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 The role of fate-4
Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is irretrievably under the control of destiny.
--Goethe (1749-1832), German poet and dramatist
IV. Fate - How is it manifested?
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Julius Caesar |
Julius Caesar (100-44 BCE) was a Roman dictator who through his mighty military exploits enjoyed great political power in Rome. In the process, he earned a few enemies. Several conspirators led by Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius came to the Senate meeting, wherein Caesar was to be awarded a crown, with daggers concealed in their togas and they stabbed him at least 23 times at the base of the statue of Pompey on March 15, 44 BCE. After his death the senators fled and eventually got killed or committed suicide. It was Marc Antony who gave the famous oration at Caesar’s funeral and later became part of the second triumvirate to rule Rome. That is history.
Let us now look at the work of William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. It is a dramatisation of the life of Julius Caesar with all the poetic embellishing and licence. Shakespeare introduces many questions about the force of fate in life against the capacity of free will. Cassius refuses to accept Caesar’s authority and deems a belief in fate to be nothing more than cowardice. He tells Brutus, “Men at sometime are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” However, the play supports a philosophy in which fate and freedom seem to interact, many times in conflict. Caesar declares to his wife, Calpurnia, when she tells him of her dreams portending evil, “It seems to me most strange that men should fear; seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come”. It is indicative of recognition by Caesar while fate and omens portending evil may have their relevance one has to do what is supposed to be done of free will.
Throughout the play, the omens and portends lend credence to the larger theme of fate. However, many characters in the play, including Caesar, fail to interpret the omens correctly. First there is the soothsayer who shouts to Caesar, “Beware the ides of March”. Caesar ignores him and walks away. Calpurnia tells Caesar of her nightmare wherein she sees blood flowing out from the statue of Caesar “like a fountain with a hundred spouts” and that the citizens of Rome bathing their hands in the blood. Artemidorus, a teacher of rhetoric and a supporter of Caesar, tries to warn Caesar of the conspiracy of the senators by writing an epistle and hand it over to him while Caesar is on his way to the capitol. Artemidorus says to himself, “If thou read this, O Caesar, thou mayst live; If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive.” However, Caesar ignores him too and walks away.
In the play the destiny of many of the characters have been woven together since there are so many predictions and dreams of the future which materialise. The soothsayer’s prediction was made months in advance of Caesar’s assassination. The soothsayer knew that Caesar was going to die on 15th of March (Ides of March). Likewise when Calpurnia dreams of Caesar’s impending demise, it appears that there is divine intervention in human lives and that the future has been planned in all the details. The priests also confirm the bad omen pointing out that they “did not find a heart in the beast”. On the night before Caesar’s death, there was an unusual storm in Rome, and crows were circling in the wrong direction. Whether it is really the inalienable fate that is intertwined in people’s lives or the resignation of people that certain events do happen despite their best efforts to do what they consider free will, fate has got impregnated in many people’s thinking in ancient as well as modern times.
The Story of naLan:
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Dhamayanti
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In the kingdom of Nishada there was a young king by name naLan. A swan told him of the heavenly beauty of the princess dhamayanti (“a girl more sweet than any eyes have seen”) in the neighbouring country of Vidarbha and offered to go as an emissary on his behalf. Dhamayanti too wanted to marry naLan. In the arrangement that enabled Dhamayanti to pick her own suitor, fate intervened first in the form of four celestials appearing in the guise of naLan along with naLan in the suitors’ line. Dhamayanti prayed to the gods to reveal themselves and finally ended up marrying the real naLan. The married couple then went home but fate would follow them. A demon named kali could not brook that a human like naLan would marry Dhamayanti and took possession of naLan making him gamble with Pushkaran and eventually lose the kingdom. The story takes us through the misfortunes of naLan and Dhamayanti (including their separation and naLan’s ignominy of losing his identity and working as a servant to another king) further and finally ends up in redemption when the possessed demon departs and naLan gets back his wife, children, and kingdom.
This episode is told by the sage Markandeya to Yudhishtran, the eldest of the Pandavas, during their travails in the forest after losing all their possessions. When Yudhishtran wailed over having to subject Draupadi to such suffering, Markandeya told him that he was not experiencing anything unusual and narrated the story of naLan and how he got trapped into playing the dice and the omnipotence of fate.
When naLan deserted Dhamayanti, she wandered all over in the forest and meets a merchant. When he asks her what caused her misery, she says (according to naLa veNpA, written by
pugazhEndi),
munnai vinaiyin valiyAl muDimannan
ennaip piriya irungAnil—annavanaik
kANA dazhuginRE nenRAL kadirimaikkum
pUNAram puNDAL pular^ndu
(Dhamayanti, whose ornaments shine brighter than the sun, says “as a result of the prevailing fate, my own king (husband) left me in the middle of the forest at night. I am crying because I can’t locate him now”).
It is, however, interesting to note that invariably in all such episodes the virtuous beings tortured by fate prevail eventually gaining their past status or a future elevated status, be it the Pandavas who finally win their kingdom back after defeating the kauravas, or kaNNagi ascending to heaven with kOvalan in silappadhikAram, or Rama defeating Ravana and uniting with Sita at the end. It appears, then, that poetic justice prevails in the end but not before the righteous ones going through a wringer to experience the result of some of their own misdeeds. We will look at some specifics in the next few articles.
Sethuraman Subramanian
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