ABSTRACT
Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-11) and Middleton, Rowley, and Heywood’s The Old Law (1618-19, published 1656) dramatize world-creating projects by two dukes whose intentions are always imperfectly known by their subjects. They both treat the theme of old age, one in that the ruler of the island is himself advanced in years, the other in that the duke intends ostensibly to banish old age by enforcing a rigid euthanasia law in the city of Epire. Both plays allude to the idea of utopia, a construct doomed to failure before it begins, due partly to humans’ inherent sinfulness, partly to the unalterable truth of our mortality. While these texts consider the proper place of old age in society, they come on the heels of a long tradition of English plays featuring disguised or dissembling dukes. Like their predecessors, such as Measure for Measure, they seek to probe the methods and motivations of governance. The Tempest, whose events determine the political future of the two city-states Milan and Naples, is the more clearly Italianate play, reflecting the English fascination with Italian politics and Machiavellian intrigue. The Old Law, while without specifically Italian references (save to classical Rome), features its own Machiavellian-if ultimately benevolent-prince in the Duke of Epire, along with a recognizable type of stage Machiavel in the youth Simonides.1 In their portrayal of dissembling dukes, they offer, respectively, a sustained meditation on old age and a surprisingly vigorous defense of it.
