Good & Grace from Evil & Sin in Love's Labor's Lost & Henry V

How can good be distilled from evil? How can sin turn to grace? GOOD FROM EVIL IN HENRY V (1599):

In Shakespeare's Henry V, Act 4, Scene 1 (Folger), King Henry says something that some readers and audience members may find strange:

"There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.

We should note that this is not at all the same as arguing that evil means can and should be used to achieve good ends: As they say, the ends do not justify the means; but this statement by Henry is very different.

Given that Henry was a kind of prodigal son, it seems Henry himself is living evidence that good can be distilled from evil: Perhaps the time he spent with Falstaff not only corrupted him for a time, but also helped him understand aspects of himself, and a wider range of his subjects, better, and therefore made him a better king.

Henry's time as a prodigal son was not chosen as an evil means to achieve a good end: He chose to be prodigal for the excitement and pleasures it gave him. However, repenting of the "sins" of his prodigal years allowed him to reap unforseen benefits.

GRACE FROM TEMPTATION AND SIN IN LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST (1594-1595): Five years earlier, Shakespeare explored a similar idea in Love's Labor Lost. At the end of the play, the men have disguised themselves to secretly woo the women they believe they have chosen, but the women learn of this in advaqnce, and so they also disguise themselves to trick the men into wooing the wrong women. People sometimes act strangely, wildly, inappropriately, when they thing they are disguised, whether they are masked as actors, members of Elizabeth's court at a Christmas masque, or sometimes, people on the internet.

News arrives that the father of the Princess of France has died, and suddenly things become serious. The princess offers an explanation for the women's behavior that might be taken the wrong way, and then Berowne offers a similar explanation in greater detail. These explanations are like apologies, also like blaming the other for theri own bad behavior, but also like the line quoted above from Henry V. Here's what the Princess has to say:

I thank you, gracious lords,
For all your fair endeavors, and entreat,
Out of a new-sad soul, that you vouchsafe
In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide
The liberal opposition of our spirits,
If overboldly we have borne ourselves
In the converse of breath; your gentleness
Was guilty of it.
(5.2.804-811, Folger)


[ODELL PARK, Love's Labour's Lost Jun 12, 2020, YouTube, starting at 2:14:19]

In other words: Forgive us if we have been too bold: Your gentleness tempted us to it and is to blame.

Is this an attempt to avoid responsibility for being too bold? Or a way both to apologize for feminine boldness, and to express gratitude for male gentleness?

Soon, also here is what Berowne says, something very similar but in greater detail:

For your fair sakes have we neglected time,
Played foul play with our oaths. Your beauty, ladies,
Hath much deformed us, fashioning our humors
Even to the opposèd end of our intents.
And what in us hath seemed ridiculous—
[...]
Which parti-coated presence of loose love
Put on by us, if, in your heavenly eyes,
Have misbecomed our oaths and gravities,
Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,
Suggested us to make. Therefore, ladies,
Our love being yours, the error that love makes
Is likewise yours. We to ourselves prove false
By being once false forever to be true
To those that make us both—fair ladies, you.
And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,
Thus purifies itself and turns to grace. (5.2.830-851)


[Calvin University, Love's Labor's Lost, June 8, 2016, YouTube, starting at 2:18:08]

In other words, Berowne says yes, they broke their oaths to avoid the company of women. And yet he blames the women's beauty and heavenly eyes, so the fault is shared by the women. They were false to their oaths, only to be true forever to the women.

Their sin thereby "purifies itself and turns to grace." A nearly blasphemous idea.

And this from a playwright who seems to have gotten Anne Hathaway pregnant before swearing (in church, before witnesses) to love and honor her in marriage. Did his sin turn to grace?

And in a kingdom where people were required to swear loyalty to a Protestant queen, and to avenge those who might conspire to kill her, even if they had previously promised loyalty to Roman Catholicism. Did their sin turn to grace?

St. Paul says that God can bring good, even from evil. Shakespeare's formulation is either just a clever conceit, or even more bold and surprising.

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MY RECENT POSTS ON LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST:

5. Love's Labor's Lost, Arcangela Tarabotti, and Mirrors of Difference - November 16, 2021

4. Elizabeth I, Popes, & Ferdinando I de' Medici in Love's Labor's Lost - November 9, 2021

3. Women Priests Assigning Penance in Love's Labor's Lost? - November 2, 2021

2. Good & Grace from Evil & Sin in Love's Labor's Lost & Henry V - October 24, 2021

1. Begging & Poor (& Chastity & Pregnancy) in Love's Labour's Lost (1594-1597) - October 12, 2021 (this #1 post was also part of another series)

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Thanks for reading! My current project is a book tentatively titled Hamlet’s Bible, about biblical allusions and plot echoes in Hamlet.

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https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2019/12/top-20-hamlet-bible-posts.html

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Comments

  1. The Dual Nature

    In Genesis 2:7, the Bible states that G-d formed (vayyitzer) man. The spelling of this word is unusual: it uses two consecutive Yods instead of the one you would expect. The rabbis inferred that these Yods stand for the word "yetzer," which means impulse, and the existence of two Yods here indicates that humanity was formed with two impulses: a good impulse (the yetzer tov) and an evil impulse (the yetzer ra).

    The yetzer tov is the moral conscience, the inner voice that reminds you of G-d's law when you consider doing something that is forbidden. According to some views, it does not enter a person until his 13th birthday, when he becomes responsible for following the commandments. See Bar Mitzvah.

    The yetzer ra is more difficult to define, because there are many different ideas about it. It is not a desire to do evil in the way we normally think of it in Western society: a desire to cause senseless harm. Rather, it is usually conceived as the selfish nature, the desire to satisfy personal needs (food, shelter, sex, etc.) without regard for the moral consequences of fulfilling those desires.

    The yetzer ra is not a bad thing. It was created by G-d, and all things created by G-d are good. The Talmud notes that without the yetzer ra (the desire to satisfy personal needs), man would not build a house, marry a wife, beget children or conduct business affairs. But the yetzer ra can lead to wrongdoing when it is not controlled by the yetzer tov. There is nothing inherently wrong with hunger, but it can lead you to steal food. There is nothing inherently wrong with sexual desire, but it can lead you to commit rape, adultery, incest or other sexual perversion.

    The yetzer ra is generally seen as something internal to a person, not as an external force acting on a person. The idea that "the devil made me do it" is not in line with the majority of thought in Judaism. Although it has been said that Satan and the yetzer ra are one and the same, this is more often understood as meaning that Satan is merely a personification of our own selfish desires, rather than that our selfish desires are caused by some external force.

    People have the ability to choose which impulse to follow: the yetzer tov or the yetzer ra. That is the heart of the Jewish understanding of free will. The Talmud notes that all people are descended from Adam, so no one can blame his own wickedness on his ancestry. On the contrary, we all have the ability to make our own choices, and we will all be held responsible for the choices we make.

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  2. Paul,
    I apologize for leaving you with a dangling comment. The comment was supposed to be in response to your opening questions and address, "There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
    Would men observingly distil it out.."

    My source is Tracey Rich's Judaism 101 site. https://www.jewfaq.org/human.htm
    It's an excellent treasure trove of all things Torah, Talmud and Midrash. Another is Maimondes, who studied all of the above and wrote a few vital texts. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/maimonides-rambam/
    "Good distilled from Evil" begins with Genesis.
    There is some confusion regarding the Hebrew names of the books of the Bible. What exactly is the Torah? What is the ‘Ta•nach’ or ‘Ta•nakh,’ as it is spelled in some lexicons and dictionaries?

    The Old Testament is also called ‘Ta•nach.’ In Hebrew, it is not a name but the initials of the three sections of the Old Testament: Torah (Torah, the Law); ‘Nevieem’ (Prophets); and Ketuvim (Writings). The Torah includes the five books of Moses (Pentateuch) and ‘Be•re•sheet’ (also known as Genesis) is its first book.

    The name ‘Be•re•sheet’ means: “in the beginning,” and this is also the first word in this book and obviously, in the entire Bible.

    “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”
    Genesis 1:1

    ‘Be•re•sheet’ is made of two words: ‘be’ (in, in the) and ‘re•sheet‘ (beginning). The second word is a derivative of the word “rosh” (head); its Hebrew spelling is identical to the first three letters of the word ‘beginning.’

    Also of note are newly discovered (March 2021) Dead Sea Scrolls. Read about it here > https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium-israel-finds-new-dead-sea-scroll-first-such-discovery-in-60-years-1.9621317

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Michael, for these rich comments! Excellent, insightful.

      You imply (correctly, I think) that some aspects of Christianity (or at least some Christians and/or Christian thinkers) went astray from some of the best insights of Judaism.

      I wonder to what extent Shakespeare may have (intentionally or accidentally) stumbled upon similar insights, given the Reformation England context in which he lived and wrote?

      Delete

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