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FromOneAmerican.com
The Tale of Two Tragedies
―One
Literary, One Not
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, many regard Shakespeare as "the greatest dramatist of all time." His work has outlived him, by more than four hundred years, and the Oxford English Dictionary has credited him "with introducing nearly 3,000 words into the English language." Not only does he have a prominent place in literature, but his work is also found in common expressions in English, like "break the ice" and "wild goose chase," either popularized or coined by him. 2
Here he's remembered for something he wrote that speaks across the centuries, to our day. In Act V, Scene viii of The Tragedy of Macbeth, we see Macbeth saying, "I bear a charmed life, which must not yield to one of woman born." And one named Macduff answers, "Despair thy charm, and let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd." In the ensuing clash, Macbeth is slain. He put his faith in something he shouldn't have.
The key words for us to ponder are "from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd." While the passage refers to a Caesarean surgery, it's also relevant to a sad practice of our times. From one tragedy, the words point to yet another.The Oxford English Dictionary defines the verb rip as: "Tear or pull forcibly away." Its use was heard during the presidential debate in October 2016, referring to a particular abortion: “... in the ninth month, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby.” It is, in fact, a particularly egregious form of abortion, called partial birth abortion.
But
first, a little background of the Shakespearean drama from which the passage
was taken. Macbeth meets three witches on a barren heath, withered and wild
in attire. They all greet Macbeth, with one of them prophesying, "All hail,
that shalt be king hereafter." Tempted and whetted by ambition, and
encouraged on by Lady Macbeth, Macbeth murders the Scottish King, Duncan,
while the King was staying at Macbeth's castle, the monarch being there "in
double trust." His murderer will take the throne.
Further
on in the play, the witches appear in a cavern with a boiling cauldron. The
witches chant "Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron
bubble." They throw in an assortment of things, like "an eye of newt and toe
of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog..." Macbeth comes upon the scene of
these witches once more. They apparently conjure up apparitions, one telling
Macbeth that "...none of woman born shall harm Macbeth," and another saying
that "Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until Great Birnam wood to high
Dunsinane hill 3. (Macbeth's castle) shall come against him."
To which
Macbeth replies, "That will never be: For who can...bid the tree unfix its
earth-bound root?"
These predictions give
Macbeth a false sense of hope that he would "live the lease of nature."
Besides
the murder of the King, Macbeth plots the death others: "The castle of
Macduff I will surprise; seize upon Fife 4
(Macduff), give to
the edge o' the sword His wife, his babes and all unfortunate souls who
trace him in his line."
A few words from the
text of the tragedy are also relevant today, when there's a tragedy of even
greater numbers, perpetrated upon a multitude of the unborn, the very young
who are figuratively given "the edge of the sword." Forcibly taken from the
womb, they are put to death, prevented from having their own lease of
natural life, and their own progeny.
Macbeth believes he bears a "charmed life." But after he encounters Macduff and they fight, he learns that Macduff was taken surgically from his mother. As far as Birnam wood coming to the hill, soldiers cut boughs from Birnam wood, to carry before them for disguise, thus appearing as if the wood was moving. Macbeth was deceived. If people today believe they may cut down the life and limb of the unborn, they too are also deceived!
Macbeth assumed governance as the King in Scotland.
Today, there are those in
government who support accessibility to abortion. And it's not just found in
government policy, but is also found in the policy of a major political
party, in the platform of the Democrat Party.
These actions broaden the
threat to the unborn, and put a mantle of approval over the evil of killing
innocents.
There
was a man influential in the American history, who had a part in writing
Virginia's Declaration of Rights which Thomas Jefferson drew upon in
writing The Declaration of Independence. He worked hard at the
Constitutional Convention, yet his signature is not upon the Constitution
itself, partly because he would not compromise on slavery. He was George
Mason.
On August 22nd, 1787, during the debates of the federal convention, Col. Mason said, "Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities."
Seventy
some years later, our nation was torn apart by the Civil War, resulting in
about a million casualties, and basic to the conflict was the issue of
slavery, which involved a group of people. The unborn are a group of people
as well. It doesn’t matter how tiny or undeveloped they are, it’s who
they are. It’s that they exist as human. What has happened
to them by the millions is even a greater wrong than those who were
subjected to slavery, because it’s more than an unjust treatment of people:
it’s the very taking of their lives.
It's tantmount to them being sacrificed
for "a falsely perceived benefit."
Farther
back in history in 1487, according to the historian Warren Carroll (exactly
three centuries before the federal convention), a temple was dedicated to an
Aztec god in Tenochtitlan, in what is Mexico City today, and atop it,
they sacrificed thousands of victims. The low figure was
twenty thousand, the high one,
was more than
eighty thousand. God did not permit human sacrifice to
continue without end.
Thirty some years later Tenochtitlan fell to the
Spanish adventurer Cortes, and the Aztec nation would come to an end.
Consider whether America might be vulnerable to chastisement for the slaughter of the innocents, which happens today, in another temple
―the temple of the body!Perhaps we can see a sign the Creator's displeasure in the severity of the weather in recent times, this compared to what could yet happen if we don't awaken to wickedness behind the wanton slaughter.
The Founding Fathers
left us with a Constitution that set up a structure of government and
a framework of law, but it seems there are those in government who do not
always abide by it. We hear of separation of powers, but we also hear of
legislation from the bench. The Courts are supposed to decide whether a law
is within the bounds of the Constitution. There are those who are not
good stewards of what we were bequeathed.
The
First Amendment to the Constitution says Congress shall make no law,
prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Yet we see what happened to Amy
Barrett during the hearings for seat on the Circuit Court of Appeals. One
Senator said, "Do your consider yourself an 'Orthodox Catholic'." While
another said, "The dogma lives loudly within you," and further stated, that
her Catholic faith was of "of concern."
Hillary
Clinton, when running for the Presidency, said, "that deep-seated cultural
codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed."
It seems there's a threat in there to
religious freedom.
The
chairman of the Democrat National Committee declared that pro-life Americans
are "no longer welcome" in the Party anymore. So much for freedom of
religion and fairness.
The Democrat Governor of New York, Andrew Coumo, said there's no place for pro-life voters in his state anymore. That's pretty brazen! Now Cuomo signed into law the
Reproductive Health Act (RHA), permitting abortion up to 24 weeks, when babies can survive outside the womb "and it creates lenient exceptions essentially sanctioning elective abortion up to the moment of birth."These are indications of a pretty sad state of affairs.
Wherein abortion is promoted, supported and voted for by the people, they become culpable. Wherein it's legislated into law or decided for by judicial decree, government officials are culpable. As national policy, it becomes what George Mason was talking about. Even without being formulated, if it's widespread in a nation, it's of serious concern. Even one is too many. Just being for it, is a murderous mentality!
To ignore the spiritual aspect of this issue, doesn't bode well for our country. God won't bless America for abortion!
There
were consequences to what issued from the mind of Macbeth and his
wife. Macbeth would literally lose his head and Lady Macbeth would say in
Act V, scene i: "Here's the smell of blood still; all the perfumes of
Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." Malcolm, the son of King Duncan,
says of her: "...'tis thought, by self and violent hands took off her life."
She died in an apparent suicide, a tragedy in itself.
It
seems today some do not have a clear concept of when human life begins, nor
what abortion truly means and the consequences from it. Abortion is what is
defined in Moral Guidance, as "The unjust killing of an innocent
person," and in
Right and Reason - Ethics in Theory and Practice, as the
"direct and unjust killing of another human being."
5
As much as some might
prefer to not hear this: these words define murder. At conception the child
begins life as a human being with a soul.
Where
is the use of intelligence, to think that the beginning of a human being,
isn't a human being? Creatures reproduce their kind and become what they're
meant to be. A human being in its cellular stage is not something else, its
embryonic cells being knit to a soul with an
eternal destiny beyond time.
There's
yet another phrase in Macbeth to think about. In Act III, Scene iv:
Macbeth says, "I am in blood stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
returning were as tedious as go oe'r:" Whatever Macbeth meant about "a
tedious return" isn't certain, but the part about being stepp'd in blood
does apply to abortion. And even using this description, as the infant's
body is killed, its little spirit continues onward, going "o'er" the brink
of eternity and on into its future. It lives in spirit ahead of those who've
killed the body.
Our
nation, through certain people and misguided law, has sadly "stepp'd" in the
blood of innocents! Yet, those bloodied by abortion may yet wade out of it,
repent, reverse their course, and respect God's design for human life and
existence―if
only they would!
When
Macbeth was confronted by Macduff, Macbeth tells him, "...get thee back; my
soul is too much charged with blood of thine already," which includes his
babes, who were untimely ripp'd from life.
It
may be that many wouldn't take an interest in reading Shakespeare. But they
should take an interest in this other tragedy being staged today―and writ
all too large upon the land in innocent blood!
"...untimely ripp'd" might bring something else to mind,
sadly English as well. Some women in the impoverished slums of East London
were victims of it; they not only had their throats cut and but even had
their abdomens cut open in a grisly manner, murders that were ascribed to
one Jack the Ripper. While those today who support accessibility to killing
the infant unborn, do not prowl the dark streets and byways of London, they
move about in the darkness of their mind, with the unborn their victims.
They
endanger not only the innocent ones ― but if what George Mason said
comes to pass ― they place our nation itself in peril.
―John Riedell
1. Imprimis, Volume 48, no. 2, February 2019, a publication of Hillsdale College, from a talk by Roger Kimball, Editor and Publisher, The NewCriterion. Kimball writes about the "erasure of history. " Remembered here are these words attributed to Omar Khayyam from his Rubiayat, written in 1120 A.D. : “The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
2. Some common expressions either coined or popularized by Shakespeare: Neither a borrower or lender be (Hamlet); Bated Breath (The Merchant of Venice); All our yesterdays (Macbeth); Brevity is the soul of wit (Hamlet); Break the ice (The Taming of the Shrew); Crack of doom (Macbeth); A dish fit for the gods (Julius Caesar); Dead as a doornail (Henry IV, Part II); Eaten out of house and home (Henry IV Part II); Faint hearted (Henry VI, Part I); Full circle (King Lear); "For goodness' sake " (Henry VIII) ; Fancy-free (A Midsummer's Night Dream); Foregone conclusion (Othello); Good Riddance (Troilus and Cressida); In my heart of hearts (Hamlet); In my mind's eye (also Hamlet); Laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Winsor); Wild goose chase (Romeo and Juliet); Milk of human kindness (Macbeth); Love is blind (The Merchant of Venice); Kill with kindness (The Taming of the Shrew); Knock, knock! Who's there? (Macbeth); Mum's the word ( Henry VI, Part II); Heart of gold ((Henry V); Lie low (MuchAdo About Nothing); Not slept one wink (Cymbeline); in stitches (Twelfth Night); Vanish in thin air (Othello); Own flesh and blood (Hamlet); All of a sudden (The Taming of a Shrew); Send him packing (Henry IV, Part I); A sorry sight (Macbeth) And more.
3.
Dunsinane hill: A fort known as Macbeth's castle. In a scene near Birnam
wood, Malcolm, a son of the murdered king, says "Let every soldier hew him
down a bough and bear 't before him: thereby shall we shadow the numbers of
our host..."
4. Macduff is the thane
of Fife. A thane, in Scottish history is a person of rank who held land from
the king, and is often the head of a clan.
5. Moral Guidance, Loyola University Press,
by Edwin Healy, S.J., Gregorian University, (and revised by James Meara, S.J., St. Louis University) and Right and Reason - Ethics in Theory and Practice by Austin Fagothey S.J., Professor of Philosophy, University of Santa Clara
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Site Last Updated on 05/27/19