The Road to Mecca–Athol Fugard

The Balance of all Evils

The biggest irony in life is probably that humanity is partly noble, and partly corrupt.  Its this duality that allows us to tow the fine line of morality and personal gain – but it is also the same vulnerability that allows us to forgive and understand. 

The Road to Mecca examines all that is socially wrong in South Africa:  the racial segregation and degradation of the coloured community from the whites; the sexist views on a woman’s role and the failure of a woman in being single and independent; the evils of poverty; the evils and consequences of alcoholism and adultery; the nature of physically and emotionally abusive relationships; the misuse of religion to coerce people to conform to its rules and edicts; the oppression caused by small mindedness and other people’s expectations of how one is to behave; the feeling of apprehension that accompanies old age.  This thin little play, that has only three characters, has so much of despair and hopelessness in it that once finished, I closed the book and cried – sobbed and howled more like it.

Although set in the Apartheid period in South Africa, its still so apt.  I personally know people who still are going through the same tribulations as described in the play during the discussion between the characters of people in the New Bethesda community.  The play centres around a young lady who visits an elderly lady she had previously befriended in a small, closed minded, Christian village.  Both of them are in low points in their lives – the young lady who just ended an affair with a married man with the abortion of their child, and the elderly lady reaching a point in her life where she is loosing her capacity to  be inspired and create her artwork which is largely shunned by her bigoted community.  During the visit, their discussions highlight many social injustices and sorrows that people (across ages, races and sex) face in a South African context.  All though some revolve around things that inevitable, such as poverty and becoming decrepit, many social evils (such as racism, sexism, human pride and arrogance, small mindedness, being religiously overzealous and over bearing, etc.) are represented by the local pastor who tries to convince the elderly lady to stop her ungodly artwork and to move to an old age home. 

Throughout the play, the reader is pitted against him.  You see him as the root, or rather as a prime example of the cause to both ladies sorrow.  It is only after you close the book and reflect upon it, do you realise that the saddest part of the book is that though he causes and instigates a lot of problems, his motive is that he sincerely believes that he is helping them.  And then you think – a lot of human misery and suffering is caused by us – to us.  The arrogance of thinking we know better is a flaw in our human character.

"I loved you first: but afterwards your love"

The Balance of Love:

Reading about the Rossetti has opened by eyes to a whole period of art which I find to fascinate me - Christina and her brothers William and Dante were privileged and educated, however they lived a rather bohemian lifestyle in a time where class distinction was rife.

Before my attention is diverted, I wanted to share another of Christina’s poems which for some reason makes sense to me. I tend to overthink – do I love my partner too much, or does he? Is it healthy? Are we perfectly complementary or are we two peas in a pod? Should our love be tempestuous and fill of passion and spark – or should it be a slow burner: a warm flame in the cockles of our souls?

And then, the questions that have the threat of greater implications – do we still love each other, or has our romance evolved into familiarity and hence a security blanket? Am I delusional in feeling that he is the only one I could be with for the rest of my life? Logic tells me that fate had nothing to do with finding him – that I could find the same happiness and contentment with another. But when I am with him, it is so difficult to believe that he wasn’t created especially for me: his grin, his giggle, his protectiveness, his shyness, his slow willingness in trying to understand the things I enjoy.

"I loved you first: but afterwards your love"
By Christina Rossetti 1830–1894

Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. – Dante
Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,
E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. – Petrarca

I loved you first: but afterwards your love
    Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
    Which owes the other most? my love was long,
    And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be –
    Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
    With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
        For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
        Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

Her poem above, I believe, cautions the reader to not compare the way in which we express our love to each other – but rather to have trust in love – that we have an innate ability to cater to each other’s emotional requirements.  My partner doesn’t express his love with words very easily – he says he loves me, and I know he does – but he doesn’t reply to my attempts at love letters or my sending of poetry that I find poignant.  I get disappointed. But he is the man who used his entire first paycheck to buy me a watch that he thought I would use, he buys socks for me because my feet freeze, he holds me tightly when I cry and he pitches up at my workplace to work unpaid when my workload is too high.  Maybe I am more flamboyantly romantic – maybe he is more practically minded.  Maybe in the end it actually doesn’t make a difference because together – it’s perfect (…well most of the time).

Goblin Market, by Christina Rossetti

...
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bow’d her head to hear,
Lizzie veil’d her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger tips.
“Lie close,” Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits: Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
“Come buy,” call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
...

(To read the full poem - click here)

I was enchanted the first time I read the poem - it's narative is flowing and full of suspense. The title itself is full of romance and of a world unknown only to our imagination.

Reading about Christina Rossetti, it is not difficult to imagine that this poem is indeed about women - the way in which we love, and how that vulnerability can break our spirit or give us strength.

The ancient Greeks characterised two forms of love - Laura is a naive young lady who is tempted by Eros and finds redemption in Philia. The goblins represent a very physical and sexual love - a love without stability and care. It is a relationship in which part of Lizzie's body is bartered against pleasure.

She clipp’d a precious golden lock,
She dropp’d a tear more rare than pearl,
Then suck’d their fruit globes fair or red:
Sweeter than honey from the rock,
Stronger than man-rejoicing wine,
Clearer than water flow’d that juice;
She never tasted such before,
How should it cloy with length of use?
She suck’d and suck’d and suck’d the more
Fruits which that unknown orchard bore;
She suck’d until her lips were sore;

It is also a relationship in which once enjoyed, the "sly" and "queer" and "leering" brothers have no interest in her used and spoilt goods.

Day after day, night after night,
Laura kept watch in vain
In sullen silence of exceeding pain.
She never caught again the goblin cry:
“Come buy, come buy;”—

This poem is still relevant to us in a world filled with promiscuity, unwanted pregnancies, and short term relationships - a world in which innocence is short lived and easily taken. Laura's hasty behaviour and curiosity led to her discontentment with her humble and simple life in which she previously took pleasure.

While with sunk eyes and faded mouth
She dream’d of melons, as a traveller sees
False waves in desert drouth
With shade of leaf-crown’d trees,
And burns the thirstier in the sandful breeze.

The selfishness and short lived relationship shared between Laura and the goblins is juxtaposed against Lizzie's selfless love and care for her sister whereby she takes the risk to sacrifices her sanity and hapiness in order to bring back that of the one she loves. In reality, I dont believe that Lizzie is a role neccesarily played by a female, or by a familial relation - she is rather meant to depict a love that trancends momentary pleasure, and encompasses friendship, kindness, compassion and duty.

“For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.”

Comments and opinions are most welcome.