ADVICE TO A SON

                    ADVICE TO A SON

            ‘ADVICE TO A SON’ is an extract from a tragic play known as HAMLET. It was written by the English playwright, poet and actor William Shakespeare who was born on 23 April 1564 and died on 23 April 1616. 

            He is still regarded as one of  the greatest writers in English literature. He wrote 39 plays, 154 sonnets, and 3 long narrative poems besides a few other verses.

            None of his plays has become obsolete till today.

            The advice given in the above- mentioned extract from Hamlet , Act I, Sc. 3  is eternally true. Read it, remember it, and adopt it because It is replete with everlasting  practical wisdom.

            Here is the full text:                      

           

            ADVICE TO A SON

           

            “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, unfledg’d comrade.

 

Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,

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

 

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;

 

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

 

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 own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

                                    ********

 

G. R. Kanwal

15 October 2026