HAMLET [...] we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end. CLAUDIUS Alas, alas. HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this? HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
Why is the sea king of a hundred streams? Because it lies below them... If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility. If he would lead them, he must follow behind. In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed.
Myself--a prince by fortune of my birth,
Near to the king in blood, and near in love
Till you did make him misinterpret me--
Have stooped my neck under your injuries
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods,
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Rased out my imprese, leaving me no sign,
Save men's opinions and my living blood,
To show the world I am a gentleman.
King Henry: But what a point, my lord, your falcon made, And what a pitch she flew above the rest! To see how God in all his creatures works! Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high. Suffolk: No marvel, an it like your majesty, My lord protectors hawks do tower so well; They know their masters loves to be aloft, And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch. Gloucester: My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly.
Einstein's relativity work is a magnificent mathematical garb which fascinates, dazzles and makes people blind to the underlying errors. The theory is like a beggar clothed in purple whom ignorant people take for a king... its exponents are brilliant men but they are metaphysicists rather than scientists.
Do you take me for a sponge, my lord? hamlet: Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. rosencrantz: I understand you not, my lord. hamlet: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear.
The fashions we call English in Paris are French in London, and vice versa. Franco-British hostility vanishes when it comes to questions of words and clothing. God save the King is a tune composed by Lully for a chorus in a play by Racine.
The color of the king doth come and go,
Between his purpose and his conscience,
Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break.
in that small [time] most greatly lived this star of England: Fortune made his sword, By which the world's best garden he achiev'd And left it to his son imperial lord. Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King of France and England did this King succeed; Whose state so many of had the managing, That they lost France and made his England bleed.
Musings The little poets sing of little things: Hope, cheer, and faith, small queens and puppet kings; Lovers who kissed and then were made as one, And modest flowers waving in the sun. The mighty poets write in blood and tears And agony that, flame-like, bites and sears. They reach their mad blind hands into the night, To plumb abysses dead to human sight; To drag from gulfs where lunacy lies curled, Mad, monstrous nightmare shapes to blast the world. [click on the thumbnail by Jack "King" Kirby]
Even if you must have regard to wealth, in order to secure leisure, yet it is surely a bad thing that the greatest offices, such as those of kings and generals, should be bought. The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of more account than virtue, and the whole state becomes avaricious.