Wednesdays with Words: Villainy Nauseates

“Young though I am, I’ve been observing these three blowhards closely. I am “man”—which is to say, servant—to all three of them. Yet not one among them, if all three were to wait on me, could be my “man,” because three such fakes don’t amount to a man. Take Bardolph: he is cowardly and blustery. He acts tough, but he doesn’t fight. Pistol, meanwhile, has a lethal tongue but an inert sword. He destroys words but keeps his weapon in one piece. As for Nym, he’s heard men of valor are men of few words, so he refuses to pray lest he should be thought a coward. But he has as few good deeds as he has bad words—for he never cracked anyone’s head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything and call it spoils. Bardolph stole a lute case, carried it for thirty-six miles, and sold it for a penny and a half. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers in crime, and in Calais they stole a fire shovel: I could see from that that they had no pride. They would like me to be as familiar with men’s pockets as their gloves and handkerchiefs, which goes against my manhood, because to take something from another’s pocket and put it into my own is plain stealing. I must leave them and seek some better employment. Their villainy nauseates me, and I must therefore vomit it up.” Boy, King Henry V, Act III, Sc II William Shakespeare

We are reading, oh too slowly, Henry V during Whatchamacallit. We take parts and read a scene from tablets and books – taking multiple parts when necessary. The kids are way better at it than I am; in particular they differentiate characters if they have more than one part, while I just read it. Not very dramatic am I.

This little monologue from Boy struck me as he diagnosed his elders with wisdom and clarity and refused to be part and parcel to their villainy. Oh that we could see as clearly as Boy and act on that sight.

I’m glad to be back to Wednesdays with Words. While it was a nice break over the summer; looking forward to everyone’s links 🙂

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