OUR BODIES AND OUR WILLS

 

Shakespeare on our bodies, wills, reason, lusts of the blood, and

 subtlety.

 

IAGO: Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus

        or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which

        our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant

        nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up

        thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or

        distract it with many, either to have it sterile

        with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the

        power and corrigible authority of this lies in our

        wills. If the balance of our lives had not one

        scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the

        blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us

        to most preposterous conclusions: but we have

        reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal

        stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that

        you call love to be a sect or scion.

 

RODERIGO: It cannot be.

 

IAGO: It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of

        the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drown

        cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy

        friend and I confess me knit to thy deserving with

        cables of perdurable toughness; I could never

        better stead thee than now. Put money in thy

        purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with

        an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse….

 

….if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt

        an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not

        too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell….

 

 

From  Othello: I, iii

 

 

 

 

 

LORD

 

"Lord" he said.

"Lord?"

"Yes. My good Lord".

"Is there an evil Lord?"

"There may be!"

PSYCHOLOGY IN LITERATURE

Shakespeare

Hearing

from Measure for Measure . Act I. Scene 2: 126-7.

The words of heaven; on whom it will, it will
On whom it will not, so; yet still 'tis just.

Self doubt

Act I. Scene 4:75-6

Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.



Self accusing conscience

Timon of Athens, Act V. ln 42...

Must thou needs stand for a villain in thine own work?

do we sin against our own estate?
when we may profit meet


and its projection:

wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men?

INTERIORITY

A. ….But many of those people are "religious". Especially if they can cover up their loose business practices under the guise of a beard, or a turban. But there is no interiority in their religion. It is all exterior and for the sake of appearance, and business.

Interiority was the significant idea and got me thinking.

B: What do you mean Muslims don't think about the interiority of their religious practices? Maybe some are like that. But not all Muslims.

But all Muslims are not like that. Do you know how seriously Muslims take up the subject of whether their food is halaal or not?

That is in the department of the interiority of things.

C. There is really nothing chemically different about halaal meat vs. non-halaal meat, I don't think.

K: I don't like the way this conversation is going. The subject is about words and images. Not Muslims or Islaam....

Fish out of Water

"Like fish out of water". What images pop up in your mind when you hear this expression?

A: The edge of a pool of water, some sand and a fish struggling for its existence.

Would you say the expression points to water, or fish? What is the dominant image?

B: Fish, I think, and the struggle for existence of those who are not in their home environment, not in their own element.......

C: I think of the late Prof. Edward Said, who did very well in an alien and hostile environment, but wrote compaliningly about it, even about English, a field of study which he matsered. -- much to the chagrin of many other people ....

D: I think you guys have the wrong image. When I hear "fish out of water"
what I see is something like a can of tuna fish that I can buy at the supermarket! That is fish out of water. It's been removed from its element so that I can eat it....

Yesterday I brought a nice tuna fish sandwich to work - which by the way my wife did not make -.

K: Let me tell you something. I am a fisherman. For many generations my family has lived off of the ocean, catching and selling fish. But now we are out of our business. The capitalists have fished the whole ocean out of all the fish. The fish are all gone. No more fish. For me to fish for myslef or to sell.

It's terrible.

I don't want to think about those words: the fish out of the water. It's too sad for me.

X: The fish image has something to do with Christianity. But I am not sure what.

F: Could be. But I want to say something in support of what my friend the fisherman has just said. I read in the New Scientist news today that at least 5 species of deep water exotic fish are now nearly extinct. They are on the critically endangered list.

G: "critically endangered", what is that?

F: I read that "the danger of extinction depends on the rate of decline per generation. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature calls any species that declines 80% or more within three generations due to a continuing cause critically endangered".

Many fish are now in that category.

Pretty soon maybe there will be water, but no fish. And the old expression about fish and water may also cease to exist. Over. Ivarai.

L: Is this expression used only by English speaking people?