Man, The Defiant

            In the Epilogue to The Tempest Prospero tells his audience of his burdens and sins, and how they will make the rest of his life desperate, unless he be: “... relieved by prayer / Which pierces so that it assaults / Mercy itself, and frees all faults.” (Shakespeare 205)  This somewhat awkward definition of “prayer” comes at the end of a series of pleads that Prospero is making to the audience in order that they help bring about his freedom.  Whereas prayer is defined as an earnest request or wish, here it is seen as a vehicle for aggressively persuading “Mercy itself” or God, the Merciful.  It is merely a surrogate source of power, Prospero’s only mode of ingression into the realm of spirits now that his own powers are gone.  The language used to describe this action reflects the way in which the surrender of authority to God, evident through the act of praying, had been devalued up to that point by European colonizers in a similar manner.
            It is not merely for the effect of rhyme that words such as “piercing” and “assault” are used to describe Prospero’s way of ridding himself of guilt.  Through the act of prayer, he is to pierce the boundaries of divine jurisdiction, almost as though bothering God in his solicitation of mercy.  He reasons that he is entitled to be “free of all faults” simply by request.  He makes assumptions about God’s will that are more wishful than accurate, for it represents in fact the will of the sinner and not necessarily that of God’s.  This particular choice of language when referring to prayer suggests, therefore, the defiance of the religious man when replacing God’s judgement with his own.  Aggressively, he takes the liberty to determine his own destiny, as well as to assume God’s approval of it.           
            The same reasoning was typified by certain Christian traditions such as the absorption of sins through ritual and confession.  Since the authorities behind the colonization of the New World were strongly Christian, the abuse of these religious priviledges became a determining factor in dealing with colonial matters.  Much of European Royalty insisted that it was God’s will that they propagate their “sanctified” language and culture by dominating cultures deemed inferior.  In the Requerimiento, the King and Queen of Spain demand obedience from the inhabitants of the New World, considering themselves “rulers of the Indies by virtue of the donation of the pope, and permission from the religious fathers to preach the true faith.” (Greenblatt 29)  The same assumption is made here that allows Prospero to pray himself into being forgiven.  Claims are made in favor of European conquest based on the assumption that God has permitted the enslavement of Indians, a contradictory statement to otherwise benevolent teachings of the Christian Faith.  These are convictions which, according to Greenblatt’s analysis, “turn out to be the cornerstone of the [Requerimiento’s] self-righteousness and arrogance.” (30)
            Both actions, the aggressive request of forgiveness and the legitimization of self-righteous convictions, are similar in that they are both modes of diminishing the value of God’s will, within the context of religion.  Shakespeare’s Epilogue to The Tempest expresses this with precision using a few simple words that pertain to these ongoing struggles.  One who pierces and assaults the bearer of mercy in order to claim forgiveness for himself certainly resembles one who enslaves neighboring nations in order to obtain salvation.

 

References

Greenblatt, Stephen.  Learning to Curse. Essays in Early Modern Culture.
            New York & London: Routledge, 1990.

Shakespeare, William.  The Tempest ed. Stanley Wells. Oxford University Press, 1987.

 

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