Summary
Lines 1-84
The poet begins by evoking the “pious times” in which David, “Israel’s monarch,” ruled. Polygamy was not sinful, “priest-craft” had not begun, and the Law did not forbid a man from taking both concubine and bride. David scattered his seed throughout the land though he was married to Michal. Michal did not give him a son, and although several women bore the god-like David sons, they were illegitimate and thus could not ascend the throne.
Of the illegitimate sons, Absalom is the most handsome and the bravest. It is not clear precisely why—perhaps it was destiny, perhaps David begat him with more gusto—but he wins renown in foreign wars and helps bring peace to Israel. He moves with grace and ease, and David looks upon him with indulgence and love. He sees “his youthful image in his son renewed” and denies none of his wishes.
David can also see no flaws in his beloved son, even forgiving him for his excessive act in murdering Amnon, his half-brother, for raping their sister. Thus “prais’d, and lov’d, the noble youth remained.”
David reigns in peace, but that cannot last forever. The Jews over whom he rules are headstrong, moody, pampered, and debauched. Neither king nor God can govern or please them—they’d actually tried many Gods—and they begin to think they want more liberty. They take their wild desires to the woods and caves and “thought all but savages were slaves.”
Years earlier, the Jews had given Saul’s crown to his son Ishbosheth, but then they made that man give it up as well; after that, they'd brought David from Hebron, where he had been banished, to rule over their land. Now, though, some of the Jews wonder why they are letting their “idol-monarch” continue to rule, and they talk of how to ruin him. These plots are “random bolts,” however, and do not coalesce into a larger movement. The “sober” part of Israel continues to support a peaceful reign and are wary of a civil war and its “ugly scars.” They are moderate and see David’s mild management as a boon.
Unfortunately, the Devil is “still at hand with means” when things appear to be calm, and plots, whether “true or false” are often present to “raise up common-wealths, and ruin kings.”
Lines 85-149
The Jebusites occupy old Jerusalem and have a native right to it, but as the chosen Jews grew stronger, they lost much of their power. Most are impoverished, weak, and suffering from loss, but they have to submit to David’s government. Their taxes are doubled and they lose their land, but the worst is that their gods are disgraced and burned.
The priesthood is enraged and devises their plot, “the nation’s curse.” The plot is created in an extreme moment by extreme men and is not watered down by the multitude: rather, it is swallowed whole in its crude state. There is certainly some truth in it, but mostly it is comprised of lies intended to “please the fools, and puzzle all the wise.”
The Jebusites embrace the Egyptian rites, but those cannot hold sway in Israel where the Jews outnumber them ten to one. Their strategy is fraud, and they send their teachers in to mingle with the Jews and look for converts everywhere, even in the court and the “stews” (i.e. brothels).
Though the plot fails due to lack of common sense, it still has dangerous consequences. If a fever boils the blood, the lake will flood. If a humor was once quiet and begins to bubble, it will bubble over. Thus, the factions begin to “work up to foam” and become a real threat to the government. Some of the men are those who thought themselves wise, or who had not been able to rise to power under the Jews, or who had been thrown from court. Even more dangerously, some are at David’s side because, in his mercy, he had pardoned them—and now they pretend to be loyal.
Lines 150-229
The false Achitophel is a man of wisdom, wit, restlessness, and flexible morality. He does not brook disgrace and always desires more power. He has a “fiery soul” and is a “daring pilot in extremity” who loves the storms more than the calm. Certainly, the poet notes, “Great wits are sure to madness near alli’d; / And thin partitions do their bounds divide.” Achitophel toils and bears anarchy; he desires nothing more than to ruin or rule Israel. In carrying out his machinations, he breaks the triple bond, shakes the public’s safety, and opens Israel up to a foreign power.
Not even one of the Abbethdin (the Jewish High Court) is as clean and honest as Achitophel. If only he had been content to serve David; if only the weed had not destroyed the noble seed. Sadly, though, “wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,” and Achitophel is bored and restless. He wants fame and thus “lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.”
He takes up the old crimes and defies his prince, pretending to espouse the will of the people. He hides behind the law and buzzes his words into the crowd’s ears. He claims David is a Jebusite, and even though this is a weak argument, it is easy enough to sway the people with it. After all, the scribes record that it seems as if the Jews change their lord every twenty years.
Achitophel has to have a leader, though, and no one seems better than Absalom. Achitophel begins to spew his venom in the following words.
Lines 230-302
Achitophel begins by heralding Absalom’s birth as noble, calling him a second Moses and a savior whom the kingdom loves (parents even teach babies to lisp his name!). Achitophel wonders how long Absalom will deprive the Jews of his reign. His glories will soon tarnish, his youthful fruit will rot on the tree. Heaven calls for this “lucky revolution”; if it is not seized, then fortune will glide away and leave only “repenting folly” behind. David knew when to seize power, and Absalom should look to the young David as his model.
Importantly, though, he should not look at David now. The people do not look upon their king with glee: he is like Satan tumbling down and losing his light. He was betrayed by a public plot and should not be in power anymore. He will have no strength to defy Absalom, Achitophel explains, because he has no friends—only foes. David may turn to the Pharaoh of Egypt for help, but Achitophel is confident Egypt’s friendship would be false.
Absalom is of royal blood and is the “champion of the public good.” David is merely an empty monarch with no claim to power except the line of succession drawn from “the mouldy rolls of Noah’s Ark.”
Analysis
Dryden’s poem is compelling enough as a retelling of the biblical story of David, Absalom, and Achitophel, but of course, that isn’t what he is doing here: rather, he has crafted a satirical, brilliant, and damning poem about King Charles II, Monmouth, and Shaftesbury. His allegory is telling the story of the Popish plot, the Exclusion Crisis, and its aftermath, ultimately asserting Charles’s right to the throne.
To begin, a quick explanation of the characters in this section. First, David is Charles II, known for his sexual relationships and illegitimate children throughout the land. David’s wife, Michal, is Catherine of Braganza; both women “failed” to provide their husband with an heir. Absalom is James, the Duke of Monmouth, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles. Monmouth fought the Dutch in the 1670s, hence the renown in foreign fields. Achitophel is Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of Shaftesbury.
In this section, Dryden provides the historical context for David’s (Charles’s) reign and his behavior; introduces the charming and handsome Absalom (Monmouth), whom everyone, including David (Charles), loves; accounts for some of the discontents of the Jews (the English); alludes to the Popish plot; explains the bitterness of the Jebusites (Catholics) and why the Jews may fear them; describes Achitophel’s (Shaftesbury’s) reasons for desiring to take David down and his alighting on Absalom as his pawn; and his opening salvo to Absalom to convince the young man that he is destined for better things and that his father is a weak ruler.
Using scripture to comment on modern events wasn’t anathema to writers at the time, but Dryden, as critic Leon M. Guilhamet notes, “ignores the implications of scriptural text that he presumably draws upon, and, indeed, changes the traditional meaning of the text when it seems useful to do so.” Dryden also uses the poem to criticize the Church of England (suggesting the Jewish priests do not care about the abuses of the Jebusite priests) and to suggest that it should be subordinate to the civil authority. The Church is important “as a principle of order only in so far as it is subordinate to the king and law” and “the king himself becomes the most significant figure, out-dolng God, rather than relying on Him for support; and the Church is thrust into the background as a mere appurtenance of David-Charles’s authority. All action and authority are grounded in reasons, implying a denial of the sufficiency of God’s Will.”
Dryden published his poem anonymously, though people guessed that it was him almost immediately. Due to censorship of both Tory and Whig writings, this was a common thing and could actually, as critic Randy Robertson notes, serve the writer’s ends. For Dryden, anonymity gave him “at least the veneer of objectivity” and “fostered impartiality in the reader,” but the nature of Dryden's authorship was more curious than that: most readers guessed that only Dryden, Charles’s laureate, could have written such a genius poem. So, “in effect, Dryden attained the recognition he merited for his poem (the celebrity and the notoriety) without having to pay the price in a London courtroom.” Because the preface calls attention to his anonymity, “Dryden poses a riddle about the poem’s authorship that he wants readers to solve.”
Dryden’s opening lines are some of his most famous. He immediately calls attention to Charles’s frequent fornications, but he suggests that if he were born in a different era, it would not be as problematic. In David’s time, priest-craft had not begun and polygamy was thus not considered sinful. Some scholars suggest that Dryden was trying to pull attention away from the illicitness of Charles’s behavior, but Robertson sees him as actually emphasizing it: during the Exclusion Crisis, some of Monmouth’s followers were actually asserting that Monmouth really was Charles’s legitimate son. Dryden wants to settle the matter: Monmouth is illegitimate, he cannot have the throne, and the crisis over succession should be ended.
The last thing to note here, which will also be a component of the other analyses, is the classical oratory component of the major speeches of the poem. There are four speeches to discuss: Achitophel’s to Absalom (which is in two parts), Absalom’s reply, Absalom’s to the people, and David’s final address. Critic W. Gerald Marshall explains that all are examples of classical orations in that they have the major components of exordium, narration, proposition, formal proof, and peroration. However, Absalom and Achitophel are “false” orators, whereas David is a “true” orator: David’s speech is intended to “sustain the state and to maintain political order,” while the Miltonic, anti-Christ figures of Absalom and Achitophel use their speeches as a means to foment dissent and rebellion. Here, we will look at the first speech of Achitophel, which, as mentioned a moment ago, has echoes of Milton’s Satan.
Achitophel begins with the insinuatio in order to delicately flatter Absalom and bolster his pride. He mentions to him the possibility of kingship and, true to the exordium form, “introduces the argument in a manner that will gain the favor, good will, and interest of the audience [i.e. Absalom]." He then states the “facts” that David is not fit to rule and suggests that Israel needs a military ruler of manly character. The formal proposition follows in which Achitophel suggests the logical corollary of his assertion: Absalom must step up. He pauses for Absalom’s reply, then continues his speech (to be discussed in the next analysis).
