Tuesday
When Joe Biden declared his anti-Covid measures last week—required vaccines for many, required vaccines or weekly testing for others—I was put in mind of King David in John Dryden’s long poem Absalom and Architophel. Fed up with hoping that his rebellious son Absalom will see reason, David lays down the law.
In his satire, Dryden uses the Biblical story as an allegory of how Charles II, somewhat passive initially, should lay down the law in responding to the Duke of Monmouth, his illegitimate son who led a rebellion against him. Ultimately Monmouth was executed for having done so.
After announcing the new policy, Biden said,
We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us. So, please, do the right thing. But just don’t take it from me; listen to the voices of unvaccinated Americans who are lying in hospital beds, taking their final breaths, saying, “If only I had gotten vaccinated.” “If only.”
It’s a tragedy. Please don’t let it become yours.
The following day, when asked by reporters that Republican governors would be suing him for “overreach,” he was similarly defiant:
Have at it.
And then:
I am so disappointed that particularly some Republican governors have been so cavalier with the health of these kids, so cavalier with the health of their communities.
In Dryden’s poem, David/Charles has watched Absalom/Monmouth “ma[k]e the lure to draw the people down.” He has seen Absalom’s evil advisor Architophel “turn[ ] the plot to ruin church and state.” He has seen the Council (state legislatures in our case) acting irresponsibly and “the rabble” (unruly Trump supporters) acting even worse. Because he, like Biden, is responsible for the stability of his country, his patience finally wears thin;
With all these loads of injuries opprest,
And long revolving in his careful breast
Th’event of things; at last his patience tir’d,
Thus from his royal throne, by Heav’n inspir’d,
The god-like David spoke…
Having hoped that people would be reasonable, David explains why he hasn’t been more forceful previously. Don’t misinterpret a father’s love of his son for weakness, he says:
Thus long have I by native mercy sway’d,
My wrongs dissembl’d, my revenge delay’d:
So willing to forgive th’offending age;
So much the father did the king assuage…
He may have been mild in the past, David states, but he refuses to take any more flack (or “heap’d affronts”):
Yet, since they will divert my native course,
‘Tis time to shew I am not good by force.
Those heap’d affronts that haughty subjects bring,
Are burdens for a camel, not a king…
Like Biden reminding Americans that he’s responsible for the health of all Americans, David reminds those around him that “kings are the public pillars of the state,/Born to sustain and prop the nation’s weight.”
Then David, comparing Absalom to Sampson, says that he must expect the consequences that come with shaking the column. One is tempted to say the same of vaccine resistors who end up in ICU wards only they unfortunately threaten the rest of us:
If my young Sampson will pretend a call
To shake the column, let him share the fall:
King David would much prefer that his son get the vaccine “repent and live”:
But oh that yet he would repent and live!
How easy ’tis for parents to forgive!
With how few tears a pardon might be won
From Nature, pleading for a darling son!
And then my favorite line in the entire poem:
Beware the fury of a patient man.
David gets God’s endorsement for his speech, which is more than Biden can claim. The president would like to believe, however, that the people will come to acknowledge his lawful health measures:
And peals of thunder shook the firmament.
Henceforth a series of new time began,
The mighty years in long procession ran:
Once more the god-like David was restor’d,
And willing nations knew their lawful lord.
If everyone took the vaccine, we could end the pandemic in 30 days. And if that were to happen, historians could look back and report, “Henceforth a series of new time began,/ The mighty years in long procession ran.”
Dare to dream.
