—Act I, scene iii, lines 89-92
"Sol" is the Latin word for "sun" and is the personification of the sun in the Roman myths.
This passage sounds as though Shakespeare, through Ulysses' mouth, is proclaiming the sun to be the ruler of the planets, for he is "in noble eminence enthroned" and he governs and controls the others.
If so, this is a startlingly modern view, not only for Ulysses, but even for Shakespeare, for it seems to refer to the heliocentric theory of the solar system, which places the sun at the center and makes the planets (including the earth itself) revolve about it. The mere fact that the sun is at the center would make it appear to rule the planetary system (so that it is a solar system), and Isaac Newton eventually showed, some sixty-seven years after Shakespeare's death, that the sun's overwhelming gravitational force did, indeed, keep the planets in their place.
It is surprising that Shakespeare should seem to be giving this impression, for all through his plays he shows himself a complete conservative as far as science is concerned and accepts only the Greek view of the universe. To be sure, some Greeks, notably Aristarchus of Samos, about 250 b.c., claimed the sun was the center of the planetary system, but few listened to them, and the Greek majority view continued to place the earth at the center. This latter doctrine was made final by the grand synthesis of the astronomer Ptolemy, about a.d. 150. (The earth-at-center theory is therefore called the "Ptolemaic system" in consequence.)
In 1543 Copernicus advanced the same notion that Aristarchus once had, but with much more detailed reasoning. His view was not accepted by most scholars for a long time, and in Shakespeare's lifetime the Copernican view was still widely considered rather far out and blasphemous.
Can Shakespeare, then, be taking the progressive Copernican view against the conservative Ptolemaic attitude?
No! That he remains conservative is clear at several points. He refers, for instance, to the "planet Sol." The Greeks observed that several heavenly bodies shifted position constantly against the background of non-shifting of "fixed" stars. These bodies they called "planets," meaning, in English, "wanderers." The known planets included the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, seven bodies in all.
Once the Copernican view of the planetary system was established, it seemed unreasonable to call the sun a planet, since it didn't wander among the stars, really, but was thought to be the motionless center of the planetary system.
It fell out of fashion to call the sun a planet, therefore. The name "planet" was then applied only to those bodies which revolved about the sun. This meant that the earth itself would have to be viewed as a planet. The moon revolves about the earth, the only body to retain its Ptolemaic position, and it is not, strictly speaking, viewed as a planet any longer. It is a satellite. Of the Greek planets, therefore, only Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn retain the name and to these are added the earth and the planetary bodies since discovered: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and a host of tiny bodies called planetoids or asteroids.
Shakespeare refers to Sol as a planet, however, thus insisting that the sun moves and is not the center of the planetary system. He has the sun not merely enthroned but also "sphered." That is, it is embedded in a sphere that encircles the earth (see page I-25), whereas if it were the center of the planetary system, it could not be part of a sphere.
Finally, in speaking of the necessity of order in the heavens, Shakespeare has Ulysses say, a bit earlier in the speech:
—Act I, scene iii, lines 85-86
That makes a clear distinction between the planets and "this center," that is, earth.
If the sun is "in noble eminence enthroned," then, it is only because, in Shakespeare's view, it is the brightest and most magnificent of the planets and not because it has a central position.
Ulysses goes on to point out the harmful effects of disorder in the heavens:
—Act I, scene iii, lines 94-96
This seems to reflect the universal belief in astrology in Greek times, in Shakespeare's times, and, for that matter, in our own times. The planets were supposed to influence matters on earth by their ever changing positions against the stars and relative to each other. Certain positions foreboded evil and therefore represented "the planets in evil mixture."
And yet the motions of the planets followed a fixed pattern that could be worked out, and was worked out, by Greek astronomers (a thousand years after the Trojan War, to be sure) so that such "evil mixture" could not really represent disorder. They followed inevitably from planetary motion.
There were, however, some heavenly phenomena which were very spectacular and which took place only rarely; notably eclipses of the sun and of the moon. These therefore were particularly baleful and frightening, and remained signs of apparent disorder in the heavens even after they had been explained astronomically and had been proven to be predictable.
Still more frightening and disorderly were the occasional appearances of comets, whose comings and goings seemed utterly erratic and were shown to be governed by the sun's gravitational field only two centuries after Shakespeare's death.
Having established (most eloquently) the general principle that only in centralized authority accepted by all, only in an established hierarchy of mastery, is order and efficiency to be found, Ulysses descends to specifics. Agamemnon should be the autocratic head of the enterprise against Troy, but his subordinates flout him and, in particular:
—Act I, scene iii, lines 142-46
Achilles was certainly the foremost hero on the Greek side and in the Iliad he is by no means treated as a conceited fop. Before the poem opens, he has been the mainstay of the army; his expeditions have subdued the Trojan dominions in Asia Minor; he has fought harder than anyone.
It is only when Agamemnon tries to take away his lawful prize, the girl Briseis, and scorns him before the gathered army, that Achilles loses his temper and withdraws from the fight. He proves himself to be vengeful and cruel thereafter, but at least he has a reasonable cause for his anger.
In Roman and medieval times, however, the legend of the Roman descent from Aeneas swung popular opinion heavily in favor of the Trojans. Achilles was therefore downgraded and there seemed nothing wrong in having him sulk in his tent out of vainglorious conceit, rather than in righteous wrath. Furthermore, the proponents of courtly love did not fail to make use of later myths concerning Achilles' love for a Trojan princess. That will appear later in the play as a cause for his malingering.