Maybe it was a belated gift for Administrative Professionals Day.
I was having lunch with some of my Friday Lunch Bunch (Ginni, Trevor, Carroll, Bronson, and Dave today. We are also joined by others on different days. Anyone is welcome, you just have to be able to tolerate our idea of scintillating lunchtime conversation.) Anyway, Dave mentioned to Trevor that he had starting watching Henry V and was that stuff with the Chorus at the beginning from the play?
We all agreed that the Kenneth Branagh is an extremely fine movie and I explained that, yes, Chorus is a character and says those things. That even the lines that sound like Branagh put them in to make sure we were still awake are from the play (F'rinstance: King Henry V: Canst thou love me? Princess Katherine: I cannot tell. King Henry V: Can any of your neighbors tell, Kate? I'll ask them. ).
Well, to make a long story short, Dave started asking me questions and then allowed me to give a long lecture on the themes, ideas, and history of Henry V. And most everyone else listened and asked good follow-up questions. So I got to talk about HV being a handbook on how to be a king, about the different aspects of kingship shown in the play, about Henry as a reformed low-life playboy who makes good, about the where the play is accurate and where it glosses, about the imported scene from Henry IV Part I, all kinds of stuff.
And no one said "That's nice, Leta. Very, uh, interesting. So, how 'bout them Mets?"
Best lunch I've had in a long time. And I didn't even eat anything.
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4 comments:
Don't you love it when someone lets you wax rhapsodic about one of your favorite topics and not only doesn't take the first opportunity to change the subject but actually wants to know more? Congratulations! :)
You mean:
PISTOL: ... What is thy name?
KING HENRY V: Harry le Roy.
PISTOL: Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of Cornish crew?
KING HENRY V: No, I am a Welshman.
PISTOL: Know'st thou Fluellen?
KING HENRY V: Yes.
PISTOL: Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate
Upon Saint Davy's day.
KING HENRY V: Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day,
lest he knock that about yours.
PISTOL: Art thou his friend?
KING HENRY V: And his kinsman too.
PISTOL: The figo for thee, then!
KING HENRY V: I thank you: God be with you!
PISTOL: My name is Pistol call'd.
KING HENRY V: It sorts well with your fierceness.
Yep. Act IV, scene i
Yes, leek (and they can grow quite large - knee-high or more!). I remember how amused I was to learn, the first time I traveled to England, that there were 4 versions of the 1-pound coin; the Scottish version had a thistle, the English a (Yorkshire?) rose, the Irish shamrocks, and of course leeks on the Welsh one. And they all had different things written around the edges, IIRC.
Actually, your Dave's question is quite perspicacious. The introductory material to my edition of H5 (Riverside) suggests that Chorus's material was added after initial performances.
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