"Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps death his Court, and there the antic sits
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a brief and little scene
To monarchize by fear and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit—
As if this flesh that walls about our life
Were brass impregnable; and humored thus,
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall—and farewell king!"
So, too, he knew that gold could not bring joy—that death and misfortune come alike to rich and poor, because:
"If thou art rich thou art poor;
For like an ass whose back with ingots bows
Thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee."
In some of his philosophy there was a kind of scorn—a hidden meaning that could not in his day and time have safely been expressed. You will remember that Laertes was about to kill the king, and this king was the murderer of his own brother, and sat upon the throne by reason of his crime—and in the mouth of such a king Shakespeare puts these words:
"There's such divinity doth hedge a king."
So, in Macbeth
"How he solicits
Heaven himself best knows; but strangely visited people
All swollen and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,
The mere despairs of surgery, he cures;
Hanging a golden stamp about their necks.
Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken
To the succeeding royalty—he leaves
The healing benediction.
"With this strange virtue
He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,
And sundry blessings hang about his throne,
That speak him full of grace."
Shakespeare was the master of the human heart—knew all the hopes, fears, ambitions, and passions that sway the mind of man; and thus knowing, he declared that
"Love is not love that alters
When it alteration finds."
This is the sublimest declaration in the literature of the world.