‘We band of brothers:’ A Memorial Day meditation – Latest News
Memorial Day evokes combined feelings: pleasure within the valor of those that gave their lives within the trigger of freedom; sorrow that such self-sacrifice ought to have been needed.
Pride in previous valor could also be best expressed within the St. Crispin’s Day speech from “Henry V” (Act IV, Scene iii), delivered by the younger king on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt.
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St. Crispin’s Day
By William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
If we’re mark’d to die, we’re enow
To do our nation loss; and if to stay
The fewer males, the larger share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, want not one man more.
By Jove, I’m not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my value;
It yearns me not if males my clothes put on;
Such outward issues dwell not in my wishes:
But if it’s a sin to covet honour,
I’m essentially the most offending soul alive.
No, religion, my coz, want not a man from England:
God’s peace! I might not lose so great an honour
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I’ve. O, don’t want one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, by my host,
That he which hath no abdomen to this combat,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We wouldn’t die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives at the present time, and comes secure home,
Will stand a tip-toe when at the present time is known as,
And rouse him on the identify of Crispian.
He that shall stay at the present time, and see previous age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
And say ‘Tomorrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then he’ll strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old males overlook: but all shall be forgot,
But he’ll bear in mind with benefits
What feats he did that day: then shall our names
Familiar in his mouth as family phrases:
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be of their flowing cups freshly bear in mind’d,
This story shall the nice man train his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From at the present time to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we completely satisfied 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 light his situation:
And gents in England now abed
Shall assume themselves accursed they weren’t right here,
And maintain their manhoods low cost whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
The English at Agincourt misplaced about 700 males; the French lifeless totaled at the least 8,000, together with seven princes of the blood and the flower of French chivalry.
