Bardisms (43 page)

HE WAS AN ASTONISHING PERSON

Their somber tone notwithstanding, eulogies are celebrations. They recall what was inspiring and lovable about the deceased, and they don’t have much room for any mention of the flaws, imperfections, disappointments, and shortcomings that made the person only human when he or she lived. Rarely content with sanitizing simplifications, Shakespeare writes a famous eulogy that manages to be extraordinarily loving and respectful, yet at the same time refuses to gloss over some hard truths about the person being memorialized. That eulogy is Hamlet’s for his late father, and its justly famous phrases combine the positive and the negative in the same thought—a Shakespearean trademark: “He was a man, take him for all in all / I shall not look upon his like again.” In other words, he was human, and even reckoned in toto, good and bad together, he was still pretty memorable.

I’ve researched this Hamletian Bardism’s appearance in countless memorials, funeral remarks, and posthumous tributes, and, interestingly, I’ve found that almost every time it’s quoted, only the second line survives.
Take him for all in all
, Hamlet’s admission of his father’s frailties, is nowhere to be found. I fully understand what motivates this omission, yet I also lament the dilution it represents. After all, if it’s unadulterated praise you’re after, Shakespeare offer plenty, particularly in his Roman plays, chock-full of formal tributes to great ones who’ve left the world too soon. Here are two that make for stirring and reverential memorials, and that speak for themselves without any need for editing or watering down.

First, Mark Antony’s tribute over the corpse of Brutus:

His life was gentle, and the elements

So mixed in him that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world “This was a man.”

—M
ARK
A
NTONY
,
Julius Caesar
, 5.5.72–74

In other words:

He lived a fine-mannered life. The things of which human beings are made were balanced so perfectly in him that Mother Nature, maker of all men, could point to him and proclaim that he was the perfect example of humanity.

Some details:

This Bardism provides some insight into Renaissance notions of psychology. It was believed that four elements composed all matter: earth, air, water, and fire, which, when mixed together in various proportions (the verb used in the period was
tempered
), gave every substance in nature its particular character. In the human body, the four elements took the form of fluids called
humors
: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. In proper temper these fluids composed a happy person—a person with a good
temperament
. Too much of any of the four, or too little, or some defect with one of them, would cause problems and throw a person into
distemper
, like a stray animal in need of an inoculation. Too much yellow bile, also known as choler, made you
choleric
: snappish, short-tempered, quick to anger. Too much black bile, also called melancholy, made you a depressive. Too much phlegm made you
phlegmatic
, or emotionless and dull. One way to restore the balance was to eat or drink things that had properties opposite the overabundant humor. Another was that medieval cure-all, bloodletting, because the humors were thought to circulate with the blood. Antony notes of Brutus that the great Roman required no such treatments, because the humors flowing through him were mixed in such perfect proportion that he was a showpiece of nature’s craftsmanship.

Another eulogy. Antony dies, too, in Cleopatra’s arms, as we saw above. This is how she memorializes him a short time later:

His legs bestrid the ocean; his reared arm

Crested the world. His voice was propertied

As all the tunèd spheres, and that to friends;

But when he meant to quail and shake the orb,

He was as rattling thunder. For his bounty, 5

There was no winter in’t; an autumn ’twas,

That grew the more by reaping. His delights

Were dolphin-like; they showed his back above

The element they lived in. In his livery

Walk’d crowns and crownets. Realms and islands were 10

As plates dropped from his pocket.

—C
LEOPATRA
,
Antony and Cleopatra
, 5.2.81–92

In other words:

His stance straddled the ocean, like the legendary Colossus of Rhodes. His raised arm was like a heraldic emblem on the world’s coat of arms. When he spoke to friends, his voice had the same qualities as the celestial spheres, the makers of heavenly music. But when he felt like subduing and terrifying the earth, he sounded like claps of thunder. As for his generosity, it was everlasting; it was like a perpetual harvest season that yielded more produce as more was gathered from it. The pleasures that delighted him made him stand out from the masses as a dolphin arcs above the water with each leap. Kings and princes were as servants to him. Nations and territories were like loose change that fell from his pockets.

How to say it:

This richly poetic excerpt appears at first glance to be a lot more complicated than it actually is. At its heart is a simple list in which Cleopatra talks about various of Antony’s features, in this order: (1) his legs, (2) his reared arm, (3) his voice, (4) his bounty, (5) his delights, and (6) his livery. Each aspect of Antony gets its own description. Some are brief (his legs spanned the ocean), some longer (his voice sounded like celestial music to his friends, but to his enemies it sounded like an earth-shaking thunderclap). Try to work your way through the speech according to its six parts, and you’ll find it flows easily and naturally.

Another helpful approach to this speech is to phrase it one line at a time: cover the speech with a piece of paper and reveal each verse line one by one. At the end of each line, ask yourself for the next thought, the next piece of language, the next detail, then say it. For example, at the end of line 1,
his reared arm
, ask something like
did what?
You could answer in a zillion ways: “was muscular,” “flexed with stunning strength,” “frightened his enemies into submission.” But Cleopatra answers with the beginning of line 2,
Crested the world
. Or, at the end of line 7,
His delights
, ask something like
what about them?
You could answer, “transported me to heavenly bliss,” or “numbered too many to count,” or “stirred love in every heart that knew them.” But Cleopatra answers,
Were dolphin-like
. She—you—think about the next right image. She—and simultaneously, you—conjure the poetry to describe a man blessed with copious and wondrous personal gifts. And she—and you—render that description in surprising and unforgettable marine mammal imagery.

Feel free to lift out only those features that apply to the person you’re eulogizing, and to substitute feminine pronouns for masculine if it’s a woman who’s passed away.

Some details:

Throughout
Bardisms
I’ve offered paraphrases—equivalents in modern English—for Shakespeare’s knottier poetic utterances. This speech shows the limits of that technique, and in doing so, it demonstrates something essential about Shakespeare’s writing. Consider my phrase “As for his generosity, it was everlasting.” That’s how I render Cleopatra’s
For his bounty, / There was no winter in’t
. To say it loses something in translation is the understatement of the century. Yes, my version communicates the basic sense of Cleopatra’s thought, but it misses completely the dimension of her speech that makes it more than just simple communication. We might label that dimension, that quality of language that delivers more than meaning, “poetry.” Paraphrases are lousy at capturing that. “Regular” language, the stuff of my modern translations, just isn’t up to expressing high-octane metaphor such as that Cleopatra summons while eulogizing the hero who was the great passion of her life. She needs special language: the charged, idiosyncratic, spellbinding language of a great poet.

Students and friends often ask me to describe what it is about Shakespeare’s writing that makes it so unique. I like to answer with a rather abstract concept: “Shakespeare” is a measure of the distance between everyday language and poetry, between
For his bounty, / There was no winter in’t
and “As for his generosity, it was everlasting.” Shakespeare is the X factor that transforms a simple idea into a metaphor, and that X factor is the very thing that makes us turn to him when our own expressive capacity isn’t enough to give voice to what we feel. We know how grateful we were that our late loved ones were kind to us; Shakespeare memorializes their kindness by imagining it as an autumn without winter, as an endless harvest that yielded more, the more we gleaned from it. We need Shakespeare’s help at our most emotionally charged moments, and we’re grateful to his artistic prowess for helping us to know not just what to say but also what we feel.

GOODBYE

Here are two brief Bardisms that eloquently put a period on an exemplary life. Use them at the conclusion of your eulogy, or in the closing of your condolence note. The first is yet another Roman encomium to masculine excellence: Brutus’ stoic tribute to his dear friend Cassius:

The last of all the Romans, fare thee well.

It is impossible that ever Rome

Should breed thy fellow.

—B
RUTUS
,
Julius Caesar
, 5.3.98–100

In other words:

Goodbye, the last true Roman. Rome will never again have anyone like you.

Second, Horatio’s celebrated farewell to his dear friend Hamlet:

Good night, sweet prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

—H
ORATIO
,
Hamlet
, 5.2.302–3