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St. Crispin’s Day

Agincourt

and Balaclava. With a nod to Theo Spark, who notes that “On this day in history … we smacked the crap out of the French … and took the Russian guns.” At no little cost, but with some immortalizing side benefits. This day has produced some of the world’s most quoted war literature, treasured by many who know what it means to be among the happy few, and, for whom the commonly applied irony is a reality of duty and honor, what it means not to reason why, but to do and die. Shakespeare and Tennyson follow: 

Henry V, St. Crispin’s Day speech:

Enter the KING

WESTMORELAND: O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING: 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 care I who doth feed upon my cost
It yearns me not if 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
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 call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
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 Crispian’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 rememb’red.
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 remembered-
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 accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d ?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d & thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter’d & sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

The Valley of Death, photographed in 1855:

Topics: literary, military

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:36 am on Saturday, October 25, 2008

2 Responses to “St. Crispin’s Day”

1. Baby M Says:
   October 25th, 2008 at 4:16 pm

   It’s also the anniversary of the Battle Off Samar in 1944. A force of destroyers, destroyer escorts, and escort carriers held off a Japanese surface fleet with four battleships and seven cruisers.

   One ship - the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts - challenged a Japanese cruiser five times her size and won before being sunk herself. Her gun crews fought so fiercely that one of her guns literally blew up from overheating. The gun’s crew chief - Paul Carr - was later found mortally wounded by the repair party. He had been torn open from neck to crotch with his internal organs exposed for all to see. Yet he was still begging for someone to load the gun and fire.

2. snelson134 Says:
   October 25th, 2008 at 7:17 pm

   Of course, the Light Brigade didn’t fare as well as they might have:

   Rudyard Kipling, The Last of the Light Brigade, 1891:

   There were thirty million English who talked of England’s might,
   There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
   They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
   They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

   They felt that life was fleeting; they kuew not that art was long,
   That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
   They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
   And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!

   They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
   Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
   And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, “Let us go to the man who writes
   The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites.”

   They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
   To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
   And, waiting his servant’s order, by the garden gate they stayed,
   A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

   They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;
   They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
   With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
   They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

   The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and “Beggin’ your pardon,” he said,
   “You wrote o’ the Light Brigade, sir. Here’s all that isn’t dead.
   An’ it’s all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin’ the mouth of hell;
   For we’re all of us nigh to the workhouse, an’ we thought we’d call an’ tell.

   “No, thank you, we don’t want food, sir; but couldn’t you take an’ write
   A sort of ‘to be continued’ and ’see next page’ o’ the fight?
   We think that someone has blundered, an’ couldn’t you tell ‘em how?
   You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now.”

   The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
   And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with “the scorn of scorn.”
   And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
   Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.

   O thirty million English that babble of England’s might,
   Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
   Our children’s children are lisping to “honour the charge they made –”
   And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!

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