Amidst fears of a backlash, political dithering puts Hamlet in the shade

But, in addition to being a keen observer and scrutiniser of human nature, he also alluded in his plays and sonnets to the animal kingdom, and especially wild creatures.
As a campaigner for wildlife protection and conservation, I find those references intriguing.
There’s a major campaign right now for the protection of the honey bee from pesticides, with fierce debates on the issue in national parliaments and assemblies throughout the EU.
Shakespeare paid a memorable tribute to the insect in Henry V:
References to blood sports abound in the playwright’s work. There’s the well-known quote from Act 3, Scene 1 of Julius Caesar:
The slipper was the man who unleashed two greyhounds after a hare in a coursing event. Sadly, he performs the same function today in Ireland, where hare coursing is still legal.
In Act 4, Scene 3 of Love’s Labour Lost, the character Biron says: “
”In As You Like It, an onlooker describes the plight of a wounded stag thus:
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”I recalled that graphic depiction when the Dáil finally got around to banning stag-hunting in 2010 amid tensions between Coalition partners Fianna Fáil and the Greens over tackling the practice.
In his narrative poem, Venus and Adonis, Shakespeare empathises with the plight of a hare that is being chased:
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”Unfortunately, far too many of our politicians, at both local and national level, are reluctant in 2016 to legislate against blood sports. They fear an electoral backlash from their coursing cousins in the countryside.
Their dithering puts even Hamlet in the shade.
Perhaps, some day, they’ll find the courage to act — hopefully before another 400 years have passed since the death of Shakespeare.