Caesar’s Wife & Other Roman Stories
By Lakshmi Padmanabhan.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has resurrected Caesar’s wife , a woman who lived, married , had her being and lost her being a few decades before the Birth of Christ. He has unleashed her into the consciousness of his unsuspecting and suspecting countrymen and women. The countrywomen have more cause for concern though the PM is positioning himself in the place of Caesar’s wife and not of Caesar himself. His illustrious but distant predecessor , Jawaharlalji had done that. In a beautiful piece of writing the great Nehru gave vent to dark doubts about his own dormant dictatorial dreams. Plainly he was asking himself whether he wanted to be Caesar ! The name of Caesar is now synonymous with political ambition of the despotic kind.
This is not the first time that the PM has quoted Julius Caesar. I have it on the authority of Arun Jaitley’s article in The Times Of India( March 5,2011) that when P.V Narasinha Rao was removed from the party presidency after losing the 1996 elections , MMS, who was FinMin under him had publicly commented : “ Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.”
It is amazing to see the continuing connection of Roman history with current Indian politics. Julius Caesar , Roman general ( 100 BC – 44 BC) conquered many lands including Britain & France. But he had not come to India. So how come Indian politicians hark back to him and his wife ? It is , I feel, entirely because of Will – William Shakespeare and the English language and its idioms that came with the Empire. Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’ used to be a staple in the English curriculum . But the Caesar’s wife in that play is /was not the Caesar’s wife in the idiom.
Lemme clear the cobweb around Caesar’s wives. Julius Caesar had 3 wives. Biwi No.1 was Cornelia who died in childbirth. The child Julia
survived. No.2 was Pompeia Sulla and No.3 was Calphurnia who got all those bad dreams about her husband’s end .
Pompeia Sulla whom Caesar married for political reasons is the character who inadvertently led to the famous pronouncement by Caesar- Caesar’s wife must be above board . Pompeia hosted the Feast of the Good Goddess which was meant strictly for women. But a notorious profligate called Clodius allegedly disguised himself as a woman and seduced Pompeia. He was prosecuted . But during the trial Caesar did not give evidence against Clodius, though several members of his family did.. Clodius was aquitted. Caesar divorced Pompeia. When the court asked him why he had demanded a divorce when so much uncertainty surrounded the incident, Caesar replied : “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.”
Our own mythology has a parallel story. A washerman cast aspersions on Seetha Devi’s chastity and the King of Ayodhya, Sree Ramachandra bade goodbye to his beloved. These famous incidents highlight the dilemmas of leaders , of men ( now, women, too ) in public life. Hard choices between reality and perception , between personal happiness and public probity/ acceptance /fame , between woman , defeat/failure on the one side & war , victory and empire /power on the other.
Another equally famous Roman, Caesar’s protégé was quite unCaesar like in his hour of trial. Mark Antony lost an empire for Cleopatra. And happy to lose it , too. Again, Shakespeare had made the romance so memorable for us. We have our own Mark , mutatis mutandis ( with necessary changes, modifications i.e. ) in a Malu , our incorruptible MP from TVM, the incorrigible romantic, the absolutely adorable Shashi Tharoor.
“ The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson ,” wrote Aldous Huxley,
“ consist in the fact that from age to age nothing changes and yet , everything is completely different.” Everything in 21st century A.D. India is vastly different from everything in Rome in the 1st century B.C Yet everything is the same, too.
-------------
No comments:
Post a Comment