Back to Masters of Chiasmus

Masters of Chiasmus: William Shakespeare (Part 2)

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

I love the sentiment embedded in this chiastic line, which I have occasionally cited in counseling sessions with some of my more literate clients. In this scene, Orlando abruptly enters with sword drawn, interrupting Duke Senior and Jacques as they're eating. The starving Orlando angrily tells them to eat no more until he takes care of his own needs. In this quote, the Duke calmly tells Orlando that his angry and forceful manner isn't necessary, and that a gentle approach will be far more effective. It works. Orlando quickly calms down.

"Not a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court." As You Like It (1599-1600)

In this scene, the shepherd Corin is sparring with Touchstone, a court clown, who a moment earlier has argued that only cultivated people can have good manners. Corin snaps back with this line, maintaining that socially appropriate behavior in one context can be absolutely inappropriate in the other. He drives his point home by contrasting the way shepherds and courtiers greet each other in their two very different worlds. A shepherd, he says, would be very concerned about exactly where another shepherd's hand has been, and wouldn't be caught dead kissing it when they meet. He says, "You told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly if courtiers were shepards."

Here, Touchstone cites an unknown sage. Even though the theme of wise men and fools has been chiastically explored by many writers before Shakespeare, I've been unable to find this particular sentiment ascribed to any other person. It's possible the original source of the saying was Shakespeare himself, and he was presenting it as a quotation to give it a cachet of intellectual respectability.

For centuries, this passage has been reminding audiences of the unpredictable nature of love, sometimes helping beasts rise to the stature of men, sometimes causing men to descend to the level of beasts. In this scene, Falstaff is psyching himself up for an upcoming romantic encounter. He describes how love has affected the Greek gods Jove and Jupiter, and seeks inspiration from them.

In many literary works, and I think it's true in this case, chiastic dialogue reflects nothing more than the desire of the author to engage in a little verbal word play.

I include this quote not because it's such a great example of chiasmus, but because it reminds me of an interesting anecdote about Winston Churchill, who was so fond of Shakespeare he could flawlessly recite lengthy passages from his works by memory. During a WWII meeting on internal turmoil in Iraq and the potential threat to Britain's oil supplies, Churchill became so fascinated with the Arabic pronunciation of names that he tried to add a moment of levity to an otherwise serious meeting by asking: "What's Bakuba to him, or he to Bakuba"?

"Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." Hamlet (1600-01)

As they're about to begin the famous play within a play (the purpose of which is to allow Hamlet to observe the reactions of Claudius, who he suspects has killed his father), Hamlet utters these immortal words, probably the most famous acting advice ever given.

This passage occurs during dialogue between two actors playing the role of the King and Queen. The queen is pointing out that doubt and fear is such an integral component of love that the presence of doubts and fears may even be taken as evidence of love.

Here, the "king" in the play poses a question that, on the surface, has to do with the relationship between love and "luck" or "chance" (which we still call "good fortune"). Or does it? Maybe the saying has to do with "riches," the other meaning of the word fortune. Since Hamlet suspects Claudius of killing his father and marrying his mother Ophelia for money, it's possible he was being deliberately ambiguous in this tantalizing example of Shakespearean wordplay.

Talking to Troilus, Cressida makes a point that's as relevant today as it was when written nearly 400 years ago. It all starts with a phenomenon that occurs at the beginning of a relationship, when people are in what I call "Snag Mode." During this time, they engage in behavior designed to win over the object of their affection, even when that behavior is unnatural or totally out of character. In Shakespeare's language, they "swear more performance than they are able." Once the object of affection is won over, the suitor begins to let up a little and behave more naturally. In Shakespeare's words, they now keep in "reserve an ability they never perform." The result is predictable: while in Snag Mode, they create an expectation that they'll be the perfect mate (nowadays we'd say they deserve "a perfect ten" rating instead of Shakespeare's "the perfection of ten"). However, when people revert back to their normal behavior as the relationship unfolds, they often end up with ratings completely on the other end of the scale (in Shakespeare's words, "less than the tenth part of one"). The phenomenon results in the most common complaint heard when a relationship finally hits the skids: "I can't believe how much you've changed!"

Through the character of Duke Vincentio, Shakespeare describes the power of music to transform the bad into good, and to provoke the good into bad. The first part of the passage (transforming bad into good) is the portion poets have always liked and is reminiscent of the old proverb about music having charms to sooth a savage beast (which, by the way, was "savage breast" in the original saying).

The second part (about music provoking good to bad) is something the older generation has always worried about. In fact, the way parents complain about the potentially harmful effects of rap music today is eerily similar to the way parents complained about the Beatles and Stones in the sixties, Elvis in the fifties, swing music in the forties, jazz and the music of Charleston in the twenties, and so on ad infinitum. The English poet John Dryden may have been stimulated by this line of Shakespeare's when he wrote, "What passion cannot Music raise and quell?"

This line occurs at the very end of the play, as the Duke proposes marriage to Isabella. The passage was undoubtedly inspired by a similar sentiment from the Roman writer Plautus, who wrote, "What is yours is mine, and all mine is yours."

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air." Macbeth (1606)

This famous passage occurs at the very beginning of the play as the three witches (the Weird Sisters) set a dark and gloomy tone for the play. Their refrain also serves as a portent of things to come, as the rest of the play explores the darker side of human nature, often blurring the distinction between good and evil.

The last line is the chiastic portion of this romantic passage, where Shakespeare says that he sees his loved one best when he dreams at night, when it is both "darkly bright" and his eyes "are bright in the dark directed." The words come from one who is clearly smitten by his loved one, and it comes as a bit of a surprise to learn that they were addressed to a man! In fact, the first 126 (out of the total of 154) sonnets are addressed to a beautiful and charming young nobleman (never formally identified). The sonnets contain some of the most romantic lines in literary history, including the famous line:

Was Shakespeare gay? Or bisexual (since he was married and a father)? This question has plagued Shakespearean scholars for centuries and was part of one of the biggest cover-ups in literary history. In The Riverside Shakespeare, Hallett Smith says that in 1640 an Englishman named John Benson published the sonnets (along with Shakespeare's other poems) and altered them so they appeared to be addressed to a woman! This fraudulent version of the sonnets was accepted as accurate for nearly 150 years, when in 1780 Edmond Malone published the original, and first widely available, accurate version! The idea of a gay Shakespeare was so repugnant to early Shakespearean scholars that they did all kinds of intellectual contortions to reject the idea. Some condemned the sonnets as inferior poetry. Others suggested they were a purely literary exercise with no biographical significance. And one, George Chalmers, even suggested they were addressed to Queen Elizabeth, since she was often "considered a man" because of her strength as a monarch!

Nowadays, most scholars would probably agree with Norrie Epstein, who says in The Friendly Shakespeare, "No other straight poet has ever written such ardent poems to a man," and concludes, "We'll probably never know Shakespeare's sexual preferences, though it's likely he was bisexual." In a similar fashion, Harold Bloom says in his monumental new book, Shakespeare, "By reading Shakespeare, I can gather that he did not like lawyers, preferred drinking to eating, and evidently lusted after both genders."

Here, Shakespeare addresses the mysterious "Dark Lady" of the sonnets, who he fears has her eyes on the young nobleman he is so fond of (she later seduces him, to Shakespeare's chagrin).

In this passage, Shakespeare explores the relationship between love and morality. Yes, there may be problems that result from love emerging before one's conscience is fully developed, but a more fully developed conscience often grows out of love.

This is the very last line of the Sonnets, capturing Shakespeare's view of the power of love. It can burn with such passion it can not only heat water, but water cannot cool it down.

William Shakespeare and Implied Chiasmus

"Implied chiasmus" occurs when the words of a popular saying are deliberately reversed. Some popular examples are "A hangover is the wrath of grapes," Mae West's "A hard man is good to find," and Kermit the Frog's "Time's fun when you're having flies." If you're not familiar with the term, you can find further information at implied chiasmus.

Over the years, I searched high and low for examples of implied chiasmus in Shakespeare's works, to no avail. Then, almost by accident, I discovered one. I was reading The Merchant of Venice in The Riverside Shakespeare when I came upon this line:

In a footnote to that line, Blakemore Evans writes, "Launcelot reverses the usual form of the proverb, 'It is a wise child that knows his own father'." The proverb, which appeared in English in the 16th century, was based on an ancient Greek saying. According to the original saying, it was extremely important for a child to be sure who his real father was. In Shakespeare's play, the line (and the sentiment) is reversed to reflect the concerns of many men at the time, who wondered whether the children born to their wives were truly their own. If you know of any other examples of implied chiasmus in the works of Shakespeare, please send them along.

This completes our look at the chiastic Shakespeare. In our next edition, we'll take a look at one of the most interesting characters in world history, Benjamin Franklin.

drmardy.com   copyright © 1999-2008 by Dr. Mardy Grothe.