多餘之人安德魯王子他應該好好研究一下莎士比亞。
The superfluous Prince AndrewHe should have studied Shakespeare
Andrew Mountbatten Windsor: the half-buffoon prince. Credit: WPA pool / Getty Images
EpsteinPrince AndrewRoyal familyShakespearewindsors
Terry Eagleton
11 Nov 5 mins
以下是該網頁文章的繁體中文翻譯：
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多餘之人安德魯王子，他應該好好研究一下莎士比亞。
安德魯·蒙巴頓-溫莎：半個小丑王子。圖片來源：WPA pool / Getty Images
泰瑞·伊格頓
哲學家黑格爾曾說過，每一個歷史事件都會發生兩次。
卡爾·馬克思評論道，他忘了補充：第一次是悲劇，第二次是鬧劇。
安德魯王子之死（以及安德魯·蒙巴頓-溫莎的同時誕生）其中一個值得注意的面向，便是它甚至連悲劇的崇高地位都算不上。
當然，對於導致他失寵的那些事件——對年輕女性的性剝削、至少一名受害者的自殺、像吉斯蘭·麥克斯威爾所稱的「拖車垃圾」被那些極度富有與特權者所玩弄——我們不能說這是悲劇。
但蒙巴頓-溫莎先生本人，也遠非古典戲劇中的主角。
身為上流社會中的丑角，他愚蠢、極度自私、道德厚如犀牛皮，他更像是馬克思所說的鬧劇。
事實上，據說在他擔任貿易特使期間，那些不幸與他打交道的人經常用「丑角」一詞來形容他。
這並非最精確的詞彙：
《牛津英語詞典》將其定義為「一個滑稽可笑但有趣的人」——所以安德魯或許可以鬆一口氣，因為他只算半個小丑。
傳統上，那些自視過高而最終一事無成的悲劇人物，被認為是陷入了狂妄自大（hubris）的陷阱。
對古希臘人來說，狂妄自大指的是過度的驕傲或自信。
安德魯在進入預備學校時就已經是個傲慢的年輕人，後來因殺害阿根廷人而受到讚揚，讓他更加趾高氣揚。
狂妄自大的結果就是報應（nemesis），那時會有人或某事殘酷地將你打回原形。
就安德魯而言，相關的當事人多到數不清，但其中包括他最勇敢的受害者之一、他的兄長，以及——很可能——最重要的，他自己。
從哲學角度來看，希臘人大部分是理性主義者，但他們之中的悲劇詩人知道生活並非如此。
每個人都有潛在的罪過，尤其是無辜者。
這是因為古希臘人不太把罪過看作一種主觀狀態，而是一種客觀的折磨，有點像疾病或污染。
伊底帕斯是個所謂「有罪的無辜者」：
他從未有意殺父或與母親亂倫，從道德角度來看，這一點根本不重要。
事實上，令現代人驚訝的是，他從未以不知情為由為自己的行為辯解。
如果說安德魯遠非一個悲劇人物，那不僅是因為他缺乏必要的尊嚴，更是因為悲劇人物必須能引發某種同情。
亞里斯多德在論述悲劇時寫道，它能在我們心中激起憐憫與恐懼：
恐懼，是因為英雄的毀滅提醒了我們自身那令人厭惡的脆弱狀態；
憐憫，則是因為如果主角從高處墜落要能打動我們，我們就需要對他有某種同情。
如果你多半要為自己的毀滅負責——就像安德魯·蒙巴頓-溫莎的情況那樣——你就不能成為伊底帕斯或哈姆雷特。
悲劇、尊嚴、同情、憐憫、毀滅、
不知情
特權、隱藏身份
精英、認可、理性
欽佩與怨恨、尊崇與嘲諷
古典悲劇英雄
黃金法則
粗魯、霸道、自負又幼稚
伊底帕斯、無知、怪物、謀殺、亂倫
救贖
軟弱、團結
正義
安德魯所知不多。
毫無疑問，他對船舶、馬匹和可疑的商業交易有些了解，但如同他家族中幾乎所有其他人一樣，他大概從未讀過一本書。
這是他與某些古典悲劇英雄的另一個不同之處，後者的問題不是無知，而是知識過多。
以索福克里斯的伊底帕斯為例。
他是最聰明的悲劇英雄之一，尤其是因為他解開了史芬克斯的謎語，從而拯救了他的城市免於毀滅。
然而，他不知道的是他是誰，也就是說他的父母是誰。
這對安德魯來說也是如此——他當然知道父母是誰，但不知道從這個認知中應該得出什麼結論。
身為王子，你必須知道自己擁有巨大的特權，但也必須低調行事。
唯有適當謹慎，才能維持這份特權。
在民主社會中，特權透過試圖隱藏自身來存續。
據說，已故女王對她長子造訪某位不幸友人度週末時，隨行的大批廚師、僕役和多功能跟班感到震驚。
她自己則在白金漢宮到處關燈以節省電費。
如果你的精英地位沒有任何理性基礎，最終只依賴於平民百姓的認可這一不確定的東西，你就不會以可能讓他們反感的方式炫耀你的奢華生活方式。
「真正的上流社會，反而是對階級一無所知。」
相反地，你必須記住，欽佩與怨恨、尊崇與嘲諷，在公眾心中是緊密相連的。
你必須讓主權看起來像服務。
你不會公開造訪銀行——除非是食物銀行。
你不會造訪跨國公司的辦公室，而是去養老院。
安德魯的問題在於，他從未學過這條黃金法則。
粗魯、霸道、自負又幼稚，他不僅社會地位高人一等，而且實際舉止也表現得如此，這讓他那些同樣備受溺愛——卻有足夠頭腦對此保持沉默——的近親們感到不舒服。
他曾在電視上談論「我在公立學校的第一天」，好像要提醒我們他不是被送到某個貧民區的綜合學校。
真正的上流社會，反而是對階級一無所知。
伊底帕斯最終確實明白了自己有多麼無知。
他對自身起源的追尋，讓他發現了一頭怪物——而這怪物正是他自己。
他身份的根源是謀殺與亂倫，這是一種任何知識都無法驅散的黑暗。
如同安德魯，性越軌行為的揭露讓伊底帕斯身敗名裂。
在悲劇中，你必須小心你的行為，因為過去的事件可能在當下釀成災難性後果。
你以為已安全埋葬在過去的事物，可能會回來糾纏你。
你自由的作為，可能會像異己的力量一樣來與你對抗。
舊日的鬼魂拒絕安息，而是站起來為公義呼喊。
面對這一切，悲劇主角必須認識到自己是多麼脆弱與有限，只有這樣他才能得到救贖。
李爾王的帝王妄想如此根深蒂固，以至於必須經歷地獄般的磨難才能洗滌。
「他們告訴我我是一切」，這位被廢黜的國王喊道，「這是謊言——我不是百病不侵」。
被困在暴風雨中，周圍盡是傻瓜和瘋子，這位瘋狂的君主開始承認他不是一切，而是什麼都不是（「我是個非常愚蠢的糟老頭」），唯有在這種自我認知行爲中，他才能成為某種存在。
他對年輕女子——他的女兒寇蒂莉亞——造成了嚴重的傷害，但最終懺悔了自己的罪行並懇求她的原諒。
這一切在劇中都有其政治層面。了解自己的軟弱，讓李爾王能與被剝奪者產生團結感：
拿出威風來吧，驕傲的人們；
讓自己感受苦難者的感受……
如此多餘的財富應被分配，
每個人都該擁有足夠的一份。
我們無法想像安德魯一早醒來會說出這些話，財政大臣大概也不會。
莎士比亞在《李爾王》中寫道，「多餘而縱慾的人」必須改變心態，「將過多的財富分給」窮人。
過度的財富與特權，會將身體隔離於他人的痛苦之外。
用「多餘而縱慾的人」來形容某些人現在對這位前王子的看法，並不算是個壞的描述。
我們有些人本來就認為王子是多餘的，所以「多餘的王子」這個詞就像「商業倫理」是個矛盾的修辭一樣，是同義反覆。
但安德魯將其推向極致。
現在，可怕的是，他似乎完全沒有任何存在的目的——是人類需求之外的多餘物。
這確實是那種可能導致悲劇的可悲處境。
但正義之中沒有任何悲劇可言。
無論他從今以後的人生多麼徒勞，他已經得到了應有的報應。
他的心仍在跳動，這比維吉尼亞·吉佛瑞強多了。
查爾斯國王對於他最愛的吟遊詩人的傑作可能被解讀為宣揚某種共產主義——甚至社會民主主義——的暗示，無疑會感到痛苦。
他曾因為認為我對雅芳天鵝（指莎士比亞）不夠尊崇，而稱我為「那個可怕的泰瑞·伊格頓」。
即便如此，他最好還是讓他那不成材的弟弟把這部作品列為必讀，同時剝奪他的住所與頭銜。
泰瑞·伊格頓是評論家、文學理論家，也是《UnHerd》專欄作家。
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5 則留言
Paddy Taylor
5小時前
即使是像泰瑞·伊格頓這樣可怕的馬克思主義老頭，也應該對大英帝國更活躍的日子感到一絲懷念——那時，尷尬的親戚可以被塞上蒸汽輪船，送到某個蒼蠅橫飛的偏遠前哨，遠離上流社會的客廳。沒有人想要安德魯待在溫莎或桑德靈厄姆，甚至巴爾莫勒爾也不歡迎。沒錯，王室已經丟掉了大部分帝國的裝飾品，但抽屜最深處肯定還留著某個滿是鳥糞、沒有Wi-Fi的環礁的地契，他那貪婪的妻子和他可以被安置在那裡，遠離是非。然後就揮手告別，讓他們雙雙消失在應得的默默無聞中。
👍6 👎0 回覆
Martin M
1小時前
回覆 Paddy Taylor
可惜英國不再管理麥當勞群島和赫德群島了。那裡的企鵝們倒可以有一位總督。
👍1 👎0 回覆
David Lindsay
5小時前
既然安德魯王子的位置出現了空缺，那麼應該由安德魯·帕克·鮑爾斯來填補。請注意，就像在泰恩河畔紐卡素一樣，帕克·鮑爾斯之間沒有連字號。安德魯·蒙巴頓·溫莎中也沒有。然而，他的姪女和姪子是姓蒙巴頓-溫莎，儘管他們有權使用殿下、公主和王子等頭銜——這已經比他們的叔叔強多了。他們應該善用他們的稱號。阿奇王子和莉莉貝特公主之前也曾是蒙巴頓-溫莎，哦，後來由於他們父母的那什麼事——儘管這位在美國出生的公主，在2076年迎接她的表弟國王喬治七世到白宮參加三百週年慶典時，早已改名叫莉莉·馬克爾很久了。
伊麗莎白二世將蒙巴頓-溫莎定為需要姓氏的後代的姓氏。儘管安妮公主在她第一次婚禮的登記簿上使用了蒙巴頓-溫莎簽名，但她的兄長似乎只被授予蒙巴頓作為近乎中間名的名字，以紀念遠房親戚，好像這就是他與菲利普親王關係的全部。事實上，安德魯怎麼會只是個「先生」？作為公爵的幼子，他怎麼不是安德魯·蒙巴頓·溫莎勳爵？這一切到底意味著什麼？
👍1 👎0 回覆
J Bryant
2小時前
回覆 David Lindsay
優秀的貼文。作為一個美國局外人看待這整場騷動，我不禁想知道君主制——更廣泛地說，貴族階級——除了作為粗魯的美國人的旅遊景點外，還有什麼意義？帝國早已煙消雲散。事實上，大多數英國人似乎樂於貶低他們的前帝國。那麼，公爵/公爵夫人，或勳爵/夫人，在現代世界除了突顯一個前殖民強權悲慘的經濟困境之外，還有什麼意義呢？
👍1 👎0 回覆
Bret Larson
4小時前
可悲的泰瑞。她為什麼自殺？也許她讀了你的一篇論文？
最後編輯 4 小時前
👍1 👎 -1 回覆
The philosopher Hegel wrote that every historical event happens twice. Karl Marx commented that he forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. One of the notable aspects of the death of Prince Andrew, and the simultaneous birth of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, is that it doesn’t even have the grand status of tragedy. While we can’t say that, to be sure, of the events which caused his fall from grace: the sexual exploitation of young women and girls, the suicide of at least one of these victims, the cynical abuse of what Ghislaine Maxwell called “trailer trash” by the over-rich and over-privileged. But Mr Mountbatten Windsor himself is far from the protagonist of a classical drama. As a species of upper-class buffoon, dim-witted, ruthlessly self-interested and with the moral hide of a rhinoceros, he is closer to the farce of which Marx speaks. In fact, it’s said that “buffoon” was a word regularly used of him by those with the ill luck to encounter him when he was a trade envoy. It’s not the most exact of terms: the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as “a ridiculous but amusing person” — so Andrew may be relieved to know that he’s a half-buffoon only.
Tragic figures who overreach themselves and come to nothing are traditionally said to fall prey to hubris: for the ancient Greeks excessive pride or self-assurance. Andrew was already an arrogant young puppy by the time he arrived at prep school, and later had his head swollen even further by being applauded for killing Argentinians. The result of hubris is nemesis, when someone or other cuts you savagely down to size. In Andrew’s case, the agents in question are too numerous to count, but they include one of the most courageous of his victims, his elder brother and — probably above all — himself.
Philosophically speaking, the Greeks were for the most part rationalists, but the tragedians among them knew that life didn’t work like that. Everyone was potentially guilty, not least the innocent. This was because the ancient Greeks saw guilt less as a subjective state than an objective affliction, rather like illness or pollution. Oedipus is a so-called guilty innocent: the fact that he never intended to kill his father, or have sex with his mother, is morally speaking neither here nor there. In fact, he never once justifies his actions by pleading ignorance, to the amazement of the modern mind.
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If Andrew is far from a tragic figure, it isn’t only because he lacks the necessary dignity, but because tragic figures must evoke some kind of sympathy. Aristotle writes of tragedy as evoking in us both pity and fear: fear because the destruction of the hero reminds us of our own sickeningly fragile state, and pity because we need to have some sympathy for the protagonist if his plunge from a great height is to move us. You can’t be an Oedipus or a Hamlet if you’re mostly responsible for your own undoing, as is the case with Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
Andrew doesn’t know very much. No doubt he has some knowledge of ships, horses and dubious commercial dealing, but like almost all of the rest of his family, he’s probably never read a book. This is another way in which he differs from certain classical tragic heroes, whose problem isn’t ignorance but an excess of knowledge. Take Sophocles’s Oedipus, for instance. He is one of the smartest of tragic heroes, not least because he solves the riddle of the Sphinx, by doing so saves his city from destruction. What he doesn’t know, however, is who he is, which is to say who his parents are.
This is also true of Andrew, who of course knows who his parents are but not what ought to follow from this knowledge. To be a prince is to know that you have enormous privilege, but also that you must play it down. You can only maintain it by being suitably discreet about it. In a democratic society, entitlement survives by seeking to conceal itself. The late Queen was said to be horrified by the retinue of cooks, footmen and multi-purpose lackeys that accompanied her eldest son when he descended on some unfortunate friend for a weekend party. She herself went around Buckingham Palace switching off lights to save electricity. If your elite status has no rational foundation whatsoever, but depends in the end on nothing more substantial than the approval of the common people, you don’t flaunt your luxurious lifestyle in ways likely to alienate them.
“To be truly upper-class, by contrast, is to be ignorant of class altogether.”
Instead, you keep in mind the fact that admiration and resentment, veneration and derision, lie cheek-by-jowl in the public mind. You have to make sovereignty look like service. You don’t make public visits to banks, unless they’re food banks. You don’t descend on the offices of transnational corporations but on old people’s homes. Andrew’s problem is that he never learnt this golden rule. Rude, bullying, pompous and infantile, he wasn’t only socially superior but actually behaved as though he was, which makes life uncomfortable for those close relations of his who are just as pampered as he — but have the nous to keep quiet about it. He once talked on television about “my first day at public school”, as though to remind us that he wasn’t sent to a back-street comprehensive. To be truly upper-class, by contrast, is to be ignorant of class altogether.
Oedipus does finally come to how little he knows. His search for his own origins leads him to uncover a monster which is no less than himself. At the root of his identity lie murder and incest, a darkness that no mere knowledge can dispel. As with Andrew, the revelation of a sexual transgression brings Oedipus low. In tragedy, you have to be careful what you do, because past events can breed calamitous consequences in the present. What you thought safely buried in the past can return to haunt you. Your own free actions can come to confront you as alien forces. Old ghosts refuse to lie quiet, but rise up to cry out for justice. In the face of this, the tragic protagonist must come to recognise just how frail and finite he is, and only then can he be redeemed.
Lear’s regal delusions run so deep that he has to be hauled through hell for them to be purged. “They told me I was everything”, cries the dethroned king, “’tis a lie — I am not ague-proof”. Caught in a storm, surrounded by fools and madmen, the lunatic monarch comes to acknowledge that he is not everything but nothing (“I am a very foolish fond old man”), and only in this act of self-knowledge can he become something. He has done grave harm to a young woman, his daughter Cordelia, but comes to repent of his crime and beg her forgiveness.
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All this has a political dimension in the play. Knowing his own weakness allows Lear to feel solidarity with the dispossessed:
Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel…
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough.
These are not words one imagines Andrew wakes up with on his lips, or indeed the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Shakespeare writes in Lear that the“superfluous and lust-dieted man” must have a change of heart and “shake the superflux” to the poor. Excessive wealth and privilege insulate the body from the afflictions of others. A superfluous and lust-dieted man isn’t a bad description of how some now view the former prince. There are those of us who believe that princes are superfluous anyway, so that the phrase “a superfluous prince” is as much a tautology as “business ethics” is an oxymoron; but Andrew has taken that to an extreme. He would now seem, frighteningly, to have absolutely no purpose in being around the place — to be surplus to the needs of humanity. That is indeed the kind of forlorn condition which might lend itself to tragedy. But there’s nothing tragic about justice. However futile his life from here on, he has got his comeuppance. His heart is still beating, which is more than can be said for Virginia Giuffre.
King Charles would no doubt be pained by the suggestion that the finest work of his beloved Bard might be read as promoting some kind of communism, or even social democracy. He once called me “that dreadful Terry Eagleton” because he thought that I didn’t venerate the Swan of Avon sufficiently. Even so, he would have done well to make the work required reading for his delinquent brother, alongside stripping him of his house and titles.
Terry Eagleton is a critic, literary theorist, and UnHerd columnist.
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Paddy Taylor
5 hours ago
Even a dreadful old Marxist like Terry Eagleton should feel a pang of nostalgia for the brisker days of Empire, when awkward relations could be bundled aboard a steamer and dispatched to some fly-blown outpost, far from the drawing rooms of polite society.
No one wants Andrew at Windsor or Sandringham, not even Balmoral.
True, the Crown has shed most of its imperial baubles, but surely there lingers in the bottom drawer a deed to some guano-bespattered atoll, with no wi-fi, where he and his grasping wife might be parked out of harm’s way.
Then just wave them both off to richly deserved obscurity.
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Martin M
1 hour ago
Reply to Paddy Taylor
It is a pity that Britain no longer administers the Macdonald and Heard Islands. The penguins there could do with a Governor General.
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David Lindsay
5 hours ago
Now that there is a vacancy for the position of Prince Andrew, then it should be filled by Andrew Parker Bowles. Note that, as in Newcastle upon Tyne, there is no hyphen in Parker Bowles. Nor in Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. Yet his niece and nephew are Mountbatten-Windsor, although they would be entitled to use Her and His Royal Highness, Princess and Prince, as is more than can any longer be said for their uncle. They should avail themselves of their Styles and Titles.
Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet were also Mountbatten-Windsor before, oh, something or other about those parents of theirs, although the Princess, born in the United States, will long have been going by Lily Markle when she welcomed her first cousin, King George VII, to the White House for the Tercentenary in 2076. Elizabeth II made Mountbatten-Windsor the surname of her descendants in need of one. Although Princess Anne used Mountbatten-Windsor to sign the register at her first wedding, her brother seems to have been given Mountbatten almost as a middle name in honour of distant relatives, as if that were the extent of his connection to Prince Philip. Indeed, how is Andrew a mere Mister? As the younger son of a Duke, how is he not Lord Andrew Mountbatten Windsor? What does it all mean?
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J Bryant
2 hours ago
Reply to David Lindsay
Excellent post. Viewing all this kerfuffle as an American outsider, I can’t help wondering what is the point of the monarchy and, more generally, the aristocracy–except, perhaps, as tourist attractions for gauche Americans? The empire is long, long gone. Indeed, most Brits seem to enjoy disparaging their former Empire.
So what does Duke/Duchess, or Lord/Lady mean in the modern world, except to highlight the tragic economic plight of a former colonial power?
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Bret Larson
4 hours ago
Pathetic Terry. Why did she commit suicide?
Maybe she read one of your essays?
Last edited 4 hours ago by Bret Larson
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