Oh, The Places You'll Go! (the 17th century version)

 

 

Over the last few years among the more popular graduation presents have been a copy of Dr. Seuss' last book Oh, The Places You'll Go! And don't get me wrong, it's a great piece of work -- this morning I was on Facebook and a good friend of mine shared this. I'm wondering about making a kids -- or at least a young adult -- version of what may not be a better known literary work (this depends on whether you kept up with William Shakespeare after high school) but says by and large the same thing. Be careful out there! (SparkNotes has a modern-language version of this, but I'm sure I will find others, and germinate some ideas ...)

 

(Hamlet, Act I, scene 3, lines 55-84)

Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail

And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with thee.

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,

But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

Bear ’t that th' opposèd may beware of thee.

Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.

Take each man’s censure but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in fancy—rich, not gaudy,

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are of a most select and generous chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell. My blessing season this in thee.

 

Of course, change the names Laertes and France to apply to your own situation, David