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Othello’s “Flaming Minister” and Renaissance Emblem Literature

1976; University of Western Ontario Libraries; Volume: 2; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/esc.1976.0000

1913-4835

Alan R. Young,

Renaissance Literature and Culture

O TH E L L O ' S " F L A M I N G M I N I S T E R " A N D R E N A I S S A N C E E MB LEM L I T E RA T U RE ALAN R. YOUNG Acadia University -A ,t the beginning of the final scene in Shakespeare's Othello Desdemona is alone on stage asleep in bed. Othello then enters (according to the 1622 Quarto) "with a light." Maddened by his mistaken belief that Desdemona has betrayed him with Cassio, he has come to murder her. Referring to the light in his hand he says:1 Put out the light, and then put out the light. If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me; but once put out thy light, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume, (v.ii.7-13)2 In the famous first line of this passage Othello perceives a metaphorical connection between the light he carries and the life of the sleeping Desdemona.3 At the root of this conceit, as has been frequently noted, is the commonplace Renaissance comparison of life to a lighted torch, lamp, taper, or candle. Shakespeare had earlier used the image in an allusion to "the dusky torch of Mortimer" in 1 Henry VI (ii.v.122), in Clifford's "Here burns my candle out" in 3 Henry W (n.vi.i), in the dying Gaunt's reference to "M y oil-dried lamp" and "M y inch of taper" in Richard II (i.iii.221, 223), in the Chief Justice's remark that Falstaff is "as a candle, the better part burnt out" in 2 Henry IVf1.ii.148), and in the reported allusion to the dead Count of Rossillion's "After my flame lacks oil" in All's Well (i.ii.59). Later he was to use it in Macbeth's "Out, out, brief candle" (v.v.23), in Antony's response on hearing of the supposed death of Cleopatra that "the torch is out," and in Cleopatra's matching statement over the dying Antony that "Our lamp is spent" (Antony and Cleopatra, 1v.xiv.46; rv.xv.88).4However, when Othello goes on to talk of being able to light or extinguish his "flaming minister" at will, Shakespeare's English Studies in Canada, ii, 1, Spring 1976 English Studies in Canada audience would have been reminded of another commonplace familiar from both literature and visual representations, but especially from emblem and impresa literature. This second commonplace has never been discussed with regard to its appearance in Othello, and it is consequently my intention here first to outline its occurrence in contemporary literature and then to consider its significance in Othello. Othello's statement about quenching and relighting his light recalls a succession of emblems and impresas depicting torches and candles in the process of being extinguished by being inverted,5 the earliest example occurring in Gilles Corrozet's Hecatomgraphie (1540). Corrozet's motto, "Mauluaise nourriture," is accompanied by the picture of an inverted torch (sig 1 j v, 1543 ed) and by two poems which comment upon the manner in which wax will nourish the flame of a torch but extinguish it if the torch is inverted.6From what must have been a common act of everyday life Corrozet extracts a double moral: the incorrect nurture of children will produce sinful beings, and incorrect nourishment of the body by means of excess meat and wine will hasten death (sig 1 8r, 1543 ed). Corrozet's moral, however, is not followed by later emblematists. More characteristic (in view of the many later imitations) is the use made of the image in an impresa described in Gabriele Simeoni's Le Imprese Heroiche et Morali (i559)-7 The impresa consists of a picture of an inverted torch, accompanied by the motto "Qui me alit me extinguit." Apparently the impresa was that of Monsieur de Saint Valier, who wished to show how his love for a certain woman nourished all his thought while putting...