Food, Money, and Sex as Colonial Appetites and Inversions from The Tempest toThe Sea Voyage

Cliff Musial, Hamilton College

In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Prospero’s island offers a fantastical vision of art, colonialism, and political power somewhat removed from reality. Prospero’s island, while endowed with fantastic magic and spirits, offers a hypothetical, allegorical vision of colonialism. Gritty political concerns of betrayal, power, and subjugation drive the plot, but the material and practical desires that underlie those rarely come to the surface. As Gonzalo points out, even the simplest reality of the wetness of the ocean dissipates on the island, when the beached crew’s garments become inexplicably dry and “new-dyed” after being “drenched in the sea” and should have been “stained with salt water” (2.1.59-61). The Tem-

pest eschews such pragmatisms in favor of lofty, ideological concerns. However, just over ten years after Shakespeare likely wrote The Tempest, John Fletcher and Philip Massinger borrowed and manipulated elements of Shakespeare’s play to imagine an island quite unlike Prospero’s in their 1622 play The Sea Voyage. As in The Tempest, a ship full of Europeans from

nobility to lower class become stranded on a deserted island after a heavy storm. Yet the island of The

Sea Voyage has no magical powers that dry clothes, or draw attention away from basic needs and desires. In The Sea Voyage, appetites for money, food, and sex overcome all else. Furthermore, Fletcher and Massinger use these appetites to invert norms of the time, creating a play that engages with their contemporary thinkers, following Thomas Mun and Michel de Montaigne and challenging Robert Burton, by sharply contesting the political status quo. The appetite for wealth joins with Mun by showing the worthlessness of precious metals without trade and the consequences of English privateering in the war with Spain. The appetite for food draws on accounts of starvation in Jamestown to, like Montaigne, challenge the European notion of superiority over the “cannibals” of the New World. And finally, the appetite for sex challenges patriarchy and the notion of inherent male superiority popular among Renaissance thinkers such as Robert Burton by reversing the sexual roles of men and women, making them equally beast-like in their desires and the resolutive marriages concluding the play unconvincing to undermine patriarchal hegemony.

The appetite for wealth immediately divides the two plays. In The Tempest, material wealth has little importance. In one instance, it distracts Stefano and Trinculo from their plot with Caliban to kill Prospero. Prospero’s noble finery catches Trinculo’s attention, but Caliban reprimands him. “Let it alone, thou fool. It is but trash” (4.1.222). Caliban looks beyond material wealth toward the political power to be gained by killing Prospero: political power and control dominate characters’ aspirations on the island. Caliban wants to take back control of his island, Prospero wants to reestablish his political power in Milan by marrying Miranda to Ferdinand, Gonzalo wants to establish a primitive utopia, Antonio wants Sebastian to be King of Naples, and Stefano wants to be king of the island. Wealth merely distracts the poor unworthy of reaching for the loftier goal of power. In The Sea Voyage, however, concern for material wealth drives the play from the first scene when Lamure and Franville must cast their money and possessions overboard to lighten the sinking ship per the captain’s command (1.1.110-144). Tibalt, however, whom Fletcher and Massinger describe as “a merry gentleman” free from these debilitating material desires, establishes himself as a moral center with his carefree, measured response. I ha’ nothing but my skin And my clothes, my sword here, and myself; Two crowns in my pocket; two pair of cards And three false dice. I can swim like a fish, Rascal, nothing to hinder me (1.1.139-143). For Tibalt, possessions and wealth are hindrances, especially for sea-faring men like him who often need to “swim like a fish,” and the events on the island prove him right. Sebastian and Nicusa’s treasure distracts the Frenchmen from their escape, and dooms them to starve on the island. However, as Gitanjali Shahani argues, this does not equate to as simple of a moralizing statement against greed as it may seem. Rather than condemning materialism, The Sea Voyage points to a contemporary concern about the intrinsic value of gold. “In particular, the slippage between its [gold’s] intrinsic value as metal and its nominal value as coinage simultaneously confounded and fascinated several early modern writers” (Shahani 9). A common English concern around this time, articulated by Thomas Mun in A Discourse of Trade from England unto the East-Indies, published a year before The Sea Voyage

played, was that England exported and pursued too much bullion, especially through privateering. Mun observed that gold and money only gained value through trade, and feared that England lacked intrinsically valuable commodities in its pursuit of bullion (Mun, as cited in Shahani 19). The pile of gold plays right into contemporary concerns over intrinsic and exchange value. Tibalt demonstrates this by showing Franville, who complains of hunger after joining in the fatal fight over the gold, how invaluable gold becomes without any means of exchange. Here’s a pestle of portigue, sir; ‘Tis excellent meat with sour sauce. And here’s two chains—suppose ‘em sausages (1.3.239-241). A portigue—a Portuguese coin—and metal chains offer little in satisfying hunger. Rita Banerjee notes a similar historical complication in early Spanish colonialism. Rather than cultivating permanent colonies in the New World as other European nations did, the Spanish primarily used privateering and exhaustive gold mining to chase after bullion. This bullion, however, “ended up in the coffers of other European nations whose policies of trade and plantation proved more effective in the long run” (Banerjee 298). From an economic perspective that Mun brought to attention in the 1620s, pursuing intrinsically valuable commodities to trade for currency did far more for the wealth of a nation than just pursuing the metals that could be made into currency to trade for these commodities. This conflict plays out explicitly in The Sea Voyage. The French pirates chasing after gold end up starving with an incredible amount of wealth that has no value on its own, representing the eventual fate of Spain that Mun feared for England. The Portuguese settlers, who cultivated a colony that yielded intrinsically valuable commodities, end up with more practical wealth, even if it is theoretically less valuable than the gold. Sebastian and Nicusa acquire the ship to escape the island, and Roselia and the pseudo-Amazons acquire the fruitful island where they have plentiful food (although, as Shahani points out, a sexual appetite quickly replaces an appetite for food). Without trade, the gold has no value. Thus, Shahani rightly observes that The Sea Voyage does not necessarily critique the greed of early modern colonial ventures; it rather endorses a mercantile model of colonization (Shahani 17). The value of the play’s gold returns only once it is given back to the Amazons in exchange for food, which has intrinsic value. Fletcher and Massinger decry privateering’s

sole aim of bullion and gold, not materialism generally. But in doing so, they put forward the first of three politically subversive inversions in the play. They align themselves against Spanish privateering, which is certainly not subversive, but also against English privateering. By this time, almost twenty years after the end of the war with Spain, and thus the height of English privateering, Mun had only just published A Discourse of Trade from England Unto the East Indies, and privateering was still considered a very legitimate practice without concern for economic consequences. The Sea Voyage maintains

an important political and theoretical position by exposing the fundamental worthlessness of gold and currency without exchange, and the consequences of dedicating resources to privateering. Materialism, then, is one of many appetites that compel the characters of The Sea Voyage. However, once Sebastian and Nicusa sail off with the ship and the crew finds itself stranded, the most basic appetite, for food, supersedes that for material wealth. Fewer than 40 lines after Aminta calls the pirates’ attention to the ship (1.3.210), Tibalt brings up the proposition of supper, and Lamure, Franville, and the Surgeon ask in unison, “Where’s the meat?” (1.3.249). Tibalt mocks them (1.3.250), yet despite his characteristic temperance, of course cannot avoid hunger as he avoids other appetites. This desperate craving for meat that haunts the wealthy Frenchmen becomes especially interesting in light of the historical availability of meat in England. As Stephen Greenblatt points out about 16th and early 17th century England, “the lower classes then, as throughout most of history, subsisted on one of two foodstuffs, usually low in protein. The upper classes disdained green vegetables and milk and gorged themselves on meat” (Greenblatt 3). This same discrepancy emerges between the upper class (Franville, Lamure, and Surgeon) and the lower class (Tibalt and the shipmaster) on stage. The lack of meat does not concern Tibalt, the shipmaster, or the sailors, yet renders the higher class Lamure, Franville, and Surgeon pitiful and desperate. Considering that theaters at the time were “unusually inclusive” (Syme 95) of all social classes, this discrepancy would likely have incited very different reactions among audience members, and may have even incited conflict. As Syme shows, such conflicts were already common in the somewhat equalizing space of the theater. Audience members from all social spheres could gain admission and enjoy the same spectacles. Social hierarchies became dangerously porous in this shared space, as Dekker’s stage-sitters experienced firsthand: the commoners in the yard could hurl abuse and even dirt at the gentle and

noble audience members onstage” (Syme 95). With Fletcher and Massinger undoubtedly privy to such common practice, they must have intended the comedic patheticness of nobles deprived of their meat to incite a strong reaction with the audience. If there was ever a time to “hurl abuse” or “dirt” at the noble audience members, it would be this scene. Especially as it is Tibalt who once again flaunts superiority by disrupting their plans with a heavy, patronizing hand (3.1.144-156), the playwrights invert the feudal view of cultivated, wealthy nobles allowing inferior, desperate peasants to subsist out of generosity. Away from the comforts and class divisions of Europe, the upper classes become pathetic and helpless. Yet this lighthearted mockery moves into darker territory when this desire for meat turns into desire for human flesh, and the three nobles attempt to eat Aminta. This scene, too, has comedic language, and certainly would have provoked more laughter and mockery from the audience. However, it also points to the recent tragic suffering of settlers at Jamestown, disconnected from class concerns. Just as The Tempest deals with a magical, hypothetical instance of a colonial encounter and The Sea Voy-

age translates it to worldly, monetary concerns, Gonzalo of The Tempest sees Montaigne’s essentially imaginary society of cannibals as an optimistic possibility, whereas The Sea Voyage shows cannibalism through the horror of the way it really played out in Jamestown, as a practice of the colonizers themselves.

Alison Brown and Jason Denman contend that Fletcher and Massinger drew from accounts of “The Starving Time” in Jamestown from 1608-1610 to construct this scene. The language that Lamure uses to describe a man eating his wife, as well as the possibility of powdering Aminta, parallel Smith’s in A True Relation and Percy’s A Trewe Relacyon, firsthand accounts of the Starving Time in Jamestown. (Brown and Denman, 120). Although these accounts were not yet published, word of mouth would have likely spread them through England, and the parallels of diction suggest that Fletcher and Massinger had access to written versions before their publication. This speaks to an anxiety resonant in England as its first colonial plantations encountered hardships, or “the anxious nature of the play’s colonial politics” (Brown and Denman 120). Other parallels also link the events of The Sea Voyage to England’s early colonies. “Clarinda’s abrupt and politically expedient marriage to Aminta’s brother, Raymond, may be an allusion to Poca-

hontas’s marriage to Rolfe, a ceremony that temporarily brought peace to the region” (Brown and Denman 122). The attitude of the Frenchmen toward the Amazons may also reflect English settlers’ views of Native Americans. “They must have seemed powerful, even alluring, in their ability to live off the land” (Brown and Denman 122). Especially in early colonial ventures, the relationship between the starving, desperate French pirates and the plentiful food of the Amazons reflects how starving Jamestown settlers would have sought the help of natives. Yet this cannibalistic scene does something more. Similar to the inversion of class divisions I mention earlier, an even larger inversion is at play, especially in regards to Montaigne. In “Of Cannibals,” Montaigne compares New World “barbarian” practices to those of the Spanish Inquisition, contending that what Europeans do is more cruel. I thinke there is more barbarisme in eating men alive, than to feed upon them being dead; to mangle by tortures and torments a body full of lively sense, to roast him in peeces, and to make dogs and swine to gnaw and teare him in mammocks (as we have not only read, but seene very lately, yea and in our owne memorie, not amongst ancient enemies, but our neighbours and fellow-citizens; and which is worse, under pretence of pietie and religion) than to roast and eat him after he is dead. (Montaigne 226) The Sea Voyage also makes Europeans more savage than any savages they imagined in the New World. Rather than diverge from Shakespeare, Fletcher and Massinger more or less follow him in this regard. In The Tempest, Shakespeare draws from a different passage of “Of Cannibals,” which he lets serve as Gonzalo’s dream of a utopia on Prospero’s island. It is a nation, would I answer Plato, that hath no kinde of traffike, no knowledge of Letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate, nor of politike superioritie; no use of service, of riches or of povertie; no contracts, no successions, no partitions, no occupation but idle; no respect of kindred, but common, no apparell but naturall, no manuring of lands, no use of wine, corne, or mettle. The very words that import lying, falshood, treason, dissimulations, covetousnes, envie, detraction, and pardon, were never heard of amongst them. (Montaigne 222) By endowing Gonzalo with the noble, idealistic vision nearly verbatim to Montaigne’s “Of Cannibals,” while the most wicked characters of The Tempest mock him for it, Shakespeare imagines the

possibility of a non-European society optimistically (2.1.162-174). Though realistic pessimism drives the colonial possibility of The Sea Voyage, Fletcher and Massinger use the same type of inversion by making the Frenchmen into cannibals and Portuguese women into Amazons. Both plays push against the prevailing colonial view of the superiority of Christendom over New World non-Christians, and challenge the differences that seem to divide them. But Fletcher and Massinger push inversion one step farther with the final appetite present in The

Sea Voyage: sex. This appetite ultimately brings about the resolution of the play, which many critics have viewed as misogynistic and heteronormative. As Julie Sutherland observes, Simon Shepherd, Gordon McMullan, Claire Jowett, and Heidi Hutner have all noted in some way how the marriages at the end of the play reinforce patriarchal power and the biological distinction of sexes (Sutherland 92). However, Sutherland convincingly argues that Fletcher and Massinger actually work against heteronormative, misogynistic Renaissance thought that saw logical men as superior to emotional women. Renaissance thought and theater often portrayed women as emotional and guided by voracious sexual appetite. “This sexual appetite in women—evidence for sense ruling over reason—was their most degenerative trait” (Sutherland 91). Thinkers such as Robert Burton considered a lusty human “no better than a beast,” and so women’s perceived lust justified their comparison to beasts. However, as I point out earlier, comparably illogical appetites for money and wealth guide the men in The Sea Voyage, reducing them to beastliness. Sutherland argues that The Sea Voyage “satirically addresses the mystery of humankind’s nature, providing a picture of men and women not as equally noble but equally base” (92). The Amazons are certainly guided by a sexual appetite not unusual in Renaissance theater, but appetites sexual and otherwise also make men into beasts, who are frequently referred to as “dogs” (Sutherland 98). Although the final act reinforces the idea that women “naturally give way to male authority,” the destabilization of order in the rest of the play undermines this: The Sea Voyage reduces “all humans to a more animal level” (Sutherland 92). Yet another inversion takes place here. [The play] inverts the common notion of women as being inferior to men and rather gives women the status of powerful hunters who prey on men. The men, in turn, are described in ignoble terms usually reserved for ‘savages’ and beasts. Further, they are treated as non-human animals whose worth lies solely in their reproductive potential and the sexual pleasure they bring to

women (Sutherland 93). Sutherland shows us that Fletcher and Massinger turn the tables on the sexual appetites and roles of men and women. Men are the lusty beasts whose sole purpose lies in “reproductive potential,” whereas the women are the dominant hunters, albeit also driven by a lusty appetite. However, this appetite does not debase the women to be merely agents of reproduction, as is common in Renaissance theater. At first glance, the concluding marriages of the play seem to reinforce the heterosexual patriarchy it has thus far challenged. Rosellia, who has exercised strong control over the other women and fierce disdain towards the men, who are their “slaves” to be used “with all the austerity that may be” (4.2.1-2), submissively and readily relinquishes her power once reunited with Sebastian. She does give up Herself, her power and joys and all to you, To be discharged of ‘em as too burdensome. Welcome in any shape! (5.4.96-99) After Sebastian refers to both of them in the third person, Rosellia follows suit, calling herself “she,” which further isolates herself from her decisions. This comes as a stark contrast to earlier, when she reluctantly allows the initial sexual exchange. In that scene, Rosellia decrees that the other women may take husbands for a month, but only “if you like their persons / And they approve of yours—for we’ll force nothing” (2.2.234-235). This puts the women in the position of control, and asserts their desire for sexuality over reproduction. Though she will accept daughters to their colony “if you prove fruitful” (2.2.239), the focus is on the desire for men rather than the desire for children. As Hippolita says, “We must and will have men!” (2.2.210), not children, and the union will only happen if the women “like their persons.” As Sutherland observes, “they are not merely heterosexual so that they can give their husbands sons. They are heterosexual women who lack men with whom they can find sexual delight” (Sutherland 105). Yet the inclusion of sexual appetite does not undermine this inversion in the way that Robert Burton would have it because men, too, are lusty beasts driven and derided by appetite. And furthermore, men serve as the limiting factor of reproductive potential, whose company is tolerated only to ensure the survival of the colony.

So when Rosellia lets this all go with little resistance, readers and audiences are left with two options. The first would cede that these inversive possibilities are merely included for entertainment, and that Fletcher and Massinger intend to show that the patriarchal status quo returns triumphantly in the end, casting aside the critical themes they have built through the play, and that Rosellia is indeed happy with the end. Rosellia’s speeches in 4.2 and 5.4 reveal that much of her strong-armed rulership can be traced to bitterness over losing her husband. She seems to desire such cruelty toward the men because she believes they killed Sebastian (4.2.12-20). They are “taught to be cruel” “from the sad remembrance of our losses” (5.4.24-25). In this way, it makes perfect sense that being “discharged” of her power is “welcome in any shape.” The other option, however, would find that the resolution to the play is willfully unconvincing. With this view, readers and audiences should find Rosellia’s sacrifice of agency troubling because it so blatantly contradicts her earlier vision. Indeed, Rosellia doesn’t just give up “power,” but “joys and all” as well (5.4.97). Her concession of power brings her as much sadness as the power itself brings her. While considering Rosellia’s position can only partially support the idea that the marriages are willfully unconvincing because of this complication, the other three marriages progressively demean any possibility of a satisfying resolution. Deep problems that contradict such a resolution underlie the first marriage, between Albert and Aminta: grim psychological forces stain their relationship. At the beginning of the play, Aminta expresses her feelings regarding Albert and her situation. When Albert suggests she find comfort from the storm inside, she deems that she has no option of comfort. “Am I not circled round with misery?” (1.1.75). Albert kidnapped her from her comfort, murdering some of her friends, and left her brother and those who survived to “Fortune’s never-satisfied afflictions,” presumably stranding them at sea (1.1.79-88). Aminta is “bound to curse” and “hate” him (1.1.77-78). However, as soon as they survive the storm and safely land on the shore, Aminta turns her hatred to praise. ...and recant… those harsh opinions, Those cruel unkind thoughts I heaped upon ye. Further than that, I must forget your injuries; So far I am tied and fettered to your service.

Believe me, I will learn to love. (1.3.10-15) Importantly, her love does not come first. Rather, Albert saving her life obliges her to be “tied and fettered” to Albert’s service. She “will learn to love” him and “forget [his] injuries.” It is probably true that she does come to love him later, but it is a love that she forces upon herself as a mechanism of survival, coming to love her injurious captor in a clear example of Stockholm Syndrome. Traditionally defined as an unconscious bond formed between a captor or abuser and victim, Celia Jameson, in a 2010 study, reconsiders the possibility of Stockholm Syndrome as “a conscious coping strategy which can be understood as a form of adaptive behaviour, providing hope for the victim in an otherwise hopeless situation” (Jameson 2010). Aminta’s behavior matches this definition almost exactly. Perfectly consciously, she adopts a bond with Albert adaptively as a way of “providing hope” in her “otherwise hopeless situation,” separated from her brother and surviving friends and having no one to rely on but Albert, who has just saved her life and clearly will continue to do so: “And it shall be my practice to serve” (1.3.16), he tells her after her decision to learn to love him. She does this to preserve her life and hope. Similarly disturbingly, in the second marriage, Clarinda must settle for Raymond when Albert has clearly been the object of her affections throughout the play. When Aminta first suggests that she has “another brother,” Raymond, more suited to Clarinda’s affections than Albert, Clarinda responds harshly for her not to “abuse” her, and “be careful” of her (4.2.118-123). Clarinda never comes around to resolve this, and certainly does not forgive Aminta after finding out the truth, that Albert is Aminta’s lover rather than her brother. Clarinda’s last substantial line in the play is “Away with ‘em [Raymond and Aminta], and in dark prisons bind ‘em. / One word replied, ye die both. Now, brave mother, / Follow thy noble anger, and I’ll help thee” (4.4.36-38). Throughout the resolution of the final act, Clarinda offers no opinionated lines that would suggest she has turned from these harsh sentiments, and certainly not to the point of being willing to marry Raymond. Sebastian reads Raymond’s “suit of my Clarinda,” and decrees that “she is yours” without any consideration for or response from Clarinda (5.4.100). Readers and stage directors can only imagine a helpless, furious, Clarinda standing wordlessly to the side. Finally, Tibalt seizes the opportunity to abruptly add his marriage to Crocale to the ceremonies, without any permission from Sebastian, making a crude phallic joke in a final comedic insertion (5.4.105-107). Crocale merely responds, “You are still no changeling!”, returning his jab in a lightheart-

ed way. However, against the backdrop of the three preceding marriages, this too becomes dark. Tibalt “embraces” Crocale and claims her with explicit sexual charge, without any consideration of her will. Although Crocale does “admire” Tibalt and the Master of the Ship (4.3.73), she never explicitly implied that she desired sex or marriage with either of them. She clearly enjoys presiding over them, but in this resolution, Tibalt takes advantage of the return of patriarchal power to seize his agency over hers. So with this in mind, the seemingly happy resolution of the play turns sour. In all four marriages, the women must settle for marriage despite profound, dark, underlying complications. The ending of the play is a brutal reminder of the realities of patriarchal hegemony, and Fletcher and Massinger’s final harsh critique of the political status quo hidden behind the surface-level joy of comedy. In this way, The Sea Voyage brings to light the more realistic pragmatisms of colonialism, especially in appetites for money, food, and sex, all of which mostly lie under the surface in The Tem-

pest. Fletcher and Massinger use these appetites to invert social and political norms. They offer an exchange-oriented view of colonial economics condemning privateering and bullion-chasing as Thomas Mun does, follow Montaigne’s cultural relativism in which Christians are as cruel as cannibals, satirize noble’s privileged helplessness and possibly intend to incite class conflict in the theater space, and challenge the patriarchal status quo of male superiority in England and European Renaissance thought. The Sea Voyage brings the darkest, grittiest realities of colonialism and Early Modern English politics to light in a way that Shakespeare only hints at in The Tempest.

Works Cited

Banerjee, Rita. “Gold, Land, and Labor: Ideologies of Colonization and Rewriting The Tempest in

1622.” Studies in Philology, vol. 110, no. 2, 2013, pp. 291–317. Brown, Alison, and Jason Denman. “The Sea Voyage and Accounts of Famine in Colonial Virginia. Notes and Queries, vol. 65, no. 1, pp. 119-122. Fletcher, John and Philip Massinger. The Sea Voyage. Greenblatt, Stephen. “General Introduction.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York, W.W. Norton and Company, 2016, pp. 1-74. Jameson, Celia. 2010. “The ‘Short Step’ from Love to Hypnosis: A Reconsideration of the Stockholm Syndrome.” Journal for Cultural Research, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 337-355 Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de. “Of the Caniballes.” The Essays of Montaigne. Translated by John Florio. London, David Nutt in the Strand, 1892, pp. 217-232. Shahani, Gitanjali. “Of ‘Barren Islands’ and ‘Cursèd Gold’: Worth, Value, and Womanhood in The Sea

Voyage.” The Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 5-27. Shakespeare, William. “The Tempest.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York, W.W. Norton and Company, 2016, pp. 1737-1788. Sutherland, Julie. “‘What Beast is This Lies Wallowing in His Gore?’ The Indignity of Man and the Animal Nature of Love in The Sea Voyage.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 107, no. 1, pp. 88-107. Syme, Holger Schott. “The Theater of Shakespeare’s Time.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York, W.W. Norton and Company, 2016, pp. 93-118.