Borrower and Lender Be - Edit

[dukealien]

.
Hi duke,
thanks for the spoiler, got it now


I think I've been steering you the wrong way. It's clear from the revision that 'formal'
was just an accident (which appealed to my prejudices) and it's the contemporary
you're after. I think having Polonius (even parenthetically) in the title steered me the
wrong way/set up certain expectations.
That said, I'm not getting is who this Polonius is. (I thought, for a while it was Trump
talking to Ivana/Kushner but your N is clearly too well balanced).
So maybe a less formal tone for the opening?

To owe is to have promised,
to give your word, you know
what that means. What it says
about you to the world.

To lend, is to offer a hand,
to say that I know you
are good for it. That circumstances,
alone, have brought us here

I'd been going to suggest
Absent trust there’s only usury:
need and needless cruelty, vigorish
on principal long vanished,
its repayment never contemplated or desired.
but ...
That said, 'never contemplated' surely refers to the next verse,not this one? Maybe
repayment beyond means or desire  ?

Given your Hamlet (p)references aren't you missing a trick?
Information’s key: that promisor
and promised know themselves, in truth,
that each can tell a hawk from a handsaw,
that both are worthy of belief.


Regards, Knot


.

Errrmmm.  Can't say you're wrong because (a) the poet doesn't get to say that to the reader, and (b) if the intent, thematic or otherwise, isn't getting across it's on the poet, not the reader.  However,

just trying to versify in the manner of Polonius' oft-quoted farewell to Laertes -- a little stuffy, maybe a bit hypocritical (the character is, after all, partly a villain) -- on the subject of what's going on with debt.  The direct reference is to "neither borrower nor lender be," because (per P.) those two roles can easily get to hate each other.  Personally, I'd restrict that  meaning to friends (i.e. "Don't loan money to friends or relatives, you lose the friends and the money but you're stuck with the relatives.") So, keep it impersonal, or take on the personnae of confident lender and responsible debtor.  Contemporary/thieves' cant such as vigorish, loan-sharking, and chilling the mark are shorthand that would have slowed things down to explain, but probably I should have.

Thanks for explaining and your additional suggestions!