I have before on this blog called attention to the speech delivered by Judge George O'Toole at the sentencing of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It is, without doubt, a stirring piece of rhetoric. The judge seemed to have sensed he had been handed a historic moment, and he rose to it -- aesthetically if not morally -- by delivering remarks worthy of any collection of courtroom oratory.
One of the risky devices the judge employed -- risky because it could bring charges of irrelevance and grandstanding -- but which O'Toole used in this case to great effect -- was to rely on pithy and oracular quotations from works of literature and musical drama. At one point, for instance, he quotes a line from the libretto of Verdi's opera Otello, based on the Shakespeare play. "I believe in a cruel god," sings Iago. The judge's purpose in mentioning this is not to endorse the Iago worldview, of course, but to attribute it to the man he is sentencing.
I was reminded of this passage recently upon seeing a famous Renaissance tapestry, reproduced in one of the plates in Erwin Panofsky's Studies in Iconology. The drawing on which it is based—attributed to Bronzino—depicts a nude and pleading figure, menaced by a fanged serpent with open jaws. Another figure, clothed, descends from the clouds above her. She grasps the arms of the pleading figure comfortingly with one hand, while with the other, she bears a long sword, which she aims at the threatening reptile.
Panofsky, as he does with so many drawings and paintings, provides a key to understanding the image's symbolism. The rearing serpent is envy and malice, spreading false rumors and allegations born of resentment. The nude figure represents innocence wrongly accused, pleading for the truth to be known and to win out. Above her, bearing the famous scales and sword, is of course the figure of Justice, descending on the innocent victim to vindicate her, and wielding the sword in order to smite the figure of envy.
This theme - that of virtue wrongfully calumniated - was a prevalent one in the Renaissance, according to Panofsky. It forms the theme of the famous "Calumny of Appelles" by Botticelli, for instance, based on a lost ancient work described by Lucian.
It occurs to me, however, that it is also the theme of Shakespeare's Othello. The serpent in Bronzino's drawing could well be Iago, rearing up to strike by spreading false rumors against Desdemona. She, in turn, would be the figure of naked truth, who is innocent despite the malicious gossip being put about.
Judge O'Toole, invoking the story of Othello, brings to mind this image. By doing so -- and with the aid of his other rhetorical devices -- he also convinces one of the majesty of the law, at least for the moment. One of the messages of the Bronzino drawing, after all, is that justice must use both hands. It does, to be sure, comfort and reassure the victims of wrongdoing, which Bronzino's Justice is doing with one of its arms. In the other, however, it carries a sword. The work of justice is always two-fold, therefore, at least in ideal terms. It does rescue and protect the victims. But it also punishes the guilty.
At this point, however, the comparison between the painting and Othello begins to break down. In the play, after all, innocence is not vindicated at last. A sword does bear down, but it does not smite the guilty. It smites the innocent. Truth does not prevail, wrong is not avenged. Instead, Othello believes the malicious rumors against his wife, and he acts violently out of a mad spirit of revenge.
Judge O'Toole's rhetoric, like Othello, and like the figure of Justice in the Bronzino drawing, gathers to itself enormous force. It summons an impression of the whole majesty of the rule of law, with both right and power on its side. But it brings this enormous weight down upon a man who is captive and entirely at the mercy of the state. A near-child who was nineteen years old at the time he committed his crimes, ghastly and unimaginable as these crimes were. Judge O'Toole used his rhetorical gifts and power to sentence this person to death.
Were our courtrooms acting in this instance as the figure of Justice, bearing scales and sword? Or as Othello, maddened by the destructive and evil passion for vengeance? Was it the calm majesty of the law or the spirit of a community's desire for bloody retribution that sentenced Tsarnaev to die?
Whose god is worse? The delusive one of a teenage boy killing innocent people out of twisted and unfathomable motives? Or one with all the power and freedom of choice and action on its side -- with its enemy fully within its clutches after having been rendered unable to escape and unable to wrong anyone else -- who nonetheless -- even then -- opts not to show mercy. Who is it who believes in a cruel god?
No comments:
Post a Comment