O God, thine arm was here. I watched Branaghs film of Henry V last night--very enjoyable--and a thing struck me about Shakespeares Agincourt, as it has done before but never quite so pertinaciously. At the opening, we hear of the French forces: Of fighting men they have full three score thousand. Thats five to one; besides, they all are fresh. So, twelve thousand English facing sixty thousand French. Not good odds, but not insuperable, if other factors were on the English side. Okay. Mutter mutter, St. Crispins Day, CHAAAAARGE!!! and off we go. Battle battle battle, kill the boys and the luggage look you bach, I was not angry since I came to France, and the French surrender. This note doth tell me of ten thousand French That in the field lie slain. In other words, the French still had fifty thousand men in the field, against...um, let me see now...11,971 English. And they surrendered? Well, I suppose if youve been wellying away all day at a vastly inferior force of twelve thousand and only manage to kill twenty-nine of them, you might get a touch disheartened, but even so. (I discount the versions Ive heard that make the total of English dead more than twice the number who showed up.) I find this interesting. Shakespeares audiences might have been illiterate, but they were traders and craftspeople and handled money and Im damn sure they could count. And I would be very surprised if there werent French people among them who might have been more than a little surprised themselves to hear about this interesting strategic decision on the part of their recent ancestors. (Note: Im sure the real battle of Agincourt, if we think there was one this week, was very different and much more boring and realistic. Im not talking about history, Im talking about Shakespeare. Possibly Im just marvelling at what a writer could get away with in those far-off days.)
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 16:56:15 +0000
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