Chapter 10
PLAY IS THE THING ADVOCATES MORAL PURIFICATION
“The play’s the thing / Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King” (Hamlet, II, ii, 633-634). Shakespeare put these words in the mouth of his character, Prince Hamlet, who instructs the players to stage a play in the play, in order to perform the expected purpose of purifying the rotten affairs in the Danish court. Here it shows that the concept of play can serve as a vehicle for moral purification.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England, people received moral lessons primarily from listening to sermons at their churches and from attending the theater. The Puritans denigrated the plays, contrived for mass entertainment, as sheer vices. In fact, the dramatists in some ways were their best allies, for their plays spread and popularized their ideas. Just as poets dealt with the concept of moral purification in their own lives and in society, the works of Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights for the public stage embedded it in their plays.
Will as a Christian and Puritan Element
The concept of purification survived into the Age of Enlightenment, because upon it was built its significant assumption of human perfectibility. It had been the seed from which the Enlightenment sprouted and grew in English soil.
As to the conditions in Christian life that required purification, the Puritans often referred to Satan’s temptations of Christ as classic examples. 1 The temptations of the world are: “lust of the flesh,” which means seeking for sensual pleasure; “lust of the eyes,” which means seeking for material possession; and “the pride of life,” which means seeking for control over others and imposing one’s will upon others. 2
These were the sins to be purged -- so said Puritan preachers, lecturers, and writers. For instance, John Milton’s central topic in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained was the notion that the First Adam yielded to temptation, resulting in the fall of mankind, and the Second Adam (Christ) overcame temptation, and saved mankind, and made it possible for man to regain Paradise. 3
Again and again in his historical plays and in his tragedies, Shakespeare too showed man seduced by temptation into sin, and man resisting temptation and by Grace overcoming it.
Shakespeare’s sonnets intimately yet rhetorically displayed his own state of deep conflict between body and soul, and then showed the means by which he became purified. Shakespeare’s plays reveal the same theme of purification in a much wider scope, with both individual and universal implications.
The Tudor and Stuart poet/playwrights pursued much the same focus. Some wrote political satires, and promoted the idea of sociopolitical purification, mostly with moral connotations. The great Ben Jonson (1572-1637) wrote Valpone, or The Fox and The Alchemist, satirizing the follies of avarice. Even the accused atheist Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) wrote Tamburlaine, which implies that ambition for power and might is in vain; Doctor Faustus, denounces the desire for limitless knowledge; and The Jew of Malta, the unchecked lust for wealth; 4 all of these are evils to be purged.
William Shakespeare not only used his own name to make puns, but, “Will” was always an important factor for moral judgment of a character in his plays. Shakespeare’s central distinction in his treatment of will was between one’s will in action toward other people and trying to control oneself by strength of will. Shakespeare saw the latter as one’s moral obligation. Yet he himself repeatedly failed to do this. Therefore, as the “Dark Lady” sonnets reveal, he had to invoke supernatural assistance to fulfill God’s Will. Some of his major characters, not unexpectedly, also do so.
From a Christian’s point of view, one’s own will produces ambition and desire, something like the Buddhist concept of karma ; yet unlike the Buddhist concept, if one submits one’s own will to the great Will of God, that is good.
Christian heroism differs from classical heroism in its emphasis upon discipline of one’s will to accord with God’s Will of Providence. Hellenic classical heroes often were distinguished by strong will, which was their major virtue. Take Homer’s Achilles, for example; he not only imposed his will upon foes and friends alike, but could choose at will either to have a long life and die without fame in his homeland, or to die an early death and have fame which would never die. Typically, he chose the latter and died according to what he willed. 5
Another great Homeric hero, “Unconquerable Odysseus” (aka Ulysses) has a similar quality. He employs his might to impose his will on a hostile world, which made him a typical hero of his age. 6 In both The Iliad and The Odyssey, when there are supernatural forces involved, such as the Olympian gods, they either assist or hinder the heroes’ attempts to control their fates through acts of will.
But the impact of Christianity largely altered the classical conception of heroism: moral rectitude became superior to might and wit, and strong-willed characters were oftentimes depicted as inherently evil. The Christian hero conformed to the Biblical concept: “He who ruleth his spirit is better than he who captures a city.” 7
To submit one’s will to God’s Will becomes the prime virtue. The highest purpose in life is to live according to God’s Will and to glorify Him.
Christopher Marlowe, at the end of his Tragical History of Dr. Faustus, warned his audience with this chorus:
Faustus is gone! Regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practice more than heavenly power permits. 8
This passage states a fundamental principle of Renaissance morality: that human beings ought to be obedient and reverent to God and not attempt by an act of will to aspire above their condition. That is to say, if one exercises one’s will without constraint, it will result in the violation of one’s duty either to God or to his neighbor. Therefore, an overweening will is the cause of villainy or tragedy. This is congruent with the Puritan concept of purification: to purge one’s lustful will, to conquer oneself, because it is the root of pride and cause of perdition. This is the view generally held by the people of the Elizabethan age, and it is evidenced in Shakespeare’s plays.
The New Role of Will in Shakespearean Characters
A large portion of Shakespeare’s dramas have war as a major factor in the plot. A fight-to-the-death conflict not only can provide ingredients for a stirring plot, but it also provides a useful metaphor for exploring the workings of the human will.
By definition, war is an activity in which one uses force to subdue the will of others in order to actualize one’s own will. This violently adversarial approach to conflict resolution is the principal reason, why war is morally tainted for most people. Yet it is the difference between appropriate and excessive force of will that can divide wars into two categories.
One can engage in a war for the purpose of carrying out one’s own will, as when Henry Bolingbroke raised arms for usurping the throne, then raised arms for suppressing rebellions, which were originated by his ill-governance. This is simply a morality of might making right. Or one can engage in a war that is morally righteous and not for the fulfillment of one’s will, as when King Henry V engaged in a patriotic war against France. Such a war may be justified by saying that it is for the sake of the general will, submitting to God’s Will, or fighting for national glory. This kind of warfare is not evil. This point will be discussed later.
If we accept Shakespeare to be a moral teacher, and a play of his as an instrument for moral instruction, then willpower must have an important role in characters’ moral makeup. It is the will of human beings that casts their consciences, makes them able to be moral agents, and allows for moral discrimination and judgment.
In addition to will, there are other factors, such as ability, moral principles, and divine providence:
1) One’s will determines one’s role in the play;
2) One needs to have ability to act on one’s will;
3) One is obliged to act on moral principles, and how one balances one’s will against one’s moral code determines one’s moral state;
4) God’s Will, or Providence, which in Shakespeare’s words, “is large and spacious” (Sonnet 135), ultimately asserts its authority over all human beings.
Whether one is great or small, one has a will. As in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Bottom is literally “bottom” because his will is weak and his ability is low. Therefore, he could not impose his will on people, generally, and could not be morally evil.
Falstaff, a character close to Bottom, has little worldly ability. He therefore performs no great deeds, but makes mischief in many ways. He can only impose his will on people weaker than himself; his weak will is unable even to control himself. When Falstaff says, “I’ll purge, and leave sack,” everyone knows that is no more than a joke (Henry IV Pt. I, I, iv, 165). When he says --
What is honor? A word. What is in that word honor?
What is that honor? Air… Therefore, I’ll none
of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my
catechism. (v, i, 135-143)
He reveals his true nature: a lord of misrule, for whom morality is out of tune. He will have “none of it” because he possesses no will to get it.
Falstaff’s philosophy of life is opposite to Hotspur’s. On the battlefield, Falstaff counterfeits dying, but he strangely interprets it as “the true and perfect image of life indeed” (V, iv, 118). Therefore, he rises up and stands triumphant over Hotspur’s corpse and says, “sirrah,” (stabbing him) “with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me!” (takes up Hotspur on his back. V, iv, 127-128) The audience’s feelings are mixed. On the one hand, Falstaff uses force on a defenseless corpse that cannot resist his will; such action is evil. On the other hand, one may sympathize a bit with him, because he is hardly able to impose his will on living people. This is often the feelings of commoners, who are oppressed under the strong wills of those who have power over them.
When the scene of highway robbery takes place near Gad’s Hill (II, ii), because Falstaff lacks ability and has contrived no cunning plot, one feels that he is rather mischievous than evil. Though the action is illegal, his ineffectual performance makes it seem a trivially immoral action.
I believe this is a fair and apt statement: greatness, either for good or for evil, requires more ability and strength of will than Falstaff can muster.
The downfall of Falstaff is first foreshadowed by himself (to Prince Hal):
Marry, then sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty. (I, ii, 26-28)
He knows well that when the sun of righteousness appears, there will be no place for him. And sure enough: when Prince Hal becomes King Henry V, he denies and banishes Falstaff by saying,
I know thee not, old man…
Presume not that I am the thing I was,
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I turned away my former self,
So will I those that kept me company. (Henry IV, Pt. II, V, v, 51-75)
Although we are glad to see the reform and moral purification of Henry V, we cannot help but feel pity for the helpless Falstaff. Therefore, the fat knight is neither villain nor hero; his bottle of sack could not “sack a city” in the battle. Falstaff is a beloved comic hero because his vices are essentially small and impotent. He has not the will to be great but only wants to be happy and to make his friends happy.
In sharp contrast to Falstaff, Iago is a Shakespearean character with a strong evil will. He tries to force his will on others and gain control over them for his own advantage. Just like the ancient archfoe of mankind, Iago has a cunning ability as well as a perverted sense of morality. His philosophy is “put money in thy purse.” His ambition is to get a higher position, and if he cannot, then he must exact “revenge.”
In Iago’s own words --
Virtue! A fig! ‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are gardens, to the which our Wills are gardeners… the power and incorrigible authority of this lies in our wills…. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion. (Othello, I, iii, 322-337)
This amoral statement chills our heart. It reveals Iago’s trust in the strength of his will and his belief that man can make his fate by exercising his will.
Because of his cunning and lack of moral principles, Iago manages both to deceive Othello and yet convince him to trust him -- to think well of him as “most honest Iago,” and to respect him: “thou art wise, ‘tis certain” (III, iii, 478; IV, i. 74). But Iago derides this simple general, jeering thus:
The moor is of a free and open nature
That thinks men honest who but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are. (I, iii, 405-410)
As a character, Iago might be considered Bottom’s the obverse side. Bottom wants everybody to know who he is, even while taking part in performing the play, whereas Iago does not want anybody to know what he is really like. To carry out his plot, he has to deceive and use others so as to get his own way and realize his willfulness.
The noble Moor, Othello, wins Desdemona’s love not because of his will and ability or craftiness, but through her pity for the dangers he has encountered and overcome, as he revealed it to her. “This only is the witch craft” he has used (Othello, I, iii, 159-170). Othello wins the battle on the high seas not because of his courageous heroism, but because a storm brought victory: the “wars are done, the Turks are drowned” (II, i, 204). When he trusts the Will of Providence, he is successful.
Unfortunately, this stalwart innocent falls victim to Iago’s temptation. Though Othello has no record of evil-doing, his uncompromising love drives him to the extreme of wanting to “purge” his wife, whom he suspects -- thanks to Iago’s dirty tricks -- to be hypocritical and unfaithful. By ignorantly violating divine Providence and taking the law into his own hands, Othello seals his fate:
All my fond love thus do I blow to Heaven -- ‘Tis gone!
Arise, black Vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
Yield up, O Love, thy crown and hearted throne
To tyrannous hate! (III, iii, 445-448)
Othello’s able hand carries out his misplaced will. When he kills Desdemona, his “soul’s absolute content,” he destroys his ultimate happiness – creating his own tragedy and thus ruining himself. Using his will to try to control the people and circumstances around him, he loses everything. His final heroic act of will -- his self-destruction -- achieves a poetic justice, somehow restoring his heroic stature. This shows the essential hamartia: will as the fatal flaw of a tragic hero.
Hamlet is in a similar situation. Having both might and wit, he tries to understand things in order to fight the corruption “under the sun” (note: the pun on “son.” cf. I, ii, 67). However, this dead-knot cannot be readily untied. In this predicament in which he finds himself, there is no way to win, no matter how strong a will one has.
Hamlet first uses a little drama as a device to reveal the evil-doers who have murdered his father. He also struggles by trying to attack the “black and grained spots” in his mother’s soul (III, iv, 89-91), but his effort to enforce purification proves fruitless.
He has a long siege of wavering prevarication, posing the famous “to be or not to be” question (III, i, 56-88). So far as morality is concerned, however, his objective is pure revenge. When his ability is put to the test, he manages to get Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed; then he himself escapes for a time. When safely returned to Denmark (V, ii, 13-63), not until the grave-digger scene does Hamlet begin to confront death. His new understanding gives him a perspective that helps him make up his mind, once and for all:
Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth to dust…
Imperious Caesar, died and turned to clay.
(V, i, 210-245)
Both the Greek Emperor and Roman Imperator are dead. What more can Hamlet himself do to steer his destiny as an avenger? He yields his will to Providence, or the Will of God, as it is felt in the world:
There’s special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not be come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be. (V, ii, 230-235)
It follows, then, that the final tragic action in the denouement of his conflict makes Hamlet a great tragic hero.
The characters of Claudius and King Henry IV are in many ways similar. Both of them are ruthless politicians and both are able to act decisively; neither is noble in moral principles. They want to fulfill their wills without concern for means.
In his chamber at prayer, Claudius says:
What form of prayer
Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder --
My crown, mine own ambition, and my Queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
(Hamlet, III, iii, 36-72)
“May one be pardoned and retain the offense?” This is a great question of repentance and moral purification. Since Claudius subdues others to his will, but does not submit himself to the Will of God, his guilty conscience is beyond cure. As he says:
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to Heaven go.
(III, iii, 97-98)
Yet God’s Will, the great Will, is not to be resisted. Though through most of the drama Claudius succeeds in using others to benefit his own will, his plot gets overthrown. He fails in the end, dying as a hated villain.
Henry IV, Part I opens with the king saying, “So shaken as we are, so wan with care.” This showed that Henry IV’s mind is haunted by guilt. He wants to impose his will on everything, and suspects everyone of resisting it and him. He distrusts his son Henry, Prince of Wales, and envies the able Henry Percy. All of this suggests that King Henry IV, though he was able, exercises his will without moral concern -- which causes him to be sick at soul.
Later, on his deathbed he confesses:
God knows, my son,
By what by-paths and indirect crooked ways
I met his crown, and I myself know well
How troublesome it set upon my head. (Henry IV, Pt. II, IV, v, 182-187)
Henry IV knows the power of God’s will. However, he pays reverence to his own strong will and lusts for power over others. He abandons his promised pilgrimage -- involving leading a crusade -- to Jerusalem, realizing that his own diseased spiritual condition and the unsettled condition of his country do not permit him to undertake this armed pilgrimage. Though succeeding in power struggles, he never obtains inner peace, thus giving him some credence as a tragic figure.
Prince Henry, once enthroned as Henry V, becomes Shakespeare’s ideal king. He has high ability both of might and wit, and he conquers others as well as himself. Although his undisciplined youth was given to loose behavior among dissolute companions, he has never seriously violated the high moral code of honor.
He refers to this sullied period in a soliloquy:
I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness.
Yet herein I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smooth up his beauty from the world,
That, when he pleases again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wond’red at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him…
My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off
I’ll so offend to make offense a skill.
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
(Henry IV Pt. I, I, ii, 218-240)
Later on, the performance of Henry V proves his ability to realize this claim. He banishes his boon but ill companions of the past; he overpowers Hotspur and kills him on the battlefield. When he purges himself, his reformed virtues shine forth, as he had anticipated -- being light against darkness. He has the will to control himself. Even more importantly, he is pious and reveres God; he both fears and trusts Him. Since he submits his will to God’s Will, he conquers others, making them submit to his will without losing his heroic virtue. This balance made Henry V a perfect figure of kingship among Shakespeare’s historical plays.
Thus we can see, through examining some of Shakespeare’s heroes and villains, that human will is essential in determining the quality of character. If one has a strong will, acts with ability and moral virtue, and knows and respects Providence, one can be regarded as an ideal hero. If one has all the other attributes, but does not know or show reverence to God’s Will, then one has the potential to become a tragic hero. If one lacks a sense of morality yet has great ability and willpower over others, and ignores God’s Will, one is likely to be a villain. If one has a will but lacks all the other attributes, there is no way by which one’s will can be imposed upon others, and the result will be a comic character. There is justice in this pattern. A character who tries to impose his will on others often becomes the victim of his own plot; while the character who submits his own will to Providence achieves fulfillment of the purpose of life and acquires peace of mind.
The Importance of Purification in Political Life
“Shakespeare believed in a world where everything had its right ‘degree’ and everyone his right place in society.” 9 That is to say, his political thought was generally “respect for order and rank.” 10 Granting that does not necessarily mean that Shakespeare rejected change or evolution. In fact, the Puritan concept is that purification changes a state of corruption and disorderliness to a higher order, even perfection. Shakespeare believed in this process.
In Richard II a servant’s mouth presents the Bard’s viewpoint when he describes the sickening state of the country:
Why should we in the compass of a pale
Keep law and form and due proportion,
Showing, as in a model our firm estate,
When our sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,
Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined.
Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars? (III, iv, 40-47)
This surely shows a time in great need of purification. Since the words come from a low-ranking person, his observation is particularly significant.
Here Shakespeare’s belief in the importance of the health of the commonwealth over the monarch’s person is not substantially different from the political position of his contemporary Puritans. This point of view found support during Essex’s rebellious attempt to raise the City of London against their Sovereign Queen.
On February 7, 1601, the eve of that event, the play Richard II was performed before a large audience, among whom were Essex’s party of malcontents and some extreme Puritans. 11 The rebellion failed. Noting the parallel between King Richard II and reigning monarch, the queen and her Privy Council linked the drama with the rebels. They suspected that Shakespeare had used it as a means of encouraging revolt, and for this reason Shakespeare was imprisoned for a day.
To be sure, Shakespeares was neither rebel nor Puritan. He held a reverential attitude toward the Liege he served, but clearly did not admire all kings depicted in his plays, as he demonstrated in the subsequent drama of Henry IV. When Henry Bolingbroke dethrones Richard II and becomes the king, the country is in obvious need of purification. In the opening scene of Henry IV, Part I, the king says: “So shaken as we are, so wan with care, / Find we a time for frighted peace to pant…” (I, i, 1-33)
This personification of a sickened state reflects the spiritual disease of its ruler. The symptoms of a corrupt body politic are evident everywhere. The captains spend their profits of the campaign in taverns; nobles quarrel with the king and become rebels; if one seeks spiritual assistance, he finds the archbishop himself in the rebel’s camp. The very names of the soldier recruits spell out the disorder: Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, and Bullcalf. And in the legal system, as representative physicians of the social order, the justices are Shallow and Silence, and the sheriff’s officers are Snare and Fang. Rumor with a thousand tongues spreads bad news and “brings smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.” If one pins hopes on the kingdom’s future, there in the tavern is Hal, the crowned Prince of Wales, keeping bad companions like “white-head Satan,” Falstaff, in the tavern; he is even involved in highway robbery. Prince John of Lancaster, who proves to be a most promising “darksome statesman,” 12 has no intention of keeping faith; he views someone who does as “foolish” (Henry IV, Part II).
When the dethroned Richard II is compared with Henry IV, the man who took his position, it is apparent that the latter is worse than the former. Richard, not following the Machiavellian doctrine, spares the life of Henry Bolingbroke but takes away his patrimony, and that ill-considered act costs him his kingdom. 13 But Bolingbroke, ascending the throne, proves a more ruthless princely politician. 14 Yet he is haunted by a guilty conscience and suffers from insomnia, thinking that his harsh deeds frightened “gentle sleep, Nature’s soft nurse” away (Pt. II, III, I, 5-6). He feels “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” especially an ill-gotten one (III, I, 31). Thus the sick king worries about the danger of his sick country, and in the dead of night he send for his subjects, the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick, and delivers this message:
Then you perceive the body of our kingdom
How foul it is, what rank diseases grow,
And with what danger, near the heart of it.
(III, i, 38-40)
If ever there is a darkest hour, a time that the cardinal need of a purge, this is it. And now Shakespeare manifests his ideal hero-king, Henry V. He shows himself to be heroic not only by conquering on the battlefield, but also through conquering of his own inner foes – his vices.
When Henry IV dies and Prince Hal assumes the throne as King Henry V, he is “redeeming time” 15 -- as he says, “my reformation, glittering o’er my fault.” His moral purification like the sun purges “the base contagious clouds,” and “breaking through the foul and ugly mists of vapors” (Pt. I, I, ii, 218-226, 236-240). Thus in Henry V, the Archbishop of Canterbury remarked that,
The breath no sooner left his father’s body
But that his wilderness, mortified in him,
Seemed to die too. 16 Yea, at that very moment,
Consideration like an angel came 17
And whipped the offending Adam out of him,
Leaving his body as a paradise
To develop and contain celestial spirits. 18
Never was such a sudden scholar made,
Never came reformation in a flood
With such a heady current scouring faults.
Nor never hydra-headed wilfulness
So soon did lose his seat, and all at once,
As in this king. (Henry V, I, i, 24-37)
The archbishop’s description of how the change occurred in Henry V portrays a spiritual “born-again” transformation similar to St. Augustine’s experience of conversion. 19 Only through this spiritual and moral purification could the wastrel Prince Hal of yore change to the right conduct. The net result is new orderliness and harmony in society. When the Earl Westmoreland remarks, “Never King of England / Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects” (Henry V, I ii, 126-127), he shows that they are all God-fearing and in accord. The nation’s now-healthy condition of the country enables them to perform their might on the battlefield and win a glorious victory.
Conversely, when power-seeking men -- rulers and others -- do not purge their vices and fall into temptation, chaos and destruction ensue. Among Shakespeare’s tragedies the apt example of this is in Macbeth. Not bound by providential guidance and enslaved by lust, Macbeth willingly commits himself to the fulfillment of the three witches’ evil prophecies. Not contented to be “Thane of Cawdor,” he aims for the throne and thus broods on a plot of usurpation. At his ambitious wife’s urging, the “dagger” comes into Macbeth’s mind, with its handle toward him (II, i, 33-34). Thus another wicked witch is added -- Lady Macbeth, who overpowers Macbeth’s conscience to cause the murder of Duncan, his master, and thus make himself king. The deed, once accomplished, progresses rapidly toward Macbeth’s tragic end.
The close relationship between Macbeth and Banquo changes. As comrades and friends before, they had a special tacit understanding and connived with each other. But after Macbeth seizes the throne, the situation changes. Apart from his conspirator-wife, none but Banquo knew Macbeth’s “black and deep desires” (I, iv, 51), since they saw the witches together. Since both heard the prophecies, the enthroned usurper becomes uneasy. When they meet again, Macbeth feels his former friends’ eyes shine through his dark mind and heart like a fire of stars. And the witches’ words, referring to Banquo, resound in his memory:
Lesser than Macbeth and greater.
Not so happy, yet much happier.
Thou shall get [beget] kings, though thou be none.
(I, iii, 65-67)
This thought now dominates and torments Macbeth’s mind:
Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep, and in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be feared. ‘Tis much he dares,
And to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He has a wisdom that doth guide his valor
To act in safety. There is none but he
Whose being I do fear…. (III, i, 49-55)
Then Macbeth decides what he must do and employs another murder to earn peace of mind, committing another sin to cover the earlier sin. That is the worst mistake: his own evil hand creates his destiny as he sells his own soul to the Devil -- “Mine eternal jewel / Given to the common enemy of man” (III, i, 68-69). By thinking he could challenge fate, he thereby becomes its slave.
The drama shows that a stained mind and faulty deeds are unbearable and incurable. When first referring to the blood-stain on her hands, caused by the act of murdering Duncan, Lady Macbeth puts it lightly that “a little water clear us of this deed.” It proved not to be quite so easy. “The heart is sorely charged.” “Unnatural deeds / Do breed unnatural trouble” (V, i, 55-60, 79-80), as the Doctor says. She washes her hands over and over, but can never wash off the “blood” that is in her guilty conscience. Psychical disorder causes physical disease. “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” (V, i, 48) Lady Macbeth helplessly cries.
Here is a great question of purification, universal and eternal. Macbeth pitiably begs:
If thou couldst, Doctor, cast
The water of my land, find her disease
And purge it to a sound and pristine health,…
What rhubarb, senna, or what purgative drug,…
(V, iii, 48-55)
All in vain: no physician can cure such a disease. There is no natural source with the power to exercise a foul memory. Again, Shakespeare employs the word “purge” to draw our attention to the concept of moral health and purification. Thus in Macbeth we are shown two strong-willed who yield to temptation of ambition; without purification, their deadly course finally leads to their destruction. As The Bible says:
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. 20
The message of Macbeth is that one becomes evil if the lust is not purged; one will perish with this evil. Purification is the way to order and perfection. Then Macbeth speaks his wondrously eloquent soliloquy:
… Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. (V, v, 23-28)
This passage is the projected confession of Macbeth’s evil-doing life. It is how Macbeth saw his own image. Nothing would be further from the truth or more unfair to Shakespeare than to take this monologue as the Bard’s own stated philosophy of life. Shakespeare wanted to show his audience that Macbeth himself had become not a strong-man, but a “walking shadow,” not a king, but a “poor player,” not a shrewd politician, but a “idiot.” This final self-judgment of an evil-doer comes from someone who was crafty but unwise. He thought he had much to gain, but his intemperate lust and inflated ambition pushed him dangerously past truth and reality.
Since the passage implies that a “Macbeth” lurks within everyone’s nature, we are led to conclude that moral purification is needed.
From The Tempest to Calm Seas:
Temptation, Purification, and Reconciliation
Since The Tempest is Shakespeare’s last comedy, I tend to regard it as attaining not only the high point in his art, but also as embodying his highest visions of life. The basic ideal in nature is order, accordance, and harmony; this is so in society as well.
A storm or tempest indicates an abnormal situation in nature, a threatening perturbation of elements that threatens people along with their surroundings. There is metaphorical significance in the very title of the play, which includes three types of tempests:
1)The tempest, which literally occurred on the high seas;
2) The tempest in society, which took place twelve years previously in Milan;
3) The tempest in the human heart, which can cause eruption and storm at any time, anywhere.
All three types are potentially tragic factors in life. Yet the most serious is that deep-rooted problem brewing in the human heart. Therefore, Shakespeare commands his maturest art, in a magical way, to overcome the confinement of time and space, and convey a universal and eternal message.
A kindly and loving father, Prospero tells the story “in the dark backward and abysm of time” to his only daughter, Miranda (I, ii, 45-177). This ex-Duke recounts the miserable doings of his brother, Antonio, who seized power and became Duke of Milan. This political tempest was fanned by the usurper’s heart which had been swollen by ambition. His deed not only changed the social order, but also greatly altered both the father’s and daughter’s lives.
After twelve years on the lonely isle, Prospero recalls his experiences with an admirably calm detachment, stating that, “By foul play… were we heaved thence, / But blessed holp hither.” Given this perspective, he sees life as a purposeful progress, through trials, toward a more refined and glorious end.
Now Prospero, by using his powers as a magician, raises a tempest out on the ocean. A ship seemed wrecked, and the group aboard ship comes ashore. They are the King of Naples, Alonso, and his brother Sebastian; Antonio, the Duke of Milan (Prospero’s usurper-brother); Gonzalo (an honest old councilor), and others of the royal train.
Once their lives are secure on the island, an evil tempest arises from these human hearts. When Alonso and Gonzalo fall asleep, Antonio tells Sebastian that --
My strong imagination sees a crown
Dropping upon thy head. (II, i, 207-208)
Then Antonio, the one who “did supplant his brother Prospero,” passes on his trade to Sebastian; he plots with him by instructing him to kill his own brother, King Alonso, who earlier had helped Antonio seize the Dukedom of Milan.
Here Shakespeare shows how dangerous and impure, how deeply corrupted the human heart can be. But Prospero observes them, allowing them to “entertain their ambition” for awhile. At last he lets his servant spirit, Ariel, awaken the king and his faithful retainer Gonzalo, and the regicide plot becomes unrealizable (II, i, 198-321).
Now another tempest is raised -- this one in the heart of the lowest class of creatures. The brutish Caliban, part-savage and part-beast, is Prospero’s slave. He enlists the drunken butler, Stephano, and a jester, Trinculo, as his allies, and this gang of low ability decides to murder Prospero and make Stephano king of the island. Of course this inept, small bunch of rebels gets nowhere. Their plot is easily suppressed by Prospero, with the help of his spirits (III, iv, v).
Still another inner tempest brews within the human heart. This involves lust of the flesh. During the shipwreck, Prince Ferdinand, King Alonso’s son, was separated from the rest of the party. Landing on another part of the island, he was held by Prospero and ordered to do hard labor. He and Miranda fall in love. After a “trial” of Ferdinand’s love, Prospero is satisfied. He tenders his daughter to Ferdinand -- he who “Hast strangely stood the test.” However, he austerely charges the young man to keep her “virgin knot” until “All sanctimonious ceremonies may / With full and holy rite be ministered” (IV, i, 13-32). This command conveys the idea that to enjoy a pure love, one must first resist temptation and purge the lust.
The worst tempest of all is raised from human hearts. It is raised from within these highly civilized nobles as well as from the savages. It was first raised in metropolitan Milan, but can even be raised on a peaceful paradise-like island. This tempest, which brings other tempests into this world, is the very seed of destruction. The heart of the problem is the human heart.
Nevertheless, Prospero bestows his love and grace on everyone and forgives their transgressions. Because all of them repent, the play ends with reconciliation. Thus the tempest subsides, becoming “calm seas, auspicious gales” as the natural order and social order are all restored (V, i). Thus Ferdinand has purged his “lust of flesh” and obtains nuptial love; Antonio has purged his “lust of eyes” -- desires for position and possessions. As for Prospero himself, he releases his spirit guards and destroys his magic books -- a sort of “pride of life” -- and now rid himself of a desire similar to the one that had led Faustus to perdition. Thus all characters obtain purification.
The Tempest is a comedy of individual and communal purification. In some respects it resembles Homer’s The Odyssey with its high ideals and high success.
In the Odyssey, there are three olive trees. I believe that they symbolize three factors in comedy: 1) Odysseus landed on Scherie shore (bk. V), which symbolizes that one has regained one’s life; 2) Odysseus returned to Ithaca shore, his native land (bk. XIII), which symbolizes that one has regained one’s country -- authority and wealth; 3) The bed of Odysseus and Penelope is made from one olive tree trunk (XXIII), which symbolizes nuptial love. The Tempest has all of these three features. 21
Yet it also has a notable difference from The Odyssey. In the Hellenic epic, the godlike hero, Odysseus, purges his house by butchering all of his wife’s suitors, who came because Odysseus seemed to be missing in action for many long years. This act brought heavy bloodshed at the saga’s end. Harmony is thus based making human sacrifices for the hero’s final happiness.
In contrast, heroism in The Tempest consists of conquering others through love and humanism. As Douglas L. Peterson pointed out, Shakespearean concepts
… are supported by their trust in the “mutual concord and love in the nature of men.”… All men in their imperfection stand in need of forgiveness; and it is only through their forgiving of one another that they may affirm their “humanity.” Love alone in this view is the sustaining force of human institutions as well as of humanity itself. 22
The Shakespearean concept of purification which bears an unmistakable Christian imprint is beautifully expressed in the speech of the innocent Miranda:
Oh, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! Oh, brave new world,
That has such people in ‘t! (V, i, 181-184)
This passage shows how a purified new world is inhabited by purified new creatures: “Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 23 This is a key Puritan belief: old human nature can corrupting a pure world; but the pure of heart and newly purified creatures can transform a corrupted world.
The Puritan Imprint
Having some understanding of the Shakespearean age enables us more readily to understand Shakespeare’s mind. As T. S. Eliot rightly said:
Literary Criticism should be completed by criticism from a definite ethical and theological standpoint. In so far as in any age there is common agreement on ethical and theological matters, so far can literary criticism be substantive. In ages like our own, in which there is no such common agreement, it is the more necessary for Christian readers to scrutinize their reading, especially for work of imagination with explicit ethical and theological standards. 24
We live within history, yet at the same time history shapes our beings from within. Therefore we cannot put Shakespeare’s thought and work in titration, to judge how, or how much, he was influenced by Puritanism, the strongest current of religious belief in his era.
“The end of the sixteenth century is an epoch when it is particularly difficult to associate poetry with thought or reasoned view of life,” T. S. Eliot said. 25 Nevertheless, we can find parallels between the Puritan concept of purification and Shakespeare’s work. A Shakespearean play could never conclude with a world lacking a sense of order and morality, standards of right and wrong, and of ultimate justice. In spite of how great a poet of universal truth and beauty Shakespeare was, and still is, we should consider carefully the historical imprint of Puritan ideas on his work.
Let us ponder what A. L. French said:
To say that background information is sometimes misleading doesn’t mean that we can afford to disregard it altogether. The question is to know how to use it intelligently, and to try and decide how far, in any given play, Shakespeare is merely, for the sake of simplicity, taking a contemporary belief for granted, and how far he is setting up a quite new one of his own. 26
Which is to say that Shakespeare was influenced by the thought of his period in time; yet, on the other hand, his creative power influenced his age and the ages afterward.
Ben Jonson lived at the same time as Shakespeare. His earliest and fairest critic, he avowed that Shakespeare “was not of an age, but for all time.” 27 And as Samuel Taylor Coleridge later put it: “Shakespeare knew the human mind” 28 -- meaning that he possessed a great introspective and acutely sharp perception. These qualities can be seen in the first-person “Dark Lady” sonnets, which bore “a certain inner likeness” to himself. 29 We can also see a veritable parade of human faults among the characters in his plays. All of these we can identify with our own mirrored images.
Thus this message gets conveyed to an ever-evolving audience of people who read or attend Shakespeare’s plays: the key human problem is guilt and the key human need is for purification.
The aforementioned statement by T. S. Eliot is worthy of serious consideration. Ethical and theological standards are surely important to employ in judging works of literature. But it is far more crucial that we exercise them fully when judging the merits of any society -- especially the contemporary one in which we ourselves dwell.
Notes for Chapter 10
1. Matthew 4:1-11.
2. I John 2:15-17.
3. John Milton, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained in John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. ed. Merritt Y. Hughes. Indianapolis: Odyssey Press, 1977.
4. Cf. Tucker, ed., English Drama.
5. Homer, The Iliad, trans. Richmond Latimore. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1976.
6. Cf. Homer, The Odyssey.
7. Proverbs 16:32.
8. Marlowe, Faustus, p. 191.
9. Bronowski & Mazlish, Western Intellectual Tradition, p. 149.
10. Cf. F. E. Halliday, Shakespeare and His Critics. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 1949, p. 490. Based on this analysis, R. W. Chambers asserts that the unknown author of Addition D of the play Sir Thomas More was Shakespeare.
11. Harrison, “General Introduction” to Shakespeare: Complete Works, pp. 23-24, 45.
12. Henry Vaughan’s words. Cf. “The World,” in Cesar, ed., George Herbert, p. 161.
13. Machiavelli: “When it is necessary for him, the Prince, to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his mind off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their fathers than the loss of their patrimony.” cf. Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince. trans. W. K. Marriott. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1952, ch. XVII, p. 24.
14. Here I am not going to engage in the discussion of the character of Machiavelli, but rather to use the term Machiavellian for convenience, and assume Marlowe’s description in the prologue of The Jew of Malta:
His soul but flown beyond the Alps,…
And hold there is no sin but ignorance…
15. Ephesians 5:16.
16. Romans 5:14 The original sin.
17. Romans 6:11 The symbol of born again.
18. Romans 8:9-11 i.e., the in-dwelling Holy Spirit.
19. Cf. Augustine, Confession.
20. James 1:14-15.
21. Q. v. Homer, The Odyssey, trans. E. V. Rieu. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1976.
22. Douglas L. Peterson, Time Tide and Tempest. San Marino, Calif: The Huntington Library, 1973, pp. 248-249.
23. II Corinthians, 5:17.
24. T. S. Eliot, “Religion and Literature,” in Essays Ancient and Modern. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1936.
25. Eliot, Selected Essays, p. 118.
26. A. L. French, Shakespeare and the Critics. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, p. 21.
27. Ben Jonson, “Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies,” in Hugh Maclean, ed., Ben Jonson and the Cavalier Poets. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1974, p.87.
28. A. M. Eastman & G. B. Harrison, ed., Shakespeare’s Critics. Ann Arbor: The Univ. of Michigan Press, 1964, p. 4
29. George Steiner, Language and Silence. New York: Atheneum, 1967, p. 133. Quoted Schoenberg admitted to Berg: “Everything I have written has a certain likeness to myself.”