I would rather be a beggar than a dunce, for a beggar has no money, but a dunce has no humanity. Whether within a prison or a palace, the one place you truly reside is your own head. A sunset looks the same from a prison or a palace. And in fact the prison mythologically precedes the palace. This is literally the plot of the kind of Monte Cristo. Edmond Dantès becomes a count by being falsely imprisoned. And the friar, the dingy monk, in the jail cell entrusts him a secret fortune. The treasure is found in prison. What is the treasure? Self-control. How did I escape with difficulty? How did I plan this moment with pleasure? To achieve your dream, you must be willing to do jail time. You must be willing to be exiled and to look a fool. David, the anointed one, boy who would be king, kills Goliath. And all the girls are talking about how cool he is, how he's better than king. So Saul runs him out. And as he escapes, he encounters the king of Gath. In order to not be recognized, he appears like a fool scraping at the ground and drooling all over himself just so he can escape. He spends 13 years in caves, but this is where the heart of the king is trained. In restraint, in interiority, when Saul passes, he only cuts the hem of his garment. David didn't earn his kingship by killing Goliath, but by not killing Saul. Odysseus, when he returns to Ithaca, dons the guise of a beggar. He tolerates insults in his own home, and he chastises his heart to endure. And a barbarian can tolerate rough seas, but only a king can tolerate being spit on in his own home. When his palace becomes a prison, he maintains his composure. Odin appears as a wanderer. Aragorn appears as Strider. Wise in measure should each man be, but wise enough to play the fool — Amleth. This prince, dispossessed of his inheritance, stoops into slavery, so that he can have his vengeance. The prince willingly becomes a slave. A thrall takes vengeance at once, a coward never. The king exists somewhere between now and never. Between impulsiveness and total cowardice and this is the Übermensch. The Übermensch is not just master morality. It's the physique of the master with the interiority of the slave. The king has the strength of a brute, but the restraint of a slave. This is the regal composure, the noblesse oblige. A noble man is a savage with manners. This is the honest poverty. Their silks and knaves, their wine, their tints will show in all that. The honest man, though ever so poor, he looks and laughs at all that. He's king of men for all that. The complete man is the king in rags. He looks like a fool like David. He looks like a beggar like Odysseus. He looks like a slave like Amleth. Kingship is built in exile. Extreme environmental exteriority develops personal interiority. This is Campbell's privation. To become a king, you have to spend time in prison or in a cave. Consider Harald Hardrada who's the son of the petty king. Nobody takes him seriously, writes as a young man from wood to wood I slink right at little, but who knows, I may be better famed later. Leaves, seeks ghost of Byzantium, kicks ass the Varangian Guard, comes back with 11 coffins full of gold, and he becomes the last king of the Viking Age. That's how it goes. Kingship is on the other side of the cave, of wandering, of exile.
Miller's #patheimathos lecture argues that suffering is a currency money can't buy: prison precedes palace, and where you truly live is your head — a sunset looks the same from either. Through the Count of Monte Cristo (treasure found in prison, its payload is self-control), David (anointed boy who becomes king not by killing Goliath but by not killing Saul — 13 years of cave-trained restraint, playing the fool at Gath), Odysseus (king who endures being spat on in his own palace as a beggar), Odin as wanderer, Aragorn as Strider, and Amleth/Hamlet (prince who stoops into slavery to time his vengeance), he builds a single law: kingship is forged in exile, in willing "jail time," in looking a fool. The Übermensch, in his reading, is not just master-morality but master-physique with slave-interiority — brute strength with savage manners, noblesse oblige. Add Robert Burns' "honest poverty" and Harald Hardrada (laughed at as a boy who slinks from wood to wood, returns from Byzantium with 11 coffins of gold to become the last Viking king) and the thesis lands: extreme exterior deprivation builds interior sovereignty; you pay for kingship with privation, not purchase.
Miller romanticizes privation as the only path to kingship, but not all exile is ennobling — some is just trauma without a container, and not all kings are forged in caves. Inherited kings (and modern stewards who receive healthy culture) can be legitimate without 13 years of hollowing, and "willing jail time" without discernment becomes performative suffering — the hustle-cult that confuses self-punishment with self-control. The missing guardrail is chosen privation with a telos vs. imposed privation with no exit: Dantès had Faria and a map, David had Samuel's anointing, Odysseus had nostos. Without a why and a when, exile doesn't build interiority, it just breaks people.