Good Advice from Polonius

When told “discretion is the better part of valour”, we often agree. This well-phrased truism seems to contain weight, authority, and dignity. The fact that at the back of our minds we know that this nugget comes from Shakespeare can only enhance its gravitas. I bet Shakespeare would laugh if he knew this. These lines come from the comical cowardice of Falstaff as he plays dead to avoid fighting, and stabs corpses to retrospectively bloody his sword and gain undeserved rewards. In this case discretion was no part of valour. The source of this saying reveals it to be the opposite of a sagacious and dignified call for silence. I wish I’d known this as a child; this phrase was often (mis)used to shut me up! I’m sure I also had a relative who used to reprimand me with “her voice was ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in a woman”, which is positively macabre when you think about it.

It is often the case that when these Shakespearean truisms are traced back to their sources, they come from the most unattractive characters of doubtful wisdom. Yet there is always a ring of truth in these words that has allowed them to inveigle their way into our speech and gain an aura of authority. Polonius, in Hamlet, is my favourite example of this. Polonius is undoubtedly a bad parent: he uses his daughter as sexual bait in political intrigues and sends spies to report on his son, using slanders as snares for information. In Act I Scene III, Polonius is giving advice to his son, Laertes, who is departing for university. One of the great axioms to be lifted from this dialogue is “the apparel oft proclaims the man”. Polonius advises his son:

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy,

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Or of a most select and generous chief in that.

This is great advice for a well-off young man going out in the world. People will judge you on how you look; dress well, but not over the top (son, you want to look like a serious, tasteful man – not a footballer!). As much as we would like to believe that a book is not judged by its cover, none of us would go to a job interview in an old tracksuit. Polonius’ advice is pretty practical.

On the early modern stage the apparel did indeed proclaim the man, perhaps even more so than it does for us today. Whereas we might associate a particular style with a particular social group, the early modern period actually had laws to govern which social group might wear what. The Sumptuary Laws meant that the wearing of certain fabrics, and even colours, was limited to a specific strata of society. Apart from on the stage, anyone found to be transgressing these laws was punished. However, even in the context of the play, a working class actor wearing the colours of a king was cause for concern according to antitheatrical polemicists. Alongside the fact that it encouraged fornication, the breaking of sumptuary laws was one of the biggest problems that conservative and religious groups had with the theatre. The idea that a man might play a king was a subtly unsettling one because it of the flicker of doubt it cast over the idea of the divine right of kings. By logical extension, the idea of costume threatened the entire social hierarchy.

I, for one, plan to follow Polonius’ advice about clothing. It is part of the magic of Shakespeare, that even in the most farcical moments and from the mouths of despicable characters, he produces memorable and profound moments of dialogue that many people use (perhaps unwittingly) to bolster their own eloquence and to make their children shut up!

Photograph by Peter Marsh at ashmorevisuals