QUOTES FROM THE BARD

PLAY: All’s Well that Ends Well
ACT/SCENE: 4.5
SPEAKER: LAFEW
CONTEXT:
LAFEW
No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipped-taffeta
fellow there, whose villainous saffron would have
made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in
his colour: your daughter-in-law had been alive at
this hour, and your son here at home, more advanced
by the king than by that red-tailed humble-bee I speak of.
COUNTESS
I would I had not known him; it was the death of the
most virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had
praise for creating. If she had partaken of my
flesh, and cost me the dearest groans of a mother, I
could not have owed her a more rooted love.

DUTCH:
Neen, neen, neen; uw zoon werd daar ginds verleid
door een uitgesneden-taf-kerel, wiens ellendige saffraanstijfsel de geheele halfbakken en ongare jeugd van zijn volk met zijn kleur had kunnen gerieven

MORE:
Snipped- or snipt-taffeta was silk slashed to show another material underneath (ref to Parolles’ flashy costume).
Saffron=Used as a starch
Humble-bee=Bumble-bee
Compleat:
Saffron=Saffraan
Humble-bee=Hommel

Topics: deceit, influence, manipulation