Saint George's Day.

[tw25rw]

Shakespeare's 450th birthday feels like something more worthy of celebrating. From England came William Shakespeare, the greatest writer of all time, who gave the whole world a deeper understand of its humanity. From Palestine came St George, a minor saint, who gave the English an excuse to wave some flags around.

At least St.George did something useful and paid the ultimate price for his efforts................

But he wasn't English and he is the patron saint of many places. It's a bit like the UK using lions on their various crests..

England's history,St.George's time Christianity ruled, England was and is still a Christian country. Richard the lion heart used the Lions and St.George doing his stuff, our history. English sport uses the 3 Lions. OUR HISTORY..............

If he never set foot in England, it isn't England's history. It's just myth and legend.. A bit like England being a Christian country.

[evadgib]

[evadgib]

By George! England's traditional counties can return to England’s roads

[evadgib]

Yes Shaw was quite old during the Nazi era but he was still able to agree with Hitler's (and Stalin's) genocide, Maybe you are reading the wrong books.

Anyway, I started this thread to express my wishes to my fellow Englishmen on this our national day and not to bicker about the tripe that you are posting.

So, just to keep you happy:

To my fellow Englishmen (except Sewell),

I wish you all a Happy Saint George’s Day.

Wear your roses with pride and remember red on the right and white on the left.

This is supposed to be a topic about England and St George, but as usual the mods are biased in their moderation. Better to leave Ireland out of your English topics, but if you want to point fingers about Genocide (English always do), then better to deal with your own Genocidal crimes first before pointing fingers.

Weary men, what reap ye? —Golden corn for the stranger.

What sow ye? —Human corpses that wait for the avenger.

Fainting forms, hunger‐stricken, what see you in the offing?

Stately ships to bear our food away, amid the stranger's scoffing.

There's a proud array of soldiers—what do they round your door?

They guard our masters' granaries from the thin hands of the poor.

Pale mothers, wherefore weeping? —Would to God that we were dead

Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread.

Little children, tears are strange upon your infant faces,

God meant you but to smile within your mother's soft embraces.

Oh! we know not what is smiling, and we know not what is dying;

But we're hungry, very hungry, and we cannot stop our crying.

And some of us grow cold and white—we know not what it means;

But, as they lie beside us, we tremble in our dreams.

There's a gaunt crowd on the highway—are ye come to pray to man,

With hollow eyes that cannot weep, and for words your faces wan?

No; the blood is dead within our veins—we care not now for life;

Let us die hid in the ditches, far from children and from wife;

We cannot stay and listen to their raving, famished cries

Bread! Bread! Bread! and none to still their agonies.

We left our infants playing with their dead mother's hand:

We left our maidens maddened by the fever's scorching brand:

Better, maiden, thou were strangled in thy own dark‐twisted tresses—

Better, infant, thou wert smothered in thy mother's first caresses.

We are fainting in our misery, but God will hear our groan;

Yet, if fellow‐men desert us, will He hearken from His Throne?

Accursed are we in our own land, yet toil we still and toil;

But the stranger reaps our harvest—the alien owns our soil.

O Christ! how have we sinned, that on our native plains

We perish houseless, naked, starved, with branded brow, like Cain's?

Dying, dying wearily, with a torture sure and slow

Dying, as a dog would die, by the wayside as we go.

One by one they're falling round us, their pale faces to the sky;

We've no strength left to dig them graves—there let them lie.

The wild bird, if he's stricken, is mourned by the others,

But we—we die in Christian land—we die amid our brothers,

In the land which God has given, like a wild beast in his cave,

Without a tear, a prayer, a shroud, a coffin, or a grave.

Ha! but think ye the contortions on each livid face ye see,

Will not be read on judgment‐day by eyes of Deity?

We are wretches, famished, scorned, human tools to build your pride,

But God will yet take vengeance for the souls for whom Christ died.

Now is your hour of pleasure—bask ye in the world's caress;

But our whitening bones against ye will rise as witnesses,

From the cabins and the ditches, in their charred, uncoffin'd masses,

For the Angel of the Trumpet will know them as he passes.

A ghastly, spectral army, before the great God we'll stand,

And arraign ye as our murderers, the spoilers of our land.

Lady Jane Wilde

Did similar <deleted> disrupt the St Paddys day thread?

Ireland was brought into the topic by an Englishman, better to leave it out as I suggested earlier.

Not before you had your say though eh?

Give it a rest Seamus!

[tonytigerbkk]

Yes Shaw was quite old during the Nazi era but he was still able to agree with Hitler's (and Stalin's) genocide, Maybe you are reading the wrong books.

Anyway, I started this thread to express my wishes to my fellow Englishmen on this our national day and not to bicker about the tripe that you are posting.

So, just to keep you happy:

To my fellow Englishmen (except Sewell),

I wish you all a Happy Saint George’s Day.

Wear your roses with pride and remember red on the right and white on the left.

This is supposed to be a topic about England and St George, but as usual the mods are biased in their moderation. Better to leave Ireland out of your English topics, but if you want to point fingers about Genocide (English always do), then better to deal with your own Genocidal crimes first before pointing fingers.

Weary men, what reap ye? —Golden corn for the stranger.

What sow ye? —Human corpses that wait for the avenger.

Fainting forms, hunger‐stricken, what see you in the offing?

Stately ships to bear our food away, amid the stranger's scoffing.

There's a proud array of soldiers—what do they round your door?

They guard our masters' granaries from the thin hands of the poor.

Pale mothers, wherefore weeping? —Would to God that we were dead

Our children swoon before us, and we cannot give them bread.

Little children, tears are strange upon your infant faces,

God meant you but to smile within your mother's soft embraces.

Oh! we know not what is smiling, and we know not what is dying;

But we're hungry, very hungry, and we cannot stop our crying.

And some of us grow cold and white—we know not what it means;

But, as they lie beside us, we tremble in our dreams.

There's a gaunt crowd on the highway—are ye come to pray to man,

With hollow eyes that cannot weep, and for words your faces wan?

No; the blood is dead within our veins—we care not now for life;

Let us die hid in the ditches, far from children and from wife;

We cannot stay and listen to their raving, famished cries

Bread! Bread! Bread! and none to still their agonies.

We left our infants playing with their dead mother's hand:

We left our maidens maddened by the fever's scorching brand:

Better, maiden, thou were strangled in thy own dark‐twisted tresses—

Better, infant, thou wert smothered in thy mother's first caresses.

We are fainting in our misery, but God will hear our groan;

Yet, if fellow‐men desert us, will He hearken from His Throne?

Accursed are we in our own land, yet toil we still and toil;

But the stranger reaps our harvest—the alien owns our soil.

O Christ! how have we sinned, that on our native plains

We perish houseless, naked, starved, with branded brow, like Cain's?

Dying, dying wearily, with a torture sure and slow

Dying, as a dog would die, by the wayside as we go.

One by one they're falling round us, their pale faces to the sky;

We've no strength left to dig them graves—there let them lie.

The wild bird, if he's stricken, is mourned by the others,

But we—we die in Christian land—we die amid our brothers,

In the land which God has given, like a wild beast in his cave,

Without a tear, a prayer, a shroud, a coffin, or a grave.

Ha! but think ye the contortions on each livid face ye see,

Will not be read on judgment‐day by eyes of Deity?

We are wretches, famished, scorned, human tools to build your pride,

But God will yet take vengeance for the souls for whom Christ died.

Now is your hour of pleasure—bask ye in the world's caress;

But our whitening bones against ye will rise as witnesses,

From the cabins and the ditches, in their charred, uncoffin'd masses,

For the Angel of the Trumpet will know them as he passes.

A ghastly, spectral army, before the great God we'll stand,

And arraign ye as our murderers, the spoilers of our land.

Lady Jane Wilde

Did similar <deleted> disrupt the St Paddys day thread?

Ireland was brought into the topic by an Englishman, better to leave it out as I suggested earlier.

Completely wrong,

A quote was made by Sewell and I asked why he was quoting an Irishman who had Nazi sympathies.

There was no discussion about Ireland nor about the Irish as a race, we were discussing about a man who happens to be Irish.

If Sewell had posted a quote on this thread made by Hemmingway and I did not think that it was relevant to the thread, I would have also pointed this out.

Not every post on TV is about Ireland, get over it.

As for your rantings about the moderators, as far as I can see this thread has not been touched by the moderators, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

I understand that St. Patrick’s Day has now gone and that you are probably feeling left out but if you want, I can make a special post (just for you) and wish you a Happy Saint George’s Day.

Hell, I will even throw in a ‘May the English spirit live with you forever’ if you like.

[I Like Thai]

Did similar <deleted> disrupt the St Paddys day thread?

Ireland was brought into the topic by an Englishman, better to leave it out as I suggested earlier.

After you had well and truly stirred the shit!

That was my first posting in the topic. The shit had been stirred by the OP.

The Topic should be about St George, not world renowned playwrights such as Shakespeare and Shaw.

Anyway, happy St Georges Day

[lungbing]

HM The Queen is not German. Prince Albert, her Great-Great Grandfather was. The Queen's parents were George VI (English) and Elizabeth nee Bowes-Lyon (Scottish) and the Queen was born in London. How the hell can she be German?

[7by7]

Prior to the reign of Edward III both St Edmund and St Edward the Confessor were seen as patron saints of England.

Many sources suggest that, as both were Saxon kings, post conquest the Normans and then the Plantagenets were unhappy having one or the other as their patron saint, so changed it to St George; who had a cult following in England from before the conquest.

From Wikipedia

Traces of the cult of St George predate the Norman Conquest, in 9th-century liturgy used at Durham Cathedral, in a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon martyrology, and in dedications to Saint George at Fordington, Dorset, at Thetford, Southwark and Doncaster. He received further impetus when the Crusaders returned from the Holy Land in the 12th century. At the Battle of Antioch in 1098, St George, St Demetrius and St Maurice were said to have been seen riding alongside the crusaders, and depictions of this event can be seen in a number of churches.[18] King Edward III (reigned 1327 – 1377) was known for promoting the codes of knighthood and in 1348 founded the Order of the Garter. During his reign, George came to be recognised as the patron saint of the English monarchy; prior to this, Saint Edmund had been considered the patron saint of England, although his veneration had waned since the time of the Norman conquest, and his cult was partly eclipsed by that of Edward the Confessor. Edward dedicated the chapel at Windsor Castle to the soldier saint who represented the knightly values of chivalry which he so much admired, and the Garter ceremony takes place there every year. In the 16th century, Edmund Spenser included St. George (Redcross Knight) as a central figure in his epic poem The Faerie Queene. William Shakespeare firmly placed St George within the national conscience in his play Henry V, in which the English troops are rallied with the cry “God for Harry, England and St George,” and in Richard III, and King Lear.


“ Advance our standards, set upon our foes Our ancient world of courage fair
St. George Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons..... Richard III. act v, sc.3. ”


“ Come not between the Dragon and his wrath.....Shakespeare. King Lear. Act I, Sc 2

Not being religious, I don't see today as the celebration of the life of a man who may or may not have actually ever existed, but as a celebration of my country; England, it's history, achievements and heritage.

There may be much in English history which is now cause for regret; but there is much more which is cause for celebration.

The same can be said of most other countries.

[tonytigerbkk]

HM The Queen is not German. Prince Albert, her Great-Great Grandfather was. The Queen's parents were George VI (English) and Elizabeth nee Bowes-Lyon (Scottish) and the Queen was born in London. How the hell can she be German?

I did not mean to offend, it was said tongue in cheek.

[evadgib]

PS:

Whether this lot like it or not they're English too:)

• Cornish granted UK minority status

[Sigurris]

There is no developed country on this planet that does not have skeletons in the closet. He who is without sin etc etc.

St Georges Day, like every other national day is about celebrating what is good about the country. So celebrate for there is much to be proud of.

Music, Art, Innovation, Theatre, Film, Computing, Medicine, Sport, Standing up for principles and the underdog, offering safe haven to refugees of less enlightened regimes (I am the product of that), and the list goes on.

[Theoutsider]

Yes Shaw was quite old during the Nazi era but he was still able to agree with Hitler's (and Stalin's) genocide, Maybe you are reading the wrong books.

Anyway, I started this thread to express my wishes to my fellow Englishmen on this our national day and not to bicker about the tripe that you are posting.

So, just to keep you happy:

To my fellow Englishmen (except Sewell),

I wish you all a Happy Saint Georges Day.

Wear your roses with pride and remember red on the right and white on the left.

It's true that Shaw came out with some highly objectionable statements that I won't defend, but the context makes things a little more complex:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/was-george-bernard-shaw-a-monster/article585209/?page=all

So it seems that, much like England, Shaw was full of contradictions, both good and bad.

I'm sorry if I upset you, that was not my intention. Happy St George's day to you. I'll stick with the red rose in support of Lancashire County Cricket Club.

You forget about the white rose which was also part of England.

Us English MUST hang on to our history, not change a single thing, it is our history...........

Zillions of English folk have fought and died behind the flag of St.George and OUR 3 Lions. We still do, at war or sport. Don't try and change stuff eh, for any reason.........

Thought it was 3 leopards