Abstract
AbstractKing David's rise from tending sheep to governing Israel impressed Renaissance writers, not least the poets and clergymen who found a model in his musical “psalmograph.” Yet ambiguities nestle in allusions to his career. Though many stressed that his ascent was thanks to divine election and not to ambition or guile, the fact remained that David did not inherit his scepter. Europe, though, was for the most part ruled by those with dynastic claims, and it had a class system in which literal shepherds should know their place, even if the Bible asserts that the valleys shall be exalted and the mountains made low. Comments on kings and bishops as shepherds, on shepherds as kings, and on David's upward career are fascinating to trace precisely because their social and political context can give them the energy of a concealed ambivalence.
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