HIDDEN MESSAGES FOR CATHOLICS In Shakespeare Movies

Catholics who want to take a stand in our current, apparently threatening, political environment may want to read two books, Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare and Shakespeare the Papist, watch some movies and then rethink how best to deal with religious persecution.

During William Shakespeare’s time, surely the religious persecution was still overt, still feeling the aftermath of Henry VIII’s betrayal of the faith. These two books have suggested to me a rethinking of the most heroic path Shakespeare took in expressing his hidden Catholicism.

Let’s begin with his famous words from As You Like It, where he writes of the seven ages of human life:

“All the world\’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse\’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress\’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon\’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper\’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”

Shakespeare surely knew how we humans must play out our lives on the world’s stage. But for hidden Catholics, the truth had to be masked in times of persecution unless one wanted the role of martyr.

Thus often what was staged to theatre-goers presented multiple layers of meanings, all of which could be understood at the same time.

Though it is true little is known about William Shakespeare’s personal life and his plays did have to go before censors, I think we can get glimpses of him and what he thought about Catholicism behind the masks of his characters and the plots in his plays.

So, in keeping with my posts on HOW TO FIND FAITH AT THE MOVIES, I invite you to rethink what was going on in some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays and one (Henry VIII) that is not so famous, via movies based upon them. Shakespeare\’s is a significant example of a reluctant hero.

SHAKESPEARE’S HEROIC JOURNEY

1. The hero is seen in his ordinary world (compare posts under HISTORY):

Whom might Shakespeare have been thinking about when he presented The Taming of the Shrew?

Consider this famous lines:

“Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i\’ faith, you are too angry.
Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out.
Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.
Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
Katherine: In his tongue.
Petruchio: Whose tongue?
Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell.
Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.”

2. The hero is called to adventure (compare posts under LIFE):

Whom might Shakespeare have been calling to adventure when he presented the tragedy of  Richard III?

Consider the famous lines:

“What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.
Richard loves Richard; that is, I and I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am.
Then fly! What, from myself? Great reason why:
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself.
I am a villain. Yet I lie. I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter:
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree;
Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, “Guilty! guilty!”
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me,
And if I die no soul will pity me.
And wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?”

3. The hero is reluctant (compare posts under BUSINESS):

Whom might Shakespeare be acknowledging in presenting A Midsummer Night’s Dream for their reluctance to take on more open roles in the persecution?

Consider these famous lines:

“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to \’scape the serpent\’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.”

4. The hero encounters wise ones (compare posts under EDUCATION) :

Who might Shakespeare have been cautioning when he presented the tragedy of Hamlet?

Consider these famous lines:

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether \’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, \’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish\’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there\’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there\’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor\’s wrong, the proud man\’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law\’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover\’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o\’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember\’d!”

(Interestingly, author Stephen King writes:

“A tragedy is a tragedy, and at the bottom, all tragedies are stupid. Give me a choice and I\’ll take A Midsummer Night\’s Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh.”

On the other hand, the comedy that is the Lord of the Rings Trilogy must not be forgotten with all its violent fighting for what is right.)

5. The hero crosses the first threshold (compare posts under SCIENCE):

Who might Shakespeare have been trying to protect in Romeo and Juliet in the midst of the continuing discord of the religious persecution?

Consider these famous lines:

“Two households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross\’d lovers take their life
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents\’ strife.”

6. The hero meets tests and helpers (compare posts under POLITICS):

Whom might Shakespeare have been addressing as a band of brothers in the good fight when he presented Henry V?

Consider these famous lines:

“This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne\’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne\’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs\’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin\’s day.”

7. The hero reaches the inner sanctum (compare posts under MEDICINE):

Whom might Shakespeare be more concerned about when he presented Julius Caesar?

Consider these famous lines of Brutus:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.”

8. The hero endures the supreme ordeal (compare posts under LAW):

When one remembers that Jews were still under the Edict of Expulsion in England at the time and not plentiful among the people of his time, whom might Shakespeare have really been putting on trial in presenting The Merchant of Venice?

Consider these famous lines:

“PORTIA: The quality of mercy is not strain\’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
\’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God\’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence \’gainst the merchant there.”

9. The hero seizes the sword (compare the posts under FAITH):

Whom might Shakespeare be cautioning about loving not just well, but with wise insight (including insight into oversight), when he presented Othello?

Consider these famous lines from Othello’s mouth:

“I have done the state some service, and they know \’t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. 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 Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.”

10. The hero takes the road back (compare posts under ART):

Whom might Shakespeare be hoping to help deal with oversights when he presented King Lear?

Consider this famous line:

“The prince of darkness is a gentleman.”

11. The hero experiences a death and resurrection (compare posts under SOCIAL):

Whom might Shakespeare have been seeking to discourage when he presented Macbeth?

Consider these famous lines:

“LADY MACBETH (to Macbeth): What beast was\’t, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender \’tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck\’d my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash\’d the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this.”

12. The hero returns with the elixir (compare the posts under FAMILY):           

Whom might Shakespeare have been trying finally to influence about faithful marriage and its relation to the Catholic faith when he presented (a) The Tempest and (b) Henry VIII, the latter being originally entitled “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth, HENRY VIII (All Is True)”?

(a)  Consider these famous lines from The Tempest:

“Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm’d
The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
And ‘twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck’d up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ‘em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.”

(b)  Consider these famous lines from Henry VIII:

PROLOGUE

I come no more to make you laugh: things now,
That bear a weighty and a serious brow,
Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,
We now present. Those that can pity, here
May, if they think it well, let fall a tear;
The subject will deserve it. Such as give
Their money out of hope they may believe,
May here find truth too. Those that come to see
Only a show or two, and so agree
The play may pass, if they be still and willing,
I\’ll undertake may see away their shilling
Richly in two short hours. Only they
That come to hear a merry bawdy play,
A noise of targets, or to see a fellow
In a long motley coat guarded with yellow,
Will be deceived; for, gentle hearers, know,
To rank our chosen truth with such a show
As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting
Our own brains, and the opinion that we bring,
To make that only true we now intend,
Will leave us never an understanding friend.
Therefore, for goodness\’ sake, and as you are known
The first and happiest hearers of the town,
Be sad, as we would make ye: think ye see
The very persons of our noble story
As they were living; think you see them great,
And follow\’d with the general throng and sweat
Of thousand friends; then in a moment, see
How soon this mightiness meets misery:
And, if you can be merry then, I\’ll say
A man may weep upon his wedding-day.”

And finally consider that on 29th Day of June 1613, within days of the original production of Henry VIII, the firing of a cannon at the Globe Theatre ignited its thatch and the theatre burned to the ground. This was Shakespeare\’s last play. 

TAKE AWAY LESSONS: Be careful out there, my friends, because we surely don\’t want the Globe burned again, literally or figuratively, since the movies can be a significant force for good in the world.

© 2013. John Darrouzet. All Rights Reserved.