Oft Expectation Fails, And Most Oft There Where Most It Promises

David Rendel

"Vivitur Ingenio Caetera Mortis Erut," roughly translated means, "Live intellectually. In all other matters, death is master." This phrase borders the emblem of George Wither's poem, By Knowledge, Life wee gaine, All other things to Death pertaine. This poem admonishes the reader to beware of a life too concerned with worldly pleasures, titles and treasures, which he says, belong to death and will return to him upon our death. He entreats us, rather, to concentrate on knowledge, honest actions, holy study and charity, which will provide a virtuous nature which cannot be removed by kings, time or death. In Thomas More's Utopia, we see an example of a people living by these examples, but in a self-motivated way. The fact that this society has adopted these sentiments as a purely logical survival mechanism can be seen in the differing attitudes between Utopian individual and Utopian nation toward education and learning, wealth and virtue.

The poem's emblem shows a man, sitting under the Tree of Knowledge, with his hand on a stack of books contemplating lofty thoughts. He has his back turned from personified Death. George Wither says, "That Knowledge, and that Treasure seeks to find, Which may enrich thy Heart with perfect Joy." We are to understand that learning and knowledge are the most important things to occupy our time in the short life. The Utopian held the wise and learned man in the highest esteem, elevating him to positions of leadership and excusing him from the normal work duties of society. These leaders are tasked with upholding the laws and maintaining a balanced society. Utopians are skilled in "music, dialectic, arithmetic, geometry...logistics," and devour up the Greek classic which Hythlodaeus brings to the island. The nation of Utopia, on the other hand, is quite different. It is a very closed society. It deals in the baser occupations of commerce and even buys slaves from neighboring nations. The nation holds itself in such high regard that there are no lessons to be learned from it's neighbors.

Contrasting the wise man in the emblem is the skeleton hoarding treasures. Among these items are gold, a crown and a coat of arms representing, respectively, wealth, power and honor. These items are in the possession of death, apparently reverting to him after the foolish ones have died. As a socialist society, everything is provided for and by Utopians. They do not have a concept of money. Gold has been turned into a symbol of corruption and baseness, being given to slaves for their shackles and as the material of bedpans. As equal members of society, they do not look for power except where it might benefit society as in a wise man becoming governor. Withers states that "Of twenty hundred thousands, who, this houre Vaunt much...there shall not remain Three Remaine, for any future age to know." Utopians understand this idea and have taken the individual out of the ideal so that are no single Utopians for future ages to know. But if you look at the Utopian society in the larger context of the world in which they live, it becomes apparent that the wealth and gold that the individuals shun is only possible because they are hopelessly rich and the economic and military power they hold over their neighbors absolute. It is clear from the way in which Utopia withholds it's citizens from the wars it fights that it is guilty of the pride which is frowned upon as a citizen.

Virtue lies at the heart of George Wither's poem. By eschewing the "deceiving pleasures" and concentrating on the "honest actions" and "holy studies", we raise ourselves up and gaining a strength in spirit. Utopians are virtuous not for virtue's sake, but only as far as it does not interfere with pleasure: "A person would be stupid not to realize that he ought to take pleasure by fair means or foul, but that he should only take care not to let a lesser pleasure interfere with a greater." They actually define virtue as reason, "since to this end we were created by God." This natural reason (and perhaps the threat of punishment) holds the general public in a balance. Unfortunately, this "virtue" does not pertain to those outside the society. Kings of opposing nations will find bounties on their heads as national ideals clash with Utopian culture. This lack of a national virtue is evident in the lack of regard for their neighbors as the overflow Utopians encroach upon neighboring lands as Utopia outgrows it's borders.

George Wither's lofty ideals are intended to empower the reader with the knowledge to weather societies ills and attain a "noble style". The Utopian twist on this lesson is to hold society to this standard, while the nation is more akin to an organism which is interested in all things forbidden of it's people. It is this contradiction of how individuals of the Utopian society are expected to act and the way in which the Utopian organism acts toward those societies it comes in contact with which sours the noble experiment of the logical society. If we see the Utopians acting in a way that is in agreement with the advice put forth by George Withers, it is somehow without emotion and leaves the reading in mind of a self-serving virus, rather than the noble-minded hero of the emblem.