The Summer's Tale:

There is a homeless vagrant that haunts Escondido

And his name is Sam and he is the most pious

And inspired man I ever met, perhaps. He

Told me that this time that we inhabit is the

Ending of an era, for though Pisces ruled

The last two thousand years, during which time

We saw many prophets, some false and others True,

Now it must yield its throne to fair Aquarius,

Who represents disruption but who all so

Speaks of Friendship and of Common Good

And Individuality.

Of course, no Individuality could live

Without a Common Good to serve,

Within whose light the outline of

The mental body is made clear,

Where shadows would obscure it

In a common fog,

But we are not yet upon such a

Golden Age, and daily sin grows deeper

All about us as is that infernal darkness

That would strangle us if we had not

The strength to fight it with our

Hands and tortured words.

This alone must puzzle me:

That this same Sage and Mystic claims

That my Great Age of Love and Beauty

Was in fact a time of control and oppression,

Ruled by tyrants answering to false idols

Instead of to the Voice of God that they

Pretend to profess.

But when I read the works of

Shakespeare and of Goethe,

I come back to Sanity, for

I recall that no such tyranny

Had ever thrived.

Instead of slaves I see great men and women

Doing what great men and women do:

The Good, and they desire little else

Unless they prove to be villains

That meet with disdain and tragedy

For the Bard knew that was the Devil’s fate,

And had this been MERELY the groundlings’

Longing for a Noble Sense of Cosmic Justice,

The Bard would have sooner cut his arms off

With his legs than to have written plays.

I wonder when it was therefore

That the suggestion of ulterior motive

Began, or when it became

Tolerable to hear women

Speak of infidelity with praise

And to see men perform it.

When did the scholars cease to see

The tragedy of Leontes as that of

Othello, betrayed by some infernal

Voice within his ear, misled to think

That his wife was unfaithful?

When was it no longer that same evil voice,

Suggesting sin without a warrant,

That would be the target of our

Blame, but rather the misled?

These knaves seem to suggest that

Had Hermione or had Desdemona

Truly been an evil strumpet,

All would have been well,

Provided she escaped, and that

It was not even Leontes or Othello

That was to blame, much less

Claudius or Iago,

But the very CULTURE of the TIME,

A Time that yet HAD Culture,

When the very thought of infidelity

Was not mere common sin but staunch madness,

For no sane mortal would dare to consider it,

Least of all to consider doing it,

And all men willingly submitted

To the service of their wives, and vice versa.

And now what? Am I to blame myself

For having thought well of Alanna,

That never could she have stooped so

Low as to betray me for a private purpose,

And am I to think now that though I had not

Deserved this I am to be shamed for having

Suffered it, rather than numbing

All my dignity and failing

To preserve her virtue?

How did judgment become muddled with

False judgment? Entitlement with self-

Entitlement? Love with pride?

Virtue with vice? And above all else:

Loyalty with weakness of will?

What will that is disloyal

Would not be derided as

Perverse beyond imagining?

How do these academic witches claim

That had their wives been guilty these great

Kings of men would have been no less

Misguided and no more so wronged?

How can one so delude one’s self

As to believe that any one would

WANT such a Fate to befall him,

 Or that a blameless, faithful husband

Would deserve it, or that any outside

Influence, springing from inner passion,

Could bypass the force of justice in

Preventing it? Was Hermione not

Wronged not by Death but rather by

The falseness of her accusation?

Would she not have marched towards

That Death boldly if it would have

Cleared her name of such depraving

Allegations? And what sort of foul

Fork-tongued beast, more terrifying

Than Iago or than Hamlet’s Apparition,

Would pretend to do her a great

SERVICE by attesting to the probability

Of her depravity, disguising it

As virtue?

When was dogma mistaken for Truth,

And vice versa? When did law

Turn to power, and when did

Both part with Common Human Purpose?

When did mortal sin become permissible?

What sort of person would allow for such a fate?

Who would not die so as never to see that day befall us?

And when did this noble will towards Death become Insanity?

Is that not why Alanna chose to die?

Perhaps not out of shame but

Faithlessness, craving God’s arms

So eagerly when men’s arms

Proved rough and misguided.

It was not patriarchy that had killed her.

Patriarchy never was.

It was not patriarchy that had killed

Leontes’ Queen, nor was it even

Then Leontes, but instead the Devil.

Only those same Agents of Disordered Wills

That serve the Fiend would try to blame

The victims, among whom are those

Same jealous Kings that foresaw Evil

And by acting against that same Evil

Bringing it into the state of Being.

It was not Kinghood or Chastity

That was the Enemy, but rather

Both were Heroes, and they all ways

Shall take precedence over the people

That upheld them, for it was THEY

That had suffered most the lie of infidelity,

Hence the Bard had had an Audience.

No person, even sane or insane,

Would cheer when Chastity has been

Besmirched, either in word or deed.

People are Good, and they have all ways SERVED

Each other in a Common Goodness,

For if this Great Motive did not watch

Over our every deed,

Life would lose Meaning,

Which is Its Lord,

And we all would doom

Ourselves, by our same

Self-destructive and self-

Serving Wills, to speedy

Death and Liberation.

Dm.A.A.