Sunday 24 February 2008

Cucullus non Facit Monachum

This is one of the curious quotations which has stuck with me since childhood - translation: A cowl does not a monk make. I knew of it from Twelfth Night but It also appears in John Dryden's Hind and Panther published in 1687, 71 years after Shakespeare's death. Apparently it was a common quotation of the times.

This particular monk was sitting in Emerson Street opposite where June and I were having coffee. A lady brought him one and sat beside him in silence for while. He didn't have a cowl anyway.

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