God, I love rereading Shakespeare.

[capri0mni]

Even with plays I already know well (maybe even more so, then), I always seem to notice different lines and passages each time. I mean I've always known they were there, but sometimes, the significance and nuance just hits me -- like a strobing LED out of the corner of my eye. And Mister Shakespeare often put these little lines of dialog between characters that have nothing to do with advancing the actual plot, but they do form a sort of tongue-in-cheek comment on the way of the world.

Right now, I'm rereading The Winter's Tale (Signet Classic Edition, 1988), and what with all the thinking I've been doing about disability and culture, lately, this little exchange, between a Lord of Bohemia (Camillo) and the visiting Lord of Sicilia (Archidamus) really blinked at me, and got me giggling:

CAMILLO (about the child prince):

[.....] they that went on
crutches ere he was born desire yet their life to
see him a man.

ARCHIDAMUS

Would they else be content to die?

CAMILLO

Yes; if there were no other excuse why they should
desire to live.

ARCHIDAMUS

If the king had no son, they would desire to live
on crutches till he had one.

---

Translation:

Camillo: Our prince is so wonderful, his very existance even gives cripples the desire to live!!

Achidamus: Um ... yeah. About that: I think the cripples would find other excuses to keep on living, even without your wonderful prince.

That little exchange serves the plot by hinting at how tightly entertwined the kingdom's fortunes are with the life of one boy. But Shakespeare also uses that oportunity to aim some satire at the whole attitude of pity. That last bit is just cherry topping.

---

As an aside: Whoever decided which lines should be glossed in this edition should have been hung by their thumbs until they apologized. Of course, I think over-glossing is a near fatal flaw of most editions Shakespeare plays.

Comments

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

I thought "on crutches" coded to "extremely old" in Shakespearian terms? Not that you can't read it as referring to disability if you want (I read much of Kipling as lolariously ironic when I know he was srs).

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think probably it did. Of course, if you were extremely old in 1610, you'd probably need literal crutches as well.

Still, the point stands: that everyone desires to keep on living (or nearly) regardless of how pitious and miserable others assume their lives to be. And they don't need some miraculous reason to be given a will to live.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

::resists "Will to live" pun::

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Don't bother resisting. Waste of energy. After all, Mister Shakespeare himself punned on his Christian name with glee.

(I was going to edit-to-add to my reply above, but you were too quick with your reply):

And just as crutches coded as "very old" in the 16th century, walkers [aka Zimmer Frames] (and also canes and electric scooters) code as "very old" in the 21st century. And there is still the stigma of pity attatched to their use. Here's part of a reply I posted on a friend's f'locked post:

I was griping to my aide on Monday about how a single footrest for this chair costs $144 and they only make one version, and I was laying the blame on the fact that there is very little market competition.

She then said: no, there is competition, but the market for wheelchairs will always be a small minority, and there aren't enough customers to mass produce things to reduce cost.

I kinda mumbled: "yeah... right, sure. uh-huh." I just don't believe that to be true. I think the market is smaller than the need because there is such a stigma about how "Ending up in a wheelchair" is the worst fate short of death, and the medical-political establishments reinforce that fearful belief with their policies. Remove the bigotry, and I think the market for equipment will explode.

One common theme of posts in gimp_vent is: "I had to go into Walmart, today, and I had to use one of their scooters, because my ____ was really acting up, and I couldn't stand for more than a few minutes, and everyone was giving me dirty looks because I'm 'too young' to need one, so I must be faking my disability."

Or one that I love: "Some guy accused me that since I could walk the short distance into the store, I obviously didn't need the scooter to shop."

(But if the person couldn't walk into the store, they would have come in with their own whelchair).

So it's still the same, 399 years later: whether old and a crutch user, or young and a crutch user, the assumption that you need some wonderful, "Special" reason to live needs to be poked with a stick until it goes away.