Monday, 23 March 2026

Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Shakespeare

 That’s from Cymbeline, Act 4, Scene 2.


The full thought is a little devastating and very beautiful: Shakespeare’s saying that no matter how lovely, privileged, or lively you are—“golden lads and girls”—everyone ends the same way. Even the lowliest workers, “chimney-sweepers,” come to dust. Status gets flattened by mortality.


In modern English, basically:

Beautiful young people and poor laborers alike all die in the end.


It’s from the funeral song “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,” which has that haunted, tender Shakespeare energy.


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