# Actual Freedom – Definitions

# Definitions ## Hoist by One’s Own Petard Hoist by One’s Own Petard: • [after Shakes. Hamlet] blown up by one’s own bomb, ruined by one’s own devices against others. (Oxford Dictionary) • ‘To be caught in one’s own trap: ‘The swindler cheated himself out of most of his money, and his victims were satisfied to see him hoist by his own petard.’ A ‘petard’ was an explosive device used in medieval warfare. To be hoisted, or lifted, by a petard literally means to be blown up.’ (Bartleby, The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy). • The phrase comes from a passage in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Rosencranz and Guildenstern are sent with Hamlet to England bearing orders that Hamlet be killed. Hamlet alters the orders so that Rosencranz and Guildenstern are killed instead. Hamlet says: For ’tis the sport to have the engineer Hoist with his own petard; and ’t shall go hard But I will delve one yard below their mines, And blow them at the moon. (Hamlet III.iv.206ff, spelling modernized) The hoist in the passage is not the same as our modern ‘hoist’; it’s an older form of the word, hoise, with a participial ending that ends up as a -t (it would normally be written hoised). Petard is a word for ‘bomb’ that etymologically means ‘farter’, amusingly enough. (R.Clayton, Maven’s Word of the Day) RETURN TO DEFINITIONS INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity