From My Commonplace: Father to Son

Polonius, to his son Laertes as he leaves home:

 

"Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, Aboard, for shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are stayed for.  There, my blessing with thee.

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character.  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 until they soul with hoops of steel,

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatched, unfledged courage. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

Bear't that th'opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.

Costly thy habit as they purse can buy,

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

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are of a most select and generous chief in that.

Neither a borrower or 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 night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell.  My blessing this season with thee."

 

Act I, Scene 3, Lines 60-87

~William Shakespeare, Hamlet

 

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My Bookbag This Week:

Devotional: Job with a commentary: Job: The Wisdom of the Cross (Ash)

Theological or Christian Living:  Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of An Unlikely Convert (Butterfield)

AO Book Discussion Group: Ivanhoe (Scott)

On Education: Mind to Mind (Mason and Glass)

Shakespeare: Hamlet (aiming to read a scene-a-day alongside my daughter's Shakespeare class at our co-op.  Don't we all need a little more Shakespeare in our lives?!)

Novel/Biography/Memoir:  The Awakening of Miss Prim (Fenollera)

Read-Alouds with the Children:  The Little White Horse (Goudge), Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan), Charlotte's Web (White)

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