Circumcision of Jesus foreshadowing of Christ's Passion to come in the context of the "Circumcision". Having borrowed the large architectural setting in the Temple of the "Presentation", later scenes may show the high priest alone holding the baby, as he or a "mohel" performs the operation, as in the St Wolfgang altarpiece by Michael Pacher (1481), or Dürer's painting (right) and his influential woodcut from his series on the "Life of the Virgin". This reflected what had by then become, and remains, standard Jewish practice, where the ceremony is performed in the synagogue and the baby is held by the seated rabbi as
What a piece of work is a man lines written by Montaigne: However, rather than being a direct influence on Shakespeare, Montaigne may have merely been reacting to the same general atmosphere of the time, making the source of these lines one of context rather than direct influence. 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