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.