Yes, Shakespeare's Henry VI Is Worth Your Time -- Even Part One

Henry VI, especially Part One of the trilogy, is often described as one of the weakest plays of William Shakespeare (aka Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford) but I find it full of drama, pathos, and plenty of life lessons. 

Indeed, this play presents the heroic courage and steadfastness of John Talbot (1st Earl of Shrewsbury); the savage, mystic, even eerie, character of Joan of Arc; the very beginning of the conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster that will lead eventually to the War of the Roses; the brave loyalty of John’s son; the utter failure of the seductive trap laid by the Countess of Auvergne for Talbot; the self-serving egos of both York and Somerset which result in the defeat of the English and the noble death of Talbot. 

All this and more are there in Henry VI Part 1 and I always find it a real treat to read.

Along the way this time I collected a few of my favorite quotations from the play:

“Heavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail?”
(Said by Talbot, Act I, Scene V)

“Well, let them practice and converse with spirits.
God is our fortress, in whose conquering name
Let us resolve to scale their flinty bulwarks.”
(Said by Talbot, Act II, Scene I)

“Unbidden guests are often welcomest when they are gone.”
(Said by Bedford, Act II, Scene II)

“Civil dissension is a viperous worm
That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.”
(Said by King Henry, Act III, Scene I)

“Care is no cure, but rather corrosive,
For things that are not to be remedied.”
(Said by Joan La Pucelle -- Joan of Arc -- Act III, Scene III)

“Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick men, 
when for so slight and frivolous a cause

such factious emulations shall arise!”

(Said by King Henry, Act IV, Scene I)

“’Tis much when scepters are in children's hands,
But more when envy breeds unkind division; 
There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.”
(Said by King Henry, Act IV, Scene I)

“The fraud of England, not the force of France,
Hath now entrapped the noble-minded Talbot.
Never to England shall he bear his life, 
But dies betrayed to fortune by your strife.”
(Said by King Henry, Act IV, Scene IV)

“Here on my knee I beg mortality,
Rather than life preserved with infamy.”
(Said by Talbot's son John, Act IV, Scene V)

“Of all base passions, fear is most accursed.”
(Said by Joan La Pucelle -- Joan of Arc -- Act IV, Scene II)