Henry V William Shakespeare Henry V From The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors , ed.
Nothing can be finer, also, than the commonwealth of bees in the first act.
It is full of the most exquisite imagery and music. The art employed in transforming the whole scene of the hive into a resemblance of humanity is a perfect study every successive object, as it is brought forward, being invested with its characteristic attribute. And again, a short time after this solemn elevation of mind, he concludes his joke with Williams careful even then that no harm should result from it. The poet has continued in the fifth act to show us to the very last the many-sided nature of the king. The terrible warrior is transformed into the merry bridegroom, the humorous vein again rises within him, yet he is not so much in love with his happiness, or so happy in his love, that in the midst of his wooing, and with all his jests and repartee, he would relax the smallest article of the peace which his policy had designed.