The Dyers Hand and Other Essays

The bzou tied a woollen thread to her feet and let her go out, and when the little girl was outside she tied the end of the string to a big plum tree in the yard. The hzou got impatient and said: "Are you making cables?"

When he became aware that no one answered him, he jumped out of bed and saw that the little girl had escaped. He followed her, but he arrived at the house just at the moment that she was safely inside.

BROTHERS & OTHERS

The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility—of being unable to undo what one has done—is the faculty of forgiving. The remedy for unpredictability, for the chaotic un­certainty of the future, is contained in the faculty to make and keep promises. Both faculties de­pend upon plurality, on the presence and acting of others, for no man can forgive himself and no one can be bound by a promise made only to himself.

hannah arendt

The England which Shakespeare presents in Richard II

and Henry IV is a society in which wealth, that is to say, social power, is derived from ownership of land, not from accumu­lated capital. The only person who is in need of money is the King who must equip troops to defend the country against foreign foes. If, like Richard II, he is an unjust king, he spends the money which should have been spent on defense in main­taining a luxurious and superfluous court. Economically, the country is self-sufficient, and production is for use, not profit. The community-forming bond in this England is either the family tie of common blood which is given by nature or the feudal tie of lord and vassal created by personal oath. Both are commitments to individuals and both are lifelong commit­ments. But this type of community tie is presented as being ill suited to the needs of England as a functioning society. If England is to function properly as a society, the community based on personal loyalty must be converted into a community united by a common love of impersonal justice, that is to say, of the King's Law which is no respecter of persons. We are given to understand that in Edward Ill's day, this kind of community already existed, so that the family type of com­munity is seen as a regression. Centuries earlier, a war between Wessex and Mercia, for example, would have been regarded as legitimate as a war between England and France, but now a conflict between a Percy and a Bolingbroke is regarded as a civil war, illegitimate because between brothers. It is possible, therefore, to apply a medical analogy to England and speak of a sick body politic, because it is as obvious who are aliens and who ought to be brothers as it is obvious which cells belong to my body and which to the body of another. War, as such, is not condemned but is still considered, at least for the gentry, a normal and enjoyable occupation like farming. Indeed peace, as such, carries with it the pejorative associations of idleness and vice.

Now all the youth of England on fire And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies. Now shrive the Armourers and Honour's thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man. They sell the pasture now to buy the horse.

The only merchants who appear in Henry TV

are the "Bacon- fed Knaves and Fat Chuffs" whom Falstaff robs, and they are presented as contemptible physical cowards.

In The Merchant of Venice and Othello Shakespeare de­picts a very different kind of society. Venice does not produce anything itself, either raw materials or manufactured goods. Its existence depends upon the financial profits which can be made by international trade,

. . . the trade and profit of the city Consisteth of all nations

that is to say, on buying cheaply here and selling dearly there, and its wealth lies in its accumulated money capital. Money has ceased to be simply a convenient medium of exchange and has become a form of social power which can be gained or lost. Such a mercantile society is international and cosmopolitan; it does not distinguish between the brother and the alien other than on a basis of blood or religion—from the point of view of society, customers are brothers, trade rivals others. But Venice is not simply a mercantile society; it is also a city in­habited by various communities with different loves—Gentiles and Jews, for example—who do not regard each other per­sonally as brothers, but must tolerate each other's existence because both are indispensable to the proper functioning of their society, and this toleration is enforced by the laws of the Venetian state.