“…yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” –Ulysses, James Joyce
In any discussion of the “no,” it seems worthwhile to consider the opposite, as a point of reference.
The most famous “yes” in Western literature is the last word of James Joyce’s landmark seven-hundred-plus-page novel. It is a yes about which essays and, no doubt, books have been written. It is an expansive yes, a warm-blooded, open-armed yes, spoken by the character Molly Bloom—the novel’s “Penelope” to Leopold Bloom’s “Ulysses”—a yes that, at once, invites and suggests a universe. And yet, it is, also, an end—the end. To a very long novel. A satisfactory finish after which a reader, having at last come to this point, can with a smile close the book. “Yes” doesn’t lead to questions. It doesn’t provoke action or invite further development. It suggests acceptance, resolution, perhaps even happiness…if not exactly happily ever after.
If a word of affirmation can resoundingly conclude a great story, what might a word of negation do? Those who have read books about the craft of writing fiction already know one answer. The no, counterintuitively, is what makes so many stories go. A character wants something. If she gets that something immediately, by simply asking for it, the story ends; or, rather, there is no story. Alternately, a character is told, “no”—whether by an inner voice or another person, or by society, or by the gods, or by nature; that person must then overcome her antagonist, an opposing force or forces, to get what she wants or needs, and the story is made. The struggle, the overcoming the no, is the story; and the resolution is how things turn out in the end. The yes.
With very little ado, Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra serves up (as if upon a platter of delights) a wonderful and enticing buffet of no’s right at the beginning, spending most of Act I, Scene I, on the pleasures of denial. The play’s very first word, spoken by Philo is—serendipitous for me—“Nay”!
Line one and two: “Nay, but this dotage of our general’s / O’erflows the measure …”
Philo speaks to Demetrius, in Cleopatra’s palace, about their mutual friend Mark Antony, a great warrior and descendent of Hercules, whose “dotage” involves excessive indulgences in the pleasures of the flesh provided by the beautiful and sensuous Egyptian queen. Philo would have his general back as the brave commander he has been in times past, rather than this “strumpet’s fool,” who languishes in love. This is Philo’s wish, though not explicitly spoken. The answer, expressed by the scene to follow, is this: no.
Antony and Cleopatra enter. We are only ten lines in. Their exchange speaks to the theme:
Cleopatra: “If it be love indeed, tell me how much.”
Antony: “There’s beggary in the love that can be
reckon’d.”
Antony denies the queen; in this, we hear from him his first no. He will not satisfy her question. To give her the measure of his love, a finite figure or amount, would be the end of this game or story, and they both want their love play to continue. As they verbally tussle in debate, a messenger arrives: word from Rome for Antony. He doesn’t want to hear it, knowing it comes either from Cesar or his own wife, Fulvia—messages from neither expected to be good news and likely to disturb his pleasure. A no allows him to forestall disruption.
Naturally provocative, Cleopatra pushes, with yet another no to meet his own:
“Nay, hear them, Antony.
Fulvia perchance is angry; or who knows
If the scarce-bearded Cesar have not sent
His pow’rful mandate to you: ‘Do this, or this;
Take in that kingdom, and enfranchise that;
Perform’t, or else we damn thee.’” (I. i., 23)
Antony demurs. Cleopatra insists: “You must not stay here longer…Call in the messengers…” He says, no, yet again; more colorfully:
“Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the rang’d empire fall! Here is my space,
Kingdoms are clay…
…the nobleness of life
Is to do thus [embracing Cleopatra]…” (37)
His no prolongs the banquet of their lovemaking.
Cleopatra, still unsatisfied, unconvinced or wishing to hear more, dismisses his words: “Excellent falsehood!” This pulls from him his most exuberant protestation:
“But stirr’d by Cleopatra.
Now for the love of Love, and her soft hours,
Let’s not confound the time with conference harsh;
There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch
Without some pleasure now. What sport to-night?” (47)
She prods, a final time: “Hear the ambassadors.” But he refuses still, and says: “No messenger but thine, and all alone, / To-night we’ll wander through the streets….” And, to the messenger who lingers: “Speak / not to us.” So saying, they exit, followed by the messenger, who will get no satisfaction, no answer on that night. And we, the audience, must wait, and wonder upon that message—and what comes next.