CULTURAL EXPLORATION
Begin with a work, person, period, place, tradition or theme. Every card leads to public content and relationships that have passed the same publication gate.
All objects
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
The speaker asks whether to compare the beloved to a summer day, finds the beloved more lovely and temperate than summer’s brief and changeable beauty, and promises that these enduring lines will preserve that beauty and life as long as people can breathe or see.
Light and darkness balance in a woman’s appearance before the poem turns inward to serenity, goodness, and an innocent heart.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A song asks who Silvia is, answers by praising her holiness, beauty, wisdom and kindness, and ends by calling on the company to sing to her and bring her garlands.
The speaker distrusts a lady kept perpetually dressed, powdered and perfumed, and asks instead for loose robes and free hair, since studied art strikes the eyes but not the heart.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A main proverb preserved in Walter K. Kelly's British-centered 1859 comparative collection. The exact oral origin is not asserted, and the historical saying is not presented as present-day fact or advice.
A list of impossible errands—catching a falling star, hearing mermaids sing—leads to the claim that no woman is both true and fair, and that even one reported as true would have turned false before the speaker could reach her.
A speaker whose finery and smiles have been driven off by love asks for an axe, a spade and a winding-sheet, and says that once the grave is made he will lie down as cold as clay, with the verdict that true love passes away.
Speaking to a lover about their own death, the speaker asks for no sad songs, roses or cypress but only green grass wet with showers and dew, and imagines a twilight afterwards in which they may equally happen to remember or to forget.
Original text of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 1 from the 1609 first edition, with source information.