A bigger bedroom, a grander title, a new American wife. Such things can set brother against brother. Take Willy and Harold…
Whatever the Prince of Wales’s reaction to his brother Harry’s revelations in his memoir Spare, it’s doubtful that he’s dwelling right now in the land of Nod. Indeed he may well be enduring some sleepless nights following the disclosure that he knocked his younger brother to the floor during a heated confrontation in 2019.
In biblical terms, of course, the land of Nod is not a state of unconsciousness but the place where Cain was condemned to live after he had killed his younger brother, Abel. That story of fraternal frictions and jealousies is one of the founding myths that has informed the Abrahamic religions and our understanding of the hatred that can accompany brotherly love.
