the quality of strain...

So Shakespeare is kind of merciless.

I've been listening to the Arkangel Shakespeare recordings, really excellent audio dramas. I'm becoming addicted, and also slowing losing my ability to speak in plain modern English. I first found them in Borders, when I was looking for something to listen to on an upcoming road trip. I bought Henry V, because I remember loving it at the Shakespeare Tavern. It was a good choice. My heart was captured right around the speech which concludes "And some are yet ungotten and unborn / Which shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn." Let me tell you: in the role of the king, Jamie Glover is HOT. And I don't even know what he looks like.

But I digress. From there it was a slow downward slide. I listened to Henry V a number of times, becoming more and more entranced by how uncomfortable and difficult Shakespeare makes the character. I listened to several other plays, and finally decided I needed to go back and hear the previous two Henrys. I read them for Core III, but my memory was too vague. So now at long last I am just a scene or two from the end of Henry IV part 2, and it's a little bit devastating.

For those who don't know the storyline, in brief: Henry IV's heir, also named Henry and generally called Hal (though only by Falstaff in the plays), spends most of his time with drunkards, thieves, and buffoons, and has acquired a reputation for the same. Falstaff, a drunken buffoon's drunken buffoon, is generally considered to be his closest friend. His father, of course, is unhappy with this, and it's generally assumed, at the court and in the taverns, that when Hal ascends the throne the country will become a thieves' paradise.

Hal, however, clues us in pretty early that he's about three steps ahead of anybody in the kingdom. He plans to awe and astound the nation with his apparent transformation when the time comes. (I say "apparent" transformation because it's quite clear to me that he's the same man in all three plays.) While he enjoys the pranks and revels of his life with Falstaff and company, he's also using it for political purposes.

Now here's where Shakespeare gets merciless. We have come to the end of Henry IV part 2, and Hal has just been crowned Henry V. We have just had two terrific scenes which show the beginnings of the new king's transformation. The dying king, anticipating a reign of chaos, has heard his son's intentions; a justice who committed the prince for some crime a while ago, and who now fears retribution, has instead been commended for his boldness in upholding the law. King Henry V speaks with wisdom and nobility; we begin to sense that good things are ahead for England.

And then we cut to Falstaff. There's a jolly scene, made jollier halfway through by the news of the old king's death and the crowning of their Hal. Now there will be good times; now Falstaff will be one of the most important people in the kingdom, and he immediately starts promising honors to his friends. He leaves at once, riding through the night, to see the coronation and be near his friend. He arrives dirty and sweaty, and declares he is not ashamed of his appearance, because it shows how devoted he is.

And I am driving up to work listening to this, and Falstaff's every word of joy and anticipation is as a tightening of the rack. Because I know this play's sequel backwards and forwards, and so I know that not long after this the fat old reprobate will die of a broken heart. Falstaff loves the king, and the king is going to have nothing more to do with him. And I don't remember how the scene I'm listening to now ends (I arrived at work in the middle of it), but I'm quite sure it's going to hurt.

This transformation of the prince's, in both its aspects, runs through all three plays in which he appears: foreshadowed in Henry IV part 1, effected in Henry IV part 2, and looked back on in Henry V. And Shakespeare, cruel artist, does nothing to relieve the painful tension it carries. You have a riotous and irresponsible lad turned into a skillful and inspiring leader; with only the minor drawback that he turns his back on all his old friends. And both aspects are played up to the full. You can't get away from the fact that Harry the fifth is a magnificent king; you can't get away from the fact that he breaks the heart of his old comrade, and receives the news that another former friend has been hanged without batting an eyelid.

To me it's more excruciating than any of the tragedies. There's no resolution between the two sides; in fact frequently they're shown in scenes that follow immediately upon each other, just in case you missed the unremitting pressure they create between them. Merciless, I say.