Tue, 15 Apr 2014 | Cover | Page 15

A Remnant Book Review…

A Tale Told Softly,

By Robert T. Morrison

Reviewed by Vincent Chiarello

Theproposition that Shakespeare used allegory to allow his theatrical productions to get past government censors has not been accepted by all, including those who have posited that Robert Morrison’s interpretation could as easily fit a pagan theme as a Catholic one. To which Morrison has responded by pointing out that the two places that are central to the play – Sicilia and Bohemia, not Classical Greece or Rome – reveal another aspect of The Winter’s Tale, one which he believes intentional.

Bohemia, once part of the former Czechoslovakia and now part of the Czech Republic, played a pivotal role for the English clergy at that time. In a letter to a fellow Jesuit, the soon-to-be martyred St. Edmund Campion wrote: For this at least we are indebted to those by whose heresy and persecution we have been driven forth and cast gently on a pleasant and blessed shore. (N.B.

Bohemia is landlocked.) Bohemia was where Campion was trained, and from where he left to return to England where he was condemned to a traitor’s death by drawing and quartering.

Was Shakespeare geographically illiterate? His contemporary Ben Jonson thought so for in a letter to a friend, Jonson, who adopted "the new religion" and remained a favorite at Court, claimed that Shakespeare had been careless in his details, since in the play he’d given a seacoast to Bohemia, which is a landlocked country. I seriously doubt Shakespeare’s nescience in this matter; what is more likely is that Jonson never understood why his contemporary did so.

In a recent publication, A Blessed Shore: England and Bohemia from Chaucer to Shakespeare, (2007), the author Alfred Thomas writes: "Sixteenth and seventeenth century Bohemia was one of the most tolerant places in Europe, so tolerating in fact that many English Catholics sought refuge there."

But is there anything substantive to be made of the play’s Sicilia/Rome connection?

Here a good deal turns on the symbolism of Rome as the Oracle, something that Shakespeare’s audience would have recognized. Since the use of Rome would never have passed the censor’s eyes, Morrison believes that Shakespeare "conveys the same message by linking Catholic Rome and the Oracle. As one writer also comments: " The most remarkable instance of Catholic imagery in the play is when the poet goes out of his way to describe the Oracle of Delphi. Now it must be remembered that Rome was the Delphi of medieval Europe."

In Shakespeare’s telling, Leontes, King of Sicily, seeks from the Oracle the truth abut his wife Hermione’s fidelity. There can be little doubt that his effort to seek this answer about Hermione’s chastity is similar to Henry VIII’s effort to seek the answer he desired from the Oracle, in his case Rome, concerning his petition for divorce.

Regarding his immediate situation, Shakespeare was well aware of the gathering storm clouds that grew increasingly menacing after the failed Gunpowder Plot, and the efforts of the new monarch, James I, to deal with those "recusants" who would not accept "the new religion" or abandon "the old one."

In his address to Parliament in March 1610, James I outlined the lengths to which his government would enforce the "Oath of Allegiance" (to the King and the Church of England), and reveals the first Stuart King’s mindset for the duration of his reign:

Papists are waxed as proud at this time as ever they were, which makes many to think they have some new plot in hand... As for Recusants, let them be all duly presented (with the Oath) without exception, for in times past there has been too great a connivance and forbearing of them...But for those Apostates, who I know, must be the greatest haters of their own Sect...they shall never find any more favor of me; further then I must in Justice afford them. And these I would have the Law strike the severest upon, and you (Parliament) most careful to discover.

The Winter’s Tale was written between 1610-1611, and first performed in May, 1611. It strains common sense to believe that Shakespeare was unaware of the two classes of Catholics described by James I: the simple and misled to whom their sovereign could dispense mercy, and those to whom he would give no quarter. The Latin phrase Iacta alea est summarized the situation: the die is cast.

Morrison examines several other aspects of the play that may also catch the reader’s eye, often hidden Catholic themes and symbols that are not only a reflection of Shakespeare’s personal story, but also an integral part of the country the Bard himself called "the sceptered isle." Some of these clandestine themes that Morrison develops may resonate with readers of The Remnant.

For example, the aforementioned Oath of Allegiance provides a subject for commentary in Morrison’s tome. As one English historian explained:

The oath concluded with an assurance that the taker understood these words in their plain and common meaning, and had taken the oath ‘without an equivocation or mental evasion or secret reservation whatsoever’ - a reference to the doctrine of equivocation devised by Roman Catholic priests to enable them to avoid answering directly the questions put to them when they were in official custody.

Implicit in the origin of the Oath was that English Catholics, who were the conspirators in the attempt to blow up Parliament, were also directly or indirectly influenced to do so by (then) Pope Paul V. In his correspondence with Rome, James I accused the pontiff of "encouraging" the plot. But was this a credible charge?

James knew of the correspondence with the Papal Emissary, St. Robert Bellarmine, that Pope Paul V has written: "I abhor Parricide, I detest all conspiracies." To strengthen that claim, St. Bellarmine in a letter to Rev.

Blackwell, who had authority over all secular priests (not in Religious Orders) in England, had written:

For it was never heard of from the Church’s infancy until this day that ever any Pope did command, that any Prince, though a Heretic...though a persecutor, should be murdered; or did approve of the fact, when it was done by any other.

Still, James remained steadfast in his refusal to believe the Vatican’s policy of rejecting parricide, and specifically sought to reaffirm it through the taking of the Oath, which highlighted the Anglican belief that the pope’s ability to depose monarchs was heretical.

But what of those characters in The Winter’s Tale who willfully abjured the Faith and took the Oath? Morrison describes the ill-fated character, Antigonus, and the consequences of his action.

Far more than today, the swearing of an oath in Shakespeare’s time bound a man to a course of action that might prove disastrous, but, unless released, that oath was indissoluble. By swearing allegiance to King Leontes, Antigonus, sensing the consequences of his actions is quickly judged, and says, "I am gone forever," and Morrison claims: "...and with one of the more remarkable stage directions in Shakespeare’s plays, he exits ‘pursued by a bear’." Was St. Robert Bellarmine the "bear" who chased the apostate from the scene?

We learn that Antigonus dies on land, and his crew, which had taken him to Bohemia, perishes at sea. In his final speech of the play, his despair is obvious as is the religious imagery: Weep I cannot, But my heart bleeds; and most accursed am I to be by oath enjoined to this. Farewell!

Is it too far a stretch to consider that in Shakespeare’s view the betrayal of Antigonus resembles the deeds of one of the original apostles? There is more, much more to this book, and I suspect that anyone who reads A Tale Told Softly will, perforce, read or re-read The Winter’s Tale.

Robert Morrison spent nearly 17 years of his life researching and then writing A Tale Told Softly, which started as an assignment while a midshipman at the US Naval Academy. I believe that "assignment" morphed into something far more significant: it became a labor of love and a journey to find his faith. To him there was an "epiphany" that often coincides with learning more and more about something you cherish.

In a note to the reviewer, Morrison wrote that he might explain his sense of wonderment with the play by offering this analogy: it was as if he had tripped in the garden of The Winter’s Tale, and lying on the ground he "could see a small opening, which turned out to be a cave... Beneath the masterfully planted garden, the gardener had designed another that was complete, consistent with the one above, and more magnificent. Seeing it made me appreciate the one above even more."

Is it, then, a coincidence that a young man was brought to the Faith in part through a play by William Shakespeare?

Is it a coincidence that long after he had left the US Naval Academy and pursued a career in law that the memory of one play, The Winter’s Tale, continued to haunt his memory and demand he get to the bottom of why Shakespeare wrote it? Perhaps the true answer to both those questions is found in the French proverb: A coincidence is an event in which God chooses to remain anonymous.

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