In my previous post I quoted Be true to yourself as the mantra of authenticity, the idea that one ought to seek an individual and original life. This has set me thinking. I have heard people say this quite often, some of them people of Christian faith, but what do they think it means?
The saying is a modernisation and abbreviation of a passage1 from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. written around 1600:2
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.
This comes from a monologue of advice by Polonius to his son Laertes, who is about to depart for studies in Paris. Polonius is chief minister to the King of Denmark, and a pompous bore. In some productions of the play, Laertes doesn’t even listen to him, because he is in such a hurry to board his ship. Polonius acknowledges the need for haste, but apparently can’t stop himself delivering a speech of seemingly serious advice, which contains a few other oft quoted sayings: Give every man thy ear but few thy voice; … the apparel oft proclaims the man; and Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Other pieces of gratuitous advice in Polonius’ talk to Laertes are to keep his thoughts to himself; to test out new-found friends, and hang on then if they prove reliable; if he can’t avoid a quarrel, to give as good as he gets; and not to borrow money, as it makes one careless with finances. This above all … follows this directly.
In the mouth of the character Polonius, these are not pieces of Shakespeare’s wisdom. They are an ironic take-off of the shallow remarks by some of those in positions of power (think of some politician on last night’s news). The Shakespearean passage above that lies behind Be true to yourself was not intended by Shakespeare as wise advice. The superficially wise-sounding words are the ultimate shallowness rounding off Polonius’ speech. The more I think about them, the more convinced I am that they are almost meaningless, and that this is how Shakespeare intended his audience to take them.3
What could these words mean? People obviously think that Be true to yourself is meaningful. How? At best, it means, “Do whatever you feel you should do” (at worst, “Do whatever you want to do”). In the pursuit of your own happiness? Of being different from others? Or in the pursuit of morality? In other words, it can be interpreted selfishly or morally. And if morally, who sets the moral compass? You do.
I am writing this on a Sunday afternoon. I had started thinking about Be true to yourself yesterday evening. This morning I listened to a sermon on Matthew 16:13–28 that bears unflinchingly on this topic. Jesus asks the disciples who they think he is. Peter says Jesus is the Messiah, that is, the promised figure who will deliver Israel. A little later Jesus explains to his disciples that “he must suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life” (16:21). Immediately Peter rebukes him with “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (16:22 NIV), at which Jesus rebuts him with a terrifying rebuke: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (16:23 NIV) So who (or what) was Peter being true to? If to himself, then to his satanically misled and sinful self that probably expected the Messiah to free Israel from its Roman overlords and become the leader of a mighty earthly kingdom. But Jesus had other ideas (Matthew 16:24–27, NIV):
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?
This is not about being true to oneself. It is about denying oneself and following Jesus’ path of suffering (and Peter, of course, came to understand this, fulfilling Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 16:18–19). If I have set my self (my ego) aside, I have no self to be true to, only Jesus.
- Act 1, scene 3, lines 85–87[↩]
- I should probably confess right away that I am among those who are puzzled by the mismatch between the biography of the William Shakespeare buried in the Church of the Holy Trinity in England’s Stratford-upon-Avon and the amazing scholarship displayed in the astounding language of Shakespeare’s plays. Where in the biography was there opportunity for the man to acquire such learning? This has led some to propose that the plays were written by a person of more noble birth and greater education than Shakespeare. Even if this is true, it doesn’t make a scrap of difference to how one reads the plays, and I gave up worrying about it years ago.[↩]
- It has been suggested that these words are about money, as they follow directly after Polonius’ advice about finance. I am not convinced by this, as the monologue is a collection of sayings on various practical topics, and I don’t understand how these words can be taken as referring to the handling of money.[↩]