Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 Today’s Totally Random Lines

 

This blot, that they object against your house,
Shall be wiped out in the next parliament,
Call’d for the truce of Winchester and Gloster:
And if thou be not then created York,
I will not live to be accounted Warwick.
Meantime, in signal of my love to thee,
Against proud Somerset and William Pole,
Will I upon the party wear this rose;
And here I prophesy,- this brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction, in the Temple-garden,
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

 

Earl of Warwick

King Henry the Sixth Part I   Act II, Scene iv, Line 116

 

A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

Yes, that’s right, Warwick is predicting the amount of English that will die in what came to be known as The Wars of the Roses. I think we’ve been to this scene before, but it’s a good one, and it’s been a while.

This is the Temple garden scene where all the leaders of the two factions - those of the house of Lancaster (red rose), and those of the house of York (white rose) - align with one house or another and signify as such by plucking either a white or red rose. What follows is a series of civil wars in a battle for the throne. Whilst these wars are documented history, I cannot help but wonder if there is any historical reality to this scene from whence the name The Wars of the Roses arises. But does it really matter?

The reality in this scene of the portrayal of a few elites making decisions that will lead to wars where thousands of almost exclusively non-elites will suffer and die is spot on; as spot on in 1450 as it is in 2026. If that’s not relevance and reason enough to study Shakespeare today then what is? 

I'll tell you what's spot on: it's this treat that Mrs. B. gave me. That's what's spot on.

 

Yes Mojo, I suppose it is.