Seeking Refuge In Shakespeare's Verses...

Shakespeare’s creations have an innate hypnotism and a magnetic prowess that often creates stir in both my heart and mind. This lockdown has intensified it even more, so much so that I often find myself challenging his soliloquies and their timing. For example, while Caesar said, “Cowards die many times before their deaths” (Act II of Julius Caesar), what was his state of mind, and how could he let his giant ego gnaw his conjugal life?

Omens and superstitions are passe, they aren’t meant to be banked upon, yet why is the wellbeing of other Senators of paramount importance when his wife pleaded him to stay back and not visit the Capitol that very day? His words were, “Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death, but once…” Yet, on the contrary, wasn’t stepping out a replica of cowardice? Weren’t Caesar’s efforts a mere sign of despondency? Wasn’t all of it to uphold the public image of how valiant he was?

So, who was being the coward here, and wasn’t he already dead then? Then while he is purged from behind by his beloved friend Brutus, all he could manage to say was, “Et tu Brute?” Sadly yes, Brutus too was involved in Caesar’s assassination and didn’t back off from his plan of purging his beloved confidant. Tragic? Surely, but experts stated that Brutus’ mistakes were committed out of sheer love for his nation. Yet, purging your best friend, and that too much before he even became a tyrant? Certainly questionable on ethical grounds. 




Yet, reality often paints an unusual picture, that questions firm convictions held onto from times immemorial. While reminiscing my literature lessons, and writing this piece, I feel life has come a long way. Currently, we are all enslaved by the novel coronavirus, which has made us realise our incompetence, helplessness, and failure to combat it. No spiritual leader, no soothsayer, or a professional fortune-teller could predict, let alone prophesize that the world would get to see a pandemic, so massive and gigantic in a form that it could downsize all the fitness enthusiasts. What remains, is an apocalypse.

Shakespeare had acquainted his readers and hopeless fans like me with destruction too, in elaborate paragraphs. Be it Macbeth’s fall or Hamlet’s contemplation of suicide; somewhere or the other you gauge this dilemma and the bitter truth of how ruthless can death be! The irony is some get a chance to live, while others choose to end it once and for all. In this regard, how can I forget about the famous lines of Hamlet where he says, “To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.”
 
These lines were spoken by Hamlet, where he was contemplating suicide, and yet he turns out victorious. They are deep, bold and strong. Strong enough to keep coming back to Shakespeare with every passing day, well, every passing moment actually. 
 
Image courtesy: The Nepali Express

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