While your friend may have missed the originator of this thought, he is accurate in that Shakespeare expressed the import of the expression. Many a word of truth is spoken in jest is an expression that goes back farther in time to Geoffrey Chaucer who, around 1390, wrote the Canterbury Tales. In the "Cook's Tale." the line is as follows:
Be nat wrooth, my lord, though that I pleye. Ful ofte in game a sooth [truth] I have herd seye!
In Middle English: "But yet, I pray thee, be not wroth for game (don't be angry with my jesting)
A man may say full sooth (truth) in game and play.
Later, William Shakespeare expressed this idea in a manner closer to our contemporary version in King Lear (1608):
Jesters do oft prove prophets. (V,iii,73)
No comments:
Post a Comment