Suicide

Some exceprts from Coppelia Kahn’s stimulating feminist study of Shakespeare’s Roman plays [ Roman Shakespeare: Warriors, Wounds and Women (Routledge, 1997)], with appended theological reflections:

The word ?suicide?Edoes ?not appear in ancient Latin, but is, rather, an English derivative from Latin compounds?EIn contrast, the Roman lexicon of suicide emphasized rationality and free will. In the phrase mortem sibi consciscere , used with regard to public acts, the verb consciscere meant to approve of, determine, resolve upon. Voluntaria mors or voluntary death carried no connotation of violence or perversity and again, associated the act with freedom of the will and rationality. When referring to the execution of suicide, Romans spoke of sua manu , the hand signifying the freely willed action?E?E(121-2).

Humanistic study of Roman history revived respect for Roman suicide in the Renaissance. The examples of Cato, Lucretia, Brutus ?imbued suicide with the dignity and honour of the Roman past.?E Though ?no actual suicide was praised as an honorable death before 1650,?Ecertain writers show signs of the conflict between Christian and Roman assessments of suicide. Walter Raleigh, imprisoned in the Tower, wrote ?I knowe it is forbidden to destroye our selfes but I trust it is forbidden in this sorte, that we destroye not ourselves dispairinge of gods mercie,?Eand across the Channel Montaigne suggested that ?unendurable pain and fear of a worse death seem to me the most excusable motives for suicide?E(122-3).

One of the key elements of Roman suicide was its use as a weapon in a struggle for honor. Kahn writes, ?Cato understands his sword not as an instrument of self-murder but as a military weapon to be used against his enemy Caesar rather than against himself. With his sword, he can cheat that enemy of the triumph he seeks: to subject Cato to the utter humiliation of defeat. Without that sword, Cato sees himself as defenseless in a kind of single combat with Caesar for the prize of honor?E(125). Antony and Cleopatra likewise commit suicide to deprive Octavius of a chance to flaunt his victory by leading them in his triumphal parade through Rome: ?not Caesar?s valour hath o?erthrown Antony,?Ehe announces, ?But Antony?s hath triumphed on itself.?E Cleopatra agrees: ?none but Antony should conquer Antony.?E

Kahn also points out to the gendered character of Roman suicide, which is reflected in Shakespeare?s Antony, who sees suicide as a way of restoring the honor he lost by his defeat in battle and by his shameful enslavement to Cleopatra. Instead of allowing his body to be feminized (made passive) by Octavius, he kills himself to restore his masculine honor. In the event, he proves a bungler, and his body has to be hoisted up to Cleopatra?s monument so he can receive a last kiss. His effort to masculinize his death ends with him becoming nothing but dead weight, passive and feminine as he is taken to Cleopatra, dying in a tomb/bedchamber like a woman.

All this raises some intriguing insights into the Christian rejection of suicide, and about martyrdom. What did it take to convince Roman men that it was better to be captured and feminized than to kill themselves? Surely, it was a hope of resurrection, but resurrection understood as future ?honor?E Accept dishonor now, in hope of resurrection glory. Perhaps too, picking up on Kahn?s latter point, it was rooted in the Christian subversion of Roman conceptions of gender, particularly the Christian insistence that humanity as a whole is feminine in relation to God. To be feminized and passive before one?s enemies was simply to act out a fundamental truth of creaturehood.