February 14th Hoopla

 

Why is February 14th, (Saint) Valentine's Day, such a cash cow 💰💸🐄🐮for Hallmark, florists & chocolatiers?  🎴💟🍫🎕

While a lot of stories turn out to be urban myths, Geoffry Chaucer's poem "The Parlement of Foules" ["The Parliament of Fowls"], written around 1375, seems to be a real reason why.

From Chaucer, in Middle English:

For this was on Seint Valenteyns day

When every foul cometh ther to chese his make...

As they were wont alwey fro yeer to year,

Seint Valenteyns day to stonden there...

Seint Valentyn, that art ful hy on-lofte

Thus syngen smale foules for thy sake...

-OR-

For this was on Saint Valentine's Day,

When every fowl comes there to choose his mate...

As they regularly do from year to year

On Saint Valentine's Day staying firmly there...

Saint Valentine, that is fully lifted up (upon us)

Thus sing small fowls for your sake...

      What?  This holiday morphed from something quasi-Christian to a poem about bird love to a serious cash layout to show you really care?  

     There were possibly up to three Valentines who lived in the third century A.D., when Christians were being persecuted by Romans. Possibly one or more died on February 14th.

     The stories about Valentine speak of love, but not romantic love.  It is a "fraternal" love for brother and sister Christians, played out by extreme sacrifice.

     However, prior to that, the Romans had looked at February as a "month for lovers", so that may have influenced why Chaucer set his meeting of the birds on St. Valentine's Day.  Ordinarily, that seems a bit early for mating season in England.

     So, if you're done with the V-D routine, try something different.  Offer to read your loved one Chaucer's poem in Middle English. That ought to kill any over-the-top romantic expressions (unless you're both majoring in older English literature).  😅

     If you're Christian, you could always view the theatrically released movie Paul, the Apostle of Christ as a family. That movie shows the type of love Valentine was said to exhibit.  

     Happy Valentine's Day! 

Contranyms

 

     Contranyms are single words that have two contradictory meanings (they are their own opposites!).  They are somewhat rare. Still, here are 10 of them:

1.  Apology:  a statement of contrition (sorrow) for an act, or a firm defense of one

2.  Bolt:  to secure, or to flee

3.  Bound:  heading to a destination, running off ('bounding away') OR restrained from movement at all

4.  Cleave:  to adhere to, or to separate

5.  Dust:  to add fine particles, or to removed them

6.  Fast:  quick, or stuck/made stable

7.   Left:  remained, or departed

8.   Peer:  a person of the nobility, or an equal  (actually the 2nd came out of the first; the peers were each other's equals, with rights the hoi polloi didn't have)

9.   Sanction:  to approve, or to boycott

10.  Weather: to withstand, to wear away

Birds' Nests

 "Temptations, of course, cannot be avoided.  But because we cannot keep birds from flying over our heads, there is no need that we should let them build a nest in our hair."  -- Martin Luther's Large Catechism,  "Explanation of the Sixth Petition" ("Lead us not into temptation.")

"That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change. But that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent."  --Chinese proverb

What's Your Path?

 

Some quotes to ponder as you hike this summer... or not 😉

"Only those who wonder will find new paths."  --Norwegian Proverb

"Curiosity keeps us heading down new paths." --Walt Disney

"No love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever."  --Francois Mauriac (French novelist of the early 20th century and lifelong Roman Catholic)

"Mountains cannot be surmounted, except by winding paths."  --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German poet)

"Difficult roads often have beautiful destinations."  --Zig Ziglar (American motivational speaker)

"In order to get through the hardest journey, wo only need to take one step at a time... but we MUST keep on stepping."  --Chinese Proverb

"An interesting journey never follows a straight path."  Marjan van der Belt ([female] New Zealand-American Ecological Economist)

"Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."  --Ralph Waldo Emerson (American 19th philosopher & author; co-founder of the Transcendental Meditation religious movement)

"In life, you either find your own path and lead a authentic life,  or follow others and become part of a herd."  --Paul T.P. Wong (Canadian Psychologist)

"Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you ca walk with love and reverence."  ---Henry David Thoreau (American 19th philosopher & author; co-founder of the Transcendental Meditation religious movement)

"Your Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." --King David of Israel, ~1000 B.C. in Psalm 119:105

Happy Mother's Day!

This month, I'm putting in part of a poem by English Jesuit poet, Gerard Manly Hopkins.  I am not putting in on my other blog because, while it's got nature in it and expresses a form of Christianity, it has many specifically Roman Catholic ideas I do not agree with.  Hope you enjoy it!

The May Magnificat* 

May is Mary’s month, and I

Muse at that and wonder why :

Her feasts follow reason,

Dated due to season—**

Candlemas, Lady Day ;

But the Lady Month, May,**

Why fasten that upon her,

With a feasting in her honour ?

Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,

Grass and greenworld all together ;

Star-eyed strawberry-breasted

Throstle*** above her nested

Cluster of bugle blue*** eggs thin

Forms and warms the life within ;

And bird and blossom swell

In sod or sheath or shell.

All things rising, all things sizing

Mary sees, sympathizing

With that world of good

Nature’s motherhood.

Their magnifying of each its kind

With delight calls to mind

How she did in her stored

Magnify the Lord.

Well but there was more than this :

Spring’s universal bliss

Much, had much to say

To offering Mary May.

This ecstasy all through mothering earth

Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth

To remember and exultation

In God who was her salvation.  --Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ, 1844-1889 *The "Magnificat" is a name given to Mary's song from Luke chapter 1. She sang it when the angel told her she was going to become the mother of the Savior.  It starts out, "My soul magnfies [makes great, praises] the Lord..." **There are other feast days honoring Mary.  The Roman Catholic Church has set May aside as a month to honor her since the17th century.  Pope Francis recently declared the Monday after Pentecost to be a feast day for her, since she seems to have been present at the coming of the Holy Spirit.  In 2021, it falls on May 21st.  A saints day for her that some Protestants also recognize is August 15th;  Catholics take this as the commemoration of her being taken up alive into heaven.  The Annunciation, marking of when the angel Gabriel came and announced her divine pregnancy is in March (nine months before Christmas).  Candlemas is February 2nd and celebrates the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, coinciding with the end of forced ceremonial confinement that a Jewish woman had for 40 days after the birth of a child. He seems to be saying that nature gives many signs that this month honors Mary.  Interestingly, though the US and many other countries celebrate Mother's Day in May, the UK celebrates it in late March.   ***Throstle:  old-fasioned word for "thrush" ****Many birds' eggs are blue.  Blue was chosen as a symbolic color for Mary, representing faithfulness and purity.  This is saying, as the eggs warm and nurture life inside, Mary did this as Jesus grew within her.

Grammatically Correct

 

• An Oxford comma walks into a bar where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.

• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

• A question mark walks into a bar?

• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."

• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

• A synonym strolls into a tavern.

• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• A dyslexic walks into a bra.

• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony. --from social media

The [Slave's] Complaint*

[written to be sung to the popular ballad, Admiral Hosier's Ghost]

Forc'd from home, and all its pleasures,
  Afric's coast I left forlorn;
To increase a stranger's treasures,
  O'er the raging billows borne.
Men from England bought and sold me,
  Paid my price in paltry gold;
But, though theirs they have enroll'd me,
  Minds are never to be sold.

Still in thought as free as ever,

What are England's rights, I ask,
Me from my delights to sever,
  Me to torture, me to task?
Fleecy locks, and black complexion
  Cannot forfeit nature's claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
  Dwells in white and black the same.

Why did all creating Nature
 Make the plant for which we toil?
Sighs must fan it, tears must water,
 Sweat of ours must dress the soil.
Think, ye masters, iron-hearted,
 Lolling at your jovial boards;
Think how many backs have smarted
 For the sweets your cane affords.

Is there, as ye sometimes tell us,
  Is there one who reigns on high?
Has he bid you buy and sell us,
  Speaking from his throne the sky?
Ask him, if your knotted scourges,
  Matches, blood-extorting screws,
Are the means that duty urges
  Agents of his will to use?

Hark! He answers!—Wild tornadoes,
  Strewing yonder sea with wrecks;
Wasting towns, plantations, meadows,
  Are the voice with which he speaks.
He, foreseeing what vexations
  Afric's sons should undergo,
Fix'd their tyrants' habitations
  Where his whirlwinds answer.**

— William Cowper, 1877; Stanzas 1-5 [English poet, hymnwriter & clergyman]

*The original title of this poem was "The Negro's Complaint." This archaic term was not intended to offend; it was the term used at the time.  As you can see, Cowper took the heart and soul of the Black man very seriously.

**Fierce weather in the Caribbean, where many English slaves were sent

More information on Cowper (prounounced "Cooper")

Biographical Info and Quotes of William Cowper

Wisdom from a Spiritual Source

     The work of William Cowper (pronounced "Cowper"; 1731-1800) is featured on both my blogs this month. For more information, see the Christian Nature Poetry blog.
     Below are some timeless quotes from Cowper. Source material provided when possible.

"Variety's the very spice of life, That gives it all its flavour." --"The Timepiece", 1785; lines 606-607

"I am monarch of all I survey..." --Verses Supposed to be Written by Alexander Seldirk, 1782; line 1

"But still remember, if you mean to please, To press your point with modesty and ease." --William Cowper, John William Cunningham; “The works of William Cowper: Poems : with an essay on the genius and poetry of Cowper”, p.158 (1835)

"Absence of proof is not proof of absence."

"Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse, too." --“The Task: A Poem. In Six Books”, p.89 (1810)

"God made the country, and man made the town." --"The Sofa" line 749 (1785)

"Misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case." --“The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems. Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence”, p.446 

“If the world like it not, so much the worse for them.” --Letters

"A little sunshine is generally the prelude to a storm."

"A life of ease is a difficult pursuit." -- “Poems”, p.290 (1815)

"No one was ever scolded out of their sins."

"When nations perish in their sins, 'tis in the Church the leprosy begins." --“Poems of William Cowper, Esq”, p.57 (1824) 

"The darkest day, if you live till tomorrow, will have past away."

"Nature is a good name for an effect whose cause is God." -- "The Winter Walk At Noon”

"England, with all thy faults, I love thee still..." --“The Life and Works of William Cowper: His life and letters by William Hayley" (1835) 

"No man can be a patriot on an empty stomach."

Ye therefore who love mercy, teach your sons to love it, too. --“The Poetical Works of William Cowper”, p.143 (1854)

"A fool must be right now and then, by chance." --"Conversation" line 96 (1782)

“Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much. Wisdom is humble that he knows not more.”

“Satan trembles, when he sees the weakest Saint upon his knees.” --“Olney Hymn 29: Exhortation To Prayer” 

"Man may dismiss compassion from his heart, but God never will."   --"The Winter Walk At Noon” 

"A self-made man? Yes, and one who worships his Creator."

"We turn to dust, and all our mightiest works die too." “The Works of William Cowper: Comprising His Poems, Correspondence, and Translations. With a Life of the Author”, p.83 (1835).

"Skins may differ, but affection Dwells in White and Black the same." --joint works & letters with James Thomson (1850)

     Cowper was an ardent abolitionist. He wrote a poem, "The Negro's Complaint." [old-fashioned terminology] A couple centuries later, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., quoted Cowper.

Bio from The Poetry Foundation

Cowper: "Light Shining Out of Darkness"; Christian Nature Poetry blog

Cowper: Seasonal Poem, Christian Nature Poetry Blog 

Equal Balance

“The tempter always works on some real weakness in our own system of values: offers food to some need which we have starved.”

   "I am a democrat [believer in democracy] because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government… The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows...
     "I do not think that equality is one of those things (like wisdom or happiness) which are good simply in themselves and for their own sakes. I think it is in the same class as medicine, which is good because we are ill, or clothes which are good because we are no longer innocent… Legal and economic equality are absolutely necessary remedies for the Fall, and protection against cruelty...
     But medicine is not good... When equality is treated not as a medicine or a safety-gadget, but as an ideal, we begin to breed that stunted and envious sort of mind which hates all superiority. That mind is the special disease of democracy, as cruelty and servility are the special diseases of privileged societies. It will kill us all if it grows unchecked. The man who cannot conceive a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other - the man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow - is a prosaic barbarian.      "But it would be wicked folly to restore these old inequalities on the legal or external plane. Their proper place is elsewhere...It is there, of course, in our life as Christians -- there, as laymen, we can obey – all the more because the priest has no authority over us on the political level. It is there in our relation to parents and teachers – all the more because it is now a willed and wholly spiritual reverence. It should be there also in marriage. We shall never be safe unless we already understand in our hearts all that the anti-democrats can say, and have provided for it better than they."  --C.S. Lewis, "Equality"; The Spectator, 1943
C.S. Lewis on Equality and Our Core Misconception About Democracy
"Equality"; The Spectator, vol. CLXXI (27 August 1943), p. 192

Walking, American Style

An American author for this Fourth of July, from one of his lesser-known works:

"He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river... No wealth can buy the requisite leisure freedom, and independence which are capital in this profession... You must be born into the family of Walkers...  the walking of which I speak has nothing in it akin to taking exercise, as it is called... but is itself the enterprise and adventure of the day... " 
 ---Henry David Thoreau in "Walking",  from the Atlantic Monthly, 1862.

An English Major Walks Into a Bar...

*A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs.

*Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

*A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

*A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, sees the handwriting on the wall, but hopes to nip it in the bud.

*A cliché walks into a bar---fresh as a daisy, cute a s button, and sharp as a tack.

*Two quotation marks walk into a "bar."

* A synonym strolls into a tavern. 

---from bluebirdofbitterness.com

Wisdom for Facebook

With all the crazy fake news on Facebook and other random, short-sighted spoutings-off on social media, these words of a classic Greek philosopher take on new meaning:


"Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something." 

---Plato

Solitude

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
 
― Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1883


"Solitude" is Wilcox's most famous poem. She was travelling to Madison, Wisconsin, to attend the Governor's inaugural ball. On her way, there was a young woman dressed in black, crying, sitting across the aisle from her. Miss Wheeler moved next to her and tried to comfort her.  When they arrived, the poet was so unhappy that she could barely attend the festivities herself. Looking in the mirror, she suddenly recalled the sorrowful widow and she wrote the opening lines of "Solitude." 

The Mighty Baywolf (an epic)

[with NO apologies to Beowulf nor my high school English teachers]

There is a Saxon Fierce
As strong as 30 steers
Who claims he's felt no fears
In all his 80 years.
'Round him rise up jeers
From warriors chugging beers.
Baywolf rises as he leers
Greeted by his brave band's cheers.
What I see now does certainly beat all
In this, the cold and stench-filled mead hall:
Baywolf, standing proud and tall
Sees his opponents 'round him fall
As his troops prepare to maul.

Soon all that are left are a foolish two
Who faint in fear when Baywolf says "Boo."

Baywolf, the victor, feels quite bold
And turns to his men, ready to scold:
"Comrades-in-arms, you know I am old
And down to my bones I am always cold.
But, you, young men, are not very bold,
For rather than bathe, you're covered with mold.
And unless we kill this bard, 'twill always be told
How, among us, this ignominious day
Men fell around us this disgraceful way
As your own odor greeted each nose,
And they fell dead, without any blows."

As they turn on me quickly,
I let out a plea:
If before I die, they'll humor me,
And find me a word that rhymes with "orange."

----C. Marie Byars
 

The 50 Shades of the Picture of Dorian Christian Grey

[trash reading for the literary-minded*]

Dorian Christian Grey was exceptionally good-looking and successful in business... whatever that business was.  His friends keep reminding him of how handsome he is.  He sees other people in business aging, being treated as irrelevant, and, well, just not looking "hot" anymore.

 

Dorian had had his portrait painted by an up-and-coming artist.  The portrait and Grey's patronage launched this painter.  But, now, Dorian decides he will make a deal with the dar kside: he will sell his eternal soul for eternal youth.  His aging and every ugly deed he does will show up on the portrait,  instead, which he keeps hidden.

 

 He seduces and marries a young girl, "Anesthesia" (because she quickly dulls the mind, being so vapid). After a few "off-beat" encounters with her (which he had insisted upon, despite her half-hearted commitment), Grey decides he needs something much more bizarre to maintain interest.  He makes Ana sign a contract adhering to absolute secrecy on her part,  agreeing to do whatever he says. He then shows her the portrait and forces her to do weird, unspeakable things with it. (Therefore, I will not speak of them.  But, unfortunately for her, they do not involve body paint.) 

 

 

There are other sources of twisted enjoyment for Grey in this bizarre set-up. He also takes some sort of strange pleasure out of watching his portrait and his wife age while he does not.   He also gets a cheap thrill that "runs like electric current through the very core of his being" (just had to throw in the gratuitous Harlequin romance-type comment) by having her always refer to him as "Mr. Grey, sir."  He enjoys her degradation at watching the French maid (another gratuitous addition) refer to him as "Mon Cheri" or "Babycakes."

 

This goes on for decades.  However, the French maids came and went because, well, they weren't "hot" anymore. Ana realizes his immortal soul is in danger... and, amazingly, she still cares.  At last, she throws caution to the wind, and saves them both.   She throws the portrait in the fire, and he instantly ages. 

 

Grey feels freed, and embraces his new life... a life in Depends, which by now has become a "fetish" for both of them. With his business connections, they become spokespeople for Depends, and meet Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones Depends tour. 

 

They all live happily ever after... well, at least for about five years.  Then the Grim Reaper, with cold and calculated precision (another gratuitous trite phrase) aims his steady scythe first at Dorian. Ana, seeing this, throws herself on the Reaper's scythe (thanks, Will, for that literary device from Romeo & Juliet).  As the reader can see, even though she disentangled herself from the messy portrait business, she remained as vapid as ever.  

 

[Warning to children & others:  do not try this at home.  Throwing yourself on sharp objects, ending your life for a lost love or ANY reason, or threatening to or thinking about doing are very serious.  Seriously.  Bad parody aside.]

 

 The Reaper stealthily captured Mick during a botox procedure to keep those fantastic lips.

 

So, they all left the world, only minimally improved from basic shallowness.   And, there, my readers, you have it: a Grey literary mash-up. (Not so hard because both men in the originals were callow.)  A mash-up with some elements for the "greying" crowd (pun intended).

 

     ----Author; wisely disavows public connection

     ----Published: USA, TakeAdVANTAGE Books, 3 years from never

 

*For my Christian readers: don't think I've turned on you.  I didn't read the "50" series nor see the movie; just read about them.

For those who object to "50" on domestic violence grounds, please don't think I'm making light of your concerns.  Concerns noted. I agree that Christian Grey shows very abusive tendencies, whatever someone might think separately about BDSM.

 

 

A Time for Everything

To paraphrase from words more divinely eloquent than mine:

"There is an appointed time for everything.  
And there is a time for every event under heaven ~
 A time to economize, and a time to expand;
A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted.
 A time to regulate, and a time to deregulate;
A time to criticize opponents, and a time to build consensus.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to be merciful , and a time to close borders;
A time to embrace, and a time to shun embracing.
A time to search for truth, and a time to give up searching;
A time to expand business, and a time to support the environment.
A time to debate, and a time to bring together;
A time to be silent, and a time to speak.
 A time to love, and a time to hate;
A time for war, and a time for peace. 
What profit is there to the populace from our toils?  I have seen the task which God has given the sons of men: to be wise stewards of earthly resources to use in the Kingdom of God.  He has made everything appropriate in its time."   

          ----Marie Byars, from Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Remorse

Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir--
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.

It's past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.
---from the poem by Emily Dickinson

 

Jesse Jackson Does Dr. Suess

http://youtu.be/PPxPciXcJvc

This is a classic: Jesse Jackson does his best parody of Jesse Jackson reading Green Eggs & Ham.

Happy Spring!

Padding along the eastern side of the lake in the still of the morning, we soon saw a few sheldrakes, which the Indian [guide Joseph Polis] calle Shecorways...we also saw and heard loons, Medawisla, which he said was a sign of wind. ---"Allegash & East Branch"; Henry David Thoreau

The Quality of Mercy

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God's
When mercy seasons justice.

---William Shakespeare; 1600
(Portia’s speech in Act IV, Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice)

The so-called "Chandos Portrait", once owned by the Duke of Chandros.
Painted by John Taylor, c. 1610.
National Portrait Gallery, London.