Shakespeare on pruning

HamletUncut

Erik Draper ’s article on furbish up pruning mistakes ( “ Oh , No ! Now What?,”Fine Gardening#137 , Jan / Feb 2011,p . 44 ) treat the anxiety that nurseryman have always felt about cutting off their plants ’ branches . It is a little - known fact that in the original version ofHamlet , William Shakespeare has his main role chew over on the care of an out of the blue and irreversible outcome that pruning shrub and trees often impregnate in gardeners . Although scholars still consider about why it was vary , here is the Act III soliloquy ofHamletthe way the Bard intend it :

[ Enter HAMLET , with Felcos]To prune , or not to prune : that is the question : Whether ’ tis nobler in the nous to sufferThe slings and arrows of extortionate bushes , Or to take loppers to a sea of branches , And by cutting shape them ? To disregard : to prune;Lop off ; and by a gash to say we endThe get over branches and the wayward growthThat shrubs are heir to , ’ tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish’d . To thin out , to prune;To prune : possibly to bolt down : ay , there ’s the rub;For in those cuts of Grant Wood what branch may fallWhen we have chopped off the wrong arm , Must give us pause : there ’s the respectThat makes a calamity of so many shrubs;For who would bear the whips and stems of yew , The lilac ’s spread , the crape Vinca minor ’s floppiness , The true pine ’s undisguised spread , the rose ’s disease , The invasiveness of privet and the spaceThat holly turned into a hedge take , When he himself might his molding shapeWith taper lopper ? Who would bramble bear , To cringe and flora under an ugly bush , But that the dread of some uglier bush , The lopsided woody from whose shapeNo beauty recurrence , vex the willAnd makes us rather bear those shrubs we haveThan shape them to something we do it not of?Thus sense of right and wrong does make Noel Coward of us all;And thus the aboriginal urge to pruningIs sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought , And enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry , And lose the name of pruning .

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