Just take a moment to admire how astute a student of Shakespeare Sir Laurence Olivier is with the above photos. So accurate in his Technicolor recreation of Henry V's battle setup. Our patron saint of The Bard never disappoints (well, except when he's in blackface... we'll get to that weirdness eventually... oh God).
Henry V has long been one of my favorite plays. Mostly because I've enjoyed seeing the Bad Boyfriends of Olivier, Branagh and Hiddleston cast as the King, but also because it's overflowing with well-known imagery, speeches, and philosophy on religion and politics. It's also a breezy read. It doesn't get too bogged down in endless diatribes (excepting the Archbishop of Canterbury's early monologue) or boring, colorless characters.
This Prologue-heavy play begins with a barn burner of a introduction (Derek Jacobi's recitation at the start of Sir Kenneth Branagh's film version is my personal favorite). It essentially asks the audience to employ our imaginations when the players enact such grand events and larger-than-life historical figures.
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
I fucking love it.
The best part is that each of the three major movies present this differently but all are notable in their own ways. Olivier gives us the first few scenes from within a lovingly recreated Globe Theatre set that allows us to imagine not the vasty fields of France but rather what a groundling might have witnessed in Shakespeare's day. The entire film is rendered in story-book like mise-en-scene and Technicolor and it's a gorgeous (and expensive) representation. Kenneth Branagh lets Derek Jacobi loose on a darkened film set, and we follow him amongst the props and equipment as he leads us through the soundstage before revealing the opening scene. The most recent BBC version has John Hurt, with his instantly recognizable voice-over voice, reciting the prologue with the air and timbre of a particularly talented grandpa sitting down with us to read a fairy tale.
The story begins with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Ely kibbitzing about how fucking awesome young Henry V has been since taking the throne, except for the proposal to strip the Church of most of its cash revenue. They discuss how to resist and come up with the idea that they will give Henry good reason to make his claim to the French throne and throw in a hefty sum, that while ginormous compared to past payments, is far less than what the debated proposal is asking of them. They enter the council chamber, eager to hear what the French ambassador has to say to the King.
Henry asks Canterbury to come and explain why he has a right to claim the French throne. Canterbury happily launches into a dry and ceaseless listing of Ancestry.com shit he's printed out. Henry makes him swear on his soul that what he's presented is true and gives hm rightful claim. Canterbury nods. Henry nods. He asks the ambassador to enter. The ambassador presents a "tun of treasure" from the Dauphin/Dolphin which Exeter reports is a pile of "Tennis-balls, my liege." Translation: "Balls to you!"
(Note: the little pile of balls in Branagh's film resemble wool dryer balls and I giggle a little every time. "Laundry balls, my liege.")
At this, Henry deftly leaps into one of my favorite speeches (although it is ceremonious posturing, it's damned clever ceremonious posturing):
We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have march'd our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
That all the courts of France will be disturb'd
With chaces. And we understand him well,
How he comes o'er us with our wilder days,
Not measuring what use we made of them.
We never valued this poor seat of England;
And therefore, living hence, did give ourself
To barbarous licence; as 'tis ever common
That men are merriest when they are from home.
But tell the Dauphin I will keep my state,
Be like a king and show my sail of greatness
When I do rouse me in my throne of France:
For that I have laid by my majesty
And plodded like a man for working-days,
But I will rise there with so full a glory
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turn'd his balls to gun-stones; and his soul
Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them: for many a thousand widows
Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands;
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;
And some are yet ungotten and unborn
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.
But this lies all within the will of God,
To whom I do appeal; and in whose name
Tell you the Dauphin I am coming on,
To venge me as I may and to put forth
My rightful hand in a well-hallow'd cause.
So get you hence in peace; and tell the Dauphin
His jest will savour but of shallow wit,
When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.
Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.
"War-like Harry" indeed.
I want to start every trip out of the house with his parting lines:
"Be soon collected and all things thought upon
That may with reasonable swiftness add
More feathers to our wings...
Therefore let every man now task his thought
That this fair action may on foot be brought."
The Prologue announces that all of England is on its toes, spoiling for war. But as the King has gone to Southampton to prepare to cast off to France, three English knights are conspiring to off the King.
Back in old Eastcheap, Bardolph is trying to reconcile Nym with Pistol, who married Mistress Quickly out from under him (I guess she wasn't "Pistol-proof" after all). When Pistol enters with his new wife, Nym draws his sword against Pistol, but Bardolph holds them back to keep the peace before they have to go off to France. The Boy comes and says Falstaff is deathly ill and needs help, so Quickly follows him. Nym and Pistol go at it again, arguing over a debt that needs to be repaid, and Bardolph forces them to chill the fuck out. Quickly comes back and says they should all go to Falstaff, and they all blame the King for the old man's ague.
In Southampton, Bedford, Exeter, and Westmorland whisper about the traitors they have discovered (Scroop, Cambridge, and Grey) when Henry enters and acts like everything's fine in front of them. An interesting detail is revealed here: Henry mentions a man he imprisoned the day before... a man who "rail'd against our person" but he believes it was "excess of wine" that caused this distemper, and that's why he wishes to let him off the hook. It has been suggested that this man may have been Falstaff himself, and though this is pure conjecture, it is a juicy idea. Anyway, Henry uses this opportunity to show his mercy as a means of trapping the three knights. They all in turn suggest the King is too lenient and he should give the man "much correction."
Henry asks how he should treat men who commit greater crimes if he cannot show the slightest mercy to someone with "little faults" and he gives them no chance to answer and so moves on to the plans for the war. He hands each of the three a paper and watches as they read the crimes of which they are accused. They all turn white as a sheet and Henry rails on them because they told him to have no mercy just a moment ago. Exeter arrests them. Henry resolves to continue to France without further delay.
At the old tavern, Pistol tells his friends that Falstaff has died and Quickly gives a solemn account of how he turned cold and insists he is in "Arthur's bosom" and not hell. They sadly recount some memories. The men prepare to leave for France.
In the French King's palace, the King, the Dauphin, some Dukes, and the Constable figure out how they will defend themselves against the oncoming army. The Dauphin is being a dick and thinks Henry is being a total dick and the Constable warns that Henry is less of a dick than they think. Uncle Exeter is allowed to enter as ambassador from Henry and delivers the Ancestry.com print-outs, warning that Henry is on his way to claim his lands in France no matter what. Exeter also delivers scorn to the Dauphin for his "Paris balls" slight and the King says they'll have an answer for Exeter the next morning.
The Chorus gives us the breaking news that the English army (consisting of yeoman/longbowman and fewer noblemen than the French army, which is why the French are so salty about the English being a band of haggard "slaves") has entered France. The French King has offered some lame dukedoms and the hand of Katherine Valois as a bribe to go away, but Henry refuses.
The first battle is at Harfleur and Henry delivers one of the most rousing and famous of all Shakespeare speeches as encouragement to his men:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
That's some good shit. My favorite version of this is Sir Ken's. He brings a wild vitality to the moment that borders on overwrought but I relish Shakespeare being portrayed with such verve no matter what the context. He had to have been bursting with chutzpah anyway; who else but an Irish RADA-educated upstart could write an autobiography at 29 chronicling how he managed to wrangle so many British acting heavyweights (Dench, Jacobi, Holm, Blessed, Briers, to name a few) to make his long-shot of a film?
Meanwhile, Bardolph and his dudes cower until the Welsh captain Fluellen yells at them to join the fight. The Boy wonders out loud just how courageous his elder tavern mates are. Fluellen expresses his distaste for using mines in this siege and putting an Irishman command. Fluellen, Macmorris, Gower, and Jamy have a chat about how the war effort is going.
At the gates of Harfleur, Henry voices a rather disturbing threat against the townspeople if they don't surrender and it's a bit disturbing:
If not, why, in a moment look to see
The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand
Defile the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters;
Your fathers taken by the silver beards,
And their most reverend heads dash'd to the walls,
Your naked infants spitted upon pikes,
Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused
Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry
At Herod's bloody-hunting slaughtermen.
What say you? will you yield, and this avoid,
Or, guilty in defence, be thus destroy'd?
Hopefully, Henry is using words to save munitions. Shitting his pants, the Governor of Harfleur yields. In the BBC production, Hiddleston performs this scene with the smoldering menace of his (previously Sir Ken-directed) Loki Laufeyson from the very Shakespearean Marvel movie Thor.
On that note, I shall air a super specific pet peeve of mine: I am vexed by the absolute disbelief with which many young Harry Potter fans express the fact that "Gilderoy Lockhart" directed Thor. I want to grab them by their oversized Gryffindor-striped scarves and scream "Sir Ken was carrying Batman's skinny ass across a muddy field of battle before you were even born, so don't showcase your disturbing lack of cinematic and literary knowledge by even suggesting that the man's only claim to fame is playing a puffed-up popinjay in your wizard school melodrama."
There, I got that out. Let's continue.
In the King's palace in Rouen, Katherine of Valois insists her handmaid Alice give her an English lesson, and in so many charmingly silly comments, it is clear that it is the blind leading the blind. Emma Thompson performs this otherwise throw-away moment beautifully and with so much charm and wit, no wonder Baby Ken fell in love with her at the time.
Elsewhere in the palace, her father the King is mad about the loss of Harfleur and complains about how Henry is just waltzing through France unchallenged. The King's Constable says they should raise a great force to oppose Henry and the King agrees they must exterminate the English.
Back at the English camp near Picardy, Fluellen and Gower discuss the status of the camp (with Fluellen making his bookworm references to military campaigns of old) when Pistol interrupts, begging for them to put a word in with Exeter so Bardolph, who has stolen shit from a church, doesn't get executed. Fluellen, disgusted at Bardolph's behavior, refuses. Gower agrees that Bardolph is a knave. Henry comes upon them and announces that any man behaving similarly to Bardolph shall be punished, as he wants no French citizen to be harassed on this campaign. Then Montjoy, the King's herald, delivers a message from the French King. Henry expresses his respect for how Montjoy executes his duty, then says that though his army is weakened by sickness and exhaustion, they will still attack if attacked.
The French are encamped at Agincourt, and the overconfident Lords all hang around bragging about how their horses are superlative and their armour is on fleek. They talk about their mistresses and take bets on how many zillions of English they will kill. They says if the English had any brains, they'd leave already. The French can't wait for morning.
The Chorus invites us to visualize the two encampments that are apparently violating social distancing because the soldiers on either side can practically hear "the secret whispers of each other's watch." They have pre-battle demeanors as different as their languages. But Henry is taking stock and walking around the camp:
O now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin'd band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry 'Praise and glory on his head!'
For forth he goes and visits all his host.
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile
And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night,
But freshly looks and over-bears attaint
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largess universal like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all,
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.
We get it, we get it, Harry is a man of the people. Oy vey.
The King asks to use Sir Thomas Erpingham's cloak so as to walk amongst his army disguised and therefore gather a sense of his men's feelings with anonymity. He has an encounter with Pistol, who says he's loyal to the King despite how he treated Falstaff, but that when he finds Fluellen, he will hit him in the head with his St. Davy's Day leek. When Henry says he's Fluellen's kinsman, Pistol insults him and walks away, saying "The figo for thee, then!" and gives him the hand gesture aka the Fig of Spain, which is a great name for a gin cocktail BTW.
Fluellen and Gower enter the scene then and Henry steps aside so they don't see him. Fluellen, a stickler for rules, says everyone should remain quiet even though the French know very well where they are.
Henry sits down with three regular Joes. They have a debate about whether or not it would be better to die in the King's company, whether or not the King's cause be just, and whether or not the King or the individual soldiers are responsible for the sin of their souls in battle. Henry picks a fight when one of them (Williams) scoffs at the King's insistence that he won't be ransomed. They exchange gloves and promise to take up their fight after the battle, should they both survive.
Henry stalks off to pray that his army gains courage. Similarly to his father, he recounts how easily they must sleep because commoners could never know what it is to bear the burdens of being a monarch. Erpingham calls Henry back to his counsellors and Henry begs to God that his father's faults do not punish him that day. The French, meanwhile, are insulting the English and sharpening their baguettes for battle.
The English are intimidated by the opposing headcount. Henry says to Westmorland that he doesn't, in fact, wish for more men because HELLO that means more honor for the few of them still in this fight:
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
In a play chock full of nationalistic sentiment, this just clinches it. It is as inspirational as it gets. I know it still brings a tear to the eyes of white-haired old Englishmen.
Anyway, Montjoy shows up and gives the English one more chance to forfeit. Henry says heck no.
Just a quick sidetrip here: There's this impressive model of the Battle of Agincourt I saw at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds (I cannot believe this museum was free it was so awesome and huge, much like that metal codpiece of Henry VIII). Staring at that incredible model, it is insane to think that a bunch of rag-tag English defeated the French calvary. I mean, the numbers really were entirely one-sided and they never should have won except that the English whooped the French using GAJILLIONS of arrows with their fancy Welsh longbows and apparently that's why they won. Just to give you some context.
The battle ensues and Pistol captures a Frenchman. The Boy for some reason knows enough French to interpret (all that Duolingo on the long trip, no doubt), and of course Pistol's misunderstandings make for some comedic relief. The Boy rolls his eyes. Elsewhere on the field, the French nobles are already bugging out. Exeter delivers the news to Henry that York and Suffolk have died in battle and Henry is sad for about two seconds before he sees the French rallying and therefore orders all French prisoners to be slain.
Fluellen and Gower talk about Henry's orders to kill the prisoners and how the damned French murdered the baggage boys. Fluellen puffs with pride that the King was born in Wales and compares him to Alexander the Great (he says "Alexander the Pig," where "Pig" means "Big" because he couldn't think of the word "Great" and Shakespeare translates the Welsh accent by writing every "B" as a "P").
Montjoy rides up and acknowledges that the day belongs to the English and Henry can hardly believe it. Williams walks by and Henry chats him up, asking about the glove in his cap. Fluellen comments that whomever has the other glove, no matter how noble, should keep his promise about fighting Williams. Henry basically says "Well, in that case, Fluellen, YOU take this glove I happen to have gotten from a French noble." He goes off and Henry tells Warwick and Gloucester that he is playing a hilarious trick on Fluellen. Williams brings Gower and Henry admits that he was the one in disguise the night before and Williams says he meant no harm and that the King did not come as himself so he (Williams) should not be held at fault for the challenge. Fluellen believes Williams should be punished for his behavior, but Henry waves it off and tries to give him a glove full of gold to make up for the confusion. Williams does not want to accept it.
That whole scene was super awkward AF and it just goes to show that Henry is a two-faced weirdo sometimes.
Finally, the tally of the dead is delivered: 10,000 Frenchmen have died compared to only 29 English. Henry thanks God and says they can start packing up to sail back home.
Olivier's battle is epic to say the least. Having no crutch of CGI in 1948, he employs hundreds of brightly-costumed horsemen and extras to fill out the field of Agincourt. It's quite a feat of staging and appears to be a full-scale representation of the colorful model I saw in Leeds. He was clearly aiming for something clean and cinematic, to embody the nationalism and English pride audiences much desired during WWII. Branagh's field is a bloody muddy hell-hole, more closely evoking imagery from Vietnam, and therefore painting over the valour of war with a layer of violent and morbid truth about its consequences. The 2012 BBC battle scenes are gritty and realistic as they come, but the tone falls somewhere in between the previous two, reflecting both the excitement of the English victory and our present-day society's disgust and ambiguity about the necessity for war. Being produced in time to air in conjunction with London hosting the Olympics, it understandably had to embody a respectable level of nationalism in the form of the perennial/obligatory British pride about being the birthplace of the world's most famous English-language poet/playwright.
Finally, the prologue skips us straight to the negotiations for peace between France and England, even though, IRL, there were more trips back and forth between the countries and few more battles.
There's a silly moment when Fluellen makes the haughty Pistol eat the leek from his cap. Pistol, properly degraded for his terrible behavior during the war, mentions that he heard his wife Hostess Quickly has died of some venereal disease while he was away and he promises to be a knave for the remainder of his days.
Back in the French palace, Henry and his gang work out the kinks of their terms to end their dispute. They profess there is nothing but respect and love between them and Henry sends his Lords out of the room to chat with the French about the details while he stays back to woo Katherine. She is, as he reminds the French King, "our capital demand" (if by "capital demand" you mean her "dowry" of Henry being made the official heir of France).
This scene is terribly out of place compared to everything preceding it. All the important business of the play is finished, and this is just an extra (although strangely charming) moment wherein Henry's usual eloquence with verbosity falters in the face of "love." I'll admit that every time I see this enacted, I fall in love with Henry V a little bit. He's awash with testosterone up until now, and even if his sheepish demeanor here is an act, it's super effective as a courtship moment. He openly admits that
If I could win a lady at
leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my
armour on my back, under the correction of bragging
be it spoken. I should quickly leap into a wife.
He valiantly attempts speaking some French to her, even though it's terrible:
It is as easy for me,
Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much
more French: I shall never move thee in French,
unless it be to laugh at me...
Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is
music and thy English broken; therefore, queen of
all, Katharine, break thy mind to me in broken
English; wilt thou have me?
sKatherine is reserved but flirty and with the help of her imperfect interpreter, Alice, they somehow communicate their awkward adorability to each other. When Henry suggests they kiss to seal their agreement to marry, Katherine protests, saying that kissing is a step too far for courtly love, but Henry insists:
O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings. Dear
Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak
list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of
manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows our
places stops the mouth of all find-faults; as I will
do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your
country in denying me a kiss: therefore, patiently
and yielding.
(Kissing her)
You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is
more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the
tongues of the French council; and they should
sooner persuade Harry of England than a general
petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.
Excuse me while I swoon a little.
BTW, I love the casting of Geraldine Chaplin as Alice in the BBC film. She is a real French-speaker only because her father, England's other super famous artist son, Charlie, was exiled from America in 1952 and she was raised in Switzerland. Her film debut was as a little girl in her father's Limelight and she was most famously cast in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago in 1965.
Act V is all nonsense, really, because how much affection could people feel who only just met and are made to mate in the captivity of the court? We had to endure all that manly bluster for four acts, so it's nice to have a little romance at the end--something else that the Netflix version completely shat upon by showing the Princess and the young King verbally spitting poison at each other over the purely political marriage they just entered. Like, DUH it was not true love IRL. But it was bad enough that you inserted Falstaff into Agincourt and now you don't even give us an inkling of hope at all. Piss off.
The old men critics I read have basically two major issues with Henry V: not enough Falstaff (even though they admit that Falstaff on the scene would've been a disaster), and not enough high drama. Sure, it's not nearly as intriguing as plays that follow hard upon (the high comedies and the Roman gaggle of goodness) but hey, it's ceremony and sometimes it's nice to indulge in something fancy and easy to digest. Suspense is suspended for the comfort of foreknowledge in how the great Christian King wins out at the end. So sue Shakespeare. At least we got a lot of local flavour with the representative soldiers from Scotland and Ireland and Wales and a font of wisdom about what it is to be a leader at war that scholars have been and will continue to drink from for generations.
And (most of) the movies are great cinematic fun. I highly recommend the Big Three anyway.
Next week we get some more handsome Branagh lightheartedness with Much Ado About Nothing. Fun times ahead :)
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