The Tempest and Cultural Exchange

Summary

Looking at commercial exchange may prove a convenient way of approaching the problem of cultural exchange in general, for commerce is steeped in all sorts of constraints and traditions and, pragmatic though it appears, still measures desire as much as reason, and reflects an estimated balance of power between seller and buyer. The proverb ‘exchange is no robbery’ (Heywood, 1542) is significant of a conceptual impediment. No less significant is the adjectival crutch it often uses in order to reassure itself and us that ‘a fair exchange is no robbery’. Yet what is a ‘fair’ exchange? At one end of the scale, exchanging or bartering one necessity for another – so long as the need for the things exchanged is similarly pressing for both parties – may in all likelihood be accounted fair. At the other end of the scale, trading one luxury for another may be found fair as long as it suits the whims and plans of the exchanging parties. The trickster king, Richard III, exclaims ‘A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse’ (5.7.7). It is Shakespeare who adds the exchange suggestion. All that the source (Hall) says is that when they see that the battle is lost, the king’s party ‘brought to hym a swyfte and a lyght horse to convey hym awaie’. Are we to understand that Shakespeare’s Richard is pinning a low price on his kingdom and a high price on a horse?