What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.
Thoughts at God during a recent pente-style 'worship service':
My religion has changed and I can't do this any more - not these days. It may be just a season. For now, I cannot worship. It is something my soul will not do. If you are there, you are what you are, and I know very little about you. What should I praise you for? I have no words towards you, no doctrines, not so much as a complete sentence to address to you as a person. Even now I can only talk to the concept of you.
I can rest my soul in beauty, and in goodness. They are my delight, and if they are you, then you are most welcome to take my delight unto yourself. It seems fitting enough. But worship? I don't know. It seems oddly irreverent to me. Please understand I mean no disrespect. And I well remember - how could I forget, seeing it all around me every week? - I remember the joy of feeling my whole self subsumed in eternity, feeling so deliciously unimportant, so rightly humbled, so utterly enveloped in what is good. Perhaps one day I will get there again.
But why must it always be tangled up in words? Words are too particular, too complicated for such a thing. They do not reach you. They are not reaching you now. They can say nothing true - only construct conceptual idols. I could say them, and ride the waves that they stir up, but I would have to first distance myself, abstract myself from them. If you Are, you are so impossibly far beyond any words. You are terror as well as euphoria, and I have no wish to be glib about you.
Nor do I wish to grovel and abase myself before you. If you have made me, you have made me as I am and I will stand and look you in the face, not because I claim equality or pretend to have lived blamelessly, but because I think you would rather see my face, bearing my own mistakes but taking you at your word when you say your attitude towards me is like a father's. Surely you would rather see that than my bowed head. There's a kind of pride in being too humble. I will just be what I am, and let you be what you are, and I hope you don't mind if I can't seem to make a big thing of you, or of myself, but prefer to just get on with what I understand I am to do.
There may come a time for lavish outpourings and sublime feelings, and I shall try to keep my heart open to change and to other possibilities, but for my own sanity I think I have to let go of that for now, at least until I can heal a little from this shock. It's still just too painful right now.
***
[Or, in other words:]
KING LEAR Tell me, my daughters,
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,
Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where merit doth most challenge it? Goneril,
Our eldest-born, speak first.
GONERIL Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e'er loved, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
CORDELIA [Aside] What shall Cordelia speak?
Love, and be silent.
LEAR Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady: to thine and Albany's issue
Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.
REGAN Sir, I am made
Of the selfsame mettle as my sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short: that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys,
Which the most precious square of sense possesses;
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear highness' love.
CORDELIA [Aside] Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love's
More ponderous than my tongue.
KING LEAR To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
No less in space, validity, and pleasure
Than that conferr'd on Goneril. Now, our joy,
Although our last and least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interest; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA Nothing, my lord.
KING LEAR Nothing?
CORDELIA Nothing.
KING LEAR Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
CORDELIA Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
KING LEAR How, how, Cordelia? mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
KING LEAR But goes thy heart with this?
CORDELIA Ay, my good lord.
KING LEAR So young, and so untender?
CORDELIA So young, my lord, and true.
KING LEAR Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy dower:
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist, and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever.
[pity about the ending really...]
My religion has changed and I can't do this any more - not these days. It may be just a season. For now, I cannot worship. It is something my soul will not do. If you are there, you are what you are, and I know very little about you. What should I praise you for? I have no words towards you, no doctrines, not so much as a complete sentence to address to you as a person. Even now I can only talk to the concept of you.
I can rest my soul in beauty, and in goodness. They are my delight, and if they are you, then you are most welcome to take my delight unto yourself. It seems fitting enough. But worship? I don't know. It seems oddly irreverent to me. Please understand I mean no disrespect. And I well remember - how could I forget, seeing it all around me every week? - I remember the joy of feeling my whole self subsumed in eternity, feeling so deliciously unimportant, so rightly humbled, so utterly enveloped in what is good. Perhaps one day I will get there again.
But why must it always be tangled up in words? Words are too particular, too complicated for such a thing. They do not reach you. They are not reaching you now. They can say nothing true - only construct conceptual idols. I could say them, and ride the waves that they stir up, but I would have to first distance myself, abstract myself from them. If you Are, you are so impossibly far beyond any words. You are terror as well as euphoria, and I have no wish to be glib about you.
Nor do I wish to grovel and abase myself before you. If you have made me, you have made me as I am and I will stand and look you in the face, not because I claim equality or pretend to have lived blamelessly, but because I think you would rather see my face, bearing my own mistakes but taking you at your word when you say your attitude towards me is like a father's. Surely you would rather see that than my bowed head. There's a kind of pride in being too humble. I will just be what I am, and let you be what you are, and I hope you don't mind if I can't seem to make a big thing of you, or of myself, but prefer to just get on with what I understand I am to do.
There may come a time for lavish outpourings and sublime feelings, and I shall try to keep my heart open to change and to other possibilities, but for my own sanity I think I have to let go of that for now, at least until I can heal a little from this shock. It's still just too painful right now.
***
[Or, in other words:]
KING LEAR Tell me, my daughters,
Since now we will divest us both of rule,
Interest of territory, cares of state,
Which of you shall we say doth love us most,
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where merit doth most challenge it? Goneril,
Our eldest-born, speak first.
GONERIL Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;
No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
As much as child e'er loved, or father found;
A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;
Beyond all manner of so much I love you.
CORDELIA [Aside] What shall Cordelia speak?
Love, and be silent.
LEAR Of all these bounds, even from this line to this,
With shadowy forests and with champains rich'd,
With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,
We make thee lady: to thine and Albany's issue
Be this perpetual. What says our second daughter,
Our dearest Regan, wife to Cornwall? Speak.
REGAN Sir, I am made
Of the selfsame mettle as my sister,
And prize me at her worth. In my true heart
I find she names my very deed of love;
Only she comes too short: that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys,
Which the most precious square of sense possesses;
And find I am alone felicitate
In your dear highness' love.
CORDELIA [Aside] Then poor Cordelia!
And yet not so; since, I am sure, my love's
More ponderous than my tongue.
KING LEAR To thee and thine hereditary ever
Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,
No less in space, validity, and pleasure
Than that conferr'd on Goneril. Now, our joy,
Although our last and least; to whose young love
The vines of France and milk of Burgundy
Strive to be interest; what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA Nothing, my lord.
KING LEAR Nothing?
CORDELIA Nothing.
KING LEAR Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
CORDELIA Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
KING LEAR How, how, Cordelia? mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.
CORDELIA Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty:
Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
KING LEAR But goes thy heart with this?
CORDELIA Ay, my good lord.
KING LEAR So young, and so untender?
CORDELIA So young, my lord, and true.
KING LEAR Let it be so; thy truth, then, be thy dower:
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate, and the night;
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist, and cease to be;
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever.
[pity about the ending really...]
posted by Kat | 9/07/2007 10:52:00 am
|
8 comments
