Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

The Jailer's mad Daughter is back at home now and her faithful Wooer comes anxiously to learn of her. He had seen her roaming the countryside in her madness and had found her as beautiful

-Act IV,scene i, lines 87-88

The name "Iris" means "rainbow" and she was the representation of that phenomenon. Since the rainbow seems like a delicate bridge in the sky, it was easy to imagine that it served as a route between heaven and earth. From the route itself, the name was applied to a messenger who plied that route, and Iris was therefore a messenger, carrying divine orders to mortals and serving Juno (Hera) in particular.

Emilia has her problems. She is distressed that either Palamon or Arcite should die for her. She could prevent it if only she could choose between them, but she can't She has a picture of each, and each she in turns admires. Of Arcite, she says:

—Act IV, scene ii, lines 15-16

Ganymede, in the Greek myths, was a beautiful Trojan prince, with whom Jupiter (Zeus) fell in love. Jupiter took on the guise of an eagle and carried Ganymede off, taking him to heaven where he became the wine pourer of the gods. This is another case of homosexuality attributed to the gods, as in the case of Apollo and Hyacinthus (see page I-15)-this time of Jupiter himself.

The use of Jove for Jupiter, as in this passage, is common. Jove is from a Latin word that means simply "god."

Of Arcite's brow, Emilia goes on to say that it is

—Act IV, scene ii, lines 20-21

Pelops was the son whom Tantalus killed and served as food for the gods (see page I-13). The gods recognized what was being served them and, with one exception, did not eat of the food. The exception was Deme-ter, who, sorrowing over Proserpina (see page I-7), had absent-mindedly eaten some of the shoulder. The gods, in bringing Pelops back to life, replaced the missing part with ivory so that Pelops' shoulder served, in literature, as a standard for smoothness.

—But then Emilia looks at Palamon's picture and thinks he is equally wonderful. She cannot choose.

While this is going on, the Jailer has brought a doctor to treat his mad daughter. All she can do is talk of Palamon, nothing but Palamon. She thinks Palamon is dead and that in the next world Dido will abandon Aeneas (see page I-20) for Palamon's sake. The reference to Dido is as anachronistic here as it was in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

She seems to be thinking of death herself, to join Palamon in the after-world. This requires certain rites, of course:

—Act IV, scene iii, lines 19-21

The Greeks felt that Charon, the ferrier of the underworld, would not take a shade over the Styx River into Hades unless he were paid, and for the purpose a small coin was usually placed in the corpse's mouth.

The Daughter imagines that once in the Elysian Fields (see page I-13), all would be well:

—Act IV, scene iii, lines 24-26

Proserpina was picking flowers when she was carried off by Hades (see page I-7) and that action is therefore associated with her.

The doctor, listening to all this, decides that the only way the Daughter can possibly be cajoled out of her madness is to let her think she has Palamon. He therefore urges the Wooer to play the part of Palamon in all possible ways. The Wooer agrees and the Daughter accepts him in this role. Mad or not, the play ends happily for these two.

The tournament between the knights led by Arcite and by Palamon is ready to begin, and in the fifth act Shakespeare's pen takes over for heavy pageantry. Both warriors must offer prayer to the gods. Arcite chooses to pray to Mars (Ares), the god of war, and receives the approval of his request for victory in the form of a short burst of thunder.

Palamon chooses to pray not to Mars but to Venus, the goddess of love (a wiser choice by the rules of courtly love), and he receives a positive sign too, in the form of music and doves.

Emilia prays also, to the virginal Diana (Artemis), asking that the one who best loves her should win her. She receives an answer as the sole rose falls from a rosebush.

The tournament is nip and tuck, but it is fought offstage. At first the cries seem to make Palamon the winner, but in the end it is Arcite by a narrow margin and Mars's omen is fulfilled.

Theseus greatly admires both. Palamon, the loser, is highly praised:

—Act V, scene iii, lines 119-20

Greeks generally had a single name. There was considerable chance of duplication, therefore, and it was necessary to identify people by their native cities or by their father's name. One might say "Diomedes, son of Tydeus" (see page I-57), or simply "son of Tydeus," as another way of referring to Diomedes. In Greek fashion, "son of Tydeus" would be "Tydides."

It was difficult to call Hercules by the name of his father, since he was the son of Jupiter, who had come to his mother Alcmene in the guise of her husband Amphitryon. With Amphitryon notoriously cuckolded, the myth-makers could scarcely call him "Amphitryonides." They evaded the issue by naming him for his grandfather, Alcaeus, Amphitryon's father. He is therefore called Alcides.

And yet though Arcite has won the battle by Mars's grace, Palamon wins the lady by Venus' grace. Arcite, in triumph, mounts a horse who, through accident, throws him and falls upon him. Arcite is brought onstage, dying, and gives his right to Emilia to Palamon. This is justified by Theseus' statement that Arcite had admitted, after all, that Palamon had seen the lady first.

With that, all the rules of courtly love are satisfied and the play can come to an end.

The most famous event in the early history of Greece was the Trojan War, fought a generation after the time of Theseus-or shortly before 1200 b.c. Concerning that war, we have only the legendary tale told by Homer, a Greek poet who supposedly lived in the ninth century b.c.

Whether Homer actually lived, or whether the poems ascribed to him were written by one man or many, has exercised the ingenuity of literary critics for over two thousand years, but that is not the sort of problem that concerns us here.

What does concern us is that the Homeric poems have (along with the Bible and Shakespeare's plays) been the most notable and influential works of literature ever produced in the Western world, and that in 1601 Shakespeare wrote his own version of the Homeric tale.

Shakespeare was by no means the first, nor was he the last, to do a version of Homer.

Homer's poem may have first been put together about 850 b.c. and have been sung or recited by bard after bard, the tale being carried or from generation to generation through oral tradition. About 500 B.c it was carefully edited by Athenian scholars and placed into the form we now have.