Tamils and Shakespeare attack Dogs! (Post No.13,679)

WRITTEN BY LONDON SWAMINATHAN

Post No. 13,679

Date uploaded in London – 17 September 2024                 

Contact – swami_48@yahoo.com

Pictures are taken from various sources for spreading knowledge.

this is a non- commercial blog. Thanks for your great pictures.

tamilandvedas.com, swamiindology.blogspot.com

https://www.pustaka.co.in/home/author/london-swaminathan

xxxx  

 Tamils and Shakespeare attack Dogs! (Post No.13,679)

Shakespeare hated dogs. He used it more than 200 times in his plays and sonnets. Tamil poets also showed dogs in very bad light. Rarely they mentioned its grateful behaviour. One very old hero stone inscription mentioned even the name of the grateful dog Kovithan, which saved the Tamil town 1000 years ago. Rig Veda, Mahabhrata and Valmiki Ramayana have dog stories, mostly with positive connotations.

Tamil saint cum poet Tirumular used dog more than 10 times which have shown its lowest status in Tamil society. Tamils treated the pigs in the same way. 2000-year-old Sangam Tamil literature praised Brahmin streets as clean streets where even dogs and hens could not enter. Bhagavad Gita (5-18) says the learned scholars treat equally the Brahmins, elephant, cow (all holy), the dog and the dog eaters (lowest in Hindu society). But we read in newspapers that South Koreans eat one million dogs every year.

In Sanskrit literature, donkeys are more laughed at and treated with contempt.

Like Tirumular, Manikavasagar one of the great Four Saivite Saints, compared himself to a dog 62 times. Actually, he wanted to represent the common man in his poems Tiruvasagam, though he was a great saint.

****

Shakespeare was attacked for his unsympathetic treatment of animals, particularly dogs, in his great works. They say that he never wrote anything good about dogs. Let us look at some examples:

Popular Psychology magazine says in its article,

Psychology today 2015 article

None of the bard’s characters ever said a kind word about a dog.

It isn’t that people in Shakespeare’s works never mention dogs. On the contrary, the word dog appears nearly 200 times, with another 27 for cur (mutt); 53 for hound; five for brach (a female dog); and three for bitch. For comparison, Shakespeare’s people say England 271 times—so dogs are a pretty popular topic around the Shakespearean water cooler.

But what stands out in Shakespeare’s references to dogs is that they are nearly all insults.

 “Whoreson dog” (Cymbeline, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida);

“Slave, soulless villain, dog” (Anthony & Cleopatra);

“egregious dog? O viper vile!” (Henry V);

“cut throat dog” (Merchant of Venice); to name just a few.

Often it is insult enough just to liken a person to a dog. When Richard III is killed at the end of the play of that name, victorious Richmond proclaims,

“God and your arms be praised, victorious friends,/ The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.”

Article Writer Clive D. L. Wynne, Ph.D., is Professor in Psychology at Arizona State University, USA, continues………

I know only two Shakespeare plays where a dog appears on stage.

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Starveling, one of the peasants who performs an amateurish play to amuse King Theseus and his friends, comes on stage and announces:

“All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the
lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this
thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.”

I read this presence of a dog, announced but unnamed, to underline Starveling’s foolishness: What idiot stands on a stage with three clearly visible objects and enumerates them?

The other Shakespeare play with a role for a dog, is considered the bard’s earliest work. In Two Gentleman of Verona, Launce, a comical servant, often refers to his dog, Crab. In a famous speech, Launce explains how, when Crab is caught pissing under a banquet table,

“all the chamber smelt him. ‘Out with the dog!’ says
one: ‘What cur is that?’ says another: ‘Whip him
out’ says the third: ‘Hang him up’ says the duke.
I, having been acquainted with the smell before,
knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that
whips the dogs: ‘Friend,’ quoth I, ‘you mean to whip
the dog?’ ‘Ay, marry, do I,’ quoth he. ‘You do him
the more wrong,’ quoth I; ”twas I did the thing you
wot of.’ He makes me no more ado, but whips me out
of the chamber. How many masters would do this for
his servant?”

****

Another writer Fred Lanting who is known to us as a “dog man” (worldwide judge, trainer, lecturer) and author of many books on dogs says,

In Julius Caesar we have the famous “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war”—he was familiar with the use the Romans put to the Mastiff types in conquering much of the known ancient world. And when conspirators murdered Caesar, they “fawn’d like hounds, and… the damned Casca, like a cur, behind struck Caesar on the neck.”

Helena, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream says: “I am your spaniel, and the more you beat me, I will fawn on you. Use me but as your spaniel—spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me. Only give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you. What worser place can I beg in your love—and yet a place of high respect with me—than to be used as you use your dog?” In Othello, a whipping was seen as one way to feign strength and threaten others: “…a punishment more in policy than in malice even as one would beat his offense less dog to affright an imperious lion.”

Some dogs were likened to a “wolf in greediness, a dog in madness” (Tragedy of King Lear). Many others were seen as fawning and as cheap as melting candy, such as described in Henry IV: “What a candy deal of courtesy this fawning greyhound then did proffer me.” And in Anthony and Cleopatra, as the hero’s followers abandon him, he complains that “the hearts that spaniel’d me at heels, to whom I gave their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets on blossoming Caesar; and this pine is bark’d that overtopped them all.” The imagery of candy likened to fawning, groveling, sweetness is repeated elsewhere: Hamlet says to Horatio: “Why should the poor be flattered? No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, and crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, where advantage may follow fawning.” Another allusion is in King Lear: “They flattered me like a dog.”

****

Tamil Poets say,

I have given already some examples from Tirumanthiram of Tamil saint Tirumular and Naladiyar by anonymous Jain Saints of Tamil Nadu. Let us look at more examples from Tamil Neethi Venba wich is anthology by an anonymous author/s

Have you heard anyone that bites the dog back which bit a person in a rage? No.Like wise the learned will never abuse anyone even if the person schodls him—from Naladiyar

1.நாயைக் கடிப்பவன் உண்டா?

 கூர்த்துநாய் கெளவிக் கொளக்கண்டும் தம்வாயாற்

பேர்த்துநாய் கெளவினார் ஈங்கில்லை – நீர்த்தன்றிக்

கீழ்மக்கள் கீழாய சொல்லியக்காற் சொல்பவோ

மேன்மக்கள் தம்வாயால் மீட்டு.—நாலடியார்

****

Will anyone drink the milk of a dog? No. In the same way the wealth of a bad person will be enjoyed only by the bad people; they force him to give the money-Neethi Venba

 2.பாவிதனந் தண்டிப்போர் பாலாகும் அல்லதருள்

மேவுசிவன் அன்பர்பால் மேவாதே – ஓவியமே!

நாயின்பால் அத்தனையும் நாய்தனக்காம் அன்றியே

தூயவருக் காகுமோ சொல். 63– நீதி வெண்பா

XXXX

The dog that relishes bones and flesh hates sweets cooked in ghee. Likewise, the advice given by good people to the bad ones will be rejected –Neethi Venba

3.கன்மமே பூரித்த காயத்தோர் தம்செவியில்

தன்மநூல் புக்காலுந் தங்காதே – சன்மமெலும்(பு)

உண்டு சமிக்கும்நாய் ஊண்ஆவின் நெய்யதனை

உண்டு சமிக்குமோ ஓது. 80– நீதி வெண்பா

****

Bad women trap men and make babies, and the men are bitten by the doglike children. –Neethi Venba

ஆசையெனும் பாசத்தால் ஆடவர்தஞ் சிந்தைதனை

வீசுமனை யாந்தறியில் வீழ்த்தியே – மாசுபுரி

மாயா மனைவியரா மக்கள் மகவென்னும்

நாயாற் கடிப்பித்தல் நாடு. – நீதி வெண்பா

*****

Starving Syrians milk the dogs! Better than South Koreans who eat one million dogs every year.

One can cross a shallow river by holding the tail of a cow; have you seen anyone holding the tail of a dog to cross the river? None. Likewise stick to your own wife and children instead of going to other women

5.உற்றபெருஞ் சுற்றம் உறநன் மனைவியுடன்

பற்றிமிக வாழ்க பசுவின்வால் – பற்றி

நதிகடத்த லன்றியே நாயின்வால் பற்றி

நதிகடத்தல் உண்டோ நவில். 11 —நீதி வெண்பா

****

Tamil Proverbs against Dogs

Can anyone straighten the tail of a dog?

Can we use the dog skin to make shoes?

Why do you beat the dog? Why do you clean its poo?

If the dog barks it is not dawning; but if the cock…..

Does the dog know the taste of coconut?

Even if the dog runs fast, can it beat a horse?

Even if you bathe the dog and keeps it in the hall, it will run for the refuse on the street

Struggling like a dog

Dog is a grateful animal.

நாய்த் தோல் செருப்பு ஆகுமா?

நாய் நன்றியுள்ள பிராணி

நாயை அடிப்பானேன் ஃஃஃஃ சுமப்பானேன்

நாய் குரைத்து விடியுமா? கோழி கூவி விடியுமா?

நாய்க்குத் தெரியுமா தேங்காய் ருசி?

நாய் வாலை நிமிர்த்த முடியுமா?

நாய் நாலு காதம் ஓடினாலும் குதிரை வேகம் ஆகுமா?

நாய் பட்ட பாடு

****

Previous articles :

Tamil View on Biting Dogs and Barking Dogs! (Post No.13,672)  

Post No. 13,672

Date uploaded in London – 15 September 2024         

And

You will be born as a Dog Tamil Saint Tirumular Warns! (Post No.13,766)  

Post No. 13,676

Date uploaded in London – 16 September 2024           

–subham—

Tags- Tamils, on dogs, Shakespeare, proverbs,