SOURCE: Semenza, Gregory M. Colon. “Sport, War, and Contest in Shakespeare's Henry VI.” Renaissance Quarterly 54, no. 4 (winter 2001): 1251-72.

In the following essay, Semenza explores the ways in which Shakespeare used sports metaphors to describe the selfish wars conducted by the greedy nobles in Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3.

When, in 1 Henry VI, a Messenger of the Countess of Auvergne requests that Talbot visit his lady's castle, Burgundy derisively remarks:

I see our wars Will turn unto a peaceful comic sport, When ladies crave to be encountered with. 

(2.2.44-6)¹

Burgundy's scoff seizes upon one contemporary signification of sport as amorous dalliance,² and suggests how Talbot's warlike heroism might be compromised or even undermined by his encounter with a woman. The adjective “peaceful comic” indicates a sort of sport that actually differs from war, as though the two phenomena are otherwise linked by some inextricable bond. Burgundy's warning that war will...