Book I
, Chapter 30):
"It is a nation, would I answer Plato, that hath no kind of traffic, no knowledge of letters, no intelligence of numbers, no name of magistrate nor of political superiority; no use of service, of riches, or of poverty; no contracts, no succession, no dividences; no occupation, but idle; no respect of kindred, but common; no apparel, but natural; no manuring of lands; no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon were never heard among them."
We may readily infer that Shakespeare found little to sympathize with in this somewhat extravagant outline of a happy nation, but he goes out of his way to travesty it. In "The Tempest" he makes Gonzalo, the noblest character in the play, hold the following language to the inevitable king (Shakespeare can not imagine even a desert island without a king!):
"Had I plantation of this isle, my lord, I' th' commonwealth I would by contraries Execute all things; for no kind of traffic Would I admit; no name of magistrate; Letters should not be known; riches, poverty, And use of service, none; contract, succession, Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none; No use of metal, corn or wine or oil; No occupation; all men idle,--all, And women too, but innocent and pure; No sovereignty, ...
Sebastian. Yet he would be king on't.
Antonia. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.
Gonzalo. All things in common. Nature should produce Without sweat or endeavor; treason, felony, Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, Would I not have; but Nature should bring forth Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance, To feed my innocent people.
Seb. No marrying 'mong his subjects?
Ant. None, man; all idle, whores, and knaves.
Gon. I would with such perfection govern, sir, To 'xcel the golden age.
Seb. 'Save his Majesty!
Ant. Long live Gonzalo!
Gon. And do you mark me, sir?
King. Pr'ythee, no more; thou dost talk nothing to me.
Gon. I do well believe your Highness; and did it to minister occasion to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing.
Ant. 'Twas you we laughed at.
Gon. Who, in this kind of merry fooling, am nothing to you; so you may continue and laugh at nothing still." (Tempest, Act 2, Sc. 1.)
That all things are not for the best in the best of all possible worlds would seem to result from the wise remarks made by the fishermen who enliven the scene in "Pericles, Prince of Tyre." They compare landlords to whales who swallow up everything, and suggest that the land be purged of "these drones that rob the bee of her honey"; and Pericles, so far from being shocked at such revolutionary and vulgar sentiments, is impressed by their weight, and speaks kindly of the humble philosophers, who in their turn are hospitable to the shipwrecked prince--all of which un-Shakespearian matter adds doubt to the authenticity of this drama (Act 2, Sc. 1).
However keen the insight of Shakespeare may have been into the hearts of his high-born characters, he had no conception of the unity of the human race. For him the prince and the peasant were not of the same blood.
"For princes are A model, which heaven makes like to itself,"
says King Simonides in "Pericles," and here at least we seem to see the hand of Shakespeare (Act 2, Sc. 2). The two princes, Guiderius and Arviragus, brought up secretly in a cave, show their royal origin (Cymbeline, Act 3, Sc. 3), and the servants who see Coriolanus in disguise are struck by his noble figure (Coriolanus, Act 4, Sc. 5). Bastards are villains as a matter of course, witness Edmund in "Lear" and John in "Much Ado about Nothing," and no degree of contempt is too high for a
"hedge-born swain That doth presume to boast of gentle blood." (Henry VI.,