.. a speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad."
But if Shakespeare had had any vital sympathy for soldiers and men of
action he would not have degraded Henry V. in this fashion, into a
feeble replica of the traditional Hotspur. In those narrow London
streets by the river he must have rubbed shoulders with great
adventurers; he knew Essex; had bowed to Raleigh at the Court; must have
heard of Drake: inclination was lacking, not models. He might even have
differentiated between Prince Henry and Hotspur without going outside
his history-books; but a most curious point is that he preferred to
smooth away their differences and accentuate the likeness. As a mere
matter of fact Hotspur was very much older than Prince Henry, for he
fought at Otterbourne in 1388, the year of the prince's birth; but
Shakespeare purposely and explicitly makes them both youths. The King,
speaking of Percy to Prince Henry, says:
"And being no more in debt to years than thou."...
It would have been wiser, I cannot but think, and more dramatic for
Shakespeare to have left the hot-headed Percy as the older man who, in
spite of years, is too impatient-quick to look before he leaps, while
giving the youthful Prince the calm reflection and impersonal outlook
which necessarily belong to a great winner of kingdoms.
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