The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 305
The play’s popularity derives from the outrageous wickedness of its title character. Richard is a star role irresistible to actors: always aware of his own impressive theatricality, he delights himself as much as the audience with his virtuosity and range. He plays the concerned brother, the good-natured uncle, the pious student, the passionate lover. This last is the most audacious, as the misshapen Richard sets out to seduce Lady Anne, whose husband and father-in-law he has murdered. After his success, he shares the audience’s amazement: ‘Was ever woman in this humour woo’d? / Was ever woman in this humour won?’
Shakespeare did not invent the character of the villainous Richard. About 1516, Sir Thomas More wrote an unfinished History of Richard III, which was appropriated by chroniclers and forms part of the account of Richard’s reign in Edward Hall’s Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York (1548) and the Chronicles of Raphael Holinshed (1577, second edition 1587). Shakespeare dramatizes More’s deformed villain, a monstrous tyrant with a self-dramatizing will to power. More provides much of the ironic action and commentary concerning Edward IV, Buckingham and Hastings, but the unhistorical roles of Queen Margaret (dead in exile before Richard became king) and Lady Anne (Richard’s wife of many years and mother of his only son) are Shakespeare’s invention.
Already in Shakespeare’s time some questioned the accuracy of this portrait of Richard. In 1617 Sir William Cornwallis offered his paradoxical ‘Praise of King Richard III’, bemoaning the ‘malicious credulity’ of ‘witty playmakers’ who had unfairly denigrated the King’s character and achievement. The effort to rehabilitate Richard continues today (including, in popular form, a fine detective novel, Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time). His defenders insist – despite evidence dating from his own lifetime of suspicion that Richard had had his nephews murdered in the Tower – that the blackening of Richard’s character is the result of a Tudor conspiracy designed to legitimize Henry VII’s path to the throne. Some of the myth was undoubtedly so motivated: a coronation portrait of Richard shows no sign of his alleged deformity, which can be traced to a hostile early chronicler, and he was not implicated in the death of Clarence.
Shakespeare’s acceptance of the legitimacy of Edward IV and his sons shows that he was no propagandist for the Tudors, though the play does confirm the providential vision of English history in which Henry Richmond’s victory at Bosworth in 1485 (and his inauguration of the Tudor dynasty) is seen as divine deliverance of England from Richard’s evil, which was itself punishment for the nation’s sins. Far more important, though, for Shakespeare than these Tudor orthodoxies is the role of Richard himself, a charismatic villain who candidly shares his thoughts with us as he contrives and dominates the action.
The Arden text is based on the 1623 First Folio, with some readings from the 1597 First Quarto.
LIST OF ROLES
RICHARD, Duke of Gloucester, later KING RICHARD III
The Duke of CLARENCE
his brother (later, his GHOST)
Sir Robert BRAKENBURY
Lieutenant of the Tower
Lord HASTINGS
the Lord Chamberlain (later, his GHOST)
Lady ANNE
widow of Edward, Prince of Wales (later, her GHOST)
Gentlemen attending Lady Anne
QUEEN ELIZABETH
wife of King Edward IV
Lord RIVERS
her brother (later, his GHOST)
Lord GREY
her son (later, his GHOST)
The Marquess of DORSET
her son
The Duke of BUCKINGHAM
(later, his GHOST)
STANLEY, Earl of Derby
QUEEN MARGARET
widow of King Henry VI
Sir William CATESBY
Two MURDERERS
The KEEPER of the Tower
KING EDWARD IV
Sir Richard RATCLIFFE
The DUCHESS of York
mother of Richard, Edward IV, and Clarence
Clarence’s children
GIRL
Three CITIZENS
ARCHBISHOP of York
Richard, the Duke of YORK
younger son of King Edward IV (later, his GHOST)
PRINCE Edward, Prince of Wales
elder son of King Edward IV (later, his GHOST)
Lord CARDINAL Bourchier
Archbishop of Canterbury
Lord MAYOR of London
HASTINGS, a PURSUIVANT
PRIEST
Sir Thomas VAUGHAN
(later, his GHOST)
The Bishop of ELY, John Morton
The Duke of NORFOLK
Lord LOVELL
SCRIVENER
Two Bishops (Shaa and Penker)
PAGE
Sir James TYRREL
Seven MESSENGERS
CHRISTOPHER Urswick
a priest
SHERIFF
of Wiltshire
The Earl of RICHMOND
afterwards King Henry VII
The Earl of OXFORD
Sir James BLUNT
Sir Walter HERBERT
The Earl of SURREY
Sir William BRANDON
GHOST OF EDWARD
Prince of Wales, son of Henry VI
GHOST OF KING HENRY VI
Guards, Halberdiers, Gentlemen, Lords, Citizens, Attendants, Soldiers
1.1 Enter RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, alone.
RICHARD Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our House
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,
5
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments,
Our stern alarums chang’d to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag’d War hath smooth’d his wrinkled front:
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
10
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shap’d for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
15
I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph:
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,
Deform’d, unfinish’d, sent before my time
20
Into this breathing world scarce half made up –
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them –
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
25
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity.
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain,
30
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the King
In deadly hate, the one against the other:
35
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew’d up
About a prophecy, which says that ‘G’
Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be –
40
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes.
Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY, with a guard of men.
Brother, good day; what means this armed guard
>
That waits upon your Grace?
CLARENCE His Majesty,
Tend’ring my person’s safety, hath appointed
This conduct to convey me to the Tower.
45
RICHARD Upon what cause?
CLARENCE Because my name is George.
RICHARD Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours:
He should for that commit your godfathers.
O, belike his Majesty hath some intent
That you should be new-christen’d in the Tower.
50
But what’s the matter, Clarence, may I know?
CLARENCE Yea, Richard, when I know: for I protest
As yet I do not. But, as I can learn,
He hearkens after prophecies and dreams,
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G;
55
And says a wizard told him that by ‘G’
His issue disinherited should be.
And for my name of George begins with G.
It follows in his thought that I am he.
These, as I learn, and such like toys as these,
60
Have mov’d his Highness to commit me now.
RICHARD Why, this it is, when men are rul’d by women:
’Tis not the King that sends you to the Tower;
My Lady Grey, his wife, Clarence, ’tis she
That tempers him to this extremity.
65
Was it not she, and that good man of worship,
Anthony Woodeville, her brother there,
That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,
From whence this present day he is deliver’d?
We are not safe, Clarence, we are not safe!
70
CLARENCE By heaven, I think there is no man secure,
But the Queen’s kindred, and night-walking heralds
That trudge betwixt the King and Mistress Shore.
Heard you not what an humble suppliant
Lord Hastings was to her, for his delivery?
75
RICHARD Humbly complaining to her deity
Got my Lord Chamberlain his liberty.
I’ll tell you what: I think it is our way,
If we will keep in favour with the King,
To be her men, and wear her livery.
80
The jealous o’er-worn widow and herself,
Since that our brother dubb’d them gentlewomen,
Are mighty gossips in our monarchy.
BRAKENBURY
I beseech your Graces both to pardon me:
His Majesty hath straitly given in charge
85
That no man shall have private conference –
Of what degree soever – with his brother.
RICHARD
Even so; and please your worship, Brakenbury,
You may partake of any thing we say.
We speak no treason, man: we say the King
90
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble Queen
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous.
We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue,
And that the Queen’s kindred are made gentlefolks.
95
How say you, sir? Can you deny all this?
BRAKENBURY
With this, my lord, myself have nought to do.
RICHARD
Naught with Mistress Shore? I tell thee, fellow,
He that doth naught with her (excepting one)
Were best to do it secretly, alone.
100
BRAKENBURY What one, my lord?
RICHARD
Her husband, knave! Wouldst thou betray me?
BRAKENBURY
I do beseech your Grace to pardon me, and withal
Forbear your conference with the noble Duke.
CLARENCE
We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and will obey.
105
RICHARD We are the Queen’s abjects, and must obey.
Brother, farewell. I will unto the King,
And whatso’er you will employ me in –
Were it to call King Edward’s widow ‘sister’ –
I will perform it to enfranchise you.
110
Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
[Embraces Clarence, weeping.]
CLARENCE I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
RICHARD Well, your imprisonment shall not be long:
I will deliver you, or else lie for you.
115
Meantime, have patience.
CLARENCE I must, perforce. Farewell.
Exeunt Clarence, Brakenbury and guard.
RICHARD
Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return;
Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so
That I will shortly send thy soul to Heaven –
If Heaven will take the present at our hands.
120
But who comes here? The new-deliver’d Hastings?
Enter LORD HASTINGS.
HASTINGS Good time of day unto my gracious lord.
RICHARD As much unto my good Lord Chamberlain: