An Image of the Times. Nils-Johan Jorgensen
of refinement, the elexir that would turn base metals to gold, while simultaneously restoring the possessor’s health and beauty, and in the full-blown version of the dream, conferring eternal life.54
Thomas More was influenced by the satires of Lucian. When the Anemolian ambassadors arrive in Amaurot, the capital of Utopia, in ‘splendid adornment’ it sets the scene for a reflection on the worth of gold, used in Utopia to make chamber pots:
I never saw a more remarkable instance of the opposite impressions which different manners make on people, than I observed in the Anemolian ambassadors, who came to Amaurot when I was there. Coming to treat of affairs of great consequence, the deputies from several cities met to await their coming. The ambassadors of countries lying near Utopia, knowing their manners – that fine clothes are in no esteem with them, that silk is despised, and gold a badge of infamy – came very modestly clothed. But the Anemolians, who lie at a greater distance, having had little intercourse with them, understanding they were coarsely clothed and all in one dress, took it for granted that they had none of that finery among them, of which they made no use. Being also themselves a vain-glorious rather than a wise people, they resolved on this occasion to assume their grandest appearance, and astonish the poor Utopians with their splendour.
Thus three ambassadors made their entry with 100 attendants, all clad in garments of different colours, and the greater part in silk. The ambassadors themselves, who were of the nobility of their country, were in clothes of gold, adorned with massy chains and rings of gold. Their caps were covered with bracelets, thickly set with pearls and other gems. In a word, they were decorated in those very things, which, among the Utopians, are either badges of slavery, marks of infamy, or play-things for children.
It was pleasant to behold, on one side, how big they looked in comparing their rich habits with the plain clothes of the Utopians, who came out in great numbers to see them make their entry; and on the other, how much they were mistaken in the impression which they expected this pomp would have made. The sight appeared so ridiculous to those who had not seen the customs of other countries, that, though they respected such as were meanly clad (as if they had been the ambassadors), when they saw the ambassadors themselves, covered with gold and chains, they looked upon them as slaves, and shewed them no respect. You might have heard children, who had thrown away their jewels, cry to their mothers, see that great fool, wearing pearls and gems as if he was yet a child; and the mothers as innocently replying, ‘peace, this must be one of the ambassador’s fools’.55
In a scene of artistic freedom and dramatic indecorum Shakespeare lets Bassanio challenge the ‘outward shows’, the deception, vice and falshood, the entrapment and ‘guilded shore to a most dangerous sea’ represented by gold and choose the casket of the ‘meagre lead’56 instead.
The next class in the ladder, the vegetative, contained the qualities of life and growth. Again, the subtle ranking of the objects made each position clear, the oak ranked higher than any other tree. The Lion was the King of Animals and ‘naturally a man is hardy as the Lion’.57
The sensitive class with the higher faculties of feeling and memory led to the rank of Man and the gift of learning and understanding. ‘Man is above all a political animal.’58 Man summed up the universe in himself. ‘Man is called a little world not because he is composed of the four elements … but because he possesses all the faculties of the universe … he possesses the godlike faculty of reason.’59
The spiritual class, represented by the angels, was linked to Man, but had no other links with the classes below. The Great Chain of Being and the elements, hot, cold, dry and moist, interacted and embraced everything:
In this order hot things are in harmony with cold, dry with moist, heavy with light, great with little, high with low. In this order angel is set over angel, rank upon rank in the kingdom of heaven; man is set over man, beast over beast, bird over bird, and fish over fish, on the earth in the air and in the sea … nor from man down to the meanest worm is there any creature which is not in some respect superior to one creature and inferior to another. So that there is nothing which the bond of order does not embrace.60
Design, cosmology and ontology came together.
Microcosm
The Great Chain was a vertical order with complicated rules, indeed a hierarchical class system, but it was accompanied by a horizontal net of correspondences, the concept of Man as Microcosm, which emphasized the analogy and harmony between Man and Cosmos:
Man is called the lesser world, in regard of the perfect analogie and similitude, betwixt him and this greater world, wherein there is nothing whose likenesse and resemblance may not be seene in man; and this you may call the Analogicall world.61
Parallels were created between different levels in microcosm and between man, the state and the universe, between cosmic and political order.62 ‘Rain of tears’ and ‘eyes as stars’ were popular correspondences. ‘This little World, this wondrous Ile of Man.’63 The head of man is ‘the Castle and tower of the Soule’ the sun is ‘the heart of the world, and the heart the Sunne of man’s bodie’.64 Because man, like cosmos, was a mixture of the four elements a web of correspondences and parallels appeared between microcosm, the soul and body of man, and macrocosm, (‘wilt thou see in this Microcosme or little world, the wandering planets’),65 between body politic (the state or the king) and macrocosm. As the King was the head of the State and the heart was the most vital part of Man, the King would be referred to as the Heart of the State. Each of the four humours was linked to a planet; the sanguine humour to Jupiter (‘in man’s body Jupiter helpeth to fairnesse and honestie’),66 the phlegmatic humour to the Moon, the choleric humour to Mars and the melancholy humour to Saturn (the saturnine humour). The position of each planet was seen as its house (home), ‘Jupiter’s house is good in all things, namely to peace, love, and accord’.67 The planets would influence the four elements and complexions in Man differently:
In each men and women, raigneth the Planets, and every signe of the Zodiacke, and every Prime qualitie, and every Element, and every Complexion, but not in every one alike: for in some men raigneth one more, and in some raigneth another: and therefore men be of divers manners, as shall be made apparent.68
The use of manners is here identified with the original meaning of humours and not with the fashionable all inclusive cant term.
The movements of the elements were seen as a dance in the universe, ‘framed by a kind of harmony of sounds’,69 an orchestra in the heavens inviting the elements to dance:
Dauncing, bright lady, then began to be,
When the first seedes whereof the world did spring,
The Fire, Aire, Earth and Water, did agree
By Love’s persuation, Nature’s mighty King,
To leave their first disordered combating,
And in a dance such measure to observe,
As all the world their motion should preserve.70
Jonson in his plays observes and respects the ‘bond of order’ to the extent that his characters remain unchanged throughout the play. The Great Chain, fundamentally, supported his obedience to decorum. Jonson surveyed the vertical ladder of order and degree, the horizontal comparisons and the universal dance, as the collective habit of mind and incorporated the Elizabethan world picture as a fundamental poetic reference in his creative writing. Queen Elizabeth was a keen observer of astrology and astral influences. Jonson turned his interest to Galileo’s telescope (1609) and the new astronomical discoveries but allowed a light ridicule of the excesses of astrology in Volpone and Bartholomew Fair.
ANCIENT MEDICAL THEORY AND RENAISSANCE PSYCHOLOGY
And much adoe, and many words are spent in finding out the path that humours went.71
The theory of humours has its roots in early Greek medicine and natural philosophy and springs from a fundamental search