“More is thy due than more than all can pay “

Post 120 Eternally grateful

"More is thy due than more than all can pay" is taken from Macbeth, a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide or the killing of King Duncan, and its aftermath. This is a favourite metaphor of a close relative of mine who studied this during his literature class in a secondary school in the early 1960s. Each time he said to his young listeners, they would automatically ask him to repeat and explain the metaphor. He would then tell them that he owed them too much and that not all combined could pay for it. A person is eternally grateful to the one who has helped him when "more is thy due than more than all can pay".

In a materialistic world, people tend to be more individualistic and less grateful to those who have rendered them help. Some may even go to the extent of returning good for evil. In a society where there is moral disorder, a person who remembers and knows how to repay his benefactors is to be commended. As for children what is of paramount importance is that they should not forsake their parents who are old and weak. What goes around comes around. Children will naturally be old parents one day. How they treat their parents will be how their own children will treat them.

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

29 November 2011