7 posts tagged “henry v”

Tonight's movie documentary was The War that Made America: The Story of the French Indian War. Nothing really exciting to report. Just something to fill in the details of a period of History for me. The one thing that I would mention is this: At the siege of Fort William Henry on the Southern tip of Lake George, General Moncalm offered the British terms of surrender that violated the unspoken agreements with Montcalm's native American allies. After allowing the native Americans to accept a lot of the front line risks of the siege, Montcalm sat down to dinner with Colonel Monroe and the British officers and basically told them that they could leave unmolested.

Now, I am by no means suggesting here that the British SHOULD have been handed over to an Indian War party but quite clearly, the natives had good reason to feel used by the French. After all, Montcalm had made use of threats of Indian savagery in a letter to Monroe earlier to get him to surrender the fort. For all intents and purposes, he was talking out of both sides of his mouth. he reminds me a bit of Henry V at the gates of Harfleur.  He gets his soldiers all in a lather with a "Go kill'em" speech ... and then he tells the defenders of Hafleur that his men cannot be controlled much longer and the city better surrender ... and then when they do surrender, Henry basically offers them amnesty.

Here is what he says to get his army all rabid:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!

... And after he has them all goaded into a frenzy, he speaks to the men of the beseiged city and warns them of the dangers of his half crazed soldiers yanking the locks of their "shrill shrieking daughters" and dashing their fathers' brains against the walls and "spitting their infants on pikes". Two minutes later they have surrendered and Henry tells his men to "use mercy to them all". . . . like he is playing with puppets.

Where this all connects for me is how similar it is to what goes on with the use of adjuncts. Montcalm will put you on the front lines, dangle a reward in front of you and then when he has what he wants, forget the whole previous unspoken arrangement. You are ONE thing when you are needed and ANOTHER thing when you are paid. The question is how long can the French, who are statistically outnumbered, keep the natives from figuring out the way the game will be played. I will have to get the next DVD in the documentary but as I recall THE FRENCH LOST.

Question for Comment: When an employer admits to being morally in the wrong while asserting that they are legally in the right, what is the appropriate response?    

As talented as Henry V is, he does not always win his arguments. It is clearly touch and go with Katherine. He has to try several different angles. He goes the flattery route at first until it becomes clear that Katherine doesn't believe much of what he says. She starts laying down obstacles in the path of his success. She points out that she can't speak English. He counters that she doesn't need to. He makes the assumption that he isn't attractive to her and he counters with arguments that it is heart that matters. She counters that she can't love the enemy of France and he counters that he isn't an enemy of France. It may be that the argument that she would be Queen of Scotland and Ireland and England AND France may be the closing argument, conveying at the same time that he will try to speak French. She at least stops resisting and defers to her father and Henry "closes the deal" quickly before she changes her mind.

[I sometimes wonder if Katherine, a year after marrying Henry, and after getting all expense paid tours of England, Scotland, Normandy, and Ireland, informed Henry that her decision to marry had been too hasty, that he had, in effect "talked her into it", that they really were not compatible, and that he was too old for her. Apparently, real history is slightly more interesting. They were married in Feburary of 1421. She had a baby boy in December of that same year, and he died nine months after that. Catherine then got to marry the person she wanted to marry. Pretty sweet.] 

Earlier in the play, right after Henry's "Charge the walls of Haffleur" speech, some of Henry's men demonstrate that he has failed to convince THEM with his rhetoric. They would rather be safe in an alehouse in London that in this battle risking their lives for fame.

The boy describes the three "stooges" by saying the three of them put together don't make up a single real man:

Indeed three such antics do not amount to
a man. For Bardolph, he is white-livered and
red-faced; by the means whereof [he] faces it out, but
fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue
and a quiet sword; by the means whereof [he] breaks
words, and keeps whole weapons. For Nym, he hath
heard that men of few words are the best men; and
therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest [he]
should be thought a coward: but his few bad words
are matched with as few good deeds; for [he] never
broke any man's head but his own, and that was
against a post when he was drunk. They will steal
any thing, and call it purchase.

For these men, none of Henry's rhetoric will make them other than what they are. They have little honor. Little concern for their reputation in posterity and Henry's promise of glory fails to move them. Rhetoric has power but it is not unlimited. Henry often says that he has no ability with words even as he excersizes significant power with them.

Exchanging in pre-battle psych-ops with the French propaganda, he tells Montjoy the French harold:

Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,
My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
My numbers lessened, and those few I have
Almost no better than so many French;
Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus! This your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me: I must repent.

He tells KAtherine that he can't talk:

I' faith,
Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am
glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if
thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king
that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my
crown.

He tells Burgundy that he doesn't have the ability to inspire Katherine's love:

Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not
smooth; so that, having neither the voice nor the
heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up
the spirit of love in her, that he will appear in
his true likeness.

This is all ironic because the play closes with the chorus telling the audience that the author himself is verbally handicapped:

Chorus Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursued the story

I wish I could explain how funny I find this but I have never been good with words. :-)

O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard's body have interred anew;
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood:
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do;
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.

These medieval "Christian" were not really Christians when you think about it. Thy would be better described as "baptized Vikings". Baptize a Viking and you don't get a Christian. You get a wet Viking. They pray to Jesus as though praying to Thor ("O God of battles. Steel my soldier's hearts").  "I  Richard's body have interred anew" says Henry referring to the "saintly" crusader, Richard the Lion-hearted, renown for his martial devotion to the cause of Christendom and the demise of the Sarecens.  You can read more about Richard's massacre of the Muslims of Accre in August of 1191 HERE. There is a certain irony to the fact that Richard the Lionhearted took England deeply into debt with his fruitless foreign wars in the Middle East.

"Unfortunately for the King he returned to a land in financial troubles. The cost of the Crusade and his large ransom had tapped out the finances of the land. This monetary trouble was to plague him for his remaining five-year reign. He created a new great seal as a means to raise funds and made void all documents signed with the old."

http://www.templarhistory.com/richard.html

I can't read this bargaining session between Henry and the being he thinks is God without thinking of David's famous Psalm 139:

1 O LORD, you have searched me
       and you know me. . . .

19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
       Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

 20 They speak of you with evil intent;
       your adversaries misuse your name.

 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
       and abhor those who rise up against you?

 22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
       I count them my enemies.

 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
       test me and know my anxious thoughts.

 24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
       and lead me in the way everlasting.

It is as though David is saying "You know what a good guy I am. You know how passionately I hate your enemies, O God. You know how I will have nothing to do with them. You know how much I want to kill them" believing with all his heart that God looks the world over for people who hate His enemies to reward with military victories. The notion that what God is looking for is actually someone who will LOVE his enemies does not occur to him. Indeed, it will not occur to anyone for a thousand years and even now rarely occurs to anyone.

Here we are trying to prove our righteousness by greater acts of violence towards those we determine are opposed to God's will, while just maybe ... maybe ... God would prefer to eliminate enemies by the unconventional means of making friends of them. GASP!

Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood

It reminds me a little of Al Gore using up ten times more energy in his house than the average person but offsetting his conscience with the purchase of carbon credits that he buys from a company that he partially owns. As if to say "Though I burn a barrel of oil a day, I pay a company to plant trees (that I happen to own)". Sigh. I don't know. In the chemistry of morality, do penances neutralize sins? It is an interesting question.  

"Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition." - Martin Luther King

Boys and I were discussing Henry V today, another scene began to emerge.  Henry is fairly adept at making sure that he covers his but. When you will notice that instead of simply launching a war against France, he makes sure that it is the Church who launches it.

Sure, we thank you.
My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold
Why the law Salique that they have in France
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim:
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth;
For God doth know how many now in health
Shall drop their blood in approbation
Of what your reverence shall incite us to.
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;

After he hears the Archbishop of Canterbury gives a lengthy discourse on why the war would be in harmony with God's will, Henry demands that the Archbishop assume responsibility outright.

KING HENRY V:May I with right and conscience make this claim?

CANTERBURY The sin upon my head, dread sovereign!
For in the book of Numbers is it writ,
When the man dies, let the inheritance
Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,
Stand for your own; unwind your bloody flag;

Later in the play, when it is discovered that three of his instant associates who have conspired to assassinate him, Henry conducts a little experiment that will allow him to execute these three treaters and make them responsible for the severity of the punishment. When They are discovered and plead for mercy, Henry quickly reminds them that THEY have condemned themselves:

The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

You   See this again before the gates of Harfleur when Henry makes it clear to the defenders of the city that if they do not yield the city to him, they and they alone will be held responsible for the pillage and repine of their city. He asserts that he cannot control his men. The fate of the city lies in the hands of the defenders.

The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress'd and kill'd:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you. . . .
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

What  Henry is capable of doing and does do, but does not want to be blamed for doing, can always be made to seem someone else is doing. Even when on of his   Soldiers suggests that all those who die in the king's war by the king's responsibility, Henry answers that the king is not to blame for launching a war. The soldiers themselves who are killed or killed because of their own moral state.

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. Besides, there is no
king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to
the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all
unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them
the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder;
some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of
perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that
have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with
pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have
defeated the law and outrun native punishment,
though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to
fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance;
so that here men are punished for before-breach of
the king's laws in now the king's quarrel:

Even in  wooing,  if Henry comes on too strong, he can find a way to blame it on his father:

Now, beshrew my father's ambition! he was thinking of civil wars
when he got me: therefore was I created with a
stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that, when
I come to woo ladies, I fright them.

It reminds me of a poem I once wrote about Adam and the Apple.

Adam's song

You can't be serious Lord
I can't believe my fate
You didn't make it clear Lord
You failed to communicate
I only took one Apple Lord
And I only ate one bite.
Why treat me like a criminal
I just don't think it's right.
And why do you pick on me Lord
Why such a Holy fit?
Why single me out alone
When others were doing it?
And why am I the one to blame?
Why am I the one who's cursed?
Th woman that you gave me
You know she did it first.
 And why the stupid rule Lord?
Since when are apples sin?
You're bing legalistic.
Just when did that begin?
The more I think about it.
Th more that I can see.
You gods are all alike.
You love to hassle me.

 

I' faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding: I am
glad thou canst speak no better English; for, if
thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain king
that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my
crown.

Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for
your sake, Kate, why you undid me: for the one, I
have neither words nor measure, and for the other, I
have no strength in measure

But, before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my
eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation

We start this discussion of Henry V (which I went to see tonight with Skyler and Ari) by simply observing that Henry SAYS he has no rhetorical power or ability. He asserts that he is not a person who can move or inspire anyone with words. But his saying so is just one more example of how gifted he IS with words and how effective a communicator he is. For in the very act of confessing his verbal handicaps, he excercises it. He is, even as he is saying he can’t woo Catherine, doing so most effectively.

Early in the play, the Archbishop of Canterbury asserts that Henry has a remarkable gift for language. No matter what he speaks about, be it theology, politics, military history, policy . . . his ability to string together sentences, words, analogies, metaphors, rhymes, nuances, threats, innuendoes, similes, or compliments astounds people.  

Hear him but reason in divinity,
And all-admiring with an inward wish
You would desire the king were made a prelate:
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say it hath been all in all his study:
List his discourse of war, and you shall hear
A fearful battle render'd you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter: that, when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences;

What Shakespeare says of Henry V, many might say of Shakespeare: He is a savant with language. He can “do things” with it. He can move people. He can make them cry. He can change their minds. He can change their hearts. He can make them laugh. He can prick their consciences. He can stroke their egos. He can make them go to war and make them stop warring. In truth, Shakespeare IS Henry.

Pause for a  moment and consider the ways that Henry uses words to manipulate the passions of the people around him. He plays upon human hearts with words like a musician plays with people’s feet and faces with cords. Henry is a sharp cookie. To start off, he knows when NOT to speak. He lets the archbishop make the case for war, thus, should it not go well, it will be the church and not he who will suffer the blame. Henry DEMANDS that the archbishop NOT use sophistry but this is exactly what he knows he will get:

“My learned lord, we pray you to proceed
And justly and religiously unfold
Why the law Salique that they have in France
Or should, or should not, bar us in our claim:
And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,
That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading,
Or nicely charge your understanding soul
With opening titles miscreate, whose right
Suits not in native colours with the truth”

Thus does Harry get the church to make the assertion that his war against France will be the church’s doing. Henry simply has the church make his argument for him. But from then on, Harry is constantly using words with absolute precision.

“There is some soul of goodness in things evil, would men observingly distil it out” he says, as if to say “nothing bad cannot be made to seem good if a person knows just how to frame it.” Case in point: He discovers that the French had hired three of his closest associaltes to assassinate him. One might see this as a morale-destroying turn of events but with a short turn of phrase, Henry turns it into cause for optimism:

We doubt not of a fair and lucky war,
Since God so graciously hath brought to light
This dangerous treason lurking in our way
To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now
But every rub is smoothed on our way.

Voila! Effortlessly, with a few choice words, he has distilled out the “soul of goodness” from what might have led other lesser men to quit the enterprise altogether. But it is not just the way that he communicates with his officers that reveals his talents. His “dark gift” is perhaps better displayed in his ability to use words to threaten and demoralize his enemies. Listen to the message he sends to the French King through Exeter:

Bloody constraint; for if you hide the crown
Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:
Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,
In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,
That, if requiring fail, he will compel;
And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,
Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy
On the poor souls for whom this hungry war
Opens his vasty jaws; and on your head
Turning the widows' tears, the orphans' cries
The dead men's blood, the pining maidens groans,
For husbands, fathers and betrothed lovers,
That shall be swallow'd in this controversy.
This is his claim, his threatening and my message;

Henry uses words to affix blame wherever he wants it. Henry uses words to break resistance. It is as vital an instrument of warfare to him as siege engines, armies, catapults, and weaponry. Before the gates of Haffleur, he assaults the will of the city’s defenses with threats.

If I begin the battery once again,
I will not leave the half-achieved Harfleur
Till in her ashes she lie buried.
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.
What is it then to me, if impious war,
Array'd in flames like to the prince of fiends,
Do, with his smirch'd complexion, all fell feats
Enlink'd to waste and desolation?
What is't to me, when you yourselves are cause,
If your pure maidens fall into the hand
Of hot and forcing violation?
What rein can hold licentious wickedness
When down the hill he holds his fierce career?
We may as bootless spend our vain command
Upon the enraged soldiers in their spoil
As send precepts to the leviathan
To 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 grace
O'erblows the filthy and contagious clouds
Of heady murder, spoil and villany.
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?

Thus by the use of words does he affix the blame of their potential calamity on THEM and not him and get them to surrender. And how does he convince them that they will face certain death and destruction by the raging passion of his out-of-control army? Why, simply by creating that imprerssion by INSPIRING that very insanity. Immediately before telling the defenders of Haffleur that he (Henry) CANNOT CONTROL his men’s rage, he verbally lashed them INTO that very rage. Henry TURNS THEM INTO savages by the use of words, using every technique he can think of to “decivilize them.”

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!

It is no wonder that when he comes to the city walls to threaten, he can count on getting a response. HE has CREATED the state of frenzy that he insists he can’t control. But control it he does.

Note well that as soon as the city capitulates and surrenders to him, he immediately uses words to anesthetize the very passion he excited.

“Use mercy to them all,” he instructs his uncle Exeter, explaining that the weak condition of the men requires that offenses in the city not be given. In other words, after threatening Haffleur with the spectre of raging men, he acknowledges that they are actually weak and decimated. The threat to Haffleur had been somewhat of a bluff you might say. The fact is that the threats that he issued to the defenders of Haffleur were contrived. With words, Harry created the illusion of an army driven to the verge of insanity but with words, he neutered it to the very practices he said that he could not restrain:

We would have all such offenders so cut off: 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.

He is, like Machiavelli advised, capable of all sorts of deceits. He can play either the fox or the lion.   When Catherine observes somewhat humorously that “the tongues of men are full of deceits” she could well be speaking of Henry. What should not be missed is this: If Henry wants his army to look like a pack of wolves, he can manipulate them into precisely that very state. If he wants them to be gentlemen, he can put them in that state of mind as well. Using words, he can turn the water of his men's fears into the wine of his men’s self-confidence. They are terror stuck with fear upon the discovery that they are outnumbered five to one. Within a few short moments, he has them feeling lucky to be so outnumbered and wishing to be more so. How? With words.

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.

No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me.

And so on. By the time the Saint Crispin’s Day speech is over, his men are thrilled to be outnumbered five to one and wish the odds were even more unequal. Is it his regal presence that sways those he commands? No. Clearly not. For even when Harry is cloaked and disguised as a common soldier, he can change the minds of his men about the most basic of beliefs. Henry listens to one of his men assert that the King is to blame if any of them die and within a few minutes of responding has the same men believing that it is NOT the Kings fault if they die. It is theirs. This is what a gift of words can do. They can make people act or not act. They can make people believe or not believe.

And thus it is that we come to understand that when Henry says that he has no power with words … that he is only a plain soldier … a man who, when he speaks, speak so crudely that his speech would cause one to conclude that he “had sold his farm to buy his crown” he is lying through his teeth and he knows it. Though he claims to be a talker not a soldier, he is far more effective as a talker than he is as a soldier. Frankly, he is a talker-soldier. He fights with words. And his final challenge to give evidence of that is Katherine herself: She poses the challenge succinctly when she asks:

“Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?”

As with the walls of Haffleur, so with the walls of the heart. Neither can withstand the steady, patient, stubborn onslaught of Henry’s verbal and emotional IQ. He understands what he needs to say, when he needs to say it, how he needs to say it and what not to say. And it makes no difference if he is dealing with his own men, his enemies, or a woman of the French court. Furthermore, it matters not if he must use French or English or if the listener speaks little of either. Henry's verbal abilities are not entirely contained in the scope of the languages he has mastered. Teach him ten words of Farsi and in ten minutes he could be conquering Persia.

The play Henry V is a celebration of the power of language. Staged as a play about the military greatness of British monarchs, the inside joke is that it is a play in celebration of the author’s own considerable verbal talents. Even more, it is a celebration of everyone who exercises a god-given gift of language. Words have power.

Question for Comment: Are Henry's linguistic abilities something that you think people can learn or are they something inherited? Have you ever experienced someone with a similar gift for language? Is it possible to be gifted with words AND honest or is the temptation to use the power of words too strong for the restraint of integrity?

 

Why must Christians fetter passions? Thats what I want to know.

Hath not a Christian eyes? hath not a Christian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a non-Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? Merchant of Venice (Modified)

Are some instincts ... some passions bad and others good? Or are all alike equally banned. Henry V speaks here of the need to fetter his passions but later in the story, he "unleashes the dogs of war" until "all the youth of England are on fire".

When it is time to attack, he is ALL about letting passion  have its warlike way.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;

When can a good person get angry and how? The psalms of David are salted with imprecatory prayers that God might destroy David's enemies. One of the more classic examples of the genre is Psalm 109:

“When he is tried, let him be found guilty, and may his prayers condemn him. May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes. May a creditor seize all he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor. May no one extend kindness to him or take pity on his fatherless children. May his descendants be cut off, their names blotted out from the next generation.” Psalms 109:7-13

So what is the point theologically? Is the point that God would have us to be this angry with "enemies"? Or is the point simply that God would have us be honest about how angry we are when we are this angry with our enemies?

You will recall that David HAD enemies and that whenever he got the opportunity to carry out the deeds that he asks God to carry out in a prayer like this, he refused to do so, defering to God the right to execute such judgments. A case in point: Saul in 1 Samuel 26:

"So David and Abishai went to the army by night, and there was Saul, lying asleep inside the camp with his spear stuck in the ground near his head. Abner and the soldiers were lying around him.

 Abishai said to David, "Today God has delivered your enemy into your hands. Now let me pin him to the ground with one thrust of this spear; I won't strike him twice."

 But David said to Abishai, "Don't destroy him! Who can lay a hand on the LORD's anointed and be guiltless?  As surely as the LORD lives," he said, "the LORD himself will strike him; either his time will come and he will die, or he will go into battle and perish.  But the LORD forbid that I should lay a hand on the LORD's anointed. Now get the spear and water jug that are near his head, and let's go."

So David took the spear and water jug near Saul's head, and they left."

One should realize that the spear was the very spear that Saul had tried to kill David with in an earlier fit of rage. There would have been a delightful poetic justice to this act. Thus the irony of David's life is that he will always give mercy towards those that he has the power and motive to destroy while he will sometimes ask God to destroy those same people. And for whatever reason, the editor of David's prayer journal entries thought it was important for the future to know that this man of mercy could be brutal in his prayer life towards the enemies he hadn't the desire to inflict harm on.

Maybe the point is that  imprecatory prayers provide a vicarious means of revenge-taking that dulls the edge of passion just enough to allow mercy to win out in the real world?
 
Beyond Justice to Mercy by Susan Ashton

I know we don't see eye to eye
We've let angry hearts flare and the bitter words fly
The common ground we used to share
Is harder to find but I believe that it's still there.

I don't know if now is the time
To surrender the silence between your heart and mine
But the love that I've chosen cries out to be spoken
Leaving the heartache behind.

Chorus:
We must reach out beyond justice to mercy
Going more than halfway to forgive
And though the distance seems so far
The love that used to hold our hearts
Longs to take us beyond justice to mercy.

It doesn't matter who's to blame
The love that I have for you is still the same
A tender voice is calling me
To that place of compassion where hearts run pure and free
Where the hunger for vengeance gives way to repentance
Where love will teach us to see.

Would the main character in the Edgar Allen Poe story The Cask of Amontillado have benefited from a practice of imprecatory prayer?

"THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely, settled --but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity."

Ironically, his family coat of arms is Nemo me impune lacessit. (No one offends me with impunity)

Question for Comment: How angry do let yourself get? How do your ideas about spirituality impact your experience and expression of passionate emotion?

Betrayal. No one seems to know more about how it works than Shakespeare. Iago, Lord Scroop, and Lady MacBeth all vie with each other for their dastardliness.

I remember reading an excerpt from a letter that Benedict Arnold wrote to George Washington as he was fleeing on a British ship from the fortifications of West Point where his plan to betray the American cause had recently been found out. "Love to my country actuates my present conduct," he wrote, "however it may appear inconsistent to the world, who very seldom judge right of any man's actions."

The answer to Benedict's self-justification leaps to the attention of anyone who has ever been betrayed. Fine if you want to change sides, find yourself, be your authentic self. But don't pretend to be something you are not while they are giving you their trust. You want to be a hero to your country? You want to be a patriot? Great. Tell the country how you feel BEFORE they entrust their most vital fortification to you. You want to take over Scotland Lady MacBeth. Great. Just tell Duncan before he goes to sleep in your house. You want France to win Lord Scroop? Great. Don't pretend to be the best friend of the king of England so you can kill him in the meantime. Makes me think of part of a poem I wrote, Ode to Lady MacBeth, Patron Saint of Hand Washing.

You are the Lady MacBeth

Who did the sleeping Duncan daggers

While he slept.

He did not know it was coming.

He was so very asleep.

And so naive.

and she so

sharp.

V

Today is one of those days that makes me think Henry Miller was right when he said:

"It is silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are all brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors,  liars, hypocrites, poltroons"

I dedicate this next song to The Gentlemen and Ladies Iago Machiavelli-MacBeth-Scroop who inspire it.

Service Fee - The Waifs

You broke down my door and let yourself in
Helped yourself to my soul and skin
You ate all you needed and then had the nerve
To thank me for dinner and help yourself tp dessert
You helped yourself ...

I carry knifes in my pockets, bullets in my guns
Don't try to chase me I'm not going to run
And don't ever ask me, don't you dare begin
I'm not going to talk about it but god knows
I'm going to sing
God knows I am going to sing about it

No thankyou boy I'd rather walk home alone
No thank you sir I'd rather walk home alone
No thank you brother I'd rather walk home alone
No thankyou mister I'd rather walk home alone.

Aloneness.  Thats what people who have been betrayed get for their violated trust.  Thats the gift that betrayers give to the world. Lonliness. Thats the blot they give to the world.