Flitch of bacon custom sites and the Dunmow flitch is referred to in Chaucer. The awarding of a flitch at both sites seems to have been an exceedingly rare event. The Dunmow tradition was revived in Victorian times, largely inspired by a book ("The Flitch of Bacon") by William Harrison Ainsworth. Flitch trials are still held in modern times at Great Dunmow. A counsel is employed to cross-examine the nominated couples and attempt to show they are undeserving of the award. There is evidence that the flitch of bacon tradition existed outside Britain in mainland Europe and some would push its origins back as
What a piece of work is a man What a piece of work is a man "What a piece of work is man!" is a phrase within a soliloquy by Prince Hamlet in William Shakespeare's play of the same name. Hamlet is reflecting, at first admiringly, and then despairingly, on the human condition. The soliloquy, spoken in the play by Prince Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, Scene 2, follows in its entirety. Rather than appearing in blank verse, the typical mode of composition of Shakespeare's plays, the speech appears in straight prose: Hamlet is saying that although humans may appear to think and act "nobly"