【解读】亨利五世2 角色和问题：历史、英雄主义、悬而未决的结局

Henry V -- Part 2 -- History, Heroism, and Unresolved Endings

亨利五世——第2部分——历史、英雄主义、悬而未决的结局

At the end of our first episode, we noticed a strange turn that occurs at the end of Henry V. The Chorus, which has been speaking in celebratory tones throughout the play, introduces a jarring new note in the last six lines: “Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crowned king … lost France and made his England bleed.” After an entire play devoted to showing the work of conquering France and ostensibly celebrating that achievement, we learn in a single line that all this work was for nothing. It might seem strange that Shakespeare would change course so abruptly at the end of his story -- unless we remember that this isn’t Shakespeare’s story and this isn’t really the end. Henry V’s campaign in France is just one chapter in the ongoing processes of history, and history shapes the structure of Shakespeare’s play and the challenges faced by its protagonist. We address these issues with Stephen Foley, associate professor of English and Comparative Literature at Brown University.

上集节目结束时，我们提到《亨利五世》结尾处出现了一个古怪的转折。因为在整部剧中，歌队的语气一直都很欢乐喜庆，但最后的六句台词却隐约带着一丝不和谐的音符，歌队说：“亨利六世年岁尚小......失去了法兰西，又使得英格兰血流满地。”在此之前，所有剧情都在讲述亨利五世征服法国的过程，热情地歌颂了亨利五世的丰功伟业。可最后的这几句台词却一改之前的口吻，对观众们说这一切辉煌成就最终都将烟消云散。莎士比亚在故事结尾处留下这个转折似乎很突兀，但我们不能忘了，这样的转变并不是莎士比亚设计的剧情，而是真实的历史事实。亨利五世对法国的征服不过是滔滔历史长河中的一小段插曲。决定戏剧走向的是历史，历史的发展决定了主角要面对哪些挑战。本集节目，我们将继续对话布朗大学英语文学和比较文学副教授史蒂芬·福利，与他一同探寻思考这些话题。

Stephen Foley: You think about the title of Shakespeare's English history plays, which is the name of the king. The title foregrounds the premise of the plays, which is the uncertainty of succession, the uncertainty of sustaining power. So just reading the titles of the plays in order -- Henry the Fourth, Henry the Fifth, Henry the Sixth -- is to rehearse a litany of royal failure. Power can never be sustained. So I think that the question that we need to bring to bear here is, is really to understand the importance of the problems of succession: how does one king succeed another? By inheritance, by just inheritance, by cheating, by murder, by war, by by treachery? It’s important to understand the political importance of succession as a form.

史蒂芬·福利：莎士比亚系列历史剧改编自英国历史，剧名全都是国王的名号。从标题上，我们可以清晰地看出这些历史剧的背景，那就是王位的继承极具不确定性，权力的维系也充满了不确定因素。我们按顺序读一下这几部剧的标题：《亨利四世》《亨利五世》《亨利六世》，这种感觉就像是在干巴巴地讲述着一段王朝衰落的历史。权力不可能永远维系。在此，我们需要思考与王位继承相关的各类问题的重要性：王位是如何继承的？是通过世袭吗？王位只能通过世袭继承吗？是否可以通过欺诈的手段夺取王位？或者通过谋杀？战争？或者叛变？了解王位继承的政治影响很重要。

In a sense, Henry V succeeded to the throne in the most traditional, legitimate way: he was the eldest son of the last king, Henry IV, and he inherited the throne when his father died. But his father didn’t attain the throne by inheritance. It was by something closer to treachery and murder.

亨利五世以最传统、最合法的方式继承了王位。作为亨利四世的长子，他在父亲去世后世袭了王位。然而他的父亲亨利四世登上王位的过程却并不怎么光彩，他背叛了之前的国王理查二世，并将他谋杀。

Stephen Foley: In the background of the Henry plays is always the forced deposition of Richard II by Henry's father. He acquired the crown by taking advantage of Richard's lack of skills as a politician, so Henry Bolingbroke was able to manipulate the factions within the court and really force Richard's abdication. What exactly happens to cause Richard's death is more ambiguous, but the speech of penitence that I just referred to, it makes it clear that in Henry's mind, there is a great deal of guilt attached to his father.

史蒂芬·福利：莎士比亚讲述亨利父子的系列历史剧中，亨利四世逼迫理查二世交出了王位。理查二世不擅长治国理政，于是亨利四世便利用这一点夺走了他头上的王冠。理查二世在位时，亨利·伯林布鲁克玩弄权术，在宫廷中拉帮结派，最终把理查二世赶下了王位。历史并没有明确记载理查二世的真正死因。但在上集节目，我们从亨利五世在阿金库尔战役前夜的忏悔中可以清楚地感受到，亨利五世一直认为自己的父亲亨利四世与理查二世的死脱不了干系。

The night before Agincourt, Henry prays, “O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts. / Possess them not with fear … Not today, O Lord / O, not today, think not upon the fault / My father made in compassing the crown.” Henry fears that he may be punished for what his father did years ago -- and that this punishment may also fall upon the men he has led into battle. Ultimately Henry wins his war. But he might never have gone to war if his father’s “fault” hadn’t made it so urgent that he prove himself a true king through conquest. Shakespeare’s account of history recognizes that a person’s choices in the present are always shaped and constrained by the past.

阿金库尔战役前夜，亨利五世祈祷说：“啊，战神呀！让我的士兵们的心变得如同钢铁一样坚强，别让他们感到任何恐惧！......神明呀，请不要在今日，对我父王在篡夺王位所犯下的罪行进行追究！”亨利害怕神明会因为自己父亲数年前犯下的罪行而惩罚自己和那些追寻自己奔赴战场的将士。亨利最终赢得了战争的胜利。但要不是因为他父亲当年犯下的“罪行”，他也不需要这么急切地渴望通过征战去证明自己一国之君的身份和地位。莎士比亚在讲述历史时，很重视过往经历对个人当下选择的影响和制约。

Stephen Foley: I think like all of the history plays, it focuses on problems of agency and historical determination, the limits of individual responsibility when one doesn't control all of the forces around one's action. So in particular, because this focuses on leadership and obedience in a time of war, I think there's a particularly tight focus on the tragic limits of freedom. I think the play is asking, What are the limits of the individual and the state in light of the givens, the facts of history?

史蒂芬·福利：和其他所有的历史剧一样，这部剧都很关注历史的影响和决定作用，它关注个人无法掌控围绕自身行为的所有力量时，个人责任的有限性。而这部剧重点在于战争时期的领袖才能和忠诚服从，所以它批判了带着悲剧色彩的自由。戏剧在向我们发问，问我们：在历史面前，个人和国家的局限性有哪些？

The limits imposed by history are made even clearer when we see this play as one of a series. Shakespeare wrote two four-part series of history plays, called tetralogies. The first tetralogy, written in the early 1590s, dramatizes the Wars of the Roses, in the reigns of King Henry VI and Richard III. Shakespeare wrote a second tetralogy in the late 1590s, telling the stories of Richard II, Richard’s deposition by Henry IV, the civil wars waged against Henry IV by his former supporters, and then the story of Henry V. Henry V inherits the tensions and conflicts of those earlier regimes, and that’s partly why he manifests such a conflicted character of his own.

如果我们将这部剧放到整个历史剧系列中去分析的话，那么历史所带来的局限性就更加明显了。莎士比亚共创作了两组四联剧，每组四联剧各包含四部历史剧。第一组四联剧创作于16世纪90年代早期，以玫瑰战争为背景，讲述了亨利六世和理查三世的统治。第二组四联剧创作于16世纪90年代晚期，讲述了理查二世的统治、亨利四世逼迫理查二世交出王位、亨利四世曾经的追随着针对他而发动的内战，以及他的儿子亨利五世的故事。亨利五世不仅继承了王位，同时也继承了之前政权交替中所产生的紧张和冲突，这在一定程度上也影响了亨利五世的性格，让他的性格中充满了矛盾和冲突。

Stephen Foley: Each of the tetralogies ends with a deeply enigmatic king. Each of the two sequences ends with the audience leaving the theater of history, recognizing what has happened, but also recognizing that you'll never fully understand the motives and the many forces that determine the outcome. The two tetralogies leave us with a sense of mystery.

史蒂芬·福利：每组四联剧都以某位君主的登基收尾，而这几位君主都充满了神秘色彩。当观众看完四联剧的演出，走出那再现了历史的剧院时，他们都知道发生了什么，但同时也认识到人们永远也不可能完全了解引发当前这个结局的动机和推力。这两组四联剧都给我们留下了捉摸不透的神秘感。

The performance history of Henry V has proved what a mystery this figure really is. In productions over the last four centuries, the role of Henry has been played in many different ways: as an ideal king; a larger-than-life national hero; a power-hungry thug; a weary, aging, paranoid politician; a ruthless but sympathetically human military leader; a sincerely religious, idealistic man wrestling with his own self-doubt; a cold, cruel, and calculating Machiavellian who is always performing a role; a troubled, thoughtful youth maturing from the wild Prince Hal into the responsible King Henry. All of these interpretations emerge out of different elements within Shakespeare’s text. So each time a director or performer or audience member comes to this play, they are faced with the question: who is Henry V?

《亨利五世》的演出历史也向我们证明了亨利五世身上的神秘色彩。四百多年来，不同戏剧对于亨利有着各不相同的演绎。有时，他是一位明君、是一位传奇的民族英雄；但有时，他又变成了一个渴望权力的恶棍、一个惹人厌烦年迈偏执的政客、一个既无情但又令人同情的普通军事领袖。有的表演把他刻画成了一个虔诚的宗教理想主义者，他不断地与自我怀疑作斗争；有的演出又把他塑造成了一个冷酷无情、精于算计的马基雅弗利主义者，他可以为了目的不择手段；还有一些演出，会重点呈现年少轻狂的哈尔王子是如何一步步成长，最终变成了一位有责任、有担当的亨利王。这一切的解读都有文字做依据，原版的莎剧台词就包含了以上所有各不相同的元素。所以，每当一位导演、一位演员、一位观众接触这部戏剧的时候，他们都面临着同一个问题，他们需要思考：哪一个才是真正的亨利五世？

Stephen Foley: So the uncertain center of this play is Henry, who remains, I think, an enigma. I think one could make a division in the history of interpretation between what several scholars have called, Hal lovers and Hal haters, and I think that's a false dichotomy. I think you have to be able to see Henry V through both lenses and to live with the contradictions. He appears at one moment to be full of life and moral energy, whether he's leading the troops or privately meditating on the conscience of a king. And at the next moment, he may seem to be cold or a mere shell of a man who's mouthing implausible or inconsistent certainties, a pure performer, for better or for worse.

史蒂芬·福利：这部剧的所有不确定全都源自亨利本人，甚至到今天，我们依旧无法完全看透他。一部分人完全支持他，另一部分人则完全相反。但我认为这种绝对两分法并不科学。因为，我们需要结合这两个方面才能全面解读亨利五世，我们需要看到他身上的矛盾和对立。有的时候，他体现着满满的生机与活力，不论是带兵打仗，还是独自沉思国王的责任时。但下一秒，他也许就会变得冷酷无情，披着人形躯壳，说着一些自相矛盾的离谱话语，仿佛是一个纯粹的演员。

Stephen Foley: The whole sequence of actions in the play is carefully orchestrated to display Henry's skill as a monarch, but also to suggest that he must be operating with a certain coldness, a certain necessary coldness, that may give us the impression that he is a mere Machiavel.

史蒂芬·福利：莎士比亚精心设计了一系列剧情，以展现亨利的治国之才，但同时也暗示在治理国家时，他必须保持一定的冷酷无情，这就让我们感觉他是一个只会玩弄权术、认同“政治没有 道德”的君主。

From the very first scenes, we’re presented with radically different ways of interpreting Henry’s character. And these scenes are especially important, because everything Henry does later during the war in France will be colored by our view of the war itself. The first scenes foreground the question of whether the war is justified - and they make it very difficult to know the answer.

最开始的几场戏从不同角度对亨利的性格特点进行解读。这几场戏特别重要，因为亨利之后在对法战争中所作的一切都会受到我们的战争视角的影响。最开始的这几场戏主要关注一个问题，那就是亨利的对法战争是否正义？而这几场戏又让这个问题变得特别难以回答。

Stephen Foley: Henry asks Canterbury to tell us why “the law Salic, which they have in France / Or should or should not bar us in our claim.” And I'm interested in the precision of the oppositional rhetoric “or should or should not,” because to me, it indicates that Henry has very logically gone through the processes of reasoning and reached his own conclusion and is now inviting Canterbury to fill in the blanks for him. So we see him both as a wise prince contemplating war, but we also see him staging a kind of proof that he doesn't want to deliver on his own, passing that responsibility on to others.

史蒂芬·福利：亨利向坎特伯雷主教求询问，他的“继承权是不是应该被法兰西奉行的‘舍拉继承法’所剥夺”。我觉得这句话中“是不是应该（or should or should not）”这个对立性修辞用得十分精准到位。我认为，这个表达其实在暗示我们亨利对这个问题早就仔细思考过了，也已经有了自己的结论，此刻他只是来向坎特伯雷主教请教，请他为自己把余下的空白填补完整。所以，戏剧所呈现的不仅是一位聪颖智慧的君主在对战争进行思考，还展现了亨利是如何通过他人来传递自己不方便说出口的内容，他将解释和证明的任务交给了别人。

Stephen Foley: It’s possible to see Henry both as earnestly contemplating the morality of war, or you can see him at the same time as staging this all for the benefit of a decision that's been made beforehand. It's important to be able to see it through both lenses. And again, this goes to what I call the uncertainty principle in this play. We're never going to know whether we're being had or we're being persuaded. And that's the tragic uncertainty that this play invites us to live with.

史蒂芬·福利：从这段对话中，我们既可以把亨利看作是一位在认真思考战争道德问题的君主，同时也可以把他视为一个惺惺作态、为了实现自己早已做下的决定而故作姿态的政治家。从这两个角度去全面理解亨利很重要。这也再次展现了我之前提到的这部戏剧的不确定原则。我们永远猜不到自己会遇到怎样的故事，也无法预知自己会被说服去相信哪些观点。而这就是这部剧邀请我们去包容、去接受的那具有悲剧色彩的不确定性。

Stephen Foley: So it's a test of our judgment and the limits of our judgment. I think we never get to know Henry with certainty. And that's something that we as participants in history have to accept.

史蒂芬·福利：这是在考验我们的判断力，在测试我们判断力的局限。我认为对亨利下明确的定义是根本不可能的。我们作为历史的参与者不得不接受这一点。

Stephen Foley: But I think the play insists upon seeing Henry's strength as a leader as following from the necessities of his situation, and not to see his coldness or his manipulativeness merely as a product of some character flaw, but as a product of the structure in which he's operating. I like to get away from that either/or view of Henry towards seeing a Henry who operates within the necessary constraints of what it means to be a king.

史蒂芬·福利：这部剧从亨利的处境出发，着重刻画他的领袖才能，戏剧并没有单纯地把他的冷酷城府看作是某种性格缺陷，而是将它们描绘成了他所处制度结构的产物。对于亨利，我不赞成那种非此即彼、非黑即白的观点，我认为我们应该将他放在国王这个身份下进行解读，他的所作所为都必然受到国王这个身份的制约。

Stephen Foley: I think that the play teaches us to admire Henry, but it never allows us to like him.

史蒂芬·福利：戏剧教我们学会尊敬钦佩亨利，但它绝不会让我们喜欢上这个角色。

The irony is that part of Henry’s strength as a leader lies in how he gets his men to like him -- in part, by persuading them that he is like them. Before the assaults at Harfleur and Agincourt, he delivers rousing speeches based on the theme of brotherhood. Their common cause, their fighting side by side, Henry claims, will unite them as one group and one family. He begins his rallying cry at Harfleur by addressing his soldiers as an intimate, unified band: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends.” He proclaims they all have “noble luster” in their eyes, apparently dissolving class distinctions of nobleman and commoner. Before Agincourt, the Chorus relates how Henry visits all his men & lifts their spirits, calling them “brothers, friends, and countrymen.” Just before the battle, he famously addresses his men as a “band of brothers.”

但讽刺的是，亨利的领导力有一部分偏偏就来自于他是如何让臣民部下喜欢上自己，换句话说，就是如何让那些人相信自己是深爱着他们的。在攻打哈弗勒尔之前、在阿金库尔战役开始前，他都做了振奋人心的演讲，演讲全都是围绕兄弟情谊展开的。亨利说，他们共同的事业、他们并肩作战的经历，将会把他们联合起来，团结成一个群体，凝聚一个家庭。在哈弗勒尔，亨利在那段鼓舞士气的演说时，把底下的将士称作为亲密团结的伙伴，他说：“好朋友们，继续努力，冲向缺口吧。”他宣称，所有将士们的眼中都迸发出了贵族般庄严的目光。他之所以这么所，很明显是为了消除贵族和平民之间的隔阂，想要拉近自己与士兵们的距离。在阿金库尔战役开始前，歌队也向我们讲述了亨利是如何慰问士兵、如何鼓舞士气的，亨利称那些士兵为“兄弟、朋友、同胞”。阿金库尔战役前夕，他在那段著名演讲中也称呼臣民们为“兄弟”。

In many ways, Henry’s rhetoric seems successful at winning his followers’ hearts. Pistol declares, “The King’s a heart of gold / a lad of life … I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heartstring I love the lovely bully.” The Welsh captain Fluellen tells Henry in familiar tones, “I am your Majesty’s countryman, I care not who know it / I will confess it to all the 'orld:...” But other moments remind us that Henry’s rhetorical strategy is based on unreliable premises.

从许多方面，亨利卓越的演说能力为他赢得了追随者们的忠心和诚意。毕斯托尔表示：“国王忠厚老实，他有一颗黄金般的心，是一个有见识、有名望的好人，......我亲吻他那布满泥泞的鞋子，我从心底里爱着这个宝贝。”威尔士上尉弗鲁爱林也用类似的口吻对亨利说：“我是圣上你的同乡，我不害怕此事传到别人的耳朵里，我倒肯向天下所有人宣扬此事呢。”但是，在其他的一些情节中，我们会发现亨利的演说效果的前提基础并不牢靠稳固。

Stephen Foley: In order to create unity among his troops, Henry tries to flatten the hierarchy of power that separates them. I think what makes us suspicious of his rhetoric is that we see the falseness of his trying to efface hierarchy and power with the claims of natural kinship. We see that he's in some ways deceiving his men in making them think that king and commoner fight the same battle when they don't. I don't think we stop to think about that because we're so swept away by a sentimental summons to togetherness, but as we step away from the speech, in the echo, I think we begin to question some of the premises which we had just accepted so readily.

史蒂芬·福利：为了让军队团结一致，亨利试图抹平自己和部下之间的权力阶级界线。我们之所以会怀疑他的演说，是因为我们看到了他试图通过宣扬自然亲属关系来消除等级制度和权力这个行为的虚伪。我们会发现，亨利利用欺骗性的话语，让臣民们在产生怀疑的时候相信，国王和自己是站在同一条战线上的。我认为我们在当下的情境中，很难会停下来去思考这个问题，因为我们已经被这煽情的、呼吁团结的话语冲昏了头脑。但当我们从他的演讲脱离出来，认真回想时，就会开始质疑一些刚刚不假思索便轻易接受的前提。

Henry’s unifying rhetoric of brotherhood is particularly undercut by the issue of ransom. Henry objects strongly whenever the French herald comes to ask for ransom, and he almost comes to blows with the soldier Williams when the latter suggests the king might be ransomed. The issue likely makes Henry so angry because the option for ransom insistently contradicts his inspiring claims about brotherhood and unity. Henry’s rhetoric attempts to dissolve or make invisible the divisions of hierarchy and rank; but ransom makes all those divisions starkly visible again.

亨利宣扬兄弟情谊，呼吁大家团结起来，但是在涉及到赎金这个话题时，他的演说不那么具备说服力了。当法国使者来要赎金时，亨利义正言辞地拒绝了。甚至在手下士兵威廉斯提出说国王应该付赎金时，他差点就和威廉斯起了冲突。赎金这个话题之所以会激怒亨利，是因为一旦选择交赎金就与他之前对兄弟情谊和团结的宣言背道而驰。他的演说是为了消弭隐去阶级和阶层的差异，但是赎金却又将这些差异全都暴露了出来。

Stephen Foley: When he meets real resistance from Williams about the differences between a king and a common person, it centers upon the question of ransom. If the English were to negotiate a peace treaty with the French and had been defeated, they could have used those negotiations to buy back their nobles as part of the terms of the peace treaty. The king, he’s asserting that the king would never allow himself to be ransomed. And Williams really takes objection to this because he says, ‘Well, a king can just say this and then what? Everybody else is dead. He can get ransomed.’ Yes, I mean, he does refuse ransom, and I think we can see him as genuinely sharing a bond of blood with his “band of brothers.” But Williams is an astute political scientist here, and he reminds us that that kind of sentimental reasoning really obscures the facts, which is that the king always can buy himself out.

史蒂芬·福利：在国王和平民的差异问题上，他遇到了来自威廉斯的阻力，导火线就是赎金问题。如果英国在法国商定了和平条约后战败，那么英国可以利用协议，按照约定的条款赎回他们贵族。但亨利坚持说，他不同意用赎金把自己赎回。但威廉斯对此并不赞同，他说：“啊，国王如此说话，是想为战士们打气，等敌人割断了我们的脖子，也许他便会为自己交出赎金，而我们对此却永远不知情。”是的，亨利确实拒绝拿赎金给敌人，我们也可以认为他和他的“同胞兄弟们”肝胆相照。但威廉斯也是个头脑清醒的政治学家，他提醒观众，亨利那看似合理的说辞模糊了一个事实，那就是国王总是有办法赎回自己的。

Stephen Foley: He always comes out on top, no matter what, that that hierarchy cannot be erased. And Henry simply won't live with this. And the quarrel comes to a head with the exchange of gloves. They agree to continue the quarrel at another time, and indeed they do. It shows that Henry is unwilling to let go of his will to control the behavior of his subjects. And to me, that's him at his most manipulative, in a petty way.

史蒂芬·福利：威廉斯表示国王位居所有人之上，阶级差异无论如何都是无法抹除的。亨利无法容忍这个说法。他和威廉斯之间的争吵不断升级，最后他们同意换个时间继续这场辩论。战争结束后，他们确实也再次见面了。从这里我们可以看出，亨利并不愿意放弃对部下臣民的掌控。在我看来，亨利十分善于在这类微小琐碎的地方操纵他人。

This encounter with Williams and his companions is a kind of personal crisis for Henry. When these men speculate that the king might surrender himself for ransom, and say they wish he were here in France alone, Henry is forced to recognize that not all his men worship him as a brave, heroic king. Henry would like to be an inspiring leader beloved by the common people, someone for whom they gladly fight. “Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King’s company,” the disguised Henry says, inviting the other soldiers to say the same - but they don’t. Not every soldier has been so won over by his words that they are happy to die for him in battle. His quest to “show [his] sail of greatness” and legitimate his crown has a high price for his subjects, and it’s not one they all pay willingly. This is a painful truth for Henry to confront.

遇见威廉斯和他的同伴们是亨利遭遇的一次个人危机。他们认为国王应该付赎金给法国，希望国王独自一人留在这里面对法国，听到这些亨利不得不承认，并不是所有的部下将自己视作一位英勇的国王。亨利希望成为一位深受平民爱戴的领导者，希望臣民们心甘情愿为自己战斗。他伪装成普通士兵，对他们说：“以我之见，我不管在何处牺牲了，也不会像和皇上共生死那样让我感动开心了。”他希望其他的战士也有同样的想法，但事实并不如他所愿。他的演说并没有说服所有人，并不是每一个士兵都乐意与他一同战死沙场。他希望“展示[他的]伟大之帆”，渴望证明合法拥有王位，但这个追求却需要臣民们冒极高的风险、付出极高的代价，并不是所有士兵都心甘情愿冒这个风险。这是亨利不得不接受的一个残酷真相。

The battle presents another kind of crisis. The tragic facts of war and death, which his heroic rhetoric often glossed over, become all too real at Agincourt. Until now, Henry has ordered his men to use mercy towards the French. But when the French rally their troops, Henry must choose between showing mercy towards the French prisoners and successfully repelling the attack.

接下来的战役，又给他带来了另一场危机。在阿金库尔战役中，战争和死亡如影随形，虽然亨利那些英勇无畏的演说粉饰了这些可怕的真相，但这一切却是不可能逃避的。即便战争开始，亨利也下令让部下们对法国展现仁慈。但法军集结作战队伍时，亨利不得不在对法国战俘展现仁慈和击退法军进攻这两件事情中作出选择。

Stephen Foley: The turning point in the Battle of Agincourt, when Henry recognizes that the French are about to begin a new assault, he instantly orders the murder of the prisoners. The murder of the prisoners, I think that is, in some ways, the moral crisis of the play. For me, this is the peak of the tragic arc of the play, when we in the audience recognized that the death of battle is inevitable. Once you resolve to go to war, that is the fact that you have to accept, that you will kill and be killed. So the tragic arc of this play doesn't belong to Henry's tragic recognition of his circumstances, but to the shared recognition that we have, in the audience, that once a monarch and people go to war, that this kind of suffering is inevitable.

史蒂芬·福利：亨利意识到法军即将发起新一轮攻势，于是他当机立断下令处死所有法国战俘，这是阿金库尔战役的转折点。从一定程度上看，处死战俘是剧中出现的一次道德危机。戏剧的悲剧曲线在这里达到了顶峰，我们意识到，在战争中，死亡是无法避免的。一旦你下定决心发动战争，那么你就必须接受杀人或被杀这个事实。所以，戏剧的悲剧顶峰不在于亨利对自身处境的悲剧性认知，而是我们所有人，包括台下的观众的共同认知，那就是我们认识到，只要君主和人民加入到战争中，那么大家就必须承受这类痛苦与折磨。

In its final act, the play asks if it is possible to find a kind of redemption after suffering and to escape the tragic arc of war. It looks for that redemption by attempting to transition from the genre of tragedy to romantic comedy. Henry’s last scene shows him proposing marriage.

在最后一幕，戏剧提出了一个问题，它问是否有可能在苦难之后找到救赎，是否可以避免战争的悲剧。戏剧试图改变流派以需求救赎，它试图从悲剧转变为浪漫爱情喜剧。亨利的最后一场戏上演得是他对法国公主凯瑟琳的追求。

Stephen Foley: The killing of the prisoners really punctuates our understanding of the heroic rhetoric of the Crispin’s Day speech, and it reminds us of the facts of war. And then, war concluded, Henry, having attempted to expiate his sins, to negotiate the peace, just as that arc of tragic loss is coalescing around a notion of returning to the peace, the play changes the subject to marriage.

史蒂芬·福利：杀死战俘呼应了亨利的克里斯宾节演说，它提醒我们不要忘记战争的残酷和可怕。接着，战争的结束，亨利试图忏悔自己的罪行，希望通过谈判维持和平。悲剧性的伤亡逐渐回归和平，戏剧主题也转到了爱情和婚姻上。

Stephen Foley: The last act of the play is a complete shift in tone and genre to a romantic courtship. And it kind of wrests the marriage from being part of the diplomatic treaty that Henry's negotiating with Charles into almost another zone of the theatre, into a romance.

史蒂芬·福利：最后一场戏的氛围与之前完全不同，它充满了爱情的浪漫和甜蜜。婚姻不只是亨利与法国国王查尔斯外交条约的一部分，而是变成了另一种戏剧流派，变成了一场爱情喜剧。

During the peace talks, the Duke of Burgundy delivers a moving speech asking why the “naked, poor, and mangled peace” may not return to France, whose once fertile fields lie “corrupting.” Henry replies that peace will return if the French King agrees to his demands -- including his demand to marry Princess Katherine. Because the next scene shows Henry wooing Katherine and (perhaps) winning her over, the play suggests that peace will indeed return, and the ravages of war be healed. “As man and wife, being two, are one in love,” says the French Queen, so too England and France may unite in “Christian-like accord.” But this happy ending seems a little shakier if we remember that Katherine likely accepts Henry as much out of necessity as of love. This was why she asked to learn English in the scene just after Henry’s forces conquered Harfleur: because she knew she might be obliged to marry Henry.

在和平谈判期间，勃艮第公爵说了一段感人至深的话，他问和平女神“为何要全身赤裸，任人摆布”，为何不能回到法兰西，同时他还感慨法兰西曾经富饶的土地如今已经全部腐烂了。亨利回应说，如果法国国王同意他的请求，那么和平终将回到法国，而迎娶凯瑟琳公主就是其中的一个请求。接下来的那场戏展现了亨利对凯瑟琳公主的追求，亨利最终也赢得了她的芳心，就此我们明白戏剧其实是在在告诉我们和平最终将回到法国，战争所造成的创伤也终会愈合。法国皇后说：“一对伴侣，因为彼此相爱，便团结在一起。”所以，英国和法国也将紧紧相连。但如果我们还记得之前的剧情，我们便知道凯瑟琳公主之所以接受亨利的求婚更多的是出于不得已而非爱情。那么，这个圆满美好的结局似乎又变得不那么坚定可靠了。亨利攻下哈弗勒尔时，凯瑟琳公主就请她的女仆爱丽丝教她说英语，因为她明白，自己最终必须嫁给亨利。

Stephen Foley: I think the language lesson between Katherine and Alice is one of the most fascinating scenes in Shakespeare. Is Katherine enjoying a certain agency here and thinking that she can conquer the English conqueror, or is she being victimized by her subject position as an available woman?

史蒂芬·福利：我觉得凯瑟琳公主和爱丽丝的那堂英语课是莎剧中最引人入胜的情节之一。凯瑟琳真的很喜欢学英语吗？她是不是认为自己可以征服这位来自英国的征服者？或者说她不过是个受害者，作为法国王室中的一位适龄女子不得已要嫁给征服自己国家的人？

Stephen Foley: The question of whether or not Henry's gruff courtship of Katherine represents yet another rapacious conquest, or a king having fun and wooing a saucy young bride, that's an ambiguity that really is unresolved in the play. And it's a fault line in the play that I don't think anybody has really fully unpacked, because it's the most severe collision of tragic understanding and comedic forgiveness. In a comedy, the marriage that closes the action is supposed to be a means of reconciling the differences that had prevented the marriage from taking place smoothly in the first place. But in this play, the joining of Katherine and Henry doesn't do anything to increase our understanding of what happens in war, or our forgiveness of it. It simply provides a distraction. It's almost like changing the subject, which returns in the Epilogue with the sad recognition that things took a turn for the worse. So you go from a moment of sort of comic celebration of the marriage, and pleasure and joy of sexuality, you go from that to the dead fact of utter loss, and the feelings and the genres, they don't gel, they’re left suspended.

史蒂芬·福利：亨利对凯瑟琳那漫不经心的追求所象征的是又一次贪婪的征服，还是一位国王寻欢作乐般地在追求一个俏皮的年轻女子？对此，戏剧并没有给出明确的答案。这段故事是戏剧一个割裂点，我觉得至今没有人能够完全地剖析这场戏，在这场戏中，悲剧性的理解和喜剧性的宽恕产生了激烈碰撞。喜剧往往以婚姻结尾，爱人的结合被看作是调解最初阻碍婚姻顺利实现的矛盾的一种方法。但在这部剧中，凯瑟琳公主和亨利的婚姻却并没有帮助我们更进一步地了解战争中的事情，也没有让我们原谅战争造成的苦难。这场婚姻仅仅只是转移了我们的注意力。就好像是戏剧突然换到了另一个话题，而到了收场白中，又回到了那种预示一切将会朝着糟糕方向发展的认知中。我们从对婚姻的欢乐庆祝中、从性的欢愉中，走入了一片衰败和没落。这两种情绪、这两种流派并没有相互融合，而是依旧相互割裂、相互孤立。

Stephen Foley: So the play celebrates Harry, England, and St. George, monarch and nation in triumph, and it does so very well, especially in the rousing rhetoric of the battle speeches that Henry produces. But it also puts us behind the scenes, and inside the mind and the feelings of the army, and the doubts that accompany resolve, and the coincidence of loyalty and betrayal, obedience and resistance. All this action swirls around the uncertain center of Henry's character, at once calculating and charming, reflective and superficial, caring and cold. The contradictory nature of King and nation are also signaled in the arcs of comedy and tragedy that traverse the action. The triumphant victory at Agincourt brings with it a recognition of war as tragic necessity, and the arbitrary shift from war to wooing represents a comic drive towards marriage and the promise of conflict resolve. But is it? Our final images of Henry are in the role of the gruff soldier trying to win the daughter of a former enemy, and then the play folds into its sorry epilogue, looking forward to the failure of Henry’s heroic conquests to sustain themselves in an English empire in France.

史蒂芬·福利：这部剧歌颂了哈利、英格兰和圣乔治，赞美了君主和国家的胜利。戏剧以震撼的文字描述了那些辉煌和荣耀，而亨利在战争时发表的那几段慷慨激昂的演讲尤其鼓舞人心。但同时，它也带我们走进历史，去了解士兵们的想法和感受，了解与他们的决心相随相伴的怀疑和顾虑，以及他们的内心忠诚和背叛的碰撞、服从和反抗的交叠。这一切都围绕着亨利性格中核心的不确定性而展开：亨利既工于心计，却又充满魅力，他既深沉又肤浅，他即体贴友善同时也冷酷无情。这是一国之君的矛盾特性，这也是一个国家的矛盾特性，这种矛盾还体现在贯穿全剧的喜剧和悲剧的相互交织中。阿金库尔战役的胜利让我们认识到了战争不可避免的悲剧性，而从战争到求婚这漫不经心的转折又似乎在推动戏剧往喜剧方向发展，同时也对解决冲突作出了承诺。但事实真的如此吗？在剧中，我们对于亨利最后的印象就是，这位士兵在以一种生硬的方式追求着他曾经敌人的女儿。接着戏剧来到了它那哀伤的收场白，收场白预言了亨利如今所取得的胜利最终将以失败收尾。

In the next episode, we’ll examine more of the play’s contradictions and ambiguities and see how they emerge even at the play’s most apparently confident and heroic moments: the Chorus’s bracing opening speech, and Henry’s rousing oration on St. Crispin’s Day. We’ll also hear how Henry has been shaped by his own history in his soliloquy before Agincourt.

下集节目，我们将进一步探究剧中的对立和分歧，看看这些矛盾是如何暴露在歌队那振奋人心的开场白、以及亨利的克里斯宾节演讲中的，这些桥段都是戏剧最自信、最英勇的片段。同时，我们还将欣赏亨利在阿金库尔战役前的那段独白，听听他本人讲述过往历史是如何塑造出了当时的自己。