Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down."]
shows the extravagance of Shakespeare's love of hierarchy, and shows
also that his power of realizing character is as yet but slight. The
abdication follows, when Richard in exquisite speech after speech
unpacks his heavy heart. To the very last his irresolution comes to show
as often as his melancholy. Bolingbroke is sharply practical:
"Are you contented to resign the crown?"
Richard answers:
"Ay, no; no, ay;--for I must nothing be;
Therefore, no, no, for I resign to thee."
When he is asked to confess his sins in public, he moves us all to pity:
"Must I do so? and must I ravel out
My weaved up follies? Gentle Northumberland,
If thy offences were upon record,
Would it not shame thee, in so fair a troop,
To read a lecture of them?"
His eyes are too full of tears to read his own faults, and sympathy
brings tears to our eyes also. Richard calls for a glass wherein to see
his sins, and we are reminded of Hamlet, who advises the players to hold
the mirror up to nature. He jests with his grief, too, in quick-witted
retort, as Hamlet jests:
"Rich. Say that again.
The shadow of my sorrow? Ha! let's see:--
'Tis very true, my grief lies all within;
And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief,
That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul."
Hamlet touches the self-same note:
"'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
* * * * *
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe."
In the fifth act, the scene between the Queen and Richard is used simply
to move our pity. She says he is "most beauteous," but all too mild, and
he answers her:
"I am sworn brother, sweet,
To grim necessity; and he and I
Will keep a league till death."
He bids her take,
"As from my death-bed, my last living leave,"
and for her consolation he turns again to the telling of romantic
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