John at 2011-05-17 07:41:43:

In my early post/suggestion from HENRY V, I didn't include a transcript, so here it is, edited to the clip (video link: http://tiny.cc/vhi47)

SET-UP: This is the quintessential "dark night of the soul" moment. It takes place the night before the Battle of Agincourt, and it sets up, via stark contrast, one of Shakespeare's most famous and uplifift speeches, the St. Crispen's Day exhortation to his outnumbered troops: "...We few, we happy few, we band of brothers..." That speech follows immediately after this scene below in Kenneth Branagh's film version of "HENRY V."

EXT. ENGLISH ENCAMPMENT - AGINCOURT, FRANCE - NIGHT

Deepest night. King Henry V sits beside a dead campfire, the encampment shrouded in fog tinged with silver-blue moonlight. He's the only soul still awake.

KING HENRY V:
Upon the king...
Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children and our sins lay on the king.
Who must bear all. O, hard condition!
Twin-born with greatness, subject to
the breath of every fool,
what infinite heart's ease must kings neglect
that private men enjoy?
And what have kings that privates have not too,
save ceremony?
And what art thou, thou idle ceremony?
What drink'st thou oft, instead of homage
sweet but poison'd flattery?
O, be sick, great, greatness, and
bid thy ceremony give thee cure!
Canst thou, when thou command'st
the beggar's knee command the health of it?

King Henry V stands, walks alone through the fog of the sleeping camp. He stops by a commoner, asleep on the bed of a wagon.

KING HENRY V:
No, thou proud dream, that play'st
so subtly with a king's repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know:
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
the sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
the intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
the farced title running 'fore the king,
the throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
that beats upon the high shore of this world.
No, not all these thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
not all these, laid in bed majestical,
can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
who with a body fill'd and vacant mind
gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;
never sees horrid night, the child of hell
but, like a lackey from the rise to the set
sweats in the eye of Phoebus, and all night
sleeps in Elysium; Next day after dawn
doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
and follows so the ever running year,
with profitable labor to, his grave.
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.

An old, silver-haired knight approaches. It's Erpingham.

ERPINGHAM:
My lord, your nobles, jealous of your absence,
seek through your camp to find you.

KING HENRY V:
Good old knight,
Collect them all together at my tent:
I'll be before thee.

The old knight moves off. King Henry V falls to his knees in prayer:

KING HENRY V:
O' God of battles! Steel my soldiers' hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
their sense of reckoning, if the opposing numbers
pluck their hearts from them.
Not today, O' God, not today think not upon the fault
my father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard's body have interred anew;
and on it have bestow'd more contrite tears
than from it issued forced drops of blood:
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
who twice a day their wither'd hands hold up
toward Heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
sings still for Richard's soul. More will I do;
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
since that my penitence comes, after all,
imploring pardon.

GLOUCESTER'S VOICE (FROM AFAR): My liege!

KING HENRY V:
My brother Gloucester's voice.
I know thy errand. I will go with thee:
The day, my friends, and all things stay for me.