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Dryden's Exemplary Drama
A Study of: The Indian Queen, The Conquest of Granada, Aureng-Zebe, All for Love, Oedipus, and Don Sebastian
by Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com, www.samizdat.com
written as a senior thesis, as an English major at Yale, course = English
91, May 1, 1969, advisor: Eugene Waith
edited for posting on the Web in October 2001 to April 2002
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim electronic copies of
this essay for non-commercial purposes provided the copyright notice and
this permission notice are preserved on all copies. This essay has not yet
been published in paper form. You can contact the author directly: Richard
Seltzer, PO Box 161, West Roxbury, MA 02132. seltzer@samizdat.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Preface
* Introduction
* The Indian Emperor or the Conquest of Mexico
* Almanzor and Almahide or the Conquest of Granada
* Aureng-Zebe
* The Changing Hero
* All for Love or The World Well Lost
* Oedipus
* Footnotes
* Other Critical Works Consulted
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Preface
"Certain it is that Nature is the same, and Man is the same: He
loves, grieves, hates, envies, has the same affections and
passions in both places, and the same springs that give them
motion. What mov'd pity there will here also produce the same
effect." (Thomas Rymer, Tragedies of the Last Age)1
By "here" Rymer means England, 1678. By "there" he means Athens c. 400 B.C.
His contention is that since the nature of man is constant, the emotional
response that a work of art produces on a man is an absolute scale by which
to judge the work. In other words, a play that moved audiences in 400 B.C.
should "produce the same effect" in 1678 or 1969, for "Man is the same".
Therefore, rules can be discovered for how to produce desired effects,
rules that would apply at all places and all times. These rules could then
be used as guides for artists and tools for the critic.
Rymer had to explain why the plays of Fletcher, about which he was
primarily writing, were extremely popular in 1678 despite the fact that
they did not follow Aristotle's rules. Rymer contended that it was not the
plays as Fletcher wrote them that pleased audiences, but rather that they
pleased "upon account of Machines, actors, Dancers, and circumstances which
are merely accidental to the Tragedy." (Spingarn, II, 184).
An over-emphasis on the rules leads to absurdities of critical judgment,
leads on away from the initial assumption that a play should be judged on
the basis of the effects it produces. A poor playwright strictly following
the rules can produce a poor play, and a Shakespeare breaking those same
rules can produce a great play. From this at least two conclusions can be
drawn:
* Shakespeare wrote great plays despite the fact that he broke the
rules; but they would have been even better had he followed the rules.
* The greatness of his plays is due to an organic, rather than a formal
unity; their greatness would be impaired by any attempt to revise them
to make them follow formal rules.
Restoration dramatists and critics favored the first conclusion. Modern
critics favor the second.
Except for that conclusion in favor of rules, many would now agree with
Rhyme's assumptions. For over two hundred years, Dryden's dramas have not
been popular. They fail to move audiences. The conclusion arrived at is
that their ephemeral popularity, depended like many Broadway hits, on
"Machines, actors, Dancers, and circumstances where are merely accidental
to the Tragedy."
Dryden is quite frequently in agreement with Rymer. In his prefaces, he
discusses how well he has adhered to the rules and where a rule is broken,
he explains what beauty or delight has been gained at the rule's expense.
His critical opinions were in continual flux: he broke the rules with
greater audacity in his early plays than in his later ones. But he seems to
have taken the rules into account as guidelines throughout his career. He
revised The Tempest (1667) along with Davenant, and Antony and Cleopatra
(1677) and Troilus and Cressida (1679) on his own, bringing them into
greater accord with the rules. However, Dryden disagreed with one of
Rymer's fundamental assumptions:
21) And one reason of that success [of Rollo, A King and No King,
and The Maid's Tragedy in particular, and, in general, of plays
which depart from the rules] is, in my opinion, this, that
Shakespeare and Fletcher have written to the genius of the age
and nation in which they lived; for tho' nature, as he objects,
is the same in all places and reason too the same, yet the
climate, the age, the dispositions of the people to whom a poet
writes may be so different that what pleased the Greeks would not
satisfy an English audience.
22) And if they proceeded upon a foundation of truer reason to
please the Athenians than Shakespeare and Fletcher to please the
English, it only shows that the Athenians were a more judicious
people; but the poet's business is certainly to please the
audience. ("Heads to an Answer to Rymer", 1677)2
Dryden amended the rules to fit his conception of the tastes of his
audience. In particular, he believed that the English of his day had a
propensity for variety and he frequently sacrifices unities for variety. In
1678 between All for Love (1677) and Troilus and Cressida (1679), Dryden
revised Oedipus (the play Aristotle used a the model tragedy), giving it
greater variety.
This paper is in basic agreement with Dryden's notion of shifting tastes.
Though the nature of man does not change, what man expects to find in a
work of art does change. A work that does not operate in accord with the
current conception of what is good literature will be considered bad
literature until popular taste shifts again in its favor.
Metaphysical poetry went through a relatively recent resurrection, and it
is conceivable that Dryden's drama may one day have similar good fortune.
But despite shifts in taste, the nature of man has remained constant within
the range of written history. Therefore, if one can determine the
contemporary assumptions on which Dryden's dramas are based, it should be
possible to acquire a taste for these dramas.
We will try to identify those assumptions by considering criticisms and
justifications of drama in Dryden's time, and the nature of the audience
Dryden tried to please. Then we will consider in detail The Indian Emperor
(1665), The Conquest of Granada (1670), Aureng-Zebe (1675), All for Love
(1677), Oedipus (1678), and Don Sebastian (1689), focusing attention on
their structure, trying to establish a basis for appreciating such works
and judging their merit on their own terms.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Perhaps the Parson stretch'd a point too far,
when with our Theatres he wag'd a War.
-- Epilogue to Vanbrugh's The Pilgrim, 17003
He therefore that undertakes an Heroick Poem, which is to exhibit
a venerable and amiable Image of Heroick vertue, must not only be
the Poet, to place and connect, but also the Philosopher, to
furnish and square his matter, that is, to make both Body and
Soul, colour and shadow of his Poem out of his own Store: which
how well you have performed I am now considering.
-- Thomas Hobbes, "Answer to Davenant's Preface to Gondibert,
1650, in Spingarn, II, 60
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
In the mid-seventeeth century, the assumptions on which heroic and tragic
drama were based seem to have been shaped as a response to criticisms from
science and religion. The differences with science were settled by a sort
of treaty defining spheres of interest and activity. The differences with
religion were never satisfactorily settled, drama allying itself with the
Court as opposed to the Puritan part in self-defense.
In his History of the Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural
Knowledge (1667), Thomas Sprat outlined the purpose of the Society:
"... to make faithful Records, of all the Works of Nature, or
Art, which can come within their reach: that so the present Age,
and posterity, may be able to put a mark mark on the Errors,
which have been strengthened by long prescription: to restore the
Truths, that have lain neglected: to push on these, which are
already known, to more various uses: and to make a way more
passable, to what remains unreveal'd. This is the compass of
their Design. And to accomplish this, they have indeavor'd, to
separate the knowledge of Nature, from the colours of Rhetorick,
the devices of Fancy, or the delightful deceit of Fables." 4
In The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic License (1677),
Dryden, who ws a charter member of the Society, was careful to distinguish
between what is literally real and the world described in poetry (of which
dramatic poetry is a subset):
"But how are poetical fictions, how are hippocentaurs and
chimeras, or how are angels and immaterial substances to be
imaged; which, some of them, are things quite out of nature;
others, such whereof we can have no notion? This is the last
refuge of our adversaries; and more than any of them have yet had
the wit to object against us. The answer is easy to the first
part of it; the fiction of some beings which are not in nature
(second notions, as the logicians call them) has been founded on
the conjunction of two natures, which have a real separate
being... And poets may be allowed the like liberty for describing
things which really exist not, if they are founded on popular
belief." (Ker, I 186-187) 5
In general, Dryden says of poetry:
"You are not obliged, as in History, to a literal belief of what
the poet says; but you are pleased with the image, without being
cozened by the fiction." (Ker, I, 185)
In other words, poetry not only makes no pretense of literal reality, but
also attempts "something more excellent." By this is not meant just reality
artistically ordered, or events that though they never did happen could
have happened. Reality is not just imitated in poetry, but rather is
morally heightened. The poet is in the position of teacher rather than
perceiver and recorder. He not only indicates what "may" be done, but also
"teaches... what ought to be done". What is essential is not the seeming
reality of the event recorded, but rather the moral basis by which the poem
is ordered.
William Prynne's Histriomastrix: or the Actor's Tragedie 6 (1633) is a
compendium of Puritan arguments on the immorality of drama. This work seems
to have had a dual purpose:
* To awaken true Believers to the moral dangers of attending, or acting
in plays;
* To convince those in power that it is to the benefit of the State to
suppress drama, and if that should fail, to discredit a ruling power
that sanctioned drama.
He quoted Stephen Gosson's comment in The School of Abuse (1578):
"As long as we know our selves to be flesh beholding those
examples in Theaters which are incident to flesh, we are taught
by other men's examples how to fall. And they that come honest to
a Play may depart infected." (pp. 360-361)
Later, Prynne himself said:
"It is evident that by Saint Augustine's resolution: that
State-playes incurably vitiate and desperately corrupt, if not
subvert mens manners; and so bring ruine to the State that
suffers them... (p. 475)
Men "are taught by other mens examples," and the influence of the bad
examples in drama are of such significance that "the State that suffers
them" is brought to ruin. The theater audience is described as utterly
depraved:
What are they but the very filth, the crosse, the scumme of the
Societies and places where they live? the very Mothes, the Drones
and Cankerwormes of the Common-weale? the shame and blemish of
Religion? the most putred, scandalous, noxious, and degenerate
branches both of Church and State, which should be spued out, be
lopped off from both, had they their just demerits?" (p. 145)
This is Prynne's ideal conception of a theater audience; for if the State
tolerates drama, only the most depraved should attend.
"... it is most evident: that it hath been alwayes a most
infamous thing for Kings and Emperours to act Playes or Masques
either in private or publike; or to sing, or dance upon a Stage
or theatre; or to delight in Playes and Actors." (p. 858)
Since Charles I and Henrietta Maria did in fact take part in Masques and
"delight in Playes", Prynne's remarks were considered seditious. He was
sent to the Tower and had part of his ears lopped off. 7
The Puritans, enemies of both Court and Stage, closed the theaters from
1642 to 1660. In exile in Paris, Davenant, playwright and author of the
last of the Caroline masques, formulated a theory of the proper relation
between Court and poetry, a theory which seems in direct response to
criticisms like Prynne's.
Davenant quotes Plato's Republic:
"If any Man, having ability to imitate what he pleases, imitate
in his Poem both good and evil, let him be reverenc'd as a sacred
and admirable, and pleasant Person; but be it likewise known, he
must have no place in our Common-wealth. And yet before his
banishment he allows him the honor of a Diadem, and sweet Odours
to anoint his head; and afterwards says: Let us make use of more
profitable, though more severe and less pleasant Poets, who can
imitate that which is for the honor and benefit of the
Common-wealth." (Preface to Gondibert, 1650, Spingarn, II, p. 52)
If man learns by example, then the examples in poetry should be primarily
"good". The good examples of such a "more severe" poetry could be of great
significance in service to the State. He spends the bulk of his essay
examining the "Four chief aids of Government":
"Thus we have first observ'd the Four chief aids of Government:
Religion, Armes, Policy, and Law, defectively apply'd, and then
we have found them weak by an emulous war amongst themselves: it
follows next we should introduce to strengthen those principal
aids (still making the people our direct object) some collateral
help, which I will safely presume to consist in Poesy."
(Spingarn, II, p. 44)
His high hopes are based on the limited appeal of this sort of writing,
that it is directed specifically at a courtly audience.
"I may now believe I have usefully taken from the Courts and
Camps the patterns of such as will be fit to be imitated by the
most necessary men; and the most necessary men are those who
become principall by prerogative of blood, which is seldom
unassisted with education, or by greatnesse of minde which in
exact definition is Vertue. The common crowd, of whom we are
hopelesse, we desert, being rather to be corrected by laws, where
precept is accompanied with punishment, then to be taught by
Poesy; for few have arriv'd at the skill of Orpheus or at his
good fortune, whom we may suppose to have met with extraordinary
Grecian Beasts, when so successfully he reclaim'd them with his
Harp. Nor is it needfull that Heroick Poesy should be levell'd to
the reach of Common men: for if the examples it presents prevail
upon their Chiefs, the delight of IMitation (which we hope we
have prov'd to be as effectuall to good as to evil) will rectify,
by the rules which those Chiefs establish of their own lives, the
lives of all that behold them; for the example of life doth as
much surpasse the force of Precept as Life doth exceed Death."
(Spingarn, II, p. 14)
Davenant agrees with Prynne as to the depravity of the "common crowd".
Therefore, he argues, poetry should be addressed to the select few who are
by education or "Vertue" capable of learning by poetic examples. Since
these select few are in fact, he assumes, "those who become principall by
prerogative of blood"; and since, by nature, the higher man is imitated by
the lower, examples of "vertue" would be dispersed throughout society by
the powerful examples of life provided by the Court. Since these same
select few are at the same time the "most necessary men" in the state,
directly addressing moral instruction at them is the most efficient method
of improving the State. Since Courts are already the most morally elevated
section of society, it is from "Courts and Camps" that the poet takes the
"patterns" of his exemplars.
Hobbes, in his answer to Davenant's preface, characterizes "Court, City,
and Country" in such a way that the social differences are also moral
differences, with the Court as the most morally elevated section of
society. He divides poetry into genres on the basis of which of these
"three Regions of mankinde" serves the poet as pattern for his characters.
"As Philosophers have divided the Universe, their subject, into
three Regions: Celestiall, Aeriall, and Terrestriall, so the
Poets (whose worke it is, by imitating humane life in delightful
and measur'd lines, to avert men from vice and incline them to
vertuous and honorable actions) have lodg'd themselves in the
three Regions of mankinde: Court, City, and Country,
correspondent in some proportion to those three Regions of the
World. For, there is in Princes and men of conspicuous power,
anciently called Heroes, a lustre and influence upon the rest of
men resembling that of the Heavens; and an insincereness,
inconstancy, and troublesome humor of those that dwell in
populous Cities, lie the mobility, blustring, and impurity of the
Aire; and a plainness, and though dull, yet a nutritive faculty
in rurall people, that endures a comparison wit the Earth they
labour.
"From hence have proceeded three sorts of Poesy: Heroique,
Scommatique, and Pastorall. Every one of these is distinguished
again in the manner of Representation, which sometimes is
Narrative, wherein the Poet himself relateth, and sometimes
Dramatique, as when the persons are every one adorned and brought
upon the Theater to speak and act their own parts. There is
therefore neither more nor less than six sorts of Poesy. For the
Heroique Poem narrative, such as is yours [i.e., Davenant's
Gondibert] is called an Epique Poem. The Heroique Poem Dramatique
is Tragedy. The Scommatique Narrative is Satyre, Dramatique is
Comedy. The Pastorall narrative is called simply Pastorall,
anciently Bucolique; the same Dramatique, Pastorall Comedy. The
Figure therefore of an Epique Poem and of a Tragedy ought to be
the same, for they differ no more but in that they are pronounced
by one or many Persons." (Spingarn, II, p. 54-55)
Heroic poems and plays are to use Heroes of the Court, "Princes and men of
conspicuous power" as patterns for their dramatic Heroes. These dramatic
Heroes are in turn designed to delight and instruct the same group of Court
Heroes who served as models.
In his dedication to the Siege of Rhodes Davenant sums up his effort, as a
response to religious criticism, to ennoble drama:
Dramatic poetry meets with the same persecution now, from such who
esteem themselves the most rein'd and civil, as it ever did from the
barbarous. And yet whilst those virtuous enemies deny Heroic Plays to
the gentry, they entertain the people with a seditious Farce of their
won counterfeit gravity. But I hope you will not be unwilling to
receive (in this poetical dress) neither the beieg'd nor the
besiegers, since they come without their vices: for as others have
purg'd the stage from corruptions of the art of the drama, so I have
endeavour'd to cleanse it from corruptions of manners; nor have I
wanted to care to render the ideas of greatness and virtue pleasing
and familiar." 8
In his essay "Of Heroique Playes" (1672), (the Preface to The Conquest of
Granada), Dryden cites Davenant's Siege of Rhodes as the forerunner of the
English heroic play, and discusses Davenant's "Preface to Gondibert" (1650)
along with Hobbes' response to that preface. He agrees with Davenant and
Hobbes as to the nature and function of this new, "more severe",
court-oriented drama:
"... Poets, while they imitate, instruct. The feign'd Heroe inflames
the true; and the dead vertue animates the living. Since, therefore,
the world is govern'd by precept and Example; and both these can only
have influence from those persons who are above us, that kind of Poesy
which excites to vertue the greatest men, is of greatest use to human
kind." (p. 15)
"... an Heroick Play ought to be an imitation, in little of an Heroick
Poem." (p. 20)
The relation between Court and Poetry which Davenant and Hobbes envisioned
in theory was partially realized in the years soon after the REstoration.
Court audiences attended Dryden's dramas in which Heroes with "greatnesse
of minde" performed in exemplary fashion. In his dedications, Dryden
addressed members of the Court as modern-day Heroes, as the patterns he
used for his dramatic Heroes. Waith considers the relationship between the
playwright and his audience as seen in these dedications:
"The first of these heroic dedications makes a noteworthy point: "The
favour which heroic plays have lately found upon our theatres, has
been wholly derived to them from the countenance and approbation they
have received at court. The most eminent persons for wit and honour in
the royal circles having so far owned them, that they have judged no
way so fit as verse to entertain a noble audience, or to express a
noble passion..." (Indian Emperor II, 285). There is nothing new in
the idea that Dryden addressed his plays to a courtly audience, but
not enough has been made of the significance of his emphasis upon the
fitness of the plays for his audience... Ideally, the spectators in
the theater would also possess the heroic inclinations which he
ascribes to his patrons, and in fact they may often have been as nobly
inclined as the actual persons to whom Dryden dedicated the plays. As
to the readers, the dedication shows them clearly enough what
sentiments they are expect to have, and puts them in the position of
measuring up to the author's expectations. In the dedications, then,
Dryden is creating an ideal audience. The noble characters there, as
we have seen, are almost as much his creations as are the heroes of
this plays, and all are cut from the same cloth." 9
Thus the dedications are not mere flattery, and the examples of Virtue on
the Stage are not mere moral abstractions with no connection with the
audience; rather, both the dedications and the plays themselves put the
audience "in the position of measuring up as to the author's expectations".
Dryden makes explicit this logic behind his idealized portraits of court
figures in his poem "To His Sacred Majesty: A Panegyric on His Coronation."
(1661):
"No promise can oblige a price so much
Still to be good, as long as have been such.
A noble emulation heats our breast,
And your own fame now robs you of your rest:
Good actions still must be maintain'd with good,
As bodies nourish'd with resembling food." (1. 73-78) 10
Heroic drama provided the Court with idealized models of themselves against
which they could compare their actual conduct. Or, using Rymer's words,
heroic drama "does not inform us what has been done" by the Court, "but
teaches what may and what ought to be done."
During this brief survey of the relation between science and poetry, Court
and Stage in the Restoration, several assumptions have appeared that are
significant in the structure of the pays we are about to consider:
* There is a moral as well as a social hierarchy of man; and,
presumably, in an ideal society, these hierarchies coincide: the
common crowd is relatively depraved and the Court relatively virtuous.
* Poetry is meant to instruct as well as delight.
* Man learns by the example of those higher than himself socially and/or
morally.
* Only a Hero is capable of learning from the example of the sort of
Hero represented in these plays.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Indian Emperor or The Conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards (1665), being
the Sequel of The Indian Queen
In The Indian Emperor, the first heroic drama written solely by Dryden, we
will focus attention on the kinds of heroes, the theme, ad the relation of
the heroes to the theme. Hopefully, this examination will provide a basis
for considering Dryden's later and more dramatically successful plays.
We are presented with three heroic characters: Montezuma, Cortez, and
Guyomar. Montezuma was the principal hero of The Indian Queen, (1664, by
Sir Robert Howard and Dryden), the play of which The Indian Emperor is the
sequel. In the twenty years which Dryden tells us have intervened,
Montezuma has become an old emperor, similar to the old Ynca he once
opposed. Cortez in many ways resembles the Montezuma of the earlier play.
Guyomar, son of Montezuma, is a virtuous admiring friend of Cortez.
The theme is first stated in the opening scene. The "pleasant Indian
Country" inspires Cortez with hopes of a new life in this new world:
On what new Happy Climate are we thrown,
So long kept secret, and so lately known?
As if our old world modestly withdrew,
and here, in private, had brought forth a new!
Vasquez sounds a skeptical note in reply to Cortez' ecstasy:
Corn, Wine and Oyl are wanting to this Ground,
In which our Countries fruitfully abound:
... all untaught and salvage does appear.
Cortez responds with a surprisingly modern anthropological attitude:
Wild and untaught are Terms which we alone
Invent, for fashions differing from our own...
While he recognizes that there are alternative life styles, that those of
his native land and time are not necessarily the best, he hopes that those
he finds here will somehow be closer to "Nature"; that if there are natural
laws for the formation of the best society, perhaps here men are closer to
them than in Europe. On the one hand he recognizes that the people here
have a history, tradition, culture, institutions of their own; on the other
hand, he hopes that this land is in some sense "new", uncorrupted, that
"all their Customs are by Nature wrought".
Pizarro points out that Spain is far from being Paradise:
In Spain our Springs, like Old Mens children, be
Decay'd and wither'd from their Infancy:
No kindly Showers fall on our barren earth
To hatch the seasons in a timely birth.
The recurrent imagery is of birth. They want to be reborn, to start afresh.
Spain is decayed, is tied too tightly to the past. There no true birth is
possible.
Cortez is disillusioned with the Old World and so seeks the New and hopes
to find it, compared with Spain, a sort of Paradise:
...The Sun no Climat does so gladly see:
When forc'd from hence, to view your parts, he mourns;
Takes little journies, and makes quick returns.
Vasquez, who had begun as a critic of this image of Paradise, had seen the
land as barren and "salvage" in contrast to Spain, now embraces the
"dreams":
Methinks we walk in dreams of fairy Land,
Where golden Ore lies mixt with common sand;
Each downfal of a flood the Mountains pour
From their rich bowels rolls a silver shower.
Disillusioned with Europe, finding themselves in a new "pleasant" land,
they emphasize the newness of the place and characterize it as Paradise.
But the Paradise described by Vasquez is a European Paradise, one of gold
and silver: metals which here are considered worthless. The land is not in
and of itself "new": it has existed as long as Europe. It is "new" to this
handful of European soldiers. What attracts them does so in the context of
European values. They wish to abandon the old and embrace the new, but
their urge to do so is derived from the old.
Cortez: Heaven from all ages wisely did provide
This wealth, and for the bravest Nation hide,
Who with four hundred foot, and forty horse,
Dare boldly go a New found World to force.
Cortez commands only "four hundred foot, and forty horse." In Europe he
would be a minor officer, but here he is the "Kings Embassadour", the
representative of the old world to the new, and hopes to be Conqueror of
Mexico. They choose to see themselves in an ideal new world, ideally suited
for them to start afresh and act as Heroes, but as European Heroes fighting
for their Spanish king: they are tied to the old.
In the second scene, as in the first, hopes of a fresh start are combined
with reminders of the past. It is Montezuma's birthday, and the whole court
is present as he is about to crown the "Queen of all the year",
Her, among this beauteous quire,
Whose perfections you admire,
Her, who fairest does appear... (I ii, 279)
In The Indian Queen Montezuma was "the God-like Stranger" (p. 214), one who
had risen from obscure origins to the rank of general of the Peruvian army.
At the end it was discovered that he was the rightful heir of the Mexican
throne, and he married the Ynca's daughter, Orazia, thereby becoming heir
to the Peruvian throne. Zempoalla, "the usurping Indian Queen", for whom
the play was named, was usually Montezuma's enemy (he changed sides
occasionally), loved and hated him, sometimes threatened to kill him, and
ended up saving his life and committing suicide. In the sequel, twenty
years later, Orazia is dead. She and Montezuma had two sons, Odmar and
Guyomar, and one daughter, Cydaria. Zempoalla and her general Traxalla are
supposed to have "liv'd in clandestine Marriage" (p. 273) and to have had
two daughters, Almeria and Alibech, and one son, Orbellan. In this second
scene Montezuma offers his love and the title of Queen to Zempoalla's
daughter Almeria, and for a moment it seems there is a chance that the old
hatreds will be erased, a chance for a fresh start.
Montezuma: Since my Orazia's Death I have not seen
A beauty so deserving to be Queen
As fair Almeria.
Almeria (to her Brother and Sister aside):
--Sure he will not know
My birth I to that injur'd Princess owe,
Whom his hard heart not only love deny'd
But in her sufferings took an unmanly Pride.
Alibech (to her Sister): Since Montezuma will his choice renew,
In dead Orazia's room electing you,
'Twill please our Mothers Ghost that you succeed
To all the glories of her Rivals Bed.
Almeria: If new be carried to the shades below,
The Indian Queen will be more pleas'd to know
That I his scorns on him, that scorn'd her, pay.
Almeria (replies to Montezuma): Heaven may be kind, the Gods
uninjur'd live,
And crimes below cost little to forgive.
By thee, Inhumane, both my Parents dy'd;
One by thy sword, the other by thy pride. (I ii, 279-280)
The hopes of a fresh start are frustrated by ties to the Past.
In the midst of these ceremonies, in the second scene, Cortez and Montezuma
confront each other for the first time. Taxallans, allies of Cortez and
traditional enemies of the Mexicans, attack the courtly party. Cortez
rushes in to stop the fighting. His intention was to propose terms of peace
before starting any fighting; the Taxallans had broken his explicit orders.
Cortez vents his disillusionment at this "new" world which is not much
different from the "old":
Where, banish'd Vertue, wilt thou shew thy face,
If treachery infects they Indian race? (I ii, 284)
Here, as in the rest of the world, the bulk of humanity are treacherous,
unheroic.
While Cortez is being disillusioned, Montezuma is amazed by "the Stranger":
(Montezuma kneels to Cortez)
Montezuma: Patron of Mexico and god of Wars,
Sun of the Sun, and brother of the STars.
Cortez: Great Monarch, your devotion you misplace.
Montezuma: They actions show thee born of Heavenly Race,
If then thou art that cruel god whose eyes
Delight in Blood, and Humane Sacrifice,
They dreadful Altars I with Slaves will store,
And feed they nostrils with hot reeking gore;
Or if that mild and gentle god thou be,
Who dost mankind below with pity see,
With breath of incense we will glad they heart:
But if, like us, of mortal seed thou art,
Presents of choicest Fowls, and Fruits I'll bring,
And in my Realms thou shalt be more than King. (I ii, 284-285)
Montezuma, who was once himself considered "the God-like Stranger" (p.
214), now sees Cortez in that role.
Cortez informs Montezuma that he is "Like you a Man", that he is
ambassadour "From Charles the Fifth, the Worlds most Potent King." There
follows a comic passage playing on Montezuma's ignorance of Charles and
Spain and on the pretensions of both monarchs. It is absurd for either
monarch to think that to him "Heaven thinks fit/ That all the Nations of
the Earth submit..." (I ii, 285). There is a duplication of Heavens, for
each monarch claims he owes his throne to a different set of gods:
Montezuma: Your gods I slight not, but will keep my own. (I ii,
287)
Empire and Court are not unique to Spain or to Europe, but are a pattern of
pomp and pretension repeated throughout the world. Since these two courts
were previously totally ignorant of each other, the repetition was due not
to imitation but to something in the nature of man.
The scene ends with Cortez' and Cydaria's lyric mutual declaration of love.
Cydaria associates Spain with the place "That souls must go to when the
body dies" (I ii, 288). The expects Cortez to be a "new" man, to have no
past, to have come into existence when she first saw him. She cannot
understand why he cannot call off the war, why he cannot offer more
reasonable conditions. He tries to explain his duty to his king.
Cortez: If for my self to Conquer here I came,
You might perhaps my actions justly blame:
Now I am sent, and am not to dispute
My Princes orders, but to execute. (II ii, 292)
He is handcuffed by duty and would like to free himself.
Cydaria: Then all your care is for your Prince I see,
Your truth to him out-weighs your love to me;
You may so cruel to deny me prove,
But never after that, pretend to love.
Cortez: Command my Life, and I will soon obey,
To save my Honour I my Blood will pay.
Cydaria: What is this Honour that does Love controul?
Cortez: A raging Fit of Vertue in the Soul;
A painful burden, which great minds must bear,
Obtain'd with danger, and possess'd with fear. (II ii, 292)
Davenant defined "greatnesse of minde" as "vertue" and used the phrase to
characterize the Heroes of Court. Here Cortez uses the phrase "great minds"
instead of the pronoun "I": he describes his inner conflict in terms which
de-emphasize his uniqueness and instead emphasize the potential of a
certain kind of man for such a conflict. Cortez capitulates in favor of
Love, but too late: the battle has already begun. Because Duty made him
hesitate, he is no longer in control of events.
Not only is Cortez tied to the past, to Spain by duty, but also he has
loved before. Cydaria is shocked to learn of it. She had assumed that this
was the first time for both of them, that their love was something unique,
brand new.
Cydaria: Your Love! Alas! then have you Lov'd before!
Cortez: 'Tis true I lov'd, but she is Dead, she's Dead,
And I should think with her all Beauty fled,
Did not her fair resemblance live in you,
And by that Image my first Flames renew. (II ii, 297)
Cydaria is a repetition. Their love is a repetition. Another Ghost stalks
the stage: the past interferes with their present Love.
Cydaria: Ah happy Beauty, whosoe're thou art!
Though dead, thou keep'st possession of his Heart;
and art my Rival in his Memory;
Within his Memory, ah, more than so,
Thou liv'st and triumph'st ore Cydaria too.
Cortez: What strange disquiet has uncalm'd your breast,
In humane fair, to rob the dead of rest!
Poor Heart!
She slumbers deep, deep in her silent Tomb,
Let her possess in Peace that narrow Room.
Cydaria: Poor heart, he pities and bewails her death,
Some god, much hated soul, restore thy breath,
That I may kill thee, but some ease 'twill be,
I'll kill my self for but resembling thee.
The hopes of the first scene have been replaced by plagues of memory. Not
only is the present tied to the past by memory and duty, but the present
reveals itself as a repetition of the past.
Martin Clifford, a contemporary of Dryden, noted in an oft quoted passage
the similarity of many of Dryden's characters:
But I am strangely mistake if I have not seen this very Almanzor
of yours in some disguise about this town, and passing under
another name. Pr'thee tell me true, was not this Huffcap once the
Indian Emperor? and at another time did he not call himself
Maximin? Was not Lyndaraxa once caller Almeria? I mean under
Montezuma the Indian Emperor. I protest and vow they are either
the same, or so alike, that I cannot, for all my heart,
distinguish one from the other. You are therefore a strange
unconscionable thief; thou art not content to steal from others,
but dost rob thy poor wretched self too. 11
In the case of The Indian Queen and The Indian Emperor, the similarity must
have been heightened by the fact that the same actors played the similar
parts: Michael Mohun was the old emperor, fist as the Ynca then as
Montezuma; Charles Hart was the heroic stranger, first as Montezuma then as
Cortez; Ann Marshall played both Zempoalla and her daughter Almeria.
Clifford suggests that the repetition of character types is a sign of
Dryden's weakness as a dramatist. However, in the case of The Indian
Emperor the repetition is an integral part of the theme: Cortez seeks a new
world and finds an old one; the great new Conquest of Mexico follows the
same pattern as the old Indian wars; Cortez and Almeria reenact much of the
behavior of the young Montezuma and Zempoalla; the present reveals itself
as a repetition of the past. This theme reminds one of the message of
"Ecclesiastes":
What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done;
and there is nothing new under the sun. (1:9, Revised Standard
Version)
The high priest makes explicit the repetition of types, the repetition of
the old in each new birth:
... ye Immortal Souls, that once were Men,
And now resolv'd to Elements agen,
Who wait for Mortal frames in depths below,
And did before what we are doom'd to do;
Once, twice, and thrice, I wave my Sacred wand,
Ascend, ascend, ascend at my command. (II i, 291)
Shortly thereafter "The Ghost of the Indian Queen rises betwixt the Ghosts
with a Dagger in her Breast." (II i, 291) She announces to Montezuma that
she is waiting for him "below".
In The Indian Emperor the focus is on action, on The Conquest of Mexico by
the Spaniards. Cortez is recognized as heroic because of his military
exploits: "Thy actions show thee born of Heavenly Race..." (I ii, p. 284).
The contrast between Cortez and Montezuma and between the Montezuma of this
play and the younger Montezuma of The Indian Queen emphasizes the
limitations to a heroism of action. There are two major limitations to such
a heroism: 1) Duty 2) physical age.
At the first announcement of the arrival of Cortez, the high priest
declares:
Old Prophecies foretell our fall at hand,
When bearded men in floating Castles Land,
I fear it is of dire Portent. (I ii, 282)
This prophecy and the greeting of Cortez as a god add another level of
repetition to the action: he has been expected, is by his "new" actions
unwittingly fulfilling "old Prophecies". Dryden says of his faithfulness to
the historical sources, "I have neither wholly followed the story, nor
varied from it..." (p. 273). Prescott gives a fuller account of the
"Prophecies":
From some cause, not explained, Quetzalcoatl incurred the wrath
of one of the principal gods and was compelled to abandon the
country... When he reached the shores of the Mexican Gulf, he
took leave of his followers, promising that he and his
descendants would revisit them hereafter, and then, entering his
wizard skiff, made of serpents' skins, embarked on the great
ocean for the fabled land of Tlapallan. He was said to have been
tall in stature, with a white skin, long, dark hair, and a
flowing beard. The Mexicans looked confidently to the return of
the benevolent deity; and this remarkable tradition, deeply
cherished in their hearts, prepared the way, as we shall see
hereafter, for the future success of the Spaniards. 12
Cortez' similarity to a god could be explained in terms of the above
legend, but there is no such legend that applies to Montezuma who was once
also called "the God-like Stranger" (p. 214). Almanzor in The Conquest of
Granada is likewise a godlike stranger. According to Ruth Benedict in
Patterns of Culture:
All primitive tribes agree in recognizing this category of the
outsiders, those who are not only outside the provisions of the
moral code which holds within the limits of one's own people, but
who are summarily denied a place anywhere in the human scheme. 13
The most suggestive phrase in the above for our purposes is: "outside the
provisions of the moral code which holds within the limits of one's own
people." Montezuma in The Indian Queen and Almanzor in Granada are not
duty-bound to any king, have no family ties that would restrain their
actions until the final scene when their true pedigrees are discovered.
Many of their heroic exploits are dependent on this special exemption from
duty. When affronted, they can switch sides in a war and demonstrate that
the tide of the battle depends on them, that they can make and unmake
kings. Dryden justifies this independence in the case of Almanzor:
But Almanzor is tax'd with changing sides: and what tye has he on
him to the contrary? He is not born their Subject whom he serves:
and he is injur'd by them to a very high degree. (Preface to
Granada, p. 24)
Herbert Hill points out in his La Calprenede's Romances and the
Restoration Drama 14 that this switching of sides is a stock plot element
of the French romances that Dryden used as sources. He identifies Artaban
of Cleopatre, whom Dryden in his preface to Granada cites as one of the
models for Almanzor, as the model for the godlike stranger in The Indian
Queen and The Indian Emperor. Hill describes the descent of the Hero in the
first of these plays:
In Montezuma we have the type of hero identical with Oroondates
and Artaban -- invincible, matchless, of dauntless spirit and
ungovernable pride. His fortunes are those of Artaban rather than
of Oroondates: he has been raised obscurely, ignorant of his high
birth; as a free lance he goes from one side tot he other
carrying victory. (p. 64)
In The Indian Emperor:
The type of characters are the same although of surprising
descent. It is with no small astonishment that we identify our
Artaban -- hero of The Indian Queen -- with the Montezuma of
history. As soon as the machinery gets under way we discover the
real Artaban in the character of Cortez..." (pp. 65-66)
Artaban seems related to two character sin the play; and the plot, though
the main outline is derived from history, employs the stock characters and
incidents of French romance. Hill's method of schematically listing the
incidents of plays (and these plays are packed with incidents) and
comparing them with the romances makes clear both the debt to the French
and the repetitions of incidents in The Indian Queen, The Indian Emperor,
and The Conquest of Granada.
In The Indian Emperor, neither Cortez nor Montezuma is free to switch sides
or to do as he wishes. Montezuma is Emperor with all the responsibilities
of a head of state. Cortez is prevented by his duty to the Spanish king
from stopping the war or from offering more reasonable terms. At the end of
Act I, Montezuma nd Cortez are inclined to become friends and to aid one
another, but both are presented by duty.
Montezuma: -- This as a Prince,
Bound to my Peoples and the Crowns defence,
I must return, but, as a man by you
Redeem'd from death, all gratitude is due.
Cortez: It was an act my Honour bound me to,
But what I did were I again to do,
I could not do it on my Honours score,
For Love would now oblige me to do more.
Is no way left that we may yet agree?
Must I have War, yet have no Enemy? (I ii, 287)
The Heroes' hands are tied. Even Cortez, who as a god-like Stranger would
have special rights among the Mexicans, who finds himself in a land ideal
for heroism, is bound by a ruler thousands of miles away.
The other limitation, that of age, is illustrated by Montezuma. In the
twenty years since the events of The Indian Queen, his heroic qualities
have faded. He is now capable of an unheroic blind Love for Almeria, who
forces him to act contrary to his personal code of Honor. Since Cortez in
his youthful heroic acts duplicates the career of Montezuma, the
implication is that he too will become the corrupt old ruler of Mexico.
A quiet minor role is impossible for Montezuma. Activity is part of his
very nature, and there is a point beyond which further limitation makes
life impossible for him. Decisively defeated, his future dependent on the
Victor's generosity, he cannot live.
Cortez: Despair not, Sir, who know but Conquering Spain
May part of what you lost restore again?
Montezuma: No, Spaniard, know, he who to Empire born,
Lives to be less, deserves the Victors scor:
Kings and their Crowns have but one Destiny:
Power is their Life, when that expires, they die (V ii, 333)
This heroism that is dependent on activity, that ends with defeat is in
sharp contrast to the heroism of Dryden's late dramas (All for Love, Don
Sebastian, and Cleomenes) in which the play begins after the Hero's major
defeat, after the point at which Montezuma commits suicide.
With regard to pity, which becomes more significant in the later, less
active dramas, the Hero is defined as capable of pitying others, but
disdaining to solicit pity for himself. Cortez addresses Montezuma after
rescuing him from the Rack:
Ah, Father, Father, what do I endure,
To see these Wounds my pity cannot Cure.
Montezuma: Am I so low that you should pity bring,
And give an Infants Comfort to a King?
Ask these, if I have once unmanly groan'd;
Or ought have done deserving to be moan'd. (V ii, 330)
A few speeches later "Cortez kneels by Montezuma, and weeps". (V ii, 330)
Guyomar is a different sort of Hero from Cortez or Montezuma, a companion
Hero that was to become familiar in Dryden's drama. He does nothing
extraordinary, but is always honorable, carefully fulfilling his many
duties.
Guyomar is a Court Hero involved in a courtly love situation. C.S. Lewis
describes the typical courtly love situation:
The lady is allowed free choice in her acceptance or rejection of
a lover in order that she may reward the merit of the best. She
must not abuse this power in order to gratify her own fancies. 15
Alibech refuses to choose between the brothers, Odmar and Guyomar, who love
her:
If you oblige me suddenly to chuse,
The choice is made, for I must both refuse.
For to my self I owe this due regard,
Not to make love my gift, but my reward:
Time best will show whose services will last. (I ii, 282)
Later:
One I in secret Love, the other Loath;
But where I hate, my hate I will not show,
and he I love, my Love shall never know;
True worth shall gain me, that it may be said,
Desert, not fancy, once a Woman led. (II ii, 294)
This courtly love plot tends to emphasize the parallel between the Indian
court and a Spanish one, and also that between Guyomar and the Court Heroes
of the audience.
Odmar eventually proves to be a villain and Guyomar remains true; at the
end Alibech admits that it was Guyomar whom she loved all along. In the
meantime, Guyomar was obliged to follow her every command. In fact, he was
heroic to the extent that he fulfilled all his obligations, delicately
weighing them in times of conflict. His personal ambitions are modest:
after the fall of Mexico, he refuses to share the power with Cortez:
Think me not proudly rude, if I forsake
Those gifts I cannot with my Honour take:
I for my Country Fought, and would again,
Had I yet left a Country to maintain:
But since the Gods decreed ti otherwise,
I never will on its dear Ruines rise. (V ii, 336-337)
Since his father and his country are dead, he is free to follow his natural
inclination and retire quietly to the mountains with his Love.
In La Calprenede "Everything is built to heroic proportions... The level is
uniformly elevated." (Hill, p. 45) But in Guyomar we find a modest hero,
one whose exploits are dictated only the demands of duty to State, to
Father, and to Love. He is quite unlike the self-willed Cortez, who if
freed from duty would be more extravagant in his sudden shifts and brave
exploits. Guyomar admires Cortez' variety of heroism:
Son of the Sun, my Fetters cannot be
But Glorious for me, since put on by thee... (II iii, 298)
They form the sort of friendship between two kinds of Hero which was to
appear in more elaborated form in all of Dryden's later heroic dramas.
Guyomar: Brother, that Name my breast shall ever own...
[He embraces Cortez] (II iii, 299)
Cortez seeks a "new" world ideally suited for heroes, a world from the
past, a world in which man unhampered by external limitations can realize
his full active potential. Cortez finds himself and this "new" world tied
to the past and to the demands of duty. What at first appears as a unique
action leading to the start of a "new" era is seen in a larger context as
but a repetition of an old pattern. Even in the most ideal circumstances,
man is limited by his physical nature: he will grow old, will grow
physically and morally weak. In this play, Dryden explores the conflict
between the "ideal" and the "real", between man's aspirations and man's
limitations.
The characters in The Indian Emperor are active rather than reflective.
They are involved in the situation at hand. When they are forced to
recognize that that "real" situation is not the "ideal" one for which they
had hoped, they briefly state what they perceive and move on to the next
act. In other words, none of the characters is preoccupied with the "theme"
of the play of which he is a part. The explicit statements of the cyclic or
repetitive nature of events are isolated: they derive from the action, but
lead to no further actions, i.e., no one changes his pattern of behavior
because of disillusionment or because of an increased awareness of the
"meaning" of preceding events. The action illustrates the theme, is
permeated with it, but the theme makes nothing happen: the scenes could be
multiplied almost indefinitely with little change in the total effect, a
series of tableaux.
That a play is ordered round a theme, (even if it be a potentially "great"
theme), does not make the play "good" or "great". In some plays, the theme
integrates the many strands of plot to produce a powerful unified effect.
Such is not the case in The Indian Emperor. In so far as the audience is
imaginatively involved in the actions on the stage, the "theme" goes by
unnoticed. Only a detached observer sees the patterns as repeating patterns
and the hopes of the characters as unreliable. Interest in the action works
counter to interest in the theme and vice versa. Instead of action and
theme dynamically developing together, the action merely provides examples
of the theme.
Imagine Macbeth with no recognition of the nature of his own ambition and
the pattern of events in which he has entrapped himself. Imagine the play
as composed just of the events: an ambitious noble killing the king to rise
to power and in turn being killed himself. Add a few parallel plots
illustrating the rise and fall of violent, ambitious men. Then perhaps you
will get a sense of what is missing in The Indian Emperor.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Almanzor and Almahide or The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards (1670)
In "Of Heroique Playes", the Preface to Granada, Dryden acknowledges his
debt to Davenant's Siege of Rhodes and tells in what way he feels he has
surpassed Davenant:
I observ'd then, as I said, what was wanting to the perfection of
his Siege of Rhodes: which was design and variety of characters.
(p. 20)
We will focus attention on the "design and variety of characters" of
Granada.
In The Herculean Hero 16, Eugene Waith focuses on the uniqueness of
Almanzor. The other characters and plot elements function as foils for
Almanzor and his actions. "... the number of characters surrounding the
hero only serves to emphasize his uniqueness." (p. 156) Concerning Dryden's
categorization of Almahide, Ozmyn, and Benzayda as "patterns of exact
virtue" (Preface to Granada, p. 24), Waith notes "... Almanzor is
deliberately excluded from this category. The distinction Dryden is making
brings out his love for a greatness which is irregular. This is the
greatness of Antony, for whom virtue's path is too narrow (All for Love I
124-125). It is equally Almanzor's ..." (p. 154) Almahide's "love of quiet
and peace are juxtaposed to Almanzor's warlike fierceness -- her love of
order with his irregularity" (p. 161). "Almanzor rises to his faults;
Abdalla, Abdelmelech, and Zulema stoop to theirs; and where mere restrain
might make them better men, he needs only to be shown how his heroism might
be put to an even better use." (p. 164) Waith's purpose is to describe a
certain type of hero and his evolution. In the process, he has touched on a
central structural principle of The Conquest of Granada: not only does
Almanzor stand out in his heroic eccentricity, but the other characters are
of two distinct types:
* Almahide, Ozmyn, and Benzayda, successors of Guyomar with his love of
order and Honor
* Abdalla, Abdelmelech, Zulema, and their cohorts in machiavellian
chaos.
These two categories of characters, (Postponing for the moment our
consideration of Almanzor), are distinguished by different conceptions of
law or justice. For one group, law is strictly external to them, a set of
outward social forms, of mechanically binding obligations. For the others,
social law is mitigated by a rational conception of Honor and of the ideal
relationship between the laws of Honor and those of Society.
Selin and Abenamar enter the play opposed in a bitter feud. Ozmyn, son of
Abenamar, has killed Selin's son in a battle between the city's two
factions. Selin seeks revenge, and Benzayda, his daughter, humanely
intervenes on Ozmyn's part. She knows her brother was killed in a fair
fight, and she will not be a party to the unnecessary slaughter of a brave
and honorable man.
The parents' motives are those of revenge: the crudest form of social
impulse, based on a mechanical, eye-for-eye notion of justice. Benzayda has
a New Testament view of justice. She is motivated by Love, Honor, Mercy,
and a Justice that considers not only events, but also individuals involved
in events. She is quite willing (at times almost anxious) to die for Love
or Honor or her variety of Justice. When making decisions, she consciously
weighs her obligations to others and to her own principles:
When Parents their Commands unjustly lay,
Children are priviledg'd to disobey. (1, IV ii, 68)
Benzayda and Ozmyn have similar world-views. Both are obsessed with Honor.
This Honor, however, has its limitations. With their parents at war with
each other, they are continually placed in situations in which Honor makes
contradictory demands at the same time. When this occurs, they are totally
helpless and indecisions:
Benzayda: My wishes contradictions must imply;
You must not go; and yet he must not die.
Your Reason may, perhaps, th'extrmes unite;
But there's a mist of Fate before my sight.
Ozmyn: The two Extremes too distant are to close;
And Humane Wit can no mid-way propose...
Benzayda: What Foe! oh wither would your vertue fall!
It is your Father whom the Foe you call...
Ozmyn: What e'er I plot, like Sisyphus in vain
I heave a stone that tumbles down again!
I have no refuge, but the arms of death;
To that dark Sanctuary I will go;
She cannot reach me when I lie so low (2, III ii, 122-124)
The same natural moral inclination that leads them to disobey their parents
in order to save each other demands that they continue their feud. Ozmyn
and Benzayda are trapped, for they have no higher principle than Honor to
which to refer, and Honor weighs equally on both sides. Only by a change in
their parent's conception of justice can the pair of lovers be saved.
The world of the play as well as the world at large "is govern'd by precept
and Example" (p. 15). Ozmyn and Benzayda serve as "patterns of exact
vertue" not only for the edification of the audience, but also as an
integral part of the stage action. It is by their example of "vertue" that
their parents are reconciled to them and to each other:
Abenamar: Benzayda, 'twas your Vertue vanquish'd me:
That, could alone surmount my cruelty. (2, IV, 132)
In both cases, the reconciliation involves a sudden shift in perspective
and a release of emotional energy. The fathers suddenly see their previous
action as "cruel", and feel ashamed.
Selin: I'le answer you, when I can speak for tears.
But, till I can --
Imagine what must needs be brought to pass: [embraces Ozmyn]
My heart's not made of Marble nor of Brass.
Did I for you a cruel death prepare
And have you -- have you, made my life your care!
There is a shame contracted by my faults,
Which hinders me to speak my secret thoughts.
And I will tell you (when that shame's remov'd)
You are not better by my Daughter lov'd.
Benzayda be yours -- I can no more. [Ozmyn embracing his knees]
(2, II i, 105)
Relationships had previously been ordered by birth and by an Old Testament
eye-for-eye justice. In their reconciliation, the fathers are converted to
an order of "Love" and affection. Selin can then treat as his son the man
who killed his son.
Selin: My Son!
Ozmyn: My Father! (2, II i, 105)
Selin and Abenamar rise from the world of Abdalla, Abdelmelech, and
Lyndaraxa to the world of Ozmyn and Benzayda. they become "better men".
they accept the values and principles of their offspring, and hence for
Ozmyn and Benzayda, filial duty and their love for each other are no longer
in conflict. Selin and Abenamar are now not only fathers in name, but act
like fathers, have the inner qualities requisite to be treated
unhesitatingly like fathers. With his inner conflict resolved, Ozmyn can
then take an active part in the other plot elements, can fight side-by-side
with Almanzor for the Honor and life of Almahide.
Ozmyn and Benzayda's dilemma can be stated in terms of the larger conflict
between Moor and Christian for Granada. At first, they are
natural-Christians, Christians by temperament and morality rather than by
doctrine, stranded in a pagan world. The pagan and Christian values are in
continual conflict. A partial resolution is brought about by the conversion
of their parents to their Christian-like perspective. The final resolution
is brought about by the Christian conquest of Granada bringing the
religious and social forms necessary to sustain and support their natural
religious inclinations. The Christian order of Ferdinand and Isabella
conquers the chaos of a state in which natural moral inclinations and
socially sanctioned obligations are separate and in conflict.
The kinds of characters in Granada are most clearly distinguished by their
attitudes to fate or fortune. The word "fate" or "destiny" implies a
preordained order, a fixed and unalterable pattern of past, present, and
future events. This pattern is more or less visible to human eyes, but even
apparently random events lead inexorably to the fulfillment of the
individual and/or general destiny. The word "fortune" implies random,
undirected chance. All apparent patterns are only accidental and the luck
of today will be balanced by future misfortune. "Fortune" and "fate" are
different manifestations of the same attitude toward human events: the view
that the pattern of a man's life is primarily determined by factors
external to him, beyond his control: an ironic perspective: man as
primarily at the mercy of his environment. Lyndaraxa alternates between the
world-view of "fortune" and that of "fate".
To succeed in the world of Fortune, one must watch which way the wind blows
and change one's tack accordingly. In that world, principles and ideals are
dead weight that make it difficult for one to change one's course. Light
machiavellian craft can easily outmaneuver the heavy armada of
principle-laden opponents.
Lyndaraxa: O Could I read the dark decrees of fate,
That I might once know whom to love or hate!
For I my self scarce my own thought can guess;
So much I find 'em varied by success.
As in my wether-glass my Love I hold;
Which falls and rises with the heat or cold.
I will be constant yet, if fortune can;
I love the King; let her but name the Man. (1, IV ii, 61)
Lyndaraxa's emotions, thoughts, and beliefs as well as her material
well-being shift with shifting Fortune. In her apparently zigzag course,
she constantly steers toward reward and away from punishment.
She compares herself to Tamburlaine, the self-seeking warrior consistently
favored by Fortune. Such a pattern of extraordinary good luck suggests the
other world-view: that each man has his preordained destiny that he merely
acts out. Her success was inevitable.
Lyndaraxa: You murmur now, but you shall soon obey.
I knew this Empyre to my fate was ow'd:
Heav'n held it back as long as e're it cou'd.
[to Abdelmelech] For thee, base wretch, I want a torture yet --
--I'le cage thee, thou shalt be my Bajazet.
I on no pavement but on thee will tread,
And, when I mount, my foot shall know thy had. (2, V, 160)
Abdelmelech then stabs her, and dying, the empty pomp she sought is
ironically enacted for her. The destiny she through she saw is contradicted
by her fortuitous death.
Lyndaraxa: Sure destiny mistakes; this death's not mine;
She dotes, and meant to cut another line.
Tell her I ama Queen; -- but 'tis too late;
Dying, I charge REbellion on my fate:
Bow down ye slaves --
Bow quickly down, and your Submission show.
I'm pleas'ed to taste an Empire 'ere I goe. (2, V, 160-161)
Death for Lyndaraxa is frustration of her ambition, failure. She was
preoccupied with the riddle of fate and fortune and yet failed to answer
it. She thought that her shifting policy made her Fortune's queen, but
instead she was Fortune's slave. If she had an inexorable destiny it was
one that was opposed to her will rather than coincident with it: one that
raised her only that it might mockingly destroy her in her moment of glory.
Ozmyn and Benzayda are helplessly shuttled back and forth across the
battlefield according to the demands of contingency and of Honor. At times
they seem just as trapped in a mechanical world as Lyndaraxa and her
cohorts.
Benzayda: Blind Queen of Chance, to Lovers too severe,
Thou rulest Mankind, but art a Tyrant there!
Thy widest Empyre's in lover's brest;
Like open Seas we seldom are at rest.
Upon thy Coasts our wealth is daily cast;
And thou, like Pyrates, mak'st no peace at last. (2, II ii, 121)
Their paradoxical trapped-freedom is explained by Almanzor in his advice to
Arcos:
In all events preserve your Honor free:
For that's your own, though not your destiny. (2, III iii, 125)
Ozmyn and Benzayda made the free choice to be governed by Honor and Fortune
rather than by just Fortune. Their only escape from this self-chosen
mechanism is death. They are always on the brink of suicide: the only other
free act accorded them.
Almanzor is puzzled by the same problem of fate:
O Heaven, how dark a Riddle's thy Decree,
Which bounds our Wills, yet seems to leave 'em free!
Since thy fore-knowledge cannot be in vain,
Our choice must be what thou did'st first ordain:
Thus, like a Captive in an Isle confin'd,
Man walks at large, a Pris'ner of the Mind:
Wills all his Crimes, while Heav'n th' Indictment draws;
And, pleading guilty, justifies the laws. --
Let Fate be Fate; the Lover and the Brave
Are rank'd, at least, above the vulgar Slave:
Love makes me willing to my death to run;
And courage scorns the death it cannot shun. (2, IV iii, 141)
The "Lover and the Brave" by scorning death are somehow freed from Fate, or
at least can ignore it, can "let Fate be Fate" instead of being ruled by
it. Almanzor makes this speech immediately after the ghost of his mother
appears to him and tells him that he was born a Christian. Because he now
knows this, he must fight for the Christians or else be responsible to God
for whatever crimes he may commit. Almanzor's actions are not affected by
this supernatural warning. Since he is willing to accept any and all
consequences of his actions, he is free to do as he wills. He is
responsible to no one but himself and would accept the label "guilty" on no
moral grounds but his own.
Almanzor expects no rewards and fears no punishments and is therefore free
of any system of government, whether of God or of Boabdelin, that is based
on reward and punishment. He has "an inviolable faith in his affection"
(Dedication to Granada, p. 18) and will risk his life for those he admires,
respects, and loves, but no God or king can hire or coerce him, no shift of
Fortune can affect his will.
Almanzor: Great Souls by kindness only can be ti'd. (1, IV i, 60)
His daring is reinforced by a single-minded vision of the task at hand,
unalloyed by questions of personal gain or danger. He has discovered a law
of human nature: that a man with such an active fearlessness can accomplish
feats that an ordinary man would never dare.
Almanzor: No, there is a necessity in Fate,
Why still the brave bold man is Fortunate:
He keeps his object ever full in sight,
And that assurance holds him firm, and right.
True, 'tis a narrow path that leads to bliss,
But right before there is no precipice:
Fear makes men look aside, and then their footing miss. (1, IV
ii, 72-73)
This speech is in response to Almahide's more cautious:
Great Souls discern not when the leap's too wide,
Because they onely view the farther side.
Whatever you desire you think is near:
But, with more reason, the even I fear. (1, IV ii, 72)
Almanzor is a "Great Soul". His view of Fate and human capacity is elevated
above that of the other characters.
Dryden says of Almanzor in the Dedication of Granada:
I have form'd a Heroe, I confess, not absolutely perfect, but of
an excessive and overboyling courage: but Homer and Tasso are my
precedents. Both the Greek and the Italian Poet had well
consider'd that a tame Heroe who never transgresses the bounds of
moral vertue, would shine but dimly in an Epick poem. The
strictness of those Rules might well give precepts to the Reader,
but would administer little occasion to the writer. But a
character of an excentrique vertue is the more exact Image of
humane life, because he is not wholly exempted from its
frailties... I design'd in him a roughness of Character,
impatient of injuries; and a confidence of himself, almost
approaching to arrogance. But these errors are incident only to
great spirits. They are the moles and dimples which hinder not a
face from being beautiful; though that beauty be not regular.
(pp. 16-17)
In his preface, Dryden indicates his preference for this Hero of
"excentrique vertue" as opposed to Heroes who are "patterns of exact
vertue".
You see how little these great Authors did esteem the point of
Honour, so much magnify'd by the French, and so ridiculously ap'd
by us. They made their Heroes men of honour; but so, as not to
divest them quite of humane passions and frailties. They
contented themselves to show you what men of great spirits would
certainly do, when they were provok'd, not what they were oblig'd
to do by the strict rules of moral vertue; for my own part, I
declare my self for Homer and Tasso; and am more in love with
Achilles and Rinaldo than with Cyrus and Oroondates. I shall
never subject my characters to the French standard; where Love
and Honour are to be weigh'd by drams and scruples; yet, where I
have design'd the patterns of exact vertue, such as in this Play
are the Parts of Almahide, Ozmyn, and Benzayda, I may safely
challenge the best of theirs. (p. 24)
Ozmyn and Benzayda are at a higher moral level than their parents and raise
their parents through their example of virtue. Almanzor is at a higher
moral level than Almahide, Ozmyn, and Benzayda. It is relationship with
Almahide that we will next consider.
Whereas Ozmyn and Benzayda remain natural-Christian and eventually convert
their parents to their perspective; Almahide, Ozmyn's sister, explicitly
converts to Christianity.
Almahide: Thou Pow'r unknown, if I have err'd forgive:
My infancy was taught what I believe.
But if the Christians truly worship thee,
Let me thy godhead in thy succour see:
So shall thy Justice in my safety shine,
And all my dayes, which thou salt add, be thine! (2, V, 149)
She loves and admires Almanzor and yet feels duty-bound to love her
husband. Boabdelin has the title "husband" but none of the personal
qualities ;that could inspire respect, admiration, or love in a wife.
Almanzor has the qualities without the socially sanctioned title. She can
submit to neither. Her dilemma persists even after Boabdelin death.
Almahide: I owe my life and hour to his sword;
But owe my love to my departed Lord. (2, V, 162)
She resolves her conflict by submitting to another, what she hopes is a
higher authority: the Christian God.
Almahide sometimes sees her situation as a dilemma of duty and Honor. She
talks of what she "owes" to both men, and she sees suicide as a solution.
But for Almanzor there is no question of "duty". He is bound only by
affection and if Honor should be an obstacle to that affection, he'll rise
above Honor and act according to his own eccentric laws. Almanzor presents
Almahide with an alternative to suicide: she can shift perspective and act
like Almanzor, consider herself above duty to a husband like Boabdelin.
Almahide: But Heav'n which made me great; has chose for me:
I must th'oblation for my People be.
I'le cherish Honour, then, ad Life despise;
What is not Pure, is not for sacrifice.
Yet, for Almanzor I in secret mourn!
Can Vertue, then, admit of his return?
Yes; for my Love I will, by Vertue, square:
I'le like Almanzor act, and dare to be
As haughty, and as wretched too as he.
What will he think is in my Message meant!
I scarcely understand my own intent:
But Silk wormlike, so long within have wrought,
That I am lost in my own Web of thought. (2, II ii, 102)
Selin and Abenamar are raised by example from the world of Lyndaraxa to the
world of Ozmyn; Almahide hovers between Ozmyn's world and that of Almanzor.
She is tempted by martyrdom, tempted "to cherish Honour, then, and Life
despise", but Almanzor stops her.
Almanzor: Hold, hold!
Such fatal proofs of love you shall not give;
Deny me; hate me; (both are just) but live!
Your Vertue I will ne'r disturb again:
Nor dare to ask, for fear I should obtain. (2, IV, 144)
Almahide preaches ascetic self-denial as the best way to increase one's
Honor:
Deny your own desires; for it will be
Too little now to be deni'd by me.
Will he, who does all great, all noble seem,
Be lost and forfeit to his own Esteem?
Will he, who may with Heroes claim a place,
Belye that fame, and to himself be base?
Think how August and godlike you did look
When my defence, unbrib'd you undertook.
But, when an Act so rave you disavow,
How little, and how mercenary now! (2, IV, 143)
"Honour" for Almahide includes moral principle, social duty, and also
reputation. She is concerned about "what everybody will think". Almanzor is
accountable to no one but himself. He does not care if his action have the
outward appearance of inconsistency; he is his own law. He sees something
perverse in complete devotion to Honor.
Almanzor: ...what is Honour, but a Love well hid? (2, IV, 142)
He is above the strict rules of Honor as he is above Fortune and FAte.
Exaggerated Honor denies Life, "despises" it. Almanzor affirms Life. He
refuses the Procrustean bed of principle. He refuses to be the embodiment
of the Idea of Honor. When he loves, he will say he loves and will do all
he can to bring it to its natural fulfillment.
Almahide wants a strictly Platonic love, one that she can easily reconcile
to her duty to Boabdelin:
Farewell; and may our loves hereafter, be
But, Image-like, to heighten piety. (2, IV, 144)
To Almanzor this is the ghost of Love. He wants sex as well as words, body
as well as mind.
Almahide: And would you all that secret joy of mind
Which great Souls onely in great actions find,
All that, for one tumultuous minute loose?
Almanzor: I wou'd that minute before ages choose.
Praise is the pay of Heav'n for doing good,
But Love's the best return for flesh and blood. (2, IV, 143)
He asks her to rise to his perspective, above that of Honor, Reason, and
Christian virtue, to affirm life:
Be you, like me; dull Reason hence remove;
And tedious forms; and give a loose to love.
Love eagerly; let us be gods to night;
And do not, with half yielding, dash delight. (2, IV, 142)
For him, the dignity of man is not moderation and balance. Rather the
limits of man are not yet in sight. Any limits are of his own choosing. And
if he so chooses, he can be a god in Valor or in Love, in battle or in bed.
For Almahide, the choices are suicide or a conversion to Almanzor's
perspective. Since Almanzor insists on the value of life, her wish for
self-sacrifice, for suicide is ironically selfish: she would thereby break
rather than affirm the tie that binds her to Almanzor. But she is afraid to
leap from her world to his.
Conversion to Christianity is a temporary resolution. In Moorish Granada
this would at least be a further justification fro martyrdom, or as a nun
she could preserve both her Honour and her Platonic love for Almanzor.
Isabella, like divine grace, finally resolves the dilemma. Almahide is not
obliged to persist in her attachment to the dead man she despised. A year
of mourning will suffice. Then everyone can live happily ever after.
The Christian conquest of Granada brings the social forms necessary to
sustain and support Almahide's natural moral inclinations. The old social
order, headed by monarchs who would be machiavellian if they had more
intelligence, was stifling and confining for Almahide, who, like Ozmyn,
seemed out of place. Almanzor, in comparison to that old world, seemed a
natural phenomenon, more a god than a man.
Almanzor (to Abdalla): If from thy hands alone my death can be,
I am immortal; and a God, to thee. (1, III, 58)
Throughout the play, the kind by law, whether Boabdelin or Abdalla, is
contrasted with Almanzor, a king by Nature or by Soul.
Almanzor: Born, as I am still to command, not sue,
Yet you shall see that I can beg for you [Almahide].
And if your Father will require a Crown,
Let him but name the Kingdom, 'tis his own.
I am, but while I please, a private man;
I have that Soul which Empires first began:
From the dull crowd which every King does lead,
I will pick out whom I will choose to head:
The best and bravest Souls I can select,
And on their Conquer'd Necks my Throne erect. (1, IV, 73)
Ferdinand and Isabella are the heroic ideals of king and queen. They have
the personal qualities requisite for their political and social functions.
As the title implies, the play's resolution centers on their conquest of
Granada. Almanzor submits to Ferdinand not just because he had the title of
"king", but because he has, like Almanzor, the Soul of a king.
Almanzor: I bring a heart which homage never knew;
Yet it finds something of it self in you:
Something so kingly, that my haughty mind
Is drawn to yours; because 'tis of a kind. (2, V, 161)]
There is a hierarchy of Soul and an institutional hierarchy. The resolution
of Granada is a reordering of those hierarchies so that they coincide.
The new order is headed by a king and queen of Almanzor's heroic level who
by their example and their laws assist rather than stifle the heroic rise
of their subjects. Almahide is renamed "Isabella of Granada", and the path
is cleared for her and Almanzor to follow the pattern of their heroic
monarchs and become in turn exemplars for the people of Granada. The scene
is set for the moral regeneration of the kingdom.
For Almanzor, greatness is associated with a quality of the Soul, and the
state of one's Soul is associated with one's world-view, with one's
attitude to Justice, Fate, Love. Affection for Almanzor involves a
recognition of exemplary qualities. Before he knows the Duke of Arcos is
his father, even when they are on opposite sides in battle, Almanzor
admires and respects the Duke of Arcos as a friend. Later, Almanzor
immediately admires Ferdinand's "haughty mind".
Love sets the Soul in violent agitation, radically changes the Soul.
Almahide: Had love not shown me, I had never seen
An Excellence beyond Boabdelin.
I had not, aiming higher, lost my rest;
But with a vulgar good been dully blest. (1, V, 83)
Love directs Almahide's attention to Almanzor's example of "excentrique
vertue", to his Great Soul, and starts an upward movement in her Soul. For
Almanzor, love for Almahide starts a purifying action of his Soul, removing
"dross" unworthy of a Great Soul.
Almanzor: Forgive that fury which my Soul does move;
'Tis the Essay of an untaught first love.
Yet rude, unfashion'd truth it does express:
'Tis love just peeping in a hasty dress.
Retire, fair Creature, to your needful rest;
There's something noble lab'ring in my brest:
This raging fire which through the Mass does move,
Shall purge my dross, ad shall refine my Love. (1, III, 56)
When Love first starts to agitate his Soul, Almanzor is frightened; his
Soul has never before gone through a great change and he fears the change
will be for the worst:
I'me pleas'd and pain'd since first her eyes I saw,
As I were stung with some Tarantula:
Armes, and the dusty field I less admire;
And soften strangely in some new desire.
Honour burns in me, not so fiercely bright,
But pale as fires when master'd by the light.
Ev'n while I speak and look, I change yet more;
And now am nothing that I was before.
I'm numb'd, and fix'd, and scarce my eyeballs move;
I fear it is the Lethargy of Love!
'Tis he; I feel him now in every part:
Like a new Lord he vaunts about my Heart,
Surveys in state each corner of my Brest,
While poor fierce I, that was, am dispossest.
I'm bound; but I will rowze my rage again:
And though no hope of Liberty remaine,
I'll fright the Keeper when I shake my chaine. (1, III, 54)
Eventually, he finds a new constancy, a new identity in his Love:
My Love's my Soul; and that from Fate is free:
'Tis that unchang'd; and deathless part of me. (2, III, 128)
Abdalla feels the same perplexing agitation of the Soul that frightened
Almanzor: "Betwixt my love and vertue I am tost." (1, II, 43) With poor
heroic vision, he picks Zulema for a friend and Lyndaraxa for a Lover. Both
use him and pull him deeper into machiavellian blindness. He falls into
"the Lethargy of Love" that Almanzor feared.
Abdelmelech, formerly Abdalla's friend, is similarly "blinded" by
Lyndaraxa. Both their Souls are pulled down to Lyndaraxa's blind
perspective where no true friendship is possible.
Abdemelech: Fly, fly, before th'allurements of her face;
'Ere she return with some resistless grace,
And with new magique covers all the place.
Abdalla: I cannot, will not; nay I would not fly;
I'le love; be blind, be cousen'd till I dye.
And you, who bid me wiser Counsel take,
I'le hate, and if I can, I'le kill you for her sake.
Abdelmelech: Ev'n I that counsell'd you, that choice approve,
Prudence, that stemm'd the stream, is out of breath;
And to go down it, is the easier death. (1, III, 48)
Ozmyn and Benzayda are trapped in a labyrinth of conflicting duties.
Self-sacrifice, suicide seems the only honorable course of action open to
them. To live is to become tainted, corrupted by the Hobbesian world around
them. By death they would avoid breaking any of their conflicting
obligations. By death, they would affirm their mutual Love as well as their
Purity, Innocence, and Honor. They are natural Christians of the martyr
tradition. Their Love is Platonic and ascetic, bloodless and bodiless; it
can receive total fulfillment in the mutual choice of death, in complete
commitment to the Idea of Love and Honor.
Characters of the moral level of Lyndaraxa are practiced in deception and
use Love as but one of their tools with which to gain power. By her,
Abdelmelech is "Bound in the fetters of dissembled Love" (2, IV ii, 134).
In contrast, Almanzor only says what he means, cannot sustain a lie:
My heart's so plain,
That men on every passing thought may look,
Like fishes gliding in a Crystal brook:
When troubled most, it does the bottom show,
'Tis weedless all above; and rockless all below. (1, IV i, 60)
Lyndaraxa-level characters sometimes use a form of speech deceptively
similar to that of Almanzor.
Zulema: Man makes his fate according to his mind.
The weak low Spirit Fortune makes her salve... (1, II, 44)
Lyndaraxa: My Smiles shall make Abdalla more than Man (1, III,
52)
But Zuleman's actions are dictated by Fate and Fortune, and Lyndaraxa makes
Abdalla less than a man, a blind beast. The meanings of their words can
only be seen in their deeds. The word "Love" signifies different emotions
to Lyndaraxa, Ozmyn, and Almanzor: blind appetite, Platonic love, and
Heroic love, respectively. "Love" can be a Lethargy, an emasculating force,
leaving the victim blind and powerless. (Abdalla: "Love like a Lethargy
has seiz'd my Will." 1, III, 47) "Love" can also be an upward moving or
purifying force.
When Tamburlaine asserts himself, he uses his own name as the
credentials of his power:
I hold the Fates bound fast in iron chains,
And with my hand burn Fortune's wheel about,
And sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere
Then Tamburlaine be slain or overcome. (1, I ii, 1. 173-176)
When Almanzor asserts himself, his own name is conspicuously absent.
Instead, he talks of an abstract category:
Great Souls by kindness onely can be ti'd... (1, IV i, 60)
I have that Soul which Empires first began ... (1, IV ii, 73)
The minds of Heroes their own measures are ... (2, IV ii, 133)
When Almahide talks of Almanzor, she too tends to use this abstract form of
speech:
Great Souls discern not when the leap's too wide... (1, IV ii,
72)
We are reminded of Cortez' use of "great minds" and Davenant's definition
of "greatnesse of minde" as virtue. "Great Minds," "Great Souls" and other
similar phrases seem to be used interchangeably to signify the category of
the irregular Hero, the Hero who dominates the Stage and is admired by
lesser, companion Heroes. These phrases are used to define the super-Hero's
special qualities not as the unique nature of one particular man, but
rather in terms that emphasize the potential of man in general for such
qualities. Almanzor's speeches have the faraway ring of artificial stances,
statements of philosophic attitude, or of abstract Truth. In these
speeches, he focuses attention on those features of his conduct or attitude
which are worthy of imitation. His thoughts are made clear as "a Crystal
brook" in order that others, and particularly Almahide, may more easily
follow his example. "Great Soul" indicates a moral level not limited by
birth or sex, a world-view that one achieves by a clear vision of human
nature and an act of will, a world-view open to Almahide.
At the opposite end of the heroic scale is Lyndaraxa, surrounded by a horde
of opportunities like herself: her "lovers' Abdalla and Abdelmelech, her
brothers Sulema and Hamet, and Abdalla's brother Boabdelin. Their only
motive is their own personal gain in the form of power, wealth, or sexual
satisfaction. Lyndaraxa switches her "love" and allegiance from Abdalla to
Abdelmelech and back again. THe mob led by Zulema, chief of the Zegrys,
and Abdelmelech, chief of the Abencerages, shifts mechanically,
opportunistically, bound by laws of economics and self-preservation. It's
the world of Davenant's "common crowd" and Hobbes' "City." It's a chaotic
world where the prevailing rule is the survival of the luckiest, where any
victory is only momentary, where all morals are machiavellian. It's a
nightmare world resembling that of Jacobean tragedy: a world of corruption,
intrigue, fortuitous slaughter: an impotent, ironic world.
In Granada, individual Souls are in movement and all Souls together are
bound up in a general struggle. For a moment, it seems that all could be
swallowed up by the corruption of Lyndaraxa's world.
Abdelmelech: Heav'n is not Heav'n; nor are there Deities.
There is some new Rebellion in the Skies.
All that was Good and Holy, is dethron'd:
And Lust, and Rapine are for justice own'd. (2, V, 148)
In Granada, there is a hierarchy of Soul, of world-views, or moral levels.
There are three primary stances: those of Lyndaraxa, Ozmyn, and Almanzor.
The action focuses on conflicts between these world-views and changes in
perspective. Though a downward movement is possible, the general movement
of the play is upward in this hierarchy. "The action becomes a kind of
continuous discourse on heroism." (Waith, Hero, 157) All men can rise in
the heroic hierarchy; and it is by the example of others that they are led
to rise.
Almanzor, at the top of this heroic scale, is a young Stranger with no ties
of duty but his love for Almahide. He is a Hero with all limitations
removed: Dryden's most complete express of the active super-Hero.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aureng-Zebe (1675)
In 1675, ten years after The Indian Emperor, Aureng-Zebe appeared on the
London stage.
Aureng-Zebe gathers up many themes and characters long familiar
in Dryden's rhymed plays. The Emperour is a variation upon the
old Montezuma in The Indian Emperour, debasing himself and
imperilling his kingdom by a love he cannot control. 17
Once again, there is the stock pair of young hero -- old ruler and a
struggle for the throne. However, in this case, the young hero is the son
of the ruler and has strongly identified himself with his father's cause;
he fights for his father rather than for himself. Arimant compares
Aureng-Zebe with the rebellious sons:
But Aureng-Zebe, by no strong passion sway'd,
Except his Love, more temp'rate is, and weigh'd:
This Atlas must our sinking state uphold;
In Council cool, but in Performance bold:
He sums their Virtues in himself alone,
And adds the greatest, of a Loyal Son:
His Father's Cause upon his Sword he wears,
And with his ARms, we hope, his fortune bears (I i, 91)
His father was once an exemplary young hero. Now at the age of seventy only
a glimmer of that greatness remains.
Arimant: Oh! had he still that Character maintain'd,
Of Valour, which in blooming Youth, he gain'd!
He promis'd in this East a glorious Race;
Now, sunk from his meridian, set apace.
But as the Sun, when he from Noon declines,
And with abated heat, less fiercely shines,
Seems to grow milder as he goes away,
Pleasing himself with the remains of Day;
So he, who, in his Youth, for Glory strove,
Would recompense his Age with Ease and Love (I i, 91)
Aureng-Zebe is an active, ambitious price who has just in a single day
decisively defeated two armies, and is now about to meet a third. The
situation is particularly suited for one who would be "the Hero of an Age"
(I i, 94).
Arimant: Whate'er can urge ambitious Youth to fight,
She pompously displays before their sight... (I i, 89)
The scene is et for the Emperor to be secured in his old throne, for him to
rule mildly for a few more years and pass away to be succeeded by his loyal
son, who shows every sign of following his father's exemplary pattern. BUt
the old Emperor (and that is the only name he is given) has become
infatuated with Indamora, Aureng-Zebe's betrothed. He confesses his passion
to Arimant, who replies:
This free confession shows you long did strive:
And virtue, though oprest, is still alive. (I i, 95)
Her is losing the struggle to control his passion; but yet he maintains a
sense of what he should be, of what he should do, of his old heroic ideal.
He is plagued by the consciousness of his own guilt. He is ashamed. He
wants to avoid a confrontation with the son he is wronging:
Him would I, more than all the Rebels, shun (I i, 94)
I will not, cannot, dare not, see my Son. (I i, 95)
His son's virtue, his son's adherence to the "ideal" of heroic conduct
makes his own divergence from that "ideal" all the more evident and
shameful. He cannot live up to his son's expectations of him or to his own
expectations of himself, and he is painfully aware of this failure.
O Aureng-Zebe! thy virtues shine too bright.
They flash too fierce: I, like the Bird of Night,
Shut my dull eyes, and sicken at the sight.
Thou hast deserv'd more love than I can show:
But 'tis thy fate to give, and mine to owe.
Thou seest me much distemper'd in my mind:
Pull'd back, and then push'd forward to be kind.
Virtue, and -- fain I wou'd my silence break,
But have not yet the confidence to speak. (I i, 97)
Aureng-Zebe at first wrongly assumes that Nourmahal, mother of his
half-brother Morat, has brought about this change in his father, that "The
best of Kings by Women is misled,/ Charmed by the Witchcraft of a second
Bed." (I i, 97) Even when it's clear that the failing in question is an
uncontrolled passion for Indamora, Aureng-Zebe believes that it is but a
momentary failing, that his father will soon come to his senses and return
to his virtuous ways.
After successfully defending the citadel against Morat's assaults,
Aureng-Zebe seems for a time reconciled with his father.
Emperor: My Son, your valour has, this day been such,
None can enough admire, or praise too much. (II i, 110)
The Emperor's old heroic ideal reasserts itself.
Emperor: Age has not yet
So shrunk my Sinews, or so chill'd my Veins,
But conscious Virtue in my breast remains,
But had I now that strength, with which my boiling Youth was
fraught;
When in the vale of Balasor I fought,
And from Bengale their Captive Monarch brought;
When Elephant 'gainst Elephant did rear
His Trunck, and Castles justl'd in the Air;
My Sword thy way to Victory had shown:
And ow'd the Conquest to it self alone.
Aureng-Zebe: Those fair Ideas to my aid I'll call,
And emulate my great Original;
Or, if they fail, I will invoke in Arms,
The power of Love, and Indamora's charms (II i, 110-111)
The mention of Indamora touches off once more the Emperor's inner battle:
Witness, ye Pow'rs,
How much I suffer'd, and how long I strove
Against th' assaults of this imperious Love!
I represented to my self the shame
Of perjured Faith, and violated Fame.
Your great deserts, how ill they were repay'd;
All arguments in vain, I urg'd and weigh'd:
For mighty Love, who Prudence does despise,
For Reason, who'd me Indamora's Eyes.
What would you more, my crime I sadly view,
Acknowledge, am asham'd, and yet pursue. (II i, 112)
Though the central conflict in Aureng-Zebe is very similar to that of The
Indian Emperor (the conflict between the "ideal" and the "real"), in this
case, the major characters are conscious of that conflict; and their
consciousness of it directly effects their actions. When the "ideal" seems
unattainable and illusory, they withdraw, disillusioned, from the action.
When that "ideal" is reasserted, they can once again believe in the
efficacy of action. While disillusioned, they satirically expound on the
imperfections of the world, on its failure to match up with the "ideal".
After his second confrontation with this father, it is clear to Aureng-Zebe
that the Emperor will not willingly give up Indamora. For the first time,
the young hero talks of death: he would rather die than renounce Indamora.
At this point, Aureng-Zebe seems to become disengaged from the action,
seems to step back, disillusioned, and contemplate the futility of the
world about him. If the "best of kings" comes to such an end as this, if
this is the result of an heroic life, Aureng-Zebe does not want to follow
in his father's footsteps. He wants nothing to do with this world, this
life:
How vain is Virtue which directs our ways
Through certain danger, to uncertain praise!
Barren and aery name! thee Fortune flies;
With thy lean Train, the Pious and the Wise.
Heaven takes thee at thy word, without regard;
And lets thee poorly be thy own reward.
The World is made for the bold impious man,
Who stops at nothing, seizes all he can.
Justice to merit does weak aid afford;
She trusts her Balance, and neglects her Sword.
Virtue is nice to take what's not her own;
And, while she long consults, the Prize is gone. (II i, 113)
While the Emperor vacillates between his ideals and his passion,
Aureng-Zebe vacillates between action and inaction. "I neither would Usurp,
nor tamely die." (II i, 14) The political situation still offers all that
"can urge ambitious youth to fight" (I i, 89) Dianet informs him that the
people are "All bent to rise, would you appear their Chief,/ Till your own
Troops come up to your relief." (II, i, 113). But he hesitates while "bold
impious" Morat takes over the city.
The Emperor is disillusioned with himself and the world. He, like
Aureng-Zebe, cynically, satirically comments on the nature of man.
Believe me, Son, [Morat] and needless trouble spare;
'Tis a base World, and is not worth our care.
The Vulgar, a scarce animated Clod,
Ne'er pleas'd with ought above 'em, Prince or God.
WEre I a God the drunken Globe should roul:
The little Emmets with the human Soul
Care for themselves, while at my ease I sat,
And second Causes di the work of Fate;
Or, if I would take care, that care should be
For Wit that scorn'd the world, and lived like me (III i, 119)
Mankind is just the "common crowd," the "Vulgar." There is no one noble or
exemplary left. Like Aureng-Zebe, the Emperor is out of the stream of
action. Morat has taken charge of the government, and treats his father as
a superfluous old man:
Of business you complain'd; now take your ease;
Enjoy what e'er decrepid Age can please:
Eat, Sleep, and tell long Tales of what you were
In flow'r of Youth, if any one will hear (IV i, 137)
Unlike Aureng-Zebe who listened to his father's tales and sought to
"emulate" his "great Original", Morat was and is unmoved by examples of
greatness.
Aureng-Zebe's willingness to die in act IV is unique in Dryden's drama.
Quite frequently, heroes and heroines are willing to die for each other
and, especially, are willing to die together, hoping to be reunited after
death. But in this case, the emphasis is on disillusionment. Aureng-Zebe
does not want to live in this deceptive, imperfect world. In what he thinks
are his last moments, he considers not Indamora, but "life":
When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat;
Yet, fool'd with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think to morrow will repay:
To morrow's falser than the former day;
Lies worse; and while it says, We shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange couzenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain;
And, from the dregs of Life, think to receive,
What the first sprightly running could not give.
I'm tired with waiting for this Chymic gold,
Which fools us young, and Beggars us when old. (IV i, 129)
While disillusioned, Aureng-Zebe is passive, waiting for external events to
determine his future. Indamora saves him by seeming to concede to Morat,
and this apparent concession leads Aureng-Zebe to a further
disillusionment, with love and with women. The best of women is not
perfect:
Ah, Sex, invented first to damn Mankind!
Nature took care to dress you up for sin:
Adorn'd, without; unfinish'd left, within.
Hence, by no judgment you your loves direct;
Talk much, ne'r think, and still the wrong affect.
So much self-Love in your composures mixed,
That love to others still remain unfix'd;
Greatness, and Noise, and Show, are your delight;
Yet wise men love you, in their own despight;
And, finding in their native Wit no ease,
Are forc'd to put your folly on to please. (IV i, 141)
Aureng-Zebe is strongly attached to the "ideal", the "perfect" both in
heroism and in love. When the people he considered as exemplars fail to
live up to his expectations, he steps back and delivers satires. If he is
"jealous", it is in a special sense of the word. He is not concerned about
his rival, or about having a rival. The incident disturbs him because it
illustrates the frailty of Indamora and thus the frailty of all womankind.
If he were given substantial cause for jealousy, his reaction would not be
the violence of an Othello. He would not act at all, but would rather just
withdraw from the scene and die.
Indamora: Be no more jealous! [Giving him her hand.]
Aureng-Zebe: -- Give me cause no more:
The danger's greater after, than before.
If I relapse; to cure my jealousie
Let me (for that's the easiest parting) die. (IV i, 142)
Whereas disillusionment reduces Aureng-Zebe to inactivity, renewed faith in
his exemplar inspires him to heroic feats regardless of the odds. Before,
when circumstances were in his favor, he did nothing. At the end of act IV,
reconciled with Indamora and his father, Aureng-Zebe plunges into action
despite the hopelessness of the situation.
My Father's kind; and, Madam, you forgive:
Were Heaven so pleased, I now could wish to live.
And, I shall live.
With Glory and with Love, at once, I burn:
I feel the inspiring heat, ad absent God return. 18 (IV i, 143)
The accent falls on "And I shall live", in sharp contrast to his
disillusioned "When I consider Life, 'tis all a cheat..."
After winning the battle, Aureng-Zebe returns to see Morat dying in
Indamora's arms. Once again he rails against the frailty of womankind (V i,
156). She and her love are not perfect:
If you had loved, you nothing yours could call:
Giving the least of mine, you gave him all.
True love's a Miser: so tenacious grown:
He weighs to the least grain of what's his own.
More delicate than Honour's nicest sense:
Neither to give nor take the least offence.
With, or without you, I can have no rest;
What shall I do? y'are dog'd within my breast:
Your Image never will be thence displac'd;
But there it lies, stabb'd, mangl'd, and defac'd. (V i, 158)
He wants to settle for nothing less than perfection, but he "loves'
Indamora. Indamora herself is of a similar temperament, unwilling to settle
for less than "perfect bliss":
Since perfect bliss with me you cannot prove,
I scorn to bless by halves the man I love. (V i, 158)
Like his father before him, Aureng-Zebe is torn between his "ideal" and his
desire for a "real" woman. The Emperor steps in to reconcile the pair of
perfectionists. They seem to have reached a sort of compromise: recognizing
their own frailty and yet still striving for the ideal.
Aureng-Zebe: O Indamora, you would break my heart!
Could you resolve, on any terms, to part?
I thought you love eternal: was it ti'd
So loos'ly, that a quarrel could divide?
I grant that my suspicions were unjust;
But would you leave me, for a small distrust?
Forgive those foolish words --
They were the froth my raging folly mov'd,
When it boiled up: I knew not then I lov'd,
Yet then lov'd most. (V i, 159)
Aureng-Zebe is a "Great Soul" (V i, 158), but Morat also calls himself
such:
Urg'd by my Love, by hope of Empire fir'd;
'Tis true, I have perform'd what both requir'd:
What Fate decreed; for when great Souls are giv'n,
They bear the marks of Sov'reignty from Heaven. (V i, 144)
Morat has the bombast and active courage of an Almanzor, but unlike
Almanzor, he is not a Stranger. Almanzor had no ties of duty except his
love fro Almahide, but Morat has a wife, a father, and a brother -- all of
whom he treats pitilessly. Under circumstances like Almanzor's, Morat would
probably be a super-hero, but in the circumstances in which he finds
himself, such audacity indicates that he is not god-like, but rather
beast-like.
Indamora: Could that Decree [for Aureng-Zebe's death] from any
Brother come?
Nature her self is sentenc'd in your doom.
Piety is no more, she sees her place
Usurp'd by Monsters, and a savage Race...
Think there's a Heav'n, Morat, though not for you. (III, 126)
Indamora characterizes the quality requisite for humanity that Morat lacks
as "pity":
Had Heav'n the Crown for Aureng-Zebe design'd,
Pity, for you, had pierc'd his generous mind.
Pity does with a Noble Nature suit... (III, 126)
In act V, she first lectures to him on the nature of true greatness. Then
with the news of Aureng-Zebe's death and Indamora's resultant grief, for
the first time pity moves Morat.
Morat: I without guilt, would mount the Royal Seat;
But yet 'its necessary to be great.
Indamora: All Greatness is in Virtue understood:
'Tis onely necessary to be good.
Tell me, what is't at which great Spirits aim,
What most your self desire?
Morat: -- Renown, and Fame,
And Pow'r, as uncontrol'd as is my will.
Indamora: How you confound desires of good and ill!
For true renown is still with Virtue joyn'd;
But lust of Pow'r lets loose th' unbridl'd mind.
Yours is a Soul irregularly great,
Which wanting temper, yet abounds with heat:
So strong, yet so unequal pulses beat.
As Sun which does through Vapours dimly shine:
What pity 'its you are not all Divine!
New molded, thorow lighten'd, and a breast
So pure, to bear the last severest test;
Fit to command an Empire you should gain
By Virtue, and without a blush to Reign...
Dare to be great, without a guilty Crown;
View it, and lay the bright temptation down:
'Tis base to seize on all, because you may;
That's Empire, that which I can give away...
Morat: Renown, and Fame, in vain, I courted long;
And still pursu'd 'em though directed wrong. (V, 146)
The example of Almanzor's "irregularly great" Soul could breed confused
"desires of good and ill". His greatness was his "excentrique vertue", but
his audacity, his bold deeds held the center of the stage. Indamora is
separating the essential heroic qualities from the external trappings, from
the renowned deeds. Morat has all the externals of heroism but lacks human
sympathy and hence is an incomplete Hero and less than a man. The scene of
Indamora's grief performs what arguments could not do: awakens this human
feeling:
-- Cease to inhanse her misery:
Pity the Queen, and show respect to me...
[to her] Your grief, in me such sympathy has bred,
I mourn; and wish I could recall the dead.
Love softens me; and blows up fires, which pass
Through my tough heart, and melt the stubborn Mass. (V, 147)
When he returns from battle fatally wounded, Morat's actions and words
indicate that the change in him was not just momentary. He considers
Melesinda's feelings and asks forgiveness (V, 153). At the moment of his
death, he seems truly great, "all Divine":
Morat: I leave you not; for my expanded mind
Grows up to Heav'n, while It to you is joyn'd:
Not quitting, but enlarg'd! A blazing Fire,
Fed from the Brand. [Dies] (V, 155)
Indamora describes Morat's change as a conversion: "He di'd my Convert."
(V, 157)
"Pity" in this context is an unselfish sympathy, a concern for other human
beings. It is similar to the unselfish kind of love which is requisite for
salvation in I Corinthians 13:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have
prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not
love, I am nothing. (Revised Standard Version)
Dryden, in his "Preface to Troilus and Cressida" (1679), described pity as
"the noblest and most god-like of moral virtues". (Ker, I, 210)
Whereas Aureng-Zebe and the Emperor are preoccupied with the discrepancy
between the "ideal" and the "real", Morat at first has no conception of the
"ideal." He takes for granted a world of self-interested opportunism. It is
only through Indamora's lessons and finally through the example of her
grief that Morat learns the fundamentals of the heroic "ideal."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Changing Hero
Hercules was renowned for his great physical strength.
Whether they [the Herculean legends] signify the supremacy of
Dorian man in Argolis or of man in the universe, they tell of a
wonderful force inherent in the human body, capable of conquering
this world and even of defying the world beyond. (Waith, Hero,
18)
In contrast to Hercules, we are told nothing about Almanzor's physical
strength. If Granada tells of a wonderful force inherent in man, "Capable
of conquering this world an even of defying the world beyond", this force
is one of Sour or Mind rather than of physical strength: an inner force.
The feats of a muscle-man like Hercules can be extraordinary, but are not
likely to be "exemplary". Hercules makes no attempt to convert others to
his brand of heroism: he does not try to sell muscle-building equipment or
to teach a new set of exercises. His strength is unique. It is to be
marveled at, but not to be imitated.
In contrast, Almanzor's heroism is meant to be imitated. He tries to
convert Almahide. He is careful to define the heroic world-view in such a
way that she and others can follow his example.
Though this distinction between Almanzor and Hercules is clear, the
distinction between Almanzor and Tamburlaine is blurred. Tamburlaine
combines extraordinary ruthlessness and daring with extraordinary good
fortune. He, like Hercules, emphasizes his own uniqueness, and his success
seems to confirm his claims of almost divine power. He considers himself
in control of Fort |
