Napoleon and Nicholas

(Another interlude from the Queen’s granddaughters...)

Napoleon is ‘before my time’ as it were but I’ve been learning more about his life and found it rather sad at the end to see him fall and die as he did in exile. Although he was, in my opinion, a desperate little boy still having to overcome the bullies and humiliations of his childhood - and so became so obsessed with power over others to make up for the lack in himself, consequently leading to the death of 13 million soldiers across Europe – there is something attractive and inspiring about him. He was absolutely driven by ambition to the extent that when everything went wrong for him, he never stopped and complained, he simply did what he did and came back again! Exiled to Elba, for instance, after having been so successful a general and Emperor of France, he simply turned himself into Emperor of Elba (small island that it was) and did what he had done in France – made the place beautiful with trees and roads etc. etc. and when he had done all he could do there, he returned to France and by the sheer power of his personality and charisma, won the hearts of those who were sent to prevent his return. Unlike many revolutionaries, I think he had a heart – he genuinely loved Josephine – but, as with everything else in his life, he would not allow that heart, which could sometimes be so tender and he was not a cruel man, to stand in the way of his ambition.

Ultimately he fell...and that is the way of those who seize power, isn’t it? They all seem to spend their lives looking over their shoulders because they know that what they have done to others, others will do to them (Trotsky’s end...William the Conqueror, even, died alone and naked...Stalin left to die alone...). It surely comes from deriving power from others. It becomes like an insatiable hunger. Napoleon achieved greatness, but was never satisfied. He had to go on and on and on, even when he knew it was hopeless, trying to fill the need to feel secure, although such a need was insatiable since he sought that security from others and was never able to find it in himself.


At the opposite end of the spectrum, is Nicholas II. A man who never wanted power but had it thrust upon him and, while working just as hard as Napoleon did to maintain an Empire, dreamed always of a simple life with his wife and family. Napoleon was prepared to sacrifice Josephine, the love of his life, in order to continue his dynasty. Nicholas, a man who was secure in himself and did not need power from others, was prepared to sacrifice everything for the love of his wife and family.

Who was the greater leader and who was better off in the end? A man who achieved so much and is seen always as a hero...and who died alone and sad seeing his life’s work taken from him, or a man who is always seen as weak but who ended his life secure in his own faith, surrounded by his family and with a clear conscience? Napoleon ended his life writing his memoirs and reliving his former glories. Nicholas’ life was cut short by murderers before he had the chance to do that but I doubt he would have felt any need to justify himself anyway. I really believe that these lines from ‘King Lear’ (ah! the joy of two passions intertwined – Shakespeare and the Romanovs in one post!) could have been written for what Nicholas said to his wife when they were in captivity...

Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage...
...so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon us the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a walled prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon

It’s all so endlessly fascinating!!

Rudolf - What makes a tragic hero?

In the days of so-called 'reality' TV (which consists for the most part of minor celebrities airing their dirty linen in public or people grabbing their fifteen minutes of fame by being as outrageous as possible), it is beautiful to remember a more refined age when nothing was so rushed, so trashy, so 'throw away', and where people didn't make 15-minute idols out of people whose sole contribution to society was a desire to present themselves at their worst.

In all ages, however, people seem to have sought an escape from humdrum lives by looking at someone else whose life appeared to be more enchanted. Going right back to the foundations of drama, theatre and the modern cinema, Aristotle's idea of tragic heroes (which so inspired Shakespeare) still rings true. The tragic hero and protagonist had to be of noble (better yet, royal) birth and had to have a personal 'fatal flaw' that led to his downfall. Rudolf of Austria is such a man and if Hamlet were based on a real person, he might have been based on poor Rudolf.

Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria -Hungary was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. His 'daddy is rich and his mama good-looking' - he was born into the age of Strauss waltzes, of radiant ballrooms where soldiers wore dashing informs and ladies wore entrancing ball gowns. He came from one of the most powerful countries in Europe, with a genealogy reaching back to the Holy Roman Empire. Gifted, handsome and with everything handed to him on a plate, the world seemed perfect for Rudolf....but he had Shakespeare's.Aristotle's 'fatal flaw.'

Nothing is ever as it seems and here is a different version of his story.

Rudolf was born of a mother who came from a life of freedom and adventure; a minor princess who had enough money to enjoy life without the responsibilities of power. She loved freedom, galloping apace on fast horses and wandering about barefoot. At a young age, caught up in the emotion of the moment, she married a handsome Emperor but had no idea that the Emperor's court was so confined by tiny rules that from that day forth she would be constantly in the public eye, and any infringement of those rules would be criticised. Like a butterfly caught in a net, she was confined and the only son of that marriage was a boy who seemed to share his mother's longing for freedom. Freedom to follow his own path; freedom to love and be and to live...But he was a Crown Prince, and as such had to fit that role. It tore him apart. He could hardly sigh in his sleep without someone reporting it and it absolutely destroyed him because he was forever in an act and never able to be himself.

His suicide at Mayerling is not a romantic story. By then, Rudolf was already destroyed - probably by syphilis and drugs, but more so by his own mind that had so yearned for freedom, as had his mothers.

Nowadays, when people display their dirty laundry on TV for their couple of minutes of fame, it's interesting to think of people like Rudolf who never sought that fame but were destroyed by it (along with the stifling atmosphere of the Austrian Court). Fame is not nearly as glamorous as some people believe.

A Tale Told By An Idiot

"Macbeth" is surely one of Shakespeare's darkest and most timeless plays. A tale of mindless ambition that leads to insanity and despair, the eponymous 'hero' will stop at nothing to achieve his desire for power and, once he has gained a throne, his paranoia increases until he can trust no one, and life becomes nothing but 'a tale told by an idiot.'

Beyond any thinking person's comprehension is that desire for power and yet it goes on and on until much of history truly is a tale told by an idiot - and more, a tale about idiots with titles like president', prime minister, king, fuehrer and epithets like 'the Great'. What thinking person would consider power as the ability to control others or to impose an ideology on the world? What thinking person would stand before crowds gladly receiving adulation as though he were the saviour of humanity or a god, if he were equally aware of his own weakness? ("Aye, there's the rub..." those who avidly seek power over others, often seem to do so to distract from the weakness in themselves. In Macbeth's case, he knew from the beginning that he had nothing but 'vaulting ambition' which would 'o'erleap itself' and come tumbling down, but few of those in power seem so willing to admit their own weakness).

What is it though that makes some people desire to 'strut and fret their hour' upon the world's stage, in the public eye with a semblance of the ability to manipulate others...for what? I recently watched a most illuminating film exposing a great deal of what goes on behind the scenes in world governments and how the boys play out their games behind the shaded windows of limousines and high class hotels and it must give them such a momentary buzz to feel like puppet masters controlling the show...but it's a game, nothing more, a tale told by an idiot. A span of life - 80, 90, 100 years - is so small a time in the overall scheme of things, and if a person were to be controlling something even for a lifetime, that would be for fifty or sixty years at most. And then what? History and eternity. Is it for those few years - less than a century, only one short lifetime - that these people are prepared to sacrifice so many others and their own soul (and I am not speaking of some post-mortem damnation, I am speaking of what it means to be truly alive with a soul in this life!)? If so, is it worth it? "What doth it profit a man to gain the world and lose his soul?' Is it worth the constantly looking over your shoulder, wondering if everyone else has a dagger aimed for your back, as you have aimed your daggers at so many others?

Is it for a place in history? Then read Shelley's poem, Ozymandias:

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

And what of eternity? Eternity which, as far as I can see, isn't what happens when we have left this life, but is ever present. It is present in all the everyday acts of kindness, in the ordinary/extraordinary people going about their lives bringing light to others. It is present in those who care for animals and understand that every one of our actions makes an impact on the whole and even our thoughts contribute to or detract from the wellbeing of the rest of humanity and creation. It is present in every leaf, flower, creature...in all. And, sooner or later, the impression we make rebounds on us. What will it matter at that point whether we had our fifteen minutes or fifty years of fame and power? What will it matter on our death bed whether or not we once had everyone twisted around our little finger? What then will power seem, except that tale told by an idiot.

Real power, on the other hand is something witnessed in those who speak gently with creatures, who calm angry dogs, who whisper to horses or badgers, who walk on unimpressed by those who need shaded windows and limousines to give them a sense of themselves...In truth, real power is something that the Macbeths of today cannot begin to understand. If, for one single day, I could control every thought in my head and remain totally unruffled by external events and free of any need for approval or acceptance in any form; if I could not have one single thought that is not loving and real, I would consider myself very powerful and very happy indeed. Until that time, it would be nothing less than sheer stupidity and arrogance to even begin to attempt to impose any kind of control on others.

If Shakespeare knew the Romanovs...

Shakespeare's model of writing, grounded in Aristotle's formula - the tragic hero/protagonist who had to be noble and whose destiny was wrought by his own fatal flaw, and who met a tragic end, is something so timeless and inspiring.

When it comes to writing of the Romanovs, all the elements are already in place: the king, (or Tsar), the glory (Imperial Russia), the secret tragedy (Alexei's haemophilia), the fatal flaw, (Nicholas' trust in other people) and the ultimate tragedy (the massacre of a family - a massacre so tragic that it is far more powerful than the end of Hamlet, where everyone is slain) . The Romanov story fits Shakespeare's and Aristotle's pattern to such a degree that I often wish that Shakespeare were still here to write their true story with his depths of understanding of psychology and motivation, and his own brilliant command of language!

Oh, for another Shakespeare to write this story! Often I think that when Nicholas and Alexandra were in captivity, these words from King Lear might well have been something they could have shared:

"We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage...so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon 's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies…"

And the death of the beautiful Tsarevich Alexei...wouldn't Shakespeare have written,
"Goodnight, sweet prince, and flight of angels guide thee to thy rest..."

Ah! For another Shakespeare to tell their tale!

Who Wrote the Script?

"All the world's a stage..." Imagine, if you will, that we are all players with our 'entrances and exits'. Imagine, if you will, that your life right now is a play and you are acting your part. Is it a comedy or a tragedy? A dull routine soap opera or an epic film?
Before the performance, comes the script that is learned by heart, you know your character and can play your role to perfection.
"I am so unfortunate...", "I am so lucky..." "Things never work out right for me...", "Other people are the lucky ones...." Whatever you say is scripted and you are so great an actor that you have mastered that part to perfection. What a fabulous performance! So accomplished an actor that the part s/he was playing was every bit real not only to the audience, but even to the actor him/herself.
It's my understanding that everything we do and are begins with a script. The script is written in our souls/subconscious mind. What we think about all day comes into our experience. And, by 'think about,' I mean in the unguarded moments when, much of the time, there is nothing but criticism, fear and noise in our heads. Some script is there and sooner or later it plays out in our day to day performance - the art of living.
But, the big question is, "Who wrote this script?"
It's so easy to put it onto fate, or the great Author of Life...and to me the interesting and shocking thing is that I did. I wrote my script. You wrote yours. We didn't write them when we were thinking of what we want to do and how we want to spend our lives. We wrote them in our unguarded moments; we wrote them while watching horror films or beautiful scenes. We wrote them absent-mindedly while listening to the beauty of music or the screaming of so-called music that shouts of nothing but violence. We wrote them while loving others, or while thinking badly of others....We wrote them. The Author of Life, in my view, has enough faith in us to entrust us with that responsibility. We are more powerful than we know...and that is why, in my view, it's so important to guard our thoughts, and what we allow into our minds and hearts and ears and eyes.
And the great thing is...if we don't like the part we've been playing, we simply rip up that script and start again. All works of art require hours of labour and love and effort so we might find it difficult to change scripts overnight, but that's what it's all about.