Shakespeare's tragedy of King Richard the Third

Preface

This play, which I first edited in 1884, is now revised on the same general plan as the Merchant of Venice and the other plays that have preceded it.

I have retained a somewhat larger proportion of the notes on textual variations than in the earlier volumes, partly to give teachers and students some idea of their perplexing character (see pages 10-12 below), and partly to explain the many variations in the standard modern texts. These are mainly due to the many conflicting theories concerning the history and the relative authority of the folio and quarto texts. For instance, the Cambridge editors and certain others believe that the quarto gives us the original text, "errors of pen and press apart," while the folio contains insertions and alterations mostly from another hand ; others regard the variations in the folio as substantially the result of Shakespeare's own revision of his orjginal text, which we have in a more or less corrupt form in the quartos ; and the editors make up their own texts according to the theory — whether it be one of these or some other — which they adopt.

For myself, as I have said (page 1 1 below), I believe that the weight of authority is on the side of the folio, and I therefore follow it unless the quarto appears clearly to give the better reading.

Act V .176 "The True Tragedie of Richard the Third " . . • 311

The Politics of the Play 315

The Time-Analysis of the Play . . . . .318

The Historic Dates of the Play 320

List of Characters in the Play ...... 321

Index of Words and Phrases Explained , . . 325

The Bloody Tower

Crosby House

Introduction To King Richard The Third

The History of the Play

The earliest known edition of the play is a quarto printed in 1597, with the following title-page: —

The Tragedy of | King Richard the third. | Containing, I His treacherous Plots against his brother Clarence : I the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes : | his tyrannicall vsurpation : with the whole course | of his detested Hfe, and most deserued death. | As it hath beene lo King Richard the Third

lately Acted by the Right honourable the Lord Chamber- I laine his seruants. | at london | Printed by Valentine Sims, for Andrew Wise, | dwelling in Paules Chuch-yard, at the | Signe of the Angell. | 1597.

The play had been entered on the Stationers' Registers on the 20th of October, 1597, by Wise, under the title of " The Tragedie of Kinge Richard the Third, with the death of the Duke of Clarence."

A second quarto edition was published the following year, with the addition of ^^ By Wilham Shake-speare " on the title-page ; in other respects it is a reprint of the first. Other quarto editions appeared in 1602, 1605, 161 2, and 1622. All four are said to be ''newly augmented," but they contain nothing that is not found in the 2d quarto, unless it be additional errors of the press.

After the publication of the folio a seventh quarto edition was printed in 1629, not from the folio text, but from that of the quarto of 1622. An eighth quarto, a reprint of the seventh, appeared in 1634.

The text of the play in the ist foho differs materially from that of the quartos. Besides many little changes in expression, it contains several passages — one of more than fifty lines — not found in the earlier texts ; while, on the other hand, it omits sundry lines — in some cases essential to the context — given in the quartos. The play is, moreover, one of the worst printed in the folio, and the quartos often help us in correcting the typographical errors. Which is on the whole the better text, and what is the relation of the one to the other, are questions which have been much disputed, but probably will never be satisfactorily settled. The Cambridge editors remark : "The respective origin and authority of the ist quarto and ist folio texts of Richard III. is perhaps the most difficult question which presents itself to an editor of Shakespeare. In the case of most of the plays a brief survey leads him to form a definite judgment ; in this, the most attentive examination scarcely enables him to propose with confidence a hypothetical conclusion." Staunton says : " The diversity has proved, and will continue to prove, a source of incalculable trouble and perpetual dispute to the editors, since, although it is admitted by every one properly qualified to judge, that a reasonably perfect text can only be formed from the two versions, there will always be a conflict of opinions regarding some of the readings." Furnivall considers " the making of the best text" of the play "the hardest puzzle in Shakspere-editing." ^

In the present edition I have followed the folio, except where the quarto has clearly the better reading. According to Mr. Spedding, there are about 1300 variations in the two texts. In act i., out of 1062 lines in the quarto, " a httle more than 300 " have been altered in the folio ; in act ii., 161 lines out of 414; in act iii., 411 out of 1028; in act iv., 321 out of 848; and in act v., which appears to have been revised less minutely, 89 out of 458.

1 For a very full discussion of the relations of the two texts, see the papers by Spedding and Peckersgill in the Transactions of the New Shakspere Society, 1875-76, pp. 1-124.

The folio also contains 193 lines (inserted in 45 different places) which are not in the quarto ; while, on the other hand, the quarto has a number of lines, and in one instance a passage of 17 lines, omitted in the folio. The more important of these variations are mentioned in the Notes, with a sufficient number of the others to show how trivial they are. The difference is often too slight to hang an argument upon ; wherefore the critics, as their wont is, have disputed over it all the more vehemently.

As to the date of the play, the critics generally agree that it was written in 1592 or 1593, or early in 1594. The internal evidence is in favour of as early a date as 1594. Stokes {^Chronological Order of Shakespeare's Flays) remarks : " There are many signs of comparatively early work : for instance the prologue-like speech with which the play opens ; ' the scenes where the trilogy of the common lamentation of the women (ii, 2 and iv. i) alternates like a chorus, dramatic truth being sacrificed to the lyric or epic form, and to conceits in the style of the pastoral Italian poetry ' (Gervinus) ; the overstraining of many of the characters ; and the analysis of motive sometimes exhibited."

James Russell Lowell, in a lecture at Chicago, February 2 2d, 1887, expressed the opinion that the play was merely revised by Shakespeare. "It appears to me," he said, "that an examination of Richard III. plainly indicates that it is a play which Shakespeare adapted to the stage, making additions, sometimes longer and some-

Introduction times shorter ; and toward the end he either grew weary of his work or was pressed for time, and left the older author, whoever he was, pretty much to himself." The procession of ghosts, Lowell says, always struck him " as ludicrous and odd rather than impressive."

This does not differ essentially from the decision to which Mr. Fleay had come in his Chronicle History of Shakespeare, published in 1886. He beheves that the earlier play was Marlowe's, partly written in 1593, but left unfinished at his death, and completed and altered by Shakespeare in 1594.

Even so cautious and conservative a critic as Halliwell- Phillipps recognizes indications of earlier work in the play. After referring to the historical sources of the plot in More and Holinshed, he adds : " There are also slight traces of an older play to be observed, passages which may belong to an inferior hand, and incidents, such as that of the rising of the ghosts, suggested probably by similar ones in a more ancient composition. That the play of Richard III., as we now have it, is essentially Shakespeare's, cannot admit of a doubt; but as little can it be questioned that to the circumstance of an anterior work on the subject having been used do we owe some of its weakness and excessively turbulent character. No copy of this older play is known to exist, but one brief speech and the two following Hnes have been accidentally preserved : —

* My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is ta'en, And Banister is come for his reward ' —

[compare Richai'd III. iv, 4. 529 : 'My liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken'], from which it is clear that the new dramatist did not hesitate to adopt an occasional line from his predecessor, although he entirely omitted the character of Banister. Both plays must have been successful, for, notwithstanding the great popularity of Shakespeare's, the more ancient one sustained its ground on the English stage until the reign of Charles I."

The fact appears to be, as other critics have noted, that Shakespeare when he wrote Richard III. was still under the influence of Marlowe, and modelled the play after that dramatist. '• It was Marlowe's characteristic," as Furnivall remarks, " to embody in a character, and realize with terrific force, the workings of a single passion. In Tamburlaine he personified the lust of dominion, in Faustus the lust of forbidden power and knowledge, in Barabas {The Jew of Malta) the lust of wealth and blood. In Richard III. Shakspere embodied ambition, and sacrificed his whole play to this one figure. . . . The weakest part of the play is the scene of the citizens' talk ; and the poorness of it, and the monotony of the women's curses, have given rise to the theory that in Richard III. Shakspere was only re-writing an old play, of which he let bits stand. But though I once thought this possible, I have since become certain that it is not so. The wooing of Anne by Richard has stirred me, in reading it aloud, almost as much as anything else in Shakspere. Note, too, how the first lines of the play lift you out of the mist and confusion of the Henry VI. plays into the sun of Shakspere's genius."

Oechelhauser {Essay ilber Richa7'd III.) aptly says that this play marks " the significant boundary-stone which separates the works of Shakespeare's youth from the immortal works of the period of his fuller splendour."

Richard Burbage was particularly celebrated in the part of Richard in this play. The line, " A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! " was rendered by him with so much vigour and effect that it came to be imitated, and sometimes burlesqued, by contemporary writers. "The speech made such an impression on Marston that it appears in his works, not merely in its authentic form, but satirized and travestied into such lines as, ^ A man ! a man 1 a kingdom for a man ! ' {Scourge of Villanie, 1598); 'A boate ! a boate ! a boate ! a full hundred markes for a boate ! ' {Eastivard Hoe, 1605) ; 'A foole ! a foole ! a foole ! my coxcombe for a foole!' {Parasitaster, 1606). Burbage continued to act the part of Richard until his death in 1619, and his supremacy in the character lingered for many years in the recollection of the public." Corbet, the witty and poetical Bishop of Oxford, in his Iter Boreale — a poetical narrative of a journey, in the manner of Horace's y<??/r;zfjV to Briindisiu7n, first printed in 161 7 — thus incidentally records the popularity of the play and of its theatrical hero, in his account of a visit to Bosworth Field (misquoted by all the editors) : — l6 King Richard the Third

" Mine host was full of ale and history, And in the morning when he brought us nigh Where the two Roses join'd, you would suppose Chaucer ne'er made the Romaunt of the Rose. Hear him. See ye yon wood ? There Richard lay With his whole army. Look the other way, And, lo ! where Richmond in a bed of gorse EncampM himself o'er night, and all his force : Upon this hill they met. Why, he could tell The inch where Richmond stood, where Richard fell. Besides what of his knowledge he could say, He had authentic notice from the play; Which I might guess by 's must'ring up the ghosts, And policies not incident to hosts; But chiefly by that one perspicuous thing Where he mistook a player for a king.

For when he would have said. King Richard died, And call'd, A horse ! a horse ! he Burbage cried."

The Sources of the Plot

Shakespeare found his materials in Holinshed and Hall, who for this portion of English history were chiefly indebted to Sir Thomas More. Dowden {P^-wier, p. 79) remarks : " Hohnshed's account gives two views of Richard's character : one in the portion of history previous to the death of Edward IV., in which Richard is painted in colours not so deeply, so diabolically black ; and the second, in which he appears as he does in Shakspere's play. This second and darker representation of Richard was derived by Holinshed from Sir Thomas More's Histo7'y of Edward IV. and Richai^d III., and More himself

Introduction ly

probably derived it from Cardinal Morton, chancellor of Henry VIII. and the enemy of Richard."

A Latin tragedy on some of the events of Richard's /eign, written by Dr. Legge, was acted at Cambridge before 1583 ; and an English play, probably written before Shakespeare's, was published in 1594, with the following title-page : " The True Tragedie of Richard the third : Wherein is showne the death of Edward the fourth, with the smothering of the two yoong Princes in the Tower : With a lamentable ende of Shores wife, an example for all wicked women. And lastly^ the coniunction and ioyning of the two noble Houses, Lancaster and Yorke. As it was playd by the Queenes Maiesties Players. London Printed by Thomas Creede, and are to be sold by William Barley, at his shop in Newgate Market, neare Christ Church doore. 1594."^ Shakespeare certainly made no use of the former of these plays, and little, if any, of the latter.

General Comments on the Play

There is good reason for doubting whether Richard was in all respects as black as Shakespeare has painted him. His portrait of the royal hunchback illustrates the influence of the poet in fixing the reputation of historical characters, at least in the popular estimation. At the

iThis play was reprinted by the Shakespeare Society in 1844 from the only perfect copy (now in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire) that has come down to us. Dr. Legge's Latin tragedy is appended to it.

same time it must be borne in mind that Shakespeare describes Richard as contemporary historians dehneated him. He has simply given vividness and actuaUty to the portrait as he found it in their works. He did not originate it, though he may have exaggerated some of its details.

The play of Henry V. has been called a " magnificent monologue." Henry is the speaker of it, and the one character in whom we feel much interest. The present play is similar to it in the predominance of the character of Richard. From the moment he appears at the very beginning of the play until he meets his fate at Bosworth Field, Richard himself is indeed the play. We feel incidentally a sympathy and sorrow for the young princes, and more or less for other victims of Richard's merciless ambition ; but it is " the many-sided, resolute, and intellectual villain that really absorbs our attention, preoccupies our interest, and, in spite of his crimes, almost takes by storm our sympathies." The dramatist himself does not appear to have given much care or thought to the other characters, with the exception of Margaret. They are not shghted in the delineation, but Richard overshadows them all. They are all distinctly subordinated to him. His own words, " I am myself alone," express his character, and are the keynote of the whole tragedy.

The first thing that strikes us in the study of Richard is his absolute frankness — at least to himself. He makes no excuses for his villany, he does not attempt to palliate or justify it to himself. In the very first speech of the play he describes himself plainly. Nature, has handicapped him at his birth. She has sent him into the world " deformed, unfinished, scarce half made up," so that the very dogs bark at him as he halts by them. Therefore, he says, " I am determined to prove a villain."

In dealing with others he is equally frank unless the nature of his plans demands concealment or hypocrisy. In wooing Anne he tells her bluntly that he did kill her husband and her father. To his agents and associates in crime he indulges in no ambiguities, but declares at once what he intends to do or desires them to do. Murder he treats as if it were a simple business transaction. Shakespeare, taking this idea of Richard from the chroniclers, carries it out thoroughly in his development of the character. " Richard glories in his deviltry, and takes posterity into his confidence through the soliloquies of the poet, which are psychological studies in shamelessness." These soliloquies are " a dramatic necessity ; we could not get at the real man without them."

The play covers a period of fourteen years, from 147 1 to 1485. Half this period is treated in the first act, closing with the death of Clarence, which occurred in 1478. It does not appear that Richard was responsible for it, though he made no remonstrance against it, being on bad terms with Clarence because the latter claimed all the estates of Warwick, whose daughter Isabel he had married, whereas Richard, having married the younger daughter, Anne, put in a claim to half. Edward himself was afraid of his brother Clarence, and had hirn arrested and sent to the Tower on charges of sorcery. Clarence was condemned to death and secretly executed, being, according to tradition, drowned in a butt of Malmsey. Shakespeare, on the strength of a hint in the Chronicle, directly charges Richard with the deed.

The strange wooing of Anne is not in strict accordance with history. Richard did not marry her until about two years after the death of her father-in-law, Henry VI., who was probably murdered by the order of Edward, not of Richard. Whether her husband, Edward Prince of Wales, was slain in the battle of Tewkesbury or murdered after the battle, and, if so, by whom, is not clear.

Shakespeare holds Richard responsible for both deaths, and, as we have seen, he frankly admits it. If it had been true, no lapse of time could have excused Anne for marrying him. If she could do it after two years had passed, she was capable of doing it as promptly as the play represents. Richard himself professes to be amazed at the success of his wooing, and comments sarcastically upon it (i. 2. 229 fol.) : —

" Was ever woman in this humour woo'd ?

Was ever woman in this humour won ?

I '11 have her, but I will not keep her long. What ! I, that kill'd her husband and his father, To take her in her heart's extremest hate, With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes, The bleeding witness of my hatred by, Having God, her conscience, and these bars against me, And I no friends to back my suit withal

But the plain devil and dissembling looks, And yet to win her, — all the world to nothing ! Ha ! ******

My dukedom to a beggarly denier, I do mistake my person all this while !

Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot, Myself to be a marvellous proper man.

I '11 be at charges for a looking-glass, And entertain some score or two of tailors To study fashions to adorn my body; Since I am crept in favour with myself, I will maintain it with some little cost," etc.

In the scene that follows the wooing of Anne, Richard takes advantage of the quarrels between the factions in the court — that of the queen and that of the noble families offended by the king's marriage with a woman of inferior rank — to make capital by assuming that he had been injured in the king's estimation by the queen's dislike for him. He accuses her of being the cause of Clarence's imprisonment and of other mischief - making (i. 3. 78 fol.) : —

" Our brother is imprison'd by your means, Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility Held in contempt; while great promotions Are daily given to ennoble those That scarce, some two days since, were worth a noble."

The latter part of this is a hit at the honours given to the new queen's sons and relatives, and other favours that she had received since her marriage with the king.

No wonder that she is indignant at these bold accusations, and exclaims : —

" My Lord of Gloster, I have too long borne Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs ; By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty Of those gross taunts that oft I have endur'd. I had rather be a country servant-maid Than a great queen, with this condition — To be so baited, scorn'd, and stoi-med at ; Small joy have I in being England's queen I "

'And at this point, by a daring anachronism, Margaret of Anjou is brought upon the stage. In fact, she had already retired to her exile on the Continent, but by poetic license she now " returns to the scene of her former triumphs and defeats, to gloat over the factional struggles of her enemies." After keeping in the background and listening for a while to their quarrel, she comes forward and addresses them : —

" Hear me, you wrangling pirates that fall out In sharing that which you have pill'd from me ! "

At once they turn from one another to attack her, whereupon she retorts : —

" What ! were you snarling all, before I came, Ready to catch each other by the throat, And turn you all your hatred now on me? " —

following this up with a torrent of curses (i. 3. 19 1-2 14) until Richard interrupts her : " Have done thy charm, thou hateful wither 'd hag ! " At once she pours her imprecations upon him : —

" And leave out thee ? stay, dog, for thou shall hear me. If heaven have any grievous plague in store Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee, O, let them keep it till thy sins be ripe, And then hurl down their indignation On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace ! The worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul !

No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, Unless it be while some tormenting dream Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils ! Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog ! Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity The slave of nature and the son of hell ! Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb ! Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins ! Thou rag of honour ! "

Her maledictions appal the hearers. Buckingham begs her to refrain : " Peace, peace ! for shame, if not for charity ; " Hastings exclaims : " My hair doth stand on end to hear her curses;" and Rivers says: "And so doth mine." But after she and the rest have gone out, Richard calmly soliloquizes in his usual vein : —

" I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl. The secret mischiefs that I set abroach I lay unto the grievous charge of others. Clarence, whom I, indeed, have cast in darkness, I do beweep to many simple gulls, —

Namely, to Stanley, Hastings, Buckingham, — And tell them 't is the queen and her allies That stir the king against the duke my brother. Now they believe it, and withal whet me To be reveng'd on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey, But then I sigh, and, with a piece of Scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil; And thus I clothe my naked villany "With odd old ends stolen forth of holy writ, And seem a saint when most I play the devil."

Soon Edward dies, fondly supposing he has brought about a reconciUation between the opposing factions, — a scene (ii. i) which is based upon actual history. Richard is the most voluble in assurances of friendship to all present, winding up thus : —

" I do not know that Englishman alive With whom my soul is any jot at odds More than the infant that is born to-night; I thank my God for my humility."

Edward believes that peace is really made, but as soon as he has breathed his last the rival factions resume their intrigues with greater energy than ever. Richard, of course, outwits the queen and her party and gets possession of the boy-king, ostensibly for the purpose of celebrating his coronation. The queen, apprehensive of danger, flies with the young Duke of York to the Sanctuary at Westminster.

Then follows the swearing of loyalty to Edward V. by the nobles, with Richard as Protector, The young king

Introduction is lodged in the Tower, awaiting the coronation. Hastings, who would fain have it take place, stands in the way of Richard's plot and falls a victim to it.

Richard's next move is to attack the legitimacy of the dead king's children, on the ground that he had been married (or betrothed, which was a bar to any other marriage) before his union with Lady Grey. This accomplished, Richard is ready to assume the crown himself as the next heir, but pretends to have scruples about doing it, until, through his trickery, he appears to be urged to accept the honour. There is historic foundation for the hesitation of the people to give up the cause of the young princes, and for Richard's affectedly pious reluctance to mount the throne. But at last his strategy is successful, and he is crowned king of England.

The scene (iii. 7) in which Buckingham reports the results of his efforts to induce the citizens to favour the cause of Richard, and the subsequent interview of the latter with the Lord Mayor and others, is one of the best in the play. Richard at first sends word by his tool Catesby that he will not see them at that time : —

" He doth entreat your grace, my noble lord, To visit him to-morrow or next day.

He is within, with two right reverend fathers, Divinely bent to meditation, And in no worldly suits would he be mov'd To draw him from his holy exercise."

Catesby is sent back to beg that Richard will not persist in declining to meet the delegation, but he does not

26 Ki^g Richard the Third

yield until further efforts have been made to overcome his pretended reluctance. Then he appears '' in a gallery above between two bishops," and Buckingham, who has advised Richard to " play the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it," plays his own part in the game by pleading with Richard to grant the prayer of the people and accept

" The supreme seat, the throne majestical, The sceptred office of [his] ancestors."

The hypocritical farce is continued through page after page of the scene, Buckingham urging him to take the '' proferr'd benefit of dignity," and he declaring that he cannot consent to do it. At last the Mayor and the rest unite in the appeal to him : —

" Mayo7\ Do, good my lord, your citizens entreat you.

Buckingham. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd love.

Catesby. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit !

Gloster. Alas, why would you heap this care on me? I am unfit for state and majesty.

I do beseech you, take it not amiss ; I cannot nor I will not yield to you."

Of course he does finally yield, and ,the foolery comes to an end. *' God bless your grace!" exclaims the joyful Mayor, and Buckingham adds : — -

" Then I salute you with this royal title, — ' Long live King Richard, England's worthy King ! ' "

All cry " Amen ! "and the scene ends thus : —

"Buckingham. To-morrow rnay it please you to be crovvn'd? Gloster. Even when you please, for you will have it so.

Buckingham. To-morrow, then, we will attend your grace ; And so most joyfully we take our leave.

Gloster. Come, let us to our holy work again. —

[ To the Bishops.

Farewell, my cousin ; — farewell, gentle friends. \_Exeunt.'^

Buckingham plays his part well, but when, a little later (iv. 2), he asks for the promised reward of his share in the hypocritical game, he learns how the usurper treats his tools when he has no further need of them. The king, ignoring his appeal, turns away and leaves him : —

" King Richard. Thou troublest me ; I am not in the vein.