“Eleven years later, cycle 20 reversed the polarity. By 1966, hair had become longer, clothes were looser and more flamboyant, music became more involved and sophisticated, and the drugs were mind expanders like LSD.
In 1966 The Cosmic Wave entered the comics, to bring with it the gods of Thor, villains like The Anti-Matter Man, and John Broome’s psychedelic Flash stories.
The new heroes were anti-establishment “Freaks” and Mutants.”
Excerpt From
Supergods
Grant Morrison
HUNTER : Kill The Body and The Head will Die. Ali-Frazier Fight. Crazy Shit. THE ABSOLUTE CREAM OF THE NATIONAL SPORTING PRESS : A proper end to The '60s. Ali beaten by a Human Hamburger.
“Spence didn’t get as far as 1999 in his Towards 2012 essay, but he imagined the rise of a “Stormer” generation of what he called “imperial youth.”
As it happened, his predictions were more or less accurate. In 1999, we had nu-metal, The Matrix, tight clothes, short hair, No Logo anticorporate demos, the emergence of bondage styles, and the Goth underground moving into the mainstream, a revival of popularity for cocaine, and, more significantly, perhaps, the jittery rise of Red Bull, Starbucks and coffee society.
Comics gave us proactive world-changing superheroes and villains in Authority, Marvel Boy, and Wanted.
Carolyn :
What are you doing?
Lester, Burn ‘em :
Nothing.
Carolyn :
You were masturbating.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
[Whispers]
I was not.
Carolyn :
Yes, you were.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
Oh, all right.
So shoot me. I was whacking off.
That's right. I was
choking the bishop, chafing the carrot.
You know,
Saying "Hi" to My Monster.
Carolyn :
That'sdisgusting.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
Well, excuse me, but some of us still have blood pumping through our veins.
Carolyn :
So do I.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
Really?
Well, I'm the only one who seems
to be doing anything about it.
[Grunts]
Carolyn :
Lester, I refuse to Live Like This!
This is Not a Marriage.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
This hasn't been a marriage for years,
but you were happy as long as
I kept my mouth shut.
Well, guess what.
I've changed.
And The New Me whacks off when he feels horny...
'cause you're obviously not going to help me out in THAT department.
Carolyn :
I see. You think you're the only one who's sexually frustrated.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
I'm not?
Well, then, come on, baby.
I'm ready.
Carolyn :
Don't you mess with me, Mister.
I will divorce you so fast, it'll make your head spin.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
ON - WHAT - GROUNDS
I'm Not a Drunk.
I Don't Fuck Other Women.
I Don't Mistreat you.
I've Never Hit You.
I don't even try to touch you, since you made it so abundantly clear just how unnecessary
you consider me to be!
But... I did support you
when you got your license.
And Some People might think that
entitles me to Half of What's Yours.
Carolyn :
Oh!
Lester, Burn ‘em :
So, turn out the light when you come back to bed, okay?
[Lester Narrating]
It's a great thing when you realise you still have the ability to surprise yourself.
Makes you wonder what else you can do that you've forgotten about.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
Hey, guys.
Scott Bakula! :
Lester. I didn't know you ran.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
I just started.
Jim II :
Good for You.
Lester, Burn ‘em :
I figured you guys might be able to give me some pointers.
I need to shape up, fast.
Scott Bakula :
Are you looking to just lose weight, or do you want to have increased strength and flexibility as well?
Lester, Burn ‘em :
I... I want to look good naked.
“ Production came to an end on Buffy, Season 3 [1999], and over my Summer vacation, I was reading The Killer Angels, about the survivors of Gettysburg,
“Spence didn’t get as far as 1999 in his Towards 2012 essay, but he imagined the rise of a “Stormer” generation of what he called “imperial youth.” As it happened, his predictions were more or less accurate. In 1999, we had nu-metal, The Matrix, tight clothes, short hair, No Logo anticorporate demos, the emergence of bondage styles, and the Goth underground moving into the mainstream, a revival of popularity for cocaine, and, more significantly, perhaps, the jittery rise of Red Bull, Starbucks and coffee society. Comics gave us proactive world-changing superheroes and villains in Authority, Marvel Boy, and Wanted.
When last I was at Exeter,
The Mayor in courtesy show'd me The Castle,
And call'd it ‘Rougemont’ : at which name I started,
Because a Bard of Ireland told me once
I should not live long after I saw Richmond.
Junior Fury :
It's one of your contracts, sir.
I've amended that contract.
You require your players to maintain a 2.3 grade point average.
I’ve committed to maintaining a 3.5.
You require ten hours of community service, and l've committed to 50.
Any unexcused absences, any other disciplinary issues at school, you can nullify this agreement and send me to any school you want.
Papa Fury :
And how many days do I have
to consider this offer?
Junior Fury :
None.
The second page is a letter you need to sign that confirms my withdrawal from St. Francis [Xavier’s]
They know l'm leaving.
Papa Fury :
What?
You withdrew from St. Francis?
Junior Fury :
l called Richmond.
They expect me there in the morning.
Papa Fury :
You called Richmond?
You should have spoken to me
about this.
Junior Fury :
lt was a personal choice for me.
Papa Fury :
Well, I can fix all that in the morning.
Junior Fury :
Sir, please listen :
All l wanna do is play for you.
If I'm one of the top students at Richmond, I mean one of the top in the whole school, and I have great SATs, I can go to any college in the country.
l'm asking you to Trust Me.
Papa Fury :
You really wanna do this, huh?
Okay.
Part of growing up is making your own decisions and LIVING with The Consequences.
At the prom. Everyone is standing, watching the stage. Xander is miming anticipation.
Announcer:
And the award for Sunnydale High's Class Clown for 1999 goes to — Jack Mayhew.
The winner puts on a balloon hat and acts silly.
Xander:
Please! Anybody can be a prop class clown.
You know, none of the people who vote for these things are even funny.
Buffy is at the punch bowl, ignoring the ruckus.
The announcer urges Jonathan to the microphone.
Jonathan:
We have one more award to give out.
Is Buffy Summers here tonight?
Did she, um...
The crowd turns and finds her.
She looks nervous at the attention.
Jonathan:
This is actually a new category.
First time ever.
I guess there were a lot of write-in ballots, and, um,
the prom committee asked me to read this.
"We're not good friends.
Most of us never found the time to get to know you,
but that doesn't mean we haven't noticed you.
We don't talk about it much, but it's no secret that Sunnydale High isn't really like other high schools.
A lot of weird stuff happens here."
The Chorus :
Zombies!
Hyena-People!
Snyder! (laughter)
"But, whenever there was a problem or something creepy happened,
you seemed to show up and stop it.
Most of the people here have been Saved by you,
or helped by you at one time or another.
We're proud to say that the Class of '99 has the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history.
(applause from the crowd)
And we know at least part of that is because of you.
So the senior class, offers its thanks, and gives you, uh, this —
Jonathan produces a multicolored, glittering, miniature umbrella with a small metal plaque attached to the shaft.
It's from all of us, and it has written here : -
' Buffy Summers —
Class Protector '
The crowd breaks into sustained applause and cheering.
Buffy walks to the stage and takes her award.
Cut to Buffy, watching the dancers.
Giles comes up behind her.
Giles:
You did Good Work tonight, Buffy.
Buffy:
And I got a little toy surprise.
Giles:
I had no idea that children en masse could be gracious.
Buffy:
Every now and then, people surprise you.
Giles: (looking past her)
Every now and then.
“Iain Spence published Sekhmet Hypothesis: The Signals of the Beginning of a New Identity as a book in 1995, but it wasn’t until two years later that I came across his ideas in an article he’d written for the magazine Towards 2012. As an illuminating way of reconsidering the familiar, I’m particularly fond of the Sekhmet Hypothesis, which never fails to get people talking at parties. As usual, please remember that this is just a framework; a way of ordering information into meaningful patterns in the service of creative lateral thinking, if you like. You may be able to find all kinds of examples to refute this data, but first bear in mind that I’ve used this predictive model to great effect and no small financial reward, and trust me when I say I’m passing it on as a tip, not as a belief system. If this book has made any point clear, I hope it’s that things don’t have to be real to be true. Or vice versa.
Soon you’ll notice how many advertisers and trend makers are aware of this theory and have been applying it to product placement, design, and the seasonal shifts of the rag trade since Spence published it. The more people know about it and react against it, or try to preempt it, the more the effect is likely to dissipate or find different ways to express itself. That may already be happening in the windblown halls of popular culture, although as I write, in 2010, Spence’s broad predictions are accurate still.
Sunspot activity follows a twenty-two-year cyclical pattern, building to a period of furious activity known as the solar maximum, then calming down for the solar minimum. Every eleven years, the solar magnetic field also undergoes a polarity reversal. It’s a little like a huge switch that toggles on or off, or the volume slider on a mixing desk, with loud at one end and silent at the other, and each period is given an identifying number. Cycle 23, for instance, had its maximum in 1999.
Spence suggests that these regular rewirings of the solar magnetic field naturally have an effect on the human nervous system, which leaves its traces most clearly in our cultural record—like a desert wind carving the shape of its passage into the dunes of fashion, art, and music. As a shorthand toward understanding the two maximum states we flip between, Spence suggests we can regard one pole as having a “punk” character, while its opposite may be thought of as “hippie.”
In Spence’s lexicon, at least as I understand it (his own website will set you straight if. wrong), punk maxima can be identified in a fashion vogue for short hair, tight clothes, short, punchy popular music, aggression, speedy drugs, and materialism. Hippie, as I’m sure you’ll have guessed, is associated with signifiers from the converse end of the spectrum, like long hair, loose or baggy clothes, longer-form popular music, psychedelic or mind-expanding drugs, peace, and a renewed interest in the spiritual or transcendental. He focused on youth culture trends on the basis that young nervous systems registered the magnetic reversals most profoundly and reflected them back in the lineaments of the art and music they made or consumed. So far, so good.
In 1955, when our planet was bombarded by cycle 19 solar magnetic waves, young people in the West responded like needles in a groove with rock ’n’ roll’s tight jeans, short hair, biker JD aggression, short, fast songs, and widespread use of stimulant drugs like speed and coffee.
Silver Age comic-book punk was embodied by crew-cut Barry Allen in his speed suit. “Chemicals and Lighting” could have been a song or a band.
The tight suits, establishment men, and emphasis on science and rationality are all “wrong), punk maxima can be identified in a fashion vogue for short hair, tight clothes, short, punchy popular music, aggression, speedy drugs, and materialism. Hippie, as I’m sure you’ll have guessed, is associated with signifiers from the converse end of the spectrum, like long hair, loose or baggy clothes, longer-form popular music, psychedelic or mind-expanding drugs, peace, and a renewed interest in the spiritual or transcendental. He focused on youth culture trends on the basis that young nervous systems registered the magnetic reversals most profoundly and reflected them back in the lineaments of the art and music they made or consumed. So far, so good.
In 1955, when our planet was bombarded by cycle 19 solar magnetic waves, young people in the West responded like needles in a groove with rock ’n’ roll’s tight jeans, short hair, biker JD aggression, short, fast songs, and widespread use of stimulant drugs like speed and coffee.
Silver Age comic-book punk was embodied by crew-cut Barry Allen in his speed suit. “Chemicals and Lighting” could have been a song or a band. The tight suits, establishment men, and emphasis on science and rationality are all typical, as are Stan Lee’s realistic superheroes such as the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man.
Eleven years later, cycle 20 reversed the polarity. By 1966, hair had become longer, clothes were looser and more flamboyant, music became more involved and sophisticated, and the drugs were mind expanders like LSD.
In 1966 the cosmic wave entered the comics, to bring with it the gods of Thor, villains like the Anti-Matter Man, and John Broome’s psychedelic Flash stories. The new heroes were antiestablishment “freaks” and mutants.
Nineteen seventy-seven brought a shift back to punk, as expressed in Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s fifties-influenced clothes and music, bondage and restriction, amphetamine sulfate use, and angry, confrontational politics.
The comics boom of that cycle gave us Judge Dredd, Frank Miller’s gritty noir, Alan Moore’s harsh logical realism.
Nineteen eighty-eight saw ecstasy, or MDMA, as the favored drug, accompanying long-form trance, ambient and dance music, Manchester “baggy” fitness wear as street wear, grunge beards, and a return to long hair. In comic books, this was the time of Deadline, Doom Patrol, Shade, and Sandman.
Spence didn’t get as far as 1999 in his Towards 2012 essay, but he imagined the rise of a “Stormer” generation of what he called “imperial youth.” As it happened, his predictions were more or less accurate. In 1999, we had nu-metal, The Matrix, tight clothes, short hair, No Logo anticorporate demos, the emergence of bondage styles, and the Goth underground moving into the mainstream, a revival of popularity for cocaine, and, more significantly, perhaps, the jittery rise of Red Bull, Starbucks and coffee society. Comics gave us proactive world-changing superheroes and villains in Authority, Marvel Boy, and Wanted.
This book will be published in 2011, when the fruits of the next wave will be hard to avoid. As I write, the word psychedelic is being used so often on TV and in magazines that it’s barely funny. Avatar’s hippy eco-vision of an interconnected natural world and the massive success of Alice in Wonderland (always popular during hippie periods) exemplify this current, as do the vampire heroes who have occupied the imaginative place once taken by sixties Pre-Raphaelite and Edwardian dandies. In comics, the “realism” boom has been quietly left behind like an unfashionable pair of trousers. The new superhero books are becoming more fantastic, colorful, and self-consciously “mythic.”
Spence’s article does not, nor will I, attempt to track the alleged effects of these undeniably real solar magnetic events on non-Western cultures.
Neither does he extend his argument backward to consider the ways in which the popular arts scene of 1944 could be described in “hippie” terms (LSD, however, was synthesized in 1945), or that of 1933 as “punk” (although perhaps Weimar decadence and the art of George Grosz could build a case there). And so on. I leave that contemplation to skeptics who choose to debunk the idea or to zealots who want to believe it.
Unless Terence McKenna’s “Timewave Zero” theories are correct, and we collapse into an atemporal singularity on December 21, 2012, 2021 will bring the cycle back around to “punk,” and if this seesaw sounds horribly predictable and repetitive, be assured that it will all seem fresh to the young people who take their own inspiration from the solar trade winds.
As for me, I intended to bring my run on JLA to an end along with the century. The Invisibles, too, was scheduled to wrap in 2000, and I planned to re-create myself again to complement the change in the weather. I was almost forty, had never felt better, and wanted to be ready for the harsher spirit I’d decided was on its way in the wake of the Labour election win, the death of the former Princess Diana, and the commencement of cycle 23.
I’d also just met my future wife, Kristan, a stunning, brainy blonde who dressed like Barbarella to go to the pub, worked as a corporate insurance broker, and read Philip K. Dick. It would be another three years before our paths crossed again and we were able to get together, but that die was already cast.
On a trip to Venice, Italy, I bought my first real suit—Donna Karan—and was encouraged to go corporate. Smart tailoring and the jargon of advertising, motivational speaking, instead of fractal-patterned shirts and druggy psychedelia, seemed the way to go in cycle 23. At heart, I’d always been an uptight Presbyterian anyway. I’d never been “able to get back to the radiant world I’d reached in Kathmandu, and I’d begun to “suspect it was because in some way I was already there. I had very little doubt that I’d “wake up” in that place at the moment of death, like a game player looking up from the screen where his avatar lies bleeding, only to realize he’s home and safe and always was.
“The drugs don’t work, they just make you worse,” sang the Verve, and after eight years of experimentation, ruthless self-examination, ego inflation, and ego loss, I had to admit they were probably onto something. The shallow hedonistic spirit of the nineties was too fragile to endure the cold of the vast twin shadows cast backward by an onrushing age of terror. Darker times were on their way, demanding a new clarity and rigor of thought.
I tried to articulate the outlines of the next trend by introducing to the pages of JLA a military-funded superteam called the Ultramarines, whipped up by Uncle Sam to keep the Justice League in check should their internationalist stance ever compromise US military security. By the end of the story, the Ultramarines had split from their paymasters and joined with a group of like-minded DC heroes in a hovering city-sized headquarters named Superbia, there to announce a bold new manifesto for change :
SUPERBIA HEREBY DECLARES INDEPENDENCE FROM ALL NATIONS AND OPENS ITS GATES TO SUPER-CHAMPIONS FROM THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH. WE INTEND TO SERVE AS A FIRST-STRIKE GLOBAL PEACEKEEPING FORCE. WE WILL KILL IF WE HAVE TO. IF WE HAVE TO, WE’LL LET YOU KNOW. TERRORISTS, DESPOTS, CORRUPT BUSINESSMEN … THE INTERNATIONAL ULTRAMARINE CORPS IS HERE. THERE’S NOWHERE TO HIDE.
As it happened, I’d almost exactly described what the next big development of the superhero concept would look like.
Meanwhile, I prepared myself for the oncoming zeitgeist by listening to Chris Morris’s bleak, brilliant, bad-trippy Blue Jam on Radio 1 every Thursday after John Peel. Oddly enough, I was beginning to find humor in all the things that had once frightened me. The prying eye of Big Brother, the aging process, loneliness, failure, and death were all just punch lines to the joke. I loved to listen over and over again to HAL 9000’s death scene from the soundtrack to 2001 : A Space Odyssey, and when Jarvis Cocker and Pulp released their masterpiece comedown album, This Is Hardcore, its unflinching evocation of middle age, stale waterbeds, and tinny bachelor pad music made me rethink my own lifestyle.
I was about as alien as I’d ever wanted to be, but I’d grown tired of one-night stands, drink, drugs, and the dating game.
If Life is left unchecked, Life will cease to exist.
It won’t, and it doesn’t.
It needs Correction."
How often..?
You Don't Know That!
"I'm The Only One Who Knows That.
At least,
I'm The Only One with The Will to Act on It."
The Key to Time is a Perfect Cube
which maintains the equilibrium of Time itself.
It consists of six segments, and these segments are scattered and hidden throughout the cosmos.
When they are assembled into the cube, they create a power which is too dangerous for any being to possess.
There are times, Doctor, when the forces within The Universe upset the balance to such an extent that it becomes necessary to STOP everything.
STOP Everything...?
Er, for A Brief Moment Only.
Ah....
Such a Moment is Rapidly Approaching.
“If Kirby’s Promethean dialectic was informed by his experiences in World War II, Starlin’s came courtesy of the post–Vietnam War counterculture.
Thanos was Darkseid not as galactic tyrant but as thwarted lover, a gnarled and massive embodiment of the death wish that had overwhelmed so many young Americans in the sixties.
To make sure no one missed the point, Thanos even courted Death itself in the alluring form of a robed, hooded, voluptuously breasted female figure that followed him around like some ghostly Benedictine groupie.
Kirby’s Satan was a monster of tyranny; Starlin’s was a frustrated nihilist, wooing Death like a lovesick puppy.
Thanos was a Gothic teenage villain who spoke to a generation that couldn’t care less about Hitler or the will to power.”
The Storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying 'And another thing...' twenty minutes after admitting he's lost the argument.
The Joker :
How can you shoot women?
And children..?
The Vietnam War Helicopter Door-Gunner :
S’easy!
Just try not to lead ‘em too much!
[ Because nursing women, old women, women without sports-bras and children run less fast than adult men ]
Hyah-haha!
Ain’t War Hell...?
Andrew:
We are really super-villains now, like... like Dr. No.
Warren:
Yeah, back when Bond was Connery, and movies were decent.
Jonathan:
Who remembers Connery?
I mean, Roger Moore was smooth.
Warren:
You're Insane.
You're Short, and you're Insane.
Andrew:
I like Timothy Dalton!
Hey!
Warren:
Don't make me pull over, okay?
••••••••
Warren: Connery is Bond. He had style.
Jonathan: Yeah, but Roger Moore was funny.
Warren: Moonraker? The gondola turns into a hovercraft? It's retarded.
Besides, the guy had, like, no edge.
Andrew: Dalton had edge. In Licence to Kill he was a rogue agent. That's edgy.
And he was amazing in The Living Daylights.
Jonathan:
Yeah, which was written for Roger Moore, not Timothy Dalton!
Warren:
Okay, this is stupid!
We're wasting time.
End of Discussion.
I mean, there's a shot of like pigeons, doing double-takes when the gondola blasted by!
Moonraker... is inexcusable.
••••••
Warren:
Connery is the only actor of the bunch.
Andrew:
Timothy Dalton should get an Oscar and beat Sean Connery over the head with it!
Discuss unto me; art thou officer?
Or art thou base, common and popular?
KING HENRY V
I am a gentleman of a company.
PISTOL
Trail'st thou the puissant pike?
KING HENRY V
Even so. What are you?
PISTOL
As good a gentleman as the emperor.
KING HENRY V
Then you are a better than the king.
PISTOL
The king's a bawcock, and a heart of gold,
A lad of life, an imp of fame;
Of parents good, of fist most valiant.
I kiss his dirty shoe, and from heart-string
I love the lovely bully. What is thy name?
KING HENRY V
Harry le Roy.
PISTOL
Le Roy! a Cornish name: art thou of Cornish crew?
KING HENRY V
No, I am a Welshman.
PISTOL
Know'st thou Fluellen?
KING HENRY V
Yes.
PISTOL
Tell him, I'll knock his leek about his pate
Upon Saint Davy's day.
KING HENRY V
Do not you wear your dagger in your cap that day,
lest he knock that about yours.
PISTOL
Art thou his friend?
KING HENRY V
And his kinsman too.
PISTOL
The figo for thee, then!
KING HENRY V
I thank you: God be with you!
PISTOL
My name is Pistol call'd.
Exit
KING HENRY V
It sorts well with your fierceness.
Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER
GOWER
Captain Fluellen!
FLUELLEN
So! in the name of Jesu Christ, speak lower. It is
the greatest admiration of the universal world, when
the true and aunchient prerogatifes and laws of the
wars is not kept: if you would take the pains but to
examine the wars of Pompey the Great, you shall
find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle toddle
nor pibble pabble in Pompey's camp; I warrant you,
you shall find the ceremonies of the wars, and the
cares of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety
of it, and the modesty of it, to be otherwise.
GOWER
Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.
FLUELLEN
If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also,
look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb? in your own conscience, now?
GOWER
I will speak lower.
FLUELLEN
I pray you and beseech you that you will.
Exeunt GOWER and FLUELLEN
KING HENRY V
Though it appear a little out of fashion,
There is much care and valour in this Welshman.
Enter three soldiers, JOHN BATES, ALEXANDER COURT, and MICHAEL WILLIAMS
COURT
Brother John Bates, is not that the morning which
breaks yonder?
BATES
I think it be: but we have no great cause to desire
the approach of day.
WILLIAMS
We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think
we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?
KING HENRY V
A friend.
WILLIAMS
Under what captain serve you?
KING HENRY V
Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.
WILLIAMS
A good old commander and a most kind gentleman: I
pray you, what thinks he of our estate?
KING HENRY V
Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be
washed off the next tide.
BATES
He hath not told his thought to the king?
KING HENRY V
No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I
speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I
am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the
element shows to him as it doth to me; all his
senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies
laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and
though his affections are higher mounted than ours,
yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like
wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we
do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish
as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess
him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing
it, should dishearten his army.
BATES
He may show what outward courage he will; but I
believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish
himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he
were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.
KING HENRY V
By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king:
I think he would not wish himself any where but
where he is.
BATES
Then I would he were here alone; so should he be
sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.
KING HENRY V
I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here
alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's
minds: methinks I could not die any where so
contented as in the king's company; his cause being
just and his quarrel honourable.
WILLIAMS
That's more than we know.
BATES
Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know
enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if
his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes
the crime of it out of us.
WILLIAMS
But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath
a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and
arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join
together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at
such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a
surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind
them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their
children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die
well that die in a battle; for how can they
charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their
argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it
will be a black matter for the king that led them to
it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of
subjection.
KING HENRY V
So, if a son that is by his father sent about
merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the
imputation of his wickedness by your rule, should be
imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a
servant, under his master's command transporting a
sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in
many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the
business of the master the author of the servant's
damnation: but this is not so: the king is not
bound to answer the particular endings of his
soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of
his servant; for they purpose not their death, when
they purpose their services. Besides, there is no
king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to
the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all
unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them
the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder;
some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of
perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that
have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with
pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have
defeated the law and outrun native punishment,
though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to
fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance;
so that here men are punished for before-breach of
the king's laws in now the king's quarrel: where
they feared the death, they have borne life away;
and where they would be safe, they perish: then if
they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of
their damnation than he was before guilty of those
impieties for the which they are now visited. Every
subject's duty is the king's; but every subject's
soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in
the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every
mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death
is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was
blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:
and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think
that, making God so free an offer, He let him
outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach
others how they should prepare.
WILLIAMS
'Tis certain, every man that dies ill, the ill upon
his own head, the king is not to answer it.
BATES
But I do not desire he should answer for me; and
yet I determine to fight lustily for him.
KING HENRY V
I myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.
WILLIAMS
Ay, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully: but
when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we
ne'er the wiser.
KING HENRY V
If I live to see it, I will never trust his word after.
WILLIAMS
You pay him then. That's a perilous shot out of an
elder-gun, that a poor and private displeasure can
do against a monarch! you may as well go about to
turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a
peacock's feather. You'll never trust his word
after! come, 'tis a foolish saying.
KING HENRY V
Your reproof is something too round: I should be
angry with you, if the time were convenient.
WILLIAMS
Let it be a quarrel between us, if you live.
KING HENRY V
I embrace it.
WILLIAMS
How shall I know thee again?
KING HENRY V
Give me any gage of thine, and I will wear it in my
bonnet: then, if ever thou darest acknowledge it, I
will make it my quarrel.
WILLIAMS
Here's my glove: give me another of thine.
KING HENRY V
There.
WILLIAMS
This will I also wear in my cap: if ever thou come
to me and say, after to-morrow, 'This is my glove,'
by this hand, I will take thee a box on the ear.
KING HENRY V
If ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.
WILLIAMS
Thou darest as well be hanged.
KING HENRY V
Well. I will do it, though I take thee in the
king's company.
WILLIAMS
Keep thy word: fare thee well.
BATES
Be friends, you English fools, be friends: we have
French quarrels enow, if you could tell how to reckon.
KING HENRY V
Indeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns to
one, they will beat us; for they bear them on their
shoulders: but it is no English treason to cut
French crowns, and to-morrow the king himself will
be a clipper.
Exeunt soldiers
Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children and our sins lay on the king!
We must bear all. O hard condition,
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel
But his own wringing! What infinite heart's-ease
Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy!
And what have kings, that privates have not too,
Save ceremony, save general ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idle ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
What are thy rents? what are thy comings in?
O ceremony, show me but thy worth!
What is thy soul of adoration?
Art thou aught else but place, degree and form,
Creating awe and fear in other men?
Wherein thou art less happy being fear'd
Than they in fearing.
What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,
But poison'd flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,
And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
Think'st thou the fiery fever will go out
With titles blown from adulation?
Will it give place to flexure and low bending?
Canst thou, when thou command'st the beggar's knee,
Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,
That play'st so subtly with a king's repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But, like a lackey, from the rise to set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year,
With profitable labour, to his grave:
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
Enter ERPINGHAM
ERPINGHAM
My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
Seek through your camp to find you.
KING HENRY V
Good old knight,
Collect them all together at my tent:
I'll be before thee.
ERPINGHAM
I shall do't, my lord.
Exit
KING HENRY V
O God of battles! steel my soldiers' hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard's body have interred anew;
And on it have bestow'd more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood:
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a-day their wither'd hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard's soul. More will I do;
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.
Enter GLOUCESTER
GLOUCESTER
My liege!
KING HENRY V
My brother Gloucester's voice? Ay;
I know thy errand, I will go with thee:
The day, my friends and all things stay for me.
Exeunt
KING HENRY V
I tell thee truly, herald,
I know not if the day be ours or no;
For yet a many of your horsemen peer
And gallop o'er the field.
MONTJOY
The day is yours.
KING HENRY V
Praised be God, and not our strength, for it!
What is this castle call'd that stands hard by?
MONTJOY
They call it Agincourt.
KING HENRY V
Then call we this the field of Agincourt,
Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.
FLUELLEN
Your grandfather of famous memory, an't please your
majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack
Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles,
fought a most prave pattle here in France.
KING HENRY V
They did, Fluellen.
FLUELLEN
Your majesty says very true: if your majesties is
remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a
garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their
Monmouth caps; which, your majesty know, to this
hour is an honourable badge of the service; and I do
believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek
upon Saint Tavy's day.
KING HENRY V
I wear it for a memorable honour;
For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.
FLUELLEN
All the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty's
Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that:
God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases
his grace, and his majesty too!
KING HENRY V
Thanks, good my countryman.
FLUELLEN
By Jeshu, I am your majesty's countryman, I care not
who know it; I will confess it to all the 'orld: I
need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be
God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.
KING HENRY V
God keep me so! Our heralds go with him:
Bring me just notice of the numbers dead
On both our parts. Call yonder fellow hither.
Points to WILLIAMS. Exeunt Heralds with Montjoy
EXETER
Soldier, you must come to the king.
KING HENRY V
Soldier, why wearest thou that glove in thy cap?
WILLIAMS
An't please your majesty, 'tis the gage of one that
I should fight withal, if he be alive.
KING HENRY V
An Englishman?
WILLIAMS
An't please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered
with me last night; who, if alive and ever dare to
challenge this glove, I have sworn to take him a box
o' th' ear: or if I can see my glove in his cap,
which he swore, as he was a soldier, he would wear
if alive, I will strike it out soundly.
KING HENRY V
What think you, Captain Fluellen? is it fit this
soldier keep his oath?
FLUELLEN
He is a craven and a villain else, an't please your
majesty, in my conscience.
KING HENRY V
It may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort,
quite from the answer of his degree.
FLUELLEN
Though he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as
Lucifer and Belzebub himself, it is necessary, look
your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if
he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as
arrant a villain and a Jacksauce, as ever his black
shoe trod upon God's ground and his earth, in my
conscience, la!
KING HENRY V
Then keep thy vow, sirrah, when thou meetest the fellow.
WILLIAMS
So I will, my liege, as I live.
KING HENRY V
Who servest thou under?
WILLIAMS
Under Captain Gower, my liege.
FLUELLEN
Gower is a good captain, and is good knowledge and
literatured in the wars.
KING HENRY V
Call him hither to me, soldier.
WILLIAMS
I will, my liege.
Exit
KING HENRY V
Here, Fluellen; wear thou this favour for me and
stick it in thy cap: when Alencon and myself were
down together, I plucked this glove from his helm:
if any man challenge this, he is a friend to
Alencon, and an enemy to our person; if thou
encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.
FLUELLEN
Your grace doo's me as great honours as can be
desired in the hearts of his subjects: I would fain
see the man, that has but two legs, that shall find
himself aggrieved at this glove; that is all; but I
would fain see it once, an please God of his grace
that I might see.
KING HENRY V
Knowest thou Gower?
FLUELLEN
He is my dear friend, an please you.
KING HENRY V
Pray thee, go seek him, and bring him to my tent.
FLUELLEN
I will fetch him.
Exit
KING HENRY V
My Lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloucester,
Follow Fluellen closely at the heels:
The glove which I have given him for a favour
May haply purchase him a box o' th' ear;
It is the soldier's; I by bargain should
Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick:
If that the soldier strike him, as I judge
By his blunt bearing he will keep his word,
Some sudden mischief may arise of it;
For I do know Fluellen valiant
And, touched with choler, hot as gunpowder,
And quickly will return an injury:
Follow and see there be no harm between them.
Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.
Exeunt
SCENE I. France. The English camp.
Enter FLUELLEN and GOWER
GOWER
Nay, that's right; but why wear you your leek today?
Saint Davy's day is past.
FLUELLEN
There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in
all things: I will tell you, asse my friend,
Captain Gower: the rascally, scald, beggarly,
lousy, pragging knave, Pistol, which you and
yourself and all the world know to be no petter
than a fellow, look you now, of no merits, he is
come to me and prings me pread and salt yesterday,
look you, and bid me eat my leek: it was in place
where I could not breed no contention with him; but
I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see
him once again, and then I will tell him a little
piece of my desires.
Enter PISTOL
GOWER
Why, here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock.
FLUELLEN
'Tis no matter for his swellings nor his
turkey-cocks. God pless you, Aunchient Pistol! you
scurvy, lousy knave, God pless you!
PISTOL
Ha! art thou bedlam? dost thou thirst, base Trojan,
To have me fold up Parca's fatal web?
Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.
FLUELLEN
I peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my
desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat,
look you, this leek: because, look you, you do not
love it, nor your affections and your appetites and
your digestions doo's not agree with it, I would
desire you to eat it.
PISTOL
Not for Cadwallader and all his goats.
FLUELLEN
There is one goat for you.
Strikes him
Will you be so good, scauld knave, as eat it?
PISTOL
Base Trojan, thou shalt die.
FLUELLEN
You say very true, scauld knave, when God's will is:
I will desire you to live in the mean time, and eat
your victuals: come, there is sauce for it.
Strikes him
You called me yesterday mountain-squire; but I will
make you to-day a squire of low degree. I pray you,
fall to: if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.
GOWER
Enough, captain: you have astonished him.
FLUELLEN
I say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or
I will peat his pate four days. Bite, I pray you; it
is good for your green wound and your ploody coxcomb.
PISTOL
Must I bite?
FLUELLEN
Yes, certainly, and out of doubt and out of question
too, and ambiguities.
PISTOL
By this leek, I will most horribly revenge: I eat
and eat, I swear--
FLUELLEN
Eat, I pray you: will you have some more sauce to
your leek? there is not enough leek to swear by.
PISTOL
Quiet thy cudgel; thou dost see I eat.
FLUELLEN
Much good do you, scauld knave, heartily. Nay, pray
you, throw none away; the skin is good for your
broken coxcomb. When you take occasions to see leeks
hereafter, I pray you, mock at 'em; that is all.
PISTOL
Good.
FLUELLEN
Ay, leeks is good: hold you, there is a groat to
heal your pate.
PISTOL
Me a groat!
FLUELLEN
Yes, verily and in truth, you shall take it; or I
have another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat.
PISTOL
I take thy groat in earnest of revenge.
FLUELLEN
If I owe you any thing, I will pay you in cudgels:
you shall be a woodmonger, and buy nothing of me but
cudgels. God b' wi' you, and keep you, and heal your pate.
Exit
PISTOL
All hell shall stir for this.
GOWER
Go, go; you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will
you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an
honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of
predeceased valour and dare not avouch in your deeds
any of your words? I have seen you gleeking and
galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You
thought, because he could not speak English in the
native garb, he could not therefore handle an
English cudgel: you find it otherwise; and
henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good
English condition. Fare ye well.
Exit
PISTOL
Doth Fortune play the huswife with me now?
News have I, that my Nell is dead i' the spital
Of malady of France;
And there my rendezvous is quite cut off.
Old I do wax; and from my weary limbs
Honour is cudgelled. Well, bawd I'll turn,
And something lean to cutpurse of quick hand.
To England will I steal, and there I'll steal:
And patches will I get unto these cudgell'd scars,
And swear I got them in the Gallia wars.
