SHAKESPEARE’S ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN

              SHAKESPEARE’S ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor.  He is universally considered as one the greatest dramatists of the world. Literary critics unanimous declare that “He was not of an age, but for all time.”

            In a well-known passage from his Lecture on ‘The Hero as Poet`, Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) asserted that Shakespeare was a more precious imperial heritage than even India. : “Consider now, if they asked us, will you give up your Indian Empire or your Shakespeare…. Really it were a grave question. Official persons would answer doubtless in official language.  But we, for our own part, should not we be forced to answer: Indian Empire, or no Indian Empire, we cannot do without Shakespeare! Indian Empire will go, at any rate some day; but this Shakespeare does not go, he lasts forever with us; we cannot give our Shakespeare.”    

            The lines that follow are extracted from Shakespeare’s famous play ‘Hamlet’. It will not be wrong to say that the advice given to young men through these lines is eternal. It will never become stale or irrelevant.  It may also be added that great poets like Shakespeare play the role of great teachers of mankind. Their importance is no less than that of sages, prophets, religious leaders and philosophers. That is why they continue to studied generation after generation.

                                  

                 Advice to A Young Man

            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-hatch’d unfledged comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,

Bear it that the opposer 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 thy purse can buy,

But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy

For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

And they in France, of the best rank and station,

Are most select and generous, chief in that.

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 ownself be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

27^th November 2019                    ------G.R.KANWAL