Kingship

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown," says the Bard. In fact, he seemed to have an unending fascination for the theme of kingship. Part of this might of course be attributed to the fact that he was a political hack, churning out plays sometimes partly for the benefit of his company's interaction with the English crown.

But whether you're reading Huckleberry Finn, The Drawing of the Dark, or one of Alfred Duggan's numerous mini-masterpieces on obscure nobles and rulers, you will return to this theme. For the theme of kingship is that of the delegation of universal authority, whether this authority is seen as the Mandate of Heaven or the Divine Right. What ails the king ails the nation; what triumphs a ruler gains show the blessings of the beyond.

It is particularly instructive to read Macbeth, King Lear and Julius Caesar one after another and in various combinations. Many people have essayed at least one; a number have commented on all three as a group. Even President Clinton has had his say. Then again, those who prefer the hurly-burly of the business world might have a slightly different perspective.

Sometimes, we read Lear and Macbeth as tragedy, as poetry, as psychological study. That is all fine and good. But as miniature riffs on one of the oldest of mankind's themes, they are elegant exemplars, portraits done in fine lines of atrament upon a field of snow. "Here lies one whose name was writ in water," says a famous tombstone in Rome. Thank goodness Shakespeare's words were written in a more durable medium.