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Sir Ian McKellen recites a pro immigration speech by William Shakespeare 400 years ago on Steven Colbert's show The speech itself -often called 'The Strangers’ Case' - comes from a section of Sir Thomas More that is widely believed to be written in Shakespeare’s own hand and includes a plea for compassion toward immigrants Here's the full section from The Strangers’ Case: (from The Book of Sir Thomas More, Act 2 Scene 4 — attributed to Shakespeare) 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 and their poor luggage, Plodding to the ports and coasts for transportation, And that you sit as kings in your desires, Authority quite silent 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 self‑same hand, self reason, and self right Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes Would feed on one another. Say now the king, 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, to Spain or Portugal, 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 charter’d unto them? What would you think To be thus used? This is the strangers’ case, And this your mountainish inhumanity.