Guillaume Darmont
VolineShakespeare on ethnic cleansing.
Ian McKellen performs "The Strangers' Case" speech from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on 4 February 2026.
Text of "The Strangers' Case" speech as arranged for/by McKellen. William Shakespeare. *Sir Thomas More* (1592), Act I, Scene 6. More addresses a crowd bent on a pogrom against immigrants.
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, with their poor luggage,
Plodding to th' ports and coasts for transportation,
And that you sit as kings in your desires,
Authority quite silenced 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 selfsame 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
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
And ... 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 harbour? Go you to France or Flanders,
To any German province, Spain or Portigal,
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.
DragonFlame
AnneH
MandaI have long believed that while Shakespeare is an excellent writer, his longevity is due entirely to the fact that he accurately represents the diverse humanity of his characters.
Ángela Stella MatutinaShould anyone need the text with a few modern English equivalents for what are now perceived as archaisms:
https://myshakespeare.com/hamlet/the-strangers-case-speech-sir-thomas-more
Michelle HughesI had never heard of Shakespeare doing a play on Sir Thomas More, so I looked it up on Wikipedia. It says:
> The play is considered to be written by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle and revised by several writers. The manuscript is particularly notable for a three-page handwritten revision now widely attributed to William Shakespeare.
I guess that's why it doesn't show up in usual collections: it's a little weird.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Thomas_More_(play)#Authorship
@MegaMichelle
I had never heard of it before yesterday, either! I think this play sent us both down the same rabbit hole. Sir Thomas More shows up in the most complete, and authoritative collections of Shakespeare plays: Oxford Complete Works of WS, Cambridge Complete Shakespeare, etc. The scholarly consensus seems to be it was co-written by Shakespeare. But it's not often performed, nor does it show up in print in any collections that don't aspire be "complete". Maybe, it just isn't considered one of his best.
But it's simultaneously very important because, if it is indeed Shakespeare, then it's his only play that exists in manuscript form. By what means is it attributed to Shakespeare? By handwriting analysis. But it's the only manuscript! All other, better verified, samples of Shakespeare's handwriting are from bills and receipts, some notes and letters. Small samples. Compared to those scholars think one of four hands in the multi-author manuscript, "Hand D", is Shakespeare's. It's all kind of tenuous, but there's not a lot of dissent among scholars.
Could be a case of motivated reasoning, because, if Hand D is him, we have a Shakespeare manuscript. If Hand D is not him, we don't — and that would make scholars sad.
The the annual Ashland Shakespeare festival here in Oregon includes a scholar convention and the 1983 Shakesfest included a seminar on "Sir Thomas More" that resulted in a collection of essays by participants, *Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More: Essays on the Play and Its Shakespearian Interest*, edited by TH Howard-Hill. Cambridge Univ Press, 1989. I got a copy from a "shadow library".
https://annas-archive.li/md5/cddeab11fe44ea7be30328b559ed7e3b
Shakespeare And Sir Thomas More: Essays On The Play And Its Shakespearian Interest (new Cambridge Shakespeare Studies And Supplementary Texts) - Anna’s Archive
edited by T. H. Howard-Hill 1. Voice And Credyt / G. Harold Metz -- 2. The Occasion Of The Book Of Sir Thomas More / William B. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire] ; New York: Cambridge University Press
Argie
Paul Schultze-Motel@Voline The play was apparently written by a team of authors - William Shakespeare was one of them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Thomas_More_(play)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Thomas_More_(play)
@psm_os
Yes. As Michelle Hughes and I were discussing earlier:
Voline (@[email protected])
@[email protected] I had never heard of it before yesterday, either! I think this play sent us both down the same rabbit hole. Sir Thomas More shows up in the most complete, and authoritative collections of Shakespeare plays: Oxford Complete Works of WS, Cambridge Complete Shakespeare, etc. The scholarly consensus seems to be it was co-written by Shakespeare. But it's not often performed, nor does it show up in print in any collections that don't aspire be "complete". Maybe, it just isn't considered one of his best. But it's simultaneously very important because, if it is indeed Shakespeare, then it's his only play that exists in manuscript form. By what means is it attributed to Shakespeare? By handwriting analysis. But it's the only manuscript! All other, better verified, samples of Shakespeare's handwriting are from bills and receipts, some notes and letters. Small samples. Compared to those scholars think one of four hands in the multi-author manuscript, "Hand D", is Shakespeare's. It's all kind of tenuous, but there's not a lot of dissent among scholars. Could be a case of motivated reasoning, because, if Hand D is him, we have a Shakespeare manuscript. If Hand D is not him, we don't — and that would make scholars sad. The the annual Ashland Shakespeare festival here in Oregon includes a scholar convention and the 1983 Shakesfest included a seminar on "Sir Thomas More" that resulted in a collection of essays by participants, *Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More: Essays on the Play and Its Shakespearian Interest*, edited by TH Howard-Hill. Cambridge Univ Press, 1989. I got a copy from a "shadow library". https://annas-archive.li/md5/cddeab11fe44ea7be30328b559ed7e3b
@Voline Thanks! There is another thread about it here:
https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/116021176572472032
https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/116021176572472032