salad days

English

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salad days

Wikipedia

Etymology

Coined by William Shakespeare in Antony and Cleopatra around 1607, see quotations.^[1]

Noun

salad days pl (plural only)

1. A period of inexperienced youthful innocence accompanied by enthusiasm and idealism.
   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v], page 344, column 2:

     Cleo. Did I Charmian, euer loue Caeſar ſo?
     […]
     Char. By your moſt gracious pardon,
     I ſing but after you.
     Cleo. My Sallad dayes,
     When I was greene in iudgment, cold in blood […]

   • 1874 October, “Salad Days”, in The American Educational Monthly, page 462:

     The season of salad days has been rightly called a season of folly—rightly, because nature wisely intended salad days for folly, and we are wise to regard them as a time for folly. But are we wise when, halting upon the crutches age finds convenient after the gambols of youth have lost their attractions, we condemn this season of harmless folly to perpetual reprobation?

   • 1952 May, George Santayana, “I Like to Be a Stranger”, in The Atlantic‎:

     But it must be in solitude. I do not need or desire to hobnob artificially with other old men in order to revisit them in their salad days, and to renew my own.

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XX, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     “I'll bet he was swiping things as a small boy.” “Only biscuits.” “I beg your pardon?” “Or crackers you would call them, wouldn't you? He was telling me he occasionally pinched a cracker or two in his salad days.”

   • 2015, 23m30s from the start, in Penny Dreadful, season 2, episode 6, spoken by Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton):

     Do you know I've not been to a ball in ages? I used to be quite the dancer in my salad days, if you can believe such a thing.

   • 2023 February 24, Annie Mebane, Shrinking, season 1, episode 6:

     Liz: Derek, remember when I used to want to fuck all the time?
     Derek: Ah, yes. The salad days.
     Liz: Mmh. Now, my sex window is between 3 and 3:20 pm and Derek needs not to have annoyed me that day.
     Derek: Doesn't happen often.

Coordinate terms

• halcyon days

References

1. Albert Jack (2005) Red herrings and white elephants, HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 44: “The phrase is a simple one with a simple origin provided, once again, by Shakespeare.”