[lit-ideas] Forgetive (long--forget before or after reading)
- From: "Richard Henninge" <henninge@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2005 05:39:22 +0200
It is a curious production, this seventy-first sonnet: the sonnet that
follows it seems nothing more than another version of the seventy-first. The
status of the poet can, at the risk of exaggeration, be summed up as that of
a "hack." This is hard, granted, but let me explain. To explain, I must drop
back and run up from a distance, in this case, the distance Falstaff puts
between himself and the Court between the fourth and fifth acts of King
Henry IV, part II.
This paragraph was written before I sent the others and before I read the
news from Mutton College (and I thank Robert for the stimulus). These ideas
are nothing if not far-fetched. I must, for example, step and fetch it here,
as I suggest, or as I suggested earlier, a propos of Macbeth, the life of a
man, examined closely (following the Socratic prescriptions), often has the
unwonted result of apparently diminishing the quality of that very life.
Maybe I don't come out and say it in this, my initial run-up to the topic,
but if Robert will stimulate me enough (get my goat enough), I may
eventually be tempted to say, yes, deconstruction, okay, but then
deconstruction not of this one poem, but unsuspected revelation of the
massive deconstructiveness of the entire Shakespearean canon--and the
concomitant over-bold statement that it is just that which makes his works
immortal (or at least from "our" mortal point of view, it looks like "up"
from here).
First stimulus: Look at the Sherry Speech by Falstaff. You can make your
selections from other characters in Shakespeare, Hamlet, say, or said
Macbeth; you can even take his immediate interlocutor, Hal, later one of the
most famous kings (in real life England), and ask yourself--Has anyone ever
known on the planet ever spoken so well, been so witty, whatever--spoken so
truly (one is frustrated to find the measuring stick--but this frustration
is also a part of our knowing that Falstaff is "up" from here, from our poor
abilities).
So what happens to this most brilliant of human beings on the planet? On
stage, in the end, he is made a laughing-stock and is bundled off to prison.
Yet, the writer who caused him to speak with such genius, if you will,
deconstructs his ridiculousness thereby. These are not the kings, granted
(he seems to be saying), but these "hacks" living problematic lives in the
shadows or at the mercies of power, wealth, influence, etc.--are the better
examples of what it means to be, and that at the highest, intensest, most
concentrated form.
Let me digress: I'm reminded of Hamlet in Ophelia's grave, holding up
Yorick's skull, the skull of the court jester upon whose shoulders he had
ridden as a boy (I'm getting ahead of myself here, but this is "the
forgetive," this conjuring up of images--aaah, what the heck, I've opened up
this parentheses. "This is my microphone," as the Great Communicator,
Reagan, said, I believe:
Purgatorio  Canto XVII
Ricorditi, lettor, se mai ne lâalpe
ti colse nebbia per la qual vedessi
non altrimenti che per pelle talpe,
come, quando i vapori umidi e spessi
a diradar cominciansi, la spera
del sol debilemente entra per essi;
e fia la tua imagine leggera
in giugnere a veder comâ io rividi
lo sole in pria, che già nel corcar era.
SÃ, pareggiando i miei coâ passi fidi
del mio maestro, usciâ fuor di tal nube
ai raggi morti già neâ bassi lidi.
O _imaginativa_ che ne rube
talvolta sà di fuor, châom _non sâaccorge_
perchà dintorno suonin mille tube,
chi move te, se âl senso _non ti porge_?
Moveti lume che nel ciel sâinforma,
per sà o per voler che già lo _scorge_.
Translated by Charles Eliot Norton
[CANTO XVII. Third Ledge the Wrathful.--Issue from the Smoke.--Vision of
examples of Anger.--Ascent to the Fourth Ledge, where Sloth is
purged.--Second Nightfall.--Virgil explains how Love is the root of Virtue
and of Sin.]
Recall to mind, reader, if ever on the alps a cloud closed round thee,
through which thou couldst not see otherwise than the mole through its skin,
how, when the humid and dense vapors begin to dissipate, the ball of the sun
enters feebly through them: and _thy imagination will easily come to see_,
how at first I saw again the sun, which was already at its setting. So,
matching mine to the trusty steps of my Master, I issued forth from such a
cloud to rays already dead on the low shores.
O _power imaginative_, that dost sometimes so steal us from outward things
that a man _heeds it not_, although around him a thousand trumpets sound,
who moveth thee if the sense _afford thee naught_? A light, that in the
heavens is formed, moveth thee by itself, or by a will that downward guides
it?
[The translation continues, here without the original Italian...]
[1] If the imagination is not stirred by some object of sense, it is moved
by the influence of the stars, or directly by the Divine will.
In my imagination appeared the impress of the impiety of her[1] who changed
her form into the bird that most delights in singing. And here was my mind
so shut up within itself that from without came nothing which then might he
received by it. Then rained down within my high fantasy, one crucified,[2]
scornful and fierce in his look, and thus was dying. Around him were the
great Ahasuerus, Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai, who was in speech
and action so blameless. And when this imagination burst of itself, like a
bubble for which the water fails, beneath which it was made, there rose in
my vision a maiden,[3] weeping bitterly, and she was saying, "O queen,
wherefore through anger hast thou willed to be naught? Thou hast killed
thyself in order not to lose Lavinia: now thou hast lost me: I am she who
mourns, mother, at thine, before another's ruin.
LXXI.
No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.
LXXII.
O, lest the world should task you to recite
What merit lived in me, that you should love
After my death, dear love, forget me quite,
For you in me can nothing worthy prove;
Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,
To do more for me than mine own desert,
And hang more praise upon deceased I
Than niggard truth would willingly impart:
O, lest your true love may seem false in this,
That you for love speak well of me untrue,
My name be buried where my body is,
And live no more to shame nor me nor you.
For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,
And so should you, to love things nothing worth.
THE 1609 QUARTO VERSION
71
NOe Longer mourne for me when I am dead,
Then you Åhall heare the Åurly Åullen bell
Giue warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vildeÅt wormes to dwell:
Nay if you read this line,remember not,
The hand that writ it,for I loue you Åo,
That I in your Åweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then Åhould make you woe.
O if( I Åay )you looke vpon this verÅe,
When I (perhaps ) compounded am with clay,
Do not Åo much as my poore name reherÅe;
But let your loue euen with my life decay.
LeaÅt the wiÅe world Åhould looke into your mone,
And mocke you with me after I am gon.
Henry V, ACT V
PROLOGUE
Enter Chorus
Chorus
Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story,
That I may prompt them: and of such as have,
I humbly _pray them to admit the excuse
Of time, of numbers and due course of things,
Which cannot in their huge and proper life
Be here presented_. Now we bear the king
Toward Calais: grant him there; there seen,
Heave him away _upon your winged thoughts_
Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach
Pales in the flood with men, with wives and boys,
Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep mouth'd sea,
Which like a mighty whiffler 'fore the king
Seems to prepare his way: so let him land,
And solemnly see him set on to London.
So swift a pace hath thought that even now
You may imagine him upon Blackheath;
Where that his lords desire him to have borne
His bruised helmet and his bended sword
Before him through the city: he forbids it,
Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;
Giving full trophy, signal and ostent
Quite from himself to God. _But now behold,
In the quick forge and working-house of thought_,
How London doth pour out her citizens!
The mayor and all his brethren in best sort,
Like to the senators of the antique Rome,
With the plebeians swarming at their heels,
Go forth and fetch their conquering Caesar in:
As, by a lower but loving likelihood,
Were now the general of our gracious empress,
As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,
Bringing rebellion broached on his sword,
How many would the peaceful city quit,
To welcome him! much more, and much more cause,
Did they this Harry. Now in London place him;
As yet the lamentation of the French
Invites the King of England's stay at home;
The emperor's coming in behalf of France,
To order peace between them; and omit
All the occurrences, whatever chanced,
Till Harry's back-return again to France:
There must we bring him; and myself have play'd
The interim, by remembering you 'tis past.
Then brook abridgment, and your eyes advance,
After your thoughts, straight back again to France.
FALSTAFF: I would you had but the wit. 'Twere better than your dukedom.
Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man
cannot make him laugh. But that's no marvel, he drinks no wine. There's
never none of these demure boys come to any proof, for thin drink doth so
overcool their blood, and making many fish-meals, that they fall into a kind
of malegreen-sickness, and then, when they marry, they get wenches. They are
generally fools and cowards, which some of us should be too, but for
inflammation. A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in it. It ascends
me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapors
which environ it, makes it _apprehensive, quick, forgetive_, full of nimble,
fiery, and delectable shapes, which, delivered o'er to the voice, the
tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of
your excellent sherris is the warming of the blood, which, before cold and
settled, left the liver white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity
and cowardice. But the sherris warms it and makes it course from the inwards
to the parts extremes. It illumineth the face, which as a beacon gives
warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm, and then the
vital commoners and inland petty spirits muster me all to their captain, the
heart, who, great and puffed up with this retinue, doth any deed of courage,
and this valor comes of sherris. So that skill in the weapon is nothing
without sack, for that sets it a-work, and learning a mere hoard of gold
kept by a devil, till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof
comes it that Prince Harry is valiant, for the cold blood he did naturally
inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured,
husbanded, and tilled with excellent endeavor of drinking good and good
store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a
thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them should be to
forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.
----------I promised "forgetive," and here it is. Because this is the only
use of "forgetive" in Shakespeare and because this is, you should check me
on this, the first documented use of this word in English (and the
subsequent uses--again, check me on this--occurred so much later that no one
then alive could have *heard* how it was pronounced on stage), it is not a
foregone conclusion that it was pronounced by Shakespeare as Robert says it
was. Let's just say that one could question the definition of "far-fetched"
in relation to _all_ of one's ideas. Why bother "fetching" ideas if they are
not far, since an idea that is not far-fetched has been had by everyone, it
is "common knowledge," hackneyed, a hobby-horse that everyone can ride. (A
hack is also a horse-drawn carriage that travels everywhere there is a
thoroughfare, the common roads, streets, highways and byways. A hackneyed
expression is a clichÃ, a commonplace.)
All this "garbage" above, from the Divine Comedy, specifically Canto 17 of
Purgatory, is cited for the abstruse purpose of pointing out two things,
first, that when Dante discusses the workings of the imagination, he
connects it with the circumstance that it is precisely *inner* and that we
are, in the moment of imagining, closed off from the *outer*, in his
example, so much so that we could not hear a thousand "tubas" (that's
Italian for trumpets), and, secondly, that precisely where this clearest
discussion of the workings of the imagination in the Divine Comedy occurs,
the three end-rhymes rhyme with Georgia--"non s'accorga," "non ti porga,"
and "scorga"--and all three expression have to do with perception, seeing,
glimpsing, with the first and the third being more closely related than the
translator has indicated and meaning just that, seeing, being able to make
out, and the second meaning that something is given or offered to the senses
(hey, Robert, that means that "non ti porga" really is for-getting, not
getting, not being given or offered to the senses, hence "forgetive," hard
"G"!).
O _power imaginative_, that dost sometimes so steal us from outward
things that a man _heeds it not_, although around him a thousand trumpets
sound, who moveth thee if the sense _afford thee naught_? A light, that in
the heavens is formed, moveth thee by itself, or by a will that downward
guides it?
In fact, it turns out that the soft "G" pronunciation of forge and,
supposedly, forgetive, has a less clearly documented history than the hard
"G" pronunciation of forget (from the Germanic _vergessen_, to forget, to
not have in one's [mental] possession; "to guess," moreover, originally
meant to _try_ to get, to get hold of or to grasp, and "scorga" and
"s'accorga" seem to be related to _corrigia_, or shoelace, and hence "whip,"
scourge, so that perception was perceived as a kind of whipping by the real
world, and "not being whipped," even for a moment, could lead to
considerable creativity and inventiveness.)
To conclude (wildly, in the "vildest" way, among the worms, forgot),
surrounded by, say, the hustle and bustle of London, the "hack" Shakespeare,
with his Dante open to this page and stimulated by the description of
imagination found therein, wrote his own hack of the creative process, put
it into the mouth of a miscreant and criminal, but one of immense fancy and
feel for life, got the idea for the word "forgetive" to describe what he was
doing, and even turned the thousand "tubas" into the (otherwise--admitted
it--rather absurd) "thousand sons" with which Falstaff concludes:
If I had a thousand sons, the first humane principle I would teach them
should be to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.
And now we know why the players are always begging their audiences and
readers for forbearance and forgiveness, and something like "forgetiveness,"
to allow their fantasies to take hold.
Richard Henninge
University of Mainz
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