Wisconsin has a lot of deer. and Gil Lancour saw one that was slipping on the rice in a frozen-over reservoir used for growing cranberries west of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. Lancour, who works for Elm Lake Cranberry Co., pulled over, ventured onto the ice, and began pushing the deer across the ice to safety. A video of the event went viral.
Shakespeare took a close look at the issue of human kindness in Twelfth Night, where he went to great lengths to create a scene that highlights an act of unsolicited kindness, the risks taken in performing that kindness, and the effect on the human spirit when kindness is spurned — and accepted.
At the story’s start, Sebastian, and his sister Viola have washed up on the shore of Illyria after a shipwreck. The brother and sister, who resemble each other, were separated during the storm, and each believes the other has perished. Antonio tends to Sebastian after the calamity, and even loans Antonio his wallet, and all its contents, when they must part. Antonio, you see, is a wanted man in Illyria.
Antonio: “Would you’ld pardon me;
I do not without danger walk these streets:
Once, in a sea-fight, ‘gainst the count his galleys
I did some service; of such note indeed,
That were I ta’en here it would scarce be answer’d.”
Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin, and according to his boss, Mr. Moss, we learn that Lancour’s kind nature was likewise bound up with a masculine spirit. “He’s a hunter, but he cares very much about animals, and hunting in an ethical way,” Moss said. “Taking care of animals and the environment is very important to him.”
And now back in Illyria (the coast of modern-day Albania and Croatia), after Sebastian leaves the makeshift haven by the shore to try to reassemble his broken life, Antonio follows him, and catches up with him in a town square:
Antonio: “I could not stay behind you: my desire,
More sharp than filed steel, did spur me forth;
And not all love to see you, though so much
As might have drawn one to a longer voyage,
But jealousy what might befall your travel,
Being skilless in these parts; which to a stranger,
Unguided and unfriended, often prove
Rough and unhospitable: my willing love,
The rather by these arguments of fear,
Set forth in your pursuit.”
Antonio has risked discovery by the officers of Count Orsino because he knows Illyria is a rough and tumble region, familiar to himself but not to Sebastian:
Sebastian: “My kind Antonio,
I can no other answer make but thanks,
And thanks; and ever thanks; and oft good turns
Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay:
But, were my worth as is my conscience firm,
You should find better dealing.”
The two men agree to meet an hour later at a tavern called the Elephant, and Antonio, to further aid his friend, loans him his wallet and all its contents until then:
Sebastian: “Do not then walk too open.”
Antonio: “It doth not fit me. Hold, sir, here’s my purse.
In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,
Is best to lodge: I will bespeak our diet,
Whiles you beguile the time and feed your knowledge
With viewing of the town…”
Antonio lurks in the shadows of Illyria for a short spell, and then he comes across a fencing duel. The participants are Sir Andrew Aguecheek, who is in Illyria to court the Lady Olivia, and Cesario, a newcomer to Illyria who has attached himself to Count Orsino. Cesario is actually Sebastian’s sister Viola, now cross-dressing as a protective measure, and now that she is dressed as a man, she looks exactly like her brother. The duel is a comic one for the audience and for Sir Toby Belch, Olivia’s uncle, who has deceived each of its unwilling participants into thinking the other has offered a challenge. It’s not comic for Cesario/Viola or Sir Andrew, however, nor for Antonio, who believes his friend Sebastian is in some trouble:
Antonio: “Put up your sword. If this young gentleman
Have done offence, I take the fault on me:
If you offend him, I for him defy you.”…
[Enter Officers]
To help build up the suspense in Illyria, we’re going to return to Wisconsin. Here’s one report on what happened next in the story of Lancour’s parallel rescue, of the Wisconsin deer. “After stopping the first time, Lancour noticed that his truck was clearly scaring the deer; and she started thrashing about a bit. So he drove to his home, located nearby on the cranberry farm, and got a dog leash and some ice cleats from his ice-fishing equipment box.
Lancour tried calling friends for help, but no one was answering. When he returned to the scene, he parked a distance away from the deer, and started walking on the ice, circling around so as not to scare the doe or cause her to go further out onto the ice.”
Back to Illyria. And here’s where Shakespeare injects a moment of pathos. Because Cesario is actually Viola, and has never met Antonio, he (actually she) denies knowing him. This is particularly painful to Antonio because, due to his arrest, he is driven to ask for the return of his money – presumably to bribe his jailors:
Antonio: [To Viola]
“This comes with seeking you:
But there’s no remedy; I shall answer it.
What will you do, now my necessity
Makes me to ask you for my purse? It grieves me
Much more for what I cannot do for you
Than what befalls myself. You stand amazed;
But be of comfort.”
Second Officer: “Come, sir, away.”
Antonio: “I must entreat of you some of that money.”
Viola: “What money, sir?
For the fair kindness you have show’d me here,
And, part, being prompted by your present trouble,
Out of my lean and low ability
I’ll lend you something: my having is not much;
I’ll make division of my present with you:
Hold, there’s half my coffer.”
Viola answers with kindness, sharing half of her remaining money with a stranger who has intervened in her duel, and who has been arrested for his pains. But it does not seem like kindness to Antonio. And now, here, at the conclusion of a speech that expresses his outrage, Antonio expresses one of the loveliest, and most forward-thinking, lines in all Shakespeare:
Antonio: “Will you deny me now?
Is’t possible that my deserts to you
Can lack persuasion? Do not tempt my misery,
Lest that it make me so unsound a man
As to upbraid you with those kindnesses
That I have done for you.”
Viola: “I know of none;
Nor know I you by voice or any feature…”
Antonio: “O heavens themselves!”
Second Officer: “Come, sir, I pray you, go.”
Antonio: “Let me speak a little. This youth that you see here
I snatch’d one half out of the jaws of death,
Relieved him with such sanctity of love,
And to his image, which methought did promise
Most venerable worth, did I devotion.”
First Officer: “What’s that to us? The time goes by: away!”
Antonio: “But O how vile an idol proves this god
Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature shame.”
In nature there’s no blemish but the mind;
None can be call’d deform’d but the unkind.”
In the Elizabethan era, as in so many others, people with birth defects or other “deformities” were objects of ridicule, and Shakespeare would have been well aware of their treatment. But through Antonio he dismisses the idea that physical blemishes have any importance at all: The only blemish in all of nature is a blemished mind, and None can be call’d deform’d but the unkind.
Well, there was no unkindness in Mr. Lancour. When his boss Mr. Moss arrived at the reservoir, Moss say Lancour sitting next to the deer, talking to her softly to keep her calm. As Moss got closer, Lancour slowly put his hand out to calm the deer. He didn’t know what to expect.
“She just let me,” Lancour said. “She just sat there. I kept my hand on her, and I slowly pushed her to shore.”
Because Twelfth Night is a comedy, Antonio will later be freed, and will learn that his friend Sebastian did not spurn him, that instead he was misled by Sebastian’s sister’s resemblance to her brother when she was wearing a man’s clothing.
I hope you enjoyed today’s Shakespeare snack! I write this blog because I think that, especially in times like these, the classics, and Shakespeare chief among them, can keep us connected to the highest and best in Western culture, to help us gather the strength for the road ahead.
