Taken In Context

“The evil that men do lives after them.” We’ve all heard this before, but what does it mean? When I used to here this line I always thought it meant when you do something bad you can’t run away from it, that wherever you go, whatever you do, you will, in one form or another get paid back for what you did.

I thought this for a long time until one day I read a book, actually a play, by a man called William Shakespeare entitled Julius Caesar. “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones”. In the play, Mark Antony was giving a speech at Caesar’s funeral when he said it. It was then that I realized I had misinterpreted the words.

It was supposed to mean that when a man (or woman) does something bad it is most often remembered but most good things he (or she) does is buried with him (or her), and quickly forgotten.

But I can’t be blamed for my previous understanding. Taking the sentence alone, that is an obvious and understandable way of interpreting it.

That got me thinking, sometimes we judge something or someone too quickly without taking time to get the whole picture, so we here one side, a small piece, and assume. But delving deeper will bring other sides and different meanings that will give us better a understanding.