Just Off Center

When I was in English Lit class my Junior year in high school, my teacher was Brother John. He loved English Lit. He’d mastered the art of Celtic calligraphy, listened to ancient Anglo instrument music, etc. One day, he decided to get his class interested in Shakespeare by showing us the St. Crispin’s Day speech and the following English victory at the Battle of Agincourt from Henry V.

It was my first time hearing the great motivational speech with its focus on the immortality and legacy that would be left by the fallen English heroes who were so greatly outnumbered. I have read this play a dozen times and felt the surge inside me when I read this speech. So here it is; the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Shakespeare’s Henry V.

To set the scene. The English have run a bloody campaign through France in their attempt to claim the throne of France for the King of England. They are hungry, sick, tired, and worn. They come to the field near the castle Agincourt where the French trap the English and give them their one last chance to surrender before they are demolished. They are outnumbered by the French five to one, and the French are all fresh and well armed, well armored, and with cavalry. The English are in despair before their overthrow the morning of the battle, the day called St. Crispin’s Day. The king’s cousin, upon hearing the odds against them, says “Oh, that we now had here but one ten-thousand of those men in England that do no work today”. It is at this moment in their desperation when King Henry greets his throng with these inspirational words:

What’s he that wishes so?

My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:

If we are mark’d to die, we are enow

To do our country loss, and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,

Nor do I care who doth feed upon my cost;

It yearns me not if my men my garments wear;

Such outward things dwell not in my desires:

But if it be a sin to covet honour,

I am the most offending soul alive.

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 man 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 this 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!