How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare (38 page)

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
.

To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man pick’d out of ten thousand
.

[speaking of his father:]

He was a man, take him for all in all
,

I shall not look upon his like again
.

[Hamlet’s dying words to his friend Horatio:]

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
,

Absent thee from felicity awhile
,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain

To tell my story
.

These are the words of a genius, written by a genius. A. C. Bradley wrote of Hamlet’s eloquence, “After Hamlet, this music is heard no more. It is followed by music vaster and deeper, but not the same.”

Bonus Passage

In the second scene of the play, Hamlet sees his schoolmate Horatio for the first time since returning to Denmark for his father’s funeral. Horatio, who is Hamlet’s only true friend in the play, remarks:
HORATIO

My lord, I came to see your father’s funeral
.

HAMLET

I prithee, do not mock me, fellow student
.

I think it was to see my mother’s wedding
.

HORATIO

Indeed, my lord, it followed hard upon
[quickly].

HAMLET

Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage table
.

I consider the final lines of this exchange to comprise as witty a remark as I have ever heard, and this remark sets the tone for Hamlet’s discourse for the rest of the play. It is all wit on the surface and all tragedy beneath.

Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats

Did coldly furnish forth
[provide cold foods for]
the marriage table
.

It points up Claudius’s treachery and Gertrude’s infidelity while outwardly “pretending” that the situation—saving cold meat for the next meal—is the most natural, practical thing in the world. Which it is, if you aren’t saving it from a funeral banquet for the widow’s wedding feast.

Thrift, thrift, Horatio. The funeral baked meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage table
.

Say the lines aloud one more time with your children, and I bet they’ll know them by heart.

Passage 22
The Advice of Polonius

Give thy thoughts no tongue
,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act
.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar
.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried
,

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel
,

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in
,

Bear ’t that th’ opposèd may beware of thee
.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice
.

Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment
.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy
,

But not expressed in fancy (rich, not gaudy)
,

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,…

Neither a borrower nor a lender be
,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend
,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry
.

This above all: to thine own self be true
,

And it must follow, as the night the day
,

Thou canst not then be false to any man
.

(
Hamlet
, Act I, Scene 3, lines 65–86)

T
his is one of the best-known passages in all of Shakespeare, and it’s a classic for a reason: It is full of good sense and expressed with perfection. Read it through, and you’ll see that it is a set of precepts—principles for living a practical, honest, moral life. Ironically, the passage is delivered by Polonius, who is the meddlesome father of Ophelia and the wily chief counselor to Claudius.

The context is simple: Polonius’s son, Laertes, is returning to college and his ship is waiting in the harbor. Polonius pulls Laertes aside and gives him some fatherly advice about how to comport himself when he reaches his destination.

(1)
Give thy thoughts no tongue
,

In other words, don’t just blurt out (give tongue to) your thoughts and say anything that comes into your head. Be thoughtful. Act maturely.

Nor any unproportioned thought his act
.

Don’t act on
unproportioned
thoughts. Don’t be reckless. Don’t act on a decision if it’s not well considered.

Give thy thoughts no tongue
,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act
.

(2)
Be thou familiar
,

Be open and friendly with people (
familiar
),

but by no means vulgar
.

But don’t be so friendly that you become offensive.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar
.

Point out to your children that throughout this speech, Polonius emphasizes the importance of proportion. He’s saying that balance is the key to
a wise, honorable life. We’ll see this idea return over and over in the next several lines.

(3)
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried
,

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel
,

In other words, “As for the friends you already have and who have passed the test of friendship [
their adoption tried
], hold them as close to you as if a hoop of steel were encircling you both. But”—and here is that issue of proportion again—

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade
.

Don’t cheapen yourself (
dull thy palm
) with friendliness to every new person you meet who has not yet proven himself worthy of it (
each new-hatched, unfledged comrade
)
. New-hatched
and
unfledged
are examples of bird imagery.
New-hatched
refers to a baby bird; and
unfledged
refers to a bird that hasn’t yet developed mature feathers.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried
,

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel
,

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade
.

(4)
Beware / Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in
,

Bear ’t that th’ opposèd may beware of thee
.

Be careful about entering into a fight (
a quarrel
), but once you’re in one, be so brave that your opponent is scared of you (
beware of thee
). Notice how Shakespeare puns on the word
beware
. You beware a fight; but once you’re in it, make sure that your opponent may
beware
[be wary] of you. Shakespeare frequently turns the same word into two different parts of speech. It is one of his hallmarks. Notice also the rhyme between
beware
and
bear
, as well as all the hard
b
’s that sound so quarrelsome.

(5)
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice
,

Listen to everyone (
Give every man thy ear
), but don’t talk too much (
but few thy voice
). Again, this piece of advice is filled with irony, since Polonius is one of the great babblers of all time.

(6)
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment
,

Listen to the opinions of others (
censure
), but don’t be judgmental yourself (
reserve thy judgment
).

(7)
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy
.

Buy clothes that you can afford,

But not expressed in fancy (rich not gaudy)
,

but don’t make them too
fancy
—too imaginative or decorative.

For the apparel oft proclaims the man
,

Because what you wear is often how people judge you.

This bit of advice is ideal for children, but they usually don’t want to hear it. What you wear and how you look gives strangers a first impression about who you are. It may be unjust, but it is a fact of life.

(8)
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend
,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry
.

I always find this part of the passage especially clever, partly for what it says, and partly for how it is expressed.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
means just what it says: Don’t borrow money and don’t lend money. Polonius tells us why in the next two lines: First,
loan oft loses both itself and friend
: When you loan money to someone,
you often lose not only the money itself but also the friend you loaned it to. They don’t want to see you because they feel guilty about not paying you back.

Second,
borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry
: Having extra money that you haven’t earned (and that you have to pay back) often makes you less able to manage your own accounts.
Husbandry
means management of your resources—keeping track of your household expenses. Borrowing gives you a sense of having more money than you actually have and therefore leads to overspending.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be
,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend
,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry
.

(9)
This above all: to thine own self be true
,

And it must follow, as the night the day
,