essay on time and tide wait for none (120word)
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‘No one is so powerful that he can stop the march of time’ – this is what the phrase ‘time and tide wait for none’ means. Although the origin of this phrase is not sure, yet it is obvious that it has ancient origins and predates modern English. The mere mention of the ‘tide’ being beyond man’s control brings to mind images of King Canute’s story. He showed the limitations of a King’s powers by failing to make the sea obey his orders. The word ‘tide’ in this phrase originally didn’t imply what the present meaning is – ‘the rising and falling of the sea’. It denoted ‘a period of time’. At the time when this phrase was coined the word ‘tide’ meant a season or a time or a while.
This phrase is also sometimes mentioned as ‘time and tide wait for no man’. Nevertheless, it signifies the importance of time. In literature time has often been referred to as “Once upon a time…” and then as the story progresses we discover how time passes, how it comes to a standstill, how it flies sometimes and how the character develops as time goes by. Time was a great teacher for King Lear in Shakespeare’s play ‘King Lear’. His character undergoes a sea-change with passage to time. His tow elder daughters failed the test of time. It was the youngest one, the reticent Cordelia, who faced the stormy times and came out a winner in being united with her father. But then time was a cruel teacher. Both Lear and Cordelia had to pay the price of their lives. Time had not waited for them. How time flies!’ they say. Rightly has Ben Hecht said, “Time is a circus always packing up and moving away.”
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Time is to be treated as a precious commodity. It’s as important as life itself. What is life? Is it a mere breathing exercise? How do we define time? We often refer to the term ‘lifetime’. What makes a life is not the whole life at one go. Rather it consists of moments stitched together. We should live life in parts, so to say. Live a whole lifetime in a whole day. Live as if there’s no tomorrow. This doesn’t mean being rash. But start enjoying your life, you never will be able to when times change. You never can judge what time has in store for you. Being alive and living is a totally different thing. If you go to accumulating wealth hoping that you’ll indulge yourself, do something for your family and enjoy life one day, you are grossly mistaken. When a man dies he will never wish he would have spent some more time in the office. As we say, ‘opportunity is here’, similarly, ‘time is here and now’. Time should never be wasted. “I wasted time and now doth time waste me”, says Shakespeare in ‘Richard II’ (Act V, scene v).
German Nobel Prize Winner, Thomas Mann in his novel ‘The Magic Mountain’ writes: “What is time? It is a secret – lacking in substance and yet almighty.” The concept of time has been treated differently in different periods of time. In ancient Greece time was treated as a circle. Hesoid, the Greek historian of 8th century B.C. divided time into five ages of mankind, beginning with the golden age of the distant past when men lived in peace and continuing upto the contemporary Iron Age where fights and warfare prevail. But in medieval and modern times time has been treated as a linear process. Saint Augustine in his ‘City of God’ favoured the linear concept of time and labelled the Greek cyclic time as a mere superstition.
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