QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: Cymbeline
ACT/SCENE: 5.4
SPEAKER: First Jailer
CONTEXT:
FIRST JAILER
A heavy reckoning for you, sir. But the comfort
is, you shall be called to no more payments, fear
no more tavern bills, which are often the sadness
of parting as the procuring of mirth. You come in
faint for want of meat, depart reeling with too
much drink; sorry that you have paid too much,
and sorry that you are paid too much; purse and
brain both empty; the brain the heavier for being
too light; the purse too light, being drawn of heaviness:
of this contradiction you shall now be
quit. O, the charity of a penny cord! It sums up
thousands in a trice: you have no true debitor and
creditor but it; of what’s past, is, and to come,
the discharge: your neck, sir, is pen, book and
counters; so the acquittance follows.

DUTCH:
Hoofd en beurs
beide leeg, het hoofd des te zwaarder, naarmate het
lichter is, de beurs des te opgeruimder, naarmate zij
meer zwaarte verloren heeft.


MORE:
Proverb: A heavy purse makes a light heart
Proverb: In a trice

Heavier=Sleepier with drink
Drawn=Emptied
Drawn of heaviness=Lighter, being emptied of coins
Paid too much=Punished by excess drinking
To quit=To set at liberty, to free, to deliver
Acquittance=Receipt in full
Compleat:
To quit (dispense with, excluse)=Bevryden, verschoonen, ontslaan
I quit you from it=Ik ontsla ‘er u van
Forbearance is no acquittance=Uitstellen is geen quytschelden

Topics: proverbs and idioms, still in use, intellect, excess, money, debt/obligation

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