In Lord Byron’s Sardanapalus the inequitable division of passion and virtue paints an uttermost conflict between the inherently rational and animalistic realms of a being on a canvas of his existence. Sardanapalus, the king of Nineveh and Assyria, is an epicene ruler who distances himself from traditional royal principles. Sardanapalus’s inability to separate vice and virtue is voluntary; nonetheless, the satisfying of his desires through lust and luxury relies on the unconscious deliberations of the non-rational. The insidious, destructive, and malevolent aspects of Sardanapalus’s passions have no self-restraint, diminishing many and bringing about his tragedy. The protagonist’s and his lover’s, Myrrha’s suicides are resulted not only by the king’s compelling emotions and miscommunication, but also by Myrrha’s decision to give in to her lover’s non-controllable irrationality. The play is comparable to Shakespearean tragedies such a Romeo and Juliet; however, it is in direct contrast with Paul’s definition of love in I Corinthians, Plato’s definition of “happiness,” and John Winthrop’s notion of charity. Sardanapalus’s reasons are overwhelmed by his passions, which in turn cast a shadow on his ability to act logically, thus becoming a catalyst to the failure in achieving the praise of his own people and Myrrha, the Ionian slave, further leading him to his doom.
The missing precepts of Sardanapalus’s “charitable” actions are reason and justice—the pellucid positive guides of human behavior. The disorderly elements of the non-rational cloud his judgment, making him to pay frequent homage to his heart rather than to his mind. In the play, the voice of reason, Myrrha, is in stark contrast with Sardanaplus’s pathos. During the hour of possible attack by revolutionaries, Sardanaplus’s mind wanders toward the execution of a festive banquet: “Come, we’ll think no more on’t—/But of the midnight festival” (Byron 26). In direct opposition with his uttering is Myrrha’s logical rejoinder: “’Tis time/To think of aught save festivals. Thou has not/Spurn’d his sage cautions?” (Byron 26). Myrrha’s reasonable assertions illuminate the fact that the king follows his desires, rather than rules the kingdom. The letting go of traditional royal responsibilities foreshadows possible disarray. Sardanapalus’s fallacy lies in his delusional cognition of desire and love, trying to patch the blemishes of certain conditions, such as the upcoming turmoil in a form of rebellion. Nonetheless, reality dictates something irrevocably polarizing to the former analogy: Sardanapalus’s passions and vices mold together as one entity and venture forth for destruction. Wittingly noted by Salemenes, his brother-in-law, Sardanapalus is “short of the duties of a king” (Byron 22). There is a replacement of kingly duties and responsibilities with the urge of lust, which contributes to the disarray in Sardanapalus’s court. The animalistic side of human consciousness becomes the destructive element and is no stranger to Sardanapalus’s cosmos, where reason, as a faculty of mental insight, is a mere derelict in an abandoned shore.
The reminiscence of Sardanapalus to Shakespearean tragedies is almost a given fact, rather than a possible observation. For Sardanapalus, what ought to be valuable (virtue) is regarded cipher and vice versa. When reason rules, the faculties of the body become subdued; however, such approach is the missing ingredient in these plays. Sardanapalus’s overwhelmed address to Myrrha in the moment of hazard is beyond logic, as it manifests internal disposition to irrationality, which is not immune to invasions of mania. The king refers to his beloved Ionian slave: “I love thee far—far more/Than either the brief life or the wide realm” (Byron 27). The vulnerable assertion is responded by Myrrha’s critical stance: “That means thou lovest nor thyself nor me;/For he who loves another loves himself,/Even for that other’s sake” (Byron 27). Clearly, Sardanapalus’s conception of love bears very little relation to Myrrha’s logical address, however “consequential” it seems, yet it proves the arid nature of his actions. As critic Arthur D. Kahn notes, “Sardanapalus is presented as a lax, irresponsible monarch, an incorrigible, effeminate hedonist, unfaithful to his wife and blindly enamored of his paramour” (658). The king is constricted in the labyrinth of his passions whose insecurities surface, and he becomes incapable of focusing his thoughts. These faults are the essence of his character bringing him later to his tragedy.
Considering a stylistic perspective in comparing Sardanapalus’s “passion-over-reason” stance to Romeo’s and Juliet’s tragedies, analyzes the former’s artificiality in terms of expressing his affections toward his subjects or mistress. Sardanapalus’s “benevolence” toward his court is contingent, and his enthusiastic speeches do not have a powerful crescendo, despite Byron’s abundance with exclamation points throughout the king’s sentimental speeches: “I have by Baal! done all I could to soothe them:/I made no wars, I added to new imposts,/I interfered not with their civic lives,” (22). Similarly, Juliet’s unconsciousness caused by a potion is exaggerated by her family, emphasized in the play with legions of exclamation marks in the family members’ passages such as “O me, O me! My child, my only life!” (Shakespeare 4.5.19). Capulets’ absurd over-dramatization of situations and obsessive grief-play at a particular scene gives insight to the idea of miscommunication and over-sentimentality, showing that these are possible causes of the tragedies. Further, Romeo acts in the same over-dramatized manner, ignoring all and residing his attention to the potion which is part of his dramatic speech deliverance, rehearsed earlier in his mind: “Come, bitter conduct; come, unsavory guide!” (Shakespeare 5.3.101). The artificiality of passionately staged worries and pity form the question whether such innovations are taken too far. In Sardanapalus, such factitiousness is proven to be present, despite the king’s earlier persuasion of his “benevolence”: “So my dogs’ are;/And better, as more faithful” (Byron 22). It can be stated that both plays’ protagonists’ optimistic views, ornamented with artificiality, are heartening; nevertheless, the present metaphors and similes do not always succor furnishings what they pretend to be implying.
Using a platonic perspective in analyzing Sardanapalus’s passions will illuminate the deleterious causes of his tragic end. Let us pretend for a moment that values, in general, are objective and are inherently instantiated in one’s physical realm. However, any value, to some extent may seem valueless considering different points of views. Furthermore, in order to consummate what is indeed the most valuable, one ought to strive for the ideal, the “Form” of the value that contains no such contradictions. The quest for the ideal value can only be attained by intellectual means—through reason. By rationalizing, one ascends the obscure values of the physical, faulty world in order to grasp, for instance, the Form of Justice or Wisdom. Sardanapalus, as the object of this analysis, drives away from such strife, embracing his passions. When criticized by Salemenes, “another thing thou knowest not,” (Byron 12), Sardanapalus responds in rather satirical fashion, basing his assertion on the word “virtue”: “Not know the word!/Never was word yet rung so in my ears—/Worse than the rabbles’s shout, or spliting trumpet;/I’ve heard thy sister talk of nothing else” (Byron 12). Sardanapalus, the non-oppressive king, is strictly constricted into the visible realm; thus not being able to combine noesis and dianoia in order to pursue happiness. His vices—love for lust, luxury, and artificiality are not representative of the Form; however hazy, however dubious. As Rupert Clendon Lodge suggests, “The Platonist regards all such roads, as commonly understood, as failing to lead one, with any sureness, to anything worthy the name of happiness” (226). The king is mistaken where happiness lies, and his constant rejections of criticism prove a weakness of his will. Plato’s passage encapsulates the above-mentioned more precisely: “In the visible realm, light and sight are rightly considered sunlike, but it is wrong to think that either of them is the good—for the good is yet more prized” (500). Whatever Sardanapalus considers to be the path to happiness, runs counter to his real desires, thus shifting all the failures to being non-deliberate. Such approach justifies the tragedy; his and Myrrha’s suicides, undeniably blaming one of the faculties of human psychological make-up—the appetite. The potent appetite of passions conquers reason, ignorantly causing destruction and self-destruction.
Sardanapalus’s definition of love is different than Myrrha’s comprehension of it. For Sardanaplaus, love is equivalent to pleasure; however, for his beloved, that is not the case. Sardanapalus’s definition of love can be contrasted with Paul’s depiction of it in I Corinthians. Since for Sardanapalus, love’s worthy competitor is pleasure, the occurrence of the latter subduing the former is not impossible; in fact, such stance betrays not only the welfare of the being adapting such faculties, but also it is harmful to the well-being of communities. Although indirectly, yet Paul contrasts Agape, the highest form of love, with the impatient, the boastful, the malevolent—all that fits Sardanapalus’s definition of love:
[Love] doth not behave itself unseemingly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth no in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether ther be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. (The Holy Bible, I Cor. 13:5-8)
Sardanapalus has no self-control or moral restraint and most importantly, cannot stand criticism. Sardanapalus’s ability to enamor his beloved Myrrha fails, as his words are not steeped in the highest form of love, but in lust. His apparent gift of speech knows nothing of virtue; moreover, offering nothing eternal. The humble willingness to allow such love and oppress the destructive elements is missing from Sardanapalus’s definition of love. It is not to be confused that there is an expectancy of the king to know the scriptures; rather, the concept of such love (Agape) should be praised and valued. Sardanapalus’s failure to act in such a manner; moreover, embracing fleeting passions, lead to the destruction of his court and to his inevitable doom.
At another instance, Sardanapalus’s idea of love is in contrast with John Winthrop’s concept of charity. Unlike Sardanapalus, Winthrop has a personal motive for reassessing his spiritual state and the commonwealth of the people. There is the idea that love must come from the soul; moreover, charity or love toward another being only a manifestation of well-ordered life. Furthermore, he dwells on the soul’s purest faculties; whereas Sardanapalus tries to initiate Utopia based on bodily elements. His love for the court and the people of Assyria is exemplified by artificiality. Salemenes recognizes the need for avoidance of luxury and warns Myrrha of the dangers of such attitude: “ . . . to have him king, and yours, and all/He should, or should not be; to have him live,/Let him not sink back into luxury” (Byron 76). This is not the way to the commonwealth, and certainly not Winthrop’s idyllic society, in which everyone has need of the other, and all work together in a bond of brotherly affection (Winthrop 69). Sardanapalus’s aristocratic pride disables him be the leader who is capable of building “a city on the hill.” Although at times he is the “benevolent” emperor—“enough/For me, if I can make my subjects feel/The weight of human misery less” (19); nonetheless, at many instances he is a bloodthirsty despot, ready to “use the sword/Till they shall wish it turn’d into a distaff” (Byron 21). He speaks of “vile herds” referring to citizens who have “grown insolent with feeding” (Byron 21), his pride verging on disgust. His ironical attitudes and ineradicable pride are the seeds of his illogical behavior, which is a result of his uncontrollable passion that imprisons and oppresses him. The sense of communalism is the missing ingredient from Sardanapalus’s reign, so evident in Winthrop
Sardanapalus’s excess sentimentality becomes a barricade for his acting of kingly duties, making him vulnerable to illogical judgments. At one instance, his refined sensibility is ornamented with his love for luxury, capturing the essence of his character. He is poetic and touched by the slave’s death: “Slain! Unrewarded!/And slain to serve my thirst: that’s hard, poor slave!/Had he but lived, I would have gorged him with/Gold” (Byron 74). Sardanapalus’s vernacular assertions create a sense of deceit that not only poses a threat to himself as an individual, but also to the whole nation of Assyria . According to drama critic, Charles J. Clancy, “Sardanapalus is the catalyst of the play’s antagonism. His poetic language develops, by means of false starts unsuccessful concrete examples, and, on occasion, unsuccessful literary and cultural anachronisms (70). Such poetic reality clouds Sardanapalus’s mind, disabling him to sense complicated and serious situations or events such as war. His search for personal satisfaction and meaning in life disable him to capitalize situations that ought to be dealt with much consideration. Sardanapalus’s reason is missing a link to the controlling button to his emotions, therefore, leaving him non-adaptive to his world, which is not forgiving to adaptive failure.
Doesn’t history inform that rulers and sovereigns practice power rather gladly, finding it easy to vindicate their peculiar use of it by reference to necessity? The necessity appears in the form of overwhelming passion in Byron’s Sardanapalus. The king is caught in a paradox he has created, by molding his definition of love with his definition of pleasure. When uncontrollable lust and desires sink in, the result is tragedy, as reason becomes possessed by lower, bodily faculties. The corrupting effects of such emotions become apparent in the subservient rebellion and Sardanapalus’s and his lover’s suicides. Sardanapalus’s escape from responsibility and his clear adaptation to artificiality invoke images from works such as Romeo and Juliet, and Othello. Despite the similarities to other works, the play can be contrasted with a segment of Paul’s ponderings on love and Winthrop
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