SEBASTIAN Sir, you may thank yourself for this great loss,
That would not bless our Europe with your daughter
But rather loose her to an African,
Where she at least is banished from your eye,
Who hath cause to wet the grief on’t.
ALONSO Prithee, peace.
SEBASTIAN You were kneeled to and importuned otherwise
By all of us, and the fair soul herself
Weighed between loathness and obedience, at
Which end o’th’ beam should bow. We have lost your son,
I fear, for ever. Milan and Naples have
More widows in them of this business’ making
Than we bring men to comfort them.
The fault’s your own.
ALONSO So is the dear’st o’th’ loss. (2.1.124-137)
Sebastian reveals himself to be seriously unpleasant and cruel, much more than simply cynical and negative. All of this is your own fault, he retorts to Alonso; this is what Alonso himself has said earlier, sort of, but it’s horrible to repeat it back to him in these terms. And those terms are frankly racist, describing Claribel as loosed to an African (not even, here, dignified with his title as the king of Tunis). Loose is nasty, too, suggesting that Claribel is (sexual) prey; that she has been prostituted by her father, not married. (Editors sometimes alter to lose, making Alonso sound more passive, and removing the predatory, sexual sense.) But at least if she’s in Tunis you won’t have to look at her – with her husband, implicitly – even if you’re now regretting what you’ve done and weeping for it. (Sebastian is channelling Iago here; he’s the one who’s been obsessing over this inter-racial marriage; if one imagines a back story, perhaps he had hopes of marrying Claribel himself.) Alonso’s prithee, peace is mild in the circumstances, and indicative of the depth of his self-reproach; he does think this is all his fault, even if (one hopes) he doesn’t buy into Sebastian’s racist rhetoric. And Sebastian continues: we told you; we begged you not to do it. All of us, the whole court. And Claribel herself didn’t want the marriage (no way of knowing this); she was torn between obedience to her father and loathness, with a strong sense of physical revulsion, at the prospect of the marriage (to an African, is implicit: Othello again, where Brabantio scoffs at the thought that Desdemona should have fallen in love ‘with what she feared to look on!’, 1.3.98). Sebastian’s metaphor is vivid and poignant: Claribel was like a balance, a set of scales, poised between these two emotional responses, waiting to see which one would outweigh the other. But Sebastian isn’t stopping there, with his racism, and his attack on Alonso as a father. We have lost your son, I fear, for ever – faux concern, in the I fear, but cruel in the emphasis – as if Alonso needed reminding. And more: your pursuit of this marriage has made more widows in Milan and Naples – because of all the sailors that have been drowned. A projection of suffering, and responsibility for suffering, into the future, affecting even more people. The fault’s your own. It’s all your fault, again. So is the greatest loss, Ferdinand’s death, says Alonso, finally pushing back a little against this nasty, cruel man.
