Текст книги "Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1"

Автор книги: Isaac Asimov

 
Not poppy nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst [possessed] yesterday.
 

—Act III, scene iii, lines 327-30

There has always been a use for the equivalent of tranquilizers, for there have always been tensions. Before the days of modern chemistry, tranquil-izing herbs were found in nature, and of these the chief was a certain species of poppy which was originally grown along the shores of the eastern Mediterranean for the sake of its edible seeds.

Undoubtedly, other parts of the plant were nibbled on and it must have been noticed that nibbling the fruit eased small pains and discomforts, reduced tension, and encouraged sleep. It was eventually discovered that one could express juice from the fruit and use that as a sedative. The Greek word opion is a diminutive form of the word for juice, and in Latin that becomes opium.

One wonders if the famous lotus-eaters in the Odyssey, who ate of the lotus and wished nothing more than to dream away their lives in tranquil content, were not really poppy-eaters.

There is a less exaggerated mention in the Odyssey of a tranquilizing drug. When Helen and Menelaus are hosts to Telemachus (the son of Ulysses) in Sparta, they serve wine to which Helen adds a drug "that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humor." A little opium might do that too. In Greek, the name of the drug Helen uses is nepenthes, meaning "no sorrow."

As for mandragora, that is an older form of mandrake (see page I-336).

 
… the Pontic Sea
 

Othello's state of mind has brought Iago himself to danger, for in his present frenzy, he demands proof or he will have Iago's life. Without flinching, Iago makes up the necessary lie. He says he once shared a bed with Cassio, who talked in his sleep and revealed his affair with Desdemona. He then adds the climactic bit when he says that the handkerchief Othello gave Desdemona is now in the possession of Cassio.

That does it. Othello is reduced to such a pitch of mad fury that he cries for blood. Coolly, Iago urges Othello to be patient and his intentness on revenge may vanish. But Othello says:

 
Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic Sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Nev'r keeps retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall nev'r look back, nev'r ebb to humble love,
 

—Act III, scene iii, lines 450-57

The "Pontic Sea" is the Black Sea, which is connected to the Mediterranean through narrow straits. At its southwest corner is the Bosporus, about twenty miles long and no more than half a mile wide at its narrowest. It runs just about north and south and at its southern end widens out into a small body of water which we call the Sea of Marmara. (The ancient Greeks called it the "Propontis," meaning "before the Pontus," since a Greek traveler leaving the Aegean Sea must travel through the Propontis before getting to the Pontus.)

The Propontis narrows to a second strait, the Dardanelles, or, to the Greeks, the Hellespont (see page I-466).

The Mediterranean Sea, into which the Hellespont opens, is a warm sea. The sun beats down upon it and sometimes the hot, dry winds blow northward out of the Sahara Desert. Much water is lost by evaporation and only a small part of it is replaced by river water. Only one major river flows into the Mediterranean and that is the Nile; and after its long trip through desert regions not as much water is delivered into the Mediterranean by the Nile as one might suppose from the length of the river. The other rivers that flow into the Mediterranean-the Ebro, Rhone, Po, Tiber -don't count for much, despite their historic associations.

The result is that if the Mediterranean were existing in isolation it would gradually dry and shrink to a smaller size than it is.

It is quite otherwise with the Black Sea, which is distinctly cooler than the Mediterranean and free of the Saharan winds. There is less evaporation, to begin with. This smaller amount of evaporation is more than made up for by the giant rivers that flow into it-the Danube, Dniester, Bug, Dnieper, and Don.

If the Black Sea existed in isolation, it would overflow.

The result is that the waters of the Black Sea pass constantly through the straits and pour ceaselessly into the Mediterranean without ever any ebb to this steady flow, and it is to this that Othello refers. (Water is also constantly pouring into the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar.)

 
… my lieutenant
 

Othello intends death now, as soon as the case is proved. He orders Iago to arrange the assassination of Cassio. Iago now has everything he wants. Cassio has been amply paid back for daring to move over his head-to the death. Othello has been destroyed; the noble general he once was he can never be again.

There remains Desdemona. She has not offended Iago. He seems to have a momentary qualm about her. When Othello orders him to kill Cassio, Iago says:

 
'Tis done at your request.
But let her live.
 

—Act III, scene iii, lines 471-72

Yet the immediate effect of this is to drive Othello further into his maddened rage, so that he cries out:

 
Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her! Damn her!
Come, go with me apart. I will withdraw
To furnish me with some swift means of death
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant
 

—Act III, scene iii, lines 472-75

We might even imagine that Iago's soft request for mercy was designed to provoke this anger; that without any personal hatred for Desdemona at all, he nevertheless enjoyed pushing the buttons.

 
A sibyl.. .
 

Desdemona has by now realized she has lost her handkerchief and is very disturbed. Othello (testing whether she has given it to Cassio, as Iago said) asks for it, and the nervous Desdemona, forced to admit she doesn't have it on her person, is afraid to say she has lost it. Othello harshly warns her that the handkerchief is important; it has magic properties and is a love charm:

 
A sibyl that had numbered in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sewed the work;
 

—Act III, scene iv, lines 70-72

The aged sibyl is an image used often by Shakespeare (see page I-452), and we may well believe that Othello accepts the truth of sibyls as he does of Pliny's wonders.

Still Desdemona can't produce the handkerchief and still she fearfully denies it is lost. Othello stalks off in a rage.

 
… would prove a crocodile
 

Iago now sets about supplying the last touch. He has planted the handkerchief in Cassio's chambers. Cassio finds it, likes it, and gives it to his mistress, Bianca (a courtesan), to copy over so that he will have a similar handkerchief after he returns this one to its rightful owner, whoever that might be.

Iago then finds occasion to draw Cassio aside, with Othello watching from a place where he can see but not hear. Iago teases Cassio with the great love Bianca has for him. Cassio preens and smirks with the usual male self-satisfaction over such matters and Othello can only assume (in his fevered state) that he is laughing over his amour with Desdemona.

And then Bianca enters and throws the handkerchief back at Cassio, for she has decided it must belong to another one of his girlfriends. Of course, Othello recognizes it at once and the case is proven for him. The handkerchief he gave to Desdemona, she gave to Cassio, who thinks so little of it he passes it on to a courtesan. Othello is ready to kill Desdemona.

But the outside world intervenes. A deputation of important Venetian officials has arrived under the leadership of one Ludovico. They bring a message recalling Othello to Venice now that the war danger is gone and appointing Cassio as his successor.

Othello greets them with the necessary ceremony but is so far gone in his jealous madness that he cannot put a good face on matters even for the sake of the Venetian deputation. When Desdemona innocently tries to speak in Cassio's favor to the Venetians, Othello strikes her.

The horrified Ludovico upbraids Othello and exclaims at the sight of the weeping Desdemona. But the raving Othello says:

 
O devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
 

—Act IV, scene i, lines 244-46

In other words, if tears falling to earth could act as semen to make the earth pregnant and bring forth life, Desdemona's tears would cause it to bring forth crocodiles.

This refers to a well-known legend concerning crocodiles. (Othello is a veritable compendium of legends.) Crocodiles were supposed to moan and sigh, so that passers-by might think human beings in distress were somewhere nearby. If any were softhearted enough, or curious enough, to turn aside in search of them, the crocodile's jaws snapped shut, and it would then continue to weep even while eating.

The story is quite untrue, but the phrase "crocodile tears" has entered the language to represent any form of hypocritical grief. The implication is that Desdemona's modesty and virtue are tissues of hypocrisy. The irony, of course, is that the play is filled with crocodile tears; they are all Iago's and Othello doesn't see them.

 
… into Mauritania.. .
 

When Othello stalks off, Ludovico wonders if he is sane, and Iago seizes the opportunity to encourage that thought of possible insanity without actually committing himself to it.

But by now Iago has almost more strings in his hand than he can properly handle. Thus, when Othello takes himself to Desdemona's chamber to give her a bitter tongue-lashing, Emilia openly wonders if Othello might not be the victim of malicious slander. Then too, Roderigo has been gulled and robbed by Iago to the point where he can take no more. He threatens to talk to Desdemona directly and request the return of his jewels.

We can be pretty sure that Desdemona has never received any jewels but that Iago, as go-between, has kept them. Iago, therefore, must begin to shut mouths.

He begins by promising Roderigo that he will have Desdemona the very next night if he can manage to keep Othello on the island that long. Iago explains that Othello has been recalled and ordered to a distant country (another lie). This is to force Roderigo to act, for it will seem to him that Desdemona is about to move utterly beyond his grasp. Iago says:

 
… he [Othello] goes into Mauritania
and taketh away with him the fair Desdemona,
unless his abode be lingered here by some accident;
 

—Act IV, scene ii, lines 224-26

Mauritania was the name given in ancient times to the northwest shoulder of Africa, the region now called Morocco. It may be used here as a vague term, meaning "land of the Moors," that is, north Africa generally.

Iago arranges to have Roderigo attempt to find occasion to kill Cassio, since the death of Othello's appointed successor would force the Moor to remain on the island for a while. (From Iago's standpoint, this will get rid of the hated Cassio, and Othello has ordered him to do that; and he will find occasion, we can well imagine, to take care of Roderigo too.)

 
… that Promethean heat
 

Matters now rush to their horrible climax. It is night and Desdemona, in almost unbearable depression, goes to bed.

Cassio, returning from time spent with his ladylove, is set upon by Roderigo. They fight and both are wounded. Men come running, and Iago, finding that Cassio is not dead, makes the best of matters by killing Roderigo and shutting his mouth at least.

While that is going on, Othello is trying to do his part. He comes upon Desdemona sleeping and even now finds he still hesitates. He looks from the candle he carries to the sleeping woman and says:

 
// / quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me; but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume.
 

—Act V, scene ii, lines 8-13

Prometheus, in the Greek myths, had first made man the gift of fire, stealing it from the sun (see page I-437). A later myth also made him the creator of man. He was supposed to have made clay models into which he breathed life.

Othello's reference to "Promethean heat" is therefore a double-barreled allusion. It refers to Prometheus' connection with the sun's fire; not just ordinary fire but a special kind. Secondly, it refers to Prometheus' ability to infuse cold and lifeless clay with the warmth of a living human body; and that ability Othello lacks.

 
… the very error of the moon
 

Othello no longer raves. He goes about the task of killing with a cold sorrow. Desdemona wakes and Othello accuses her of having given the handkerchief to Cassio. He will not accept her denial but tells her Cassio is dead (he assumes Iago has done his work properly), and Desdemona's terror at that news seems to him to be the final admission.

He strangles her with her pillow and even while he is forcing his weight down on her fragile neck, there is a clamor at the door. Emilia demands entrance. Othello closes the bed curtains and lets her in. Emilia has come to tell of the deadly fight between Roderigo and Cassio.

Othello says calmly:

 
It is the very error of the moon.
She comes more nearer earth than she was wont
And makes men mad.
 

—Act V, scene ii, lines 108-10

It has always been tempting to think that changes in the heavens bring about analogous changes on the earth (something that is the basis of the pseudo science of astrology). The regular changes of the moon from new to full and back again would seem to imply that certain passions or foibles of men would wax and wane in sympathy.

In particular, mental abnormalities would wax with the moon, and there are the well-known legends that men turn into werewolves under the full moon, that witchcraft is most dangerous then, and so on. Spells of madness would vary with the moon's phases too by this line of thought, and the very word "lunatic" is derived from the Latin word for the moon.

And of course, if the moon approached more closely to the earth than usual, its effects would be multiplied.

 
… towards his feet. ..
 

But now Othello finds out Cassio is not killed, merely wounded. That staggers him.

A faint cry from the bed reveals that Desdemona is not quite dead, either. She lives only long enough to try one last time to shield Othello, and weakly claims she killed herself.

Othello, trying desperately to cling to the certainty that he did the right thing, boldly proclaims he killed her for her infidelity, and now Emilia comes into her own. She shrieks her utter faith in Desdemona's virtue.

Others, including Iago, come bursting in in response to Emilia's cries and find Desdemona dead. Iago must admit he told Othello of Desdemona's unfaithfulness, and now comes his doom. The matter of the handkerchief comes up and Emilia reveals the truth. She had found the handkerchief and given it to Iago.

Then-too late, too late-Othello understands. He tries to kill Iago, who evades him, stabs Emilia, and runs.

Emilia dies, but Iago is brought back a prisoner. Othello looks at him through the hellish mist that now surrounds him and says, brokenly:

 
/ look down towards his feet-but that's a fable.
 

—Act V, scene ii, line 282

This takes us back to one of the more joyous aspects of the pagan religions of the Greeks and Romans. They peopled the woods and wilds with spirits representing the free, animal fertility of life. The Greek satyrs and the Roman fauns were pictured as men with goats' horns and hindquarters, possibly because goats were always pictured as lustful animals. (Then too, goats may well have been the first creatures to be domesticated for meat and milk and it was important that they be lustful and multiply.) The most important of the satyrs was Pan himself.

The sexually strait-laced Jews (and, later, Christians) viewed all fertility deities with disapproval and suspicion, and to the Jews the satyrs (or similar creatures in Eastern cults) were sairrim, which the King James Bible translates as "devils." They tempted mankind to sin.

The devil, Satan, is usually pictured, even today, with horns, tail, and other goatish characteristics. He is still a satyr or, in particular, Pan. Medieval legends had it that the devil could take on many undevilish disguises, but that he could not abandon all his marks. Whatever he did, there remained one trace of goatishness; that is, a goat's cloven hoof. Hence the expression "to show the cloven hoof," meaning to reveal the hidden evil in one's character.

Othello looks toward Iago's feet to see the cloven hoof that would indicate the devil and interrupts himself mournfully with his "-but that's a fable."

He has learned! Till now he has believed the fables from Pliny, he has believed in magic handkerchiefs and sibyls, in crocodiles and moon-bred lunacy-and, of course, in Iago too.

Now, for the first time, he has discovered the necessity of skepticism-far too late.

 
Demand me nothing. ..
 

As all of Iago's lies and trickeries are exposed, the confused Othello wants to know but one thing. Why did Iago do it? The audience wants to know too, since the revenge went far beyond anything necessary to punish Iago's grievances. But Iago says:

 
Demand me nothing.
What you know, you know.
From this time forth I never will speak word.
 

—Act V, scene ii, lines 299-300

Ludovico threatens to make him talk under torture, but it seems reasonable to suppose that no torture will make Iago talk. This failure to say why has irritated many, but, in my opinion, it should not. Iago's pleasure at manipulating lives was intense and it is something we can all understand, for, in a much milder way, it is present in all men-and yet it is not something that can be easily explained.

 
… the base Judean…
 

Now it is only necessary to take Othello back to Venice so that he might be tried for murder.

Othello, however, has one last thing to say. With an effort, he manages to pull himself together into almost the man he once was and speaks once more, a little in self-pity, much more in self-hate. He asks them all to tell the tale honestly, saying:

 
Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe…
 

—Act V, scene ii, lines 339-44

In many editions of the play, the phrase "like the base Judean" is made to read "like the base Indian." It seems to me that "Judean" is much the more preferable. If "Indian" is used, the allusion is obscure; if "Judean" is used, it is brilliantly apparent.

In Matthew 13:45-46, Jesus is reported as saying "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."

It is easy to envision Jesus (who, in the Christian view, represented the kingdom of heaven) as being the pearl of great price more valuable than all else in the world besides. The Jews, in rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, would then be pictured as throwing away the pearl of great price. In particular, Judas, who betrayed Jesus, would be the "base Judean."

From this point of view, the extent of Othello's self-hatred is clear. He compares his murder of Desdemona with the crucifixion of Jesus, and himself with Judas.

 
… in Aleppo once Othello goes on to say:
And say besides that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th'throat the circumcised dog
And smote him-thus.
 

—Act V, scene ii, lines 348-52

With the last word, before anyone can stop him, Othello stabs himself, falls upon Desdemona in a final kiss, and dies.

This last pathetic passage cannot be taken literally. Aleppo is a city in what is now northwestern Syria, and (except for a brief period in 969) it has been Moslem for over thirteen centuries. If Othello killed a Turk in Aleppo, he was killing him in the midst of a city of Turks and it is not likely he would have got away alive.

He must mean something else…

The Moslems and Jews were marked off from the Christians by being circumcised; that is, a flap of skin at the end of the penis was removed. "Uncircumcised dog" was a common derogatory phrase for Christians among the Moslems, indicating that they were outside the pale of the true religion. Othello's use of the reverse phrase in his last agony is like a return to his origins.

After all, if Othello was Moslem originally, conversion to Christianity in later life could not utterly wipe out the tricks of speech he had learned as a young man. Furthermore, he would still be circumcised; baptism may cause one to be born again in the spiritual sense, but it cannot grow a new foreskin.

Othello therefore pictures himself as having returned to his origins, of having forgotten the Christian virtues of forgiveness, of having become "a malignant and a turbaned Turk." He beat a Venetian (Desdemona). He also traduced (defamed) himself; robbing himself of his own fame and reputation by his actions; and insofar as he was the representative of the state in Cyprus, he traduced the state.

So he took by the throat "the circumcised dog" (himself) and killed him.

 
O Spartan dog
 

It is the end. The destruction has been complete, and Iago's plot has worked itself out to the final bit. That Iago himself is trapped and is to be destroyed by torture must seem quite irrelevant to him. The victory is his.

Ludovico says to Iago bitterly:

 
O Spartan dog,
More jell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!
Look on the tragic loading of this bed.
This is thy work.
 

—Act V, scene ii, lines 357-60

A "Spartan dog" is a bloodhound, one that is trained to hunt and kill, and therefore a cruel and bloodthirsty person.

But does Ludovico expect Iago's conscience to be touched? It is precisely "the tragic loading of this bed" that is his victory, and one can imagine that Iago, wounded and pinioned and with the certainty of agonizing torture awaiting him, must, as he looks upon the bed, smile.

So the play ends-and the manner of its ending reflects history too, in a way, for all that the play is utter fiction from beginning to end.

The Battle of Lepanto, however much of a glorious victory it seemed to Europeans, and however much of a psychological boost it gave them, had no military value. Within a year the Turks had replaced their losses and were as powerful as ever at sea. The Christian allies, having won their victory, quarreled among themselves and did nothing more. The Venetians were left to face the Turks alone. The war on Cyprus continued to go against them, and in 1573 the Venetians yielded and ceded Cyprus to the Turks, who were to keep it for three centuries.

And so, just as Othello's coming to Cyprus may be compared to the victory at Lepanto, so his death seems to signify the valuelessness of that victory and the ultimate loss of Cyprus to the enemy.