Perhaps conceiving of a siege is not so difficult for most of us these days. Or perhaps some do not think of it that way. The title line for this post comes to us from Henry V, spoken by the Chorus at the beginning of Act 3 when Henry V has come to France and besieged the city of Harfleur:
CHORUS
Henry V, 3.chorus.1-37
Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Dover pier
Embark his royalty, and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phoebus
fanning.
Play with your fancies and in them behold,
Upon the hempen tackle, shipboys climbing.
Hear the shrill whistle, which doth order give
To sounds confused. Behold the threaden sails,
Borne with th’ invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,
Breasting the lofty surge. O, do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on th’ inconstant billows dancing,
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow!
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies, and old women,
Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance,
For who is he whose chin is but enriched
With one appearing hair that will not follow
These culled and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?
Work, work your thoughts, and therein see a siege;
Behold the ordnance on their carriages,
With fatal mouths gaping on girded Harfleur.
Suppose th’ Ambassador from the French comes
back,
Tells Harry that the King doth offer him
Katherine his daughter and with her, to dowry,
Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.
The offer likes not, and the nimble gunner
With linstock now the devilish cannon touches,
[Alarum, and chambers go off.]
And down goes all before them. Still be kind,
And eke out our performance with your mind.
[He exits.]
The martial language, replete with images of war and movement, commands the dramatic sweep of Henry’s rapid movement against the French. Celerity of thought we are told, and the siege of Harfleur is brought before the audience almost that quickly–life illustrated upon the stage in just a few broad linguistic strokes, the Chorus inviting the audience to “eke out our performance with your mind”.
King Henry V remains ahead of the words, already in place even as Chorus describes his actions. Already, his England lies behind him, as the audience are prompted to leave theirs as well, and follow him. As the Chorus’s words are spoken, we in the audience accept the events as fait accompli. Harry has already sailed, arrived in France, heard the King of France’s usatisfactory embassy, and besieged the town of Harfleur. Time and space condensed into a few breathless and breathtaking lines renders palpable not just King Henry’s movement, but also the unwavering focus of his will.
In Shakespeare’s work, as in any play, the scope and measure of events alternately compressed or extended beckons our attention through the reconstructed world. Advancement of the plot may be compacted by speeches like those given by the Chorus, or they may be teased out in protracted description, like those of Cleopatra, for whom the gazing of the very air might “leave a gap in nature” as has been discussed elsewhere in this blog. In Henry V, the process and preparation of making war is painted in the assonance of “silken streamers” and “threaden sails breasting the lofty surge, the billows dancing”. Like the Zen koan about the goose* raised in the jug, preparations and journey have finished and the siege is underway even as the Chorus stands before us, even as the Chorus urges us to follow the events already happening at a geographical and temporal distance.
Yet, even as the play attracts our focus to one aspect of the siege, dramatic expediency demands that it neglects another. For while we see Henry V and his army making siege on Harfleur, onstage events focusing on Harry and his army tend to omit events within the city walls. Certainly, the play centres on Harry, but what about the city under siege? What about the people of Harfleur? Events within the walls may be as urgent, but illustrating those would also bleed dramatic focus from the central dramatic structure of the play.
Now, however, no matter how we may habitually avoid it, we are confronted with a global shift. Extraordinary events have made the inner lining of a siege much more immediate to all of us–the view of ordinary citizens, sheltered in their homes within the walled city, waiting for the siege to end. A contagion has locked us all inside the walls, where, if we are prudent, we wait. For how long? No way to tell. Rife with doomsayers and deniers, our world lacks competent soothsayers (are there such?) who might tell us what the future holds. When might we have an effective treatment or vaccine, or when might Covid 19 slow in its virulent progress? There comes no word. If anyone truly can see the future or measure the span of our potential isolation, they either do not say, or else their voices have been drowned in the thick stew of ambient noise. Zoltar remains silent.
Of course, there are differences. Covid 19 has no silken streamers, and its invisible presence lacks the martial pageantry that often accompanies our pathetic human wars, yet it attacks more effectively than human enemies. Even with warning from climatologists and epidemiologists that such pandemic posed a likely or nearly inevitable danger to the modern world, almost overnight, most of us have become like the citizens of Troy, staying behind our walls, besieged by an invisible host that, although unlike Homer’s army of Greeks, seems no less effective in their assault. The attacker has laid us low, sugaring the petrol tank and salting the gears to grind the social and economic machinery of our world to a precipitous halt–one even more rapid than King Henry’s condensed dramatic exploits.
Our public health systems struggle to keep up as we have no effective treatment, and only rudimentary courses of prevention. Hand washing. Disinfecting. Social distancing. Keeping away from others in order to limit the contagion, keeping the relentless spread marginally at bay. To ‘flatten the curve’ in order to keep our medical systems from being completely overwhelmed at any given moment. Unlike Troy, with the enraged Achilles and his Myrmidons waiting outside, many of our homes look out on empty streets. King Henry and his lieutenants do not threaten to breach our barriers. In our case, the besieging force is a disease, comprised of a bit of genetic code that can self replicate under certain conditions, sometimes causing grievous harm to the physical host.
Yet, the virus seems a bit like the Trojan Horse (which term also applies to disastrous self replicating codes in the digital sense)–the gift that the Greeks ‘give’ to Troy, and that the Trojans bring inside their walls. Inside the huge sculpture of this horse, the Greeks sequester warriors, who wait until nightfall before emerging from the horse and opening the massive city gates which have so long kept the Greeks from entering the city.
While the Greek soldiers await nightfall in the horse, the rest of the Greek force (which has been camping on the beach before the gates of Troy) makes a show of breaking their camps, boarding their ships, and sailing away from the city. Only after dark do they return, entering through the gates that their comrades have opened, and successfuly invading Troy. The story seems aptly analogous to viral behaviour, and in a biological sense, it is frightening, because people die, both in the story and from Covid 19.
Aside from death, which is always with us, Covid 19 seems all the more frightening because there is so much we do not know. We do not understand exact transmission, prevention, treatment, and even why certain people seem to have much more serious cases than others, we know very little. Estimates of fatality rates are similarly various. We know that ‘elders’ (those over 50 or 60) and those who are immuno compromised (often because of underlying health conditions) ‘seem’ to be at higher risk, based on higher observed death rates amongst those groups. Yet, sometimes the young and healthy seem to succumb as well.
The point isn’t to raise alarms that we have all (by now) heard. We only glance again at the brief arc of this steep learning curve we all share at this moment, again emphasizing what we do know seems to help: washing hands with soap – frequently and for at least 20 seconds each time, reducing exposure – by staying at home if you possibly can, and by social distancing – staying at least 2 metres (about 7 feet) from others when you do encounter them. Doing these things not only reduces your own risk, but also reduces the risk that you might inadvertantly carry the virus to someone else.
For there is the crux of the matter. So many of us are likely to contract this disease before some treatment is available, and, for many of us, it may be mild. However, for some, it may be life threatening. For the sake of those folks, we should all do our best to try to slow the spread as much as we possibly can. Even if I may value my own health only moderately, I never want my neighbour to suffer because of me–because I may have inadvertantly brought a terrible illness to them unnecessarily. I don’t want to open the gates of Troy through my own carelessness.
Here is an informative primer on Coronavirus and what we believe it does to the human organism:
Because currently the only way to approach the problem appears to be attempting to slow the spread, huge segments of the world’s population now find ourselves ‘locked down’, unable to go anywhere, and spending all of our time at home. Almost none of us are used to this, to staying at home. It tends to open more time for personal reflection than many of us have previously known. The isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness, and even depression. In the movie, Follow That Bird, there is a moment when a captive Big Bird, who has been painted blue to represent the ‘bluebird of happiness’, is forced to perform to make money for his captors:
Introspection is not necessarily bad, of course. And our surplus of time offers ideal opportunity, in addition to playing tai chi and other yogic forms, reading, listening (really listening) to music, exercising, writing, and creating art, to reach out to others. Being digitally connected in unprecedented ways, we remain able to text and/or email our friends and associates. This is a good, and I encourage all readers of this platform to reach out to others they know, and about whom they care. Connect with them. Check on them. Send them cartoons or news articles, send them art images, send them video clips, send them your most learned thoughts, or reveal your most secret wishes or desires. Send things serious or silly. It matters not.
Yes, as many have done, read sonnets. Play music. Read Ellen Meloy’s book, The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky. Read Patrick Leigh Fermor. Read George Eliot. War and Peace? Read. Even those working from home should have some time. If you can get the groceries, try a new recipe. Bake. Paint. Draw. Dance. Sing. Try to identify that small brown bird that haunts the back fence. Learn what weathers various cloud shapes portend.
Burying the hatchet is also a fine inclination. Make peace. Make good. Then pass the talking stick and listen. Not to be too dire, but if this time should mark your last hours on earth, how would you wish to spend that time? This bears consideration. Don’t abandon the future. Don’t abandon your plans. Yet, do think of the present too–the Buddhist moment of the now embraced by the child mind that only dimly (if at all) conceives of past and future. Commune with what you can and share yourself with those you love. For our creations and our connections, these are the true riches of our lives.
Of course, there’s great (and also terrible) content on Netflix and Amazon. There are endless fascinating internet paths about theatre, science, history, and all the things we think we know. And there’s also great value in just being. Taking time. Talking with others (safely). Making coffee drinks. Watching the light change.
This is not to make light of the seriousness of our current situation, which may be, in so many cases, socially and economically devastating. Having steadily changed our earth over centuries, we have remained somewhat complacent about how dependent we are on it, and how the earth, in its changes, may also change us. That the U.S. corona virus ‘task force’ is made up largely of middle aged businessmen and political figures (with Dr Anthony Fauci being a beacon of expertise in medicine and public health amongst them) is deplorable. Yet, it may be as difficult to change the course of the U.S. predilection for economic and commercial expansion over human life, satisfaction, and comfort as it is to change the course of an oil tanker. Such things take a great amount of time and space, and they do not happen quickly.
Of course, this is not a problem in the U.S. alone. So many of our western capitalist ‘democracies’ have enjoyed relatively recent prosperity by hitching their collective wagons to ideas of laissez faire capitalism, not only allowing corporations to run rampant over individual rights and interests, but even promoting the process. Our world’s environment, and our collective happiness, have suffered greatly for this. And as a friend reminded me the other day, all this endless drive for continued economic activity is still based on something that, in strict terms, isn’t ‘real’.
Watts speaks of the telephone as modern technology because his age predated the internet. How much more sense his words make now.
Still the battle cry Ayn Rand’s underlying objectivism rages on, and the challenges of actually separating (in practice) the right-leaning libertarianism from the social anarchy suggested by its left-leaning counterpart. Obverse aspects of the same coin. For if we completely abandon the niceties and comforts of human life for a more streamlined economic or technologically integrated existence, if we leave our humanity behind completely, where will we be? The farm belt voters that elected Trump and his conservative cohort–are they better off? How comfortable are those farmers now?
More to the point, any ideas of actually leaving our humanity behind seems a contradiction in terms, especially in systems that have been conceived, created, and promoted by us. By humans. It seems highly unlikely that we will be able to completely leave ourselves, our humanity, behind in systems initially authored by our interests and concerns. Perhaps when the earth is empty of us, then we shall see how those systems with their underlying ‘anti-humanist’ perspectives actually function. Law of the jungle? Tennyson’s ‘nature red in tooth and claw’?
Ultimately, how any reader of this blog spends their time is, naturally, up to them. For the ghost’s part, I’m just trying to be more aware of each moment as it passes. There are always many things to do, many ways to address ourselves to our own engagement with our lives. If this plague illustrates anything to us, it may be that all our structures, our ideas of society, commerce, and even our usual concepts of meaning, are merely constructed of smoke and mirrors. We’ve been given a moment to really think about not just our lives and where we are, but also about where we want to go and where we wish to be.
How does the siege of Harfleur end in the play?
GOVERNOR
Henry V 3.3.44-50
Our expectation hath this day an end.
The Dauphin, whom of succors we entreated,
Returns us that his powers are yet not ready
To raise so great a siege. Therefore, great king,
We yield our town and lives to thy soft mercy.
Enter our gates, dispose of us and ours,
For we no longer are defensible.
Huddling inside our homes, endlessly washing our hands, fearing for our vulnerable companions. At present, we yield our streets, our public forums, and the bulk of our massing social constructions (concerts, sporting events, theatre, or physical gatherings of any kind) to this virus, with which our powers are not yet ready to contend directly. Have we been fools to overlook this blatant possibility that now manifests itself outside our household walls? Complacent perhaps. Foolishness may be a much more difficult condition to adjudicate.
Our slow or varied responses to a viral threat stem in no small part from the insular populism that, in the recent decade, has swept the world. When we seek to disenfranchise others from this or that, drawing lines around our (perceived as) individual engines of economic productivity, we only truncate ourselves and our own influence in the end. Inevitably, in the face of forces beyond our immediate control, we must scurry back to globalism and to unity to find an answer to our siege. In the face of the sweeping scythe, magnates and potentates cannot stand.
At the Continental Congress of 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, Benjamin Franklin reportedly remarked, “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. In the struggle of economic productivity versus the value of human lives, at least we can hope that our values have not wandered so far afield. Yes, the economy going sour may cost lives too, unless we become creative in addressing that in ways we have not previously done.
Even as I finish this piece, the goal of getting the U.S. economy “open for business” has been changed, with the news now full of April 30th as a possible taget date. Getting some vision of economic productivity online by the end of April at a significant expense of human life? Although in many ways we may seem in the midst of transformation from humanists into economic storm troopers, we can hope that we are not quite there just yet.
Pushing for advancing the economy at the cost of human lives? I certainly hope not.
*Zen koans are often described as riddles, designed to ‘break the back’ of the thought processes by which we all typically live and run our lives. The idea is that our reality chains us to certain ways of thinking that may obscure many of life’s truths, focusing us on ways of thinking and understanding that remain inaccurate. As points of focus designed to befuddle the mind, koans can help the mind move beyond itself, to perceive in a way that, although positioned outside of our usual range of focus, is no less an aspect of life’s truths than our understanding usually allows:
The prominent general, Riko, asked Master Nansen to explain the koan of the goose in the bottle. ‘If a man puts a gosling into a bottle,‘ said Riko, ‘and feeds him until he is full-grown, how can the man get the goose out without killing it or breaking the bottle?‘ Instead of answering, Nansen engaged Riko in a discussion of practical matters. Then, suddenly, just as Riko was leaving, Nansen gave a great clap with his hands and shouted, ‘Riko! See,‘ said Nansen, “the goose is out.‘