Monday, July 21, 2008

Commentary: Enter Friar Laurence - Act II Scene 3

Overview
  • The soil can be used for burying the dead and for growing plants.
  • Every creature no matter how lowly has a good use for the inhabitants of the earth.
  • But once they are used inappropriately then the consequences are unpredictable and dangerous.
  • Virtue used in the wrong context becomes its opposite: vice.
  • Vice can become a good thing when it is also used in the wrong context or "misapplied" for the purpose of good.
  • A plant can be used as both poison and medicine depending on how it is applied.
  • The willingness can be used for devotion to God or lust.
  • When there is too much lust the person dies.


The theme of Friar Laurence's rhyming soliloquy is that both good and bad are found in nature and people. The goodness or "virtue" in something is determined by how it is used or applied. He begins talking about the earth and mother nature:

The earth that's nature's mother is her tomb.
What is her burying grave that is her womb;


In other words:

The earth is both the mother of nature and the place where she is buried.
The place where she is buried is also the place where she produces life.

Friar Laurence tells us that both life and death is found in the earth. The earth is both the place where living things are buried, but also where they are born; that is, the earth is both the tomb and the womb of nature. This foreshadows the death of the two lovers (Act V Scene 3) which is, to say the least, tragic, but gives birth to the reconciliation between the two feuding families.

And from her womb children of divers kind
We sucking on her natural bosom find,
Many for many virtues excellent
None but for some, and yet all different


In other words:

From the soil, the earth's womb, a great variety of plants, the earth's children, are produced. By seeking food, or in Shakespeare's words, "sucking on her natural bosom" we discover a great variety of plants that are useful for a great variety of good things or "virtues". The word "virtue" was used up until the middle of the seventeenth century to denote the ultimate purpose of something, its final cause or its "finality"(Simon, 1986 p.74). Simon (1986) renamed it "existential readineness".


O mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities.
For naught so vile that on earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give;


In other words:

Oh how strong is the divine force in plants, herbs and stones and in their real properties. There is nothing so lowly and ugly living on earth that can't give some kind of special goodness back to those who live on the earth. This pre-empts the coming discourse on morality.

Nor aught so good but, strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.


In other words:

Everything is good, however once misused it acts in the opposite way from what it was intended and then faulters or collapses. Friar Laurence understands the principles involved and the dangers in manipulating the elements, he must be very sure he understands the qualities of all the elements and when one is abusing them or using them correctly. This is clearly applicable to science and the risks of manipulation.

Virtue itself turns vice being misapplied
And vice sometime's by action dignified


In other words:

By the same token when a virtue is not used in its proper sense it becomes evil. What's more, evil can sometimes become goodness when applied in certain ways. In summary an action can be either a virtue or a vice depending on how or in what context it is applied.

For the Greeks every action is aimed at some good. As Aristotle says in Book I of Nicomachaen Ethics:

Every art, and every science reduced to a teachable form, and in like manner every action and moral choice, aims, it is thought, at some good: for which reason a common and by no means a bad description of the Chief Good is, " that which all things aim at."

For Aristotle the goodness or rightness of an action was determined by how well it led the doer their goal. An action had to be carefully and rationally planned based on a clear understanding of the End and the moral rules necessary to realise it. It would be too much to say that Aristotle promoted the idea of the ends justifying the means. However this may be the meaning of Friar Laurence.

Within the rind of this weak flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power.


In other words:

In the skin of this fragile flower poison and medicine can be found.

For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;
being tasted, stays all senses with the heart.


In other words:

If sniffed it is beneficial, if tasted it is fatal. A plant is poisonous or medicinal depending on how it is applied.

Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs – grace and rude will


In other words:

Willingness (Spencer, 1996) or readineness to act (Simon, 1986) can lead to grace or rude will depending on how it is applied. For Simon (1986) there is 'qualitative readiness' and 'existential readiness'. The former is knowledge and skills to do something. The latter is the willingness to do it. This willingness or readiness is something that can be apllied for good or bad purposes. Grace and rude will are equal and opposite.

This is relevant to science and ethics. Students are developing qualitative readiness through their studies. A course of ethics or ethical reflection is necessary to develop existential readiness.
Is this the same thing in NE?
Aristotle calls readiness to act as Hexis/Habitus/Disposition

And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant


In other words:

And where rude will or lust is dominant very quickly the cankerworm will consume the plant. In this context the plant is the metaphor for the body and the canker death the metaphor for some destructive force that will lead to the death of the body.

Friar Laurence seems to believe that the principle he describes of the relativity of goodness in nature is applicable to plants and vice versa. Armed with this he is ready to meddle in the affairs of the two lovers.

From examples of nature, Friar Laurence believes that death is not only part of life but necessary for life. Death can be viewed positively because it leads to life. He goes on to say that all life forms no matter how ugly and insignificant have something positve and beneficial for the inhabitants of the earth. He takes the example of a flower to illustrate the point that good and bad is found together in the same entity depending on how it is applied. Willingness in people can be used for grace or doing the will of God or for lust. If lust predominates over grace then the human body will die.

Vocabulary

aught: anything, all, everything : "aught I care"
bosom: breast
divers: diverse
grave: hole in the ground where a dead body is placed
None but for some: All plants have some use. (Spencer, 1967).
tomb: ornate above ground structure in which a dead body is placed
womb: the uterus, the part of a woman's body in which a baby develops

References

Levenson, , J.L (2000) The Oxford Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet.

Nicomachaen Ethics - Aristotle. Translated by D.P.Chase, 1911, Aristotle's Ethics. Dover Thrift Editions, New York

Russel, Bertrand (1996) History of Western Philosophy. Routeledge Classics.

Simon, Y. (1986) cited in Joseph Malikail MORAL CHARACTER: HEXIS, HABITUS AND 'HABIT', Minerva - An Internet Journal of Philosophy Vol. 7 2003.

Spencer, T.J.B (1996) Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. The New penguin Shakespeare. London.

©All copyright, Ray Genet 2008