Henry VI Part 3 (1591)

[Marlin]

[Marlin]

While an introduction is hardly necessary at this point in the discussion, I must say that the Wikipedia entry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_V...) for this play is one of the more impressive that I've come across in the many years using that site. In terms of analysis, it's a great jumping off point. I still contend that an initial viewing is preferable to a cold reading, especially a play as sprawling and dark as this one; clearly the best written of the three (imo; Gabriel definitely has a point about the absurdity of the last play written before the first theory!). So chime in with whatever impressions grabbed you about the play or it's theatrical/film history. There's plenty to choose from here. :D

I'm going to start with what I feel is an odd and rather unsatisfying portrait of Edward Plantagenet (later Edward IV), especially given the wonderful coloring of several other characters and their use of language which is decidedly more developed than the last two plays. You would think that this would have given Shakespeare an opportunity to show what he could do with a character that hitherto has not had a large speaking role and has been relegated to the side lines. But his dramatic ascendancy is remarkably unimpressive. Perhaps this is intentional. The historical Edward was a king who never lost a battle, despite the scene where Shakespeare has him held captive by the Lancastrian forces, who then strip him of the crown and restore his dukedom. Shakespeare seems unsure about where to place him in the panorama of dynamic personalities involved in the dynastic conflict, except that he was obviously a great soldier and so left the more impressive rhetoric to others. In fact, it's Edward to whom Shakespeare gives the line, "Don't let her speak!", in reference to the defeated and captured Margaret, a character with (arguably) the greatest rhetorical gifts in the play.

It's clear that Edward wants to be his own man and so makes his own decision about the choice of a wife, in direct opposition to the agreement that he made with Warwick's plan to marry him to the French sister of King Louis XI. But Shakespeare makes Edward's decision seem almost incidental; that Lady Grey was mostly chosen because she happened to have audience with Edward that particular day. This makes Edward appear fairly ruthless and to have a singularity of mind more than the complexity of a character who could actually, for instance, fall in love with someone far below his rank (historically, the record is that Edward and Lady Grey were very much in love). Why does Lady Grey make her entrance after Warwick has left for France? If she had surfaced earlier, think of how different an impression Edward's betrothal - and his character - would seem? As it is, he plays a silly game to win her hand (though it seems less won than commanded) and his personality is never developed beyond "that lascivious Edward" as Margaret and, later in Richard III, his brother, Richard refer to him.

[Tim]

.
.
Character ........ Lines count ........... Words count
Earl of Warwick [Richard Nevil / Neville] 435 3415
Edward, Earl of March; later, Duke of York and King Edward IV 428 3475
Richard, later Duke of Gloucester [Richard of Gloucester; Dick] 390 3179
King Henry VI [Harry] 363 2915
Margaret, Queen of England, daughter of King Reignier 279 2244
Duke of York, Richard Plantagenet 173 1359
Lord Clifford [previously, Young Clifford] 140 1101
George, later Duke of Clarence 105 839
Lady Elizabeth Grey [Gray], later wife of Edward IV and Queen of England 73 602
Lewis(Louis XI) the Eleventh, King of France [ 67 516
Edward, Prince of Wales [Plantagenet; Ned] 46 361

3 Richards and 2 Edwards! Great fun.

[Tim]

Act 1 sc 1 opens with the aftermath of the battle of St Albans a continuation from part 2.
The Act of Accord was a statute of Parliament enacted on 25 October 1460. Under the terms of the Act, Henry VI was confirmed as king, but after his death the throne was to pass to Richard, Duke of York, and his heirs.

[Marlin]

Tim wrote: "Under the terms of the Act, Henry VI was confirmed as king, but after his death the throne was to pass to Richard, Duke of York, and his heirs."

It's hard to believe (now) that Margaret would allow this to occur; but her failure evidently spurred her determination to reclaim the crown with the proper progenitor, namely her and Henry's son. I say now because it's entirely probable that women weren't allowed in either house of Parliament. Despite the fact that nearly every character in this play, save Henry, is an opportunist of some kind I do feel a bit of compassion for Margaret. How could she win with such a king? And despite her gifts at rhetoric (seemingly Shakespeare's invention) she had neither the political muscle of the old Glouster or the mental hold on Henry to check the power plays of Richard (York, Senior). It couldn't have been easy for a foreign consort in medieval England to get things done; particularly if you were a woman. :)

[Marlin]

Actually, as this documentary, sympathetic to Margaret, shows (https://youtu.be/atsMk6HQitI?si=dgJSS...), as the head of the Court Party and, in effect, nominal ruler of England, she was entitled and did call a Parliament at Coventry in November, 1459. A bill of attainder was drawn against the exiled York and his supporters, which accused them of treason and stripped them of lands, titles and family inheritance. Unfortunately, legislation would not be enough against the regrouping Yorkist forces. Shakespeare, of course, doesn't allude to this move by Margaret in the play perhaps because the session became moot with the upcoming armed struggle, Lancastrian losses and subsequent mocking of the session as the "Parliament of Devils".

[Marlin]

Another argument for this 3rd part of Henry VI to have been written (and certainly originally played) last are the penultimate confrontations between the most powerful/influential characters in the trilogy and the larger development of Shakespeare's poetry. The impression of finality is so strong, in fact, that it's the first time the idea of translating the trilogy to grand opera ever entered my mind. Take Act I, scene 4 for instance, when York meets his end. Historical record does not have Margaret, Clifford and the chief Lancastrian figures surround and subsequently murder the duke as Shakespeare relates but I'd argue that the showdown is one of the most dramatically effective scenes in Shakespeare's canon; particularly the following exchange (which one can imagine being set to music by Rossini or Verdi):


York is overcome.
NORTHUMBERLAND to Queen Margaret
What would your Grace have done unto him now?
QUEEN MARGARET
Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,
Come, make him stand upon this molehill here
That raught at mountains with outstretchèd arms,
Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.
They place York on a small prominence.
What, was it you that would be England’s king?
Was ’t you that reveled in our parliament
And made a preachment of your high descent?
Where are your mess of sons to back you now,
The wanton Edward and the lusty George?
And where’s that valiant crookback prodigy,
Dickie, your boy, that with his grumbling voice
Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies?
Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?
Look, York, I stained this napkin with the blood
That valiant Clifford with his rapier’s point
Made issue from the bosom of the boy;
And if thine eyes can water for his death,
I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.
She gives him a bloody cloth.
Alas, poor York, but that I hate thee deadly
I should lament thy miserable state.
I prithee grieve to make me merry, York.
What, hath thy fiery heart so parched thine entrails
That not a tear can fall for Rutland’s death?
Why art thou patient, man? Thou shouldst be mad;
And I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.
Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance.
Thou would’st be fee’d, I see, to make me sport.—
York cannot speak unless he wear a crown.
A crown for York!She is handed a paper crown.
And, lords, bow low to him.
Hold you his hands whilst I do set it on.
She puts the crown on York’s head.
Ay, marry, sir, now looks he like a king.
Ay, this is he that took King Henry’s chair,
And this is he was his adopted heir.
But how is it that great Plantagenet
Is crowned so soon and broke his solemn oath?—
As I bethink me, you should not be king
Till our King Henry had shook hands with Death.
And will you pale your head in Henry’s glory
And rob his temples of the diadem
Now, in his life, against your holy oath?
O, ’tis a fault too too unpardonable.
Off with the crown and, with the crown, his head;
And whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead.
CLIFFORD
That is my office, for my father’s sake.
QUEEN MARGARET
Nay, stay, let’s hear the orisons he makes.
YORK
She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of
France,
Whose tongue more poisons than the adder’s tooth:
How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex
To triumph like an Amazonian trull
Upon their woes whom Fortune captivates.
But that thy face is vizard-like, unchanging,
Made impudent with use of evil deeds,
I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush.
To tell thee whence thou cam’st, of whom derived,
Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not
shameless.
Thy father bears the type of King of Naples,
Of both the Sicils, and Jerusalem,
Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.
Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?
It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen,
Unless the adage must be verified
That beggars mounted run their horse to death.
’Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud,
But God He knows thy share thereof is small.
’Tis virtue that doth make them most admired;
The contrary doth make thee wondered at.
’Tis government that makes them seem divine;
The want thereof makes thee abominable.
Thou art as opposite to every good
As the Antipodes are unto us
Or as the south to the Septentrion.
O, tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide,
How couldst thou drain the lifeblood of the child
To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,
And yet be seen to bear a woman’s face?
Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible;
Thou, stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.
Bidd’st thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy wish.
Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will;
For raging wind blows up incessant showers,
And when the rage allays, the rain begins.
These tears are my sweet Rutland’s obsequies,
And every drop cries vengeance for his death
’Gainst thee, fell Clifford, and thee, false
Frenchwoman!
NORTHUMBERLAND aside
Beshrew me, but his passions moves me so
That hardly can I check my eyes from tears.
YORK
That face of his the hungry cannibals
Would not have touched, would not have stained
with blood;
But you are more inhuman, more inexorable,
O, ten times more than tigers of Hyrcania.
See, ruthless queen, a hapless father’s tears.
This cloth thou dipped’st in blood of my sweet boy,
And I with tears do wash the blood away.
He hands her the cloth.
Keep thou the napkin and go boast of this;
And if thou tell’st the heavy story right,
Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears.
Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears
And say “Alas, it was a piteous deed.”
He hands her the paper crown.
There, take the crown and, with the crown, my
curse,
And in thy need such comfort come to thee
As now I reap at thy too cruel hand.—
Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world,
My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads.
NORTHUMBERLAND
Had he been slaughterman to all my kin,
I should not for my life but weep with him
To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.
QUEEN MARGARET
What, weeping ripe, my Lord Northumberland?
Think but upon the wrong he did us all,
And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.
CLIFFORD stabbing York twice
Here’s for my oath; here’s for my father’s death!
QUEEN MARGARET stabbing York
And here’s to right our gentle-hearted king.
YORK
Open thy gate of mercy, gracious God.
My soul flies through these wounds to seek out Thee.
He dies.
I.iv, 65-184

This is stuff of great grand opera, replete with historical significance, wonderful text for dramatic arias and over-the-top theatricality. I still feel that the most poetic language is saved for the king, which we shall see later, but the scene seems to be begging for musical embellishment! The other two notably murders that happen early in Shakespeare's plays are, of course, those of Julius Caesar in the play of the same name and King Duncan in The Scottish Play. By the time Shakespeare wrote Caesar I'd say that the build to the climatic event is far more developed and the later crafting of Duncan's murder, which is not even seen, is one of the most unforgettable in theater history. The passage above is an early, if fledgling, attempt to craft a theatrically dramatic history worthy of its significance. What we don't get in the final confrontation, which is actually refreshing and unlike later Shakespeare writing but typical of grand opera, are characters who deliver monologues after the fatal wound has been administered! It's one of the most absurd and over-the-top devices that audiences have apparently loved over the centuries.

[Marlin]

A good version of the above act, taken from The Age of Kings: Part 10: The Fall of the Protector BBC telecast of 1960 (with Mary Morris as Margaret and John May as York), can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9E9....

[Marlin]

I'm not sure how much time in the historical record had actually elapsed between the death of York at the end of Act I and the meeting of his three sons at the beginning of the following scene, which begins Act II, but Shakespeare obviously had to create some dramatic device which would deliver the audience from the dark abyss of the York slaughter and at the same time initiate Edward's rise to power and dominance. He, of course, chose to introduce the occurrence of a sun dog or parhelion which graced the historical Battle of Mortimer's Cross at this point in the play just before the sons receive the news of their father's demise:


EDWARD
Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?
RICHARD
Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun,
Not separated with the racking clouds
But severed in a pale clear-shining sky.
See, see, they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
As if they vowed some league inviolable.
Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun;
In this, the heaven figures some event.
EDWARD
’Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.
I think it cites us, brother, to the field,
That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,
Each one already blazing by our meeds,
Should notwithstanding join our lights together
And overshine the earth, as this the world.
Whate’er it bodes, henceforward will I bear
Upon my target three fair shining suns.
II. i, 25-40

The historical battle is jettisoned for the recounting of the fall of York and a summoning of forces to revenge his death. At first it seemed curious to me that the audience would need to relive what we just witnessed but I suppose a Yorkist perspective was needed to preclude what might have been an anticlimax after the fall of a character who was, for a great part of the trilogy, the chief antagonist to Henry. The scene, in doing so, shifts the momentum and tone of the trilogy. It is now fated toward the Yorkist Edward. As I alluded to at the end of the Part 2 discussion, Part 3, in effect, would seem to be Shakespeare's Edward IV play; however, Henry and the Lancastrians are all still very much alive, will seemingly fight to the death under Margaret and display the type of fierceness which really spoils any notion of an encompassing Edward IV influence. And it's strangely the case despite the fact that (historically) Edward never lost a military battle. Also, as I mentioned at the outset, Edward is so slenderly drawn as a character, particularly in deference to his ruthless brother, Richard, that I'm not sure if Shakespeare was ever interested in extolling the glory of Edward's reign.

[Tim]

York:
She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of
France,
Whose tongue more poisons than the adder’s tooth:
How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex
To triumph like an Amazonian trull
I.iv,65-6
Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible;
Thou, stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.
I.iv, 141-142

Only use of She-wolf in Shakespeare. Very heavy on misogyny but I guess it's a macho world where you fight for your life. Joan is an exception although in real life she carried a banner rather than a sword.
As to opera I think Wagner would be good. He was great admirer of Shakespeare. His early opera Das Liebesverbot is a cut down version of Measure for Measure.

[Marlin]

Tim wrote: ". As to opera I think Wagner would be good. He was great admirer of Shakespeare. His early opera Das Liebesverbot is a cut down version of Measure for Measure. ”

Ha, Wagner is an interesting choice, but isn’t his specialty the often inimical relationship between Gods and mortals? His music always struck me as rather “elemental” or primal on a universal scale where Shakespeare keeps the business of kings solidly on earth and decidedly domestic. Just an initial impression. I’ll have to listen to Das Liebesverbot as Measure is among my favorite Shakespeare plays. Thanks!

[Tim]

Wagner wrote Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg a singing contest in a small town. Tristan und Isolde a tragic love opera.
In the Ring, Wotan and Albrich struggle to gain power by possession of the Ring like the characters in Henry VI plays want the Crown.
Das Liebesverbot is one of the lesser operas with few performances.

[Marlin]

Aren't those eternal themes of immortal love and the hero's quest; archetypal themes in art and mythology on which people like Joseph Campbell elaborated? Shakespeare certainly touched on them, too, but his domain seems far more tactile and local. Wagner seems to pitch everything up and outward. Shakespeare goes more and more inward as he writes. But I'm no Wagner expert and will have to take your word on his "lesser" works.

Re: Henry VI, Part.3 II.i

I was thinking how strange it is that Clarence does not make an appearance, especially in light of Edward's vision and subsequent analogy of the three suns/sons of York. The historical records says that Edward proclaimed it before his victory at Mortimer's Cross yet Shakespeare deliberately leaves out Clarence in the brothers' observation and renewed inspiration. Clarence, thus far, has certainly made a less-than-favorable reputation vacillating between the wishes of Warwick and loyalty to his immediate blood line but you never get the impression that he was ever privy to Edward's vision although he does return to the fold in the end. His absence from the scene and Richard's inclusion (did the newly made Duke of Gloucester actually participate in the battle?) seems to be another step in the eventual ascension of Richard over the obvious leadership of Edward.

Warwick, of course, believes not only that he's a king-maker but that he is - in effect - king by presumably taking charge of the political affairs of the fatherless York brothers. He deferred to the elder York during earlier in the trilogy but will brook no direction from his heirs, apparently.

[Tim]

I was looking through Frank Kermode Shakespeare's Language (p. 29). Penguin Books Ltd. The play "shows a systematic simile production".

CLIFFORD
My gracious liege, this too much lenity
And harmful pity must be laid aside.
To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?
Not to the beast that would usurp their den.
Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?
Not his that spoils her young before her face.
Who scapes the lurking serpent’s mortal sting?
Not he that sets his foot upon her back.
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on,
And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.
Ambitious York did level at thy crown,
Thou smiling while he knit his angry brows.
He, but a duke, would have his son a king
And raise his issue like a loving sire;
Thou being a king, blest with a goodly son,
Didst yield consent to disinherit him,
Which argued thee a most unloving father.
Unreasonable creatures feed their young;
And though man’s face be fearful to their eyes,
Yet in protection of their tender ones,
Who hath not seen them, even with those wings
Which sometime they have used with fearful flight,
Make war with him that climbed unto their nest,
Offering their own lives in their young’s defense?
For shame, my liege, make them your precedent.
Were it not pity that this goodly boy
Should lose his birthright by his father’s fault,
And long hereafter say unto his child
“What my great-grandfather and grandsire got,
My careless father fondly gave away”?
Ah, what a shame were this! Look on the boy,
And let his manly face, which promiseth
Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart
To hold thine own and leave thine own with him.
II.ii.9ff.

Aphora, the rhetorical use of repetition, there is Warwick’s complaint to King Edward:
Alas, how should you govern any kingdom,
That know not how to use embassadors,
Nor how to be contented with one wife,
Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,
Nor how to study for the people’s welfare,
Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies? (IV.iii.35–40)

The play seems more like a poem with elaborate speeches. Characters more like orators. I thought Frank Kermode Shakespeare's Language was insightful.

[Marlin]

Tim wrote: "The play seems more like a poem with elaborate speeches. Characters more like orators. I thought Frank Kermode Shakespeare's Language was insightful."

Agreed! And as I've mentioned earlier, the characters with the most agency (or influence) seem to be those with the most persuasive rhetorical gifts. But this is a portrait that Shakespeare would have us believe, not necessarily the historical one. This "systematic simile production" as Kermode puts it has its apotheosis with Richard (of Gloucester), ultimately the most effective agent in the third part with, according to W.H. Auden, Shakespeare's first great soliloquy:

RICHARD
Why, then, I do but dream on sovereignty
Like one that stands upon a promontory
And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
Wishing his foot were equal with his eye,
And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,
Saying he’ll lade it dry to have his way.
So do I wish the crown, being so far off,
And so I chide the means that keeps me from it,
And so, I say, I’ll cut the causes off,
Flattering me with impossibilities.
My eye’s too quick, my heart o’erweens too much,
Unless my hand and strength could equal them.
Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard,
What other pleasure can the world afford?
I’ll make my heaven in a lady’s lap
And deck my body in gay ornaments,
And ’witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
O miserable thought, and more unlikely
Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns!
Why, Love forswore me in my mother’s womb,
And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
She did corrupt frail Nature with some bribe
To shrink mine arm up like a withered shrub;
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits Deformity to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size;
To disproportion me in every part,
Like to a chaos, or an unlicked bear-whelp,
That carries no impression like the dam.
And am I then a man to be beloved?
O monstrous fault to harbor such a thought!
Then, since this Earth affords no joy to me
But to command, to check, to o’erbear such
As are of better person than myself,
I’ll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,
And, whiles I live, t’ account this world but hell
Until my misshaped trunk that bears this head
Be round impalèd with a glorious crown.
And yet I know not how to get the crown,
For many lives stand between me and home;
And I, like one lost in a thorny wood,
That rents the thorns and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way and straying from the way,
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out,
Torment myself to catch the English crown.
And from that torment I will free myself
Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry “Content” to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
I’ll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
I can add colors to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down.
He exits.
III. ii, 134-197

I do wish we had more language from the Duke of Clarence (the last royal to possess the tile, btw), however; other than essentially providing "yes man" responses. He's a middle brother - and middle siblings are often the most wrangled souls. Perhaps if Shakespeare tackled this play in the latter half of his career we might have a more interesting offering than this (his most extended speech):

CLARENCE
Look, here I throw my infamy at thee.
He throws the rose at Warwick.
I will not ruinate my father’s house,
Who gave his blood to lime the stones together
And set up Lancaster. Why, trowest thou, Warwick,
That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,
To bend the fatal instruments of war
Against his brother and his lawful king?
Perhaps thou wilt object my holy oath.
To keep that oath were more impiety
Than Jephthah when he sacrificed his daughter.
I am so sorry for my trespass made
That, to deserve well at my brother’s hands,
I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe,
With resolution, wheresoe’er I meet thee—
As I will meet thee if thou stir abroad—
To plague thee for thy foul misleading me.
And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee
And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.—
Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends.—
And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,
For I will henceforth be no more unconstant.
V. i, 83-103

Unlike the passages from Clifford and Richard above, Clarence fails to extend his similes, particularly of Jephthah's blind promise to God, though it's an interesting one; especially the suggestion of illegitimacy on his (and, bibically, of Jephthah's - son of a prostitute) maternal line. It's a subtle Shakespeare touch and certainly a creative prerogative. But effective politicians/leaders rarely highlight their faults as Clarence does. And as the play is already littered with opportunists of every ilk Shakespeare may have just resolved to make quick work of one of the most historically ineffective royals.

[Marlin]

A bit more on the “second person”, George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence:



Two nice looks at the ill-fated Duke by popular historian, David Starkey (a brief summary followed by a deeper analysis):

https://youtu.be/3W5gONr_R1Y?si=4r9ib...

https://youtu.be/eFErdgxBvAA?si=2d0Ia...

[Marlin]

King Henry probably evokes the most compassion for the audience in this 3rd part if only because we're witnessed to events that his pacifism tried to prevent in the earlier plays. Particularly effective is this passage in II. v, where Henry encounters two sets of fathers and sons who have, in the heat of armed conflict, unwittingly killed their loved ones:

KING HENRY
Woe above woe, grief more than common grief!
O, that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!
O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!
The red rose and the white are on his face,
The fatal colors of our striving houses;
The one his purple blood right well resembles,
The other his pale cheeks methinks presenteth.
Wither one rose and let the other flourish;
If you contend, a thousand lives must wither.
SON
How will my mother for a father’s death
Take on with me and ne’er be satisfied!
FATHER
How will my wife for slaughter of my son
Shed seas of tears and ne’er be satisfied!
KING HENRY
How will the country for these woeful chances
Misthink the King and not be satisfied!
SON
Was ever son so rued a father’s death?
FATHER
Was ever father so bemoaned his son?
KING HENRY
Was ever king so grieved for subjects’ woe?
Much is your sorrow, mine ten times so much.
SON
I’ll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.
He exits, bearing the body.
FATHER
These arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet;
My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulcher,
For from my heart thine image ne’er shall go.
My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;
And so obsequious will thy father be
E’en for the loss of thee, having no more,
As Priam was for all his valiant sons.
I’ll bear thee hence, and let them fight that will,
For I have murdered where I should not kill.
He exits, bearing the body.
KING HENRY
Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care,
Here sits a king more woeful than you are.
II. v, 94-124

If there is any section of the play that would be served well by being set to music it's this passage. Shakespeare will employ this device of repeated lines with slight variation again in Richard III with the scene involving the grieving queens. On one hand it emphasizes the pathos in the situation and, on the other, it's a bit of a rhetorical showpiece; a revel in the lament for lament's sake. To my mind it would seem to be perfect for opera where the musicality of the language is deliberately emphasized without the appearance of "excess".

Earlier in the scene Henry has a soliloquy that is probably the most fitting self-portrait of his character and, why, if he elicits sympathy at all, it's here in the unfortunate predicament of personality and place:

KING HENRY
This battle fares like to the morning’s war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind;
Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind.
Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;
Now one the better, then another best,
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conquerèd.
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
He sits on a small prominence.
To whom God will, there be the victory;
For Margaret my queen and Clifford too
Have chid me from the battle, swearing both
They prosper best of all when I am thence.
Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so,
For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! Methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain,
To sit upon a hill as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many makes the hour full complete,
How many hours brings about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times:
So many hours must I tend my flock,
So many hours must I take my rest,
So many hours must I contemplate,
So many hours must I sport myself,
So many days my ewes have been with young,
So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean,
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece;
So minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Passed over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this! How sweet, how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep
Than doth a rich embroidered canopy
To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?
O yes, it doth, a thousandfold it doth.
And to conclude, the shepherd’s homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince’s delicates—
His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
His body couchèd in a curious bed—
When care, mistrust, and treason waits on him.
II. v, 1-55

It's his compassion for the ordinary man which elicits our compassion. And it's in this where Henry is ultimately a leader, not among the martial or political arts. His failure becomes the failure of the world around him to live up to that measure. In fact, no other character in the play (that I can think of at the moment) demonstrates a smidgen of this kind of compassion, which makes the play that darker.

[Tim]

Both York and King Henry end up on a molehill. Perhaps symbolic of the futility of fighting when the price is so high in people.

(York is overcome.)
NORTHUMBERLAND to Queen Margaret
What would your Grace have done unto him now?
QUEEN MARGARET
Brave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,
Come, make him stand upon this molehill here
That raught at mountains with outstretchèd arms,
Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.
I.iv, 65-9

KING HENRY
This battle fares like to the morning’s war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea
Forced by the tide to combat with the wind;
Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea
Forced to retire by fury of the wind.
Sometime the flood prevails, and then the wind;
Now one the better, then another best,
Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
Yet neither conqueror nor conquerèd.
So is the equal poise of this fell war.
Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
II. v, 1-14

[Marlin]

Good point, Tim; and though a molehill isn’t explicitly stated as the place where Warwick ends his life (judging from Edward’s reference of him it might as easily be a dung-hill!) its description is equally as common:

Enter ⌜King⌝ Edward,
⌜wearing the white rose,⌝ bringing forth Warwick,
⌜wearing the red rose,⌝ wounded.
KING EDWARD
So, lie thou there. Die thou, and die our fear,
For Warwick was a bug that feared us all.
Now, Montague, sit fast. I seek for thee,
That Warwick’s bones may keep thine company.
He exits.

WARWICK
Ah, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe,
And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?
Why ask I that? My mangled body shows,
My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows
That I must yield my body to the earth
And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.
Thus yields the cedar to the axe’s edge,
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept,
Whose top branch overpeered Jove’s spreading tree
And kept low shrubs from winter’s pow’rful wind.
These eyes, that now are dimmed with death’s black
veil,
Have been as piercing as the midday sun
To search the secret treasons of the world.
The wrinkles in my brows, now filled with blood,
Were likened oft to kingly sepulchers,
For who lived king but I could dig his grave?
And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?
Lo, now my glory smeared in dust and blood!
My parks, my walks, my manors that I had
Even now forsake me; and of all my lands
Is nothing left me but my body’s length.
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
And live we how we can, yet die we must.
V. II, 1-29

[Marlin]

Some final thoughts on the conclusion of Part 3 before the month ends:

I wonder to what extent John Milton found inspiration for Satan in his epic poem, Paradise Lost, from Shakespeare's portrait of Richard III. If you compare the tail end of the Henry VI, Act 5 assassination passage and subsequent emergence of Richard in his full malevolence with the passage from Book 1 in Paradise Lost, the theme of a kind of remorseless singlemindedness of character is starkly similar:

KING HENRY
The owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign;
The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;
Dogs howled, and hideous tempest shook down trees;
The raven rooked her on the chimney’s top;
And chatt’ring pies in dismal discords sung;
Thy mother felt more than a mother’s pain,
And yet brought forth less than a mother’s hope:
To wit, an indigested and deformèd lump,
Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.
Teeth hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born
To signify thou cam’st to bite the world.
And if the rest be true which I have heard,
Thou cam’st—
RICHARD
I’ll hear no more. Die, prophet, in thy speech;
Stabs him.
For this amongst the rest was I ordained.
KING HENRY
Ay, and for much more slaughter after this.
O God, forgive my sins, and pardon thee.
Dies.
RICHARD
What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.
See how my sword weeps for the poor king’s death.
O, may such purple tears be always shed
From those that wish the downfall of our house.
If any spark of life be yet remaining,
Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither—
Stabs him again.
I that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
Indeed, ’tis true that Henry told me of,
For I have often heard my mother say
I came into the world with my legs forward.
Had I not reason, think you, to make haste
And seek their ruin that usurped our right?
The midwife wondered, and the women cried
“O Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!”
And so I was, which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,
Let hell make crook’d my mind to answer it.
I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word “love,” which graybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another
And not in me. I am myself alone.
V. vi, 45-84

Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.
Paradise Lost, Book 1, 228-242

Shakespeare's Richard could just have easily recited this after the murder of Henry and it would fit amazingly well; Henry assuming the God-like figure and Richard, of course, the ultimate abominator-murderer of Heaven's creator. But more apt is the description of their minds, which are both set to be singularly uninfluenced. This psychology would find an apotheosis with Shakespeare in his Iago; a character of absolute malevolence as, unlike Richard, who harkens to an ominous birth and physical defects (which some may sight as "excuses"), his evil is motiveless.

[Marlin]

It is patently clear, though, that with Richard, Shakespeare and his company planned a kind of serial version of English history for the masses. If they hadn't, I'm not sure we would have quite this version of Henry VI, or if we'd have it at all, though I suspect someone would have taken advantage of dramatizing The Wars of the Roses for popular consumption. Now, the extent to which this commercialization of history went into the crafting of Henry VI, or any subsequent Shakespeare play is the more interesting question for me. Perhaps it's impossible to really distinguish those aspects, particularly if part of a writer's explicit objective is to write for the purposes of profit. Writers are still doing that today. I suppose the hallmark of Shakespeare is that his work is able to rise above those practical concerns while serving them at once, not only in terms of box office but in the practical tool of rhetorical speech. This, Shakespeare gives the actor in spades - and as only someone who works every day in the theater can. It's one of the reasons why I can't abide the theories which claim anyone divorced from the realities of working in reparatory actually wrote the plays of Shakespeare. Thankfully, The Lord Chamberlain's Men weren't limited solely to a run of History Plays, particularly involving war, as they do have dramatic limitations despite their obvious popular draw. This play, especially the third part, has been so relentlessly dark that I found it hard to stay within it for long periods of time and often found myself reveling in the poetry at the expense of the proceedings. But I think that's deliberate, too. Shakespeare, in his genius, gives a little something for everyone to savor.

[Gabriel]

I agree with most of your reflections, Marlin, but I doubt Shakespeare planned a series from the word go. The first part of Henry VI (and I feel sure it was the first part despite a rather contorted theory that it was written later) was his first history play, and one of the first ever English history plays, so it wouldn't have been till after it proved a huge success, which it did, that he would have thought to make it a series. it is odd, admittedly, that part 3 is so vioelnt - much more so than part two - but so was Titus Andronicus, possibly his first Roman play, and remember he was only in his mid twenties when all this happened, so I think it's simply a case of a young man's sensationalism and as you say commercialism, before the other elements became prominent and he toned down the violence. By the time he got to Richard II - written several years later though historically earlier - he's almost deliberately anti-violent, in setting up what looks like it's going to be a bloody fight and then a war and then stopping them before they happen, as if to say 'that's what we did before, now let's think a bit deeper'.

[Marlin]

Gabriel wrote: "I agree with most of your reflections, Marlin, but I doubt Shakespeare planned a series from the word go..."

Ha, I didn't mean to imply that he did. It might have even been suggested to him by other members of his company after the success of the first part (writers are often loathed to revisit similar territory despite success). But, as you rightly point out, aside from the barbarity in Titus Shakespeare would refrain from displaying the kind of martial conflict we see in HVI on stage; even his Trojan War play, Troilus and Cressida, which features several battlefield scenes with renown historical warriors would be viewed through the interpretation of the wittier characters (Thersites, Pandarus, Ulysees). It's interesting that you bring up Richard II; in some ways Shakespeare's Henry VI is a kind of precursor to the ill-fated Richard II; both plays are dramatic historical records but also tragic in illustrating the fatal ineptitude of both titular characters. I suppose definitions ultimately fail in revealing the delight in the plays. Shakespeare was evidently (and obviously) unconcerned with literary convention with regard to his playwriting and the division of his work into genres didn't come until nearly a hundred years after the First Folio was published.