve it as long as it pleases his Grace and his Majesty too.

Related Characters: Captain Fluellen (speaker), Henry V
Related Symbols: Accents
Page Number: 4.7.112-114
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5, Scene 2 Quotes

But, before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my eloquence, nor have I no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths; which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging.

Related Characters: Henry V (speaker), Katherine
Page Number: 5.2.148-152
Explanation and Analysis:

Your majestee ave fausse French enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle dat is en France.

Related Characters: Katherine (speaker), Henry V
Related Symbols: Accents
Page Number: 5.2.227-228
Explanation and Analysis:

Take her, fair son, and from her blood raise up
Issue to me; that the contending kingdoms
Of France and England, whose very shores look pale
With envy of each other’s happiness,
May cease their hatred.

Related Characters: King Charles (speaker), Henry V, Katherine
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 5.2.360-364
Explanation and Analysis: