(03-07-2013 02:05 AM)supercharger Wrote: [ -> ]LOL, thinking that as well Thor!!
For those with no savvy... /wiki/The_Dogs_of_War_(film)
OP +R just for the name ;] nah joshing... cool share!
"Cry, 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war"
Act Three, scene one,
Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. It is an anachronism, and anachronisms are very common in Shakespeare, especially in this play. Havoc derives from Old French, and probably derives from a now lost Germanic word (perhaps Walter will show up with the best derivation). It means to plunder, and entered English through Anglo-Norman,
crier havoc, meaning to cry (shout) plunder. To cry havoc is to release one's troops to plunder the enemy camp or town.
Here's the full speech. Julius Caesar enters the Senate despite the soothsayers warning, and is assassinated by a band of conspirators lead by Brutus. Among them is Marc Antony, but he flees the Senate before the murder is done. He returns, and finally, when alone with the body of Caesar, apostrophizes the corpse:
O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,--
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue--
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar's spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice
Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
Basically, Marc Antony uses the phrase in calling for revenge against the assassins.
( don't I sound intelligent and educated now ? :) )