The sword of Damocles, that proverbial knife edge overhanging the mighty by the slightest thread, is the ultimate symbol of power’s fragility. For its transfer, there is D.H. Lawrence’s imagined dialogue between one Septimus and King Arthur.
Septimus: We’re all equal in the sight of God, you know, Arthur.
Arthur: Yes.
Septimus: Then I guess it’s about time I had that yard-and-a-half of Excalibur to play with. Don’t you think so? We’re equal in the sight of God, and you’ve had it for quite a while.
NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP
Books
Be the first to find out what's new and what's good. Get the weekend book reviews before the weekend.
PREVIEW
SUBSCRIBE
Arthur: Yes, I agree. (Hands him Excalibur.)
Septimus (prodding Arthur with Excalibur): Say, Art, which is your fifth rib?
As Lawrence concluded, “Superiority is a sword. Hand it over to Septimus, and you’ll get it back between your ribs.”
Retain-the-sword was the governing ethos of British imperialism, according to which order and disorder, law and lawlessness were binary systems. In her finely argued study, “The King’s Peace: Law and Order in the British Empire,” Lisa Ford, an historian at the University of New South Wales, untangles the corrupted and corrupting logic of colonial peacekeeping. Hers is an episodic history, expounding local—what might at first appear marginal—breaches and reinterpretations of the king’s peace. The selection of examples across three continents is inspired, beginning with the “Malcom affair” in Boston in 1766.
