O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts

[RVO3VOM]

O God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts.
Possess them not with fear. Take from them now
The sense of reckoning, ere th’ opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them.
- William Shakespeare


Hey Jerry, it worked! I didn't even look at the prices.



∞

 

[Guyon]

Nice use of the Bard. That one is a little less quoted, but just as good or even better than the more frequently quoted lines:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our trough-trampled dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a porcine
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the call of INFI blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the HOG;
Stiffen the snouts, sharpen up the hooves,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the trough
Like the brass cannon; let the snorts o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. *



* Several liberties taken in my quotation. My apologies to Will S.

 

[Guyon]

What? No appreciation of the porcine Shakespeare?

 

[Lil' Foo]

 

[OldPhysics]

What? No appreciation of the porcine Shakespeare?

Hey! I liked it!!

But ... I'm a little bit nerdy. Around the edges, sort of.

 

[Guyon]

That's one of the most famous calls to arms in the English language. If those lines don't get the HOG blood flowing, I just can't explain it.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

I like it too, Guyon.
I played Henry V in a high-school play. That was a lot of memorization.
I appreciate your version now more than I appreciated the original in high school.