When I was growing up, my Dad used to walk around the house quoting poetry, and literary works.  Oh… you know the usual suspects.. Walt Whitman, Henry David Thoreau, Edgar Allan Poe, and such.

But one of his “go-to” verses was this:

Yet Clare’s sharp questions must I shun
Must separate Constance from the nun
Oh! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!
A Palmer too! No wonder why
I felt rebuked beneath his eye.

He used to pull this one out of his “bag of tricks” when he thought we were fibbing to him.  Little Ogres that we were.  We tried to wiggle out of some tight spots.  But Dad always knew.

Oh! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!

It was written by Sir Walter Scott.  A  dandy Scottish dude… born way, way back in 1771.  He wrote novels, plays, poetry.  Unlike a lot of other artists… he was widely popular throughout much of the world during his time.

He was pretty swift with the pen, I’ll tell you that too.  Some of his famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake, and Waverley.  (To name just a few.)

He seems like he had some really good qualities about him.  He fell lame from polio in 1773.  Sooooo….. he moved to the Borders to get treatment.. He lived with his Aunt Jenny …  who taught him… and mentored him.  Scott’s work was characterized from Aunt Jenny’s speech patterns and many of the tales and legends she told him.

But… besides the two obvious lines in this “Web” poem…. I just HAVE to wonder what the crap was going on in this passage.  Great Scottish Scott… for crying out loud.

I mean…..
Who in the holy heck was Clare?  What were these sharp questions?  What…. I ask you?  Who is Palmer, or what is Palmer?  And how does one feel rebuked beneath his eye?  Was the protagonist very little… like a miniscule man…  and on the eyelid of that Palmer fellow?  I don’t understand.

But I do understand the middle two lines….. loud and clear.

Oh! what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive!

Yes.  Best to be forthright.  Honesty is the best policy.  Tell the Truth.  All the time.

Now the other poem that perplexes me… is “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”  I don’t get it.  But somehow… if I feel these two are directly related….  somehow….

“Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.” – Spencer Johnson

“If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.” – Marcus Aurelius

“What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe