A Mingling of Blood

Blood seems to paint the edges of many important historical events; whether that be bloodshed or bloodlines, blood saturates historical circumscriptions of wartimes, patrilineal primogeniture, familial royal dominance, and, in more modern terms, blood as contamination and disease. The Henriad tetralogy, being fully immersed in the bloody borders of history, evokes crimson imagery linguistically in many moments, most notably, I would argue, in the final play, Henry V, during many of Henry's great speeches. From "once more unto the breach," to "St. Crispin's Day," through the relations and conquering of France, to Mistress Quickly, and more, blood saturates the edges of Shakespeare's Henry V, blending the corporate bodies and sexualities of his characters with their bloodlusts for imperialism and war.

In Henry's first big speech, "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more" (Act III, Scene 1), blood is named and used twice. First, Hal cries out 

On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof (18-19)

in an attempt to empower his men with the idea that the blood in their veins can only be their fathers' blood, and, being descended from soldiers, making it virtually impossible for the soldiers to have no fighting spirit within them. Henry empowers his men here, but then uses their blood against them in a kind of challenge. A few lines later, he cries

Dishonor not your mothers. Now attest
That those whom you called fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. (23-26)

He tacitly implies bloodlines in his challenge for his men to make their mommas proud and to prove their patrilineage; he also specifically references the lesser blood of common men that can apparently be intermingled with the good blood of his current soldiers and taught how to fight by example. Hal uses blood almost paradoxically, or at least contrastingly, by calling his men to shed the blood of the French to prove that war, that bloodlust, is in their mixed blood.

This use of blood, along with the tacit reference to intermingling blood in war, is used similarly in the later "St. Crispin's Day" speech:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother (Act IV, Scene 3, 62-64)

Blood is again brought up, and like the pedagogical use of blood in the earlier speech, it is evoked as intermingling. Hal once again mixes allusions to bloodshed in war and familial bloodlines more explicitly than before; here he literally claims that those men whose blood spills in war along with his blood will make them more than soldiers, but family, "brothers."
This intermingling of blood carries different connotations for modern readers, for whom the stigma of disease has been sutured onto blood through and after the eighties and the AIDS epidemic. Blood and sex became inextricable; AIDS was seen as bodily uncleanliness of the blood brought about by sexual perversities. This interpretation, of course, would be misplaced in an earlier interpretation, as exemplified by this passage from Hal's speech. There is a homophilic aspect within the suggested mixing of blood, whether that be in warfare or family relations or both, rather than a sexual connotation. The blood of men is seen as a brotherly bond, even if modern readers subconsciously project sexual suggestions onto this bond.

However, let's continue tracing blood in Henry V, putting our modern conceptions of blood aside again for a moment. There is a contrast between women and the use of blood pertaining to them towards the plays end. Two contrasting images are evoked from the blood of the play's (limited) female characters, Mistress Quickly and Catherine of Valois. Their blood is never mentioned explicitly, but it is implied through their roles and the ultimate outcomes of the play. Catherine, and her French blood, represents blood as familial relations or ties: her union with Henry V, and his subsequent adoption by the French king, mingles not only Henry and Catherine's bloods but also the bloods of England and France, the latter of which referred to the former as a "bastard son" earlier in the play. It appears that, at the play's close, with the mingling of blood, the wrongdoing of the blood of the bastard is rejuvenated.
However, this cleansing is verbally rejected or parodied in the speech that kills off Mistress Quickly. Her death is revealed from Pistol, who says

News I have that my Nell is dead
I'th' spital of a malady of France. (Act V, Scene 1, 11)

This "French" blood, even if not recognized as such, has infected Nell and killed her. Nell's blood represents the sexual side of blood, which is wholly ignored with Katherine's symbolism. The women create a competing image of blood, specifically the blood of France: one offers English rejuvenation, the other, a sexual death.

The question of what it means for English blood's intermingling with France's is unanswered, or rather, hypothetically answered with many possible outcomes. What does stand out from this discourse is how blood is used in history in many compelling, contrasting, questioning, and revelatory ways, exemplified in the bloody language of Henry V.