The three parts of Henry VI, Shakespeare’s early history trilogy, are just as boring and obtuse as their reputation claims. They conform to the Shakespeare of stereotype: full of long speeches that rant and rave and could easily be cut down. Like all mediocre drama, they run on exposition. I can hardly bear to read them, they are so dull. These plays are not kingdoms but boredoms.
There are many soliloquies and speeches, such as those given to Richard of York, and they have none of the defining Shakespearean quality of self-overhearing. They rant and rave and spell out the day. They proclaim and narrate and lament. But never once do they catch themselves in the act of thinking. Never once do they become recursive, starting that endless, ineffable tumbling into self-awareness that constitutes individualism.
In The Third Part, York gives a speech on the battlefield. He is alone on the stage. He knows that death is stalking him. The battle has run against his luck. These are the sorts of speeches that later become one of the jewels in Shakespeare’s crown. Think of Richard II at Pontefract or Othello at the bedside. But there is no sign of the later genius here.
The army of the queen hath got the field:
My uncles both are slain in rescuing me;
And all my followers to the eager foe
Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind
Or lambs pursued by hunger-starved wolves.
My sons, God knows what hath bechanced them:
But this I know, they have demean’d themselves
Like men born to renown by life or death.
The metaphors are ordinary, the tale is all like that of a chorus, and the feelings are plain. (demean’d means behaved; think of the modern word demeanour).1
Three times did Richard make a lane to me.
And thrice cried “Courage, father! fight it out!”
And full as oft came Edward to my side,
With purple falchion, painted to the hilt
In blood of those that had encounter’d him:
And when the hardiest warriors did retire,
Richard cried “Charge! and give no foot of ground!”
And cried “A crown, or else a glorious tomb!
A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!”
With this, we charged again: but, out, alas!
We bodged again; as I have seen a swan
With bootless labour swim against the tide
And spend her strength with over-matching waves.
There is something in the metaphor of the swan, but whatever elegance it achieves is inappropriate to the scene. Death is closing in, closer and closer every line. The pattern is simple and bold. The insistence is wearying. And yet, all York can express are outward things.
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