I-YOUniverse

Part 2

What light does Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra shine on infidelity? As I wrote Part 1, news broke of John Edwards’ affair.

Grief

I’m finding this piece more difficult to write than I thought. I guess because I’m grieving.

• Grieving for America. Right now we need all the good ideas and the best people we can find. We can’t afford the loss of any, especially people like John and Elizabeth Edwards who inspired us and who were lifting up the needs of the poor.
• Grieving for the Edwards family. She has cancer to deal with. Now this. “Anguish” is the word one news blog used. And for Edwards himself; the blog quoted one democratic insider who said, “He’s finished.”

The prophet Jeremiah wrote in the same mood:

O that my head were a spring of water,
and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
     for the slain of my poor people! …
For they are all adulterers,
     a band of traitors.

Jer 9:1-2 (NRSV)

Here the adultery is both literal and figurative, representing the people’s unfaithfulness to God.

The grief in the play is nowhere clearer than when Antony sees his friends after abandoning his fleet and pursuing Cleopatra from the battle (Act 3, Scene 11). “I have lost my way forever,” he says. When Cleopatra shows up, he cries, “No, no, no, no, no.” Nothing will ever be the same.

Sin

I almost hate to use the term, because it’s a favorite of politicians who point fingers at others while secretly carrying on affairs of their own. But no other word will do.

We see here the deceitfulness of sin. While Mark Antony acknowledges he must leave Cleopatra because  the affair is causing “ten thousand harms more than I know,” he continues it. He seeks death like a bridegroom leaping into his lover’s arms. His servant’s name, ironically, is Eros, the word for self-gratifying love; he repeatedly calls “Eros!” in his final scenes.

Most teens believe they’re invulnerable, contrary to all evidence; politicians who have affairs believe they’re the exception, the one who won’t be caught. We also teach our politicians they’re special. Their every need is catered to, in the bubble of privilege they live in. So why shouldn’t they gratify sexual impulses?

Meanwhile, sin continues its silent certain destruction of life. Antony compares himself to the shape of a bear or lion in the clouds, that vanishes in a moment: “Here I am Antony: yet cannot hold this visible shape” (4.14.)

Sin leads us to violate our own best nature, to participate in self-destruction.

John Edwards, like Mark Antony and all of us, is responsible for his sins. But there is a communal aspect here as well. For, all of us are responsible for the kind of society we live in. We’re responsible for the sex-drenched advertizing, television, and movies that consume us.

The modesty my Mother believed in strikes us as comical, quaint, maybe puritanical. Perhaps a little. But our sexual openness has gone way too far.

Spiritually, sex is like fire, one of the primal energies. In the hearth it provides warmth. In the stove it cooks our food. But fire, out of such bounds, burns down the house. The Commandment “Thou shalt not commit adultery” interpreted by Jesus’ emphasis on the lustful look and heart shows us where the boundary is. When we find sex outside the boundaries of marriage and monogamous lifelong relationships, we don’t have to wonder, analyze.

The song says, “It can’t be wrong, when it feels so right.” But it is wrong, no matter how it feels; it’s destroying us and all that we love.

Is this the Felix Culpa?

The corny words of scripture turn out to be right on the money: “the wages of sin is death” Romans 6.23.

And the verse goes on: “But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” My hope is that this is a personal turning point for John Edwards, the felix culpa, the sin which God uses to redeem. Though he may never be the presidential hopeful he was, God still has plans for him.

And for the rest of us sinners, too.

Part 1

It’s been awhile since I spent serious time with Shakespeare, which I find cleansing, rigorous—aerobic exercise for mind and spirit. So I recently tackled Antony and Cleopatra, reading and re-reading.

Then I hear the newsbyte that John Edwards has had an affair. Damn! He was talking about the poor, like no other presidential candidate.

Is this getting old, or what? Maybe if we can find a public official who hasn’t had an affair, he or she should get the headline.

Having read John 8, I’m not one to throw stones. But I’d like to understand what’s going on here. That’s why we read classics like Shakespeare, isn’t it, to understand the human condition?

So we begin. Married to Fulvia, later to Octavia, Mark Antony is having the time of his life—with Cleopatra. He says to her:

There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch / Without some pleasure now. 1.1.46-47

Sounds like a guy planning his retirement, doesn’t he?

At the same time, he recognizes that the affair is doing damage:

I must from this enchanting queen break off:
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch. 1.2.127-129

Of course, he doesn’t do it.

During the decisive battle at Actium, Cleopatra flees and, abandoning his forces, Antony follows her. His soldier Scarus says:

We’ve kiss’d away / Kingdoms 3.10.7-8

I never saw an action of such shame;
Experience, manhood, honour, ne’er before
Did violate so itself. 3.10.22-24

Antony confesses,

…  I / Have lost my way forever. 3.11.3-4

He dismisses his soldiers, rejecting their arguments that they should stay with him. Realizing he has reduced himself to a thing, he says:

 Let that be left / Which leaves itself. 3.11.19-20 

He confronts Cleopatra with her total control over him:

 O’er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou knew’st, and that
Thy beck might from the bidding of the gods
Command me. 3.11.59-61 

Just as a cloud “that’s dragonish, / a vapour sometime like a bear or lion,” vanishes before his eyes, he is disappearing:

Even with a thought
The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct
As water is in water. 4.14.11-13

Next, he calls on his servant Eros to kill him. Instead, Eros himself suicides. Antony fumbles, wounding himself but remaining alive for yet one more love scene with Cleopatra. Rather than being taken to Rome as a prisoner, Cleopatra has servants bring in vipers to bite her to death.

Shakespeare paints a fascinating, indepth portrait of persons who are poisonous for each other.

In Part 2, I’ll share my own reflections.