Yesterday was the bard’s birthday, so this week’s Tattoo Tuesday has a Shakespearean theme. Being featured today is Claire O’Callaghan, who has one of Shakespeare‘s most famous lines tattooed on her inner right arm.

It’s from the first act of Hamlet, given as advice by Polonius to his son, Laertes, and was done earlier this year by Director Mark ‘Thrax’ Johnston at Devil’s Own Tattoos in Leicester. Claire explains:

“To cut a long and sentimental story short, the power of this maxim hit me one day like a brick in the face. Not only is it one of the most graceful lines of advice (from a particularly eloquent monologue) ever written, but its message is one of the most profound and meaningful lessons to be learnt (or hopefully, realised) in life.

So after scraping the brick off my face and recognising that I wanted to carry this message close with me forever, I decided instantaneously that the best way of doing this was to have it written on my skin, somewhere where I could see it all the time.

So useful has this line become that I frequently find myself whipping up my sleeve and pointing at Shakespeare’s words to friends who need pepping up in some way – it just proves itself over and over, again and again.

I love it and am enamoured by my tattoo every day (and yes, getting inked is addictive and yes, I have plans for more).”

For more from Claire, follow her on Twitter. And if you’ve got a literary tattoo, we want to hear from you. Email us a photo telling us when, where and why you got it done, and you could see yourself featured on For Books’ Sake!