I'm working my way towards an interesting reading of Cymbeline, finally, I think.
I need to think more about what it means to give advice in the Renaissance. In the drama, advising king is always troped as dangerous but it isn't, really. The irony of Polonius's advice is pretty much par for the course--it's funny that he of all people insists on "giv[ing] thy thoughts no tongue."
Incidentally, don't rely on the version below--I copied it from a website that had called it "Plotinus's Advice In Hamlet." Now that I'd like to read.
There ... my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
T'hose friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
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.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!
