I love this speech Henry V gives. It reminds me of how I should think of all men, despite their office; my boss, my parents, my singles ward, the President of the United States, the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; they are all men trying to do their best, but they are just that. Men.
Henry V-
No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I
speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I
am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the
element shows to him as it doth to me; all his
senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies
laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and
though his affections are higher mounted than ours,
yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like
wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we
do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish
as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess
him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing
it, should dishearten his army.
Ok, this was like one of my favorite parts of the play! I LOVED this speech. And your post made me think of when I was growing up, cause I always thought that the Prophet was like this perfect man that had never sinned. I think I didn't fully realize he was a normal man until my mission when I was in Kirtland and really got to know the Prophet Joseph Smith and realized how imperfect he was. It just takes a lot of pressure off when we understand that everyone is human.
ReplyDeleteOh. I just had another thought. Kim wrote a blog (http://stevenskim232.blogspot.com/2012/01/shakespeare-for-smitten.html) about romanticizing people's images and I think it applies to this as well. Perhaps we all have a tendency to inflate our perceptions of others.