This speech, by John of Gaunt, the duke of Lancaster, appears in Act II Scene i of Richard II by William Shakespeare. It is one of Shakespeare's most famous and most patriotic* speeches.
The purpose of this speech is to contrast Gaunt with Richard and, by extension, to highlight Richard's inadequacy as ruler. Gaunt, in making this speech, represents the old order of royalty, and the audience is painfully aware that Gaunt would have made a much better king than Richard. For this reason, the speech also, to some degree, legitimises Bolingbroke's actions later in the play (Bolingbroke is Gaunt's exiled son, and Gaunt's speech gives some audience sympathy to his accession to the throne).
Echoes of this speech recur throughout the play, as this is one of Shakespeare's best-constructed, and most poetic and lyrical, plays. Examples of this include Gaunt's prophecy of Richard's doom in the first few lines (it comes true), and his comparison of England to the Garden of Eden, which is echoed in the garden scene (Act III Scene iv). An Elizabethan audience would find this appropriate, as Gaunt dies at the end of this scene, and the words of a dying man were considered prophetic.
"Methinks I am a
prophet new-
inspired,
And thus, expiring, do foretell of him:
His rash
fierce blaze of
riot cannot last;
For violent fires soon
burn out themselves.
Small
showers last long, but sudden
storms are short
He tires betimes that
spurs too fast betimes.
With eager feeding
food doth choke the feeder.
Light
vanity,
insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon feeds upon itself.
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
blessed plot, this
earth, this
realm, this
England,
This
nurse, this
teeming
womb of royal kings,
Feared 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
leased 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
Hath made a shameful
conquest of itself.
Ah, would the
scandal vanish with my
life,
How
happy then were my ensuing
death!"
*Apologies to anyone who doesn't think England or Christian service are all that great. Blame Shakespeare, not me.