Larvita McFarquhar is a single mother who owns Haven’s Garden, a bar and restaurant in Lynd, Minnesota, population 448. After the state’s governor issued an order, of questionable authority under the state constitution, closing all bars and restaurants, Ms. McFarquhar announced that Havens Garden would remain open. For those of us who believe that this quarantine should, like every other one in history until now, involve the sick and not the healthy, Haven’s Garden is a haven of freedom, indeed.

In King Lear, the king’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, remained similarly true to her principles, and similarly at the cost of enraging the government, embodied by her father, who had the power to withdraw her inheritance, which he promptly did. Ms. McFarquhar, our modern-day Cordelia, is facing down the full weight and power of her King Lear, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who of course can arrange for his minions to rescind her business license.

Lear’s conflict with Cordelia arises at the start of the play, when Lear, now 80 years old, decides to vacate the throne and divide his kingdom between his three daughters. He invites each daughter to tell him how much she loves him, and his first two daughters, Regan and Goneril, compete in fawning flattery and each get a plump third of the realm in recompense. Not so Cordelia:

Lear: “…what can you say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.”

Cordelia: “Nothing, my lord.”

Lear: “Nothing?”

Cordelia: “Nothing.”

Lear: “Nothing can come of nothing. Speak again.”

Cordelia: “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.”

At first, this sounds a little harsh, but after all, King Lear has asked Cordelia to describe her love for him in order “to draw a third more opulent than your sisters.” Besides pitting the girls against each other, he’s degrading the concept of filial love by mixing it in with questions of inheritance. There is also in this an echo of Jesus’ statement about the proper relationship of the faithful to their temporal government: “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” We deal with those who govern us according to our bond, no more nor less.

Ms. McFarquhar rightly sees her bond as extending to payment of taxes and adherence to health regulations, but not to a shutdown ordered by a governor who has had nearly a year to abdicate his dictatorial throne, that is, to withdraw his emergency authority in favor of the state legislature. More Lear:

Lear: “How, how, Cordelia? Mend your speech a little,
Lest it may mar your fortunes.”

Cordelia: “Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov’d me; I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.”

Cordelia is described by critics as innocent and pure of heart, and she is those things, but they don’t deprive her of showing a little bite in describing her sisters, who had just before pledged their total, undying love for Lear to the complete disregard of their husbands. Cordelia’s sisters, like the other business owners in Minnesota and across America who are not resisting excessive power, People who look to the state (which after all just means the seat of power), rather than to their families or to God, for the source of meaning in their lives, are the fodder for totalitarianism.

Lear: “But goes thy heart with this?”

Cordelia: “Ay, good my lord.”

Lear: “So young, and so untender?”

Cordelia: “So young, my lord, and true.”

Lear: “Let it be so! thy truth then be thy dower!
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,…
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour’d, pitied, and reliev’d,
As thou my sometime daughter.”

Let us hope that Governor Walz does not single out Ms. Mcfarquhar for a similar punishment. We’ll know soon if he is just another of those small-minded men who, clothed in great authority, use their power to make an example of any citizen who dares stand up for herself and for her rights – in fact for our rights. We owe this modern Cordelia a debt of gratitude.

I write this blog because the classics, and Shakespeare chief among them, can keep us connected to the highest and best in Western culture, and because modern life can reveal richer meanings when it’s seen through a Shakespearean lens. Hope you enjoyed!