Timon and the collapse of feudalism

Peter J. Leithart, November 07, 2007

I want to try to bridge the gap between medieval and Renaissance obsession with gift and gratitude and the Enlightenment where these are either privatized or reduced or ignored altogether. Let me begin with some additional thoughts on Timon of Athens, following the argument of an insightful 1947 article by EC Pettet. Pettet argues in essence that Timon is not an abstract consideration of profligacy or excessive prodigality, but "a straightforward tract for the times." During Elizabeth's reign, traditional feudal lords, with their wealth bound up in land, were in trouble:

"As a class these feudalists had been severely hit by the sharp rise in prices throughout the century, for while the bulk of their income derived from the land, rents remained at a relatively low, customary level. Some were shrewd enough to turn their attention to mining the industry; others attempted to reorganize their estates and screw up the level of rents. But these entrepreneurs and 'improving' landlords were the exceptions, and most of the nobility, lacking either the energy and initiative or the ruthlessness to adopt other measures, had recourse to the only other way out of their difficulty – the money-lender. The results of this were what we should expect: by the end of the sixteenth century many landowners, including some of the greatest noblemen in the country, were in debt to thousands of pounds, while a considerable amount of land had fallen, through mortgage, into the hands of City merchants, tradesmen, and lawyers."

Nobles were caught in cross-fire. On the one hand, traditional manorly, feudal behavior demanded that they open their homes and stores generously to others. Robert Greene reported, concerning Sir Christopher Hatton, that the knight

kept no Christmas house for once a year,
Each day his boards were filled with lordly fare;
He fed a rout of yeoman with his cheer,
Nor was his bread and beef kept in with care,
His wine and beer to strangers were not spare,
And yet beside to all that hunger grieved,
His gates were ope, And they were there relieved.

On the other hand, keeping up this kind of generous hospitality meant that the gentry were putting themselves at the mercy of lenders, and submitting themselves to an economic system that they were ill-prepared to participate in.

Timon is the type of the generous feudal Lord who gives without thought to the cost. He is, Pettet says, "the ideal feudal lord living up to the full obligation of bounty and housekeeping." He is sincere when he says "Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends, and ne'er be weary" (1.2.228). Like a feudal lord, Timon sees his gifts in personal terms, not as contractual or purely monetary transactions. He recognizes what Lewis Hyde describes as the "erotic" dimension of exchanges – exchange that establishes relations and forges bonds rather than merely meeting mutual self interest. Timon's commitment to this older ethic of giving is evident in his discussion with the old Athenian about Lucillus's love for the man's daughter. Timon's questions are all about character and relation: He tells the Athenian that Lucillus is honest and asks if they love one another. The old Athenian sees their relation in purely financial terms: Lucillus has nothing, and he tries to bring his daughter to order by threatening to remove her inheritance (1.1.128-36).

Timon shares the traditional beliefs in service, responsibility, obligation, solidarity, the "social nature of the good," a set of beliefs evident in his speech on friends in Act 1, scene 2:

O you gods, think I, what need we have any friends, if we should ne'er have need of 'em? they were the most needless creatures living, should we ne'er have use for 'em, and would most resemble sweet instruments hung up in cases that keep their sounds to themselves. Why, I have often wished myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We are born to do benefits: and what better or properer can we can our own than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious comfort 'tis, to have so many, like brothers, commanding one another's fortunes! O joy, e'en made away ere 't can be born! Mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks: to forget their faults, I drink to you.

Like the nobles of Shakespeare's day, however, "he has been able to keep up a lavish scale of bounty only by mortgaging his estates to the last acre." When he finds that no one else in his circle maintains the same values, his world shatters. When his servant asks one of his friends for help, the friend responds, "this is no time to lend money, especially upon friendship, without security" (3.1.45-47). Pettet suggests that "these words are the direct contradiction of medieval Christian morality, which had taught that money should be lent only as an act of friendship." More generally, Pettet writes, "the Timon of the last two Acts is not a symbol of savage rage and timeless misanthropy or of protest against human ingratitude but a man shattered and disillusioned to the point of madness by his discovery that the traditional beliefs he has lived by are no longer the beliefs of the world around him." Beyond Timon's Athens, Shakespeare is expressing his own "tragic gloom" about the new social world he sees on the horizon. In contrast to the optimism displayed in Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare "now appears to realize that the new anti-feudal forces of commercialism, money, and self-interest are in the ascendant. He represents them as defacing chivalry and beating down nobility, not simply as something alien and exterior, but as an insidious irresistible infection from within."

The world Timon sees around him is a world dominated by self-interest, which Shakespeare, significantly, describes as "a usuring kindness," a kindness lent out only for advantage, something that Timon sees as no different from institutionalized theft. In a vituperative speech, he commends open thieves because they are at least honest about their thieving, in contrast to the thieves that assume "holier shapes" (3.438ff):

Yet thanks I must you con
That you are thieves profess'd, that you work not
In holier shapes: for there is boundless theft
In limited professions. Rascal thieves,
Here's gold. Go, suck the subtle blood o' the grape,
Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth,
And so 'scape hanging: trust not the physician;
His antidotes are poison, and he slays
Moe than you rob: take wealth and lives together;
Do villany, do, since you protest to do't,
Like workmen. I'll example you with thievery.
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief:
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have uncheque'd theft. Love not yourselves: away,
Rob one another. There's more gold. Cut throats:
All that you meet are thieves: to Athens go,
Break open shops; nothing can you steal,
But thieves do lose it: steal no less for this
I give you; and gold confound you howsoe'er! Amen.

This can only dissolve the world. Pettet says that Shakespeare is right to see that "the new economic forces did destroy the old religious, political, and moral order," as feudal society was replaced by bourgeois society. Timon describes the shift in apocalyptic terms:

O thou wall,
That girdlest in those wolves, dive in the earth,
And fence not Athens! Matrons, turn incontinent!
Obedience fail in children! slaves and fools,
Pluck the grave wrinkled senate from the bench,
And minister in their steads! to general filths
Convert o' the instant, green virginity,
Do 't in your parents' eyes! bankrupts, hold fast;
Rather than render back, out with your knives,
And cut your trusters' throats! bound servants, steal!
Large-handed robbers your grave masters are,
And pill by law. Maid, to thy master's bed;
Thy mistress is o' the brothel! Son of sixteen,
pluck the lined crutch from thy old limping sire,
With it beat out his brains! Piety, and fear,
Religion to the gods, peace, justice, truth,
Domestic awe, night-rest, and neighbourhood,
Instruction, manners, mysteries, and trades,
Degrees, observances, customs, and laws,
Decline to your confounding contraries,
And let confusion live! Plagues, incident to men,
Your potent and infectious fevers heap
On Athens, ripe for stroke! Thou cold sciatica,
Cripple our senators, that their limbs may halt
As lamely as their manners. Lust and liberty
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
And drown themselves in riot! Itches, blains,
Sow all the Athenian bosoms; and their crop
Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,
at their society, as their friendship, may
merely poison! Nothing I'll bear from thee,
But nakedness, thou detestable town!
Take thou that too, with multiplying bans!
Timon will to the woods; where he shall find
The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind.
The gods confound--hear me, you good gods all--
The Athenians both within and out that wall!
And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow
To the whole race of mankind, high and low! Amen.

At the heart of the new system is the power of money, which Timon condemns in several speeches (4.3.26-43; 383-94). Pettet summarizes the two points of the speeches: "First, there is [money's] omnipotence, for, being able to buy everything, it can mediate all things to itself – not just economic commodities, but love, religion, political and religious power. Secondly, money is 'visible god,' having the miraculous power of uniting and changing opposites As an individual a man may be 'foul,' yet money gives him the power to buy in marriage the 'fair,' that is to say, the opposite of himself." Above all, money is "the dissolvent, the dynamic agent of change," which is the reason the conservative Shakespeare worries about its effects. Gold, Timon says, is the "common whore of mankind" (4.3.42), an image he uses several times. Pettet explains that both usury and prostitution "from Shakespeare's medieval viewpoint, are morally reprehensible because they are the degeneration of a human relationship into a purely material one." Christian charity was to be given for nothing, without thought of return, but usurers lend for financial advantage. Usury turns the "erotic" exchange of gift and gratitude into an exchange motivated only by common self-interest. It is no surprise, then, that two prostitutes appear late in the play, and that Timon sends them away with money with the instruction to spread syphilis in the city of Athens. Usury, self-interest, commercialization, for Shakespeare, bring a plague on social relations.

Be a whore still: they love thee not that use thee;
Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.
Make use of thy salt hours: season the slaves
For tubs and baths; bring down rose-cheeked youth
To the tub-fast and the diet.