Saturday, April 9, 2011

Parallel - Sleeping and Dead as Lifeless Pictures

Shake-Speare:
               ...poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts;"
  Hamlet 4.5.85-7

"He is a proper man's picture, but alas! who can converse with a dumb-show"?
  The Merchant of Venice  1.2.67-69

" .... the sleeping and the dead are but as pictures;"
  Macbeth 2.2.53-4

"[of unresponsive Adonis] "Fie, lifeless picture, cold and senseless stone,"
   Venus and Adonis  211

Bacon:  "Words are but images of matter and except they have life and reason,  to fall in love with them is all one to fall in love with a picture".
   The Advancement of Learning

Comment:  Thus Bacon and Shake-Speare both describe someone or something devoid of animation or reason as a "picture".

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