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... them off if he would; they are not the naked essential man. The fundamental Pururavus is not the king and the hero but the poet & lover. The poet on a throne has been the theme of Shakespeare in his Richard II and of Renan in his Antéchrist; and from these two great studies we can realise the European view of the phenomenon. To the European mind the meeting of poet & king in one man wears always the appearance... his chariot and the scenic splendour of the crumbling thunderclouds flying up like dust beneath it, all the poet in him breaks out into glories of speech. Surely no king before or after, not even Richard II, had such a royal gift of language as this grandson of the Sun & Moon. It is peculiar to him in the play. Others, especially those who habitually move near him, Manavaca, the Chamberlain, the Huntsman ...