By Brad Miner.

COSTARD

O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.

I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;

for thou art not so long by the head as

honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier

swallowed than a flap-dragon.

from Love's Labours Lost, Act 5, Scene 2

I begin by drawing the reader's attention to that nearly impossible-to-pronounce and unfamiliar word Shakespeare puts in the mouth of a country bumpkin. Costard is a go-between for swells at the court of Ferdinand, king of Navarre, who have sworn off the company of women. Love's Labour's Lost is a comedy, so you can guess how honorably the gentlemen adhere to their oath of chastity.

Oh, and a flap-dragon: Samuel Johnson (in his Dictionary) explains: "a play game in which they catch raisins out of burning brandy and, extinguishing them by closing the mouth, eat them." Great fun, I suppose, especially in a chilly parlor on Christmas Eve. Some fingers were burned; brandy dulled the pain.

Honorificabilitudinitatibus - to make linguistic matters worse - is a hapax legomenon, i.e. a word that appears just once. Hapax legomenon (italicized because it's Greek) is defined in the Shorter Oxford dictionary this way: "A word, form, etc., of which only one recorded instance is known." Honorificabilitudinitatibus (an English neologism, so not italicized) appeared originally in Shakespeare's comedy making it also a coinage. And it means honorableness.

So, it's not really, as Costard seems to suggest, a thing that could actually be eaten, although an actor who plays the role might easily choke on it.

But Costard might also be suggesting that, as a man might "swallow" his pride, he could also swallow his honor. In either case, there should be a kind of burning worse than flaming raisins.

Surely, shame is among the fires of Hell. It's a feeling most of us know if we are not saints. Although men and women who have burned with shame have sometimes become saints.

Honorificabilitudinitatibus is the longest word in the Shakespeare canon and is the longest word in the English language in which each consonant, save the last, is followed by a vowel.

Now, to live without honor is a shameful thing. To aspire to honorableness is to feel shame whenever one falls short. Indeed, the Greek and Latin words used to refer to sin (respectively hamartia and peccatum) mean "to miss the mark" or "fail to reach the goal."

I know the heat of shame for reasons I'll not disclose, although years have passed since I last deserved it. I have, however, occasionally been embarrassed. That's hard to avoid and, anyway, is just a mild and passing tinge of red in the face.

As the Lord said, "Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels"

A thing often found in Victorian and earlier literature is the chastisement by someone of an unrepentant sinner: "Sir, do you have no shame!?"

Shameless is a word sometimes used these days with a wry smile and a shake of the head and meant as a qualified compliment - the sort of thing you say to a buddy who just ordered a third Martini or a second slice of chocolate truffle layer cake.

Honor conquers shame by making sin and crime unappealing. Honor begins with self-respect and respect for others, and when it's wedded with faith, as is the case with Christian martyrs, it's a gateway to heaven.

In Shakespeare's Richard II, Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, unjustly accused of murder (and exiled), stands before the king:

My dear dear lord,

The purest treasure mortal times afford

Is spotless reputation: that away,

Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.

A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest

Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one:

Take honour from me, and my life is done:

Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try;

In that I live and for that will I die. [bold emphasis added]

No ho...