There is no hint in this eloquent apostrophe of the difficulty of determining among men who shall be the sun and who the satellite, nor of the fact that the actual arrangements, in Shakespeare's time, at any rate, depended altogether upon that very force which Ulysses deprecates. In another scene in the same play the wily Ithacan again gives way to his passion for authority and eulogizes somewhat extravagantly the paternal, prying, omnipresent State:
"The providence that's in a watchful state
Knows almost every grain of Plutus' gold,
Finds bottom in th' incomprehensive deeps,
Keeps place with thought, and almost, like the gods,
Does thoughts unveil in their dumb cradles.
There is a mystery (with which relation
Durst never meddle) in the soul of state,
Which hath an operation more divine
Than breath or pen can give expressure to."
(Act 3, Sc. 3.)
The State to which Ulysses refers is of course a monarchical State, and the idea of democracy is abhorrent to Shakespeare. Coriolanus expresses his opinion of it when he says to the people:
"What's the matter,
That in these several places of the city
You cry against the noble Senate, who,
Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else
Would feed on one another?"
(Act 2, Sc. 1.)
The people should have no voice in the government—
"This double worship,—
Where one part does disdain with cause, the other
Insult without all reason, where gentry, title, wisdom,
Can not conclude, but by the yea and no
Of general ignorance,—it must omit
Real necessities, and give away the while
To unstable slightness. Purpose so barred, it follows,
Nothing is done to purpose; therefore, beseech you,
You that will be less fearful than discreet,
That love the fundamental part of state
More than you doubt the change on't, that prefer
A noble life before a long, and wish
To jump a body with a dangerous physic
That's sure of death without it, at once pluck out
The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick
The sweet which is their poison."
(Ib. Act 3, Sc. 1.)
It is the nobility who should rule—
"It is a purposed thing and grows by plot
To curb the will of the nobility;
Suffer't and live with such as can not rule,
Nor ever will be ruled."
(Ib.)
Junius Brutus tries in vain to argue with him, but Coriolanus has no patience with him, a "triton of the minnows"; and the very fact that there should be tribunes appointed for the people disgusts him—
"Five tribunes to defend their vulgar wisdoms,
Of their own choice; one's Junius Brutus,
Sicinus Velutus, and I know not—'Sdeath!
The rabble should have first unroofed the city,
Ere so prevailed with me; it will in time
Win upon power, and throw forth greater themes."