APAD: Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we
write in water.
Meaning:
This Shakespearian saying expresses the notion that, while we recall well
anything done to harm us, we forget quickly the good others do.
A modern phrase that expresses a similaridea is Monty Python's "What have the
Romans ever done for us?". The characters in that sketch claim that "The
Romans have taken everything from us" and offered nothing in return except
aqueducts, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, public
baths and peace.
Background:
From Shakespeare's Henry VIII, 1612:
GRIFFITH:
Noble madam,
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water. May it please your highness
To hear me speak his good now?
The line was alluded to on Keats' tombstone - Here lies one whose name was
writ in water.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Shakespeare also had Antony say in "Julius Caesar": The evil that men do lives
after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.
I don't need many examples to see the general truth but do think it depends on
the person who does the recalling. Many, as they grow older, seem to fall into
the clutches of fear, hatred, regret, guilt, bitterness, etc., and help to make
the proverb sound true.
Some, however, grow more grateful and remember the good done to them or even the
wrongs that helped to bring them where they are.
To yet another few, things come and go as part of karma and invoke no emotion
whatsoever. They switch into a death mode long before they kick the bucket.