Milestone? Touchstone!
July 02, 2004
Who'd have thought it, gentle friends? Today marks the one-year anniversary of this Fool weblog. For the occasion, here is a complete version of the illustration that hides in the banner above: Touchstone and Audrey, engraved by Charles Clousen from a painting by John Pettie and included in Charles Knight's 2-volume "Imperial Edition" of The Works of Shakespere (1873-1876).
(Partial to this sort of thing? Be sure to explore Shakespeare Illustrated, maintained by Harry Rusche of the Emory University English Department. More obscure fun is to be had with the Victorian and Edwardian postcards at the companion site, Shakespeare and the Players.)
Context: From As You Like It, Act III, Scene iii:
TOUCHSTONE
Come apace, good Audrey: I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how, Audrey? am I the man yet? doth my simple feature content you?AUDREY
Your features! Lord warrant us! what features!TOUCHSTONE
I am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious poet, honest Ovid, was among the Goths.JAQUES
[Aside] O knowledge ill-inhabited, worse than Jove in a thatched house!TOUCHSTONE
When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child
Understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would
the gods had made thee poetical.AUDREY
I do not know what 'poetical' is: is it honest in deed and word? is it a true thing?TOUCHSTONE
No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry, and what
they swear in poetry may be said as lovers they do feign.AUDREY
Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?TOUCHSTONE
I do, truly; for thou swearest to me thou art honest: now, if thou wert a poet, I might have some
hope thou didst feign.AUDREY
Would you not have me honest?TOUCHSTONE
No, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured; for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.
Happy Birthday! Your site has not only been just darned fun and enlightening to read, but an inspiration to this novice poetical blogger himself. Truly.
Posted by: Greg | July 02, 2004 at 07:58 AM
Congrats, you motley fool!
Posted by: Rick Coencas | July 02, 2004 at 08:21 AM
A weblogger year sure goes quickly. Thanks for showing the universe that some lawyers have souls. Keep up the good foolery (but please stop making me feel so ignorant all the time -- maybe you should rate each post for its "brow quotient": H(igh) M(middle) or L(ow).
Posted by: david giacalone | July 02, 2004 at 09:49 AM