Yet
cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven!
Wind,
rain, and thunder, remember, earthly man
Is
but a substance that must yield to you.
-Pericles
Pericles, Prince of Tyre Act II Scene i, Line 3
These are the first three lines of the scene. Pericles is standing alone on the shore all wet because he has just swum ashore from being in a storm and a shipwreck. Earthly man is but a substance that must yield to you, he says. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
I had thought that I would be able to find a pic in my archives of me, or someone I knew, standing on a shore somewhere being contemplative. But rather than show someone being contemplative in the face of nature, I give you this one. It's one of my favourite pictures, and I'm pretty sure she's not thinking about being just an earthly substance. And I guess most of us don't think about that such an awful lot either. I suppose that's about right.
1 comment:
Do I misunderstand the line? He's saying "Wind, rain, and thunder" should yield to a man? Not the other way around??
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