The Law of the
Father and the
Importance of Promise in
Lucius Junius Brutus
Patricia Mayburry-Thomas
Ipt is difficult, if not impossible, to read Lee’s Lucius Junius Brutus without reading it as a highly politicized text. As 20th century readers, we would like to read this play as a 17th century call to democracy, or at least a protest against the monarchy. Indeed, there are several elements of the play that seem to support this reading. Many of the early critics of the play felt that Brutus’ passionate speeches reflected Lee’s Whig tendencies (Hayne 338). Yet, there is no evidence outside of the play’s text to support this supposition. In fact, in a 1981 article, Anthony Hammond asserts that Lee was a strong supporter of the monarchy as evidenced by his dedication to the Earl of Dorset at the beginning of the play and his partnership with John Dryden in The Duke of Guise (Hayne 339). How then, are we to read this text when the play seems to undercut any political view it might be forwarding? The answer to this question is to follow the rhetorical arguments made about the law of the father and to notice the importance of the vow within the text. In the end, Lee’s deliberate undercutting of Brutus’s position through his violation of the vow he makes to his son and Brutus’s betrayal of his own rhetoric supports a conservative, pro-monarchy reading of this play.
One of the most interesting, and confusing, aspects of this play is the large emphasis placed on the vow. Within this text, there are promises made from man to man, man to woman, from woman to man, and from man to the gods. In fact, the text is framed with two very important vows: the vows made between Titus and Teraminta at the play’s opening and the vow Brutus makes toward the end of the play to his son regarding Teraminta. This frame helps the audience to realize the importance of the vow and will later help undercut Brutus’s position.
The vows in this play are important because of their use in displaying conscience. As Butler states: "Conscience is introduced via the animal who is bred to keep promises, and in relation to the ‘sovereign’ man. The one who makes and keeps his promise is one who ‘has bred in himself a . . . faculty’ opposed to forgetfulness, namely, a memory, which becomes ‘a memory of the will’" (71). It is Titus’ ability to make a promise and follow through with the appropriate action that will cause us to side with him by the end of the play. It is also his failure to follow through on a promise to his father that causes his demise at the end of the play.
The first vow he makes, the one to Teraminta, is very important. In Act I, scene 1, Teraminta asks her new husband to:pSwear then, my Titus, swear you’ll never upbraid me,
Swear that your love shall last like mine forever;
No turn of state or empire, no misfortune,
Shall e’er estrange you from me. Swear, I say,
That, if you should prove false, I may at least
Have something still to answer to my fate.
Swear, swear, my lord, that you will never hate me,
But to your death still cherish in your bosom
The poor, the fond, the wretched Teraminta. (51-59)pTitus "returns [his] answer all in oaths" (63) and tells her that "Thou shalt confess all language then is vile, And yet believe me most without my vowing" (68-69). Titus will end up breaking this vow in word, but not in deed.
When learning of his son’s marriage later in Act I, Brutus invokes the law of the father in order to eventually persuade his son to abandon Teraminta and to break both his marriage vows and the vows he made to Teraminta at the beginning of Act I. Brutus orders Titus to "renounce [his] Teraminta" (200). When he learns that they have been married without his knowledge, his first rhetorical move is to question the validity of the marriage because there were no family witnesses at the wedding. He then implies that the wedding of Titus and Teraminta was an aberration of nature by speaking of it in animalistic terms:pWhich of thy blood were the cursed witnesses?
Who would be there at such polluted rites
But goats, baboons, some chatt’ring old silenus
Or satyrs grinning at your slimy joys? (211-214)pThis passage cleverly invokes the law of the father in two ways. First, it implies that the marriage vows are somehow invalid because the father did not have prior knowledge of and approval for the wedding. Second, by invoking the image of animals and sexual deviants, such as satyrs, it summons the image of an unnatural coupling, the image of a sexuality that is inexplicably outside the patriarchally approved unions.
His next rhetorical maneuver is to imply that it is the blood that Teraminta carries that makes the union unnatural.pName, lineage, stock that but to own a part,
Of his relation is to profess thyself
Sworn slave of hell and bondman to the furies.
Thou art not married. (220-223)pBrutus then accuses Titus of being disobedient. He claims that he, Brutus, is no longer insane because "the gods have waked [Brutus] / From dead stupidity to be a scourge / A living torment to thy disobedience" (229-231). Later, in Act II, after laying the rhetorical groundwork for his argument, Brutus finally makes Titus swear on "This spotted blade, bathed in the blood of Lucrece" that he will not touch his wife (344-346).
This scene between Titus and Brutus is pivotal to the way in which Lee will cleverly undercut the position of both the corrupt Tarquin monarchy and the newly founded Republic, while still managing to support Britain’s monarchy. Victoria Hayne proposes that this scene is important because "Brutus is introduced to the audience in a way that distances him from them; from this first scene, identification with Brutus’s point of view is discouraged" (344). While I agree that this scene serves to "distance" the audience, I do not agree that this scene "discourages" the audience from identifying with Brutus’ point of view. We are distanced from both Brutus and Titus in this scene because, at this point in the play, we do not have enough information to knowledgeably choose a side. In addition, it is hard to know how a 17th century audience would react to this scene. For a 20th century audience, rebelling against the "law of the father" is almost considered a rite of passage. We consider rebellion and the realization of a separate identity a normal developmental stage. Is this how a 17th century audience would view Titus’ marriage to the daughter of his father’s enemy? In this time period, it was normal for characters who rebelled against the wishes of their father to have a tragic demise. One need only look at some of Shakespeare’s tragedies, such as Romeo and Juliet and King Lear, in the previous century to discover this dramatic premise. This consequence of disobedience against the law of the father (or father-in-law) is still apparent in plays written after Lucius Junius Brutus, such as Ottway’s Venice Preserved.
An additional concern pertaining to Hayne’s reading of this scene is that at the point where Brutus enters, the only information we have about Titus is what we have gleaned from the two and a half pages of vow-making between Teraminta and Titus. Brutus’ entrance and subsequent speech causes the reader, or playgoer, to pull back from both characters because of the questions the speech raises about Titus. Why doesn’t Titus tell his family that he is getting married? Is Teraminta also an awful person, as it seems the rest of her family members are? We do not know enough about Teraminta to know for certain that she is not also "tainted" by the blood of her father. We only have the words of these characters. We have not yet witnessed whether their actions match their words.
Hayne feels that this continuous juxtaposition of words and action, both the actions of the characters and the surrounding "action" of the scenery, is important. When she discusses Titus’ response to Teraminta’s request for a promise, Hayne states that:pTitus draws a contrast between the promise in words that Teraminta has asked for and the intensely physical and sensory experience of sexual intercourse. . . . Titus asserts the primacy of sense experience over language in determining truth. (344)pHayne feels that this is a primary motif of the play, "the motif of language’s incapacity to represent experience" (344). However, there is another way to read this language versus sensory experience motif, and that is to look at the motif as language being affirmed by physical action.
Titus does not seem to be telling Teraminta that his promise is meaningless and only through the physical act of making love will she believe him, as Hayne implies; rather he is telling her that his actions will prove to her that his words are true. Words are meaningless unless they are translated into a corresponding action.
Titus does not violate his vow to Teraminta in action, only in word. It is the vow that Titus makes to his father, to stop seeing Teraminta and to not consummate his vows, that is invalid. Titus’ actions do not affirm the vow he made to his father. As is common literary practice in this time period and earlier, it is this failure to obey the law of the father that causes Titus’ death. We know this because of the importance placed on the law of the father and the adherence to the boundaries set by the patriarchy throughout the text. This is exemplified by comparing the rhetorical speeches of Vinditius and Brutus.
In the play, both Vinditius and Brutus are trying to rouse their fellow Romans to revolt, but they are using different rhetorical strategies. In Act II, Vinditius gives a long-winded speech:
I am a true commonwealth’s man, and do not naturally love kings, though they be good; for why should any one man have more power than the people? Is he bigger or wiser than the people? Has he more guts or more brains than the people? What can he do for the people that the people can’t do for themselves? Can he make corn grow in a famine? Can he give us rain in a drought? Or make our pots boil, though the devil piss in the fire? ( 41-47)
To a 20th century audience, this argument seems logical and valid because it supports our own views on government. However, to a 17th century audience this anti-royalist speech could have been undercut by the fact that the character of Vinditius seems to have been modeled on Titus Oates. Hayne states that:
Critics generally agree that Vinditius is, in part, a satirical portrait of Titus Oates, the primary informer (and inventor) of the Popish Plot. In the months before Lucius Junius Brutus was first performed, the Whigs’ major political effort was aimed at keeping the fears aroused by the Plot, now beginning to die down, alive and politically effective. To do this, Oates’s status as a reliable informant needed to be protected. . . . At the trial of Viscount Stafford for his alleged role in the plot, a trial which coincided with the first performances of Lucius Junius Brutus, the members of the House of Commons managing the evidence against Stafford devoted the first half of their presentation . . . to proving the existence of the plot. . . . They did so explicitly, to refute the growing opinion that the plot was ‘a chimera, an imagination, and not a real thing.’ They were particularly defensive of Oates’s reputation. . . ." (355).
By modeling his character on a person of questionable character who was used by the Whig’s to further their political argument, Lee manages to undercut these concerns pertaining to monarchical rule.
The ineffectiveness of Vinditius’s argument and the comical name he is given also help to undercut his anti-royalist sentiments. (The name Vinditius calls to mind the word "vindictive," which is hardly an admirable quality in anyone, particularly in a political leader.) Vinditius’ argument is not effective in rousing the Romans to action. It is not until a citizen in the crowd begins talking of how the king’s sons have handled his wife that the mob begins to become enraged. Vinditius is not astute enough to take advantage of this statement. He does not realize that the problems with the current leadership lie not with the form of government, as much as in the current government’s betrayal of the laws of the patriarchy and their unease at Tarquin’s apparent inability to control his sons. Because of his lack of perceptiveness, his speeches succeed only in causing the death of a few nobles. He is unable to rouse the mob to open revolt.
This is where Vinditius and Brutus differ. Brutus understands on some level that Tarquin’s rule is causing distress in the people because he does not appear strong enough to enforce the patriarchy. If Tarquin cannot even control his sons, how can he control the people? Tarquin’s sin and the sins of his sons are their "Breaking the ancient customs, statues, laws / With positive power and arbitrary lust" (2.181-82). He plays on the insecurities of the people by vividly describing the consequences of allowing Tarquin to continuing ruling. If the people do not revolt, he tells them theypwill stay till Tarquin does return
To see you wives and children dragged about,
Your houses burnt, the temples all profaned,
The city filled with rapes, adulteries,
The Tiber choked with bodies, all the shores
And the neighboring rocks besmeared with Roman blood? (2.216-221)pBrutus knows, either consciously or unconsciously, the insecurity that the people must feel regarding Tarquin’s ability to control his subjects. Tarquin’s sons violate the law of the father, and therefore, the law of the patriarchy, by violating the patriarchy’s law regarding the exchange of women. Sextus crosses the boundaries of exchange by having sexual intercourse (whether it is consensual or not is really a moot point) with other men’s wives.
This violation of boundaries destabilizes many patriarchal constructions, including the construction of lineage. How are these men supposed to know that their offspring truly belong to them, if they can not be sure that the wives are sleeping only with their husbands? Tarquin should punish his sons for this violation of the patriarchal order. It is his apparent inability or unwillingness to ensure that the sons follow the law of the father that uneases the Roman people.
It does this on two different levels. First of all, if the King, the ultimate father figure, cannot control his own sons, then what hope do the common Roman people have of controlling their sons. Brutus takes advantage of this specific concern several times. For example, in Act III, scene ii, Brutus addresses the followers of Tarquin within the Senate as the youth. Brutus says:pFor grant the people ignorant of themselves,
Yet they are capable of being told,
And will conceive a truth from worthy men.
From you [the Senate] they will not, nor from your adherents,
Rome’s infamous and execrable youth,
Foes to religion and the commonwealth,
To virtue, learning, and all sober arts
That bring renown and profit to mankind;
Such as had rather bleed beneath a tyrant,
To become dreadful to the populace,
To spread their lusts and dissoluteness round,
Though at the daily hazard of their lives,
Than live at peace in a free government,
Where every man is master of his own,
Sole lord at home, and monarch of his house,
Where rancor and ambition are extinguished,
Where universal peace extends her wings,
As if the golden age returned, where all
The people do agree and live secure,
The nobles and the princes loved and reverenced,
The world in triumph, and the gods adored. (3.2.47-66)pIn this rather lengthy speech Brutus conflates the fears the populace has about uncontrolled youth with the form of government. In order to control the youth, his argument implies, the government must be a republic.
Although Brutus states several times that what the Roman people desire from government is more freedom, he understands that what the people truly fear is Tarquin’s inability to subjugate the people and their desires. This is the second way in which Brutus’s rhetoric is affective. Brutus understands that the youth represent desire run amok. Not only are the laws of the patriarchy violated by the sons of Tarquin, but so is the very reason that these laws exist.
The patriarchy exists in order to defer desire. If one does not adhere to the laws of the patriarchy, that means that one can, conceivably, obtain the object of desire, for example, another man’s wife. At some level, we know that the achievement of desire makes us desireless. Without desire, we have no way to differentiate ourselves from others, which means that we no longer have an identity or self. With the patriarchy come taboos, which in turn allow us to forever defer desire. At some level, Brutus, and indeed the Roman crowds, understand that in order to retain their identity, they and their desires must be subjugated to the patriarchy. As Butler states, it is only through the regulation of the subject that we can maintain the illusion of selfness (67). Tarquin must go because he is not powerful enough to subjugate the desires of his son, and therefore, he is not powerful enough to subjugate the desires of the subjects.
All of Brutus’s eloquent rhetoric, as well as the vow he makes at the end of the play, serve to undermine his political position. Lee’s play does not support a republican form of government because of the ways in which Brutus also violates the law of the father.
In the hierarchy of the patriarchy, the male subject and father are subjugated to the law of the ultimate father, which is the king at the beginning of the play and the new republican government at the end of the play. Brutus violates his own rhetoric by not supporting the king. The argument follows that in order to champion the law of the father, one cannot advocate the overthrow of the father. Brutus invites the chaos that the people fear by subverting the law of the father for his own political gain.
Brutus ignores the law of the father again at the play’s end when he chooses to disregard the ruling of the Senate (the new father) regarding the death sentence of his son. Brutus states that:pMy sons are traitors,
Their tongues and hands are witnesses confessed;
Therefore I have already passed their sentence,
And wait with you to see their execution. (5.2.27-30)pThe senate’s ruling is:pConsul, the Senate does not ask their deaths.
They are content with what’s already done,
And all entreat you to remit the axe. (5.2.31-33)pHe again disregards the law and, thus, subverts the very order that he claims to support.
We, as audience members, turn completely against Brutus when he follows through on the death sentence, even though the law of the father (the senate) no longer deems it necessary. We are also manipulated into turning against Brutus through his apparent lack of conscience.
While Brutus does seem to show remorse over the death of his son, we are suspicious that the reason for his guilt is due to his loss of his likeness. Brutus does not seem to be remorseful over the death of his other son, Tiberius. This could be due to that fact that Tiberius was "more guilty" than Titus. But more than likely it is because Brutus sees himself in Titus. He is grieving over the death of "himself." As Brutus passes judgement on Titus in Act IV, he speaks of Titus as "thou flatt’ring mirror of thy father’s image / Where I behold myself at such advantage!" (486-87).
The place where we are allowed to see Brutus’s lack of conscience is his response to the other vow that frames the play. At the end of Act IV, after Brutus has sentenced Titus to death, Titus exhorts his father to "be good to Teraminta / When I am ashes" (576-77). Brutus promises to take care of her. In Act V, Titus sees Teraminta enter and asks: "and is it thus my father does protect thee?" ( 5.1.75) Teraminta responds: "No, let me fall again among the people" (5.1.77). Brutus does not show remorse, as Titus has for his betrayal of his word, for this treatment of Teraminta. Brutus seems inhuman to the audience due to his dereliction of duty and to his lack of conscience once everyone knows that he has failed to keep his promise.
In the end, Brutus is as ineffective as Tarquin. He fails to follow the law of the father, he fails to follow through on his promises and he fails to control his sons. Just as Tarquin was unable to force his sons, the youth, to abandon their forbidden desires, so too was Brutus unable to force Titus to abandon Teraminta before he acted on his desire. All of these failings serve to undercut a pro-republican reading of this text.
Lee seems to very consistently forward the acceptance of the law of the father. By using Brutus’s own argument against him, he shows that no one can support the law of patriarchy and support a revolt against the father, or the king, at the same time without being hypocritical. The adherence to the laws of the father, in this play, is the only universal prerequisite to a peaceful government in this play. Tarquin falls because he does not force his sons to adhere to the laws, and Brutus is portrayed as hypocritical and inhuman because he fails to live by his own arguments and promises. If either of them had followed the laws laid down by the forefathers, Lee seems to imply, then all of Rome would have continued to live in peace.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. Theories in Subjection: The Psychic Life of Power. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.
Hayne, Victoria. "All Language then is Vile": The Theatrical Critique of Political Rhetoric in Nathaniel Lee’s Lucius Junius Brutus." ELH 63 (1996): 337-360.
Lee, Nathaniel. Lucius Junius Brutus. John Loftis, Ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967.