648 McGRAW-HILL’S SAT
2 2 222 2
GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE
50
55
60
Damn the Torpedoes, Brian Burrell, McGraw-Hill, New York,- Reproduced with permission of The McGraw-Hill
Companies.
Questions 19–24 are based on the following passage.
The following passage is from a recent book on
the history of warfare.One of the high points of any production of
Shakespeare’s Henry Vis the Saint Crispin’s
Day speech at the Battle of Agincourt, in
which the English king rhapsodizes over the
glorious plight of his vastly outnumbered army
with the words “We few, we happy few, we
band of brothers.” What prompts this outpour-
ing of fraternal emotion is the Earl of West-
moreland’s complaint that if only they had
“ten thousand of those men in England that do
no work today,” they would at least have a
fighting chance. But Henry will have none of
that, and delivers his justly famous rejoinder:
If we are marked to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honor.
God’s will! I pray thee wish not one man more.
This is usually assumed to be a show of
stoic bravado that harks back to the prebattle
speeches recorded by ancient historians (no-
tably Thucydides and Xenophon), speeches in
which an outnumbered force cement their sol-
idarity by reveling in their numerical disad-
vantage. “The fewer men, the greater the
honor” was by Shakespeare’s time a well-
known proverb, trotted out in many instances
of the glorious, fighting few. In Froissart’s ac-
count of the Battle of Poitiers in 1356, for ex-
ample, the Prince of Wales harangues his men
prior to the battle in a speech that closely par-
allels Henry’s. Shakespeare was undoubtedly
familiar with it.
Now, my gallant fellows, what though we be
a small body when compared to the army of our
enemies; do not let us be cast down on that ac-
count, for victory does not always follow
numbers, but where the Almighty God wishes
to bestow it. If, through good fortune, the day
shall be ours, we shall gain the greatest honor
and glory in this world; if the contrary should
happen, and we be slain, I have a father and
beloved brethren alive, and you all have some
relations, or good friends, who will be sure to
revenge our deaths. I therefore entreat of you
to exert yourselves, and combat manfully; for,
if it please God and St. George, you shall see
me this day act like a true knight.Of course the race does not always go to the
swift nor the battle to the stronger in number.
Despite being outmanned, both King Henry
and Prince Edward managed to prevail quite
handily due to the incompetence of their op-
ponents. In each instance, the French squan-
dered their numerical advantage by charging
before they were ready, by bunching up, and
by underestimating the range and accuracy of
the English longbow. The numbers not only
fail to tell the whole story, but they actually
obscure it. Ten thousand more men might ac-
tually have hindered the English, whereas
fewer men (and less overconfidence) might
have saved the French. It seems that in fact, as
these and many other examples show,
strength is not always proportional to size.- The passage suggests that Henry V requests
“not one man more” (line 17) because
(A) his strategy can work only with a small
band of fighters
(B) he considers it more honorable to fight
while outnumbered
(C) the opposing soldiers are unreliable
(D) no other fighters have the skills of the
ones he has assembled
(E) he does not wish to be victorious - In line 26, the phrase “trotted out” most nearly
means
(A) abused
(B) removed
(C) employed for rhetorical effect
(D) spared an indignity
(E) used flippantly
Line5