ON SOURCE: AMOL RAJAN INSTAGRAM
Sir Ian McKellen quoting Shakespeare from 400 years ago, drawing a parallel with the inhumaity of our times, how the voices of division, along with their false promises, are becoming louder, scapegoating migrants and refugees.
Sir Ian McKellen on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert
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TRANSCRIPT
William Shakespeare 400 years ago.
There's a riot happening. There's a mob
out in the streets and they're
complaining about the the presence of
strangers in London, by which they mean
the recent immigrants who've arrived
there. And they're shouting the odds and
complaining and saying that the
immigrants should be sent back home
wherever they came from.
And the authorities send out this young lawyer,
Thomas Moore, to put down the riot,
which he does in two ways. One by saying
that you can't riot like this. It’s against the law.
So, shut up, be quiet. And also, being by
Shakespeare, with an appeal to their humanity.
So, in order to set it up, we really
need somebody to shout that the
strangers should be removed. Could
someone do that?
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, with their
poor luggage, plotting to the ports and
coasts for transportation,
and that you sit as kings in your
desires, authority quite silenced by
your brawl, and you in rough of your
opinions clothed. What had you got?
I'll tell you, you had taught how
insolent and strong hands 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 hands, self-reason, and
self-right, would shark on you, and men like
ravenous fishes feed on one another.
You'll put down strangers, kill them.
Cut their throats, possess their houses.
Oh, 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.
And say now the king,
as he is clement, if the offender mourn,
should so much come too short of your
great trespasses but to banish you
wither would you go?
What country by the nature of your error
should give you harbour r? Go you to France
or Flanders, to any German province,
Spain or Portugal, 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?
Quetch their detested knives against your
throats, spurn you like dogs, and like as if that
God owned 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 strangest case and this your
mountainous inhumanity.
William Shakespeare 400 years ago.
[cheering and applause]
Thank you
ON SOURCE: AMOL RAJAN INSTAGRAM