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"We must be free or die who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake".[Wordsworth]
Shakespeare knew that passionate patriotism was ever at the edge of crisis; the England of poetry was ever embattled;
"This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror".[Shak. KJ]
Patriotism is a heightening;
"Awake, awake, English nobility!
Let not sloth dim your honours new-begot".[KH VI Pt.1]
It speaks of integrity;
"Why, knows not Montague that of itself
England is safe if true within itself".[ib.]
The sort of gratitude which pours out when poetry caresses an aristocratic nationalism;
"This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house;
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This bless-ed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings".[KR III]
I shouldn't need to continue the above passage as it must be the most renowned in patriotic poetry; as must be the next, where the nation is about to war;
"Once more unto the breech, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead! ".[KH V]
-Thus begins one of the greatest patriotic war-speeches in world history; space does not permit the full quotation [but then it should be known by heart anyway].
Further on, in the same work, the Noble King addresses the various orders of his army;
"And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
that you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base
that hath not noble lustre in your eyes".[ib.]
The ties of Blood are adverted to elsewhere in the play;
"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".[ib.]
The 'mission' of the Nation is made plain;
"The saving forces come from England".[KR III]
And the patriotic truth of monarchy is poeticised;
"My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not deck'd with diamonds and Indian stones".[KH VI]
This is why Nietzsche maintains that "monarchy represents the belief in one man who is utterly superior, a Leader, saviour, demigod. Aristocracy represents the belief in an elite humanity and higher caste". [Nietzsche WM 752]
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