a just equinox
The autumnal equinox marks the official beginning of autumn in the northern hemisphere, when summer wanes as the seasons begin to tilt more noticeably towards the year’s eventual death. In many places, the grass will have transformed to golden straw, and insect sounds fade, even if the weather remains warm. Harvest approaches, wine makers ready for the crush, mills prepare for an influx of grain, and the lucky anticipate bounteous tables. The equinox itself is that moment in the year when the length of the night (the ‘nox’) stands most closely equal to the length of the day. It is the moment when the center of the sun passes over the earth’s equator.
Shakespeare uses the word ‘equinox’ only once, and not in an astronomical sense. In Othello, after prompting Cassio to drink (for which Cassio himself readily admits he has no head), Iago describes Cassio to Montano with characteristically subtle maliciousness:
The idea of cosmic balance is an old one, a divine (or other sort) of measure that somehow determines weight or ‘heft’ of an individual’s or a community’s virtues and vices, rights and wrongs. The idea of possible divine reward or retribution for our actions and decisions seems to pursue us as relentlessly as time. Representations of Lady Justice (derived from the Greek goddess Themis, the titaness of the law) reflect the idea of an impartial universal balance.
In the picture below, of a statue at the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong, Lady Justice is blindfolded (as she often is, which suggests her impartiality), and she holds scales with which to weigh issues, and a sword of power and just dispatch:
She need not always be blindfolded. Indeed, in many representations (for instance on Tarot), she is not. At the United States Supreme Court, the blindfolded figure of Justice, with her blindfold and scales, is being held in contemplation by a larger figure–who presumably represents the judicial process in careful contemplation of justice itself:
Of course, Iago’s above quote is far from just. On the contrary, his characterisation of Cassio is deliberately engineered to mislead his listener. In this sense, Iago’s use of the word ‘equinox’ is perverse. Iago deceives Montano by implying that Cassio’s drinking (an activity that Cassio regularly avoids) is somehow equal in scope to Cassio’s loyalty, service, and sense of duty. Iago prevaricates, suggesting that the drinking is literally an ‘equal night’ to the daylike good behaviour for which Cassio is widely known.
Iago’s words raise Montano’s curiosity about Cassio’s drinking habits. “But is he often thus?” (2.3.124)
Iago’s lie comes almost effortlessly:
But there is another, more subtle sharpness to Iago’s description. For a “soldier fit to stand by (Julius) Caesar” might be Brutus or Cassius (namesake!) as well as it might be some more loyal soldier. Iago doesn’t say so directly, rarely stating things in direct terms. Still, a phantom of potential treachery haunts the remark, implying that Cassio may be as unreliable as others who had stood by Julius Caesar (his implied namesake especially!) before subsequently turning to assassinate him.
Yet, any measure of equality may be a tricky thing, seldom definable in an absolute. From a micro perspective, a measure of equal or unequal may also be framed in more challenging ways. In Macbeth, having murdered his king in order to take the throne, and having murdered his friend in an attempt to keep Banquo’s issued offspring from succeeding, the play’s discussion of equality begins not with a day equal to a night, but with the night itself. More specifically, the question becomes one of the night’s progression, of how long until morning:
Lady Macbeth and her husband already inhabit a night of their own making. For them, and for those around them, day and night seem to have inverted, not only perceptually, but also morally and experientially. Sleep becomes impossible, not only because Duncan’s murder has set the kingdom’s underpinnings on unstable moral ground, but also because as night increasingly inhabits day, more ordinary activities (like sleep) become impossible. Murder has become a rule rather than an exception. It is not only the Macbeths’ guilt that will not let them sleep, that keeps her sleepwalking in attempts to wash blood from her hands. It is this polarization, this reversal of the underlying moral order, the negative perspective that has been rendered on monarchy, on loyalty, and on the scope of friendship and kinship.
The most uneasy night has invaded and supplanted Macbeth’s day. Try as he might, once his own ‘light thickens’ he cannot return to the sun. “‘Twas a rough night” (2.3.70) becomes Macbeth’s sole reality, displacing all his other possibilities. As he tells us:
Any prospect of life as he knew or imagined it is gone. The darkness rising in Macbeth’s landscape becomes like the ‘rooky woods’, like the Birnam Woods that he perceives marching against him–the branches form a latticework of shadows inexorably surrounding him, truncating his life, and, as he describes it, chaining him to a stake like a doomed bear in a bear-baiting arena.
Macbeth’s self imposed perpetual night has a curious balance in the impending rise and reassertion of a new moral order. However bloody Macbeth’s reign of terror becomes, there are always the forces rising to replace him. Even in the deepest part of night, Malcolm and his allies are a kind of moonlight shining between the trees, promising a sunrise to come. As an inversion of Macbeth, Macduff and Malcolm, whose family Macbeth has murdered, bear the righteous conviction of the wronged in place of Macbeth’s false faith in right asserted by his treacherous might.
This balance, yin and yang always rising in turn to occupy the place where the other stood just years, months, days, or moments ago, remains familiar. In Macbeth, the witches opening chant of “Fair is foul and foul is fair” (1.1.12) is realised almost literally, as fair and foul become each other. The hero becomes the murderer, becomes the usurper, becomes the sneering tyrant. Life’s waves roll on against the beach as days shorten, lengthen, and then shorten again. Individual time in the sun, or under the moon, is short.
We’ve seen all this time and time again in Shakespeare, in various forms, and it is hardly proprietary to his works. The world’s regard may be spurred by appearance, action, understanding, or some other attribute that lends reputation, but in the end, the high and low stand always in a proverbial balance, however uneasy that balance may appear to be in a given moment. From the perspective of those of us who are ‘here on the ground’, the imbalances may seem enormous. From a cosmic perspective, however, these variations in the trend lines of fate are as small as movements on a market scale when recorded against a backdrop of many years.
It may be as Belarius believes. Reverence may serve as a kind of angel to the world, prompting us to greater heights in sincere imitation of the divine, but it is also true that the world’s reverence or irreverence also eventually dissolves back into dust. Death takes no account of individual differences or accomplishments.
It is only our brief perspective that seems to foster our idea of moving time. Now that this autumnal equinox has passed, we look forward to a gradual diminishing of daylight. In the northern hemisphere, darkness will increasingly dominate our days until we reach the winter solstice, celebrated since ancient times as the return of the sun. That will be on the 21st of December this year, when we will pass through our longest night. Then, our days will gradually return as light will occupy more and more of each 24 hour period again.
Unlike Macbeth, or Iago, however, most of us will make it back from this invasion of the dark. For most of us, our days, and perhaps our lives as well, will grow lighter once again. For now, may those of you who can do so enjoy the abundant tables of the autumn, wherever you may be. For those of you in the southern hemisphere, may you enjoy your sunny seasons and all their golden joys. Please remember to tell your loved ones that they are so, and tread carefully on the earth in the ways that you can.
*More of Karin Brown’s superb photographic work, her thought provoking tree, landscape, and light images may be found on her website: https://brownkcd.wixsite.com/imbolc and (as previously stated) on Instagram @imbolcphotographic.
SPRING EQUINOX GOOGLE DOODLE - MMXX
SPRING EQUINOX GOOGLE DOODLE - MMXX
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