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Like all of us, Shakespeare’s characters are vulnerable to temptation, which, as in life, may lead to corruption. One of the most powerful enticements is money, which can become the object of such fixation that it overwhelms the rest of a person’s character. True, as Shakespeare dramatizes this preoccupation, it is not always strong enough to take exclusive hold of someone, but several of Shakespeare’s plays remind us that the desire for money, like the desire for power, has the capacity to contaminate an individual or a society.
Like all of us, Shakespeare’s characters are vulnerable to temptation, which, as in life, may lead to corruption. One of the most powerful enticements is money, which can become the object of such fixation that it overwhelms the rest of a person’s character. True, as Shakespeare dramatizes this preoccupation, it is not always strong enough to take exclusive hold of someone, but several of Shakespeare’s plays remind us that the desire for money, like the desire for power, has the capacity to contaminate an individual or a society. The lighter side of greed is apparent in some of Shakespeare’s comedies. In The Taming of the Shrew, Baptista clarifies to several young men of Padua how he will reward the successful suitor of his younger daughter, Bianca: “I will be very kind, and liberal” (I, i, 98). He regards her as a commodity, as he later clarifies: ’Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both That can assure my daughter’s greatest dower Shall have my Bianca’s love. (II, i, 342–344) The shallow suitor Gremio, along with the servant Tranio, who is disguised as his master, Lucentio, another suitor, follows this directive by boasting of his own wealth; not surprisingly, Baptista concedes to the more promising claims of Tranio. Even then, however, Baptista adds a stipulation: I must confess your offer is the best, And let your father make her the assurance, She is your own, else you must pardon me; If you should die before him, where’s her dower? (II, i, 386–389) To be sure, during Shakespeare’s time, monetary matters were a vital part of most marriage arrangements, but Baptista’s greed overwhelms any concern he might have as to whether his daughter will marry happily as well. We contrast this attitude with that of the visiting Petruchio, who enters claiming but one goal: “I come to wive it wealthily in Padua” (I, ii, 76). He then unashamedly negotiates with Baptista for the hand of Katherine, his older daughter, until Baptista relents: After my death, the one half of my lands, And in possession twenty thousand crowns. (II, i, 121–122) Yet so obvious is Petruchio’s mission that we suspect something deeper lies within him, and that suspicion turns out to be correct. Indeed, as soon as he hears that Katherine has broken a lute over the head of Hortensio, the false music teacher, Petruchio is intrigued: Now, by the world, it is a lusty wench! I love her ten times more than e’er I did. Oh, how I long to have some chat with her! (II, i, 160–162) So taken is he with her independence and fury that he forgets about financial recompense. In fact, at the end of the play, when the husbands share a bet as to whose wife will follow orders, Baptista offers to increase Petruchio’s dowry, but Petruchio is more occupied with Katherine herself (V, ii, 113–115). The implication of their relationship is clear: when true love exists, money becomes irrelevant. This sentiment is echoed by the gentleman Fenton in The Merry Wives of Windsor, when he exchanges affection with Anne Page, daughter of Mistress Page: Albeit I will confess thy father’s wealth Was the first motive that I woo’d thee, Anne; Yet wooing thee, I found thee of more value Than stamps in gold, or sums in sealed bag; And ’tis the very riches of thyself That now I aim at. (III, iv, 13–18) Fenton is one of the few characters in this play who realize the relative worth of money and human beings. For example, in the opening scene, Sir Hugh Evens, a Welsh parson, suggests that one of Sir John Falstaff’s cronies, Shallow, might profit were his cousin, Slender, to marry Anne Page. Later Ford, who suspects his wife is having a dalliance with Falstaff, listens in the guise of “Brook” as the fat knight boasts: I will use her as the key of the cuckholdly rogue’s coffer, and there’s my harvest-house. (II, ii, 273–275) Ford is compelled to acknowledge his own manic sense of possession for both his money and his wife. Finally, so pervasive is the power of money that Page himself, an essentially decent man, dismisses Fenton over the lad’s lack of income (III, iv, 68–70), as does the even shrewder Mistress Page, although she does so with a kind word (III, iv, 88–93). Still, at the end of this scene, Mistress Quickly, acting as marriage broker, emphasizes Fenton’s quality: A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. (III, iv, 102–104) After such praise, we are sure that scarcity of funds will not prevent this deserving couple from ending up together. The corrupting power of money assumes far greater proportions in The Merchant of Venice, where the thoughts and language of the entire community are saturated with matters of finance, and no character escapes its influence. In the first scene, for example, friends Salerio and Solanio assume that the merchant Antonio’s melancholy must be the result of the uncertain fate of his ships at sea (I, i, 8–40). He denies the connection, but the thought that money outweighs all other priorities has been established. It is developed by Antonio’s friend Bassanio, who seems almost incapable of thinking or speaking without reference to income, as when he explains his predicament to Antonio in this same scene: To you, Antonio, I owe the most in money and in love, And from your love I have a warranty To unburthen all my plots and purposes How to get clear of all the debts I owe. (I, i, 130–134) Even when he extols Portia, the lady he claims to love, images of money dominate Bassanio’s vocabulary. He reveals that she is “richly left” (I, i, 161) and that she is, like “a golden fleece” (I, i, 170), the object of many suitors. The opening thus leads us to conclude that in Venice, money and happiness, or perhaps money and pleasure, are inextricably intertwined. The issue of money grows with the entrance of Shylock, from whom Antonio seeks a loan of 3,000 ducats to help Bassanio in his courtship of Portia. Shylock’s profession, one of the few permitted to Jews by law, is that of moneylender, and we note how similiar Antonio the merchant and Shylock the moneylender appear: both are emotionally desolate men whose sole comfort in life is their bank account. Antonio’s love for Bassanio remains unrequited, while Shylock lives isolated because of his religion. We are not surprised, therefore, that the two men turn on each other. As Shylock notes bitterly: He hates our sacred nation, and he rails Even there where merchants most do congregate On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift, Which he calls interest. Cursed be my tribe If I forgive him. (I, iii, 48–52) Such a speech raises the question of whose hatred for whom emerged first, as well as the specific cause of this hatred. Is it solely religion, monetary practice, or some combination of both, complicated by the personal antagonism between two misfits? The answers to these questions are never clear. The reality that money dominates the world of Venice, however, is never far from our thoughts, as when Lorenzo, the suitor of Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, speaks of their love: She hath directed How I shall take her from her father’s house, What gold and jewels she is furnish’d with, What page’s suit she hath in readiness. (II, iv, 29–32) Lorenzo seems an ordinary romantic hero, almost a cliche, in fact, eager to elope with the woman he loves and just as eager to leave her dictatorial father. His emphasis, however, on the financial reward of marrying Jessica also makes us view Lorenzo as another selfish Venetian. Portia, too, seems to think largely in financial terms. After Bassanio fulfills her father’s legacy by selecting the leaden casket and thereby winning her hand, Portia expresses her joy with familiar terminology: Though for myself alone I would not be ambitious in my wish To wish myself much better, yet for you, I would be trebled twenty times myself, A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich, That only to stand high in your account, I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, Exceed account. But the full sum of me Is sum of something… (III, ii, 150–158) Furthermore, moments after they are engaged, Portia and Bassanio face their first crisis together: the repayment of Antonio’s loan to Shylock. In the climactic trial scene, money remains at the heart of the controversy, although Shylock’s call for his bond, Antonio’s pound of flesh, momentarily puts financial matters to the side. Even after Portia, pretending to be the lawyer Balthazar, offers Shylock three times the amount Antonio owes him, Shylock demands the literal bond. In Venice, then, the only force greater than money is out-and-out hatred. As Shylock himself says earlier about the Venetians: You have among you many a purchas’d slave, Which like your asses, and your dogs and mules, You use in abject and in slavish parts, Because you bought them… The pound of flesh which I demand of him Is dearly bought as mine, and I will have it. (IV, i, 90–100) He accuses them of dealing with human beings as barter, and justifies his ruthlessness as a product of the world they have created and in which he, to survive, must play by their rules. If he is corrupt, Shylock implies, he is so because the entire city is equally tainted. His defense is the most direct condemnation of the city and its way of life. We move next to the world of Shakespeare’s tragedies, where money plays a comparatively minor role. One brief, but signficant mention is in the opening scene of King Lear, when the Dukes of Burgundy and France vie for the hand of Lear’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, who has just been expelled from the kingdom by her father. When confronted by the news that Cordelia has lost her dowry, Burgundy offers a shallow response: Royal King, Give but that portion which yourself propos’d, And here I take Cordelia by the hand, Duchess of Burgundy. (I, i, 241–244) He regards her as an object and evinces no sense of her intrinsic worth. France, however, states what is clear to the audience: “She is herself a dowry” (I, i, 241). His joy in marrying Cordelia embodies a theme so much at the heart of this play: the importance of the capacity to judge accurately the worth of people, to appreciate their true value, and not to be deceived by appearances. That theme is also part of Shakespeare’s last tragedy, Timon of Athens, which, coincidentally, concentrates more on the influence of money than does any of his other plays. Here King Timon rules with unbounded generosity, as the unnamed Poet, soliciting funds to support his art, explains: His large fortune, Upon his good and gracious nature hanging, Subdues and properties to his love and tendance All sorts of hearts… (I, i, 55–58) But the Poet also resents Timon’s wealth, and anticipates his fall from power: When Fortune in her shift and change of mood Spurns down her late beloved, all his dependants Which labor’d after him to the mountain’s top Even on their knees and [hands], let him [slip] down, Not one accompanying his declining foot. (I, i, 84–88) Another evaluation of Timon’s generosity comes from the cynical philosopher Apemantus, who remains bewildered by Timon’s generosity and his blindness to the obviously crass motives of those who petition him: O you gods! what a number of men eats Timon, and he sees ’em not! It grieves me to see so many dip their meat in one man’s blood, and all the madness is, he cheers them up too. I wonder men dare trust themselves with men. (I, ii, 39–43) This bitter reflection leads us to ask why Timon should be so generous. He himself offers at least part of the answer, when he speaks at a banquet: Why, I have often wish’d myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We are born to do benefits; and what better or properer can we call our own than the riches of our friends? (I, ii, 100–103) These lines reveal Timon’s ego, for he delights in giving. Why should he do so? Because his beneficence keeps the recipients subordinate to him, and the more generous he is, the more superior he feels. In addition, why should he be so casual about dismissing repayment from others? Because as long as people do not repay him, even if he tells them to forget the debt, they remain in his debt. Timon’s generosity, therefore, is not only an expression of his link with humanity, but also an extension of his own authority. In this light, we understand the antagonism of those he supports, for no matter how free Timon may be with his wealth, such charity still makes the recipients conscious of their inferiority. For Timon, then, money becomes a vehicle for increasing his status and shrinking the dignity of others. Yet he continues to think of himself as loving and beloved. Thus when the extent of Timon’s debts are revealed, and creditors stand unyielding in their demands for restitution, Timon, astonished by the turnabout, demands of his servant, Flavius: How goes the world, that I am thus encount’red With clamorous demands of debt, broken bonds, And the detention of long since due debts, Against my honor? (II, ii, 36–39) Even when all his resources are depleted, Timon refuses to acknowledge that action might be taken against him: “You shall perceive how you/ Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends” (II, ii, 183–184). The irony of his vocabulary does not escape us. As much as Timon belittles money, he centers his life and thought around it. Moreover, Timon tries to turn his dismissal of money into a glorification of the human spirit; that attempt may be admirable, but it is also fatuous, especially after we have heard how eager his creditors are for retribution. As one of the servants of Timon’s creditors remarks: No matter what, he’s poor, and that’s revenge enough. Who can speak broader than he that has no house to put his head in? Such may rail against great buildings. (III, iv, 62–65) The result of such resentment is our understanding of the role of money in life. Even when it is dispensed generously, even when it is dismissed as trivial, it retains its power, for such is the corruptibility of human nature. Eventually Timon also recognizes this truth, and in raging misanthropy deserts civilization. In his madness, he digs for roots, but comes across gold instead: This yellow slave Will knit and break religions, bless th’ accurs’d. Make the hoar leprosy ador’d, place thieves, And give them title, knee, and approbation With senators on the bench. (IV, iii, 34–38) Infuriated by his loss of faith in humanity, he spends the rest of his life condemning all aspects of human existence. Earlier he threw money away with love: now he does so with hatred. In conclusion, Shakespeare suggests that money is in itself harmless, but that given humanity’s greed for power and our susceptibility to the attractions of hierarchical standing, money can become a dangerous weapon. Even when it is distributed with no strictures at all, as in Timon of Athens, the desire that human beings feel not only to secure their own place, but also to destroy those above them, inevitably brings destruction. Mortality To note that many of Shakespeare’s characters live with awareness of the inevitability of death is to say little. After all, most individuals, whether in life or art, are conscious that one day they will die. What is of considerable interest, however, is which figures in Shakespeare’s plays face this reality head-on, under what circumstances they do so, and with what attitude they proceed. Shakespeare’s comedies would seem to be an unlikely place to encounter such emotions. Yet a major reason why his lighter works have such depth is that the characters remain aware of all sorts of serious issues. Indeed, one way in which we may distinguish comedy from farce is that in farce characters generally feel nothing beyond physical sensation. They do not stop to reflect on the signficance of what they experience, nor on issues outside their immediate scope, and because the characters feel so little, the audience also remains detached. For instance, when watching a farce by a master of that form, such as the nineteenth-century Frenchman Feydeau, or a contemporary version, such as a television sitcom, we may laugh at characters scrambling in and out of bedclothes and bedrooms, but rarely do we think or care about the subtleties of their emotions. In comedy, on the other hand, even as we laugh, we reflect. When experiencing Molière’s The Misanthrope, for example, we wonder about the nature of human vanity, loneliness, hypocrisy, and love. Thus in a discussion of any comic art, one crucial question to consider is whether the work belongs to the world of farce or comedy. When dealing with Shakespeare’s works, we encounter the highest form of comedy. To be sure, many of his comedies have farcical elements, including plot confusions, slapstick, and other physical fun, as well as bawdy humor. All these plays, however, have serious overtones that may bring our laughter up short. In The Comedy of Errors, for example, Luciana complains to her sister, Adriana, about the apparent fickleness of Antipholus, the twin that both women assume to be Adriana’s husband. In the midst of these shrill complaints, their servant, Dromio, who has been caught between conflicting demands by the brothers, returns to seek bail money to rescue his master. Separating himself from the confusion, he comments: Time is a very bankrout and owes more than he’s worth to season. Nay, he’s a thief, too: have you not heard men say, That Time comes stealing on by night and day? If [’a] be in debt and theft, and a sergeant in the way, Hath he not reason to turn back an hour in a day? (IV, ii, 58–62) Such a glimpse of life’s transience changes Adriana’s attitude, and she gives Dromio the money at once. The speech also taps the audience’s awareness that underneath the merry mix-ups on which this work is founded lie genuine emotion and pain. A different strategy brings similar awareness at the end of Love’s Labor’s Lost. During the play’s last scene, in the middle of the Pageant of the Nine Worthies, we reflect on the foolishness of the suitors and roles they took on to win over the women, who also played games designed to humiliate the men. Suddenly the lord Monsieur Marcade enters to announce the death of the Princess’s father, the King of France. As the characters grasp the tragic situation, we, along with them, acknowledge the foolishness of so much of what has preceded. Lord Berowne, who all along has been the keenest of the men, puts matters in perspective: For your fair sakes have we neglected time, Play’d foul play with our oaths. Your beauty, ladies, Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humors Even to the oppos’d end of our intents … (V, ii, 755–758) From this point on, the tone of the play grows grim, and the concluding song about the seasons and cycles of life makes us view the continuum of human existence under the shadow of mortality. The same effect is achieved by one other song that concludes a comedy—Feste the clown’s verses in Twelfth Night:When that I was and a little tine boy, With hey ho, the wind and the rain, A foolish thing was but a toy, For the rain it raineth every day. (V, i, 389–392) These lines are an antidote to the egoism that has dominated the play. Irrespective of what we ourselves do, the world goes on, and the rain falls. Feste sees our lives as short and therefore laughable, for nothing we do matters. At the same time, because nothing we do matters, he sees our lives as short and sad. No figure in Shakespeare makes awareness of mortality more poignant than that comic genius Sir John Falstaff, who dominates the action of Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2. InPart 1, he is sixty years old, grossly overweight, and prey to all sorts of illnesses, but during much of the action he fights off intimations of his own passing. Indeed, he speaks of himself instead as a young man, as when he is robbed by the Prince and Hal’s cohort, Poins, on the highway near Gadshill: “…they hate us youth” (II, ii, 85), he bellows. Later in the tavern, though, he sighs: There lives not three good men unhang’d in England, and one of them is fat and grows old. (II, iv, 130–132) Even as he offers such wistful comment, however, Falstaff is still entertaining himself and his companion Hal, who has yet to assume the responsibilities of the throne. Part 2, however, offers a different spirit. Whereas Part 1 focused on Hal’s growth and his education at the hands of both his biological father, King Henry IV, and his spiritual father, Falstaff, Part 2 dramatizes Hal’s independence and the gradual fading of the two older men. At the start, Hal has essentially departed from Falstaff’s world, the taverns of East-cheap and elsewhere, so that Falstaff now finds himself desolate, without an audience or a partner in crime and revelry. In Part 1, he rumbled through the world with a boundless appetite for capons, sack, and wenches. In Part 2, his thoughts turn to himself, and from his first words we feel how aware he is about his health and the passing years: “Sirrah, you giant, what says the doctor to my water?” (I, ii, 1–2). In the presence of the stern Chief Justice, Falstaff maintains his swagger: “You that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young” (I, ii, 173–174). Nonetheless, the Chief Justice, a humorless purveyor of truth, refuses to let Falstaff avoid reality: Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, and increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity? and will you call yourself young? (I, ii, 178–185) Still, Falstaff refuses to accept this vision of himself. Although he acknowledges that his body may be failing, his jokes become harsh. Nonetheless, he counts on his spirit to sustain him: “A good wit will make use of any thing. I will turn diseases to commodity” (I, ii, 247–248). What turns Sir John truly wistful is the arrival of his two longtime comrades, Justices Shallow and Silence, whose musings drift inevitably to the passage of time. As Shallow says: Jesu, Jesu, the mad days that I have spent! And to see how many of my old acquaintances are dead! (III, ii, 33–34) After the exchange of memories, Falstaff sums up their predicament with unmatched simplicity and eloquence: “We have heard the chimes at mid-night, Master Shallow” (III, ii, 214). We never see Falstaff’s death, but we see and hear the emotional blow that destroys him. After the death of Henry IV, Hal is to take the throne, and Falstaff assumes that the new King will grant him the same privileges that he enjoyed in the taverns: I know the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man’s horses, the laws of England are at my commandment. Blessed are they that have been my friends, and woe to my Lord Chief Justice. (V, iii, 135–138) But at the coronation, after Falstaff calls out to his former charge, Henry V turns and utters these devastating words: I know thee not, old man, fall to thy prayers. How ill white hair becomes a fool and jester! I have long dreamt of such a kind of man, So surfeit-swell’d, so old, and so profane; But being awak’d, I do despise my dream. Make less thy body (hence) and more thy grace, Leave gormandizing, know the grave doth gape For thee thrice wider than for other men. Reply to me not with a fool-born jest, Presume not that I am the thing I was, For God doth know, so shall the world perceive, That I have turn’d away my former self; So will I those that kept me company. (V, v, 47–59) The address compels Falstaff to confront his age, status, physical decay, and isolation from the young man he has always regarded as his son. Henry V concludes with banishment, as much a prelude to death as the King can inflict. We should not be surprised that reflections on mortality are found in most of the tragedies. Yet those characters who do come to grips with the subject do so in ways that reflect their own personalities. In Romeo and Juliet, for example, moments before Juliet prepares to swallow the poison that will give her the appearance of death, she offers a nightmarish vision of the consequences of her action. First she weighs the possibility that the Friar, who concocted the scheme, might be willing to see her die to avoid his punishment (IV, iii, 24–27). Her mind then races in a phantasmagoria of death and ghosts, leaving herself trapped amid images of her past and family history (IV, iii, 36–59). The vision is appropriate to Juliet’s life. She has struggled to break free of her family, but the pressure of their values has constricted her, and we should not be surprised that the nightmare she conjures up includes them. A far different vision of mortality is offered by Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. Indeed, she offers two contrasting pictures, both occurring after the death of Antony and moments before her own suicide. First she reflects on how she will be remembered by the populace: Saucy lictors Will catch at us like strumpets, and scald rhymers Ballad’s out a’ tune. The quick comedians Extemporally will stage us, and present Our Alexandrian revels: Antony Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness I’ th’ posture of a whore. (V, ii, 214–221) A woman who has lived her entire life on the stage of public view reflects how the mass of people in future centuries will regard her. She knows that she will be misunderstood; she also knows that she is helpless to change history’s judgment of her. Here Shakespeare comments reflexively on his own art, for in his day, a boy did play the part of Cleopatra, and the last two lines force the audience to acknowledge the reality of that casting. Cleopatra also looks forward to her afterlife with Antony: Methinks I hear Antony call; I see him rouse himself To praise my noble act. I hear him mock The luck of Caesar, which the gods give men To excuse their after wrath. Husband, I come! Now to that name my courage prove my title! I am fire and air; my other elements I give to baser life. (V, ii, 283–290) She attempts to answer what may be the most profound question the play poses: is the love between Cleopatra and Antony worth the sacrifices each makes? At this moment, she insists that their love was superior to their world and the paltry concerns of those like Octavius Caesar, who survives to rule Rome and the world, but whom Cleopatra dismisses. The title character of Julius Caesar offers his own view of mortality. When his wife, Calphurnia, cautions him about going to the forum on the fateful Ides of March (the fifteenth), Caesar tries to allay her fears: Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear, Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come. (II, ii, 32–37) Earlier we saw Caesar’s superstition when he ordered Antony to touch Cleopatra during the race, so that she might prove fertile (I, ii, 6–8). We have also heard his shrewd estimates of political opponents, as when he judged Cassius: “He thinks too much; such men are dangerous” (I, ii, 195). Do we now see the dignity and nobility of the greatest man in the world? Or are his sentiments the arrogant musings of one who believes himself superior to the petty fears of other men? Perhaps the darkest view of mortality is expressed by the title character of Macbeth. He speaks of the subject in two situations: in the first, he is feigning sorrow, while in the second, his emotions are genuine. Yet both statements reflect the same anguish. The first occurs after the corpse of King Duncan has been discovered, stabbed by Macbeth, who tries to affect despair so as to avoid arousing suspicion: Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv’d a blessed time; for from this instant There’s nothing serious in mortality; All is but toys: renown and grace is dead, The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is left this vault to brag of. (II, iii, 91–96) Contrast these lines with the desolation inherent in his words upon hearing of the death of Lady Macbeth: She should have died hereafter; There would have been time for such a word. To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 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. (V, v, 17–28) The verse has the quality of a dirge, for the beats are heavier, suggesting more profound feeling. The first speech is too neat, as if it were the prepared recitation of one straining to appear melancholy. The second has a terrifying simplicity that reflects a mind beaten down by life and numbed by horrors he has seen and carried out. He no longer fears death; he may even welcome it. Of all Shakespeare’s characters, none is more preoccupied with thoughts of mortality than Hamlet, who throughout the play ponders implications of his death. The opening lines of his first soliloquy eloquently communicate his desire to escape life: O that this too too sallied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d His canon ’gainst [self-] slaughter! (I, ii, 129–132) So uncertain is his sense of self that death both attracts and repels him. Later, when the Ghost bids Hamlet follow him, the Prince dismisses his friend Horatio’s fears: I do not set my life at a pin’s fee, And for my soul, what can it do to that, Being a thing immortal as itself? (I, iii, 65–67) Whatever terrors the Ghost holds for him are preferable to the uncertainty of Hamlet’s life. His fears, however, are apparent in the most famous soliloquy in dramatic literature: “To be, or not to be, that is the question” (III, i, 55). What follows is a meditation on the desire for death as relief from the burdens of life. Hamlet intuitively knows that he is not a killer or vehicle for revenge; thus he will never carry out the Ghost’s commands. At the same time, he dreads an afterlife, for he cannot conceive carrying his responsibility through eternity. Perhaps the most poignant reflections on mortality occur in the graveyard, where Hamlet broods upon the skull of Yorick, the King’s jester: Where be your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? (V, i, 189–191) Such recognition of the transience of things leads Hamlet directly to meditate on the life of another Prince, Alexander, who conquered the world, then had nowhere to turn: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth we make loam, and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel? (V, i, 208–212) That even the greatest military figure in the history of the world might be reduced to such standing suggests the unimportance of all human endeavour, a reduction Hamlet uses to comfort himself. Whatever he does, or fails to do, his life ultimately means nothing, and that awareness soothes his troubled conscience. More than any other character in literature, Hamlet has been said to embody aspects of all of humanity. Little wonder, then, that his views of mortality should range so widely. In that sense, he encapsulates the reflections of the other characters that we have considered. Recognition of human mortality may bring perspective, comfort, relief, or sad recognition. Nonetheless, our knowledge of the brevity of human life, our understanding that our days are limited, both increases the urgency of human action and brings poignancy to our goals and dreams. |