Mojo, The Bard, & Me

For in the marches here we heard you were

Making another head to fight again.               

-Earl of Warwick

 

King Henry the Sixth Part III                        Act II, scene i     Line 140

Okay, I give up, I’m going to read/listen (and in some cases re-read/re-listen) to Richard II through Richard III (to be clear, that’s eight plays with all those Henry plays in-between). And I’m going to see, in the process, if it really does cover those two Edwards that sneak in between Henry VI and Richard III. But in any event there’s just too much of the Shakespeare canon that’s tied up in these 8 plays. And it’s all one big story anyway. In the meantime, today’s line…

For now, short tale to make (that’s Will’s way of saying ‘long story short’), this is the Earl of Warwick catching up to Richard and Edward, just after they’ve heard the news of their father’s death in battle. But don’t ask me which Richard or which Edward this is. There are just too many names. And of course they all keep repeating. Generations of Henrys and Richards and Edwards. Ooof! Believe it or not I started to draw my own version of the family tree of Edward III down to Henry VIII. I haven’t quite finished that yet. And I’m giving up on Shakespeare’s Kings for a bit. I’ll get back to it, but I have to give it a rest for a while. When I do I’ll work my way through all these names as I work my way through Richard II to Richard III (and to be very clear, while Henry IV, V, and VI are father, son, and grandson, Richard II is some great uncle or third cousin half removed or something like that to Richard III, but certainly not his father or grandfather). So let’s not worry about who is exactly who for today. Bottom line is that a bunch of guys have come with the Earl to join Edward and Richard and there’s basically a civil war going on in England right now. And in fact, there’s a civil war of sorts going on with this whole history series. Richard II gets supplanted by his first cousin Henry IV. And while the succession runs smoothly for Henry V and VI, that’s pretty much where it ends. Henry VI’s son dies young in battle and once that happens all bets are off. And I’m pretty sure that Henry VI dies here in this play so that by the end of King Henry the Sixth Part III we’re really into Edward IV. And King Richard the Third starts with one of the Edwards as king. Got all that?

Now for the record, it looks like today’s two lines are both pretty much impeccable iambic pentameter. So kudos to Will on that one. And one final note; I thought the ‘here we heard’ part of the line was interesting. Good thing it wasn’t present tense or it would have been ‘here we hear’. That might have sounded a bit awkward. Hey, you gotta look at these things closely. It’s Shakespeare!

This is the name tag I would have these guys wearing on stage with these Henry and Richard plays.