The Courier-mail’s Dianne Butler begins her piece today on Sandilands’ early exit from Australian idol with this extraordianry concoction of misattributed and unattributed quotes:
LIVE by the sword, die by the sword, as Hamlet used to say. On the other hand, truth is beauty, beauty truth and that’s all you need to know.
The first bit, of course, comes from the Book of Matthew (26: 52) “Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” I don’t know whether Hamlet ‘used to say’ this, but if he did he was certainly quoting the Bible.
The second unattributed quote is a truncated version of the last two lines from Keats’ Ode to a Grecian Urn:
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
These are two of the best known lines in English poetry, but what they actually mean, and whether they add or detract from the rest of the poem, are matters of enduring controversy. T S Eliot famously argued that they don’t mean anything much and that they spoil an otherwise good poem. But, hey, Eliot didn’t like Hamlet, the play, either.
Moreover, it is doubtful that the Biblical injunction against violence (or even judgement) sits in any sort of counterpoint (’on the other hand’) to Keats’ well-known but unclear aphorism.
Nevertheless, the grandiosity of Butler’s muddled literary allusions may well be appropriate in relation to Sandilands’ self-perceptions.
One Comment
What else would you expect from the Courier Mail. They regularly get their history wrong and many other things. They are so busy spinning for Rupert that news and facts go out the window. They are a real cowboy outfit. Pity the poor Queenslanders who only have them as their daily newspaper.
Keith Bedford