Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

O Harry’s wife, triumph not in my woes!

God witness with me, I have wept for thine.

 

-Duchess of York

King Richard the Third             Act IV, Scene iv, Line 59

 

Here’s a scene where three women sit and talk about all of the men and boys they’ve lost, mostly at the hands of Richard. It’s the Duchess of York who is the mother of Richard, Edward, and Clarence, Queen Elizabeth, the wife of Edward IV and the mother of the two princes killed in the tower, and Margaret (Harry’s wife above), the wife of Henry VI and mother of a different Edward. Yes, lots of dead kings and princes to be mourned, and yes, Richard had a part in a lot of that; but not all. Margaret’s husband Henry was a Lancaster and the other two women are Yorks, but right at this minute none of the women is really caring about sides. They’re just doing what women through the ages have done, mourning the loss of their men and boys to the machinations of war. Though to be fair, Margaret has been actively involved in the fighting, not just an innocent bystander. C’est la vie. Et la mort. N’est pas?

Since we're talking about people dying, and because I threw a little French at you, here's a pic of the girls in the Pantheon in Paris. It's full of a bunch of famous dead people, though I can't for the life of me remember whose body is in the background of this picture. I do know two things: One is that whoever it is, they're dead; and two is that Richard III didn't kill them.