Bardisms (42 page)

THE DEATH OF A WIFE

While fewer in number than widows, widowers also populate Shakespeare’s
Complete Works
. Their pain is captured vividly in a quiet corner near the close of a muted and minor-key play,
All’s Well That Ends Well
. It’s a Bardism suffused with sympathy and condolence.

He lost a wife

Whose beauty did astonish the survey

Of richest eyes, whose words all ears took captive,

Whose dear perfection hearts that scorned to serve

Humbly called mistress. 5

—L
AFEU
,
All’s Well That Ends Well
, 5.3.15–19

In other words:

His wife is gone. Her beauty dazzled the sight of even the most sophisticated eyes. Her speech beguiled every listener. Her utter perfection made worshippers out of people who resolutely refused to bow down to anything.

How to use it:

This Bardism is a powerful third-person observation on the passing of anyone’s beloved wife, but it can be a moving first-person expression of loss with the simple substitution of
I
for its first word,
He
.

THE DEATH OF A CHILD

Death’s icy touch always devastates, but when his cold hand snatches away a child, a special and profound sorrow plunges everything into a terrible bleakness. Perhaps because he knew personally the awful woe of losing a child, Shakespeare writes about it with surpassing power. In
Macbeth
,
Richard III
, and
King John
, children’s deaths shatter not only their loved ones but the very plays in which they once lived: the plots of these works swerve into unremitting darkness with, respectively, the murders of Macduff’s children, the princes in the tower, and young Arthur. In
King John
, the missing Arthur’s mother, Constance, goes mad with grief, and declaims an eloquent Bardism on the loss of a little one.

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

Then, have I reason to be fond of grief.

—C
ONSTANCE
,
King John
, 3.4.93–98

In other words:

Grief, personified, has literally replaced my missing child. Grief sleeps in his bed. It goes on walks with me. It’s cute in the same way he was; it says the things he said. It reminds me of all his wonderful features. It wears his clothes in an image of him. For bringing my child back to me in this strange manner, I’ve actually grown to like grief.

How to say it:

I wish no one would ever experience what Constance does in
King John
, but I have seen her words bring solace to mourners in her sad situation. I’ve also heard at least one person—it was a speaker at a funeral—substitute another noun (
brother
, in this case) for
child
at the end of line 1, a rewrite that transformed Constance’s lament for her young son into words of comfort for a grieving sibling.

SHAKESPEARE ON MEMORIALS AND ELEGIES

This was the noblest Roman of them all.

—M
ARK
A
NTONY
,
Julius Caesar
, 5.5.67

If you’re scanning through this section of
Bardisms
, it’s probably because you’ve been asked to deliver a eulogy at a funeral. That the request came to you means that you had some special connection to the deceased, and this connection ensures that every word of your memorial will perforce be suffused with the very pain and loss on which your remarks hope to shed comfort. Private grief is hard enough to bear, but grieving in public is of another order of magnitude altogether. Public grief taxes our every emotional resource, challenges our ability to control our own faculties, and demands dignity and composure in measures well beyond those required of us on any other occasion. Put another way, every funeral we attend is one too many, but funerals at which we are called upon to speak are particularly difficult.

From my own experiences ordering my thoughts at times of mourning, I can report that recourse to wisdom beyond my own has made the difference between paralyzed murmuring unworthy of the occasion and a momentary eloquence not my own that somehow served up a modicum of solace for myself and others. The wisdom to which I had recourse was of course Shakespeare’s. After all, for every Bardism appropriate to happy life occasions, there is an equal and opposite Bardism appropriate to life’s more challenging moments. For every Sonnet 116 paying tribute to the marriage of true minds, for example, there is a Sonnet 65 pointing out that there are no forces in the world strong enough to resist when “sad mortality o’ersways their power.” Chapter Three showed how nuptials are the serial Shakespeare quoter’s finest hour; below is ample proof that funerals are the equal and opposite occasions on which the Bard so magnificently articulates all that we feel in our hearts.

MAY YOU REST IN PEACE

I’ve read this immensely moving text across a casket, heard it read at memorial services both grand and intimate, included it in notes of condolence, even sent it to a dear friend sitting vigil at a parent’s deathbed. It is the greatest Shakespeare on Occasions Funereal.

GUIDERIUS
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

Nor the furious winter’s rages;

Thou thy worldly task hast done,

Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:

Golden lads and girls all must, 5

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

ARVIRAGUS
Fear no more the frown o’ the great;

Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;

Care no more to clothe and eat;

To thee the reed is as the oak: 10

The sceptre, learning, physic, must

All follow this, and come to dust.

GUIDERIUS
Fear no more the lightning flash,

ARVIRAGUS
Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;

GUIDERIUS
Fear not slander, censure rash; 15

ARVIRAGUS
Thou hast finish’d joy and moan:

BOTH
All lovers young, all lovers must

Consign to thee, and come to dust.

GUIDERIUS
No exorciser harm thee!

ARVIRAGUS
Nor no witchcraft charm thee! 20

GUIDERIUS
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!

ARVIRAGUS
Nothing ill come near thee!

BOTH
Quiet consummation have;

And renownèd be thy grave

—Cymbeline
, 4.2.259–82

In other words:

GUIDERIUS
Don’t worry about the sun’s heat anymore. Don’t worry about angry winter storms. You’ve done your work on this earth. You’ve gone home now, and you’ve been paid for your efforts. Gorgeous boys and girls all return to dust, covered in it like chimney sweeps.

ARVIRAGUS
Don’t worry anymore about the disapproval of your superiors. No tyrant can hurt you now. Don’t worry about food and clothes. As far as you’re concerned, material things have no sway: a tiny blade of grass is no different from a mighty tree. People with political power, educated people, even doctors whose job is to defy death—no one can avoid the process of decay; everything and everyone comes to naught in the end.

GUIDERIUS
Don’t let lightning scare you,

ARVIRAGUS
Thunder either, which frightens everyone;

GUIDERIUS
Don’t worry over people saying nasty stuff about you, or harshly judging you;

ARVIRAGUS
You’re done with both happiness and misery.

BOTH
All young lovers—in fact, all lovers—have no choice but to sign the same contract you have, and return to dust.

GUIDERIUS
May no mystic try to raise you from the grave!

ARVIRAGUS
May no one try to cast a spell on your soul!

GUIDERIUS
May no unsettled spirits trouble you!

ARVIRAGUS
May nothing bad come near you!

BOTH
May you finish your life in peace, and may your burial place be marked with due respect.

How to say it:

Don’t feel obliged to read the entire passage. The first stanza is quite beautiful and stands on its own, as does the third (shared) stanza and the five short lines that follow it. Should you wish to refer to the characters who speak this passage (actually, they sing it in the context of the play), they’re two Welsh brothers whose names are pronounced
gwih-DEER-ee-us
and
ahr-vih-RAH-gus
.

Take special note of the rhyme scheme of each stanza, which is ABABCC. That is, the first and third lines rhyme, as do the second and fourth lines, and lines 5 and 6 make a rhymed couplet. Try as you read the passage to work toward those rhyming words, which fall, of course, at the ends of lines—the position in the line where Shakespeare likes to place important words. He sometimes places key ideas at the start of verse lines, too, as he does here with
Fear no more
and
Fear not
.

Simple
is the watchword with this rich and highly poetic passage. Just say the words evenly and easily, as a comfort and reassurance to your departed friend or loved one, as though he or she could hear you. Your view is that the afterlife is a better place than the temporal world, a place free of what Hamlet terms “the whips and scorns of time.” The person you’re eulogizing has returned home, where he or she can at long last rest after a lifetime of labor and struggle.