” 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.
At Agincourt this date in 1415.
Fun, Littrachure | tree hugging sister | 
October 25, 2009 12:25 pm
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Hey mom, who are the bad guys? 😛
Excellent. One of the best movies of the last 25 years.
The bad guys? The French, of course. If you want an excellent understanding of the decadence and immorality of the French nobility of the day, I urge you to read Pulitzer Prize winning Barbara Tuchman’s “A Distant Mirror.” Excellent, excellent book. It’s about the first half of the 100 years war and ends before Agincourt, but it’s plenty enough to get a great understanding of the time and place. She’s one of my favorite authors.
Hahaha! Well, Skyler, they sure were. But there’s a little story connected to what Ebola wrote and he made me cry when he wrote it. And he KNEW there was a good chance of my blubbering, hence the smiley face. So. The story.
1989, Orange County, CA. Ebola is 7 years old.
We’d seen the ads for this in all the papers, read the review in the LA Times and in Newsweek and really, REALLY wanted to see it. Oddly enough, in the whole of the county, there was only one theater playing it ~ an artsy fartsy old grande dame down towards Laguna. We hit a matinee and got seats sort of centered, but well back. As the sparse crowd would filter in, we’d tell the folks “Hey, just to let you know, we’ve got a 7 year old (playing pinball games in the lobby at the time) with us”. To a one, they were polite, thanked us for the heads up and would move a couple rows or seats away. Except one guy who went to sit directly in front of us. He said, “Really? Thanks for letting me know. I’m curious to see what he thinks of it.” He plopped right down and we had a lovely chat before the movie started. Ebola reappears, lights down, screen flickers, movie starts.
Not a peep out of sweet child through the whole, long thing until…Agincourt.
The French are lined up on the hill in their immaculate armor, holding crisp, fluttering standards, on chargers with pristine battle finery. Henry and the boys are filthy from slogging through the rain and mud and goo ~ he’s practically indistinguishable from his troops. The misery is tangible down in the English lines. (The score is at that anticipatory bahrump rump rump, bahrump rump rump.)
At the moment, Ebola whispers, “Mommy?”
“What, sweetie?” I whisper back.
“Who are the bad guys?”
I realize they are ALL wearing basically the exact same outfit.
“The clean ones”, I whisper back.
“Okay.”
That was the last we heard out of him (A 7 year old!) until the movie was over and thus was born one of my MOST precious motherhood memories.
I love this movie.
Thanks for the story,THS. I like that.
I thought you might. {8^P And Lord knows I love telling it.
I’ll look for that book, by the by. Your reading recommendations are always spot on (Like the Barbary Pirate one ~ GREAT!). back in the shop the week after we saw it, one of the geekier Fire Control thugs heard me talking about it and actually had a biography of Henry V with him that he lent me. That rounded out the experience beautifully. Okay, almost. Right up to the part where he died in France and they peeled his skin off, preserved it and boiled his bones to bring him back to England.
Good old days, my ass.
You won’t be calling them the good old days after reading that book. You’ll probably find it very similar to today as far as people go.
Tuchman is one of my favorite authors. Her typical style is to center on a personality that is historically visible but not so prominent when writing about an era.
For instance, her book on the American Revolution, “The First Salute” is from a Dutch point of view. It brings out the international impact of what was happening. She doesn’t write only about the Dutch admiral (it’s been a long time, I forget who), but she keeps coming back to him and his life to tie all the world events together. You’d be amazed at the Dutch contribution to our nation’s founding.
In “A Distant Mirror,” Tuchman centers on a French noble named Coucy who had a nice castle, was eventually pretty high in the pecking order (I think he was the constable?) but otherwise fairly obscure. I wrote a review of the book on Amazon.com long long ago before they allowed you to put your name on the review (1995 or so). It’s still there. Through Coucy you see the decadence of the French, the foppish youth with the pointy toed shoes that forced the young men to walk awkwardly (they thought they were so cool), the brutal slaughter of peasants, and the impact of the early days of the Black Death. I couldn’t put it down.
Here’s the Amazon review I wrote in 1996:
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Fascinating and Objective View of the 14th Century, December 22, 1996
By A Customer
A Distant Mirror is a worthy addition to Barbara Tuchman’s reportoire of historical works. She brings to life the events of 14th century Europe and exposes chivalry and the church for what they really were: Corrupt people subjugating the population of Europe. She uses the life of Enguerrand de Coucy as the centerpiece of her treatment of the times. A prominent, but historically obscure noble, Coucy is shown vividly in all his elegance at court and bloodthirstiness in slaughtering peasants who attempted to assert their freedom. No one can come away from this book without seeing the 14th century in human terms. Ms. Tuchman’s work, as are all of her books, is a challenging read. Her grammar, although impeccable, is complex and imaginative. Not for the light reader, but fascinating for anyone who wants to learn about history without sugarcoating or nationalistic slanting.
I thought Ebola was a girl,my
mistake.
The English had class in those
days;they dug up Cromwell and hanged his corpse-Classic.Cromwell was cool,though,
Greg…um…hide? Quickly?
And not as poorly as Cromwell.