Summary
Lines 544-697
In the first rank of corrupt, disloyal men is Zimri, a man full of all the wrong opinions. He takes on numerous professions and is lecherously obsessed with women. He is prone to railing, praising, and squandering riches; he is characterized by extremes.
The poet writes that it is tedious to name these names, especially as they are “below the dignity of verse.” Nevertheless, there is Balaam, dull and well-hung, the cold Caleb, the canting Nadab, and the bull-faced Jonas. None of these men has titles, and God gave them no grace.
One of the worst is Shimei, who in his youth seemed promising but soon broke the Sabbath for gain and had plenty of oaths for the government. He amasses a great deal of wealth by cheating, and for that, the city chooses him as the magistrate. He wears a chain of gold around his neck as he pretends to uphold justice. During his time in office, even treason is not a crime, and the sons of Belial—wicked men—have a delightful time. Shimei loves his wicked neighbor as he loves himself, and he is quick to gather with others in criticizing the king. He puts dissenting Jews on his juries to make sure his friends are acquitted, for he knows that “laws are only made to punish those / Who serve the king, and to protect his foes.” If Shimei has any leisure time, he spends it writing persuasive diatribes against the king. He has a spare, dull table and puts all the warmth of his brain into his malice.
The rest of the men are better forgotten, but there is Corah, who devised the plot. Corah is a Levite with sunken eyes and a loud voice, and his prodigious memory lets him repeat “plots exceeding man’s belief.” Sometimes these plots have lies in them, but he is persuasive; as a priest, he seems to have power. There is a certain latitude allowed him as well.
Surrounded by men such as these, Absalom leaves the court filled with impatience, high hopes, and desire for renown. He is fired up with the thought he may possess the crown. When he comes before the people, they admire his goodly appearance, and his lovely form helps him as he enters “unfelt into their secret hearts.” He seems compassionate and mournful, covering his joy and sighing deeply. He prepares to speak a few words to the people.
Lines 698-816
Absalom adopts a mournful tone and tells the people that he rues their lost estate and wishes it were only he who was banished. He knows that Egypt and Tyrus are intercepting their trade and the Jebusites are threatening their sacred rites. He admits he loves his father, but the king is “careless of his fame” and has been seduced by foreign gold. His enemies are clearly more important than his friends, and he is giving the people’s rights away.
Absalom wipes tears from his eyes and says that those tears are all he can give right now. He hopes the next successor to the throne will be good to the Israelites.
The poet writes that “youth, beauty, graceful action, seldom fail,” but that, even more importantly, Absalom makes the people’s wrongs his own. The crowd lifts their hands to bless the young man.
Absalom gathers a glorious train of chariots and horsemen and surveys the Promised Land as the sun does every morning. He hears shouts of joy calling his name, and the various houses see him as a guardian god. This moving court appears to be just pomp, but as Achitophel has devised it, it is much more. The purpose is to “sound the depths, and fathom where it went,” to figure out who is friend and who is foe. Though this looks like mere pageantry, it is a plot against David; it is war masquerading as peace.
Of course, this is a problematic situation because, the poet writes, who can be assured of their private property if a sovereign can be “dissolv’d by might”? The people’s judgment can be wrong and “the most may err as grossly as the few.” Wicked people without a set of standards may attack a good king. Even high officials may be affected with this ignorance and wickedness and “share the madness of rebellious times.” Only “base rebels” desire to change the foundations and frame of the state.
As for David, he seems to have few friends and the madness grows more intense. If someone is his friend, then they are the foe of the people. The following are some who choose to support David.
Lines 817-932
First, there is Barzillai, a man of great honor. He withstood rebels in the wasteland, and he yokes himself to David’s fate. He has wealth but also a large heart. Barzillai suffers because his eldest son was sadly snatched by death in his prime. This young man was honorable and brave, and everyone knew his worth.
There is Zadoc, a priest who desires neither fortune nor fame; he gives himself to David.
The Sagan of Jerusalem, a high priest, is eloquent and has a “hospitable soul and noble stem.” He helps lead the Prophet’s sons in their learning.
Adriel, the “Muse’s friend,” is loyal to David and a keen judge.
Jotham is observant and learned, and he chooses to stay on David’s side.
Hushai has long been a steadfast friend of David’s, helping the throne with “frugal care.”
Amiel is noble and dexterous in defending the crown.
These men are the “small but faithful band / Of worthies” who dare to stand in the breach with David. They are grief-stricken at the troubles besetting Israel. They see the rightful heir removed and feel it their duty to inform the king of what is happening. They tell him it is Absalom, “ambitious of the crown,” and the “false Achitophel” filled with “pernicious hate.”
Lines 933-1031
Finally, his patience gone, the god-like David speaks from his royal throne.
He admits he has delayed a bit, putting his role as father before his role as king. Now, though, he cannot dismiss the contention that mercy or tenderness of blood have made him weak. These are absurd claims and not fit for a king. As the monarch, the king is the pillar of the state is born to “sustain and prop the nation’s weight.” If Absalom wants to be a young Samson and shake the pillars, then he will have to pay the price. If only Absalom would repent, though, he would be forgiven.
David says firmly that Absalom has been used, and that he is more of a fool than a patriot. Religion and the laws do not favor him more than they do David.
David will not approve the people’s choice of Absalom because he knows these petitioners merely want to take his power away. Thus, David will hold on to his power, continue to rule, and pray to Heaven to preserve him from senseless plots.
David wonders if he will have to take up the sword, and he warns the people to “beware the fury of a patient man.” If someone wants to attempt to look at Law close up, then let them try—they will see “the terror of her front” and die. Like the fallen angels, David’s foes can fight and bleed among themselves.
David knows his foes will spend their energy in their first attempt, so he will attack when they are “breathless.” He has the “lawful pow’r” and it will always stand the ground.
David concludes his oration. The Almighty consents, and peals of thunder shake the heavens. A “series of new time began” and David reigned as the lawful king and “willing nations knew their lawful lord.”
Analysis
This section begins with a damning, Dantean run-through of the corrupt and base men who support Absalom and Achitophel and desire to bring David down. These men all correspond to real-life Englishmen (mostly Tories) who supported Exclusion and/or the kingship of Monmouth in place of the Duke of York. Dryden describes them as desirous of bringing up old, false plots; of being critical of the monarchy or just of David; of thinking themselves patriotic when they were not; and generally “Pretending public good, to serve their own” (504). He criticizes them for thinking too little and talking too much, for being “'Gainst form and order they their power employ, / Nothing to build, and all things to destroy” (531-32). The first is Zimri, lampooned for being a dilettante and a man full of wrong opinions. He represents George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, whom Dryden had already scorned in his play The Rehearsal (1670). Buckingham was, as critic E.S. de Beer writes, “Master of the Horse when, in 1674, on being questioned by the house of commons, he was considered by Charles II to have betrayed his counsels.” Balaam represents Theophilus Hastings, and Caleb is Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, a supporter of the Exclusion Bill. The biblical Nadab was an idolater, and here he represents William, Lord Howard of Esrick, a Puritan preacher. Jonas is the biblical Jonah, and he represents Sir William Jones, the attorney general responsible for prosecuting Catholics during the Popish Plot, a member of Parliament, and a supporter of the Exclusion Bill. Shimei is Slingsby Bethel, a sheriff of London and Middlesex and a Whig politician.
It is Corah, though, who gets Dryden’s lengthiest and most incisive passage. Corah is described as a weaver’s son, which is exactly what Titus Oates, whom Corah represents, was. Dryden uses the “plots exceeding man’s belief” (651) to reference Oates’s role in the Popish Plot. As critic Thomas E. Maresca writes, “Corah commits the poem’s greatest perversion of words. Dryden contrasts him tellingly with St. Stephen, who bore witness to the truth with his life; the bilingual pun on martyr and witness enables him somewhat less than covertly to warn Corah of the fate that awaits him.” Corah debases his prophecies with “imaginary plots and vicious lies” and “perjures himself.” He, “like Absalom, plays false prophet, false Moses, false Messiah.” He is an anti-poet “who uses language to deceive and disorder.”
As for David’s allies and councilors, there is Barzillai, a man immensely loyal to David and the father of a young man who lost his life too soon. He represents James Butler, the Duke of Ormonde, and the son is Thomas Butler, Earl of Ossory, who defended his father against Shaftesbury but died in 1680. Zadoc, who carried the Ark of the Covenant with him into the wilderness, is William Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose loyalty to King Charles II was so thoroughgoing that he attended him on his deathbed. Sagan, a Jewish deputy high priest, is Henry Compton, the Bishop of London; Adriel is John Sheffield, 3rd Earl of Mulgrave, a loyal supporter of Dryden and James, Duke of York. Jotham is George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, who, despite being a nephew of Shaftesbury, defended the King and helped defeat the Exclusion Bill. Hushai is Lawrence Hyde, Earl of Rochester, who also fought against the Exclusion Bill. Amiel is Edward Seymour, the speaker of the House of Commons and treasurer of the Navy, who was a prominent Tory.
Dryden contrasts the men who support Achitophel/Absalom with those who support David in both blatant and subtle ways. Maresca looks closely at the language used, noting that the enemies are described in very physical ways: “Corporeal imagery marks all the rebels and their activities, dragging them down from the realm of spirit they would usurp to the world of matter…Images of eating and of food particularly abound in the poem, frequently in semi-blasphemous contexts.” The rebels also move a lot, with Dryden using words to suggest their physicality. By contrast, “the royalists merely stand and speak—thereby making a minor but effective imagistic point about stability and motion that David will capitalize upon in the very final lines of the poem.”
David’s final speech has been criticized throughout the centuries; even Dr. Johnson said there was “an unpleasant disproportion between the beginning and the end.” Other critics defend it, though, stating that its simplicity, elegance, and forthrightness are enough to convey David’s message—and Charles’s. The speech is one in which David enunciates clear truth, using language to assert the virtues of loyalty, intelligence, and morality. He refutes the lies and misconceptions that have swirled around him. Dryden suggests that David is the bringer of divine law to the people, and, as Maresca writes, “a hinge between the two great dispensations, that of law in Moses and that of grace in Christ.”
David’s speech, as W. Gerald Marshall explains, has the same elements of classical oration as Absalom’s and Achitophel’s, but, unlike those men, David is “the speaker whose virtue and ethical intent are concomitant with his use of classical form.” In his exordium, David calls attention to his own virtues, such as mercy and deep paternal love. In his formal narration, he provides some justification for his behavior, an action which classical rhetoricians sanction. He moves into the formal proposition, which is that he will set aside his good and mild predispositions and embody a more manly force to punish the rebels. He offers a justification for these putative actions, using a metaphor that a king is the pillar of the state and if anyone tries to pull that pillar down he will go down as well. The argument, then, is that “those men whom God ordains to be kings will have great and noble souls…Absalom does not have such a soul…Absalom is not destined for empire…force should be used against anyone who attempts to be king without having God’s blessing and sanction.” David then uses a digression, in which he sets forth an indirect emotional appeal by ruminating on how he wishes Absalom would represent him. This is language from the heart that evokes the audience’s sympathy; David’s, unlike Absalom’s, is actually authentic. In the peroration, David’s speech is forceful, emotional, and designed to “leave the audience with a final, favorable impression.” He asserts that he has the law on his side, that he must punish the rebels, and that the people do not control the king. David must do all he can to protect the state from harm, and this is what gives his speech moral and ethical power. All of this, of course, is meant to suggest that Charles is in the very same position and is worthy of his throne and in the right to punish those who threaten it.
