# EN: to thine own self



## anisometropie

good evening !




> This above all: to thine own self be true,
> And it must follow, as the night the day,
> Thou canst not then be false to any man.



since 
thou = you
thee = you 
thy = your
thine = yours

why do shakespear use "thine" instead of "thy" ?
it doesn't make sense to say "yours self", we would say "your self"


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## moustic

Poetic license?


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## lucas-sp

"Thine" doesn't mean "yours." It means "of thee, belonging to thee." The OED goes on to state that "thine" is used attributively before a vowel sound or when following the noun. (Look at Ben Johnson's 1616 "Drink to me only with thine eyes.")

This is a case where "thy own" would be displeasing to hear and say (because of the two hard vowel sounds coming immediately after one another), so it becomes "thine own" - for the same reasons that "si on" becomes "si l'on."


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## anisometropie

thanks, great answer   
but doesn't "yours" mean "of thee, belonging to thee" ?


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## lucas-sp

Doesn't "your" mean "of thee, belonging to thee"? 

"Thine" can be used absolutely, as in the case of "your family members": "you and yours" = "thee and thine." ("Thy" can't be used this way.) But "thine" can also be used attributively. So I suppose you could say: "This bottle is mine, and that one is thine." (Here, thine = yours: "That's yours!")

"Thine" can be "your" or "yours" depending on context. But in contexts of attribution, you'd have "Here's thy bottle!" but "Here's thine apple!"


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## Keith Bradford

To sum it up:

*Early Eng...French..................Modern Eng

*Thou .........Tu/toi....................You (To a single person)
Thee..........Te.........................You
Thy...........Ton/ta/tes...............Your
Thine.........Ton/tes...................Your (before a vowel sound)
Thine.........Le/la/les tien/ne/s.....Yours

This form gradually died out during the 17th century and now exists only in dialect and religious use. (In poetry until about 1900.)


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## Tim~!

I think the answer is simply that one changed the form before vowel sounds, the same as we do currently with _a_ and _an_.

At that time one would say "mine eyes" rather than "my eyes" because of that initial vowel sound and I think it's exactly the same here. Had Shakespeare used "good self" instead of "own self", then I would happily gamble that it would have been phrased "to thy good self be true".

Edit: I've just noticed that Keith also wrote "before a vowel sound".


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## anisometropie

lucas-sp said:


> Doesn't "your" mean "of thee, belonging to thee"?
> 
> "Thine" can be used absolutely, as in the case of "your family members": "you and yours" = "thee and thine." ("Thy" can't be used this way.) But "thine" can also be used attributively. So I suppose you could say: "This bottle is mine, and that one is thine." (Here, thine = yours: "That's yours!")
> 
> "Thine" can be "your" or "yours" depending on context. But in contexts of attribution, you'd have "Here's thy bottle!" but "Here's thine apple!"



I meant, why do thou say "thine" doesn't mean "yours" ? that's the modern english equivalent.

just to be sure : "you and yours" = "thee and thine" = "toi et les tiens" ?

I'm getting confused with all these stuff : absolutely, attributively, genitive, possessive...








Keith Bradford said:


> To sum it up:
> 
> *Early Eng...French..................Modern Eng
> 
> *Thou .........Tu/toi....................You (To a single person)
> Thee..........Te.........................You



I think you meant : 
Thou .........Tu....................You (To a single person)
Thee..........Te/toi.........................You




Tim~! said:


> I think the answer is simply that one changed the form before vowel sounds, the same as we do currently with _a_ and _an_.
> 
> At that time one would say "mine eyes" rather than "my eyes" because of that initial vowel sound and I think it's exactly the same here. Had Shakespeare used "good self" instead of "own self", then I would happily gamble that it would have been phrased "to thy good self be true".


one would even say : "mine eyen"  ( A midsummer night's dreams)


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## thedov

anisometropie said:


> one would even say : "mine eyen"  ( A midsummer night's dreams)



True, but this *very *archaic plural is used by Shakespeare here to make fun of the character Bottom's speech.


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## translation graduated

i think you can use the simplefollowing  rule in every case   thine =yours  and you finish with these problem


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## Keith Bradford

anisometropie said:


> ...I think you meant :
> Thou .........Tu....................You (To a single person)
> Thee..........Te/toi...............You



I think I didn't. We say: Holier than *thou *(= _plus saint que *toi*_), not holier than thee .



translation graduated said:


> i think you can use the simplefollowing rule in every case thine =yours and you finish with these problem



No.


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## thedov

Keith Bradford said:


> I think I didn't. We say: Holier than *thou *(= _plus saint que *toi*_), not holier than thee .


I'm not sure there is an exact parallel between 'toi' and thou or thee.

For example, you would say:
I did it for *thee*.
Je l'ai fait pour *toi*.

In different contexts, 'toi' can be used for both.


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## Tim~!

Keith Bradford said:


> I think I didn't. We say: Holier than *thou *(= _plus saint que *toi*_), not holier than thee .


But _thou _is exclusively a subject pronoun and _thee _an object. It corresponds as anisometropie indicated.

I would argue that the _thou _in your sentence there is a subject form. In modern English with a different adjective we would use the object "you" (or "me" etc, much to the pedants' chagrin) but we're deliberately using an archaic pronoun and keeping it in the form that it would have been used in at the time in the case of _holier than thou_. (Honestly, could you picture a celebrity saying "He thought he was much holier than I!"? Nope. When we deviate from the set form using _thou _we jump quite naturally to the object form.)

In your case the two don't equate because the construction is " + subject pronoun" in one language and " + object pronoun" in the other. If you followed the pedants' line of thinking that one should say "It is I" (copula -> nominative) and quoted that, you'd be in the position of saying "We say: It is I (= c'est moi), not it is me .", in response to somebody's pointing out that _I _corresponds with _je _and _me _with _moi_.


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## Keith Bradford

I wasn't actually talking about subject pronouns and object pronouns, I was talking about translation into French.  I'm inclined to agree with Dov: there are cases where both usages apply.


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