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Father's Day via Shakespeare
June 12, 2003
Father
knows best. Or at least he knows more than you think he does. As a father
myself, I advise you kids not to insult our intelligence. (However well
disguised it may be.)
Don’t even try offering lame excuses to your fathers. We have
seen and heard it all before (because we, ourselves, have done and
said it all when we were your age!)
Yes, some of the terminology may have changed with the times, to
be sure, but the issues themselves remain the same. To prove it,
let me offer the following dialog, written hundreds of years ago,
by William Shakespeare. It is a little known and long forgotten excerpt
from his play “Hamlet”-- a conversation between Lord
Polonius and his son, Laertes.
It is not the familiar advice, in which Polonius concludes his remarks
to Laertes with the line: “To thine own self be true.” No,
in the original draft, Shakespeare had actually included this additional
exchange between the two that has been lost over the centuries, but
still relevant today, nonetheless.
Polonius: Laertes, Laertes. Wherefore has thou been art, Laertes?
Laertes: Oh, hither and thither.
Polonius: Knowest thou not, that thou art late for thy curfew?
Laertes: My dread lord, forgive me this, my folly.
Polonius: With whom hast thou tarried for lo, these many hours?
Laertes: Friends, Romans, Countrymen…
Polonius: Or a fair young maiden, per chance? What say you?
Laertes: My heart doest betray me.
Polonius: Thy lady mother and I have sought angst against thee. Now
is the winter of our discontent. Your looks are pale and wild, and
do import some misadventure.
Laertes: Good father, I beseech you on my knees. Hear me with patience
but to speak a word.
Polonius: Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all. Thou art hereby
forbidden use of the family steed for the duration of a fortnight.
Laertes: A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
Polonius: Save it for the morrow. I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me
again.
Laertes: Too harsh is my sentence. This is much ado about nothing!
Polonius: To be grounded or not to be grounded? There is no question!
Laertes: O happy dagger! This is thy sheath.
Polonius: But, soft! What light through yonder doorway breaks? It is
the east, and your bedroom is the sun. Arise, fair son, and go to thy
room. Get thee to bed, and rest; for thou hast need.
Laertes: I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe. Under love's heavy
burden do I sink.
Polonius: Lest ye desire to add yet a haircut to thy chastisement--
in it, putteth a cork.
Laertes: Good night, good night! Grounding is such sorrow, that I shall
say good night till it be morrow.
So as you can see, things haven’t changed much, even since the
days of Shakespeare. Fashions and phrases come and go, but human nature
does not. (Assuming kids qualify as human.)
And now… I must needs go, and take leave of thy presence. Taking
my station among fellow peasants. Fare thee well, now that we’re
parted. (‘Sorry! ‘Tis difficult to stop once you get started.)
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