Richard II - Act III

[Virgil]

Go on to Act IV. What the heck are you waiting for? I'll catch up.

[MissScarlett]

I'll have to reread Act IV - tomorrow.

[Quark]

hahah...who is the 'Evil Doppelganger?'

Krauq and I are very much the same person. I was just going to pieces like Richard.

Go on to Act IV. What the heck are you waiting for? I'll catch up.

I'll have to reread Act IV - tomorrow.

I can post something tomorrow on Act IV. Today I have four classes and probably won't be back until late, though. Mondays and Wednesdays are long days for me.

[Virgil]

I'm sorry I've been on a business trip and not been able to participate. Hopefully I'll be home by the weekend. But how come none of you have voted for the next Shakespeare play to discuss: http://www.online-literature.com/for...776#post696776.

[Quark]

But how come none of you have voted for the next Shakespeare play to discuss: http://www.online-literature.com/for...776#post696776.

I voted a couple of days ago. Many of us piled on Henry IV in the late moments of the poll to break the tie. Scher already posted the threads for that discussion, so whenever we get bored with this play we can move over to another.

[Janine]

I voted a couple of days ago. Many of us piled on Henry IV in the late moments of the poll to break the tie. Scher already posted the threads for that discussion, so whenever we get bored with this play we can move over to another.

I have a suggestion for you, Quark. You could let your 'doppelganger' go onto 'Henry IV.'

[Virgil]

Ok I wanted to complete my Act III comments, and they pertain to scene 3.

I am completely fascinated in how Shakespeare deals with Bolingbroke's motives. Is Bolingbroke secretly striving to gain the kingship? Check out how York questions Bolingbroke at the beginning of the scene and Bolingbroke's response:

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
So that by this intelligence we learn
The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury
Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed
With some few private friends upon this coast.

NORTHUMBERLAND
The news is very fair and good, my lord:
Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.

DUKE OF YORK
It would beseem the Lord Northumberland
To say 'King Richard:' alack the heavy day
When such a sacred king should hide his head.

NORTHUMBERLAND
Your grace mistakes; only to be brief
Left I his title out.

DUKE OF YORK
The time hath been,
Would you have been so brief with him, he would
Have been so brief with you, to shorten you,
For taking so the head, your whole head's length.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
Mistake not, uncle, further than you should.

DUKE OF YORK
Take not, good cousin, further than you should.
Lest you mistake the heavens are o'er our heads.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
I know it, uncle, and oppose not myself
Against their will. But who comes here?

A sort of slip of the tongue by Northumberland leads York to suspect what may be going on. And Bolingbroke tells him to "mistake not uncle, further than you should." But York replies sharply, "Take not, good cousin, further than you should./Lest you mistake the heavens are o'er our heads." He suspects something is up. A little further down Bolingbroke articulates what his demands are:

Henry Bolingbroke
On both his knees doth kiss King Richard's hand
And sends allegiance and true faith of heart
To his most royal person, hither come
Even at his feet to lay my arms and power,
Provided that my banishment repeal'd
And lands restored again be freely granted:
If not, I'll use the advantage of my power
And lay the summer's dust with showers of blood
Rain'd from the wounds of slaughter'd Englishmen:

All he wants is his banishment repealled and his lands restored. So what's the problem? This indicates a man who is willing to negotiate. Bolingbroke has not been given the most lively of poetic language in the play but that image of showers of blood and a slaughtered Englishmen (his own people I might add) is extremely striking and I can't help but feel that Henry has a brutal machievllian (sp?) streak in him that is intent on taking the crown. In a play that has had some stirring patriotic speeches slaughtering your own countrymen sounds incrediblly unpatriotic, as if me saying I would slaughter American soldiers (God forbid the thought). It's just not a nice thing.

And if on the surface Bolingbroke is willing to negotiate, then why does Richard give up the crown without either a fight or an attempt at negotiation? It seems he could provide Bolingbroke with what he wants. The scene where they come on each other, Richard up on the castle wall and Bolingbroke below is a visually striking drama. And then Richard comes down, down to Bolingbrokes level is even more striking. At first Richard seems defiant:

We are amazed; and thus long have we stood
To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,

To NORTHUMBERLAND

Because we thought ourself thy lawful king:
And if we be, how dare thy joints forget
To pay their awful duty to our presence?
If we be not, show us the hand of God
That hath dismissed us from our stewardship;
For well we know, no hand of blood and bone
Can gripe the sacred handle of our sceptre,
Unless he do profane, steal, or usurp.
And though you think that all, as you have done,
Have torn their souls by turning them from us,
And we are barren and bereft of friends;
Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,
Is mustering in his clouds on our behalf
Armies of pestilence; and they shall strike
Your children yet unborn and unbegot,
That lift your vassal hands against my head
And threat the glory of my precious crown.
Tell Bolingbroke--for yond methinks he stands--
That every stride he makes upon my land
Is dangerous treason: he is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war;
But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,
Ten thousand bloody crowns of mothers' sons
Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation and bedew
Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.

But defiance turns to unreality. God is "mustering on his behalf?" Well, He isn't. [Side note: notice all the allusions to garden in that speech, flower, pasture, grass.] And though defiant for a speech, his "bi-polar" temperment quickly shifts even though Northumberland says Bolingbroke will be at the Kings "faithful service."

KING RICHARD II
O God, O God! that e'er this tongue of mine,
That laid the sentence of dread banishment
On yon proud man, should take it off again
With words of sooth! O that I were as great
As is my grief, or lesser than my name!
Or that I could forget what I have been,
Or not remember what I must be now!
Swell'st thou, proud heart? I'll give thee scope to beat,
Since foes have scope to beat both thee and me.

And when Northumberland comes back and before he even hears what he has to say Richard has already convinced himself to give it up:

KING RICHARD II
What must the king do now? must he submit?
The king shall do it: must he be deposed?
The king shall be contented: must he lose
The name of king? o' God's name, let it go:
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads,
My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,
My gay apparel for an almsman's gown,
My figured goblets for a dish of wood,
My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff,
My subjects for a pair of carved saints
And my large kingdom for a little grave,
A little little grave, an obscure grave;
Or I'll be buried in the king's highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign's head;
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live;
And buried once, why not upon my head?
Aumerle, thou weep'st, my tender-hearted cousin!
We'll make foul weather with despised tears;
Our sighs and they shall lodge the summer corn,
And make a dearth in this revolting land.
Or shall we play the wantons with our woes,
And make some pretty match with shedding tears?
As thus, to drop them still upon one place,
Till they have fretted us a pair of graves
Within the earth; and, therein laid,--there lies
Two kinsmen digg'd their graves with weeping eyes.
Would not this ill do well? Well, well, I see
I talk but idly, and you laugh at me.
Most mighty prince, my Lord Northumberland,
What says King Bolingbroke? will his majesty
Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?
You make a leg, and Bolingbroke says ay.

Good God, all the self pity and reaches of imagination and lack of reality are seen here. And all Northumberland says is that Bolingbroke would like to talk with you. And Richard sees himself dethroned with this very action of coming down the castle:

KING RICHARD II
Down, down I come; like glistering Phaethon,
Wanting the manage of unruly jades.
In the base court? Base court, where kings grow base,
To come at traitors' calls and do them grace.
In the base court? Come down? Down, court!
down, king!
For night-owls shriek where mounting larks
should sing.

And Northumberland notes Richard's mental state to Bolingbroke:

NORTHUMBERLAND
Sorrow and grief of heart
Makes him speak fondly, like a frantic man
Yet he is come.

I take that comment as telling Bolingbroke, sh,sh, he's going to abdicate, play it right. And Richard abdicate:

KING RICHARD II
Fair cousin, you debase your princely knee
To make the base earth proud with kissing it:
Me rather had my heart might feel your love
Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.
Up, cousin, up; your heart is up, I know,
Thus high at least, although your knee be low.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.

KING RICHARD II
Your own is yours, and I am yours, and all.

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
So far be mine, my most redoubted lord,
As my true service shall deserve your love.

KING RICHARD II
Well you deserve: they well deserve to have,
That know the strong'st and surest way to get.
Uncle, give me your hands: nay, dry your eyes;
Tears show their love, but want their remedies.
Cousin, I am too young to be your father,
Though you are old enough to be my heir.
What you will have, I'll give, and willing too;
For do we must what force will have us do.
Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?

HENRY BOLINGBROKE
Yea, my good lord.

What made Richard give up without a fight or negotiation? Does he suspect that Bolingbroke is angling for the crown and no matter what Richard does he will seize the kingship from him? I suspect yes. Richard sees it as all futile. But was it futile? I don't really know. I think it may have been but I still would have fought to the end. Others in Shakespeare do. That last "Yea, my good lord" by Bolingbroke can almost be seen as a dancing banana yea! (I'm kidding somewhat ) And Richard cornered apparently concludes the scene with a pathetic "Then I must not say no."

A fascinating scene if you ask me.

[Janine]

Yes, I thought this the best scene in the play actually; although I like the scene that followed when he actually did hand over the crown. I did like how Richard was above and came down to the ground level - very significant I thought. I also thought he switched to a lot of self-pity and it was almost martyrdom; I refer to the part about being striped of all his finery and being buried in the road. Come on, surely he did not fathom that would come to be, whether he was dethroned or not. I felt he was going overboard at that juncture of the play. He is good at this self-pitying thing, whether the poetry be wonderful or not; it still comes off as self-absorption and -pity to me. I did find this part about Bollingbroke kneeling interesting as well and the comments that Richard mades to him at that moment. I also don't quite know why Richard so readily gives up the crown; although once in London, he puts on quite another show of self-pity when actually removing the crown from his head to bestow on Bollingbroke.

Glad you posted tonight, Virgil. You brought out a lot of good points. I read it all. I have to mull it all over now. Yes, there were some garden references, I noticed that....even here in the metaphor of the flower, her pasture's grass:

Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation and bedew
Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.

A dancing banana? really Virgil...haha

[Virgil]

Glad you posted tonight, Virgil. You brought out a lot of good points. I read it all. I have to mull it all over now. Yes, there were some garden references, I noticed that....even here in the metaphor of the flower, her pasture's grass:

Shall ill become the flower of England's face,
Change the complexion of her maid-pale peace
To scarlet indignation and bedew
Her pastures' grass with faithful English blood.

Yes, and references to England as a garden are all over the play.

A dancing banana? really Virgil...haha

[Janine]

Yes, and references to England as a garden are all over the play.

They are all over Shakespeare. I have heard that expression now in a number of the plays. I recall it at the end of "Henry V",

Chorus

Thus far, with rough and all-unable pen,
Our bending author hath pursued the story,
In little room confining mighty men,
Mangling by starts the full course of their glory.
Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England: Fortune made his sword;
By which the world's best garden be achieved,
And of it left his son imperial lord.
Henry the Sixth, in infant bands crown'd King
Of France and England, did this king succeed;
Whose state so many had the managing,
That they lost France and made his England bleed:
Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their sake,
In your fair minds let this acceptance take.

Interesting and ironic, since Henry V's father takes the crown from Richard and eventually under Henry V's grandchild's rulership, his managers make England bleed. I like how all the history plays tie in together. Also, I wondered if "The War of the Roses" was not representative of red blood/red roses.

[Quark]

That last "Yea, my good lord" by Bolingbroke can almost be seen as a dancing banana

Funny

Inwardly I'm sure he's all dancing banana, but on the outside he appears to be downplaying the whole affair--which creates a rather extreme contrast between the two characters. I'm not sure what emoticon one would use to express that exactly.

[Janine]

Funny

Inwardly I'm sure he's all dancing banana, but on the outside he appears to be downplaying the whole affair--which creates a rather extreme contrast between the two characters. I'm not sure what emoticon one would use to express that exactly.

Maybe this one - ...like 'I know the outcome, even if you don't all suspect!'

[Virgil]

Funny

Inwardly I'm sure he's all dancing banana, but on the outside he appears to be downplaying the whole affair--which creates a rather extreme contrast between the two characters. I'm not sure what emoticon one would use to express that exactly.

Maybe this one - ...like 'I know the outcome, even if you don't all suspect!'

You guys are too much. Yeah, it was only an internal dancing banana. On the outside he was cool as a cucumber.

[MissScarlett]

I think that scene really shows us the differences between the two men - Richard and Bolingbroke. Richard is so ill-suited to be king, and believes, as was common during the time, that kings were divinely anointed. He surrounds himself will ill-chosen advisers, and when he does receive a piece of good advice, he ignores it. When confronted with a crises, he goes to pieces, though as the crises progresses, he produces better and better poetry.

Bolingbroke, on the other hand, never really announces that he wants or intends to be king, but I do believe he wanted to be king all along. And he's well-suited to be king, or at least better suited than poor Richard. He's shrewd, and he reacts with calmness and deliberation in a crises. He doesn't have Richard's gift for profound poetry, but then should a king possess such a gift? It's not necessary, where other things are.

The play is titled "The Tragedy of Richard II," and I think we have to ask ourselves what constitutes a Shakespearean tragedy, though I know this is properly classified as a history. In a Shakespearean tragedy, the main characters dies, but not before becoming more self-aware, more enlightened. Does Richard? I think he does to some degree, but not to the degree that the main characters in Shakespeare's real tragedies do. However, I don't think we can say that Richard learned nothing. He says, "I wasted time, and now time wastes me." He is at least becoming aware of his shortcomings, especially his shortcomings as king. Yet still he seems to cling to his belief that he has been anointed: "Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wash the balm from an anointed king."

However, Richard still lives in dreamland, comparing himself to Christ: "So Judas did to Christ. But He in twelve/Found truth in all but one; I in twelve thousand, none." Pretty presumptuous of him! And when presented with a list of his crimes, he refuses to read it, saying: "Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,/Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates/Have here delivered me to my sour cross." Again, pretty arrogant of Richard!

What I really found striking about this scene was the shift, the real shift, in power from Richard to Bolingbroke, and the fact that as Richard sinks deeper and deeper into despair, his command of language and poetry increases, becomes ever more brilliant.

[Janine]

I think that scene really shows us the differences between the two men - Richard and Bolingbroke. Richard is so ill-suited to be king, and believes, as was common during the time, that kings were divinely anointed. He surrounds himself will ill-chosen advisers, and when he does receive a piece of good advice, he ignores it. When confronted with a crises, he goes to pieces, though as the crises progresses, he produces better and better poetry.

Bolingbroke, on the other hand, never really announces that he wants or intends to be king, but I do believe he wanted to be king all along. And he's well-suited to be king, or at least better suited than poor Richard. He's shrewd, and he reacts with calmness and deliberation in a crises. He doesn't have Richard's gift for profound poetry, but then should a king possess such a gift? It's not necessary, where other things are.

The play is titled "The Tragedy of Richard II," and I think we have to ask ourselves what constitutes a Shakespearean tragedy, though I know this is properly classified as a history. In a Shakespearean tragedy, the main characters dies, but not before becoming more self-aware, more enlightened. Does Richard? I think he does to some degree, but not to the degree that the main characters in Shakespeare's real tragedies do. However, I don't think we can say that Richard learned nothing. He says, "I wasted time, and now time wastes me." He is at least becoming aware of his shortcomings, especially his shortcomings as king. Yet still he seems to cling to his belief that he has been anointed: "Not all the water in the rough rude sea/Can wash the balm from an anointed king."

However, Richard still lives in dreamland, comparing himself to Christ: "So Judas did to Christ. But He in twelve/Found truth in all but one; I in twelve thousand, none." Pretty presumptuous of him! And when presented with a list of his crimes, he refuses to read it, saying: "Though some of you, with Pilate, wash your hands,/Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates/Have here delivered me to my sour cross." Again, pretty arrogant of Richard!

What I really found striking about this scene was the shift, the real shift, in power from Richard to Bolingbroke, and the fact that as Richard sinks deeper and deeper into despair, his command of language and poetry increases, becomes ever more brilliant.

MissScarlett, this is excellent. You have thought all this through carefully, sorted and turned it over in your mind and have come up with a lot of good ideas about the contrast of the two characters, and in a way you layed it out and simplified the whole idea of the story. I agree with all you have written and the idea of the increase in the poetry, his poetic flow of speech, as Richard becomes less able to handle is kingship; becomes less competent and down-trodden and finally dejected. I always said that sadness made for the best and deepest poetry and I think this proves it. As you said Bollingbroke has no need for poetic language or even grand flourishes. He is more down-to-earth and pragmatic than Richard. Richard has let his emotions run away with himself and now he is 'all emotion' with no direction and no restraint. Bollingbroke, on the other hand, does not let his emotions rule his actions. He keeps his head about him at all times and leads with his mind. He might be shrewd, but he is stronger than Richard and much more efficient, as befitting a true king.