At family meals when I was young
at mother's command I parroted
'Manners maketh man'
as if it were The Grace.
Eating was learning how to swallow my curiosity,
keeping my self to myself, and never asking
who said that grace first? Or when?
And what did the phrase mean?
By example Mother taught me
that manners madeth deference
and with that acquiescense
a blindness to the convenient lies
we taught each other by then.
They eased life in the short term
and that was all we could ask for.
We made a virtue of not examining
the unexamined in our lives.
My forced uncuriosity eventually
undid itself. The original was in french,
'Manners maketh man as clothes
and food [but not prayer] maketh
the monk'. It was a criticism of gluttony.
'Manners makyth the man' was the family motto
of Bishop William of Wykeham-1320-1404.
I note what he did for education.
I learned nothing from the deference
which so well disguised all fear of truth.
I prefer a mutuality where humour graces
criticism, when both given or received.
And even more, humour leavens praise.
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