ABSTRACT
William Shakespeare reminds us continually in his plays about the paradox of defending honour and reputation. In King Henry IV Part I the famous English playwright creates a speech for Falstaff that many an attorney could make to dissuade a rattled plaintiff from suing for libel:
Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour pricks me off when I come on? How then? Can honour set to a leg? No: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? no. What is honour? Air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’ Wednesday. Doth he fell it? no. Doth he hear it? No. ’Tis insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and so ends my catechism.
