Into the Breach…
Or is it “Once more unto the breach…” whatever the breach may be.
“Breach”— a crack, a rift, a rupture.
Why would one rush into the crack, the rift, the rupture?
To repair it before it gets bigger and more threatening?
Or is it to put oneself between it and what is ruptured?
Or the original meaning is perhaps to further the crack, assure the rupture and claim victory?
The famous reference is from Shakespeare’s Henry V when King Henry, in the midst of the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years War in 1415, is portrayed as issuing the call. The English soldiers faced overwhelming odds — England’s 6000-10,000 soldiers were confronting 20,000-30,000 French soldiers, two to five times larger force. But the English longbowmen were fighting mounted knights and crossbowmen. Was it superior equipment, strategy, or God who gave the English the victory? The debate continues six hundred years later and remains on occasion still a rallying sentiment with less lethal consequence between English and French.
Today “Once more unto the breach” echoes according to one’s circumstances. It can play out with a breach repaired, a conflict resolved, or the breach opened further and war continuing.
Response to this call will resonate according to one’s geography and circumstance, experience and ontological point of view.
I hope you’ll share your thoughts in the Comments section at the end of this Substack.
From Henry V, spoken by King Henry:
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;