Back to the Classics 2021 #2

I read this book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2021.

Classic Play. For this category I just let fate toss a selection into my lap. So I read this script just because. I should have read Troilus and Cressida because that tragedy was the production directed by Guy Pringle in The Great Fortune, which I read recently for this challenge. Oh, well, T & C for the second round of this challenge, if that is how Destiny wants it to be.

Richard II – William Shakespeare

King Richard II is guilty of misrule. He has had noble relatives murdered and confiscated their estates, thus aggrieving their survivors and shocking those for whom it’s a religious tenet that a landed estate must go in orderly fashion to the next male heir. To fund foreign wars, he has taxed the chumps beyond endurance. He is arbitrary: for no clear reason, he settles a dispute by exiling one party for six years (Henry Bolingbroke) and the other (Thomas Mowbray) for life. Bolingbroke recruits enough support to depose Richard II. In a great scene with his queen and a couple of moving soliloquies, Richard examines what is to be a mere human being, in contrast to being a snide capricious king.

I gather critics regard this outing as a political play. Indeed, Shakespeare realistically illustrates how those vying for power use whatever ideology is handy to justify their actions. Mowbray says that he wants to fight Bolingbroke because he thinks B’s accusation of disloyalty has besmirched his honor, saying like any warrior in an honor-bound culture would say:

The purest treasure mortal times afford

Is spotless reputation; that away,

Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.

But Shakespeare deliberately keeps obscure the nature of the beef Bolingbroke and Mowbray have with each other. That their claims don’t convey specifics makes us think that a reasonable cause of their argument does not exist, that they manufacture excuses to fight and get a rival out of the way in the stampede for power. The motivation may be the primal fear of subjugation and submission in an “all against all” culture in which unless you show backbone and fight, you will be disrespected, picked on, imposed on, made to carry water for the more powerful.

It’s not like politicians using pretexts for their own dishonest reasons has gone away, given the self-serving lies about election fraud that lead up to the events of January 6.

Similarly, in this old play, it’s hard to know if Bolingbroke actually believes in the doctrine of the divine right of kings or whether he’s just using the doctrine as a cover to get the political results he wants. While we keep in mind the dictum that we should attend to what a fraud does not say, Bolingbroke speaks very little during the confrontation with Richard, in which the usurpers want him to sign a confession that will give them political cover among the chuds. Bolingbroke has the snotty brute Northumberland make the argument to pressure Richard into signing:

That, by confessing them, the souls of men

May deem that you are worthily depos'd.

Besides that, when the Bishop of Carlisle eloquently decries the deposition on religious grounds, Northumberland dismisses him and the argument with a curt

Well have you argued, sir; and, for your pains,

Of capital treason we arrest you here.

So much for words, lofty or low, when confronted with ruthless ambition backed with force.

But Shakespeare was a sage so he knew words are vital because it is with words that we make our judgements about the world; words are the only tools we have to seek true and objective beliefs, and avoid unnecessary value judgements. With rational beliefs to dispute our own batty notions and unruly emotions, we stave off anxiety and depression, the twin threats to a flourishing contented life.

Today’s business mentors urge us to go easy on our own nerves by describing as “painstaking and detailed-oriented” colleagues that are “slow perfectionists that impede my productivity.” Long before the self-help experts and life coaches taught us skeptics about “re-framing,” the Bard was cautioning us to be careful indeed about the words we select and respond to when we talk and listen to our selves and others.

For instance, the noble Gaunt assumes King Richard II has the mandate of heaven: England can have only one legitimate king at a time and that this king has the blessing of God. Gaunt knows that Richard has murdered Gaunt’s brother. But Gaunt counsels “patience” to himself, to wait like a forbearing Christian for the will of Heaven to “rain hot vengeance on the offenders’ heads.” But his brother’s widow, Duchess of Gloucester, wants Gaunt to avenge his brother’s death.

Call it not patience, Gaunt; it is despair:

In suffering thus thy brother to be slaughter'd,

Thou showest the naked pathway to thy life,

Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee:

That which in mean men we entitle patience

Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts. (Duchess of Gloucester)

She reframes “patience” as “despair” and claims that Gaunt’s state of mind lacks kinship for himself, her or his brother; that such depression makes him tolerant and passive, thus sending the clear message that he won’t defend himself when the King’s henchmen, with “shrewd steel” come after Gaunt himself. She weaponizes the argument by reframing “patience” as “cowardice” which is expected and desirable in a commoner but despicable in a samurai.

Another example of Shakespeare’s wisdom about word choices has become proverbial. Gaunt’s son Bolingbroke is broken up about being exiled for six years so Gaunt offers this advice:

All places that the eye of heaven visits

Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.

Teach thy necessity to reason thus;

There is no virtue like necessity. (Gaunt)

It is our judgement of things that disturb us, not the things themselves, said the philosopher Epictetus. We had better teach our necessity – our sense of duty, I think - to identify and accept natural occurrences that are subject to no influence by our human will. Like a pandemic. When we find ourselves in unfortunate situations that come as part of the ordinary terms and conditions of life – accident, illness, affliction, chronic pain, deprivation, loss of senses, strength and stamina, disability, disfigurement, death - there is nothing left but to make the best of it. By giving us the words to live wisely and die bravely, Creation has given us the power to choose the words that make a situation tolerable, bearable. Love your fate.

So, yeah, I think Shakespeare still has a lot to say and is well worth reading. And watching the plays, for sure. The plays were written to be performed, not read.