For example, in the third act Shakespeare,
through King Henry, expressly charges his soldiers that "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." Wise words, not yet learned even by statesmen; drops of
wisdom's life-blood from the heart of gentle Shakespeare. But an act
later, when the battle is over, on the mere news that the French have
reinforced their scattered men, Henry V., with tears in his eyes for the
Duke of York's death, gives orders to kill the prisoners:
"Then every soldier kill his prisoners;
Give the word through."
The puppet is not even human: mere wood!
In the fifth act King Henry takes on the voice and nature of buried
Hotspur. He woos Katherine exactly as Hotspur talked to his wife: he
cannot "mince" it in love, he tells her, in Hotspur's very words; but is
forthright plain; like Hotspur he despises verses and dancing; like
Hotspur he can brag, too; finds it as "easy" to conquer kingdoms as to
speak French; can "vault into his saddle with his armour on his back";
he is no carpet-soldier; he never "looks in his glass for love of
anything he sees there," and to make the likeness complete he disdains
those "fellows of infinite tongue, that can rhyme themselves into
ladies' favours .
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