Unleashing the Hounds of Silence

In Shakespeare’s Othello, after Iago’s "motiveless malignity" has taken its appalling toll, Iago is captured and brought bedside before Desdemona’s corpse to momentarily face the Moor. Othello inquires as to why Iago has "ensnared my soul and body" [V, ii, 301], to which Iago responds:

IAGO: Demand me nothing. What you know, you know.
From this time forth I never will speak word. [V, ii, 302-303]

Thus, we are presented with the embodiment of unfathomable evil in the form of wordlessness. Perhaps, as has been suggested, this uncommunicative embassy from the "devil" [V, ii, 286] is meant to contrast with the opening lines from the Gospel according to St. John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God;
and the Word was God. [John 1: 1-2]

Beggarly, we grasp, then, that enlightenment may be found in the ever-fragile, and often equivocal, words used to translate our human experience into significance, into "truth." Whether to lighten the way toward "dusty death" in Macbeth, or to lighten the weigh in the scales of justice in Measure for Measure, Shakespeare inveterately maintains an ambivalence toward the strength of words to provide affirmative moral assurance.

Contrastingly, the absence of words – bred by ineffability – can signal the onset of evil in Shakespeare. In Macbeth, Shakespeare illustrates the dying fall of words when Macbeth tells of his "vaulting ambition which overleaps itself/And falls on th’other–– ." [I, vii, 27-28] The incompleteness of the sentence demonstrates not only the nefarious lack of clarity compelling Macbeth to act, but adumbrates the nihilism – and the absence of anything but vacuous silence – that inevitably ensues. Macbeth realizes prior to Duncan’s murder that "Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives."[II, i, 61] The point is driven home in Macbeth’s lament that his wife "should have died hereafter/There would have been a time for such a word," [V, v, 17-18], where sentiment and reflection – for the want of time – remain unarticulated and devoid of a realized meaning, leading Macbeth to tumble ineluctably into the abyss of nothingness.

Other truncated or aborted verbal expressions riddle the play. The wounded Captain who informs Duncan of the outcome of the initial battle between Macbeth and the rebel Macdonwald is compelled to stop talking, declaring "But I am faint, my gashes cry for help." [I, i, 43] The messenger who brings the news of Duncan’s approach to the Macbeth castle is said to be "almost dead for breath" and "had scarcely more/Than would make up his message." [I, v, 35-36] Malcolm, in the immediate aftermath of his father’s murder asks his brother, Donalbain, "Why do we hold our tongues, that most may claim/This argument for ours?" [II, iii,, 116-117] Later, Macbeth abruptly cuts off the thought processes of one of his hired assassins when the hired killer says "Though our lives –" and is immediately interrupted by Macbeth, underscoring the little regard Macbeth has for the lives of his minions. Still later, MacDuff is not able to voice his anguish at the news of the slaughter of his family, despite Malcolm’s exhortation to "Give sorrow words." [IV, iii, 210] And when the Doctor presses Lady Macbeth’s gentlewoman to reveal the utterances of her somnambulating mistress, she abjectly refuses, "...to you, nor any one, having no/witness to confirm my speech." [V, i, 17-18]. This reticence is echoed by the frightened Messenger who somehow must report to Macbeth that the wood of Birnam is moving, "But know not how to do’t." [V, v, 34] This pervasive and enforced gagging throughout the drama culminates with two divergent, paradigmatic paths: The cowed Doctor (like each of us in the audience) resignedly concludes, "I think, but dare not speak" [V, i, 69]. On the other hand, MacDuff, facing his fears, declares anagrammatically that "I have no words/My voice is in my sword" [V, viii, 6-7], and slays Macbeth.

The inadequacy of words is underscored in Measure For Measure. As he is led to prison, Claudio attempts to enlist Lucio to seek out Isabella’s aid to save him from the executioner's axe:

CLAUDIO: One word, good friend: Lucio, a word with you.
LUCIO: A hundred – if they’ll do you any good. [I, ii, 139-140]

Thereafter, when Angelo ponders his effort to shake the temptation toward Isabella, Shakespeare continues to hint at a fundamental, philosophical futility underlying the medium of words. Angelo speaks of a disconnection that excludes a relational nexus between human and spiritual realms:

When I would pray and think, I think and pray
To several subjects: Heaven hath my empty words,
Whilst my invention, hearing not my tongue,
Anchors on Isabella. [II, iv, 1-4]

This sounds a lot like Claudius, attempting to reckon with prayers, in Hamlet:

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. [III, iii, 97-98]

(There are other parallels: Hamlet’s repetition of "except my life, except my life, except my life" [II, ii, 216-217], [referring to the only thing with which he says he is more willing to part than Polonius’ leave-taking], starkly states – in its most elemental sense – the underlying theme of the drama, while Isabella’s epizeuxis in Measure For Measure, "...justice. Justice! Justice! Justice!" [V, i, 26] declares the central motif of that play.)

Words, in their "fewness," (to borrow a term from Lucio in Measure For Measure), can also represent liminal pressure points in the all-too-human presentation of Shakespearean drama. We see in King Lear that Cordelia, challenged to verbally express her love for her father, becomes inextricably entangled in the lime-laden thickets of her father’s maddened insecurities when she fails to heed her own self-spoken advice: "What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent." [I, i, 62] Drawing the wrath of her father, she articulates the essence and substance of her silence with the one-word response, "Nothing." It is this same silence of nothingness that answers Lear’s ranting implorations to the gods to grant him vengeance and relief. It is this same silence of nothingness that answers Lear, clutching Cordelia’s limp body, when he utters his last despairing words: "Look on her, look, her lips/ Look there, look there!" [V, iii, 308-309] It is this same silence of nothingness that answers us when the question is posed: "Is this the promised end?" [V, iii, 261]