The Rape of Lucrece as an Osun metaphor
By Uthman Shodipe-Dosunmu
In the Shakespearean universe there is a long poem called the Rape of Lucrece which is a moral illustration of an unchecked power violating with unmatched force , a seemingly weak, hapless, distant persona.
But invariably that seemingly enfeebled object that first appeared to be captured , trampled, defeated, rose in unfailing defiance of the deathless, refusing to fade away in helpless subjugation; firm and strong before the tools of tyranny.
The Shakespearean Lucrece was literally raped by a Roman Prince called Tarquin who mistook transient power for licentious permanence, falsely believing that evil once etched can never be questioned nor queried, nor subjected to the enquiry of the popular throng. Tarquin raped and walked away, indifferent to the savaged; unforgiving in hubris, swayed in the arrogance of blinded power.
Lucrece however did not rollover, prostrated by the mightiness of the tyrant’s will. She rebelled. She announced her physical violation and then took her own life, openly shaming power where it had deemed itself unassailable, supreme in prevailing license.
But , alas, in the openness of Lucrece, in her moral defiance through death, she became deathless, invincible; a great provocative power that tumbled a rotten monarchy.
It is in this malady that Shakespeare raised the imperishable enquiry : “How in this Rage can Beauty make a plea ? “
The Shakespearean query which was raised in the 16th century remained unanswered for more than two hundred years until 18th century when the immortal Samuel Taylor Coleridge responded : “ By holding befitting emblems of adversity. “
Juxtaposing Shakespearean query with Coleridge’s response, we are confronted with the moral burden of challenging and resisting the hideous state. The Rage in the Shakespearean lore is a metaphoric symbolism of the ravaging evil against the perceived , fragile Beauty as inheres in the oppressed, the trampled populace by those first blinded by power foolishly believing that the temporality of office or position is a privileged destiny or a gift of heaven.
Not true!
Power , even in its seeming infinite latitude has a terminus. No matter how long its illegitimate tenure, no matter how vicious its compositional bearing, it must inevitably yield to the intervention of man and the heavens.
Scholars of Comparative literature and History of Antiquity are in consensus that Shakespeare’s query and Coleridge’s counterpoint are both classical dissection of the modern police state and the necessary grapple of the people to tussle with tyranny not by violence, not by a resort to Rage against Rage but by a supreme will to resist Tanks, Thugs, the aberrant complicity of the lucre by a conscionable audacity to cast their ballots, to protect votes, to defy the intimidation of the lowly little men playing God, rousing in the mightiness of purpose to grapple with the tools of tyranny, indifferent to temporary discomfort.
The defiance of the popular throng cannot however prevail alone against a contumacious tyranny. It needs the visibility of the assertive media, the intrusive camera opening up the malady of the moment, the pervasive civil society monitoring every corridor , hearkening the truth without fear, the hovering global village watching, willing to sanction when power insists on the distortion of the democratic latitude.
When all these resistant forces coalesced in uniform exactitude, power ultimately withdraws into a cautionary frame, yielding to preserve itself. That’s the natural logic of societal sway where power can only endure in tamed civility once it is locked up by a daring , conscionable vanguard willing to force the moment, unafraid before the dominating tools of terror.
In this, democracy does not survive when the trampled are afraid, crawling into a safe carapace of indifference, when conscience is purchased by material tinsels, when the grapple with power resides in selfish accommodation, when the coerced and the impoverished people must shrink before the goon squad and the Tanks.
In the natural swing of the democratic process, a free people is only roused by peaceful stoic defiance of perceived aberration, by the inner ferocity of will to remain immovable before the Tanks, to stand tall and not to tremble before the agents animadversion , not to yield to temporary gains but to insist on banishing the chains of their own impoverishment.
But how does democracy really go rogue ? Through the choric servile merchants detained by personal interests, through hallelujah men of the hour who would cheer a susceptible ruler in seraphic delusions , edging him to the destructive grip of absolutism while good men straddle the Dantean neutrality , ultimately pulling down the state in wrack and ruin.
The Sage of Chelsea, the Scottish Philosopher Thomas Carlyle once told us that “no lie can live forever.”
There is a permanent truism here which is amplified in all faiths, reinforced in all beliefs , anchored in all moral principles since man first stirred upon this earth 6 million years ago on the wild, mutable stretches of the ancient fields and forests of Serengeti.
If nature is susceptible to unceasing change, if one unifying continent can be broken to several continents, why then must the delusional man wrap himself in some vacuous permanence, foolishly believing that tomorrow will never come to adjudicate the present ? This moment then is conflicting and it is a Lie.
- Uthman Shodipe-Dosunmu is a Trilateral Scholar of Comparative Literature, Cultural and Intellectual History of Europe 18th Century and Classical Antiquity.
