.

Henry IV, Part I

In Henry IV Part 1 the king’s possessed
By fears that Harry Hotspur wants him dead.
While Henry’s son Prince Harry is obsessed
With drinking with his friends at the Boar’s Head.

The Hotspur Percys form a coalition
That stirs the country into civil war.
While Henry’s son’s peculiar disposition
Pokes fun at his friend Falstaff like a boor.

Prince Harry soon repents of his behavior
And promises to be a reformed lad.
At Shrewsbury he proves to be a savior
By killing Hotspur, rescuing his Dad.

But there is yet more treachery to settle
As further battles test Prince Harry’s mettle.

.

Henry IV Part II

In Henry IV, Part II, King Henry sends
His second son, Prince John to set things right.
At Gaultree Forest John only pretends
To promise peace and so avoid a fight.

But when the rebel army’s sent away
He takes and puts their nobles to the sword.
Both Henry’s sons have now each saved the day,
And peace in England’s now at last restored.

But Henry’s still concerned about his heir,
And chews him out in public face-to-face.
Prince Harry swears repentance then and there
The king then dies and Harry takes his place.

Old Falstaff’s sent away, but new alarms
Of French disputes call Henry V to arms.

.

Henry V

In Henry V the Stratford Avon Bard
Lifts Harry from the Boars Head tavern to
The English throne, where the new king is hard-
Pressed to decide exactly what to do.

He hangs three spies and sails off to France
To secure property he claims he’s due
The King of France fights back, and like a dance
The kings perform a deadly pas de deux.

Two former friends are hanged for petty theft,
While Henry tries to rally and exhort
His troops before his longbow archers deft-
Ly win the bloody war at Agincourt.

With victory and peace at Henry’s side
He takes the French King’s daughter as his bride.

.

Final Word

Will Shakespeare in Elizabethan verse
With eloquence this history intones.
So let us celebrate what he has done
While leaving what remains of him alone.
For on his Stratford grave he swears a curse
On anyone who dares to move his bones

Exeunt
&
Fin

.

.

James A. Tweedie is a retired pastor living in Long Beach, Washington. He has written and published six novels, one collection of short stories, and three collections of poetry including Mostly Sonnets, all with Dunecrest Press. His poems have been published nationally and internationally in The Lyric, Poetry Salzburg (Austria) Review, California Quarterly, Asses of Parnassus, Lighten Up Online, Better than Starbucks, Dwell Time, Light, Deronda Review, The Road Not Taken, Fevers of the Mind, Sparks of Calliope, Dancing Poetry, WestWard Quarterly, Society of Classical Poets, and The Chained Muse. He was honored with being chosen as the winner of the 2021 SCP International Poetry Competition.

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9 Responses

  1. Paul A. Freeman

    I did Henry IV, Part II for A Level, and virtually all I remember is ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.’ However, suddenly, with your second sonnet, it all comes back.

    As for Henry V, the Olivier version won an honorary Oscar in 1947 (my dad saw it when it came out at the cinema), and again, your summary brought it all back.

    As for Henry IV, Part I, I’m (Hot)spurred on to reading and seeing it now.

    Thanks for the summaries, James.

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Thanks, Paul. I wrote these just for fun as a gift for my English neighbor after he mentioned that two of these plays were required reading back in his student days. My self-challenge was to distill the gist of each play to 14 lines. The poetry isn’t great and hardly good, but to do it at all was at least some measure of success!

      Reply
  2. Margaret Coats

    I remember Henry IV Part I and Henry V (the latter especially memorable in the Olivier film, still inspiring so long after it was made in 1944 to inspire Britain for the invasion of German-occupied France). But I could not remember Part II, and therefore got down my Riverside Shakespeare. I did read it carefully enough to underline (very neatly) the best lines. One was Falstaff on Prince Hal’s repentance, “not in sackcloth and ashes, but in new silk and old sack.” You must have been on an enjoyable literary memory tour to write these, James. And it was a good idea to remind facial reconstructors and DNA experts to leave the Bard’s bones alone!

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Margaret,

      Thanks for the comment and the quote.

      King John & Henry VIII are my least favorite of the Bard’s histories. I wonder which you consider the best?

      Reply
    • Margaret Coats

      Macbeth has always been my favorite. But the performance curse is real. Except for teaching it at Harvard, I have never been able to see a live performance or arrange a reading. Something strange always happens, but fortunately for me, not as bad as disasters and near-disasters that have occurred since the later 17th century. It’s most wonderful for reading to oneself. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” far outdoes Lear’s “Never, never, never, never, never.”

      I agree with you about the miserable Henry VIII–except that Queen Katharine is one of Shakespeare’s absolutely stellar characters. If only the political situation had allowed him to write a full play devoted to her! Among the histories, Richard II is the clearest and best structured.

      Twelfth Night is my favorite among the comedies, but I do fancy the rarely performed Love’s Labour’s Lost as well. As You Like It is so likable that I had cats named Orlando and Oliver. And Measure for Measure is more serious, but very good. Midsummer Night’s Dream is spectacular if you can see it with Henry Purcell’s music entitled “The Fairy Queen.”

      Among the romances, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.

      And for the play with the greatest number of quotable lines, it’s Julius Caesar.

      There–I’ve named eight or nine out of 37. What about you?

      Reply
      • James A. Tweedie

        For character malevolence I am partial to Othello.

        For fantasy, The Tempest.

        For tragic, psychological character disintegration, Hamlet.

        For historical drama, Richard III.

        For sheer wit, I could vote for any number of plays but suppose I am most inclined to applaud the counter-cultural nod Shakespeare gives to the women in Taming of the Shrew.

        For the most comic/tragic/socially complex, controversial, memorable, and quotable of Shakespeare’s plays: The Merchant of Venice.

        Curiously, the neighbor for whom I wrote these poems has a number of small parts in an upcoming local production of Macbeth. I expect there to be any number of legs broken during the plays two-weekend run.

  3. Cynthia Erlandson

    The very idea of doing these was a brilliant one; and (contrary to your self-assessment, James,) I think they are very good poetry, indeed. I found myself smiling throughout (I hope I was reacting properly), and wondering at your talent for taking tragedies and making them humorous. The pas de deux in “Henry V”, for example, made a deadly “dance” seem funny.

    Reply
    • James A. Tweedie

      Cynthia, I’m afraid you caught on to my predilection for whimsy and its kin. As regards the term, “pas de deux,” however, the choice was based on it being a term that both rhymed nicely while at the same time provided a vivid image of two people engaged in an intimate and artful interaction–in this case, a mutually deadly and destructive one. Interestingly, in ballet, the pas de deux is rarely inserted as a humorous or comic diversion, but almost always as a means to convey inter-personal love, beauty, drama, pathos and the like. Even so, I am glad you caught the lightness of hand in my summaries of what are, of course, serious works of dramatic literature (irregardless of the comic role of Falstaff and realated buffoonery).

      I’m also surprised and pleased to hear that you elevate my efforts to a higher status than I do!

      My latest book (advertised on SCP), “Laughing Matters–Poetry with a Wink and a Smile,” reflects my irresistible inclination to treat all manner of things lightly. Even Shakespeare!

      Thanks for the affirming comment. I’m glad the poems encouraged a smile!

      Reply
  4. Julian D. Woodruff

    Thanks for these clever sonnet summaries, James–
    The doings of old English royals
    As seen in Shakespeare’s stage turmoils,
    Wrapped up in Tweedie’s verbal coils.
    I’ve also enjoyed the various comments on the plays and movie adaptations (I’ve still not seen Branagh’s Henry V, nor any of Welles’s efforts). I’d really like to catch again the Macbeths of John (?) Finch and Maurice Evans (tv, with Judith Anderson as Lady M!).

    Reply

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