15 posts tagged “literature”

Lets just say Satan came to you and asked you to be the archetect of a brand new Hell. Lets say that Satan is a fan of great works of literature and asks you to give the place nine levels, in honor of Dante's great work The Inferno. Who would you put in each level? Dante puts great men who were not Christians in his first level and people guilty of lust in the second. From there, he works his way down to the ninth. Who does he put in his ninth layer? Its not violent people. They are in the seventh, one level below the heretics. Greedy people go in the fourth level. Angry people in the fifth. All sorts of different kinds of liars are in the eigth level and the ninth and last level is thus completely reserved for betrayers: The following summary comes from Spark Notes:

In Caina, the First Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell, those who betrayed their kin stand frozen up to their necks in the lake’s ice. In Antenora, the Second Ring, those who betrayed their country and party stand frozen up to their heads; here Dante meets Count Ugolino, who spends eternity gnawing on the head of the man who imprisoned him in life. In Ptolomea, the Third Ring, those who betrayed their guests spend eternity lying on their backs in the frozen lake, their tears making blocks of ice over their eyes. Dante next follows Virgil into Judecca, the Fourth Ring of the Ninth Circle of Hell and the lowest depth. Here, those who betrayed their benefactors spend eternity in complete icy submersion.

 

Rodger Jackson references this moral estimation of betrayal in his engaging 2000 Humanitas article,

The Sense and Sensibility of Betrayal:Discovering the Meaning of Treachery through Jane Austen

"An act of betrayal makes us appreciate Dante’s reserving the innermost ring of the Inferno for the betrayers. We can even say there is a characteristic “feel” to betrayal. The betrayed experience powerful sensations of violation; they feel used and damaged. Betrayal, however, elicits more than strong feelings. Psychologists offer clinical evidence attesting to the devastating effects of betrayal.1 Betrayal acts as an assault on the integrity of individuals, affecting the capacity to trust, undermining confidence in judgment, and contracting the possibilities of the world by increasing distrust and scepticism.2 Betrayal changes not only our sense of the world, but our sensibility toward the world.

 

There is yet another significance to the distinction between betrayal and abandonment. Most of us do not see ourselves as betrayers, and in this assessment we are probably correct. For good or bad, it is not everyone who can cultivate the trust of another while plotting to break that trust, or to recognize that someone has our justified, acknowledged trust and then turn that relationship into an instrument. Willoughby certainly did not have this type of deliberate, calculating character.

 

But notice that this allows him to indulge in a familiar form ofdenial. He casts himself more as the victim of unfortunate circumstances than as someone who has committed a great wrong: he sees the way he treats Marianne as necessary, unavoidable.

 

What Austen does so well with Willoughby and Marianne is to present a frighteningly common situation wherein an individual voluntarily enters a relationship of trust and then abandons that relationship, not from some carefully constructed plot to harm the truster, but from a neglect born of self-interest, disinterest, or carelessness. Willoughby illustrates that with abandonment we may find innumerable ways of passing off responsibility for our actions; with betrayal we are at least deliberate and self-aware. But Marianne must remind us that the results of abandonment can be as cruel as the most meticulously plotted act of betrayal.

 

The Sense and Sensibility of Betrayal:Discovering the Meaning of Treachery through Jane Austen by Rodger L. Jackson. Humanitas, Vol. 13, 2000.

 In summary, he draws a distinction with the use of Jane Austen's novel, between someone who knows they are going to betray you WHILE they elicit your trust and those who do not know.

Question for Comment: My question would be "which is worse?" Which of these two villains would you put in the lowest level of the lowest level of your inferno?

The question implies that one does more harm perhaps. That one inflicts more "betrayal trauma" to use a psychological term. You might think that it is the person who KNOWS they are going to decieve you that is worse but I am not entirely sure. In those cases, the betrayer is after something that they probably do not single you out for any intrinsic reason in you. They are like a theif standing on a corner waiting for someone with a pocketbook. It is nothing personal. The one who abandons you AFTER eliciting your trust consciously trades in the relationship that they ACTUALLY had with you for some other bauble that catches their fancy. 

There is no hiding from the pain when that happens. The only smart thing to do when that happens to you is to build a pyre of the betrayers things, make an effigy on top, light it on fire so that the betrayer can see it from his (or her) distant and fleeing ship, and impale yourself on the betrayer sword with a Dido-like prayer to the gods that your decendents might forever hunt down theirs. 

Thats what Dido (The Aeneid) does anyway. She was smart enough to know that this is really the only escape for pain of this sort. But maybe others think otherwise.

Beowulf

Last night, I finally got around to watching the latest rendition of Beowulf. I will be teaching it next year and figured I best be familiar with its most contemporary mangling. One should probably note that a story like Beowulf, even in its most "original form" as we know it, was the result of many a mead besotted retelling so there really should be no sacrilege in adapting it to a modern whim. The movie comes across as a great epic story of heroism and humanity and I suspect that was what its original intent was anyway. I will not be a strict Constructionist about it.

The "heros" of Beowulf, are of course warriors and sword wielding, mead inhaling, uberplunderers with the names of Grand Pre wrestlers who love their weapons more than their women. Scyld Scefing (translated in some versions as "Shield Shiefson") the king of the Danes is described as “scourge of many tribes, a wrecker of mead-benches.” One cannot read the descriptions of the funerals of these great warlords of Scandinavia without thinking of the bumper sticker "He who dies with the most toys, wins". Greatness is somewhat define by the questions "What were you able to take from others while you lived?" and "How much of it can you take in your funeral boat with you?"

What is somewhat interesting about the movie version (not the same exactly as the written epic) is that Grendel the monster and later the dragon, are children of the Kings Hrothgar and Beowulf. They play a part almost synonymous with the monster-demon child in Frankenstein. Grendel is a"gentle" creature made into a monster by his "father's" rejection of him. It would be difficult to count the numbers of plotlines in which the anger of an abandoned son plays a central role these days. Beowulf the movie falls into that genre. In all these stories the lives of "great men" are destroyed by the fact that they put wealth and partying, and fame, and conquest above the value of the women that they should love and the children they neglect. I suspect that this theme is played out in scores of movies in contemporary media begging the question "Why must men go out and conquer things when they would be happier just relating with their wives and children?' Think of various movies that follow this line of reasoning (Kingdom of Heaven, Gladiator, Martian Child, Troy, etc.) In the movie version of the story of the Illiad (Troy), Achilles mother says to Achilles:

"If you stay in Larissa, you will find peace. You will find a wonderful woman, and you will have sons and daughters, who will have children. And they'll all love you and remember your name. But when your children are dead, and their children after them, your name will be forgotten... If you go to Troy, glory will be yours. They will write stories about your victories in thousands of years! And the world will remember your name. But if you go to Troy, you will never come back... for your glory walks hand-in-hand with your doom. And I shall never see you again."

Needless to say, Achilles goes to Troy. 

I confess, though no one will ever mistake me for a Scandinavian beefcake like Beowulf, I did like this translation of a line from the poem:

Question for Comment: In the movie, Beowulf says to his queen, "Keep a memory of me, not as a king or a hero; but as a man: fallible and flawed" This seems to cover for a multitude of Beowulf's sins (and they are many). He is arrogant. He lies. He takes a mistress. He trades in love for power and sex and wealth.  Have we come to the place where one can achieve hero status by simply admitting that one has a weak character, (a la Bill Clinton)? Why work at overcoming one's weaknesses if simply confessing to having them is regarded as strong enough to impress people?

Othello (Folger Shakespeare Library)

William Shakespeare

The boys and I were studying Othello today (Act I) and noting that everyone in the story trusts Iago who is the least trustworthy character in the play ... and how everyone at the beginning suspects Othello of being a savage barbarian warlock when in fact he is about the only character in the play with integrity and moral gravitas. "Why does everyone trust Iago?" was the question of the day. The most interesting case is that of Rodrigo. Iago TELLS hims straight out that he [Iago}  is capable of being a consummate two faced liar and yet Rodrigo never suspects that Iago might be the same two faced liar with HIM. What is interesting is that periodically Iago will turn to the crowd and address THEM and for whatever reason, one suspects that, like Iago, the audience simply believes Iago even though they are watching Iago lie to everyone else.

Iago says of Othello:

"The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are."

Boys and I had at least two really good conversations today. We were talking about the difference between Brutus' and Antony's perceptions of the crowds in Julius Caesar. Brutus is a man of reason and principle. Our reasons are so full of good regard" he says "That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar, You should be satisfied. . . ."

By your pardon;
I will myself into the pulpit first,
And show the reason of our Caesar's death:”

He believes that since HE cares more about principle and logical consistency, others can be expected to think and act in the same way. Indeed, Brutus would kill himself if his principles dictated that he do so.

"With this
I depart,--that, as I slew my best lover for the
good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself,
when it shall please my country to need my death."

 Instinct means nothing to him. Emotional bonding, also nothing. Ties of friendship? A third time nothing. He expects the crowd to be the same way ... and to some extent, they are. They do respond to his reasoning power. But this reasoning is buried like Pompey under Vesuvius lava within a few minutes of Antony's opportunity to speak. Why? Does Antony counter Brutus' reason with reason? No. He doesn't bother. He counters Brutus' reason with tone of voice, with immediate experience, with emmotion, instinct, and appeals to the self-interest concerns of the crowds.  The crowds go from "Live, Brutus, Live" to "Burn their houses" in a matter of minutes. Crowds, Shakespeare seems to be saying, are not controlled by logic but by a far more inherent instinctual collective id. How am I affected NOW? What can I see, hear, smell, taste NOW? What do I feel NOW?

Is he right? Is a person who learns to think, to summarize information, break information down into smaller parts, put information and perspectives together, evaluate arguments, identify basic assumptions, compare and contrast arguments, short-circuit group thinking tendencies, ask questions, identify important but ignored questions, construct visions, follow ideas to logical conclusions, trace cause and effect patterns, predict unseen side effects to policy decisions, admit mistakes, explain failures, assimilate contradictions, solicit alternative perspectives, undermine oppositional ideas, build communities, integrate cultural core beliefs, identify problems, and communicate creative solutions among a thousand other things that brains are capable of simply learning how to use a sword in a world of machine guns (people who can manipulate others with emotions?

Question for Comment: Are we doomed to be ruled by those who master the art of  appealing to the instinctual programing of human motivation? Should I quite trying to be a critical thinking teacher and learn to be less like Brutus and more like Antony? Is a person who can think always going to be like that poor sword wielding Ninja guy in Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark?

Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit

Daniel Quinn

I think I may be too tired to write this but if not now, then when. I read two books last week, Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat and Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Both of them revolve around the subject of human identity and the construction of stories that humans see themselves as belonging to. Farley Mowat enters the Arctic with a story about wolves and a story about humans and the story about caribou in the story about the relative trustworthiness of science and instinct. In the course of his summer in the Arctic, and in the course of his exposure to an old Inuit man named Ootek, he loses the sense that the story came with is accurate. you begin to see his confidence in the story cracking my page 72:

“I felt that I, because of my specific superiority as a member of Homo sapiens, together with my intensive technical training, was entitled to pride of place.  The sneaking suspicion that this pride had been denied and that, in point of fact, I was the one who was under observation, had an unsettling effect upon my ego.” P. 72

Within a few pages he determines that he will need to start from scratch:

“On three separate occasions in less than a week I had been completely at the mercy of these “savage killers” but far from attempting to tear me limb from limb they had displayed a restraint verging on contempt, even when I invaded their home and appeared to be posing a direct threat to the young pups.

This much was obvious, yet I was still strangely reluctant to let the myth go down the drain.  Part of this reluctance was no doubt due to the thought that, by discarding the accepted concepts of wolf nature, I would be committing scientific treason; part of it to the knowledge that recognition of the truth would deprive my mission of its fine aura of danger and high adventure; and not the least part of that reluctance was probably due to my unwillingness to accept the fact that I had been made to look like a blithering idiot -- not by my fellow man, but by mere brute beasts.  Nevertheless I persevered … I had made my decision that, from this hour for onward, I would go open-minded into the lupine world and learn to see and know the wolves, not for what they were supposed to be, but for what they actually were.” P. 77

Fortunately, Ootek is there to help:

“Ootek turned out to be a tremendous help.  He had none of the misconceptions about the wolves which taken en masse, comprise the body of accepted writ in our society.  In fact he was so close to the beasts that he considered them as actual relations.” P 119

Mowat concludes the book by insinuating that perhaps living like wolves do is the best way to live:

“Somewhere to the eastward a wolf howled; lightly, questioningly.  I knew the voice, for I had heard it many times before.  It was George, sounding the wasteland for an echo from the missing members of his family.  But for me it was a voice which spoke of the lost world which was once ours before we chose the alien role; the world which I had glimpsed and almost entered only to be excluded, at the end, by my own self.” P. 246

This is most certainly the same point that Daniel Quinn is making in the book Ishmael. The problem with people is not that they are people per say but that they are people who believe and act out the wrong story. The story they tell themselves, Ishmael the gorilla asserts, is that they THINK the world was made for them, and that they are superior to the animals.

“There is nothing fundamentally wrong with people.  Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world.  But given the story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, as yours does, people will live at odds with the world.  Given a story to enact in which they are the lords of the world, they will act like lords of the world.  And, given the story to enact in which the world is a foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe, and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.” P. 84

At a crucial point in the book, the gorilla comes out of its cage ... the author has to make a decision.

“When I arrived the next day, I found that the new plan was in effect: Ishmael was no longer on the other side of the glass, he was on my side of it, sprawled on some cushions a few feet from my chair.  I had not realized how important that sheet of glass had become to our relationship: to be honest, I felt a flutter of alarm in my stomach.  His nearness and enormity disconcerted me, but without hesitating for more than a fraction of a second, I took my seat and gave him my usual lot of greeting.  He nodded back, but I thought I glimpsed a look of wary speculation in his eyes, as if my proximity troubled him as much as his troubled me..” p. 151

Humanity has to decide: Is it an animal? or is it above the animals? Is man "the one and only" or the "first of many" who will come to evolve into sentience? Was man created to be the only god on the planet? Or are all the others meant to evolve, as he did, to that  status?

“Apparently the gods intend this planet to be a garden filled with creatures that are self-aware and intelligent … Man is the first of all of these. He is the trailblazer, the Pathfinder.  His destiny is to be the first … man's place is to be the first without being the last.  Man's place is to figure out how it is possible to do that -- and then to make some room for all the rest who are capable of becoming what he has become.“ p. 242

Ultimately, we decide our futures, when we decide our stories:

“People can't just give up a story.  That's what the kids tried to do in the 60s and 70s.  They tried to stop living like takers, but there was no other way for them to live.  They failed because you can't just stop being in a story, you have to have another story to be in. . . . People need more than to be scolded, more than to be made to feel stupid and guilty.  They need more than a vision of doom.  They need a vision of the world and of themselves that inspires them.” P 244

Which is why I always say "Historians rule. Dictators drool."

Of the two stories, I think I liked Never Cry Wolf better. Ishmael definitely is thought-provoking but I am not one to see gorillas  talking someday ... and without being able to visualize that, Quinn's main point falls apart. That said, I think he has an excellent point about the importance of story. I think it is high time that human beings and our culture re-examine the notion that we were on the planet "to have dominion".  And we should all pay more attention to the origin stories we accept as true. Quinn dismisses creationism almost as a joke. I prefer to give it more time to explain itself to me.

 Question for Comment:  What are the implications for a culture when it places animals and humans in the same category and suggests that they have an equal right to life, liberty, resources, food, medical care, territory, habitat, legal rights, and the pursuit of happiness? 

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

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

"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."

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?