Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,
That would not let me sleep: methoughts I lay
Worse than the mutines in the bilboes (mutineers shackled in irons). Rashly,
And praised be rashness for it, let us know,
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well,
When our deep plots do pall: and that should learn us
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
-Hamlet
Hamlet Act V, scene ii, line 6
Another long one, but sometimes I just hate to break them up. This is Hamlet explaining to his friend (his only friend) Horatio what happened on the ship to England. He goes on to tell how he found the letter that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had, the letter that told the king of England to execute Hamlet. The prince tells how he replaced it with a letter telling the king to execute R&G instead.
I like the last part, There’s a divinity that shapes
our ends,/Rough-hew them how we will. No matter how hard we try to muck
it up, the Lord has a plan for us. In other words, All will be well, even
after all the promises you’ve broken to yourself. It’s a reassuring thought,
particularly in 2020, isn’t it?
I was trying to find a picture of something rough-hewn. I decided that I look a little rough-hewn in this pic. What do you think?