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THE INFLUENCE OF EARLY MODERN THEORIES OF GOVERNANCE
For the commonwealth of the ungodly has also its head and members, and strives
to correspond, as it were, to the civil institutions of a legitimate commonwealth.
The tyrant who is its head is the likeness of the devil; its soul consists of heretical,
schismatic, and sacrilegious priests, and, to use the language of Plutarch, prefects of
religion who wage war on the law of the Lord; its heart of unrighteous counsellors is
like a senate of iniquity; its eyes, ears, tongue, and unarmed hand are unjust judges,
laws and officials; its armed hand consists of soldiers of violence whom Cicero calls
brigands; its feet are those who in the humbler walks of life go against the precepts
of the Lord and His lawful institutions.*©
The third alternation of the organic conception of the state recalls Menenius
Agrippa’s well-known fable*” on the rebellion of the organs against the belly."
This latter version differs considerably from the other two, since instead of
referring to the same organs, it leaves out the head and the soul, which have
central functions in the previous two variants. Nevertheless, in 1605, around
the time of the inception of King Lear, William Camden published his Remaines
ofa Greater Worke, Concerning Britainen, in which there is a passage retelling in
English the fable found in Policraticus nearly word for word: “All the members
of the body conspired against the stomacke, as against the swallowing gulfe
of all their labors; for whereas the eies beheld, the eares heard, the handes
labored, the feet traveled, the tongue spake, and all partes performed their
functions, onely the stomacke lay ydle and consumed all [...] Therefore they
all with one accord desired the advise of the Heart...”3”
William Camden’s work is significant here because it must have served
as a pretext for act one, scene one of Coriolanus, a play that Shakespeare
must have written more or less at the same time as King Lear?” Although
369 John of Salisbury: The statesman’s book, 339. “Habet enim et res publica impiorum caput et
membra sua, et quasi ciuilibus institutis legittimae rei publicae nititur esse conformis. Caput
ergo eius tirannus est imago diaboli; anima heretici scismatici sacrilegi sacerdotes et, ut uerbo
Plutarchi utar, praefecti religionis, impugnantes legem Domini; cor consiliarii impii, quasi
senatus iniquitatis; oculi, aures, lingua, manus inermis, iudices et leges, officiales iniusti;
manus armata, milites uiolenti, quos Cicero latrones appellat; pedes qui in ipsis humilioribus
negotiis praeceptis Domini et legittimis institutis aduersantur.” Saresberiensis: Policraticus,
II. 348-349,
Menenius Agrippa was a Roman nobleman who recalled an originally Aesopic fable to stop
a plebeian rebellion against the Senate. See Hale: The Body Politic, 27.
Saresberiensis: Policraticus, I. 625.
William Camden: Remaines of a Greater Work Concerning Britaine, the inhabitants thereof,
their Languages, Names, Surnames, Empreses, Wise Speeches, Poésies, and Epitaphes, London,
printed by G. E., 1605, 199.
The dates of inception in the case of the plays are still under debate. The earliest date
mentioned for King Lear is 1605 based on its first entry in the Stationers’ Register. As for
Coriolanus, in his introduction to the Arden Shakespeare edition of the play, Philip Brockbank
argues that it could have been written anytime between 1605 and 1610. William, Shakespeare:
Coriolanus, ed. Philip Brockbank, The Arden Shakespeare. Second series, London—New York,
Routledge, 1994, 27.
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