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I have suggested that Henry is like Plato’s Alcibiades, who typifies the honor-seeking
man by the very fact of his excessiveness. Socrates says upon first conversing with him that he
knows Alcibiades would rather die than know there was a limit to his power to rule in the world
(Alcibiades 1, 105c). Henry reveals a similar degree of loftiness in his thoughts when, thinking
his father has died, he puts on the crown. Alone, his first words are:
Lo, where it sits,
Which God shall guard: and put the world’s whole strength
Into one giant arm, it shall not force
This lineal honour from me. (4.5.42-5)
Henry, like Alcibiades, has a deep desire to perform deeds that set him above all other men.
The first sign that Henry may not quite be the personification of Shakespeare’s model for
a great king comes in the very first lines of the play. The Chorus claims that if it had sufficient
powers, it would provide “A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, / And monarchs to behold the
swelling scene!” (0.1.3-4). Whereas monarchs are distinguished by their inactive (at least
physically) ‘beholding’ of events, the Chorus immediately describes “warlike Harry” in the most
emphatically active terms. This recalls the distinction made in classical political philosophy
between the private life of contemplation and the political life of action. Nowhere is this
distinction made in such detail or with as much force as in Plato’s presentation of the relationship
between Socrates and Alcibiades. In the Symposium, the supremely confident Alcibiades all but
confesses his fundamental inferiority to Socrates; but, at the same time, he cannot bring himself
to change, and accordingly flees his company. He claims that the core of his inability to pursue
the life of philosophy is that he fears “growing old and sitting beside Socrates.” Alcibiades is
simply unable to overcome his belief that he must use his abundant talents to perform deeds that
will be considered great by all. At the same time, however, Socrates makes him agree that
(among other things) he does not know what is truly just or good – and Socrates’ mere presence
Convention