The Sun Never Set & the Blood Never Dried

IN BRITAIN'S IMPERIAL heyday, a phrase with uncertain provenance could be heard everywhere from Hong Kong to Bengal to Dublin: “The Empire on which the sun never sets.” The saying can be taken literally, or figuratively, or indeed both. First used, most likely, by King Xerxes I of Persia two-and-a-half millennia ago, it took the form of a monarchical promise that “the sun will then shine on no land beyond our borders; for I will pass through Europe from one end to the other, and with your aid make of all the lands which it contains one country.” Although this might not precisely anticipate the faltering European Union, it does speak tangibly of the unifying purpose of empire. Two thousand years later, Philip II of Spain is reported to have voiced the same sentiment after Spain took control of the Portuguese empire.