Mojo, The Bard, & Me

The weeds that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,
That seemed in eating him to hold him up,
Are pluckt up root and all by Bolingbroke,-
I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

-Gardener

                                    King Richard II                            Act II, scene iv, Line 50

Okay, so this is the royal gardener talking. He started, a few lines previous to this, telling one of his helpers what to do next in the garden, but he has segued from talking about weeds literally to talking about weeds figuratively. He's talking about how some of the guys in King Richard's circle are nothing better than weeds, and that Bolingbroke (the future King Henry IV) has now taken care of (eliminated) these guys. And the best part of this is that the guys' names really are Wiltshire, Bushy, and Green. Do you see the botanical connection of the name to the imagery being used. Ah, that Will is just too clever.

Now this may look like a jumble, that is to say weedy, but it's not. It only looks that way because the picture was taken close up at ground level. In fact, I can attest to the fact that there are very few weeds because I did the weeding myself. And I can assure you that I did not see the Earl of Wiltshire, or Bushy, or Green while I was in there. But if I did I certainly would have gotten rid of them.