Friday, November 5, 2010

Words to Ponder

Some words from Shakespeare about household finance and money practices.


Polonius:

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry."

Hamlet, Act I, Scene 3

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonder if Shakespeare would have been so sure about this if he was a frum jew living in NY and having to pay off school loans and pay tuition for his kids in yeshiva.

Abba's Rantings said...

agree in principle, but i'm not sure who this salt shaker guy is (one of those greeks from your previous post?)

also, i do think the quote is a little off, because sometimes lending money can be a mitzvah. but hey, i can't expect a perfectly true aphorism from a goy who is proud walk around with a name like hamlet. (is the fact that he only passes himself off as a diminutive ham supposed to make him more kosher, because more of chance it will be botel be-shishim?)

good shabbos

katrina said...

This is fair enough as a principle, but as a dorky academic (although not in English), I feel compelled to say that I have heard that Shakespeare meant Polonius to be an object of ridicule. I don't think too many scholars think that the advice was meant to be taken seriously. Of course, with that realization, we can still think it is a good idea.