Fluellen
Play
Summary
Captain Fluellen is a Welsh officer in Henry V's army — fiercely courageous, scrupulously honourable, and pedantically devoted to the classical "disciplines of war" as laid down by the Roman authorities. His comic energy comes from the collision of his exactitude and fierce Welsh pride with the anarchic disorder around him: he quarrels with Macmorris, forces the braggart Pistol to eat a leek, and draws lengthy parallels between Henry V and Alexander the Great. Despite his comic surface he is one of the play's moral anchors, genuinely devoted to the king and to the principles of just warfare.
Notable Quotations
"I need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be God, so long as your majesty is an honest man." *(Henry V, 4.7)*
"There is figures in all things... Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth... turned away the fat knight... I have forgot his name." *(Henry V, 4.7 — the comic parallel between Henry and Alexander)*
"If you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek." *(Henry V, 5.1 — to Pistol)*