"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Friday, September 16, 2011

Birthday Today - Henry V

Henry V, King of England, was born today in 1386.   Henry V is, of course, best known for his great victory at Agincourt, lionized in Shakespeare's great trilogy of plays, Henry IV, Part One, Henry IV, Part Two, and Henry V.   The greatness of the plays, to me, is the interplay between Prince Hal (Henry IV) and his friend, the fat drunkard, Falstaff.   Falstaff is one of the great literary creations -- a liar, a drunkard, a thief, and yet a true friend and an embodiment of the comic energy, the joie de vivre, that makes life worth living. 

Anyway, here is the speech I read to the Regular Son in the middle of the night when he was just weeks old, stupidly thinking that hearing my voice would calm him down.   (It still doesn't work.)

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