"When valor preys on reason it eats the sword It fights with."
He knew that man is never "master of the event, that he is to some
extent the sport or prey of the blind forces of the world, and that
"In the reproof of chance lies the true proof of men."
Feeling that the past is unchangeable, and that that which must happen
is as much beyond control as though it had happened, he says:
"Let determined things to destiny Hold unbewailed their way."
Shakespeare was great enough to know that every human being prefers
happiness to misery, and that crimes are but mistakes. Looking in
pity upon the human race, upon the pain and poverty, the crimes and
cruelties, the limping travelers on the thorny paths, he was great and
good enough to say:
"There is no darkness but ignorance."
In all the philosophies there is no greater line. This great truth fills
the heart with pity.
He knew that place and power do not give happiness--that the crowned are
subject as the lowest to fate and chance.
"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."