June 11, 2015

Finest Hour 101, Winter 1998-99

Page 49

By Douglas J. Hall

In a recent BBC poll for Britons of the Millennium, Shakespeare and Churchill finished first and second (see Datelines, page 6). Darrell Holley wrote in Churchill’s Literary Allusions (New York: McFarland & Company 1987), “There is no English author whom Churchill alludes to as often as to William Shakespeare. Both by formal quotations, some quite lengthy, and by well-known phrases almost hidden in his text, Churchill makes allusion to many of Shakespeare’s plays….[He] uses the lines of Shakespeare in various capacities: as illustrations in his history of England, as embellishments in his other historical works, and as support in speeches to Parliament. In various ways he borrows the artist’s words to ornament his own ideas.”

The Seven Ages of Man from As You Like It are probably among the most quoted lines written by William Shakespeare. They were written between 1596 and 1600 and I thought it might be amusing to compare them with a selection of apposite aphorisms, maxims and opinions taken from the 20th century speeches and writings of Winston Spencer Churchill.

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My choices may, of course, not entirely be “as you like it.” If not, why not take time to put together a selection of your own choosing?

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages.

At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.

And then the whining schooolboy,
With his satchel and shining morning face,
Creeping like a snail unwillingly to school.

And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’s eyebrow.

Then a soldier, full of strange oaths,
And bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.

And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part.

The sixth age shifts into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose
And pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d a world too wide
For his shrunk shank;
And his big manly voice turning
Again towards childish treble,
Pipes and whistles in his sound.

Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
In second childishness,
And mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

I have always taken the view that the fortunes of mankind in its tremendous journey are principally decided for good or ill—but mainly for good, for the path is upward—by its greatest men and its greatest episodes. (9 January 1941)

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies. (21 March 1943)

How I hated this school, and what a life of anxiety I lived there…I made very little progress at my lessons, and none at all at games. (My Early Life, 1930)

…until September 1908, when I married and lived happily ever afterwards. (My Early Life, 1930)

In making an army, three elements are necessary—men, weapons and money. There must also be time…. What are we fighting for? If we left off fighting you would soon find out. (1 December 1948….30 March 1940)

It is desirable that persons concerned with the administration of justice should carefully acquaint themselves with the nature and character of any punishment which they may be authorised to order. (24 February 1910)

The prospect of attaining extreme old age, of living beyond threescore years and ten, which is the allotted span of human life, seems so doubtful and remote to the ordinary man, when in the full strength of manhood, that it has been found in practice almost impossible to secure from any very great number of people the regular sacrifices which are necessary to guard against old age. (23 May 1909)

We have to organize our lives and the life of our cities on the basis of dwelling under fire and having always this additional—not very serious chance—of death added to the ordinary precarious character of human existence. (8 October 1940)