It is a tricky business, using quotations from works you have
not read to justify generalizations about life—especially when
the works in question are dramatic masterpieces in which
dozens of characters speak but the author does not. That does
not stop Mr. Deasy from enlisting the Greatest English Writer
in his cause of correcting Irish Catholic Ignorance. But if
the old blowhard is wrong to find moral authority in Iago, he
is right that Shakespeare was a capitalist entrepreneur.
First recalling an old proverb, Deasy then invokes no less a
figure than the Bard to justify his love of money: "If
youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare say? Put
but money in thy purse." Thornton cites the
old proverb, "If youth but knew what age would crave, it
would both get and save." The italicized phrase comes
from act 1 scene 3 of Othello, where Iago repeatedly
urges Roderigo to sell his lands, claiming that with the
money's help he can persuade Desdemona to love Roderigo. This
is hardly an instance of thriftily saving up for old age, and
in any case Iago is a sociopathic liar who is cheating
Roderigo of his wealth. (He confides to the audience that the
money will end up in his purse: "Thus do I ever make
my fool my purse.")
Ancient Greeks often approached the Homeric epics as if they
were owners' manuals for human life, and many modern
Christians oddly persist in viewing the Bible this way. In
Joyce's time there was a widespread cultural conviction that
life wisdom could be found in Shakespeare, and he implanted
that mindset in both Deasy and Bloom. Ithaca
notes that Bloom has often "reflected on the pleasures derived
from literature of instruction rather than of amusement as
he himself had applied to the works of William Shakespeare
more than once for the solution of difficult problems in
imaginary or real life." "Had he found their
solution?" the catechism asks. "In spite of careful and
repeated reading of certain classical passages, aided by a
glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text,
the answers not bearing in all points."
The narrative's mockery of Bloom here echoes Stephen's
earlier contempt for Deasy, which he expresses so
politely that Deasy does not notice the rebuttal:
— Iago, Stephen
murmured.
He lifted his gaze from the
idle shells to the old man's stare.
— He knew what money
was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. A poet, yes, but an
Englishman too.
Shakespeare did make money, and not accidentally. He was one
of a handful of "sharers" (i.e., shareholders) in the Lord
Chamberlain's (later the King's) Men, in the Theatre (later
the Globe), and in the plays that the acting company produced
in those theaters. The partners split obligations and profits
according to their stake in the whole. Shakespeare's share was
originally one eighth, 12.5%, but at the time of his
retirement he held about 7%. His shares must have produced a
sizeable income, because as he aged he purchased a lot of real
estate in and around his home town, Stratford. He did exactly
what the proverb recommends, saving up for a time when money
would be important, and in much the same way as Bloom has done
by purchasing Canadian railway stock paying a 4% dividend.
Stephen's utter lack of
thrift means that he could learn something from both
Deasy and Bloom, but the odds that he will do so anytime soon
are vanishingly small. Accepting Deasy's point about
Shakespeare's love of money, he makes this "English" quality
an object of derision rather than admiration in Scylla
and Charybdis: "He drew Shylock out of his own long
pocket. The son of a maltjobber and moneylender he was himself
a cornjobber and moneylender, with ten tods of corn hoarded in
the famine riots. His borrowers are no doubt those divers of
worship mentioned by Chettle Falstaff who reported his
uprightness of dealing. He sued a fellowplayer for the price
of a few bags of malt and exacted his pound of flesh in
interest for every money lent."
