expressed, where perhaps you would least expect to find it, in
the speech of King Henry V to the French herald:

To say the sooth,--
Though 'tis no wisdom to confess so much
Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,--
My people are with sickness much enfeebled,
My numbers lessened, and those few I have
Almost no better than so many French;
Who, when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,
I thought upon one pair of English legs
Did march three Frenchmen. Yet, forgive me, God,
That I do brag thus! This your air of France
Hath blown that vice in me; I must repent.
Go therefore, tell thy master here I am:
My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;
My army but a weak and sickly guard;
Yet, God before, tell him we will come on,
Though France himself and such another neighbour
Stand in our way. There's for thy labour, Montjoy.
Go bid thy master well advise himself:
If we may pass, we will; if we be hindered,
We shall your tawny ground with your red blood
Discolour; and so, Montjoy, fare you well.
The sum of all our answer is but this:
We would not seek a battle as we are;
Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it;
So tell your master.

That speech might have been written for the war which we are waging
to-day against a less honourable enemy. But, indeed, Shakespeare is full
of prophecy. Here is his description of the volunteers who flocked to
the colours in the early days of the war:

Rash inconsiderate fiery voluntaries,
With ladies' faces and fierce dragons' spleens,
Have sold their fortunes at their native homes,
Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,
To make a hazard of new fortunes here.
In brief, a braver choice of dauntless spirits
Than now the English bottoms have waft o'er
Did never float upon the swelling tide.

And here is his sermon on national unity, preached by the Bishop of
Carlisle:

O, if you rear this house against this house,
It will the woefullest division prove
That ever fell upon this cursed earth.
Prevent it, resist it, let it not be so,
Lest child, child's children, cry against you 'Woe!'

The patriotism of the women is described by the Bastard in _King John_:

Your own ladies and pale-visag'd maids
Like Amazons come tripping after drums:
Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change,
Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts
To fierce and bloody inclination