Not to
kill him, having a warrant for it; but
to be damn’d for killing him, from the
which no warrant can defend me.
-Second Murderer
King Richard the Third Act
I, scene iv Line 106
Richard III, Richard II. Richard III… Yes, we keep going
back and forth between the two Richards. Remember though, that there was a
whole bunch of Henry’s and about eighty years between Richard II and Richard
III, for whatever that’s worth. But for now we’re back to Richard III, the guy
they found in the parking lot a few years back.
Anyway, today’s speaker is Second Murderer. I don’t make
this stuff up. That’s the role in the play and it’s listed with all the extras
in the Dramatis Personae (cast of characters); Lords and other Attendants; a Pursuivant, Scrivener, Citizens,
Murderers, Messengers, Soldiers, & c. Okay, it’s almost listed. We know
that there’s at least two murderers because the scene we’re in has First
Murderer and Second Murderer. Maybe there’s more elsewhere. I don’t really
know. And I don’t know what a Pursuivant
is. Hold on, I’ll look it up. Pursuivant—any guesses? Okay, a
pursuivant is a royal messenger. There, you learned a new word today. And for
the record, it’s in my modern Merriam Webster too, even though I looked it up
initially in the Shakespeare Glossary. Moving on.
So Murderer One and Two have been sent by one of the kings to
murder Clarence, who is a brother of one of the kings, in the tower of London.
There’s a few different Kings in this play, Richard doesn’t start out as the
king, and I have trouble keeping track of who’s who. So Second Murderer is
having second thoughts about killing Clarence (who’s still asleep at this point)
and First Murderer asks him if he’s afraid. To which Second Murderer replies
with today’s Totally Random Daily line.
He’s not afraid of killing him because he’s got the king’s authority to do it.
But he’s afraid of being damned for it because the king’s authority won’t help
with that.
This whole scene is mostly a back a forth between the two
murderers and then Clarence gets into the discussion when he wakes up. Clarence
has a hard time trying to convince these two guys that murdering him is a bad
idea. It’s an interesting scene and a very readable scene. Today’s line is a
perfect example of Will getting into a guy’s head. He could have just had these
two guys come in and stab Clarence, but he spends a whole scene with these guys
(two of whom aren’t even listed specifically in the cast of characters). You
should consider reading this scene. You don’t need any context other than what
I’ve already given you. And I promise that the language is fairly
understandable. Here, I’ll give you the link. It’s about 280 lines. Maybe ten
minutes of your life.
It starts out with Clarence talking to Brakenbury. He’s a
lieutenant who works in the Tower of London. The murderers show up around line
84 and Brakenbury leaves. You can even skip to that part if you like. Are you
interested to see if Clarence can talk these guys out of killing him? You won’t
find out unless you read it. C’mon, it won’t hurt you. We’ll finish this
discussion tomorrow briefly before moving on to whatever Totally Random stuff
tomorrow brings. Happy reading!
This guy is trying out for the role of Murderer Two, but I think he looks more like the Pursuivant. What do you think?
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