Echoing Presences of Caliban - Centro Asteria
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Echoing Presences of
Caliban
JEREMY LESTER
Verba Volant
This edition represents the full text of a theatrical monologue, first performed at the theatre of Il Centro Asteria
in Milan in December 2018.
Jeremy Lester / Verba Volant
What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue
of the chameleon to change her hue at every new
approach, to be gay with the merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as her mood …
The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence : silence that is the infinite of space : and swiftly, silently the soul is
wafted over regions of cycles of generations that have
lived. A region where grey twilight ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields, shedding her dusk,
scattering a perennial dew of stars.
― James Joyce, Ulysses
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________________________________________________________________________________
Echoing Presences of Caliban ______________________________________________________________________
Pre-performance image - Laszlo Lakner
Pre-performance accompanying music - Ablaye Cissoko / Volker Goetze
I think there is no time; there is only a duration of things. If a piece
of history of a people doesn‘t get resolved, it‘s not history in the
sense of historical conflicts, it‘s the present … it‘s always the present.
(Jimmie Durham, Caliban Codex)
A new turbulence is at work everywhere; and Caliban is wide awake.
(George Lamming, The Pleasures of Exile)
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________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction ______________________________________________________________________
[1]
he subject/theme of my talk today is William Shakespeare‘s play, The Tempest, which was originally performed in 1611.
However, I want to emphasise immediately that my
primary interest in this play is not just literary and certainly not
just from a historical perspective, which simply limits its focus on the play as it was originally performed more than 400 years ago.
My real interest concerns the multiple ways in which over many,
many years the play – and the issues and themes that it raises and deals with – have been constantly appropriated, used, re-written,
re-interpreted, re-located and often continued beyond the point
where Shakespeare himself left it so as to give it a continuous contemporary significance just about everywhere in the world. In
this sense, the play is certainly never fixed or imprisoned in time
or in space. It is endlessly malleable and so full of alternative possibilities and meanings that it cannot help but tempt us to
regard it as unfinished and therefore always capable of being
continued. Was this intentional or unintentional on Shakespeare‘s part? My own preferred answer is to say that it was intentional. As
he himself wrote in one part of the play (using the mouthpiece of
the character Antonio):
We all were sea-swallow‘d, though some cast again,
And by that destiny, to perform an act Whereof what‘s past is [merely] prologue, what to come,
In yours and my discharge. [Act 2, Scene 1]
T
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In short, then, The Tempest is an extraordinarily obliging work of
creation. It will lend itself to almost any interpretation and any set of meanings imposed on it, and just when one thinks that there
cannot possibly be any new angles, niches or lacunae to be filled in
or explored further, one is immediately proved wrong. Today, perhaps more than ever, brand new interpretations – both of the
classical text as well as many of the variations of it that have
appeared over the course of so many years – continue to be written,
produced and staged (and certainly not just in the theatre, but in
all possible artistic, creative ways).
But let me be even more precise here about the focus of today‘s talk. My own real specific interest in the play is largely
concentrated on one character in particular. It is not, I hasten to
add, the character which is traditionally considered the principal protagonist of the drama – i.e. Prospero (the Duke of Milan, who
has been overthrown in a coup d‘état by his brother in alliance
with the King of Naples). Instead, it is the character which has more and more assumed an interpretative importance for the
contemporary age – that character being Caliban. Indeed, such is
the status now of his importance and significance that many commentators have no qualms in asserting that it is Caliban, far
more than Prospero, who is the real ‗core‘ of the play and
everything that it tries to depict. There are many reasons for this growing significance, but arguably the key determining one is that
Caliban has become one of those rare literary creations that has
now broken completely free of the confines and borders that traditionally separate the realm of fiction from the realm of reality.
He has become a highly significant symbol for a great many people,
not just in the whole diverse realm of culture, but perhaps even more so in the realm of politics as well; a symbol that directly has
an impact on the real lives of many people.
Now, of course, given his original role in the Shakespearean drama, and especially the manner in which he was supposedly
meant to be originally portrayed and interpreted, this gradual
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transformation into a character that has genuine symbolic
significance and impact on the real world has largely occurred in certain social sectors of society. And the sectors of society that I
am particularly referring to are those which, in one way or another,
have invariably been (and continue to be) the most exploited, downtrodden, degraded, humiliated groups, all of whom have to
bear these conditions by a system of power that acts against them.
It is here, of course, where Caliban‘s own roots originally lie, and
his experiences, and even more importantly his attempts to
oppose and resist the treatment meted out to him, thus make him
for many a figure that is worthy of study and continued reflection. His various experiences with those who exercised direct control
and power over him; his sense of being weighed down in a
universe that he no longer understands or feels at home in; his aching desires for a different, alternative kind of world to live in –
these and so many aspects of his life and experiences, I repeat,
have increasingly transformed him into a symbol, an emblem, or even an icon, of near global renown. And by ‗symbol‘ here, I
essentially mean someone who provides ‗a terminology of
thoughts, actions, emotions [and] attitudes for codifying a [real-life] pattern of experience‘ (Kenneth Burke), not just in the way he reflects those experiences, but even more directly has an impact on
those experiences. In short, and as stressed before, he is a character who has assumed a meaningful life of his own. Indeed,
one commentator I know of has even gone as far as to assert the
following: ‗The way I see it Shakespeare didn‘t invent Caliban; Caliban invented Shakespeare (and Sigmund Freud and one or
two others). Caliban is one of the hungry ideas, he‘s always
looking for someone to word him into being … [he] is a necessary idea.‘ (Russell Hoban). It is in this sense, then, that Caliban
continues very much to exist today. Of course, just as a footnote to
all of this, this capacity for a fictional character to come alive has long fascinated many creative artists and intellectuals. In the case
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of Italy, for example, it is enough to mention the work of Luigi
Pirandello. Such has been my own fascination and interest in the symbolic,
real-life significance of Caliban that over recent years I have
devoted a great deal of my time and attention to him – both from an intellectual, cultural point of view as well as from a
political/philosophical point of view. The primary result of this
fascination has come in the form of no less than three books that I
have written in which he, Caliban, is the key protagonist. The first
book, chronically speaking, in this trilogy of works is one called The Ante-Tempest: Wordsounds, Wordsongs, Wordrhythms, Wordwounds.
This book basically tries to re-invent or re-create the situation of
Caliban‘s first, original, encounter with a representative of
Western civilisation and the power that this civilisation possessed to (literally) enslave Caliban so as to serve its needs and interests.
In other words, it is an encounter that mirror-images the
colonial/imperial conquest of so many parts of the world, precisely at the time that the original version of The Tempest was being
written by William Shakespeare.
The second book, meanwhile, is the product of a great many long periods of time spent in various Latin American countries
where the symbolic influence of Caliban has almost certainly had
the most profound impact and consequences over the course of the past 100 years or more. Entitled, In Search of Caliban and the ‘Red
Plague’: A Journey Through Latin America, the lengthy visits I was
fortunate to make (together with my wife and companion, Gemma) provided me with the opportunity to encounter and to collaborate
with some of the poorest sectors of society in both urban and rural
areas, who nevertheless bore their poverty with tremendous dignity. Not only that, in many cases, these were the people most
active in all kinds of spheres of struggle and resistance against the
system that so deprived and exploited them. It was here, then, where I can truly say that I encountered not one, but thousands of
‗Calibans‘. And to sum up this experience, I frequently borrow the
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words of a writer (and friend) who I admire greatly when he said:
‗from the garbage, the scattered feathers, the ashes, and the broken bodies, something new and beautiful may be born.‘ (John Berger). As for the third book in the trilogy - Return to My Ancestral Land:
Letters and Postcards From Caliban - this too gives a contemporary
identity to Caliban, but on this occasion I have portrayed him as a
migrant/refugee needing to escape from the dreadful, life-
threatening conditions that he finds himself in. The place where
he is trying to migrate to is in fact his ‗ancestral birthplace‘ (an
island where the contemporary Caliban has never been to before).
Where that ancestral birthplace is – well, all will be revealed shortly.
Up until now, I have said that I will give you a ‗talk‘ about why I consider The Tempest as a play, and Caliban as a character, so
important from a whole range of different perspectives. But,
actually, it is not a traditional talk that I want to do. Instead, as I
did last year when I was here at the Centro Asteria, I want to give you a short ‗theatrical-type performance‘; a theatrical-type
performance in which I myself will assume the role of a
contemporary ‗Caliban‘ who reflects on his ancestral family‘s history since its Shakespearean origins more than 400 years ago
and on his own individual situation in the world today in which
he exists. So, with your permission and patience, what I need to do now is just take a couple of minutes to prepare the stage and to
prepare myself for the short theatrical performance. Please don‘t
go away during this short interval. Stay where you are. And, I repeat, I will be back in just a couple of minutes‘ time. Thank you.
* * *
_________________________________________________________________________________
Scene 1 _______________________________________________________________________
Scene 1 image - Arthur Tress
Scene 1 accompanying music - Arvo Pärt - Spiegel im Spiegel
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[2] (A voice off-stage recites the following):
I travel through galleries of sound
I float among echoing presences
I pass transparently through borders I am the shadow cast by my words
If ever I am erased, I am born in another
And so it is that I come to you With a voice of sadness and hope
I come bearing gifts I will give you the gift of my body
I will give you the gift of my strength
I will give you the gift of my labour I will give you the gift of my honour
I come bearing gifts I will give you the gift of my music
I will give you the gift of my stories
I will give you the gift of my spirit of adventure I will give you the gift of my imagination
I come bearing gifts I will give you the gift of my bread
I will give you the gift of my salt
I will give you the gift of my wine I will give you the gift of my company
I come bearing gifts I will give you the gift of respect
I will give you the gift of dignity
I will give you the gift of friendship I will give you the gift of love
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I come bearing gifts Will you accept them? Or
Will you throw them back in my face?
Will you offer me the hospitality of a Ulysses Or a cell and chains like my ancestor?
Will you call me ‗legal‘ or ‗illegal‘?
Will you call me ‗human‘ or ‗alien‘?
How my soul aches
How my mouth is poisoned To even speak the word ‗alien‘
I spit it out
I trample on it I defy it
Do you need proof of my humanity? Remember the words spoken long ago –
Have I not eyes?
Have I not hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Am I not fed with the same food?
Hurt with the same weapons?
Subject to the same diseases? Healed by the same means?
Warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as you are?
If you prick me, do I not bleed? If you tickle me, do I not laugh?
If you poison me, do I not die?
How my soul aches
How my mouth is poisoned
To even speak the word ‗illegal‘ I spit it out
I trample on it
I defy it
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No one by nature is ‗illegal‘ No paper, no ink, no dirty bureaucratic stamp
No passport, no document
can codify the depths of the soul, the hopes and dreams of the migrant heart….
Economic refugee / savage barbarian / extra-communitarian /
benefits-scrounger / vagabond stranger / asylum-shopper / pariah / persona non grata …
Will this be how you see me?
Can you be so blind?
Can your hearts be so frozen? Can your collective memories be so whitewashed?
Can you forget so easily?
Ask your ancestors what it‘s like to be a migrant Read their stories
Soak up their tears
Do you have the courage to confront the truth? Do you have the courage to confront reality?
Do you have the courage to confront your fears?
Do you have the courage to confront yourself? When you look in the mirror
Is it not me that you see
in the features of your own face? (As the voice and music fade away, so too does the image on screen).
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_________________________________________________________________________________
Scene 2 _______________________________________________________________________
Scene 2 image - Patrick Heron - Blue November
(As the music fades and the image on screen changes, Caliban goes to the front
of the stage)
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[3]
I look out at the wide expanse of the sea. The words that I speak
are like waves. I try to give them the flowing rhythm of the water. How is it possible, I ask myself, that we have tried to capture the
sea in just three letters? How can these three meagre signs contain
enough space to represent the sea? How can the words we speak possess enough space to embrace the world around us?
A couple more hours to wait, so I‘ve been told, and then the
‗boat‘ – if one can actually call it that – will arrive and take us to our destiny. And so, another ‗adventure‘ beckons. I will be on the
move again. Mind you, the older I get the more I ask myself: is it
really me who is moving or is it the earth and the sea beneath my body that is shifting and propelling me forward? Such are the
times we are living in.
What am I taking with me on my adventure? Like my ancestors, and like all my fellow migrants today, I carry flowers of sweet
melancholy and the fragrances of what I leave behind. I carry the
sonorous echoes of shells to keep me company. I carry stones, those written pages of history, as the witness of time. One in
particular is very special to me. It is the heart of the woman who I
have loved most in my life. I carry the ravaged soul of words and language that can no longer be spoken. I carry a jar containing
Nature‘s breath to sustain me on my wanderings. I carry a
necklace of stars to guide me and to reinforce my dreams. I carry the poet‘s book of horizons. And I carry the passage of time with
me; the passage of time that is never straight or linear but, just like
this boomerang, is always circular in motion and space. The passage of time that knows already how much past tomorrow
holds.
Will the departure be tonight? I hope so. It is the waiting that is the most anxious period of all. We were actually meant to leave
last night but there was such a tempest blowing out there at sea
that in the end it was decided that it was far too dangerous to set
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forth. Looking out at the sea now, it appears calm enough. One
might almost say that the sea appears to be sleeping. But as the saying goes, I‘m sure it is only the calm before the next awakening
of a storm.
How strange it is to be here. Was this, I wonder, the same place from where my great, great, great, great, great Grandmother
was forced to set sail in exile more than 400 years ago? ‗Sycorax‘
was her name. How this name conjures up and evokes so many
possible meanings. In truth, little is known about her in reality.
But what I do know is that she was forced into exile because she
had the courage to obey her conscience and her own desires, and in doing so she went against the harsh customs and laws of her
time. When she finally arrived on the island to where she was
banished, that was where she gave birth to her son. We all know the name of her son because it is the same name that has been
passed down to all male generations of the family ever since;
including me of course. The name is ‗Caliban‘. But we must never forget that this was not the name chosen by Sycorax herself. It was
a name forced on her son by others; along with so many other alien
things. I will tell you more of this shortly. And so, here I am all these hundreds of years later waiting to
embark on a boat that will take me to the same island; my
‗ancestral island‘, my ancestral ‗homeland‘, I suppose you can call it. And the name of this island? In Sycorax‘s day, it was called
‗Lipadosa‘. Now it is called ‗Lampedusa‘. Ah, I can see by your
faces that you didn‘t know that this was my ancestral birthplace; the birthplace of the very first Caliban. Well, to be honest, I‘m not
surprised that you didn‘t know. What little you might have heard
about my first ancestor has been given to you no doubt by that colonialist/imperialist chronicler – William Shakespeare; the
chronicler who so blatantly sympathised with that usurper and
aggressor Prospero, so-called Noble Duke of Milan. Ha! Noble indeed. As an ancient Arab poet, who lived long before Prospero
was ever born, once put it: ‗What is the worth of noble blood
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when the soul is so vile‘ (al-Mutanabbi). Anyway, as I say, at no
stage in his chronicles and in his account did that man Shakespeare ever mention the name of the island where Sycorax
and the first Caliban lived. Worse than that, he even blatantly
states that the island was ‗uninhabited‘ by any other human being. But all of this was par for the course. There were so many
things that Shakespeare left out of his account and what he does
tell us was often nothing more than false or inaccurate. Why beat
about the bush? Let‘s call a spade a spade. Many of the things he told us in his account were downright lies. Again, I see a look of
surprise, perhaps even outrage, by this claim of mine. Let me, then, try to convince you that my verdict about him, Shakespeare, is
accurate.
[4]
He claimed, for example – and always of course faithfully
reporting only the views and perspectives of Prospero – that my ancestor, the very first Caliban, was a ‗monster‘, deformed in shape
with beastly, savage-like characteristics. He also claimed that
Caliban was someone who possessed no culture and no language, at least prior to his encounter with the, oh, so civilised Prospero.
Even more slanderously, he even claimed that Caliban attempted
at some point to ‗abuse‘ Prospero‘s young daughter, Miranda (and you will probably know, or can guess, what kind of very specific
allegation lies behind this word ‗abuse‘). But none of these claims
are true!! That first Caliban was certainly not a ‗monster‘ nor was he ‗deformed‘, either in shape or size (for someone of his age at
that time). He was simply ‗different‘ to someone like the white-
skinned Prospero; he was the ‗Other‘ of Prospero. Correct me if I‘m wrong, but in your language you have two words that are almost
the same in spelling and sound, but which nevertheless convey completely different meanings – one word being deforme (or
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deformità) and the other being difforme (or difformità). Well, it is the
latter term that applies here in this case. And the fact that Prospero repeatedly refers in such racist terms to Caliban simply
shows his own deficiencies and limitations. The principal reason
why Prospero cannot see Caliban in his true colours is because he, Prospero, had such an inherent, ingrained fear and terror of the
‗Other‘.
It is the same as well as regards the claim that Caliban
possessed no culture or language of his own. He most certainly did.
And certainly as regards Caliban‘s native, indigenous ‗language‘,
this for sure would have been a language of outstanding expressiveness, capable of articulating emotions, sentiments,
desires and thoughts in the most deep-seated and profoundest of
ways that the language of Prospero simply could not compete with. It would have been an original language full of beautiful
musical and poetical sounds. And above all, it would have been a
language dominated by gestures and the body itself rather than the mouth, expressing itself by means of dance and graceful motion. In other words, it would have been as much a visual form
of language rather than one limited to oral expressions; one which communicates with the eye more than to the ear and which has
that added wonderful advantage that it utterly depends on very
close, primary human contact and immediacy. As linguistic experts have often pointed out, it would have been a language
which, unlike the spoken word or sign, ‗does not cut itself off from
the desiring body ... or from the immediately perceived image of the other.‘ (Jacques Derrida). For this kind of language to be
effective one has to be in touching distance of each other. It is only
when one adds excess of distance to human relationships, when visibility has been interrupted, that the real motivation for a more
formal, detached, clinical, cold kind of language is developed.
Based on this knowledge, I feel sure that my ancestor‘s first attempt to communicate with Prospero would have taken the form of a smile; arguably the most magic gesture of all in
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stimulating the mutual, reciprocal needs and desires to come
together, to consume the initial encounter in the passion of each other‘s direct, immediate presence. If this isn‘t the foundation of
an incredibly rich culture, then I don‘t know what is.
As for the allegation of Caliban‘s supposed ‗abuse‘ of Miranda, well, we only have Prospero‘s claim for this and I for one am not
inclined to take his word at any kind of face value. Let‘s not forget that we know full well that Prospero was a voyeur, and who is to
say that this voyeurism did not conceal his own deeply rooted,
normally hidden, lustful cravings? Given the eventual connections
between imperialism and miscegenation, I think that Prospero (and thus Shakespeare as well) should not be so hasty to run fast
and loose with such allegations of abuse on Caliban‘s part. My
own image of what Caliban‘s relationship with Miranda would have been is to see him as a protective elder brother to her. And
almost certainly the two of them would have been natural
companions, sharing their thoughts and their dreams while going on exploratory walks together on the island and merrily playing
games with each other.
How sad it is to think that with all his ‗culture‘ and ‗civilisation‘, with all his ‗knowledge‘ and ‗intelligence‘, Prospero
was too ignorant to be able to understand and fully appreciate the
gift of Caliban‘s natural instincts and virtues. And it is even sadder of course to think how Prospero made Caliban suffer
tremendously; oh, how he suffered! Here was a young man, still
really a boy, who had risked his own life to rescue the tempest-wrecked bodies of Prospero and Miranda when they themselves
had come to the island as exiles from their native Milan. After
bringing them to safety on shore, he housed them, fed them, warmed them, and comforted them. As they recovered their
strength, he extended his full hand of hospitality by showing them
around the island, revealing all its seen and unseen qualities. Never for one moment did it cross his mind to keep anything secret from
his new honoured ‗guests‘, his new ‗friends‘, as he very much
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hoped they would become. And never for one moment did it cross
his mind to try to seek any advantage or gain from them, let alone any recompense. Even Shakespeare couldn‘t help but recognise
and pay full tribute and homage to this generous hospitality
shown. Initially, when it served his own interests of course, Prospero
masked his dependence on my ancestor for his welfare and for
crucial information about the island with his own displays of often
physical affection. But in his case it was always contrived, it was
always duplicitous, and it was never designed to be more than a
temporary hand held out in friendship towards his host and ‗saviour‘. As soon as he could, and as soon as a pretext could be
found or manufactured, he completely betrayed the hospitality
shown him. Using the magical powers of his knowledge of language and all the other forces of control and authority acquired
through his books, he committed what can only be described as a despicable crime against the hospitality freely given to him. From that
moment on my ancestor‘s freedom, his culture, his own unique
way of communicating with his own language, his beliefs and
values, and all the things he had created were confiscated, smashed, and destroyed. He was completely enslaved, penned up
henceforth like a wild animal, constantly subject to the harshest of
treatment, insults, and beatings. And perhaps more than anything else, the extraordinary possibilities of a different kind of existence,
of a different kind of future, were wiped out and annihilated,
incinerated in the dustbin of history with the purpose of making the ashes irretrievable.
Let me give you just a brief flavour of the insults and beatings
committed against Caliban. On just about every occasion that Prospero addresses Caliban he abuses him with such insults as:
‗dirt‘, ‗filth‘, ‗hag-seed‘, ‗beast‘, ‗mis-shapen knave‘, ‗bastard one‘,
‗vile race‘, ‗thing most brutish‘, ‗scurvy‘, ‗abominable‘, ‗demi-devil‘, ‗malignant thing‘, ‗freckled whelp hag born‘ and many other such
epithets. He likewise encourages others to do the same, reducing
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him in effect to nothing more than a chattel to be disposed of in
whatever way others desire. As for the physical beatings, these include suffering all kinds of ‗pinchings‘, ‗cramps‘, ‗side-stitches‘,
not to mention nightmare images of roaring beasts that make him
tremble at the noise. To add insult to injury, just about all standard interpretations
of Shakespeare‘s account of what happened in this encounter
between Caliban and Prospero portray the latter, Prospero, as the
real hero, seeing in him a generous, wise, magnanimous, all-
forgiving man. But he is far from being this. Let‘s not mince words
here: Prospero is ‗an imperialist by circumstance, a sadist by disease, and, above all, an old man in whom envy and revenge are
equally matched.‘ (George Lamming). He is cold, pathologically
dominating, and has such a low esteem of human nature that he finds it almost natural that he should strive to degrade those
around him. His so-called ‗magic‘ is little more than a form of
terror, and he is the undisputed master of manipulation. As for the notion of forgiving his enemies, so often highlighted by his
defenders, while there is undoubtedly some truth in this it is a
forgiveness that only takes place after he has suitably avenged himself on them and thoroughly humiliated them into the bargain.
Even then the forgiveness is only grudging and partial, to be taken
away no doubt whenever the occasion warrants it. Consequently, if there is any ‗cannibalistic‘ connection at work here, the real
‗cannibal‘ is Prospero, or at the very least the new imperialist
system of domination that he stands for. Of course, it is always recounted that Prospero eventually
destroyed his book of magic of his own free accord. But this
apparent act of self-destruction was likewise nothing but a deception and a clever ruse. Far from weakening the sources of
power and control that it represented, it strengthened them
immeasurably. When he does drown his own great book that represented his lifetime‘s work, we are left even more in the dark
about the workings of the power that he embodies. Now that the
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original source of that power is lost, or has been made invisible,
our sense of incomprehension, ignorance, and susceptibility to that power knows no bounds. As a consequence, the reality of
Prospero‘s magic is made (literally) unfathomable. From this
moment on, everything that this magic power represents is simply accepted as a ‗given‘ and ‗taken for granted‘.
It is often said that the act of memory is considered the art of
salvation. If this is true (and it is true) then of course this explains
why Prospero was so keen to command and proclaim the act of
forgetting, thus freeing himself, and all future generations of
‗Prosperos‘, from the destructive corrosiveness of recollection. Let me remind you of the words he used: ‗Let us not burthen our
remembrances with / A heaviness that‘s gone‘ (Act 5, Scene 1). One
can just imagine the smug smile on his face as he utters these words. It is this smugness that so rightly terrified and frightened
that great perceptive poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. And we should all
be terrified, now more than ever. Aren‘t we too, today, living in an age when a new triumphant form of ‗magic power‘ is striving in
truth to disavow, and therefore to hide from, the fact that never,
never in history, has the horizon of this power been as dark, threatening, and, yes, threatened as well? Between the realms of
history and nature a new sleight of hand continues to perform its
magical, deceptive tricks. Pascal was right: ‗Human life is nothing more than a perpetual illusion.‘
Is it any wonder, then, that when he was forced to learn his
new master‘s language so as better to be able to comprehend his orders and authority, my ancestor cursed that language and hoped
that it would one day be destroyed by a ‗red plague‘? Is it any
wonder that, deprived of his own language and way of expressing and communicating his emotions, the principal use that Caliban
finds for this new ‗alien tongue‘ is as an outlet for his rage and
anger at being enslaved, particularly in light of the fact that, as I have already stressed, he had shown such warm and generous
hospitality to Prospero and his daughter when they first arrived?
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It is a rage and anger directed against Prospero not just because of
his own enslavement, but also because Prospero seemingly has no appreciation at all of the natural beauty and splendour of his
island homeland.
While on the subject of Caliban‘s rage and anger against Prospero, let us explore a little bit more the absolutely pivotal role
that language plays here in their relationship and in Caliban‘s new
life in particular. With Prospero‘s arrival on the island, a language
of communication needed to be found between the two. Certainly,
Prospero never had any intention, let alone desire or ability, to
learn the indigenous language of Caliban. Consequently, the onus was always going to be on Caliban to learn Prospero‘s language. Of
course, more than just a means of communication between them,
language would quickly become the tool by which Prospero would exert his control, power and authority over Caliban. In other
words, Caliban is forced to learn Prospero‘s language so as to be
able to understand, obey and carry out his new master‘s orders and commands.
However, it is also noticeable that when Caliban is on his own,
or away from the presence of Prospero, his use of this newly acquired language suggests a highly cultured, lyrical, poetic grasp
of words, capable of expressing tremendous emotion and
sensitivity. In short, he is the most effective of verbal artificers. This distinction between Caliban‘s use of language and that of
Prospero is highly significant. ‗In truth, it is Prospero who is
enfeebled by a monoglot sclerosis… His rigid cultural position does not brook translation. He cannot discourse (his is a dialogue of the
deaf), he can only dictate. Conversely, the ―transgressive‖ Caliban
is able to journey back and forth between languages. Empowered [by this linguistic ability] he understands Prospero, not vice-versa.
Prospero uses language to close down consciousness. Concerning
Caliban, his language constantly negates, denies and demonises… whilst Caliban‘s [original] linguistic identity is dismissed as ―yet
another return to your savage tongue‖. Whereas Caliban asserts
32
and affirms potential and otherness, Prospero refuses dialogue.‘
(Philip Crispin). This pivotal role of language is crucial in another, perhaps even
more significant sense. At precisely the time when Shakespeare
was writing his account of their first meeting, England was in the process of acquiring its first colonies overseas, which would
eventually create the scope for one of the most powerful and
expansive empires ever witnessed in history. But in this initial
phase of imperial conquest, it was not England‘s military might
that counted most; it was precisely the conscious deceptive and manipulative use of language that was far more important. Nor was
this manipulative use of language as a tool of imperial conquest a
novelty at the time. It was likewise exactly by this means that the Spanish Conquistadors achieved their initial control of vast swathes
of the Americas (starting with Mexico). ‗Language [then] has
always been the [essential] companion of empire.‘ These are not
my words but those of Antonio de Nebrija, and they were written in that most symbolic and tempestuous of years — 1492. What
masters the Spanish were. What pupils were the English. And in
the case of Shakespeare/Prospero, here was the greatest purveyor of the power of language – both as a force of beauty but also as a
force of conquest and control. I repeat, then, it is hardly any
wonder that Caliban curses this language so much. Last but not least, it is likewise hardly any wonder – I am very
proud to say – that right from the outset Caliban (unlike Ariel)
never passively accepted his enslavement. He constantly tried to resist and rebel, and if at times the strategy of resistance that was
chosen was not always the best, nevertheless the symbolic act of
resistance was never lost. And for as long as it is not lost, strategies can change and be improved by experience, as so many
of my later ancestors have demonstrably shown, taking part in
their own circumstances as direct protagonists in the myriad struggles against all forms of oppression, anywhere and
everywhere. The battle cry of all Calibans ever since (and
33
including me today) has always been ‗Down with Oppression,
Exploitation and Injustice‘ and ‗Long live Liberty, Equality and Fraternity‘.
In all of this account of my first ancestor, don‘t get me wrong
here. I am not implying that he was some kind of absolutely pure, virtuous ‗saint‘. I am the first to recognise that in addition to the
good points in his character and outlook, he also possessed a
number of weaknesses and faults. It is strange, as I come to reflect
on this in more detail I confess that I was tempted to include
amongst his positive traits his sense of innocence. But I suppose
the brutal truth of the matter is that in the encounter that he came to have with someone like Prospero, it was precisely his
‗innocence‘ that ultimately determined his downfall and ruin. In
short, he was far too innocent, far too naive for his own good; instead of working in his favour, it completely worked against him.
The same could also be said of course about his – in the end
excessive – willingness to trust everyone. Again, he was too trusting by half. The fact that he was so easily deceived by
Prospero was part of all these potential strengths that suddenly
transformed themselves into weaknesses. How sad it is to think that his sweet illusions were destroyed. I cannot think of a worse
feeling or sensation than the one that accompanies this emotional
loss. Equally sad was the way in which it was not just Prospero who let him down, it was also the likes of those stupid drunken
servants who also came to the island – Stephano and Trinculo. I
ask you, how could Caliban view the likes of individuals like them as his ‗betters‘ and as potential alternative ‗masters‘ to Prospero? It
just highlights and shows you the extent of his desperation by that
point. Of course, in the end, there is a sense in which even Prospero started to feel a degree of pity for my first ancestor. But
surely such pity from the likes of him comes to represent the
worst defeat of all for Caliban. Reflecting a little more on these traits of innocence, naivety and
a constant willingness to trust others, it sometimes makes me
34
think that my first ancestor was someone who could only ever
remain an eternal child. This is in complete contrast with so many later generations of Calibans and it certainly is the case with me.
My own circumstances in life made it virtually impossible for me
to experience any sense of childhood, at least in any meaningful kind of way. Consequently, you might say that this is one of those
(rare) occasions in which the ‗father‘ is born from the child; where
the child is the only one capable of conceiving and giving birth to
the father. For me, my image of my first ancestor will always be
one in which he is a child.
Perhaps more than anything else, what really makes me sad when I think about my first ancestor was his lack of a real, strong
identity of ‗self‘. But then again, he is certainly not alone here. In
many ways, isn‘t this one of the biggest problems facing so many people in our own contemporary age; the fact that very few of us
these days seem to have a real sense of who we truly and genuinely
are any longer? When I look around me, I see so many people who are nothing but strangers to themselves. Their sense of selfhood,
and the pride and dignity that should go with it, has been almost
completely fractured, if not totally destroyed. Just like my first ancestor, people strike me for the most part as being like sand on
the beach, all too ready to be moulded into a particular pattern of a
sand castle not really of their own choosing. And needless to say, as the wind dries it, it falls apart immediately, crumbling and
disintegrating into nothing. When I now try to look back and
think about everybody who came to the island during this part of Caliban‘s life, it is he who strikes me as being the most
shipwrecked of all. What a terrible irony.
To illustrate the importance and significance of this lack of selfhood, let me very quickly relate to you a story. It is the story of
a young servant woman and it is related by the great Mexican
writer, Octavio Paz. It is the middle of the afternoon, siesta time no doubt, which, in the days of his youth, would have been sacred
to the class that Paz and his family stemmed from. Octavio is
35
roused by a noise that comes from the room adjacent to his. ‗Who
is in there?‘ he asks loudly and, I would imagine, although we are not told this, very brusquely. He is answered by the voice of a
servant who has recently come to them from her peasant village: ‗No one, Señor. I am.‘ In the time and space that it takes to utter
these few simple words, one‘s whole existence has effectively been denied, discounted and turned into nothingness. ‗No one, Señor. I
am‘ is tantamount to saying nothing less than ‗I am no one, Señor‘.
Very much connected with this lack of selfhood, I think, is
similarly the fear of freedom that pervaded Caliban‘s personality
back then; that is to say, the incapacity, through lack of courage or other barriers, to face up to the terrors of a genuine liberation of
the individual self. In one sense, of course, Caliban did have and
did experience freedom before Prospero‘s arrival. But, when you come to think about it in more profound ways, perhaps it is not
the actual possession of freedom that produces the greatest amount of joy and pleasure, so much as the process of becoming free.
I repeat, Caliban did have freedom before Prospero‘s arrival but
this real joy of becoming free remained unknown and not
experienced by him. Still, I mustn‘t be too harsh on him. He really did face a catastrophic situation in his encounter with the so-
called ‗civilised‘ world as represented by Prospero, and to give him
his real due, he did try his best to struggle and resist so that his original condition of freedom could be restored. It is a bit harsh to
blame him for the lies and deceptions of Prospero. And Prospero
lied so much and so convincingly about the world and about himself that it was perhaps inevitable that my first ancestor would
end up having an image of his ‗self‘ forced on him by Prospero. And
deep down in the mirror of his soul, he knew that image being reflected back at him was false and he hated it for everything it
signified and conveyed.
I know for sure that just like me, so many of my later ancestors who came after the first Caliban have been highly conscious of
these original family faults and weaknesses and they, just as much
36
as I, have tried our best to make sure that we are not affected or
afflicted by them. Mind you, inevitably of course each of us has had our own specific faults and weaknesses to contend with in
our own individual lives and circumstances. I am still combating
those weaknesses and faults which reside in me and I doubt that I will ever be completely victorious in my struggle with them.
[5] Anyway, eventually Prospero did leave the island and for a while
Caliban was left on his own again. His solitude, however, was no
longer the pleasant experience that it had once been for him, and in any case Prospero‘s departure was inevitably followed by a full-
scale take-over of the island, eventually becoming, although this
was much later on in its history, a penal colony for political prisoners as well as ordinary convicted criminals. Fortunately,
Caliban managed to flee the island just in time before it started to
be more completely occupied. Had he not escaped, his fate, and with it that of all later generations of his family, would have been
very different.
I have often speculated on what might have become of my first ancestor if Prospero and his daughter had never encountered and
enslaved him. I would like to think that his fate would have been
something akin to what befell Hayy Ibn Yaqzan. Are you familiar with this story? It was principally recounted by Abu Bakr
Muhammad Ibn Tufayl as long ago as the twelfth century.
Hayy Ibn Yaqzân (the name means Alive, son of Awake) found himself, just after his birth (or even at the time of his birth
according to some versions) stranded all alone on an uninhabited
island. For the first seven years of his life he was taken care of and nurtured by a gazelle, who in all practical senses became his
surrogate ‗mother‘, teaching him above all the virtues of kindness
and gentleness. Following the death of his ‗mother‘, he learned to
37
fend for himself and for the next forty years and more, by means of
his natural reason, intuition, imagination, curiosity and powers of revelation he ‗educated‘ himself to become wise in all matters of
material, corporeal existence as well as the needs of the ‗spirit‘; a
knowledge and understanding that ranged from the smallest life forms to the stars and the universe above him, and all forms of life
in-between. Everything around him was treated with the utmost
respect; everything served a purpose; and everything was
interconnected. ‗All bodies, whether they are animate or inanimate,
are one thing‘ was his guiding motto in life, and more than
anything else, he could never allow himself to see any plant or animal hurt, sick, encumbered, or in need without helping if he
could.
By the age of fifty he had learned just about everything there was to know (or was worth knowing) and he lived the life now of
a devoted mystic, cutting off sensory experience in order to pursue
pure spiritual ecstasy in communion with the ‗Active Intellect‘. This he discovered by making wide circular motions (like celestial
beings) with his dancing body until he had lost the senses and
imagination. Can‘t you just picture my ancestor here? Anyway, it was only at this point that he eventually came into
contact with another human being – Asâl ; a man who was also in
search of spiritual and mystical wisdom, who arrived on the island thinking it was deserted. After their chance encounter they
became friends and Asâl taught Hayy to communicate in his
language, and he quickly realised that Hayy was for sure the wisest man alive. He thus persuaded Hayy to return with him to his own native land in order to enlighten a wider audience.
Suddenly confronted with the dreadful realities of ‗civilisation‘, Hayy yearns to return home and to his pure contemplative
existence. He simply cannot cope with the deceit, falseness,
arrogance, stubbornness, ignorance and base materialistic pursuits of the people he encounters in this so-called civilised society. As
he himself expressed it, their hearts are rusted. At least he had
38
found one convert and friend to share his isolation. On his return
to his native land, Asâl now joins Hayy in a mutual, permanent bond of philosophical and spiritual fraternity.
It‘s a wonderful tale, don‘t you think, full of deep insights about
the nature of knowledge and understanding and how this can be acquired by the individual in solitary exclusion and contemplation,
combining both natural reason and mystical or metaphysical
insights. In short, it is a story of self-discipline and self-discovery.
And if some of this might now seem familiar to you, it is no doubt
because Ibn Tufayl borrowed many aspects of his tale from the
influential Arab philosopher Ibn Sina (or Avicenna as he is more frequently called) and in particular from the great thinker, Al-
Farabi. And of course, many later versions of this story would be
told in other lands as well. As I say, all of this is what might have been had my ancestor not encountered Prospero. But,
unfortunately, he did encounter Prospero and this encounter did
not have anywhere near the happy outcome that Hayy‘s encounter with Asâl had.
* * *
After Caliban left his island homeland, all traces of where he
eventually went are either lost or were never recorded. It is as though the official chronicles of history were only interested in his
fate and destiny for as long as he was nothing more than a piece of
a jigsaw puzzle whose final image was designed to portray the life and times of those considered more important, wealthier, and
more powerful than him. As one of my favourite poets (Adonis)
has nicely put it:
Behind the loom that weaves history,
there is an invisible force which now and then conceals, now and then neglects
and at times forgets,
39
depending on the circumstance and the purpose.
History is generally like a swimmer
in the face of a tempest,
who is rarely interested in anything other than what is immediately ahead of it
and visible,
on the surface and on the shore.
While the depths of the sea and the horizons remain
unfathomable.
This, then, was the eventual fate of my first ancestor. He was
plunged into the depths of the historical sea and remained for ever unfathomable after that. What I as his direct descendant do know,
however, is that during all these intervening years which separate
the first Caliban from me here today, successive generations of Calibans have been found in just about all parts of the world, and
most especially in Africa, the Caribbean islands and Latin America.
In being compelled by changed circumstances to leave his island homeland, I think that there can be no doubt that one of the
biggest legacies that my first ancestor bequeathed to all of us who
came after him was a sense of permanent displacement. The notion of exile has thus always been profoundly anchored within
all of us. I suppose you might say that we Calibans have become
the quintessential incarnation of a permanent, wandering Ulysses; or if you prefer, a permanent wandering Don Quixote. And over
long years, it has been a remarkably long and erratic journey
through many lands and many encounters. But wherever we have ended up, I don‘t think that we have ever truly felt a sense of
belonging. We have never really felt at home. At some point, we
always knew that the wandering and the journeying would recommence. There is, I am the first to admit, a degree of sadness
and regret attached to this condition. At the same time, however,
40
it has taught us all that the source of true happiness never lies outside of us in the external world but instead lies within us. We
think of horizons as being ahead of us in a straight, linear direction,
but perhaps we are mistaken. Perhaps our horizons are really
circular in shape and form. They certainly are in my case. For sure, wherever we have gone, like our first ancestor, we
have had to bear the burden and the pain of an immense amount of
suffering. Like him, we have all felt levels of anger, rage and
resentment that at times have completely overpowered us;
producing in us the enormous desire to withdraw from society, to
withdraw from the world. But, again like our first ancestor, the force that has kept us going has been the constant desire, and even more so the constant necessity, that wherever we have gone and
wherever we have encountered forces of oppression and exploitation, we have tried to resist and oppose them in whatever
way we could. This urge, this need, to revolt and resist lies at the
very core of our being. It has been by far the biggest determining factor of our lives throughout the ages of time. It represents the
very essence of our sense of pride and dignity in ourselves; the
dignity that lies in the refusal to be integrated into a world that is false, manipulative and contaminated. Because of this, I suppose
you could say that we have always had a very self-conscious
attachment to the ‗losers‘ of History. But for us, the term ‗loser‘ bears positive connotations not negative ones. Our attachment
and sense of belonging with them is voluntary and willed. We
would want it no other way. Given the world that exists, no Caliban has ever desired to be one of the perceived ‗winners‘ of
that world. To revolt and to resist make us tolerate our existence;
it overcomes our fear of being. And contained within this need to resist is that beautiful, often hidden, image of a promise or
possibility of a new world that can be created. No matter how
much despair might overwhelm us, we have never lost the belief in a different, alternative world. And in any case, for us the sentiment of despair has always been a powerful creative force. All of these
41
sentiments were nicely summed up in some words written by one
of my ancestors not all that long ago. This is what he wrote:
Maybe I‘ll grow contented—
They say some do in time. I‘ll decorate my prison;
Be passionate in rhyme;
Pleased if I can devise
A phrase to please a woman;
Be what the world calls wise
And everything but human? Ah no, if this is endless,
Still let me keep my rage.
Let me at least be tameless, Not grow to love a cage.
Heart that has been so wild —
Never grow reconciled …
Open all doors! Let every caged thing free!
Let there be nothing bound in earth or air! Those fettering chains unfasten fast and tear
Those walls away. Oh, give them liberty!
Have we not bars enough when we‘ve the sky Clamping us here? When we‘ve mortality?
Open all doors! Let every caged thing free!
Let there be nothing bound in earth or sea!1
Not so long ago, I had the good fortune to encounter an artist and
as our friendship evolved and developed, so he became more and more interested in my family‘s history. For me personally, it was a
wonderful, and all too rare, chance to speak openly about my own
ancestral roots and the way in which they have shaped and
1 The extract of poetry is from Alexander Reid, Twelve Variations on the Theme of Caliban
42
determined my own life and the beliefs and values that I have. At
the end of one evening spent in each other‘s company, he presented me with a present, which so moved me it made me cry.
It was a drawing he had done which, he said, aimed to capture in
one single portrait some of the most essential features of what he had learned about my family‘s history. The drawing, he went on to
say, would hopefully be the basis of a series of larger-scale
paintings which he wanted to work on. As yet, he hadn‘t decided
on the definitive title he would adopt for the series of paintings.
For a long time, he had also been working on another group of
paintings which aimed to capture the human essence of those whom he referred to as ‗The Wretched of the Earth‘ (which was
the title of a famous book written by Frantz Fanon). Although the
drawing he had done for me could possibly be adapted to fit into that series, he was more inclined to start work on other portraits
which would aim to capture other key essential features of a wide
range of oppressed peoples across a vast geographical space. What he was aiming to capture in these faces, he said – and what he
certainly did capture in the drawing he gave me – would not be
limited to expressions of suffering and pain, or the way in which the features of the faces cannot help but bear the scars of untold
tragedies. And they would certainly not be portraits dominated by
sentiments of resignation or despair. More than anything else, what he really wanted to capture in their expressions were the
traits of determination, pride and above all dignity; a dignity
which for so many years had forcibly been expropriated from them but which was now being regained. And of course, it was being
regained directly by means of having the courage to struggle and
rebel. Indeed, he would often cite the words that he himself had once read and which had left an enormous impact on him: ‗I rebel
– therefore we exist.‘
43
As I say, it was such a precious gift he gave me that from that day
on I have always carried the drawing with me. It means more to me than any other ‗possession‘ I have. I just love looking at and
drawing inspiration from it, with its beautiful, resplendent range
of colours, all of which merge and blend in the bones, the structure, the features and the expression on the face. It really does capture
the essence of dignity in ways that no words could possibly
convey to the same profound depths. And for me personally, it really does capture the essence of everything that I would like the
collective name of Caliban to evoke.2 I am the son of Caliban. I am
the son of all Calibans. I carry within me the traits of many cultures, civilisations and languages. I am a permanent wanderer
but my wanderings serve as meeting points with countless Others.
2 The painting is by Oswaldo Guayasamín, the great maestro of twentieth-century Ecuadorian and Latin American art, and it is one of a series collectively entitled Rostros de América (Faces of America).
44
There is no such thing as a ‗stranger‘ to me. I heartily welcome the
encounter with the Other, because this is also the encounter with myself.
Given that the name ‗Caliban‘ was not freely chosen by my first
ancestor but was instead forced on him by Prospero, why, you might ask, have all successive male generations of the family
retained it? After all, when it was first chosen by Prospero, there
can be little doubt that from his point of view it was a name full of
negative, demeaning connotations. The most likely reason that he
forced this name on my first ancestor was because it was an
intentional anagram of the word ‗can[n]ibal‘ (which in Prospero‘s day would have been spelt with one ‗n‘ not two). True, other
motives for the choice of name might also have been uppermost in
his mind, but none of these are really any better. For example, it is perhaps possible that Prospero knew enough Arabic to know that there is the word kalebôn and that he derived my ancestor‘s name
from this. But the principal meaning of kalebôn is hardly much of an
improvement on ‗cannibal‘, signifying as it does a ‗vile dog‘.
Alternatively, perhaps Prospero was familiar with the Romany language, which possesses the word cauliban or, in other versions, kaliban. If he did, again this was certainly no improvement because
it is a word which signifies ‗blackness‘ in all its most detrimental
connotations (often used in conjunction with other words like ‗filth‘, ‗mud‘ or ‗dirt‘). So, I repeat, given all of these highly negative
meanings, why on earth have we retained this name – which has
been like a constant wound - right up to the present day? In response, I think I can speak for all of us who have borne this
name by briefly highlighting three principal reasons for its
retention. First, it was our way of retaining a direct link with our first ancestor. Second, it was – at least from our point of view – a
way of honouring and paying tribute to him. And perhaps most
important of all, as certainly as far as I am concerned, its retention was a form of resistance in its own right. By voluntarily holding on
to the name and passing it down from generation to generation,
45
and by accompanying it with a sense of genuine pride and dignity,
it was designed to demonstrate that we were not to be oppressed by it. More than that, our detractors would come to fear the name
‗Caliban‘ in ways that they couldn‘t have possibly imagined. For all
of these reasons, therefore, I myself have no problems at all with the name.
This attempt to accept something imposed on my first ancestor
for all kinds of negative reasons and to seek to transform it into
something much more positive for we who have been his heirs has
likewise very much defined the relationship we have developed
over many a long year with language. No one is more aware than I am of the power that is contained in language and in words;
especially the power to cause pain and suffering. This was my first
ancestor‘s primary experience of language. As I have already stressed, for him language was an imposition; an alien force which
ended up enslaving him because it was used by Prospero in such
deceptive ways. For this first Caliban words were nothing more than a form of black magic used to disguise the real thoughts of
those who practiced this magic. The words and language imposed
on him robbed him of his own natural mode of poetic expression – the poetic expression that was literally embodied in his gestures,
his facial expressions, and the very movement of his body as it
communicated its sentiments and feelings in a rhythmic dance. Every mimetic movement of his dancing body was like a
perturbation of the senses. An unrivalled energy was generated
which was innocent and free. But for all us later generations we have had to accept that one cannot revert to that original
innocence that my ancestor experienced before the imposition of
language. Words and language have taken hold of all of us. There is simply no escape from the linguistic chrysalis which embalms us.
But nevertheless, one can learn to use words and language in ways
that are also liberating. This is especially the case when it comes to the use of language employed in poetry. It is surely not by accident
that so many of my ancestors, especially in recent times, have been
46
poets. And I too, I hasten to add, regard myself as first and
foremost a poet. Right from the days of my youth I have always been attracted to poetry‘s inherent subversive use of words. And
as I have got older, it really has become the one weapon that I have
that can defend me from the world and which can help me survive. Let me briefly try to explain why poetry has such significance for
me personally.
First, although I fully acknowledge that the pre-linguistic
connection with my first ancestor is irretrievably broken and lost,
when used in the right kind of way poetry does nevertheless allow
me to maintain an essential bond with him and provides me as well with the chance to pay due homage and respect to him. It can
do this because better than anything else in the realm of language, poetry has the capacity to make words dance; a dance of words that is
likewise in its own expressive way, innocent and free. In some
ways then, this does re-create elements of my first ancestor‘s pre-
linguistic experiences. Second, for me poetry is an act which engenders new realities,
which reverses all perspectives, which breaks down all artificial
boundaries, borders and walls, and which offers the tremendous promise of new horizons of exploration.
Third, poetry possesses enormous hypnotic powers over even
the most hardened of souls; hypnotic powers that can be a real force for change. Some time ago I had a poet friend who was
unjustly imprisoned. During the time that he spent in his prison
cell, he would occupy his time by reciting his poetry out loud so that his gaoler could hear. Unable at first to understand any of the
metaphors used by my friend, the prison guard gets extremely
angry and tells him that he doesn‘t care one iota for poetry. The next morning, however, the guard comes back and demands to
know the meaning of the words and metaphors that had been
recited. Still, he isn‘t completely convinced and continues to insist that poetry is meaningless and pointless. That evening, however,
he visits his prisoner once more and asks him for further
47
explanations. So touched was he at the end that, having now
grasped the significance of the words, the gaoler suddenly becomes very sad and begs my imprisoned friend to give him back his own freedom. In other words, he now realises that he is the real
‗prisoner‘ not my friend. Fourth, nothing possesses deeper roots in the soil of knowledge
than poetry. It is here in the roots that eternal truths lie. It is for
this reason that in all peasant cultures, poetry and truth always
coincide.
He said: ―To the philosopher I prefer the thinker, and to the thinker, the poet.‖
When I asked him for his criteria, he replied:
―The philosopher is born with philosophy, the thinker with thought, and the poet with the world.‖ (Edmond Jabès, Le Livre de l’Hospitalité)
Fifth, there is something inherently fragile contained in poetry,
but at the same time it is precisely this fragility to face head-on the
tempests of History which gives it an incredible power and force. Sixth, poetry at its best is always a search for things that have
yet to be said.
Seventh, there is nothing like poetry which possesses the capacity to be like a caress or an embrace; or which has the
capacity to cleanse and heal the infected body, be it the body of
the individual or that of society, especially in times of great need or distress. And who can possibly doubt that we are in such times
now. Never has the need for poetry been greater.
Last but not least, it is through poetry, more than anything else, that one can appreciate (and experience) that wonderful sensation of enchantment; the enchantment of the marvellous or of anything
strange, unusual, out of the ordinary. As Aristotle remarked all those years ago, ‗Everything begins with the marvellous.‘ This was
a feeling, a sensation that completely lay beyond the capacity of
48
Prospero (and all those like him today). He was far too
‗Machiavellian‘, far too rational in a cold and closed way to allow himself the liberty of submitting to the force of enchantment. But
by not doing so, he deprived himself of some of the greatest
moments of joy and happiness that a person can feel. What I really find most disappointing, though, is that we are increasingly losing
this mysterious wonder of marvellous enchantment; above all in
the young generation today. It seems to me that they have lost all
sense of innocence and without innocence they lose the very
essence and beauty of being a child before taking on all the
modern-day stresses and strains of adulthood. Without innocence they are lost. And when our children are lost, we are all lost.
Poetry at least allows me to cling on to a degree of innocence, but
for how long will poetry itself survive in this world? Do you know what my greatest fear is? We live in a world
today when just about everything is privatised. There is now
virtually nothing left that has not been acquired and patented by a few individuals as their private property. My fear is that one day –
perhaps soon – they will look around and realise that perhaps the
last remaining frontier of private ownership and accumulation is language itself. We have long known that language contains a
form of cultural capital which has always divided the rich from the
poor. But if this is unjust and bad enough, think what it will be like when we live in a fully-fledged system of linguistic capitalism.
My God, what a nightmare it would be! We would have to pay for
every word we use. Every letter of the alphabet would bear a price attached to it. And you can just imagine their justification for this,
can‘t you. They will say that like everything else, it is only by
paying for something that it assumes any meaningful and worthy value. Only money, only profit, has the capacity to make us truly
appreciate something. And when that something becomes
unaffordable or perhaps even scarce, so we appreciate it more. Moreover, so as to make sure that we don‘t unlawfully steal words
that will no longer be freely available to us, one feels sure that
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with this linguistic privatisation there will be created a special
linguistic police force. No, I honestly can‘t bear to think of this day. If (and when) it happens, this will be the day that I will readily
and gladly lay down and die.
There is one other bond, meanwhile, which I particularly wish to highlight which I have with my first ancestor. It is the shared
belief in the power of Nature; Nature as a living organism; Nature
as the Mother of us all. For me, any sense of a ‗divine god‘ (and I
use the term here very loosely) can only ever be represented by
Nature; and more than anything else it is the sun that I ‗worship‘
most. It is the real source and breath of life and through the power of its rays and light it opens up and shows the road to every new
horizon in our lives. Its beauty and power can be seen and shared
equally by all. Its rays of goodness embrace everyone, no matter whether they are rich or poor, black or white, man or woman, of
the human species or any other animal species.
I strive to become one with Nature; to blend and merge with every aspect and living force of Nature that I encounter around me.
Like so many other sensitive souls that have come before me, and
who I desperately hope will come after me as well, it is only through Nature that I am truly able to be conscious and aware of
myself.3 Trees in particular are living entities that I admire greatly
and with whom I like to think I have a special bond and rapport. What affection I have for them. They possess such beauty and
variety; and they possess such wisdom (because of their longevity
of age). Trees are the true philosophers of this world. They stay all their lives in one place and as they look out at the world day after 3 There is a wonderful poem by Victor Hugo (‗Oui, je suis le rêveur‘, 1835), written nearly 200 years ago, which recounts and describes the manner in which he converses with all elements of Nature around him – from the smallest golden flowers to the highest trees; from the tiny blades of grass to the wide expanding meadows; from the water of the river below him to the wind and the clouds above. Everything he encounters is a living force, which in turn sustains and generates fresh life for all. And when combined, each is an instrument in a divine orchestra capable of playing the most beautiful sacred concert.
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day from the same spot, their primary occupation is one of
contemplation. Go into any forest and how can one not feel overawed by their presence? We humans are so puny in
comparison. There is a wonderful poem that I know of that conjures up beautiful images of leaves which possess an audible smile.4 Now if that doesn‘t enchant you, nothing in life will. Now,
of course, this is simply a marvellous poetical, metaphorical image,
but there is increasing concrete, proven evidence, you know, that in their own unique way trees (and plants as well) do have the
capacity to communicate and to think. The more that one spends
time in their company, the more one genuinely believes this. I find it a particularly pleasant, appropriate and reassuring thought that what truly connects me with all my ancestors comes in the form of
a tree. After all, it is surely no accident or coincidence that the symbol of all our genealogical roots is precisely a tree (i.e. albero
genealogico). In this way, I know for sure that the union of the
trunk and the branches is inseparable; the trunk lives through the branches and the branches live through the trunk.5
To cap it all, as everyone now knows (or should know), trees are absolutely vital and essential to our very own human survival on
this planet of ours in so many different ways. They are the
‗guardian angels‘ of the very source of our capacity to live and
flourish on this planet, not least in providing the essential oxygen that we breathe. The fact that over so many recent years we have
done nothing else but destroy and annihilate the great forests of
the world has been one of the major causes of all the increasing dangers we have created for ourselves with things like climate
change. In short, the more we annihilate our trees, the more we
really do risk annihilating ourselves. As another great poet (Pier Paolo Pasolini) once put it: day in, day out we humans now
4 The poem is by Fernando Pessoa (‗Audible Smile of the Leaves‘, 1932). 5 These were also comments made by Laurent Busine when reflecting on the artistic work of Giuseppe Penone; by far the most renowned artist today who has always had a special rapport and affinity with trees.
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commit a form of anthropological genocide on a scale never witnessed
before in the whole of human history. But the price of that genocide is a form of collective suicide for the human race itself.
What an absurd situation we have gotten ourselves into.
Having mentioned the annihilation of trees that we are committing, I cannot help but be reminded of another sad
reflection about the life and fate of my first ancestor after his
encounter with Prospero. As an intrinsic part of his enslavement
and exploitation, he was forced to carry out the daily task of
cutting down the beautiful trees in his own island homeland so as
to be able to provide wood for the sole benefit of his new ‗Master‘ and his daughter. What tears he must have shed every time he had
to destroy one of his beloved trees.
On a somewhat lighter note, I have been told, by the way – and I very much hope that it is true – that in this land of Italy that I am
hoping to reach, there was a famous writer who wrote a
wonderful story about a boy who voluntarily chose to live in a tree (notwithstanding the fact that he inherited a great deal of wealth
and could have lived in a great big luxury house if he wanted to).
Oh, how I envy that boy. How I would dearly love to make my home at the top of a tree and to be constantly visited by my closest
neighbours – the birds of this world.
This striving of mine to become absolutely one with Nature is something, of course, that I know can never fully be achieved in
life. Only with my death will I ever achieve full unity and harmony
with Nature. It is for this reason that death holds no fear or terror for me.
Listen. Can you not hear the music created by Nature? My first
ancestor could hear music everywhere in his homeland, and I too have fortunately inherited that sensitive capacity to hear it
everywhere. These are the words he expressed all those years ago:
Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
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Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That, if I then had wak‘d after long sleep, Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that, when I wak‘d, I cried to dream again.
Oh, what resonance these words have for me. Nature‘s music truly
is all around us. It has such a hypnotic effect on me that it cannot
help but stimulate my own dreams; not just those that I have
when I am asleep, but even more importantly the daydreams, the rêveries, I have when I am fully awake. Whenever I am possessed by
a deep and delightful rêverie I enter a state of blissful self-
abandonment. It is precisely in this state of abandonment, then, that I feel transports of joy and inexpressible raptures and I also
feel that I am closer to being one with Nature than at any other
time. My greatest dream of all, I must confess, is to be able to fly. I
often think, you know, that Nature really intended me to be an
inhabitant of the air more than of the earth. Unfortunately, however, before she had finished my wings I accidently let go of
her hands and thus my unfinished body was dragged down to
earth. I tell you this because I often feel like a man forever in search of new precipices, and when I stand over a precipice my
real daydream is to imagine - to feel - myself flying through the air.
Such is the power of the daydream that I often have to force myself to hold back the very strong instinct to leap off. Oh, if only one
could be a bird; to be free as a bird, crossing the skies and the
borders below without let or hindrance. Why has the earth become so full of chains and bars? Why do
people want to cage us in? Why do they want to lock us up in a
tiny space with no possible exit? Even worse, why do so many people choose voluntarily to go in search of a cage for themselves?
Why don‘t people realise that when they do harm to their
neighbour, they do harm to themselves? When will there be a limit
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to the despair of this earth? No, it is not me who is the lost one; it
is the very planet that I live on that is lost. Thank goodness that with poetry one always has the chance to find at least some virgin
spaces which can increase the expanse of the earth. It is the poet‘s
hand that truly opens the only book that really matters; the book of horizons.
[6] Ohhhhh, look, do you see? Up above. Oh, how marvellous. Green
pearls of light swimming through the night-time sky amidst the
stars; darting here, darting there, irradiating innocent beauty and delight. Fireflies! Sensations that fly through the air. They are the
joy of my heart. Oh, how happy they make me.
(Mesmerised by the swimming lights above him, Caliban performs the
Dance of the Fireflies)
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[7]
If this isn‘t a good omen, then I don‘t know what is. What is less
good is the sight of those dark, pitch-black, threatening clouds out there across the sea in the distance. A tempest is brewing, I can
feel it in my bones. But it is too late to turn back. Look, the boat
has arrived. It is time to set off. The doors of the day are opening and as with every new dawn we enter the unknown. I must rush
and join my fellow migrants. My destiny awaits, whatever it may
be. I have left a place where cemeteries flourished more than fields. Will I now at long last find that long-desired ‗City of Sun‘; that
sunlit land uncharted / beyond hunger / beyond plague‘s dark
peaks (Mayakovsky) ? Or will I find only more darkness; perhaps even eternal darkness?
All praise and honour to my ancestors. I embrace them.
All praise and honour to my mother.
I embrace you. I embrace the dead who are still alive in me.
And to my fostering mother,
I also give honour and thanks. To the hills – your breasts.
To the trees – your legs.
To the rivers – your fluids. To the plants – your nourishment.
To the animals and the insects – your voice.
To the birds – your song. To the wind – your breath.
To the stars – your eyes.
And to the sun and moon – the source of all knowledge. To all living things, I give thanks.
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Bring on the tempest, then if you must. Let it roar. Let its eye
pierce my soul. Let its tentacles of towering waves grab me by the throat. My spirit is aflame and I will throw myself headlong into
the storm. Let my tempestuous heart be united with the tempest
and let my howl being carried back and forth, up and down, on the waves reverberate all around until such time as compassion binds
this fragmenting globe anew. Until ‗my dying breath, I shall hurl
my protest with each morning‘s wind.‘ No calm of mind will
penetrate me ‗until … until … the shackles fracture and fall away‘
(Federico Mayor).
UHURU !... UHURU !...
U H U R U uuuuuuu… !6
(Caliban rushes off-stage)
6 The cry of ‗Uhuru !‘ signifies ‗Freedom‘ in the African language of Swahili.
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_________________________________________________________________________________
Scene 3 _______________________________________________________________________
Scene 3 images - The Wave & Sebastião Salgado
Scene 3 accompanying music - Jean Sibelius - The Storm
Post-Scene 3 film - Solo Andata - Grecanico Salentino &
Erri De Luca
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_________________________________________________________________________________
Epilogue _______________________________________________________________________
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Remember the words spoken:
We all were sea-swallow‘d, though some cast again,
And by that destiny, to perform an act
Whereof what‘s past is [merely] prologue, what to come, In yours and my discharge.
(Questions for the audience)
* What was the fate of Caliban? * Did he make it to Lampedusa? * If he did, as a migrant, how do you think he would have been treated?
Let me conclude with two short extracts from poems by Mahmoud
Darwish:
La terra è stufa di noi Dove andremo dopo le ultime frontiere? Dove voleranno le rondini dopo l‘ultimo cielo?
E dove dormiranno gli alberi dopo l‘ultimo respiro d‘aria? Scriveremo i nostri nomi
Con vapore scarlatto, interromperemo il canto, perché lo completi la nostra carne lacerata. Qui moriremo, qui nell‘ultimo passaggio, qui o forse qui, pianterà i suoi olivi il nostro sangue.
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Un altro giorno verrà
Un altro giorno verrà, femminile, dalla metafora trasparente, compiuto, adamantino, nuziale, soleggiato, fluido, simpatico. Nessuno avrà la voglia di suicidio o di migrazione, e tutto, fuori dal passato, sarà naturale, vero, conforme ai suoi attributi primari. Come se il tempo dormisse in vacanza… Un altro giorno verrà, femminile, dal segno che canta, al saluto
e al verbo azzurrini. Tutto è femminile fuori dal passato. L‘acqua scorre dalle mammelle della pietra. Niente polvere, niente siccità, niente perdita…
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