I’ve been mulling over the phrase ‘star-crossed lovers’. It now seems so simple when one can just say, “Oh, Romeo and Juliet? Star-crossed.” Doesn’t look much like a cool metaphor now, but it is, being coined by Shakespeare… and how many twists and turns permutated from that one single piece of classic English lit while I hoped the class instructor would hurry up and touch on the role of the clergy in that story’s pre-age-of-consent teen marriage and suicides already? Read on.
First, the definition given the context of above example. Simply put, star-crossed lovers are individuals involved in a romantic or passionate relationship but are just not meant to be, despite their persistence to overcome all odds to be together. Prerequisites are:
- Lovers are totally in love with each other
- Lovers do everything in their power to be together
- Lovers do not get their way despite Item Number 2; either both go on with life but miserable and not together, or one of them dies. Better yet, both die.
Next, we discuss the words. The ‘star’ symbolizes destiny, piece of cake. But ‘cross’ is easily open to interpretation so it’s best we make sure which cross we’re talking about. At one time it was thought to be ‘to intersect’, and the brain cells were all, what’s the big deal with being star-crossed? The stars crossed paths already, what more do they want? Shakespeare, however, meant ‘crossed’ as ‘thwarted’. As in, the stars — the destinies — screwed them over. And when the light bulb dinged, the call to arms to amend the terminology to ‘star-paralleled’ became unnecessary…
… Okay, I admit, if that last part’s familiar, I can only say it can be traced back to a compendium of madly brilliant ideas that is otherwise known as the high school yearbook. What panache… what imagery! We were way beyond compare. Meanwhile, the text beside my picture — my contribution to the mad brilliance — brings DSTS to tears.
Reviewing the Star-Crossed For Dummies notes, we can now confirm people who make the star-crossed list. Siegfried and Kriemhilde, star-crossed. Count Laslo and Katharine, star-crossed. Zagato and Emeraude, star-crossed. Jack and Rose are star-crossed, Othello and Desdemona are star-crossed… Lancelot and Guinevere also count as star-crossed, but to a lesser degree as they both give up the passion before the mess worsened.
Lancelot and Elaine, not star-crossed. I mean, sure, there’s the against all odds, do or die obsession, there’s a love child, even, and someone dies!… but the relationship develops only with the aid of a love potion, and the true love is only on one side — Elaine’s. It’s similar to the unfortunate mess Madama Butterfly was in. Lesson learned: love potions are the anti-star-crossed, and Elaine, instead, is a pro-active, results-oriented lover who dared laugh at destiny’s face.
Tristan and Isolde are a tricky couple because according to tradition, there’s that love potion again, brewed by Isolde’s grandmother was sent with Isolde’s nurse when King Mark sent for the princess so they could get married. The potion was meant to be drunk by Isolde and King Mark to ensure the union of two kingdoms, but the nurse carelessly left the bottle someplace, and Tristan and Isolde accidentally drank the stuff together while on board the ship bound for King Mark’s territories. If there were no love potion, there’d be no love affair; they’re more like clueless kids with bad luck than genuine star-crossed lovers. It’s also probably why I found the movie starring James Franco, in which the love potion concept was nixed, all the more satisfying for the ‘star-crossed’ thing. Lesson learned: love potions are the anti-star-crossed, we learned in the previous example of non-star-crossed, but no lover is pro-active in this story. Instead we have a nurse, an example of slacking individuals in the workplace who deserve to be hung, drawn, and quartered as expected by someone as mafioso as Isolde’s grandmother. And we never know what we’ve got till it’s gone, because in this modern day and age, we can only fire the idiots and content ourselves with writing fabulously stinky referrals.
I don’t think the Brokeback Mountain boys exactly fit ‘star-crossed’, too, because Ennis wasn’t gung-ho at all, and actually wimped out due to his issues. Compare him to Boys Don’t Cry‘s take on Brandon Teena, who also had things to work out on his/her own… now that’s certifiably star-crossed, big time! Like I said, wimped. Yes, E. Annie Proulx set the original short story in a time when people were more repressed to come out, but the main thing is, Ennis did his part in unrealizing the possibilities with Jack himself, and because he hesitated, we can’t totally blame destiny that they were bummed for the rest of their mortal lives. Lesson learned: wimpy lovers are the anti-star-crossed, too — they are results-oriented people who thwart destiny’s crossings by not defying their destinies ON PURPOSE. If you’ve been psyched your whole life to do the star-crossed thing but instead find yourself with a wishy-washy one true love, run away. Reevaluate your options and plot for more viable star-crossed contingencies.
To end this day’s convolution, ‘star-crossed’ alludes to astrology, which are part of Indo-European culture, and so we keep things Indo-European and pull in the horoscopes to mix up with what was discussed. I present to you the concept of ‘star-crossed’ with chop-suey references, illustrated by a theory on the origins of Anakin and Padme Skywalker.
Anakin and Padme were destined to be each other’s great love, but they come from different worlds. When Padme was still in her mother’s womb, her mother continued to engage in daily debate with the Senate, which made the baby opt to stay in the womb much longer than necessary that her birth finally had to be induced. Five earth years later, Anakin’s mother, a pregnant slave on Tatooine, was scheduled to haul junk for Watto on the consecutive months his suppliers will cruise by. Being pregnant is no excuse, though, and Watto then paid a doctor to induce an early birth so Mrs. Skywalker can pop the baby into an incubator — which might’ve accounted for the abnormally high concentration of midichlorians in the baby — and work right on schedule.
And so because of pro-active, non-divine interventions, Padme, who was conceived to be a Yeebek* (Naboo’s equivalent for Taurus), somehow still managed to be born within the Yeebek days, though all planetary alignments got messed up. And Anakin, who was supposed to be a Joog** (Tatooine’s Capricorn), became a Weggo*** (Tatooine’s Sagittarius). The love was doomed from the start.
Star-crossed: a new take.
PS — Happy birthday, Ma. I promise to never teach literature for the children’s sakes.
PPS — The part about the Skywalkers and *, **, and *** are neither canon nor endorsed by Mr. Lucas.
