(वरील कविता बा सी मर्ढेकरांची, असंग्रहित)
माधव जूलियन यांनी ११ ऑक्टोबर १९२५ डेक्कन एज्युकेशन सोसायटीच्या आजीव सभासदत्वाचा राजीनामा दिला. ते त्याच दिवशी संध्याकाळी कवि गिरीश यांच्याकडे गेले होते. त्यांची मनस्थिती अत्यंत वाईट होती.
त्यांनी गिरीश यांच्या कडून शेक्सपिअर चे किंग लिअर नाटक घेऊन , एका पानावर थांबून , हा भाग मोठ्याने म्हटला:
Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand.
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thine own back.
Thy blood as hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whip’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.
Through tattered clothes great vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks.
Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.
(20.154–59)
वाचून होताच पुस्तक भिंतीवर फेकून मारले आणि म्हणाले 'That's why Shakespeare is great'...
(' माधव जूलियन', ले: गं. दे. खानोलकर, १९५१-१९६८, पृष्ठे: १५१-१५२)
विशेष म्हणजे शेक्सपिअर यांचे मोठे अभ्यासक James Shapiro त्यांच्या 'The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606', २०१५ या पुस्तकात सुद्धा ह्याच ओळींबाबत लिहतात:
"... Shakespeare’s engagement with Harsnett’s book (In 1603, Samuel Harsnett wrote a book, A Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures which condemned exorcisms performed by Roman Catholic priests in the 1580s. Shakespeare used this book as a source, pulling words and phrases when writing the play King Lear) deepens over the course of King Lear. The abuse of authority, so transparent in page after page of the Declaration, is a kind of nightmare that Lear at last comes to recognize. For Lear—and for playgoers—at play’s end, authority is shown to be arbitrary, its “great image” a beggar running from a barking dog (20.149–53). In what is arguably the most explicit piece of social criticism in all of his work, Shakespeare has Lear conclude that violence, deception, and hypocrisy in the kingdom are endemic...
There is the evil that stems from the abuse of authority and there is another kind that cannot be so easily explained by self-interest and the human propensity for cruelty. In King Lear, Shakespeare wrestles with the nature of this kind of evil as well, something that Harsnett, in a book about the demonic, takes as a given but never confronts. Historical events would soon ensure that this question would take on even greater relevance as Shakespeare was finishing King Lear that winter. And he wasn’t done with Harsnett quite yet, or with questions of possession, bewitching, or where evil originates."
खानोलकरांचे पुस्तक वाचून आपल्याला पुरेपूर खात्री पटते की माधव जूलियन यांना त्यांची त्यावेळची स्थिती वर्णायला किंग लिअर पेक्षा चांगले उदाहरण सापडले नसते, आज आपल्याला २०२१ साली सुद्धा सापडणार नाही....
"Shakespeare has Lear conclude that violence, deception, and hypocrisy in the kingdom are endemic... " तुम्ही वेगळा निष्कर्ष काढू शकता काय?
