IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE PRINCIPAL PARTNERS OF SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE’S 2019 SUMMER SEASON
‘Small Latin and less Greek’ was Ben Jonson’s verdict on Shakespeare the linguist. But as Henry V (the latest play in the Globe’s Merian-sponsored summer season) shows, he knew a bit of French, too. As well as all that blood-and-thunder stuff on the battlefield, the play contains — in Act Three, Scene Four — the only scene wholly in French anywhere in the plays; as well as his dirtiest joke.
Princess Katharine, offered in marriage to King Harry to appease him after the Dauphin’s consignment of tennis balls failed to amuse, is learning English with her lady’s maid Alice. She’s a quickish student (‘Je pense que je suis le bon écolier’) and has soon mastered the English from shoulder to fingertip: ‘de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arma, de bilbow.’
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Alice, knowing which side her pain is beurré, tells her that she speaks it like a native: ‘Sauf votre honneur, en vérité, vous prononcez les mots aussi droit que les natifs d’Angleterree.’
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