Explorations 305 interplay of its own distorted forces. Within this dying order, however, Machiavelli envisaged the ideal prince as a man devoted to political action, impressing his character upon the flux of events, and living solely for the commonwealth which alone is the expression of the integral laws 8 of our now fallen nature. There is much of the Old Testament attitude in Machiavelli the attitude of trust in the prince as one who cooperates with God to bring good out of evil, having regard to the passionate and blind violence of men. Whether Machiavelli finally confounded political action with mere political technique and made of the latter an end in itself is not a question which can be easily determined. It is only necessary to insist that Machiavelli is anti-Ciceronian, and consciously so. He has no place for eloquence in his education since he has no trust in men’s capacity to be persuaded to follow right reason, or any reason. The state must compel man to espouse a useful life free from the anarchy of the passions, and for this purpose eloquence is useless. It is certainly not on these lines that the characters of Prince Hal and Hamlet were developed. Castiglione, however, cannot be regarded as the “source” of Hamlet’s character, since the concepts of Castiglione were universally current in his century. One might as justly say that Castiglione was the source of Sir Philip Sidney.9 On the other hand, Castiglione would certainly not have had the enormous vogue he did in the sixteenth century had he not been the spokesman for a large party. Hoby compares Cicero and Castiglione at some length, saying, among other things: “Cicero an excellent Oratour, in three bookes of an Oratour unto his brother, fashioneth such a one as never was, nor yet is like to be: Castilio an excellent Courtier, in three bookes of a Courtier unto his deare friend, fash- Marsilio of Padua states Machiavelli’s and Hobbes’ theory of the state long before them (Great Medieval Thinkers, ed. F.J.C.Hearnshaw, London, 1921: pp. 176– 177). Significantly, too, Wycliffe anticipates the same theories (pp. 217 ff). 8 See H.Butterfield’s The Statecraft of Machiavelli, London, 1940. 9 The obvious parallels between Hamlet and Castiglione have been indicated by W.B.D.Henderson in “A Note on Castiglione and English Literature,” in the Everyman edition of Hoby’s translation (London: J.M.Dent & Co., 1928, pp. xi– xiv). Ascham highly approved Castiglione (Scholemaster, ed. Mayor, p. 119). In The Advancement of Learning Bacon significantly conjoins the concept of the ideal courtier to that of prince and orator: “But as Cicero, when he setteth down an idea of a perfect orator, doth not mean that every pleader should be such; and so likewise, when a prince or a courtier hath been described by such as have handled those subjects, the mould hath used to be made according to the perfection of the art…” (New York: E.P.Dutton & Co.; London: J.M.Dent & Co., 1915. Edited by G.W.Kitchin, p. 203). One of the most emphatic testimonies to the recognition of the function of the prince in uniting wisdom and eloquence is the Papyrus Geminus, published at Cambridge in 1522 as Eleatis Hermathena seu de eloquentia victoria, an entertainment in which Eloquence, Wisdom’s child, with the help of Caesar, Cicero, and Servius Sulpicius, pleading in the Elysian fields for the release of her