Sunday, April 13, 2025

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck

From The looming doom is creating main character energy by Ann Althouse.  

Bonus language topic: The word "doom" originally meant statute. But then it meant "A judgement or decision, esp. one formally pronounced" (OED). The meaning that feels familiar — "Fate, lot, irrevocable destiny" — arrives around 1400. And the meaning that sounds exactly right — "Final fate, destruction, ruin, death" — is first found in a 1609 Shakespeare sonnet, Sonnet 14:

Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck,
And yet methinks I have astronomy—
But not to tell of good or evil luck,
Of plagues, of dearths, or seasons’ quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell,
Pointing to each his thunder, rain, and wind,
Or say with princes if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in heaven find.
But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;
     Or else of thee this I prognosticate:
     Thy end is truth’s and beauty’s doom and date.

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