Interlude 5
“Uti and Frui Again”
Here is the St. Augustine teacher/lecturer, Robert Royal, on the distinction between the two loves, uti and frui:
“St. Augustine, for instance, reminds us that whether we have great wealth or little, possess many things or few, are powerful or influential, weak or unknown, isn’t really important. And isn’t good or evil, as such. What’s important is whether we order our lives – all we have and do – towards God. Or not.
The classic way of putting this, which may seem strange at first sight, is that we should be “using,” not “enjoying,” created goods. But wait, you might object. Aren’t we meant simply to enjoy what God made, and isn’t “using” them cold and calculating?
Yes, if that was what the tradition taught. But the teaching is actually the opposite. “Enjoy” in this Christian perspective really means to seek pleasure in things as a final end and to try to increase and hold on to them come hell or high water, which also blinds us from seeing further. (Tolkien called this the “dragon sickness.”) By contrast, “use” means to experience them as the goods that they are. And they are only truly good for us when we see them not as ends in themselves, but as helps towards our ultimate fulfillment.
In De Doctrina Christiana (“On Christian Doctrine”), St. Augustine puts it like this: “For to enjoy (Lat., frui) a thing is to rest with satisfaction in it for its own sake. To use (uti), on the other hand, is to employ whatever means are at one’s disposal to obtain what one desires, if it is a proper object of desire; for an unlawful use ought rather to be called an abuse.”
[Robert Royal; The Catholic Thing ; Monday, 11/28/22]
The question then for the interlude would be if there was any applicability here for Godric? Godric has a sword, a gem in his pocket, a horse (though not really his), a companion in an odd ontological condition (yes, Philip the crow) and the whole adventure/quest/pilgrimage/journey is toward another: Elesandra, (according to the imp), the ontologically equal other, presumably. In a way, the horse, Aspen, was given to him to use until the adventure was complete. There’s no holding on to the horse beyond its current use; using the horse properly means giving her up once the journey ends. As I understand it, according to St. Augustine letting go ought to be the attitude toward all things. Secure the reins; free the horse to return whence she came.
Since we have a Wizard in this story, he has made me think of the wizard/magician in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Prospero. After recalling all the power he has manifested through his “rough magic,” and that power has been extensive as he describes it, he vows to give it up: he will break his staff, the means for channeling his power, and bury it deep within the earth, and then “I’ll drown my book.” Here he describes how extensive his power has been and still is:
“to the dread rattling thunder/ Have I given fire, and rifted Jove’s stout oak /With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory/ Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up/The pine and cedar. /Graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ’em forth /By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure; and when I have required /Some heavenly music—which even now I do— /To work mine end upon their senses that /This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, /Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, /And deeper than did ever plummet sound I’ll drown my book.”
Prospero had earlier abused his study of magic, attending to it when he should have been attending his political responsibilities as Duke of Milan. His abuse thus led to his political overthrow and his and his daughter’s exile on the island. Recounting the nature and agents of his overthrow to his daughter Miranda, próspero explains:
“Those [liberal arts] being all my study,/ The government I cast upon my brother /And to my state grew stranger, being transported /And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle— Dost thou attend me?”
He has used his time on the island to learn and understand the proper use of time and power. Whereas he had attempted to rest (frui) in the enjoyment of his books and learning, he now understands that they have a use (uti) to achieve the right ordering of both human and political ends, or purposes. Having been so used in the current time of the play, and the desirable ends achieved by Prospero, goodbye wand and book; goodbye enchanted island. Hello Milan and Naples!
Interestingly, the play reveals throughout this perspective on time, that time is also a thing that should be used and not simply enjoyed as if it were all of reality. In other words as Prospero indicates in his history lesson of what took place in “In the dark backward and abysm of time,“ time can be lost, wasted, ill used. But in the play Prospero’s moment to act and rightly order reality is now and the time must be seized and properly used. The entire play is a testimony to that unfolding, from the moment the play begins and we confront the double view of Prospero’s power: in the tempest on board ship, a precarious moment for passengers and crew; in the story to Miranda wherein he provides a second perspective on that storm and meaning itself, and reveals an agitation, a storm of emotion within himself that will need to be properly faced:
“The hour’s now come; The very minute bids thee ope thine ear. Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember A time before we came unto this cell? I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not /Out three years old.”
Well, perhaps we have left Godric too long now, but I am interested in thinking about the end of the quest: the woman, whoever the woman turns out to be. Does the uti/frui contrast work there too? Let’s see: in the category of use love, the woman would be an object for him to enjoy, what Buber would define as an I—It relationship, an attempt to rest in the use of the woman for his pleasure, not that she wouldn’t do the same to him, “friends with benefits,” in the current disorder, “recreational sex.”
This is not to suggest that the man and the woman shouldn’t enjoy one another. In their rightly ordered relationship, each would see the other as I—Thou, pointing to and imaging a reality beyond themselves. As Thou each is equal; each manifests a ground of being that contains them both: she for God in him; he for God in her, to borrow a bit from Milton. The sacramental marriage ceremony reveals both elements of the proper love: “to have and to hold from this day forth/Till death do you part. In other words, both having and holding and giving up or letting go.
I mentioned Ferdinand and Miranda once before but it might be good to end in more detail with how the play establishes the right ordering of Eros. Prospero makes it clear in no uncertain terms that premarital sex is anathema; and it is Ferdinand who is so warned, though the warning also involves his daughter:
“Then, as my guest, and thine own acquisition /Worthily purchased, take my daughter. /But If thou dost break her virgin-knot before /All sanctimonious ceremonies may /With full and holy rite be ministered, /No sweet aspersion shall the heavens let fall /To make this contract grow; but barren hate,/ Sour-eyed disdain, and discord shall bestrew /The union of your bed with weeds so loathly /That you shall hate it both. /Therefore take heed, /As Hymen’s lamps shall light you.”
Prospero establishes the proper context for the fruition of romantic love, Eros: “sanctimonious ceremonies,” “With full and holy rite.” Should he (and she) violate this injunction the consequences will be devastating: hate, disdain and discord; in other words, terrible sterility both literal and spiritual.
Having, so to speak, rightly laid that upon them, he demonstrates his magic art with a relevant performance about harvest and fruitfulness, wowing and delighting them. Remembering the other plots, Prospero interrupts the show, and goes off, leaving them alone in his cell (also bedroom). From there we do not see the lovers till the end of the play wherein Prospero unveils a surprise for King Alonso:
“This cell’s my court. /Here have I few attendants /And subjects none abroad. /Pray you look in. /My dukedom since you have given me again, /I will requite you with as good a thing; /At least bring forth a wonder to content ye /As much as me my dukedom.
Here PROSPERO discovers FERDINAND and MIRANDA playing at chess.
MIRANDA Sweet lord, you play me false.
FERDINAND No, my dearest love, I would not for the world. MIRANDA Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle, And I would call it fair play.
Fairly obviously Prospero has trusted them and that trust has paid off with Eros playing out on the chess board. The image of chess suggests the rule of Reason over Desire. Therefore, love is rightly ordered in the end, starting with the lovers, but working itself through every level of the social hierarchy. Uti and frui are established in their right relationship.
What a delightful story! And as all good stories are, true.
