Blown away

Started psychoanalysis last night. It was odd to talk about myself so much, but not too threatening. I'm relaxed with Carl Jung's ideas. They provide a practical, concrete framework for all the philosophy and classical writing I studied, and you would not believe how fun it is to trace archetypes through the dream you had about Eminem doing Mad Scientist magic tricks in a dormitory of your old university. We talked alot about anger, which is odd - synchronic, if I may - since my head is about to EXPLODE this evening with the anger I'm feeling towards some of the ad-bot simpletons I have to deal with.

But the real psychically important event last night was watching Kenneth Branagh's Henry V and the St. Crispin's day speech that lets you know language is Shakespeare's loving bitch:

What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
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.

Oh, the goosebumps. Isn't it something that back in the day the great military leaders also had to be great orators? You had to be able to convince men that they wanted to throw themselves into a deadly situation; prepare them to slaughter another creature that looked like them; you had to take away their fear, suspend their sympathy, and fill them with energy. Imagine! It probably helped that they had a better sense of eternity and a friendlier relationship with death than the Occidental world does now, but all the same. I read somewhere that Julius Caesar's legendarily inspiring rallying speeches were filthily obscene. Naughty Italians.

Speaking of inspirational, has anyone made a movie about this guy yet?