Machiavelli and Power

Niccolo Machiavelli: From Florence, c.1500, wrote The Prince: a guide to staying in power.

Shakespeare would definitely have been familiar with its philosophy.

Part 1

Here are some quotes from The Prince.

Which ones apply to Prospero, and Caliban? Stephano and Antonio?

"one of the most effective remedies that a prince can have against conspiracies is not to be hated and despised by the people".

 

"men would rather offend one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails."

 

"Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.”

 

"Men must be either crushed or pampered."

 

Part 2

Here are three Machiavelli quotes matched to quotes from other Shakespeare plays.

Can you find quotes from The Tempest where these ideas are reflected? And, for that matter, Tis Pity?

I. Machiavelli says…

Men are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, and covetous. As long as you succeed they are yours entirely. They will offer you their blood, property, life and children, when the need is distant, but when it approaches they turn against you.

Shakespeare says…

Richard II to the mirror: O flattering glass,

Like to my followers in prosperity

Thou dost beguile me.

Henry V: For oaths are straws, men's faith are wafer cakes

Timon of Athens: Timon will to the woods, where he shall find

The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind,

There's nothing level in our cursed natures

But direct villainy.

II. Machiavelli says…

Be a great pretender and liar. Everyone sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are.  The cloak of religion conceals vices.

Shakespeare says…

Richard III: clothe my naked villainy

With old odd ends stolen forth of holy writ

And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

Iago (from Othello): When devils will the blackest sins put on,

They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,

As I do now..

Claudius (in Hamlet): One may smile and smile and be a villain.

 

Polonius warns Ophelia against Hamlet:

Tis too much prov'd - that with devotion's visage

And pious action we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

 

Lady Macbeth: thou wouldst be great;

Art not without ambition, but without

The illness should attend it.

Lady Macbeth again:To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue; look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under 't.

Macbeth: False face must hide, what the false heart doth know.

 

Nurse (Romeo and Juliet):

There's no trust

No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured

All foresworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

III. Machiavelli says:

The end justifies the means

 

Shakespeare says:

"All's well that ends well. Still the fine's the crown;

Whate'er the course, the end is the renown."

Henry V: Let the end try the man.

Part 3

For one to have been looked upon as a Machiavellian Prince, he must have been a "cunning fox", and a desperate ruler. Wm. J. Rolfe says that the one dominant subject of Shakespeare's histories is, "how a man may fail or how a man may succeed in attaining political mastery of the world". History tells us that from the time that Bolingbroke took the crown from Richard II until the end of the Elizabethan reign, but two English kings, Henry VIII and Edward VI held the crown with the consent of their people. The others had to fight against royal claimants and their followers. They had to outwit their enemies in their cunning; they resorted to assassinations on every hand. Early on, Shakespeare explored this through the history plays, covering King John, Richard III, and Henry IV and V. Later, his subjects became gradually more distant from fact: King Lear and Macbeth, for example, are based on real kings but less so than the history plays. The Tempest is almost entirely a fantasy, but it still explores the same themes of power.

Machiavelli is found twice in "Henry VI” and once in "Merry Wives Of Windsor".

In Henry VI, York speaks of Alencon as "that notorious Machiavel”,  and “that murd'rous Machiavel”.

In "Merry Wives of \Vindsor" when "mine host of the Garter" has directed Sir Hugh Evans and Doctor Caius to wrong places in order to avoid their silly duel and his joke is discovered, he cries out, “Am I politic? am I subtle? am I a Machiavel?"

 

In the paragraphs above, which virtues and vices are associated with Machiavels? 

And which characters in your texts display these characteristics?