What Does Shakespeare Say--Clouds

It’s a game that we learn as children. You don’t need an electronic device or a special app to play this game. All you need is a few clouds in the sky and maybe a gentle breeze. You lie on your back in the grass with a friend or two, or simply look up into the sky. You identify shapes in the clouds—alligators, castles, potatoes! But the alligator that you see may be a turtle on a log for your co-imaginer. The castle that you see may be a stand of trees to your fellow fancier. The potatoes that you see—well, what else can they be but potatoes?

But wait! It may take only a few seconds for that alligator or turtle on a log to morph into a canoe carrying a human and a basset hound. That stand of trees may waft away into a feathery flock of pelicans.

Joni Mitchell in “Both Sides Now” muses on different qualities of clouds:

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all.

(from jonimitchell.com)

Recently, I had the opportunity to see a production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, an annual tradition my friend Elissa and I share. I had read the play once and that was in graduate school in the mid-1980’s, and I had never seen a production or film adaptation, so I decided to re-read the play before seeing the production. I was not surprised at all to see that Shakespeare included a musing on clouds all those centuries ago.

In Act 4, scene 14, Antony is discouraged. He asks his friend, Eros, if Eros sees Antony. Of course, Eros says yes. Then Antony describes how he sees himself at that point in the play in terms of clouds:

            Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish;

A vapor sometime like a bear or lion,

A tower’d citadel, a pendent rock,

A forked mountain, or blue promontory

With trees upon’t that nod unto the world

And mock our eyes with air. (4.14.3-8.)

Sadly for Antony at this point, finding images in the clouds is not a child’s game but an exercise in serious self-reflection. Regardless, for centuries humans have looked at the clouds “from both sides now,” for amusement or for more serious reflection.

Attemptations--a trying question

At the beginning of any school year, many students dread the prospect of navigating any English course as a long and winding road taken through Dante’s inferno. Back in the day, when composing course descriptions, I added special touches to make this yawning prospect a little more tolerable. I created unique titles, such as “Great Expectations: English 12AP” or “A Room of English 12AP.” (Sadly, some of the more clever titles went into the recycling bin long ago.) For all my course descriptions, I concluded with a bit of Shakespearean encouragement: “Our doubts are traitors,/ And make us lose the good we oft might win/ By fearing to attempt.” I followed with, “Do not fear to attempt!”

This quote comes from Measure for Measure. Isabella, the female protagonist, has joined a very strict order of nuns, the sisterhood of St. Clare. She is put in the very awkward position of having to plead for her brother, who has been jailed for having impregnated his fiancée and faces the death penalty. The messenger her brother sends beseeches Isabella using those words, begging her to shake off her nunly reservations and come to her brother’s aid, to attempt to win some good for her brother, his fiancée, and their unborn child, among others.

Recently, I had cause to think about attempting things and how humans often are fearful of trying new things for a number of reasons. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (AHDEL) defines “attempt” as “to try to perform, make or achieve,” coming from the Latin attemptare, which basically means “to test.” We might be afraid to attempt--or test our ability to do--something different, like ride a carousel, for fear of looking silly—or fear of falling off. We might be afraid to take the road less traveled because it’s not in our comfort zone—or fear of getting hopelessly lost! (Sometimes, even the GPS fails.) We might be afraid to attempt or pursue a new interest, such as learning to play the ukulele, because musical talent is alien to us—or fear that the neighbors might call the police because of the racket.

Then, I thought of the idea of temptation. “Tempt,” the root of “temptation,” means “to try to get (someone) to do wrong, especially by promise of reward,” according to the AHDEL, coming from the Latin tempere. The AHDEL defines temptation as “the act of tempting or the condition of being tempted.” While I thought a connection might exist between attempting a task and the temptation to perform a task, none exists. Both words originate in Latin but come from different words. So, I decided to combine the two words into something positive: attemptation. My definition of “attemptation” is “the urge to try new and different things, in a positive way.” So the next time you feel compelled to ride that carousel, take the road less traveled, or learn to play the ukulele, yield to the attemptation!