St Crispin's Day Speech


The St Crispin's Day speech is a part of William Shakespeare's history play Henry V, Act IV Scene iii 18–67. On the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, which fell on Saint Crispin's Day, Henry V urges his men, who were vastly outnumbered by the French, to imagine the glory and immortality that will be theirs if they are victorious. The speech has been famously portrayed by Laurence Olivier in the 1944 film to raise British spirits during the Second World War, and by Kenneth Branagh in the 1989 film Henry V; it made famous the phrase "band of brothers". The play was written around 1600, and several later writers have used parts of it in their own texts.

The speech

Cultural influence

Comparisons with other speeches

Parts and/or versions of the speech appear in films such as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Tombstone, Renaissance Man, Tea With Mussolini, Mystery Men, This Is England, Their Finest and Togo. It has also been used in television series such as Rough Riders, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Black Adder, and Doctor Who.
  • The phrase "band of brothers" appears in the 1789 song "Hail, Columbia", written for the inauguration of George Washington as the first President of the United States.
  • During the American Civil War, "The Bonnie Blue Flag"—a 1861 Confederate marching song written by Harry McCarthy—began with the words "We are a band of brothers, and native to the soil".
  • Stephen Ambrose borrowed the phrase "Band of Brothers" for the title of his 1992 book on E Company of the 101st Airborne during World War II; it was later adapted into the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers. In the closing scene of the series, Carwood Lipton quotes from Shakespeare's speech.
  • The 2016 videogame We Happy Few takes its name from the speech.
  • A part of the speech is quoted in the 2017 novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy as one of the character's mother's favourite passage from Shakespeare which is recited at her second funeral.

    General and cited references