Gary writes:
>>OK, so then why the interest in Hemlock?
"If hours were days" . . . I'm actually thinking of a plot phrase in
Clavell's _Shogun_ where Blackthorne has to learn Japanese in 6 months or the
whole village he lives in would be put to death. He ends up committing
suicide anyway to prove the point that this kind of coercion is ultimately
the most stupid. Well actually, Omi or Yabu I ferget stops him mid-stroke,
but that's typical Clavell. The suggestion is that Will Adams figured he was
too useful to be allowed to die.
Shakespeare does something similar in 1 Henry IV where young Henry states:
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promised,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;
And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glitt'ring o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
Please. Henry and his band of thieves were just that. A band of thieves.
There were no secret plans to make himself look better by being bad in the
first place. Henry IV was probably a mediocre . . . king, a petty thief and
par for the course. Shakespeare is just a smart playwright who knows the
game of "payola" in the English court who wants to make someone's ancestor
look good and tell the truth at the same time.
What happens when you coerce by threatening loved ones is that you end up
with people who have no qualms about committing suicide or worse or better,
no qualms about having a village of innocents killed in their name. That
type of coercion works for a while until someone figures out not to care if
their loved ones are killed or not, nor to care whether he lives or dies, and
that's inevitable, because you've killed everybody who *would* care.
How does this pertain? It doesn't. But if I were Ulysses' wife I could
control my suitors' behaviour and thus spare my house by committing suicide.
Thus, in my garden I want to plant Hemlock in honor of Ulysses and his wife
and a bunch of glavers.
