9.SING WITH SHAKESPEARE -3

9. SING WITH SHAKESPEARE -3

picture:languageandthecity

Shakespeare, like all serious philosopher-poets, reflects deeply on the mystery of Time, Life and Death. In the West, his plays are enjoyed mainly as dramas performed on stage. It has its case, as they were originally written to be thus played. But the visuals may distract attention from the serious messages the words contain, that exceed the element of entertainment, and the value they carry beyond the immediate context of the story and its development. For us the literary  value and philosophical content of the plays are more appealing as literature, read and reflected on over the years. Had Shakespeare written only for the entertainment of his generation, he would have been forgotten by this time. His stories or themes are not original but his treatment is. His plays have a relevance beyond his time and place. That is why we continue to read them even though his language  has gone out of usage! Shakespeare is truly universal, as he deals with human nature as such and its deepest aspirations. Shakespeare knew he was writing for posterity and his verse would live beyond him, would indeed become immortal.

All life ends in death.This is what we see. We need no philosopher to tell us this, but is that all to life? In our weak moments we may conclude so. As does Shakespeare make Macbeth utter these lines:

She should have died hereafter.

There would have been a time for such a word.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. 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.

This was when Macbeth receives news of Lady Macbeth's untimely death. One day she would surely have died. People think of tomorrows , but time stealthily advances and makes fools of everyone! Life is really brief on earth, as the role of a minor player on stage. Yes, there is so much noise and turmoil, but what do they mean in the end, in the face of death?

Paths of glory lead but to the grave, sang Thomas Gray. But is it all there is to life?








When we look at Nature in all its glory, and not at times of its fury, when we watch children at play, when we watch flowers bloom and birds sing, we may not be so gloomy after all! We all know that there is death, even as the show of the world goes on.As Shailendra wrote:

इधर झूम के गाये जिन्दगी,
उधर है मौत खडी
कोई क्या जाने कहा है सीमा,
उलझन आन पडी

Idhar jhoom ke gaaye zindagi
Udhar hai mauth khadi..
Koyi kya jaane kahan hai seema
Uljhan aan padi

On this side, there is singing and merriment
On that side stands death.
Who knows where is the border?
The mind is confused.


 But that is not the real end! As if to answer Shakespeare here, Longfellow writes:

A Psalm of Life

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 

   Life is but an empty dream! 

For the soul is dead that slumbers, 

   And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real! Life is earnest! 

   And the grave is not its goal; 

Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 

   Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 

   Is our destined end or way; 

But to act, that each to-morrow 

   Find us farther than to-day. 

Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 

   And our hearts, though stout and brave, 

Still, like muffled drums, are beating 

   Funeral marches to the grave. 

In the world’s broad field of battle, 

   In the bivouac of Life, 

Be not like dumb, driven cattle! 

   Be a hero in the strife! 

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! 

   Let the dead Past bury its dead! 

Act,— act in the living Present! 

   Heart within, and God o’erhead! 

Lives of great men all remind us 

   We can make our lives sublime, 

And, departing, leave behind us 

   Footprints on the sands of time; 

Footprints, that perhaps another, 

   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, 

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 

   Seeing, shall take heart again. 

Let us, then, be up and doing, 

   With a heart for any fate; 

Still achieving, still pursuing, 

   Learn to labor and to wait.

Yes, we may leave our footprints which may guide succeeding generations! Thus, we continue to live - achieve a sort of immortality! 

Shakespeare is too great a poet to miss the point! Macbeth's muttering is due to his disturbed state of mind. It is not the poet's own philosophy! Shakespeare sings in Sonnet 15:

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment.
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment.

When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and checked even by the self-same sky:
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory.

Then the conceit of this inconstant stay,
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful time debateth with decay
To change your day of youth to sullied night,

And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

[Here the world is considered a "show" - shadow in terms of Plato. This is not the whole of reality.]

Shakespeare is telling here that the subject of this sonnet may live in his verse as he is! He will never be subject to the ravages of time! 
There is an alternative! The young worthy may live in his children and thus perpetuate his line and memory! This is a subject recurring in 17 of his sonnets. In sonnet 16, Shakespeare sings:

But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant Time?
And fortify your self in your decay
With means more blessed than my barren rhyme?

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
And many maiden gardens yet unset,
With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers,
Much liker than your painted counterfeit:

So should the lines of life that life repair
Which this (Time's pencil) or my pupil pen
Neither in inward worth nor outward fair
Can make you live your self in eyes of men.

To give away your self, keeps your self still,
And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.

The father lives in and through the son! The son is called "Atmaja" in Sanskrit, that is the soul of the father reproduced! Yet, overcoming Time through living verse is a superior alternative!

Attaining immortality through verse was a theme with Roman poets Horace and Ovid.

"I have finished a monument more lasting than bronze" 

- Horace in Odes.

"Now have I wrought a work to end 
which neither Joves fierce wrath
Nor sword nor fire nor fretting age
with all the force it hath
Are able to abolish quite "  

 -Ovid in Metamorphoses.





Shakespeare is too great a poet and too fine a philosopher to miss the point! He too says in Sonnet 55:

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn:
The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death, and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth, your praise shall still find room,
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So till the judgment that your self arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

There is a nice point here. The verse becomes immortal if it has any worth; but the subject of the verse too becomes immortal irrespective of his worth!  [ Just reflect: as we read the glories of Rama in the Ramayana, Ravana too is remembered!]It is of course inconceivable that a poet worth his salt would write of a worthless subject. But we find extensive references in Tamil literature to starving poets singing the praise of stingy fools who would provide them with a meal, if not the means of living! Arunagirinatha deprecates such poets and prays that he should never be reduced to the state of singing about rich people just for the sake of the belly!

A life is considered well lived if the subject attains fame through performance of some real deeds of merit. What is considered merit changes through time, and today we have organised publicity to hoist tin horns and instant heroes! In the olden days, people were remembered for acts of austerity, charity, piety, valour or some other extraordinary gift.Old masters extolled us to live fruitful and worthy lives. Tiruvalluvar devotes 10 couplets to this theme.

ஒன்றா உலகத்து உயர்ந்த புகழல்லால் 
பொன்றாது நிற்பதொன் றில்.

Everything else dies on earth; but the fame of those grand men
whose achievements are unique in the annals of mankind endures 
for ever. 233

நிலவரை நீள்புகழ் ஆற்றின் புலவரைப் 
போற்றாது புத்தேள் உலகு.

Behold the man that has won a lasting world-wide fame:
the gods on high prefer him even to saints. 234

நத்தம்போல் கேடும் உளதாகும் சாக்காடும் 
வித்தகர்க் கல்லால் அரிது.

The ruin that adds to fame, and the death that brings glory
are impossible of attainment except for men of soulful living. 235

வசையென்ப வையத்தார்க் கெல்லாம் இசையென்னும் 
எச்சம் பெறாஅ விடின்.

It is a disgrace for all men if they earn not the memory
called fame.  238



We can now appreciate how the ancients laid stress on attaining fame through purposeful and righteous living as a means to defeat Time and the destruction it brings to the physical world! So shall we make war "on the bloody tyrant Time" ! So shall the verse of Shakespeare stand for all time!

6.DREAMS OF GOLDEN TIMES

6. DREAMS OF GOLDEN TIMES !

IN mythology and history we talk of golden ages. Our present age is called "kali" ie dark or iron. And this very name implies that there had been brighter ages in the past. In our tradition, this is the fourth or the last age in a cycle, and after this, the golden age will begin again!

Golden ages and golden eras!

This age cycle business is not a peculiar Indian belief. In the old world, before the rise of Christianity, all people believed in a succession of 5 ages: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroic and Iron. This word "golden" here has no reference to just riches or power, but a state of idyllic happiness where people  lived naturally in small societies, which did not need much of organization or elaborate administration.

In history people talk of the golden age of the Guptas or some other kings.For that matter, they even speak of the golden era of Hindi/Hollywood cinema and its music!
It is remarkable how we all look to the past for the golden age in all spheres of human endeavour, in spite of  all the progress we are supposed to have made!

Golden simplicity!

 It is almost impossible for today's youngsters to even imagine a state where people may live spontaneously in small communities, in ideal circumstances. But just over 60 years ago, we could still see such settlements. Jim Corbett records some such places in his book 'My  India '. Many of us actually lived in them: houses with mud or brick walls,thatched or tiled roof; no electricity for lighting or anything; no running water . but water drawn from a well or lake or pond. Money did matter, but what little we had had value and went far. People, though very poor  still felt very blessed, as Goldsmith would say. Our needs were limited, and the consumer culture had not yet dawned. 
Poet Shailendra  once wrote about how we develop vain desires and accumulate needless things, only to leave them behind:

अलबेले अरमानों के तूफ़ान लेकर आए
नादन सौ बरस के सामान लेकर आए
और धूल उड़ाता चला जाए
एक आए, एक जाए मुसाफ़िर, दुनिया एक सराए रे
एक आए, एक जाए मुसाफ़िर

Albele armaanon ke toofaan lekar aaye
Naadan sau baras ke saamaan lekar aaye
Aur dhool udaatha chala jaaye.....
Ek aaye ek jaaye musafir duniya ek saraye re
Ek aaye ek jaaye musafir

This applied mainly to the city dwellers. But then the economists and politicians came and disturbed things everywhere. They made big plans, made tall promises but they have remained just  dreams! Today the TV channels and the commercial advertisements therein make people everywhere dream even bigger, especially those in the country side, who cannot see clearly how much of all this is stupid commercial shit.

Coming home!

Those of us who went to the metros for employment always looked to the annual vacation when we would 'come home' ie to our native places, usually villages or small towns. The contrast used to be striking. Travel involved train journey of more than 24 hours, in hot weather, in crowded non-AC coaches and we had to travel through the heart of North India! But the company used to be lively, water was freely available at the stations, we could get seasonal fruits and local delicacies on the train, could get good food in the railway canteens (run on contract) which had distinctly local flavour. Food at Guntakal and Cuddappa stations was delicious!

But once we reached 'our' place, the feeling and atmosphere were entirely different. It felt as if the clock became irrelevant or the day had more than 24 hours- things were so leisurely! We did not have to wait for water to come in the tap, but could go to the well and draw it! We did not have to run to catch the 8.11 local or run the risk of reaching office late! We had enough time to read the newspaper, while it still had its fresh sheen and smell of ink on it,. or listen to the favourite  morning programmes on Radio Ceylon. We could rise to the crowing of cocks, and enjoy walks with school friends on the village roads nearby, as the sun set, cows came home! It was as if we had come to a different planet! Or were living in different times! We could surely sing with Shakespeare:

Lord, who would have turmoiled in the court,
And may enjoy such quiet walks as these ?
This small inheritance my father left me
Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.

[ Henry VI, part 2 ]

But one did not have to travel that long to experience the difference. Just a few miles away from most cities and towns, we had such rural pockets.

Negotium and Otium!

But things have drastically changed in the last 60 years.The difference cannot be understood unless experienced. Roman Poet Horace used to  differentiate  between two places- actually two states of mind. Shakespearean scholar Jonathan Bate writes:

The classical poet Horace made a distinction between  NEGOTIUM (social, mercantile, legal and political transactions, the pursuit of wealth and power), always associated with the great city of Rome and OTIUM (peace, pastoral idleness), found on his country farm.

[The Soul of The Age: The Life, Mind and World of William Shakespeare. Penguin, 2009. page 13.]

Horace wrote 2000 years ago! But how true it is of our metros today in regard to Negotium, but Negotium has also invaded or pervaded our small towns and villages. There are no more places of pastoral idleness or blessedness in India. The TV, Computer and the cell phone and Aadhar card have reduced every place to a state of Negotium, different perhaps only in degree! All the old landmarks in the villages/small towns  have disappeared or been disfigured beyond recognition.

The type of house we lived in, till 1955, though smaller.

Though places of rural peace or blessedness no more exist in India- where political currents and calculations have reached every corner, and economic frenzy has altered every nook, their memory lingers in some people who have lived there. For others, the state can only be recalled or imagined through the words of poets or men of letters.

 W.B.Yeats writes of this in one of his early poems.

The Song of the  Happy Shepherd.

THE woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.

Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers? -- By the Rood,
Where are now the watring kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.

Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor seek, for this is also sooth,
To hunger fiercely after truth,
Lest all thy toiling only breeds
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass --
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs -- the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.

Go gather by the humming sea
Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell.
And to its lips thy story tell,
And they thy comforters will be.
Rewording in melodious guile
Thy fretful words a little while,
Till they shall singing fade in ruth
And die a pearly brotherhood;
For words alone are certain good:
Sing, then, for this is also sooth.


I must be gone: there is a grave
Where daffodil and lily wave,
And I would please the hapless faun,
Buried under the sleepy ground,
With mirthful songs before the dawn.

His shouting days with mirth were crowned;
And still I dream he treads the lawn,
Walking ghostly in the dew,
Pierced by my glad singing through,
My songs of old earth's dreamy youth:
But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!
For fair are poppies on the brow:
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth. 

Arcadia !

Yeats mentions Arcadia in the very beginning. It is a place in southern Greece, noted for its association with a golden age, a pastoral paradise. It is the sort of idyllic countryside where one could be in harmony with nature, living a peaceful life naturally, without effort. But under the influence of modern industrial/commercial civilization, where could one find such places? They have all disappeared, along with their old kings.

The shepherd visits the place, knows that it has disappeared. But he remembers it in words- time passes, but  words do not disappear.

Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.

People and old deeds are gone, but words can always recall them ! They can give us a vision (dream). What Yeats means by dream here is not the one we usually associate with sleep or reverie, but a sort of vision which enables us to see the world in a certain light. He cautions us not to seek wisdom from men of learning who are too detached from the world. 

Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass --
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs -- the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.

The shepherd asks us to go to the seashore and whisper our troubles to the seashells and listen for their echo ! They will be our comforters!

In the end the shepherd says that he has to visit a grave and sing. This is the grave of the god Pan, who was the god of the golden age. He died with the age, and with it the earth is also dead! Whatever is, must exist in us, we must breathe life into it!

Site of ancient Arcadia . Heinz Schmitz Self photographed.CC BY-SA 2.5

This is a difficult poem, though the central message is clear: we have to find peace in ourselves, and use nature for that connection! The external world, the physical world is changing, we lose ourselves in pursuit of useless things but we must find meaning in ourselves. We must have that dream or vision which alone can balance the loss of the golden age- the woods of Arcady!

My songs of old earth's dreamy youth:
But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!
For fair are poppies on the brow:
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth. 

Arcadias of mind!

In short, we have to transcend both the physical world and its scale of time ! This is possible only if we acquire an inner vision which enables us to rise above physicality and the merely material nature of things! This is not to say we merely deny the world around us, but we realise that it is not complete by and in itself!

Friedrich August von Kaulbach's [1850-1920] vision of Arcadia!

Paradise, lost and regained !

The mere change from city/town to  countryside was for us a practical physical symbol and reminder of two states of nature, however diluted or distorted, and two states of consciousness. The holiday spent in our small native places was really a time of rejuvenation and recreation of spirit! In the name of modernization, the distinction between town and country is now eroded. And we have to call on our inner resources so that the world about us does not become too much with us! This is achieved not by escapism but by a spiritual transcendence! 

 There are limits to how much we can take from our man-made environment. Wordsworth simply said: "The world is too much with us" (1807). W.H.Auden called our times "The Age of Anxiety ". Yeats calls us here "sick children of the world".

Cover of the 1948 edition. shown here for educative purpose.

Note:

1.Yeats was said to have become metaphysical in his poetry in later years. This poem was written  much before that, in 1885. Here he talks of imagination- vision or dream, not transcendence. But we can see that he is on the road to it!
2. People now crowd the resorts during weekends and other times, and call it holiday! There they willingly submit to discomfort and commercial caprice !

 " In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
 The toiling pleasure sickens into pain ;
And, e'en while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy",

 wrote Goldsmith!
3.The ideas of Yeats are not so far fetched. They still find an echo in thinking and feeling hearts. The West, in spite of its so called material advance, still cherishes its rural spots and places of natural beauty. People give up their jobs and careers and settle in far off places- without airports, motorable roads, and such symbols of modern industrial tyranny and urban ugliness.It is mainly third world countries like India which destroy their native charms in the name of development. What else can one expect from imitators?