The St Crispin's Day Speech

Summary

The St Crispin's Day speech is King Henry's address to his nobles in Act 4, Scene 3 of Shakespeare's Henry V, first performed in 1599. It is set on the morning of 25 October 1415 at Agincourt in northern France, where a small English army, worn down by sickness and a long march, faces a much larger French host. The day was the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, two brothers martyred in Roman Gaul and venerated as patrons of shoemakers. The speech grows from a single remark. The Earl of Westmorland wishes they had here one ten thousand of the men in England who do no work today. Henry, entering, answers that wish in about fifty lines of blank verse. He first turns the arithmetic around: if they are marked to die, they are enough to grieve their country; if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honour. He confesses that if it is a sin to covet honour he is the most offending soul alive, and he will not lose a share of it to one man more. He then offers safe conduct and money to any soldier who has no stomach for the fight, since he would not die in the company of a man who fears to die with him. The second half looks into the future. Every survivor will stand on tiptoe when the day is named, feast his neighbors each year on its vigil, strip his sleeve to show his scars, and tell the story to his son, until the names of Harry the King, Bedford, Exeter, Warwick, Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester are household words. The climax is the line We few, we happy few, we band of brothers: whoever sheds his blood with the king shall be his brother, however low his birth, and gentlemen in England now abed will hold their manhoods cheap. Shakespeare took the wish for more men from Holinshed's Chronicles, which assigns it to an unnamed soldier. The speech became one of the most famous in English, filmed by Laurence Olivier in 1944 and Kenneth Branagh in 1989, and its phrase band of brothers has been borrowed by admirals, soldiers and historians.

Top Lessons

• Turning weakness into privilege

  Henry does not deny that the English are few; he redefines what fewness means. Fewer men divides honour among fewer sharers, so the army's weakness becomes the source of its glory. A leader's first act here is to change how his men see their situation.

• The honour of free consent

  Henry offers money and safe passage to anyone who wishes to leave. By making the fight voluntary he turns his soldiers into companions who choose their danger, and the choice is part of what makes the day honourable.

• Memory as reward

  The second half of the speech promises no plunder, only remembrance: the vigil feast, the shown scars, the names in flowing cups, the story taught to sons. Henry roots honour in a community that remembers, and makes brotherhood the highest rank.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Henry promises his men that their scars will become badges displayed every year at the Crispian feast, an early literary picture of how veterans carry and narrate war wounds. The army Shakespeare depicts had been weakened by the dysentery that killed many men at the siege of Harfleur, a fact he mentions elsewhere in the play rather than in this speech.

• Act 4, Scene 3 (the Crispian feast)

  The imagined veteran strips his sleeve each year to show the wounds he received on Crispian's day and tells their story to his neighbors.