For Part One, Part Three, or Part Four, or even Part Five, Part Six, or Part Seven, click on the appropriate link.
In Elder Paul H. Dunn's talk, "What is a Teacher?" teenage Elder Dunn wasn't getting out of class with his bishop without a little more wisdom. This time, the Bishop, trying to get a teenage boy to think more deeply (not an easy feat), quoted this piece of wisdom:
The Quote
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Again, no attribution.
It's Shakespeare, isn't it? I thought to myself. I know this one! Shakespeare!
But it wasn't.
Not Shakespeare, but Close
It turned out that this quote actually comes from Sir Walter Scott, which thrilled me to no end.
On our trip to Scotland and England a couple of years ago, we came up out of the train station in Edinburgh to see a very prominent memorial. That memorial was dedicated to Sir Walter Scott, one of Scotland's most honored writers. Another similar memorial exists in Glasgow.
Some of his more recognizable works on this side of the pond are the novels Ivanhoe and Rob Roy.
The quote above, one of the most famous quotes from all Scottish literature, comes from Marmion - A Tale of Flodden Field, an epic poem, in Canto 6, Stanza 17, where the villainous Marmion, who has tried to conspire against De Wilton, but his entire scheme has completely unraveled.
The Palmer mentioned below is De Wilton himself, dressed as a pilgrim, who has found him Marmion entirely and has King Henry VIII's favor again. He's lost the woman he wooed, Clare. The nun Constance who tried to help him has been compromised. He's on a path to death himself shortly after this realization. Enjoy this small snippet of the great Sir Walter Scott:
“In brief, my lord, we both descried
(For then I stood by Henry’s side)
The Palmer mount, and outwards ride,
Upon the earl’s own favourite steed:
All sheathed he was in armour bright,
And much resembled that same knight,
Subdued by you in Cotswold fight:
Lord Angus wished him speed.”
The instant that Fitz-Eustace spoke,
A sudden light on Marmion broke:
“Ah! dastard fool, to reason lost!”
He muttered; “’Twas nor fay nor ghost
I met upon the moonlight wold,
But living man of earthly mould.
O dotage blind and gross!
Had I but fought as wont, one thrust
Had laid De Wilton in the dust,
My path no more to cross.
How stand we now?—he told his tale
To Douglas; and with some avail;
’Twas therefore gloomed his ruggéd brow.
Will Surrey dare to entertain,
’Gainst Marmion, charge disproved and vain?
Small risk of that, I trow.
Yet Clare’s sharp questions must I shun;
Must separate Constance from the nun—
Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
A Palmer too!—no wonder why
I felt rebuked beneath his eye:
I might have known there was but one
Whose look could quell Lord Marmion.”
Lord Marmion's deceptions fell apart, and he felt the weight of his deceptions closing in on him. Same thing happens to all of us, if we build our lives on deception rather than truth. Sooner or later, the truth comes out, and we are left to face it.
Those who seek out truth and are not afraid of it live their lives in light and carry peace within them, because God sees all truth, even if men can't.
