Where the Bad Guy Wins. I Hate It

The Borderers by William Wordsworth
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this out of a very old Collected Works of Wordsworth volume, one sufficiently large that many of the pages are still connected at the edge and have to be cut apart. It's most fun to read old stuff that way, I think, and I kinda enjoyed reading this, Wordsworth's only play. But I didn't love it. Especially the end.

The language, unsurprisingly, is wonderful and very readable. Both poetic and comprehensible even on first read, it's a pleasure to peruse leisurely. There's some nice stuff there, if one has a mind to delve into it.

Unfortunately, I don't like the story. Forgive the spoilers (or don't), but this is a depressing tragedy that leaves us with nothing beautiful or hopeful to hold on to, like taking a beating for no good reason. Oswaldo, a cruel Iago-type trickster, a man whose conscience was blasted by things he did in war, wants to ruin the heroic Marmaduke in the same way; he wants him to commit a crime he can never recover from, and lies and tricks him, coercing false witnesses to complete the deception. With a whole collection of proofs, Oswaldo makes the hero believe that a certain kind old man he knew--Herbert, a blind, dispossessed old noble with a sweet daughter that Marmaduke is in love with--is actually a kidnapper, stealing the girl from her mother in her infancy. All invented. The hero believes it in the end, and when the old man is in his hands he allows him to be lost in the wasteland near the Scottish border. (He meant to kill him with his own hands, but couldn't go that far.) The hero learns the truth too late, repents in anguish, and attempts to rescue the weak old man from the brutal wilderness where he left him. It is too late, though, and Herbert has died. All this happens just as his lands were about to be restored to him and sweet, doting Idonea at last made happy.

The conclusion? Marmaduke renounces all happiness, resolving to wander the land with only the ghost of the murdered man as company:

No human ear shall ever hear me speak;
No human dwelling ever give me food,
Or sleep, or rest: but, over waste and wild,
In search of nothing, that this earth can give,
But expiation, will I wander on—
A Man by pain and thought compelled to live,
Yet loathing life—till anger is appeased
In Heaven, and Mercy gives me leave to die.

I hate sad, tragic, dismal endings like this and will not make room for them in my heart. (Othello kills the faithful and sweet Desdemona? Iago wins? Jesus, Grandpa! What did you read me this thing for?) Honestly, though, with a happy ending, I woulda given this 4 or 5 stars. And I might have read it again.

Not much recommended. A little.

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