You know what a bubble is: something that fills with air and grows and grows until pop! it's gone. The bubble is a metaphor for the transience of the kind of reputation the soldier seeks--it grows and grows and in an instant, it's gone. It's sort of like the fame of pop stars.
"seeking the bubble reputation" comes from Jaques' monologue "All the world's a stage" from As You Like It, a play by William Shakespeare, which goes like this in part: Then a soldier, full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth. It means fame, which is notoriously transitory. Everybody may be talking about you one day, and the next it disappears like a burst bubble. The soldier is prepared to risk death for just such a reputation, and Jaques is suggesting that he's pretty stupid to do so.
I have got a (good or bad) reputation and you have not got a (good or bad) reputation.
"the bubble reputation", "the cannon's mouth", "with good capon lin'd".
"the bubble reputation", "the cannon's mouth", "with good capon lin'd".
In Jaques's speech from Shakespeare's play As You Like It (it's not a poem, but a part of a play), he describes a soldier as "seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth." The use of the word "bubble" is what is called a metaphor. This is when something is compared to something else that is mostly different but the same in some ways. Bubbles get big very quickly but then pop and instantly disappear. The soldier's reputation is like that--he can become famous really quickly and then, in an instant, nobody can remember who he was or why he was famous. Sports heroes and pop stars have bubble reputations too.
Soldiers (especially back in the days when most combat was hand-to-hand) could win renown by being exceptionally brave and defeating many enemies. Shakespeare (or rather the cynical Jaques who makes this speech) is saying that this kind of reputation is like a bubble: it grows quickly to a great size but disappears with a pop. By this he might be suggesting that a soldier's reputation is like a pop star's--they may be the top band today but in a year everyone will have forgotten them. He might be suggesting that military reputation does not bring lasting fame. Alternatively, he might be saying that the soldier's reputation is as fragile as a bubble: one blast from the cannon and the hard-won reputation is gone, because the soldier is dead.
Meaning 1: simmer, bubble, foam, seethe, fizz, froth, effervesce Meaning 2: pustule, gathering, swelling, blister, carbuncle
Talbot Mundy has written: 'King, of the Khyber Rifles' 'Queen Cleopatra' 'Om' 'The bubble reputation'
The word 'bubble' is both a verb (bubble, bubbles, bubbling, bubbled) and a noun (bubble, bubbles). The adjective form is bubbly. The word 'bubble gum' is a compound noun, an open spaced compound noun; two words joined to form a noun with its own meaning.
Worthy of belief., Deserving or possessing reputation or esteem; reputable; estimable., Bringing credit, reputation, or honor; honorable; as, such conduct is highly creditable to him.
Smoking pipe that uses water to filter smoke.