Shakespeare’s birthday

W. SHAKESPEARE birthday on April 23 / ? /

Baptized April 26,1564. Death on April 23, 1616.

‘TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE’ from Hamlet. 

Here is a famous speech from Shakespeare’s tragic play Hamlet. See how many bits of advice you can find in it that are in common parlance today There are changes in some wording as they are used now.

POLONIUS’ ADVICE TO LAERTES

“There, – my blessing with you!

And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character, – Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them to 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 the opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:

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

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.”

Joey aka “Pepe Batbon” Connolly is a retired educator who taught in the CNMI, NOLA, and LVNV. He is the Poet Laureate of Tinian and enjoys stargazing.