Fools and the Rhythm of Time

       To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,

       Thereby to see the minutes of how they run,

       How many makes the hour full complete;

       How many hours brings about the day;

       How many years a mortal man may live.

       When this is known, then to divide the times.

Northrop Frye quotes this speech from Henry IV in Fools of Time, to explain the significance that the 'rhythm' of time plays in our understanding of fate in Shakespearean tragedy.

He begins with a clarification of what the word "fool" means in Shakespeare "when used in direct connection with time, nature, or fortune", which is, "essentially the person to whom things happen, the one who cannot control events". In tragedy, the successful ruler is one who embodies a combination of nature and fortune (or de jure and de facto power), or whose "fortune is better synchronized with the natural course of events". Some may equate this to the powers of fate, but as Frye suggests, that would be to over-simplify the concept. 

These successful rulers are contrasted to other figures in tragedy, such as the tragic rebel or the traitor. These figures commit themselves primarily to fortune alone, disregarding the rhythms of nature and natural courses of events that would help to determine their fate, so to speak. Once the decision is made to commit an act, once their will becomes a force, they have "broken through the continuity of time" and no longer occupy the present, but rather a hallucinatory state somewhere between the future movement and the past. This movement, as Frye notes, certainly intercedes into the affairs of men, but is NOT "the instrument of nature, whose rhythms, if often destructive and terrible, are always leisurely".

This contrasts to the successful ruler, who "experiences time as the rhythm of his actions". He occupies an immediate past and immediate future, doing things when it is time to do them, devoid of anxiety or regret, because "he acts as an agent or instrument for the decisions of nature". 

The reason I found this to be particularly relevant today, was because Frye connects Henry IV's lament with the interaction between Touchstone and Jaques in Act II Scene 7, lines 12-34

     "Call me not a fool till heaven hath sent me fortune."

     And then he drew a dial from his poke, 

     And looking on it with lackluster eye,

     Says very wisely, "It is ten o' clock.

     Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags.

     'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,

     And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;

     And so, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;

     And thereby hangs a tale."

In both of these passages the concept of time as a real entity, not as some abstraction to be ignored or fought against, is symbolic of a higher order of nature. The cycle of nature is more telling that the cycles that take place within history. Though history is indicative of the passions and instincts of man, it is not the ultimate order within which our 'fate' is submitted. To live synchronistically with the flow of time, to occupy a state of consciousness but also submission,  is to elevate oneself and all subsequent actions to a course that is purely natural. Therein then lies a sense of immortality among a very real, growing, and decaying mortality.

The concept of the pastoral is irremovable then from the discussion of the rhythm of time. Depicting visions of a simpler, more natural world, it stimulates questions about the merits of a contemplative lifestyle versus an active, decisive one. The setting of As You Like It is obviously then very telling. And though far from the tragedies Frye is outlining, begs the reader's consideration of these questions of mortality, 'fate', and the action of the characters.