Temporal Instability, Wildernesses, and the Otherworld in Early Modern Drama
Abstract
:1. Introduction
- Macbeth: Thou art too like the spirit of Banquo; down.
- Thy crown does sear mine eyeballs. And thy hair,
- Thou other gold-bound brow, is like the first.
- A third is like the former. Filthy hags,
- Why do you show me this?—A fourth? Start, eyes!
- What, will the line stretch out to th’ crack of doom?
- Another yet? A seventh? I’ll see no more;
- And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass
- Which shows me many more; and some I see
- That twofold balls and treble sceptres carry.
- Horrible sight. Now I see ’tis true;
- For the blood-boltered Banquo smiles upon me
- And points at them for his.
- Exeunt kings and Banquo.
2. Hell Mouths and Horror: Distancing the Lands of the Dead
Limbo … should be made like a tall square tower surrounded by nets so that through the said nets one can see from the audience the souls who are inside when the Anima Christi has forced his way inside there. But before his coming the said tower shall be provided with black cloth curtains all round which will cover the said nets and prevent [the souls] from being seen until the entrance of the Anima Christi, and then the said curtains shall be cunningly pulled aside on small rings so that the people in the audience can see inside the said tower through the said nets.
- Martius: Upon his bloody finger he doth wear,
- A precious ring that lightens all this hole,
- Which like a taper in some monument
- Doth shine upon the dead man’s earthly cheeks
- And shows the ragged entrails of this pit.
- So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus
- When he did lie bathed in maiden blood.
- O brother, help me with thy fainting hand—
- If fear hath made me faint, as me it hath—
- Out of this foul devouring receptacle,
- As hateful as Cocytus’ misty mouth.
3. ‘Playing’ for Time: The Ghost, the Heath, and Purgatorial Futures in the Present
- Ghost: I am thy father’s spirit,
- Doomed for a certain time to walk the night
- And for the day confined to fast in fires
- Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
- Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
- To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
- I could tell a tale unfold whose lightest word
- Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
- Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
- Thy knotted and combined locks to part
- And each peculiar hair stand on end
- Like quills upon the fearful porcupine—
- But this eternal blazon must not be
- To ears of flesh and blood.
- Ghost: Thus I was sleeping by a brother’s hand
- Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,
- Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
- Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,
- No reckoning made but sent to my account
- With all my imperfections on my head
- O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!
- Everyman: Alas, shall I have no longer respite?
- I may say Deth giveth no warninge!
- To thinke on the[e], it maketh my herte seke,
- For all unredy is my boke of rekeninge.
- But twelve yere and I might have abidinge,
- My countinge-boke I wolde make so clere
- That my rekeninge I sholde not nede to fere.
- Wherefore, Deth, I praye the[e], for Goddes mercy,
- Spare me till I be provided of remedy!
- Dethe: The[e] availeth not to crye, wepe, and praye;
- But hast[e] the[e] lightly that thou were gone that journaye,
- And preve thy frendes if thou can;
- For, wete thou well, the tide abideth no man,
- And in the worlde eche livinge creature
- For Adams sinne must die of nature.
- Faustus: Ah, Faustus,
- Now thou hast but one bare hour to live,
- And then you must be damned perpetually.
- Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
- That time may cease and midnight never come!
- Fair nature’s eye, rise again, and make
- Perpetual day, or let this hour be but
- A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
- That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
- O lente, lente currite noctis equi!
- The stars move still; time runs, the clock will strike;
- The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
- Othello: By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in’s [Cassio’s] hand!
- O perjured woman, thou dost stone my heart
- And makest me call what I intend to do
- A murder, which I thought a sacrifice!
- Banquo: Give us a light there, ho!
- 2. Murderer: Then ’tis he: the rest,
- That are within the note of expectation,
- Already are i’th’ court.
- 1. Murderer: His horses go about.
- 3. Murderer: Almost a mile; but he does usually,
- So all men do, from hence to the palace gate
- Make it their walk.Enter BANQUO and FLEANCE, with a torch.
- 2. Murderer: A light, a light.
- 3. Murderer: ’Tis he.
- 1. Murderer: Stand to’t.
- Banquo: It will be rain tonight.
- 1. Murderer: Let it come down.
- Banquo: O treachery!
- [The Murderers attack. First Murderer strikes out the light.]
- Fly, good Fleance, fly fly, fly.
- Thou mayst revenge—Exeunt Fleance.
- O slave! [Dies.]
4. Outer Regions as Supernatural Spaces in Romance and Drama
- Þenne gyrdeȝ he to Gryngolet & Þhe rake
- Schowueȝ in bi schore at a schaȝe syde,
- Rideȝ Þurȝ Þe roȝe bonk ryȝt to Þe dale;
- & Þenne he wayted hym aboute, & wylde hit him Þoȝt,
- & seȝe no sygne of resette bisydeȝ nowhere,
- Bot hyȝe bonkkȝ & brent vpon boÞe halue,
- & ruȝe knokled knarreȝ with korned stoneȝ;
- Þe skweȝ of Þe scowtes skayned hym Þoȝt.
- Þenne he houed & with-hylde his hors at Þat tyde,
- & ofte chaunged his cher Þe chapel to seche;
- He seȝ non suche in no syde, & selly hym poȝt,
- Saue a lyttel on a launde, a lawe as hit we[re],
- A balȝ berȝ bi a bonke Þe brymme by-syde,
- Bi a forȝ of a flode Þat ferked Þere.
[Then he puts the spurs to Gryngolet, and enters on the path. Following the line of a cliff at the edge of a grove, he rode down the rugged slope towards the dale. Then he looked about him, and it seemed to him that there was nothing that resembled a building in the vicinity. There were high and steep slopes on either side, and rough knobbly crags with gnarled stones, and the jutting rocks seemed to him to scrape the skies. Then he paused and held back his horse at that place, and often looked this way and that in search of the chapel. He saw no such chapel, here, and it seemed strange to him. But there was a mound within a clearing, the bulge of a naked hill [barrow] on the slope beside the water’s edge by the channel of a [different] stream that ran there.]
- ‘Nowe i-wysse’, quoÞ Wowayan [Gawain], ‘wysty is here;
- Þis oritore is vgly, with erbeȝ ouer-growen;
- Wel bisemeȝ Þe wyȝe wruxled in grene,
- Dele here his deuocioun on Þe deueleȝ wyse’.
[‘It is certain’, said Gawain, ‘that desolation is here, since this oratory is sinister and overgrown with weeds. It well befits the man in green to deal here his devotion to the devil’s ways’.]
- But, full of fire and greedy hardiment,
- The youthfull Knight could not for ought be staide;
- But forth unto the darksom hole he went,
- And looked in: his glistring armour made
- A little glooming light, much like a shade;
- By which he saw the ugly monster plaine,
- Halfe like a serpent horribly displaide,
- But th’other halfe did womans shape retaine,
- Most lothsom, filthie, foul, and full of vile disdaine.
- Valentine: And why not death, rather than living torment?
- To die is to be banished from myself,
- And Silvia is myself; banished from her
- In self from self—a deadly banishment.
- What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?
- What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?
- Unless it be to think that she is by
- And feed on the shadow of her perfection.
- Except I be by Silvia in the night,
- There is no music in the nightingale,
- Unless I look on Silvia in the day,
- There is no day for me to look upon.
- She is my essence, and I leave to be
- If I be not by her fair influence
- Fostered, illumined, cherished, kept alive.
- I fly not death to fly this deadly doom:
- Tarry I here, but I attend on death,
- But fly I hence, I fly away from life.
- Tamora: Have I not reason, think you, to look pale?
- These two have ’ticed me hither to this place:
- A barren detested vale you see it is;
- The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,
- O’ercome with moss and baleful mistletoe;
- Here never shines the sun, here nothing breeds
- Unless the nightly owl or fatal raven.
- And when they showed me this abhorred pit,
- They told me here at dead time of the night
- A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,
- Ten thousand swelling toads, as many urchins,
- Would make such fearful and confused cries
- As any mortal body hearing it
- Should straight fall mad, or else die suddenly.
- No sooner had they told me this hellish tale,
- But straight they told me they would bind me here
- Unto the body of a dismal yew
- And leave me to this horrible death.
- And then they called me foul adulteress,
- Lascivious Goth, and all the bitterest terms
- That ever ear did hear to such effect.
- Romeo: ’Tis torture and not mercy. Heaven is here,
- Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog
- And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
- Lives here in heaven and may look upon her,
- But Romeo may not. More validity,
- More vulnerable state, more courtship lives
- In carrion flies than Romeo. They may seize
- On the whole of dear Juliet’s hand
- And steal immortal blessing on her lips,
- Who even in pure and vestal modesty
- Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.
- But Romeo may not, he is banished.
- Flies may do this, but from this I must fly;
- They are free men, but I am banished.
- And sayst thou that exile is not death?
- Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,
- No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean,
- But ‘banished’ to kill me? Banished!
- O Friar, the damned use that word in hell;
- Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart,
- Being a divine, a ghostly confessor,
- A sin absolver, and my friend professed,
- To mangle me with that word ‘banished’?
5. Conclusions
Funding
Conflicts of Interest
1 | An Act number (roman numeral), scene number (roman numeral), and line numbers form all citations to dramatic text in this article and, when a stage direction forms part of the extract, ‘SD’ completes the citation, following the line numbers. |
2 | Line numbers of the poem alone form those citations that follow extracts of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. |
3 | A book number (roman numerals), a canto number (roman numerals) and a verse number form all citations to Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. |
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Rendall, E.B.M. Temporal Instability, Wildernesses, and the Otherworld in Early Modern Drama. Literature 2022, 2, 329-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2040027
Rendall EBM. Temporal Instability, Wildernesses, and the Otherworld in Early Modern Drama. Literature. 2022; 2(4):329-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2040027
Chicago/Turabian StyleRendall, Edward B. M. 2022. "Temporal Instability, Wildernesses, and the Otherworld in Early Modern Drama" Literature 2, no. 4: 329-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2040027
APA StyleRendall, E. B. M. (2022). Temporal Instability, Wildernesses, and the Otherworld in Early Modern Drama. Literature, 2(4), 329-341. https://doi.org/10.3390/literature2040027