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England: Quotations from Shakespearian Quotations

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd 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 happy lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth, Renowned for their deeds as far from home, (For Christian service, and true chivalry,) As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry, Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's son: This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leas'd out (I die pronouncing it,) Like to a tenement, or pelting farm : England, bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds; That England that was wont to conquer others, Has made a shameful conquest of itself.— R. II. ii. 1

Our sea-wall'd garden, the whole land, Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choak'd up, Her fruit-trees all un-prun'd, her hedges ruin'd, Her knots disorder'd, and her wholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars.— R. II iii. 4

I will no more return, Till Angiers, and the right thou hast in France, Together with that pale, that white-fac'd shore, Whose foot spurns back the ocean's roaring tides, And coops from other lands her islanders; Even till that England, hedg'd in with the main, That water-walled bulwark, still secure And confident from foreign purposes, Even till that utmost corner of the west Salute thee for her king.— K. J. ii.

This England never did, (nor never shall) Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, But when it first did help to wound itse'f. * Nought shall make us rue— K. J. v. 7.

If England to herself do rest but true. O England, model to thy inward greatness, Like little body with a mighty heart, - What might'st thou do, that honour would thee do, Were all thy children kind and natural!— H. V. ii. chorus,

But see thy fault! O nation, that thou could'st remove! That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about, Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself, And grapple thee unto a pagan shore.— K. J. v. 2.

_'S DEFENCE. Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas, Which he hath given for fence impregnable, And with their helps, only, defend ourselves; In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies.— H. VI. PT. III. iv. 1.