If you cannot understand my argument, and declare It’s Greek to me, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise – why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then – to give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I were dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then – by Jove! O Lord! Tut, tut! for goodness’ sake! what the dickens! but me no buts – it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.
(Bernard Levin. From The Story of English. Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil. Viking: 1986).
Joy. Genii all round…
Bernard Levin was a genius and a journalist – not characteristics you often find combined. Opinionated, non-religious, liberal, anti-establishment, but also quite conservative at times, passionate about the arts, polemical and very often sensible. You might not always agree – but you can’t fail to follow his good sense. He died in 2004, so sadly many people these days don’t have reason to read him. But his columns and articles (now available in various anthologies like If You Want My Opinion and I Should Say So) are brilliant, incisive andprescient – and thus still remarkably relevant. But just to give a taste, here is one of his most justly famous, and one of my favourite, Levin quotations.
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Levin couldn’t have liked Shakespeare that much otherwise he would have known that “But me no buts” isn’t the Bard but (!) is from Susanna Centlivre’s, “The Busie Body” 1709.