I can always find something in Shakespeare’s works to console, inform, delight, or move me, and more often than not, something that is remarkably relevant to current issues and events. His wit and wisdom are timeless. Of course, one often has to see them as euphemisms, allegories, or metaphors and overlook their relevance to events contemporary to the Bard. But sometimes they transcend history and stand on their own in modern times. Such is a speech found in Sir Thomas More, a play that, while not canon, Shakespeare is believed by most experts to have contributed to the revision thereof.

I won’t go into the whole background and history of the play and its subsequent revisions (look for it on Wikipedia in the link, above), but in brief several writers worked on it, and one part, attributed to Shakespeare has become relevant to the rise of MAGA racism and the behaviour of the ICE Brownshirts in the USA.

In the play Thomas More was at the time (1517) undersheriff of London under Henry VIII (he was appointed Lord Chancellor by Henry later in his career). Xenophobic native Londoners staged a protest that spread and became a riot. They claimed foreigners who had immigrated to England were abusing and disrespecting citizens of London. The mob of Londoners went to seek revenge on the newcomers for the imagined slights, drive them from the city, and burn their homes. They demanded the immigrants be sent back to where they came from.*

Noblemen in the city panicked at the unrest and went to More, the popular lawyer and respected sheriff, and asked him to restore calm. More agreed to speak to the rioters and in the play he defused the situation with both a chastisement and an appeal to their humanity.**

It is a deeply moving speech, especially when one reads or listens to it against the backdrop of photos and videos showing ICE agents kidnapping people, dragging them from their cars, arresting children, and even executing American citizens publicly on the street (without any consequences for their murders). I doubt such a speech would move any of the neo-fascist ICE agents to change their behaviour.

Before reading further, I recommend you watch More’s speech being spoken by Sir Ian McKellen:

First, be aware that this is a conflation of More’s speech, taken from the various parts as he speaks to the crowd, and bypasses some of the dialogue between More and two main rioters (Doll and George). Here is what McKellen speaks with the ellipses marking where lines were cut out:

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an agèd man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another […]

You’ll put down strangers,
Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses […]
(And lead the majesty of law in line,
To slip him like a hound.)

O, desperate as you are,
Wash your foul minds with tears, and those same hands,
That you like rebels lift against the peace,
Lift up for peace, and your unreverent knees,
Make them your feet to kneel to be forgiven! […]

Say now the king,
As he is clement if th’offender mourn,
Should so much come too short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whither would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbor? Go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
Nay, anywhere that not adheres to England,
Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the elements
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case;
And this your mountainish inhumanity.

For an explanation and a glossary of some of the unfamiliar words like chid or those used in a different manner that today, like shark, see MyShakespeare.com. McKellen did an earlier version of this speech in 2014, with the additional lines from the play above in parentheses, watchable on YouTube here.***

Italian writer and political philosopher Antonio Gramsci, writing between WWI and WWII, said, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Or at least those are the words attributed to him by Slavoj Žižek. And, like More’s speech to the mob, it’s hard not to see today’s world in those words.****

Notes:

* In the 1590s, when Elizabeth I reigned, there were again riots in London against immigrants and foreigners. It is possible the play, written in that decade, was not performed then because it could be construed as a criticism of the monarchy. It was revised after her death, but still not performed.

** Historically, this was known as Evil May Day and the riot was sparked by Dr. Bell, a preacher who gave a xenophobic speech much like those of Trump or Stephen Miller today. Bell accused immigrants of stealing jobs from English workers and of “eat[ing] the bread from poor fatherless children”. Sound familiar? Much like Trump’s claim that immigrants were “eating the cats and the dogs” of citizens.

More did calm the rioters, but only temporarily and the mob went on to loot the homes of foreigners. The riot was only quelled when the Duke of Norfolk brought his private army into London, and arrested 300 of the rioters.

Before this, England had had many incidents of racism in its history including riots against foreigners, some instigated by the monarchy or its courtiers. The expulsion of the Jews from England by Edward I in 1290 is only one such event (Jews were not allowed to re-settle in England until the mid-17th century and even then many Christians fought it, but Jews could not become citizens until the mid-18th century). Today, far-right (neo-Nazi) groups in the UK still protest against Jews, and against foreigners in general.

The Reform Party in the UK is a MAGA-wannabe political party with a core racist ideology. And it seems to attract a similar mix of sociopaths, far-right extremists, grievance miners, illiterates, conspiracy cultists, and rage-farmers as does MAGA. In Canada the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) has taken on many of MAGA’s ideological tenets under its rage-farming Trump mimic leader, Pierre PoiLIEvre, who recently demanded Trumpian restrictions on immigrants and to remove healthcare from refugees.

Racism has a long and shameful history throughout the West, and no country I can think of has not had it in its history. But in the 21st century, with global trade and travel, with the internet available to reach everyone, vast stores of information available with a few keystrokes, the ability to connect without borders or barriers to peoples and cultures worldwide, racism is an anachronism; an ideology based on primitive fear and xenophobia. It is emotional, not rational. You would hope that we could rise above it. But it’s back and in force, especially in the USA today, as Trump’s ICE Brownshirts and his fascist administration exemplify.

*** Here is the section in its entirety from Gutenberg.org:

MORE.
Then what a rough and riotous charge have you,
To lead those that the dual cannot rule?—
Good masters, hear me speak.

DOLL.
Aye, by th’ mass, will we, More: th’ art a good housekeeper, and I
thank thy good worship for my brother Arthur Watchins.

ALL.
Peace, peace.

MORE.
Look, what you do offend you cry upon,
That is, the peace: not one of you here present,
Had there such fellows lived when you were babes,
That could have topped the peace, as now you would,
The peace wherein you have till now grown up
Had been ta’en from you, and the bloody times
Could not have brought you to the state of men.
Alas, poor things, what is it you have got,
Although we grant you get the thing you seek?

GEORGE.
Marry, the removing of the strangers, which cannot choose but
much advantage the poor handicrafts of the city.

MORE.
Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise
Hath chid down all the majesty of England;
Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,
Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,
Plodding to th’ ports and costs for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silent by your brawl,
And you in ruff of your opinions clothed;
What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught
How insolence and strong hand should prevail,
How order should be quelled; and by this pattern
Not one of you should live an aged man,
For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,
With self same hand, self reasons, and self right,
Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes
Would feed on one another.

DOLL.
Before God, that’s as true as the Gospel.

LINCOLN.
Nay, this is a sound fellow, I tell you: let’s mark him.

MORE.
Let me set up before your thoughts, good friends,
On supposition; which if you will mark,
You shall perceive how horrible a shape
Your innovation bears: first, tis a sin
Which oft the apostle did forewarn us of,
Urging obedience to authority;
And twere no error, if I told you all,
You were in arms against your God himself.

ALL.
Marry, God forbid that!

MORE.
Nay, certainly you are;
For to the king God hath his office lent
Of dread, of justice, power and command,
Hath bid him rule, and willed you to obey;
And, to add ampler majesty to this,
He hath not only lent the king his figure,
His throne and sword, but given him his own name,
Calls him a god on earth. What do you, then,
Rising gainst him that God himself installs,
But rise against God? what do you to your souls
In doing this? O, desperate as you are,
Wash your foul minds with tears, and those same hands,
That you like rebels lift against the peace,
Lift up for peace, and your unreverent knees,
Make them your feet to kneel to be forgiven!
Tell me but this: what rebel captain,
As mutinies are incident, by his name
Can still the rout? who will obey a traitor?
Or how can well that proclamation sound,
When there is no addition but a rebel
To qualify a rebel? You’ll put down strangers,
Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,
And lead the majesty of law in line,
To slip him like a hound. Say now the king
(As he is clement, if th’ offender mourn)
Should so much come to short of your great trespass
As but to banish you, whether would you go?
What country, by the nature of your error,
Should give you harbor? go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, to Spain or Portugal,
Nay, any where that not adheres to England,—
Why, you must needs be strangers: would you be pleased
To find a nation of such barbarous temper,
That, breaking out in hideous violence,
Would not afford you an abode on earth,
Whet their detested knives against your throats,
Spurn you like dogs, and like as if that God
Owed not nor made not you, nor that the claimants
Were not all appropriate to your comforts,
But chartered unto them, what would you think
To be thus used? this is the strangers case;
And this your mountanish inhumanity.

ALL.
Faith, a says true: let’s do as we may be done to.

LINCOLN.
We’ll be ruled by you, Master More, if you’ll stand our friend to
procure our pardon.

MORE.
Submit you to these noble gentlemen,
Entreat their mediation to the king,
Give up yourself to form, obey the magistrate,
And there’s no doubt but mercy may be found,
If you so seek.
To persist in it is present death: but, if you
Yield yourselves, no doubt what punishment
You in simplicity have incurred, his highness
In mercy will most graciously pardon.

ALL.
We yield, and desire his highness’ mercy.

**** Another translation of his words are, “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” English translation Selections from the Prison Notebooks, “Wave of Materialism” and “Crisis of Authority” (NY: International Publishers), (1971) and from Prison Notebooks Volume II, Notebook 3, 1930, (2011 edition). Gramsci also wrote, “History teaches, but it has no pupils.” Letter from Prison (21 June 1919).

As the white supremacists and Talibangelists in the administration — Gramsci’s monsters — turn the USA into a fascist regime, the old world — the post-WWII world of democracy, empathy, collaboration, alliances, mutual aid, compassion, cooperation, and negotiations — seems to be on its deathbed. The new world these monsters are hatching — authoritarian, racist, patriarchal, misogynist, Talibangelist — is being brewed in the cauldron of the USA to be spread like a toxin to every nation it can bully into submission to its ideology. And those that cannot be intimidated or bullied will be invaded and conquered.

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