Aria da Capo & What Makes a Man Powerful?

The Beginning Fight: Who Will Have Contempt First?

In "What Caused the Wars," Eli Siegel explains:

In the unconscious, dear unknown friends, it is the other person who will have accomplished contempt for you unless you have first contempt for him.

This is what Aria da Capo illustrates. Corydon suggests that he and Thyrsis make up a song about a lamb, and then Edna St. Vincent Millay introduces a theatrical device that will be throughout. Thyrsis forgets his next line. Cothurnus, as stage manager, holds the prompt book and prods him on:

Thyrsis:  I have forgotten my line.

Cothurnus: (Prompting.) "I know a game worth two of that."

Thyrsis:  Oh, yes....I know a game worth two of that:
Let's gather rocks, and build a wall between us;
And say that over there belongs to me,
And over here to you!

Corydon:  Why - very well.
And say you may not come upon my side
Unless I say you may!

Thyrsis:  Nor you on mine!
And if you should, 'twould be the worse for you!

Corydon:  Come, let us separate
...and lay a plot whereby
We may out do each other.

An imaginary wall is made and they sit, each on his side of it, but soon Thyrsis says:

Thyrsis:  ...in spite of the fact
I started it myself, I do not like this so very much.
...I'd much prefer Making the little song you spoke of
About the lamb...

Corydon:  I have forgotten the line.

Cothurnus:  [prompting] "How do I know this isn't a trick."

Corydon:  Oh, yes....How do I know this isn't a trick
To get upon my land?

The subtext here could be "How do I know you're not trying to have contempt for me? Maybe I better have contempt for you first." What happens from this point on in the play is described by Eli Siegel when he writes in The Right Of #165 about "the fear of contempt for ourselves making for an accelerated desire to have contempt for someone else":

Corydon:  Oh, Thyrsis, just a minute!-all of the water
Is on your side the wall, and the sheep are thirsty.
I hadn't thought of that.

Thyrsis:  Oh, hadn't you?

Corydon:  Why, what do you mean?

Thyrsis:  What do I mean? - I mean
That I can play a game as well as you can.
And if the pool is on my side, it's on
My side, that's all.

Corydon:  You mean you'd let the sheep go thirsty?

Thyrsis:  ...if you try
To lead them over here, you'll wish you hadn't!
The two men grow increasingly suspicious and angry. But then they feel awful.

Thyrsis says:
Thyrsis:  It is an ugly game. I hate it....How did it start?

Corydon:  I do not know...I think
I am afraid of you!-you are a stranger! I never set eyes on you before!

So this seemingly innocent game has become a deadly contest, and only Aesthetic Realism explains how this happens—in a play or in life. That brutal thing in the self that can make us see another person as an inimical stranger, someone to be defeated, vanquished, is contempt. It makes a person vicious, and it is crucial that people study Aesthetic Realism—the only education which understands, can grapple with and change that hope for contempt to an honest desire to know and be kind.

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