Richard III, Henry V

劇本從理查描述他的哥哥愛德華四世即位開始：「現在我們嚴冬般的宿怨已給這顆約克的紅日照耀成為融融的夏景；那籠罩著我們王室的片片愁雲全都埋進了海洋深處。」

這段演說顯示了理查妒忌和野心，因為他的哥哥愛德華四世將國家管理得很成功。理查是一個醜陋的駝背，他描述自己「天生我一副畸形陋相，不適於調情弄愛」，他對自己的狀況很痛苦，「就只好打定主意以歹徒自許，專事仇視眼前的閒情逸緻了」

第一幕

第一場倫敦。街道

葛羅斯特上。

葛羅斯特

現在我們嚴冬般的宿怨已給這顆約克的紅日照耀成為融融的夏景；那籠罩著我們王室的片片愁雲全都埋進了海洋深處。現在我們的額前已經戴上勝利的花圈；我們已把戰場上折損的槍矛高掛起來留作紀念；當初的尖厲的角鳴已變為歡慶之音；殺氣騰騰的進軍步伐一轉而為輕歌妙舞。那面目猙獰的戰神也不再橫眉怒目；如今他不想再跨上徵馬去威嚇敵人們戰栗的心魄，卻只顧在貴婦們的內室裡伴隨著春情逸蕩的琵琶聲輕盈地舞蹈。可是我呢，天生我一副畸形陋相，不適於調情弄愛，也無從對著含情的明鏡去討取寵幸；我比不上愛神的風采，怎能憑空在嫋娜的仙姑面前昂首闊步；我既被卸除了一切勻稱的身段模樣，欺人的造物者又騙去了我的儀容，使得我殘缺不全，不等我生長成形，便把我拋進這喘息的人間，加上我如此跛跛躓躓，滿叫人看不入眼，甚至路旁的狗兒見我停下，也要狂吠幾聲；說實話，我在這軟綿綿的歌舞昇平的年代，卻找不到半點賞心樂事以消磨歲月，無非背著陽光窺看自己的陰影，口中念念有詞，埋怨我這廢體殘形。因此，我既無法由我的春心奔放，趁著韶光洋溢賣弄風情，就只好打定主意以歹徒自許，專事仇視眼前的閒情逸致了。我這裡已設下圈套，搬弄些是非，用盡醉酒誑言、毀謗、夢囈，唆使我三哥克萊倫斯和大哥皇上之間結下生死仇恨：為的是有人傳說愛德華的繼承人之中有個G字起頭的要弒君篡位①，只消愛德華的率直天真比得上我的機敏陰毒，管叫他今天就把克萊倫斯囚進大牢。且埋藏起我的這番心念，克萊倫斯來了。

http://book.bixueke.com/Shakespeare/lichasanshi/2.html

BBC Shakespeare

"I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them..."

Watch a classic interpretation of the great opening speech from Richard III by Ian Holm, later to find international fame in Alien and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and 哈比人電影(台灣)

Part of our Great Shakespeare Speeches collection with Royal Shakespeare Company http://bit.ly/GreatSSpeech

Ian Holm as Richard III, Shakespeare Lives - BBC

"Now is the winter of our discontent..." - Act 1, Scene 1

BBC.CO.UK

This page lists all recordings of A.M.D.G. (Ad majorem Dei gloriam, 'To the greater glory of God'), by Benjamin Britten (1913-77) on CD. Generally, more recent CDs are listed first, but with priority given to items that are in stock.

Henry V, English hero

Ad majorem Dei gloriam

Nov 19th 2009
From The Economist print edition

Illustration by Daniel Pudles

1415: Henry V’s Year of Glory. By Ian Mortimer. Bodley Head; 640 pages; £20. Buy from Amazon.co.uk
WHAT Shakespeare does for a monarch, it is very hard to undo. Richard III, though softened and cleaned up by assiduous researchers, still limps murderously through the public imagination. And Henry V, even soberly revisited, never quite loses that stirring flap of standards, or the thwack of the Dauphin’s tennis balls deep into the hazard.
Ian Mortimer, who has galloped with panache through the English monarchs from Edward II onwards, promises a different Henry: a king set “on the path to his own self-destruction and the negation of his humanity”. He thinks 1415 marks the crucial moment on that path: the year when Henry, pretending to want peace with France, in fact slowly mobilised the whole of England for war. His last letter to the king of France, on July 28th, just before the invasion, threatened “a deluge of human blood”. He delivered.
This was also a year when rebels were stirring in the kingdom and when religious dissidents, from the Lollards at home to Jan Hus abroad, claimed their own way to salvation. Absolutism and divine right were under attack. The king, who exemplified both, leapt to their defence. Mr Mortimer’s Henry—rigid, unsmiling, religious and obsessive as the year begins—ends it as “a militant Catholic fundamentalist”.
The device of putting just one year under the microscope is a bold one in the medieval context. Medieval sources are scanty. Virtually no royal accounts survive for 1415, and almost no private letters. Mr Mortimer nonetheless luxuriates in what he has: grants to chantries and hospitals, rewards for service, reports from ambassadors, requests for provisioning (all those thousands of longbows, arrows, barrels of beer, sides of beef) and the ceaseless pawning of a large part of Henry’s treasure to pay for his whim of a war. Day by day, the reader is in the thick of things.

The effect of this is new and unexpected, in several ways. The drama of the year is heightened, as the drumbeat of the days rolls towards Agincourt. The religiosity of the age is emphasised, as the saints’ days and the natural rituals of the year gain new prominence in the narrative. Medieval bureaucracy, with its constant duplicating, petitioning and delaying, sometimes threatens to bury the reader. The personalities emerge sharper, firmer and more duplicitous.
And what of Henry? Shakespeare’s image of the king has certainly been altered—but to workaholic, rather than villain. Here was a man who saw personally to everything, whether a petition from a gunner, or the proper painting of antelopes on his flagship, the Trinity Royal, or the ordering of horseshoe nails. He thought of nothing but ruling England, for God. The three most memorable images in this book, among many, are of the king asleep, in his grand bed, chastely alone; sitting on his cushion in his great chamber, listening to his subjects’ problems; and scribbling, at the end of his will, the plea of a man who has taken on far too much: “Jesu Mercy and Gremercy Ladie Marie help.”