Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Upon St Crispin's Day

This day is called the feast of Crispian:
    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.


Yep. Today is indeed St Crispin's Day. And yep. It is the anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt.

And my inner Shakespeare-nerd loves this fact. *g*

And loves that speech.

Along with the God For Harry one earlier in the play (that's the one about the siege of Harfleur not Agincourt - non-Shakespeare-nerds in England tend to confuse the two).

I think my favourite Shakespeare rousing-type speech is the This England one from Richard II. Though I tend to take that one slightly out-of-context when I quote it and omit all of the speech after This England. Because the quote up to that point (and for about another paragraph) is very stirring & patriotic. But if you add the bits I (and pretty much every other English person) miss it's not at all flattering.

I love Shakespeare. So do a great many other British people. And a lot of them aren't too happy about the new film. In fact there have been protests. Very British and very restrained protests, but protests nevertheless. I won't be seeing it.

I did, however, go to the pictures this past weekend. I decided I felt like seeing something that didn't need thought, something light, something that was total escapist rubbish. So I went to see Johnny English Reborn. Because it is total rubbish. But I liked it anyway mainly because I loved the Barclaycard adverts that the character is based on.

I don't think I'd recommend it to most of my friends though...

Ze

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