All That Glisters . . .
I’ve always heard this aphorism in English, “all that glitters is not gold,” only now realizing its origins lay within Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. In Act II Scene vii, the Prince of Morocco selects the golden casket believing it to be the most precious representation of the object of his adoration, Portia. Upon opening it, however, he only finds a picture of death and upon it written: "All that glisters is not gold; / Often have you heard that told. / Many a man his life hath sold / But my outside to behold. / Gilded tombs do worms enfold." Filled with grief at his loss, the Prince leaves and Portia joyfully decries, "A gentle riddance."
Sometimes in life you have to take chances with friendships to pan for the gold, even if it means potentially disrupting the narrative in your mind. When the sediment is washed away, you can truly see if the nuggets you so valued are present, or if it is merely an allusion — clusters of golden dust seemingly fused together by hope. We have all had instances in a friendship where we were the Prince putting our faith in the wrong casket, the object of our adoration. Their seemingly gilded image was something we constructed in our minds and blinding us from noticing the glaring imperfections — that the person’s values were antithetical to our own and causing us to sway from our own beliefs.
Over the past few weeks, I have found myself elbow deep in sluice boxes panning for gold, the river water flowing, purifying my thoughts and giving me clarity in friendships. As my hands caress the sludge still looking for my own golden nuggets, I have had to come to terms with the reality that some of the relationships I have held most dear were merely gilt at best, fool’s gold at worst —-I being the fool for loving and caring deeply for others who hold me at arms length. My younger self would have shed tears like streams, searching for the veins of Gaia to make meaning of my watershed, however, I now embrace the idea that to love others brings no shame. Like Gratiano in Act I Scene i of the play, I now say “Let me play the fool. / With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come. / And let my liver rather heat with wine /Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. / Why should a man whose blood is warm within / Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster, / Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice / By being peevish? . . . / I love thee, and ’tis my love that speaks.”
Whether made up of flecks, or true native gold, I will cherish the glister I see in each soul I befriend and continue to love others unabashedly, for I’d rather be a fool who loves than a fool who cannot be besotted in friendship,
Namaste.
