Did Gen. Patton kinda steal from Shakespeare?

Memorial Day evening. On the tube, the opening scene from Patton, George C. Scott as the eponymous general giving a speech to the Third Army, the day before D-Day.

Hollywood bowdlerized George S. Patton's words to his troops; below are selections from his authentic remarks. Reading them, one might think that Patton's crude language betrayed a certain ignorance of other leaders' eloquence throughout the ages. But one would be wrong. Patton was an avid reader of not only military history but great literature — including the greatest, Shakespeare's. I note this for a possibly mistaken reason. While once again listening to Patton's speech this evening, it occurred to me that the general's wrap-up contained shades of the king's St. Crispin Day's speech to his troops before battle as conceived by Shakespeare in Henry V.

This day is called the feast of Crispian:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall live this day, and see old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.

And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

But he’ll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day: then shall our names.

Familiar in his mouth as household words

Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.

This story shall the good man teach his son....

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Before comparing literary notes, a few inspirational words to 20th-century troops from George Patton — not Hollywood — delivered 5 June 1944.

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I don't give a fuck for a man who's not always on his toes.... If you're not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-asshole-bitch is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sockful of shit....

This individual heroic stuff is pure horseshit. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about fucking....

We're not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we're going to rip out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket....

I don't want to get any messages saying, "I am holding my position." We are not holding a goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy's balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time....

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That, ahem, said, next is this post's actual relevant portion of Patton's speech. Compare it to Shakespeare's Henry V. Whataya think? Did George lift a little from William?

"There is one great thing that you men will all be able to say after this war is over and you are home once again. You may be thankful that twenty years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what you did in the great World War II, you won't have to cough, shift him to the other knee and say, 'Well, your Granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.'"