The ending sequence of season 2 once again references the great literary playwright, William Shakespeare. In season 1, when Morpheus, the Dream of the Endless, met his friend, Hob Gadling, in 1589, he came across a passionate naff actor who went by the name Will Shaxberd. Morpheus was quite intrigued by his spirit and asked the young lad if he wanted to write great stories and weave new dreams that would leave an everlasting impact on humanity. And so Morpheus turned Shaxberd into Shakespeare, and commissioned two plays from a mortal. One was “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the production of which we saw in the previous volume, and the second was “The Tempest,” which is also considered by many to be the last play Shakespeare wrote alone. It can be assumed that Morpheus, through his dreams and magic, inspired Shakespeare to write his most-acclaimed stage plays, and when he finally left his side, the playwright wrote no more. It’s one of the things that Morpheus kept repeating throughout the show: that every dream is a story that we keep telling ourselves to cope with reality.
But why “The Tempest”? That’s what Shakespeare asked. Why did Morpheus want a story about a duke-turned-sorcerer who used magic to get his throne back? Not a story of revenge, but a tale of graceful ends. Actually, if you look into it, “The Tempest” almost feels more like the story of Morpheus than its own protagonist, Prospero. But before moving forward, I just want to give you a brief summary of the play so I don’t end up overcomplicating the stuff. “The Tempest” centers around the Duke of Milan, Prospero, who was betrayed by his greedy and ambitious brother, Antonio. Antonio co-conspired with King Alonso of Naples to take over the kingdom and cast his brother and his 3 year-old-daughter, Miranda, out to sea. For 12 years, Prospero and Miranda had been living their lives on a faraway island, waiting for the right moment to take back what was rightfully theirs. One day, Antonio’s ship, carrying his trusted ministers, the king of Naples, Alonso, and his heir, Ferdinand, got stuck in a magical storm and was marooned on Prospero’s island. And there began a twisted tale of magic and wits, which made the key characters realize how they’d wronged Prospero and ought to make amends to redeem themselves.
In the context of Morpheus, the Duke of the Dreaming, he was betrayed by his own creation, the nightmare Corinthian, who helped Roderick Burgess to keep Morpheus his prisoner. In a way, Morpheus was exiled from his realm and confined to a glass dome, from which he couldn’t escape. He waited for almost a century to finally earn back his freedom and return to his kingdom. However, unlike Prospero, it took Dream almost 50 years to understand the difference between revenge and redemption.
As soon as Morpheus came out of his cage, he sentenced Roderick’s son, Alex, to eternal sleep and unmade his creation, Corinthian. At first, Morpheus was nothing like Prospero. He was arrogant and self-centered, just how you’d expect an immortal to be, but a second journey, a second departure from his island, made Morpheus more human. It changed him into a better Dream. Morpheus no longer felt like an Endless. Instead, he had become a lover, a father, and a friend. He no longer desired immortality. He started caring for people around him more than the responsibilities bestowed upon him. In a sense, Morpheus had actually become a noble hero with a tragic flaw. The old Morpheus wouldn’t have killed his son to give him the peace he yearned for, but a changed Morpheus, being a father, couldn’t stand to see his son in pain anymore, and therefore killed him to end his misery, even though he was well-aware of the fact that spilling family blood would bring about his own destruction. In the end, Dream had become selfless.
In the play, there’s a character named Caliban, a hunchback, who tries to plot against his master, Prospero, just like Loki betrays Morpheus, whom he owed a favor. This is to say that there are a lot of resemblances between the characters of Morpheus and Prospero, and in the end, they both choose redemption over retribution. When Morpheus found out that his end was near, he didn’t try to harm or kill Hippolyta “Lyta” Hall, because that wasn’t who he was, not anymore. Instead, he accepted his fate with open arms and let his sister save him from a life of endless despair.
Well, that was a tale of graceful ends, wasn’t it? I am sure you have heard that phrase. That was what Morpheus told Shakespeare during his last visit. That he wanted a tale of graceful ends. But why? Why did Morpheus want such a story? Because he himself couldn’t leave his realm. He was to remain forever a prisoner of the island because he thought he was the island. Unlike his brother, Destruction, he couldn’t abandon the Dreaming and run away from his responsibilities. But as Shakespeare said, time and tragedy change everyone. All men can change. So, in the end, Morpheus didn’t want to be an Endless anymore. The magician had finally become a man… a changed man, who was ready to turn his back on magic. For someone who always believed that he was the island, he finally came to the realization that he was just a visitor… a traveler. He realized that “Dreaming would survive, even if he did not.” And that meant he was no longer a prisoner of the island, he could leave his realm to a successor. Morpheus died, but Dreaming survived. In the play, Prospero saw his young daughter, Miranda, as a worthy successor to the throne, and in The Sandman, Morpheus left his kingdom in the safe and sensible hands of Daniel Hall, the only child who was conceived in the Dream world. We don’t know what became of Morpheus after Death took him, but we can hopefully surmise that he went to the stars to live his newfound freedom. People are going to remember through their stories, just like we still are talking about “The Tempest” and the maestro who wrote it.
