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SHAKESPEARE’S ART OF POESY IN KING LEAR
A commonwealth, according to Plutarch, is a certain body which is endowed
with life by the benefit of divine favor, which acts at the prompting of the highest
equity, and is ruled by what may be called the moderating power of reason [...]
And those who preside over the practice of religion should be looked up to and
venerated as the soul of the body [...] The place of the head in the body of the
commonwealth is filled by the prince, who is subject only to God and to those
who exercise His office and represent Him on earth, even as in the human body
the head is quickened and governed by the soul. The place of the heart is filled by
the Senate, from which proceeds the initiation of good works and ill. The duties
of eyes, ears, and tongue are claimed by the judges and governors of provinces.
Officials and soldiers correspond to the hands. Those who always attend upon
the prince are likened to the sides. Financial officers and keepers [...] may be
compared with the stomach and intestines. [...] The husbandmen correspond to
the feet, which always cleave to the soil, and need the more especially the care
and foresight of the head.”°%”
Obviously, in Salisbury’s system, the Prince, the head, is subordinated to the
clergy, which the analogy identifies with the soul of the body. Although the
description of social order presented in Policraticus marked the beginning of
an extremely popular tradition in English political treaties, this function of
the Church gradually faded away as English monarchs started to distance the
government of the country from the clerical powers.*°
In the last book of Policraticus, Salisbury also described the negative
counterpart of the organic analogy applied to the kingdom of the tyrant
imitating the wickedness of the devil:
367 John of Salisbury: The statesman’s book of John of Salisbury, being the fourth, fifth, and sixth
books, and selections from the seventh and eighth books of the Policraticus, trans. John Dickenson,
New York, Russell & Russel, 1963, 64-65. Partly since Shakespeare’s contemporaries most
certainly used the Latin text as a reference and partly for the sake of philological precision,
I provide the quotes from the 1909 critical edition of the Latin original as well. “Est autem
Respublica, sicut Plutarcho placet, corpus quoddam, quod divini muneris beneficio animator,
et summae aequitatis agitur nutu, et regitur quodam moderamine rationis [...] Illos vero, qui
religionis cultui praesunt, quasi animam corporis suspisere et venerari oportet [...] Princeps
vero capitis in Republica obtinet locum, uni subjectus Deo, et his qui vices illius agunt in
terries, quoniam et in humano corpore, ab anima vegetatur caput et regitur. Cordis locum
senatus obtinet, a quo bonorum operum et malorum procedunt initia. Oculorum, aurium,
et linguae official, sibi vindicant judices et praesides provinciarum. Officiales et milites
manibus coaptantur. Qui simper assistant principi, lateribus assimilantur. Quaestores
et commentarienses [...] ad ventis et intestinorum refert imaginem. Quae si immensa
aviditate congesserint et congesta tenacious reservaverint, innumerabiles et incurabiles
generant morbos, ut vitio eorum totius corporis ruina immineat. Pedibus vero solo jugiter
inhaerentibus, agricolae coaptantur, quibus capitis providential tanto magis necessaria est.”
Saresberiensis: Policraticus, I., 282-283.
368 Rolls: The Theory, 78.
+ 98 +