Nor tripp'd neither, you base football player?
Are you ready for some football?
Yeah, I know: I’m dating myself; Monday Night Football hasn’t used that tagline for many years. Nevertheless, football season is upon us, and this is a good time to talk about A Memorable Honor, sports, and honor.
If it seems odd to associate Shakespeare with football, consider this example, one that hits close to home for a lifelong Denver Broncos fan like me: In 1998, when he finally won a Super Bowl after three embarrassing losses, the New York Times headline about Broncos quarterback John Elway declared that “Shakespeare’s Quarterback Finally Wins the Biggest Game.” (If you’ve seen the Netflix documentary on Elway, you know that the John’s often tragic Shakespearean story continued after that victory.)
There aren’t a lot of Shakespearean scholars in the world of sports, but, as demonstrated by the Times, Will shows up a lot. Like Henry V walking among his troops the night before the Battle of Agincourt, he does so in disguise: Most football players have no idea that Will Shakespeare is secretly in their pregame huddle. But he is there.
Think about Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech:
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
I have a friend who has called this “the greatest locker room speech of all time.” Explicitly or implicitly, most of the stirring speeches people have experienced over the last four centuries owe a debt to this speech.
Ultimately, the St. Crispin’s Day speech is about honor. In trying to motivate his men, Henry doesn’t frame the battle about wealth or plunder; he ties success in the battle to the prospect of honor, honor that he will share with his troops. This honor is not just personal: as I discussed in a previous post, it is a link to a “higher honor,” a vision of glory greater than oneself.
Shakespeare wrestled with the concept of honor, especially in the person of Henry V. Two plays prior to Henry V, in Henry IV Part I, Shakespeare presents two alternative visions of honor and shows the young Henry V – then the Prince of Wales and known to his drinking buddies as “Prince Hal” – grappling with it. On the one hand, Hal sees the example of his companion Falstaff, who questions whether honor is real and, to preserve himself, feels free to ignore its dictates. On the other, Hal is confronted by a character for whom honor is everything: Hotspur.
Hotspur’s real name is Henry Percy. The character is based on a real 14th century knight who earned the nickname “Hotspur” because of his headlong rush into battle. By all accounts, he was valiant and heroic. He is still remembered in the UK: in another kind of “football” (we Americans know it’s really soccer, but let’s give our British friends their delusions), the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in 1884 took the name “Hotspur” as a tribute to the fighting spirit of the long ago warrior.
Like his Shakespearean namesake, the real Hotspur rebelled against Henry IV after previously supporting him and died in battle at Shrewsbury. For his Henry IV play, Shakespeare changed Hotspur in one telling way: he made Hotspur a young man, around the same age as Hal. In reality, Hotspur was 22 years older than the prince, but Shakespeare wanted them to be contemporaries to juxtapose their characters and especially their vision of honor.
Shakespeare’s Hotspur is a brilliant soldier, one who lives for solely for honor. He declares, “By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap / To pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon.” As his nickname implies, he is hotheaded and rash. For him, honor is entirely personal. While Hal (seemingly) wastes his days in the bars of Eastcheap with Falstaff, his father Henry IV “sins in envy” that his son is not the “honorable” Hotspur.
Yet Hal is learning important lessons during his time in the taverns, not least that Hotspur’s obsession with personal honor and glory is ultimately a dead end. Indeed, when Hal and Hotspur meet at Shrewsbury (another of Shakespeare’s dramatic inventions), Hal unexpectedly prevails over his more glorious rival. Through his victory, Hal has assumed Hotspur’s hard-won honor, but he does so with a deeper understanding of its nature; honor, he learns, must be about more than personal glory.
As King Henry V, Hal synthesizes and transcends the vision of both Falstaff and Hotspur: honor is something real and important, but it ends in nothing unless it is tied to something greater. This is a lesson that is critical for leaders throughout history, from Abraham Lincoln to John Elway. And at its heart, that’s what A Memorable Honor is about.
As a reminder, my book A Memorable Honor: Shakespeare, Lincoln, and the Art of Leadership is now an Amazon bestseller and hot new release. It will be published on September 15. September 15 is coming up fast, but you still can preorder today on Amazon.com and the Barnes and Noble website and be the first in your neighborhood to own a copy.
Until next time.
Frank
P. S. If you haven’t done so, please add your name to the “Who Art Thou” link below to receive updates as we get closer to the September 15 publication of A Memorable Honor: Shakespeare, Lincoln and the Art of Leadership.
