I couldn't get a video to work I'm really sorry
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables from Les Miserables, reminded me a lot of this following passage. It's the act of coming together and fighting for something bigger, similar to what Geoffrey quotes, but not without some tragedy mixed in. It's about losing companions and people you love and fighting for something greater than yourself. At that time, and moving throughout history, one of the most prideful things that you could do was fight for your nation. Granted, Merlin's time and the French Revolution are centuries apart, but it's easy to recognize the similar sentiment these two populations share.
“Could injurious fate be so harmful as to take from me so many and such great companions, whom recently so many kings and so many remote kingdoms feared? O dubious lot of mankind! O death ever near, which has them always in its power, and strikes its hidden goad and drives out the wretched life from the body! O glorious youths, who now will stand by my side in arms, and with me will repel the chieftains coming to harm me, and the hosts rushing in upon me? Bold young men your audacity has taken from you your pleasant years and pleasant youth! You who so recently were rushing in arms through the troops, cutting down on every side those who resisted you, now are beating the ground and are red with red blood!” So among the hosts he lamented with flowing tears, and mourned for the men, and the savage battle was unceasing. The lines rushed together, enemies were slain by enemies, blood flowed everywhere, and people died on both sides. But at length the Britons assembled their troops from all quarters and all together rushing in arms they fell upon the Scots and wounded them and cut them down, nor did they rest until the hostile battalions turned their backs and fled through unfrequented ways."
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