Goats and Monkeys[1965]

                                                     - Derek Walcott

'...even now, an old black ram

is tupping your white ewe.'

                           -Othello

(The lines from Shakespeare’s play Othello, Act I, Scene I. Brabantio is warned by Iago about Othello making love to Desdemona)

The owl's torches gutter. Chaos clouds the globe.

Shriek, augury! His earthen bulk

buries her bosom in its slow eclipse.

His smoky hand has charred

that marble throat. Bent to her lips,

he is Africa, a vast, sidling shadow

that halves your world with doubt.

'Put out the light', and God's light is put out.

(The Owl’s sight fades away. There is chaos clouding the globe. There is a bad omen everywhere. Perhaps, something undesirous is going to happen. A scream is heard. ‘His earthen bulk’ referring the huge body of Othello makes love with Desdemona. Her bosom disappears in his body as the moon disappears on a lunar eclipse. His passionate hand has scratched her marble-like white neck and he is bent on her lips. He is dark like the people of Africa. His enormous furtive shadow cuts her world into half with suspicion, a product of Iago’s conspiracy. ‘Put out the light’ as said by Othello in Act V, in literal sense denotes his intention to turn off the lights before murdering Desdemona. Metaphorically, this refers to the killing of Desdemona who is the light of Othello’s world. As the light is murdered, God’s light is also put out. When treated in context with blacks and whites, ‘Put out the light’ denotes the necessary separation between the two. Note the imagery of light associated with Desdemona and that of darkness or shadow linked with Othello)

That flame extinct, she contemplates her dream

of him as huge as night, as bodiless,

as starred with medals, like the moon

a fable of blind stone.

Dazzled by that bull's bulk against the sun

of Cyprus, couldn't she have known

like Pasiphae, poor girl, she'd breed horned monsters?

That like Eurydice, her flesh a flare

travelling the hellish labyrinth of his mind

his soul would swallow hers?

(Desdemona dreams of him at night before she was murdered. He is without a concrete shape like the vastness of night and his medals are the stars that she sees all around her. The poet often describes Desdemona as light (moon). Her dream is described as ‘a fable of blind stone’. Blind stone refers to the blindness of human beings in the face of racial conflicts. Another implication is that love is blind and should stand such conflicting situations. ‘Dazzled by that bull's bulk against the sun’: Note here the animal imagery associated with Othello who is massive in structure. Desdemona is once again associated with a light-emitting object such as sun. Cyprus is a Greek island which is important to the original play by Shakespeare as it is here that half of Othello’s plot is set. The Poet further sympathises with Desdemona and relates her to Pasiphae questioning her innocence on breeding a horned monster (monstrous qualities are associated with Othello). Furthermore, he compares Desdemona to Eurydice who was taken away from her husband eternally to the underground. Desdemona’s flesh glows with beauty but Othello’s mind is suspicious and travels in a hellish maze implying the way he has lost track of his better thoughts. In the last line of this stanza Poet questions the purity of Othello’s soul)

(Pasiphae is a character from Greek mythology who was the daughter of Helios. She was attracted to a splendid bull gifted to her husband by the God Poseidon, she eventually had sexual relations with the bull and gave birth to a monster)

Her white flesh rhymes with night. She climbs, secure.

Virgin and ape, maid and malevolent Moor,

their immortal coupling still halves our world.

He is your sacrificial beast, bellowing, goaded,

a black bull snarled in ribbons of blood.

And yet, whatever fury girded

on the saffron-sunset turban, moon-shaped sword

was not his racial, panther-black revenge

pulsing her chamber with its raw musk, its sweat

but horror of the moon's change,

of the corruption of an absolute,

like a white fruit

pulped ripe by fondling but doubly sweet.

(Desdemona’s white flesh is linked with night (Othello). The couple make love with each other. She is pure, a young beautiful mistress to Othello who in turn is an evil moor. The animal imagery is again associated with Othello when the Poet calls him an ape. ‘Their immortal couple’ denotes the immortality received to the work of Shakespeare (The play Othello) that even after so many centuries has not died away. In ‘He is your sacrificial…doubly sweet’ the animal imagery is stronger than ever. Othello is Desdemona’s sacrificial beast who roars in fury because of Iago’s conspiracy and like an insane bull which gets incited upon the sight of red ribbon, he too gets greatly tormented. The poet attributes Othello with a ‘saffron-sunset turban’ that bears his fury and tells that it was not a racial cause that made him seek revenge. An interesting thing to note here is the association of revenge with panther which deduces revenge as a predator seeking its prey. In Desdemona’s chamber, with his manly prowess, Othello harms the absolute (innocent Desdemona). The moon disapproves of this corruption. Desdemona is like a white fruit fleshed for lovemaking. ‘But doubly sweet’ indicates that the fruit has been tasted by others implying Desdemona’s unfaithfulness that made Othello murder her)

And so he barbarously arraigns the moon

for all she has beheld since time began

for his own night-long lechery, ambition,

while barren innocence whimpers for pardon.

And it is still the moon, she silvers love,

limns lechery and stares at our disgrace.

Only annihilation can resolve

the pure corruption in her dreaming face.

(After murdering her, Othello barbarously accused Desdemona for all she had done since time began but it was his own night long lechery – wickedness driven by lust and ambition, which was to be blamed. Poor and innocent Desdemona could only cry for forgiveness. And it is still her silvery love (enlightened and pure love) that questions our disgrace. Only total destruction can resolve the corruption in Desdemona’s face which is stained like the moon. Note the oxymoron in the ‘pure corruption’ that is upon Desdemona’s dreaming face – Desdemona can be paralleled to various innocent and pure girls who are tricked and then looted of innocence by people like Othello)

A bestial, comic agony. We harden

with mockery at this blackamoor

who turns his back on her, who kills

what, like the clear moon, cannot abhor

her element, night; his grief

farcically knotted in a handkerchief

a sibyl's

prophetically stitched remembrancer

webbed and embroidered with the zodiac,

this mythical, horned beast who's no more

monstrous for being black.

(Othello is savage in his approach and we harden our hearts with ridicule at this black man. He turns his back on her after murdering her. Desdemona is like a clear moon that can never hate her love, night. Othello’s grief was caused by the handkerchief (a false evidence by Iago to prove Desdemona’s disloyalty). This handkerchief is a sibyl’s (forecaster’s) stitched remembrancer (image which invokes past memories) and this mythical tale of a horned beast (Othello) spreads a very important message – Othello’s revenge is never considered a racial crime – He was indeed a fiend, but not because he was a black and Desdemona a white )