The expression “All that glitters is not gold” is the comment that the golden casket offers to a suitor in Shakespeare’s ‘The of Venice’. The foolish suitor comes to win the hands of Portia. He has to select out of three caskets – of gold, silver and bronze -in one of which is hidden Portia’s portrait. The suitor blindly jumps for the gold one and is greeted by a jeering (= showing teeth) skull and the band that gold”. says, “All that glitters is not.
Since then the phrase implies a satiric comment on those who are too readily taken in (= deceived) by outward glamour. But I would prefer an unconventional approach.
Gold does glitter, not any base metal. It is universally applicable in human history. All great men who are ‘gold’ in the real sense, have shone their ‘glitter’ in early life. Let us take up some formidable cases.
Rabindranath Tagore was almost written off (= thrown out) from the list of bright chaps, as he disliked schools and the hackneyed mode of learning. Narendranath Dutta, popularly known as Swami Vivekananda, had posed a problem to his parent, as the school bench always proved to be a hot plate to him. The third such glittering personality was Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, whose subdued feeling of nationality forced him to face expulsion from the Presidency College, Calcutta.
Such golden stuffs always glitter, the irony of the fact being that the customs-ridden society fail to mark that glitter in their early stages of life. We know that Rabindranath had to face humiliations at the hands of most men in his family as he did not accept the ruts (= beaten tracks) of formal education. It was due to his father that he was saved from total ruin. Naren was similarly a ‘dropout’ (= one who drops out of the beaten runs of life). In spite of bearing a bright track record as a student, his spiritual passion at first put him at bay (= in a helpless state). He could have pursued any covetable (= deeply desired) job, but he was a dropout. Even after his spiritual conversion his family members and even others took him for a castaway (= not acceptable). The glitter lay hidden until after the Chicago Conference.
My last and by no means the least instance in support of my stand is Netaji Bose. His career and deeds are too recent for special pleading. He is another instance like Narendranath Dutta –incompatible (= not easily fitting in) and of proven mettle (= spirit) in his ideas and philosophy. The Gandhian wave had forced him out of his beloved country, but could not dampen his spirit that was like thundering Jove (= Roman God Jupiter noted for bravery, power etc). Hence gold always glitters, only our society and conventional notions fail to discover the gold behind the glitter.
