Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York,
And all the clouds that loured upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
This is probably the second most famous soliloquy in the world of Shakespeare, possibly in theatre. It introduces one of Will’s great villains about whom reams have been written, careers created, crowned and even damaged; and ancient staircases and car-parks have been torn up. Almost every actor of stature from Burbage to Garrick to Olivier to Pacino has wanted to play this role (and almost all – with the exception of Burbage – have had the other characters in the play diminished to focus the Klieg-light more brightly on themselves. Olivier went as far as having Queen Margaret (who has the other lovely speeches) surgically excised from his version.
It has almost always been known to anyone who has read their history that Richard was, in the versions of history that Shakespeare called on as sources, deliberately painted as worse than he was in life. Holinshed (and Grafton and Hall) the most contemporary historians that Shakespeare knew and drew on, based their version of the history of Sir (Saint) Thomas More: The History of Richard III. Now More, despite his portrayal in A Man for All Seasons, his advanced ideas for education (especially for women) and his status as Chancellor, was, on the whole, a bit of a rotter – more like he is portrayed in Hilary Mantel’s books than elsewhere. He was a confirmed political schemer and a dedicated torturer of heretics in a wide variety of heinous ways and yet the great Erasmus was besotted with him. And despite his hair shirt and his gift for inventing Utopia, he was not above public lying when it served him; and it did serve him in his history of Richard.
Simply put, the blackening of Richard’s reputation was a bit of arse-kissing for Sir Thomas’s boss, the ever-dangerous Henry VIII. Henry was always a paranoid type and his possession of the throne was dynastically weak with very little (legitimate) royal ancestry and depended mostly on the fact that his father (Henry VII) had seized the throne by beating Richard at the battle of Bosworth Field – which is the ending Shakespeare’s play. So, it served More’s interests to blacken Richard’s character and reputation because that strengthened the Tudor claim of justly liberating the throne (oh, and England too) from a tyrant. And Shakespeare, following his sources, gives us Richard as the enigmatically engaging monster. In fact, the discovery of the bodies of two young lads under a staircase of the tower of London and the exhumation of Richard’s body from under a parking lot near Bosworth Field with a severe case of scoliosis have not done much to rescue More’s reputation. Kings of England have often ordered executions and being crippled did not make Richard a monster. In fact, if you have a hankering for an intriguingly positive view of Richard (although probably equally inaccurate) I would refer you to the novel by Josephine Tey: The Daughter of Time. (As in “Truth is the daughter of time”.)
So, the history of the sources tells us something about why Richard is portrayed as a monster. But why is he so compelling and intriguing. What is it about Shakespeare’s character that makes it stand out so much – particularly as it is the first in a line that includes Edmund from Lear and the ultimate villain, Iago. They all share that quality that Coleridge once brilliantly described as “motiveless malignity.” But there is more to it than that. If the actor playing Richard is doing it right, he should be making us laugh – at least sardonically. What is that all about?
On Feb. 5, 1962, David Bevington made his career splash by publishing a book: From Mankind to Marlowe: Growth and Structure in the Popular Drama of Tudor England. The book was a resounding success in a whole bunch of different ways. It brought to the world’s tardy attention that there was a theatrical and dramatic tradition in England (and elsewhere in Europe) that spanned the gap between the religiously banned medieval cycle and mystery plays and the (apparently) surprising appearance of the Elizabethan stage that would so soon and so permanently astonish the world – Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare and more. Where did that come from? The book also illustrated the way that touring professional companies survived and thrived before the establishment of permanent theatre buildings in London (including the Globe) and continued to tour even afterwards. Shakespeare’s own company toured extensively throughout England especially during the plague times when the permanent theatres were closed. It also showed the roots of certain aspects of Shakespeare’s theatre in the older English drama, stretching back hundreds of years – including characters like Richard.
This brings us to the major revelation in the book – or at least the one that has had the largest effect on our understanding of Richard the character. He is, very likely, largely patterned on the character of the “Vice” in the medieval theatre that survived and thrived in Tudor and early Elizabethan theatre. This character has many stage names and different aspects but is always part of the Psychomachia – the struggle for the human soul between the forces of good and evil that is at the heart of Medieval theatre. Just as the good is always allegorically represented by an angelic character, variously named as Mercy, or Wisdom or Goodness so the evil is represented by a Vice that could be named Idleness or New Guise (fashion) or, in the most famous case, Titivillus in Mankind. And Mankind is chosen as the example by Bevington for a couple of important reasons. Titivillus is by far the best example of a Vice and the play forces us to see how important that character was. To take the second reason first, the play is actually stopped and the audience is asked to pay up their entrance fee or the Vice will nor appear: if you want to see the best part, ya gotta pay! (This is not unique to Mankind.)
What makes the vice so attractive? Firstly he/they are scatological in their language. The three sub-vices in Mankind gather together to sing a lovely little song. Here’s a few lines sung by Nought, New Guise and Nowadays:
Nought: Itis written with a coal, it is written with a coal
All: Itis written with a coal, it is written with a coal.
Nought: He that shitteth with his hole, He that shitteth with his hole
All: He that shitteth with his hole, He that shitteth with his hole
Nought: Unless he wipes his ass clean, unless he wipes his ass clean.
All: Unless he wipes his ass clean, unless he wipes his ass clean.
Nought: On his pants it shall be seen, on his pants it shall be seen.
All: On his pants it shall be seen, on his pants it shall be seen.
All: Holely, hole lick! Holely, hole lick! Holely, hole lick!
Then Titivilus enters and has a chat with New Guise:
Titivillus:(in Latin) " I am the Lord of lords" and my name is Titivillus. … (to New Guise) Lend me a Penny!
New Guise: I may have a big purse but I have no money. I barely have a halfpenny, but boy last night I spent a great deal.
Titivillus: Then what's in that big purse of yours, big fella?
New Guise: The Devil may dance in My purse. It's as empty as a Bird's ass.
After a few more dirty jokes based on double meanings, Titivillus sets to work on Mankind. The running joke is that Mankind cannot see or hear the Vice but still falls for the Vice’s temptations. The Vice communicates (almost soliloquy style) with the audience directly. A sample:
Titivillus (to the other Vices): Go your way; the Devil's way; get going all of you. I bless you with my left hand, may foulness befall you. Make sure you come quickly when I call you. And bring what you gain with you. I will wait here to speak with Mankind. And test his abilities to resist temptation. (to the audience) Mercy is no longer his guide. I shall make him dance to another tune. Even as I go invisible, as is my fashion, I will hang my nets right before his eyes to corrupt his sight, I'll test him. I shall concoct a plan to interrupt his work. I'll hide a board under the ground where he digs with his spade and hinder his progress. Hopefully, this will make him very angry, lose his patience, and behave shamefully. I shall mix weeds in with his corn and this will make it difficult to cultivate and sell. Here he comes now. I hope this works and he begins to lose his holiness.
Mankind: Now God of his mercy send us his message. I have seed here to sow on my land. While I till it, it shall stay here. In the Name of the Father Son and Holy spirit I begin. (He's having difficulty because of Titivillus’ traps) This land is so hard it makes me unhappy and upset. I shall sow my corn at winter and let God help me. (Time is obviously passing) Alas my corn is lost here is ill fortune. I now see that I will gain little by farming. I give up using a spade now and forever. (Titivillus picks up the discarded spade and takes it off stage.) I will no longer attempt to work as an occupation. I will go and hear the evening prayers before I leave. This is the place that is my church I will kneel on my knees. "Our father who art in heaven."
Titivillus: I promise you I can move very quickly. I am back to annoy this fellow. Shush! Peace! I shall go and whisper in his ear. "A short prayer is the most efficient" "Now stop praying. Get up and get going. You've got to take a dump."
Mankind: I will just sneak off into the yard for a moment and come right back. I dread colic and kidney stones, so I will go do what must be done. I leave my prayer beads here in case someone else can use them.
Titivillus: Mankind was busy praying but I made him get up. He is interrupted from his divine service, by Christ. Where is he you might ask, and oddly enough I know. I have sent him off to shit lies. . . .
Mankind: Evening prayers have been going on for too long. I'm tired of them they're too long by a mile. I think I'll cut back on the Church going. I think I'll try doing something else. Both labor and prayer are no fun. Even if it will bother Mercy – I'm gonna give it up. My head is so heavy I could sleep forever, even if my brother needed me.
Titivillus: (to audience) If you've ever been quiet for me, be so now. Not a word I tell you or you'll owe me money. You shall see an amusing game before you leave here. Do you hear him snore-- he is fast asleep. Shush, quiet! "Don't fear the Devil" I'll whisper in his ear. Alas, alas Mankind, Mercy has stolen a horse. He is a runaway slave and he is on the lam. He stole a horse and an ox cart. And I heard that he broke his neck over in France, but actually I think they hanged him. They taught him that swinging dance because he's a thief – he got what he deserved. Don't trust someone like him. He's a liar – remember how hard the work he ordered was? Arise and make friends with New Guise, Nowadays and Nought. They can best tell you what's right, make amends with them. You should also leave your wife and get a mistress. Farewell all, my work here is done. I have now brought Mankind to mischief and shame.
While it is a crude piece (even in a sort of modern translation) the elements are very clear: Titivillus tells us, the audience, how he will deceive Mankind and then does it. We are made to be accomplices in the process and the crudity is there to make it amusing, rather than sombre and religious.
This is the other element that contributes to Richard’s character, the grisly humour of double meanings, one for the character that he is conversing with and the other to the audience, which is almost always included in Richard’s presentation of self. He is talking to us as much as the other characters. A perfect example is the first scene, with his brother Clarence. Lines like
Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
1;1;111-2
Have different meanings for Clarence and the audience.
The entire wooing of Anne has the same taste. We know he is lying extravagantly but she (like Queen Elizabeth, later) is finally taken in by his protestations while he reveals his hypocrisy to us. And he tells us(like Titivillus) over and over what he is doing and going to do. How he will fool people with his lies, in front of our eyes – a bit like a stage magician:
With odd old ends stol’n forth of Holy Writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
1;3;337-8
Those characters who see clearly, know him for what he is. Queen Margaret (who has seen it all): “Richard yet lives, hell’s black intelligencer” 4;4; 71. His mother who has known him from birth: “And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice!” 2;2; 28 But the rest are like Mankind, they are blind to what we, the audience, clearly see. And in that gap, between what the victims see and what we see, is where the comedy lies, if it is played.
Shakespeare’s source for this, one of his greatest dramatic tricks, is the theatrical fare that preceded the Elizabethan theatre that he wrote for. Bevington once wrote, “Critical bias against the medieval heritage in Elizabethan drama dies slowly” and it’s still true today. Very few people are even aware of the plays that were performed by touring companies all over England while Shakespeare was growing up. But Will was, because they regularly toured to Stratford. His initial exposure to theatre was what he saw growing up (see list below) and that is the kind of thing that has a profound effect on the imagination. The Renaissance translations of Seneca and Plautus would provide plots of course but Shakespeare’s initial, visceral, auditory and visual experience of theatre were the plays of the late Henrician and early Elizabethan era that were performed in front of him: like Mankind. They were his playwrighting school. What Marlowe described as:
From jigging veins of riming mother wits,
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay
for that is where Marlowe himself would have first encountered theatre as well, and it clearly shows in The Jew of Malta, who is another incarnation of the Vice.
So, to return to Richard, any valid interpretation of the part must take into account and incorporate the features of the Vice. The inclusion of the audience – in a range from winking to directly sharing with them. The humour that the vice introduces to villainy; not just motiveless malignity but self-amusing malignity – Richard must have fun, must enjoy his own evil. In fact, the following lines could have been given to a Vice:
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking glass;
I that am rudely stamped, and want love’smajesty,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them –
. . .
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain.
There are (if you need them) various pieces of textual evidence for Shakespeare’s knowledge of the texts listed below in the short appendix. In Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Peter Quince delivers the epilogue to the wonderfully disastrous Mechanical’s play. In it he confuses all of his punctuation (“does not stand on points”) to produce an hilarious speech, opposite in meaning to what he intends. The idea was stolen by Shakespeare from a scene in Ralph Roister Doister, presented by the Vice, Matthew Merrygreek. And just so you don’t end with the idea that the humour of these pieces are all pretty basic, I will finish this bit, with my own translation, from Wyt and Science, wherein Idleness (a prostitute) tries to teach a character called Ignorance how to say his own name. It works best out loud.
Wit and Science
IDLENESS: Say thy lesson, fool!
INGNORANCE: Count it upon my fingers?
IDEL: Yes, upon thy fingers; is not thy name there?
INGN: Yes.
IDLE: Go to, then; spell me that same. Where was thou borne?
INGN: I was born in Ingland, mother said.
IDLE: In Ingland?
INGN:Yes.
IDLE:And what’s half of Ingland? Here is “ing” and here’s “land”. What’s on this finger?
INGN:What’s on this?
IDEL:What’s on this? whoreson, what’s on this? Here’s “ing” and here’s “land”.What’s this?
INGN: This is my thumb!
IDEL: Thy thumb? That’s “Ing”, whoreson, “ing”, “ing”!
INGN: ng, ing, ing, ing.
IDEL: Go on! Shall I beat thy arse, now?
INGN: Um-m-m-
IDEL: Shall I not beat thy arse, now?
INGN: Um-um-um-
IDEL: Say "no," fool, say “no."
INGN: No, no, no, no, no!
IDEL: Go to, put them together: ing!
INGN: Ing.
IDEL: No!
INGN: No.
IDEL: Go on! What did the dog?
INGN: Dog barked.
IDLE: Dog barked? Dog ran, whoreson, dog ran!
INGN: Dog ran, whoreson, dog ran, dog ran.
IDEL: Put them together: ing !
INGN: Ing.
IDEL: No!
INGN: No.
IDEL: Ran!
INGN: Ran.
IDLE: Go on now, what says the goose?
INGN: Lag! lag!
IDLE: Hiss, whoreson, hiss!
INGN: Hiss, his-s-s-s-s.
IDLE: Good, put them together: ing.
INGN: Ing.
IDLE: No.
INGN: No.
IDLE: Ran.
INGN: Ran.
IDLE: Hiss.
INGN: His-s-s-s-s-s-s.
IDLE: Now, who is a good boy?
INGN: Me, me, me, me, me!
IDLE: Go on, put them together: ing.
INGN: Ing.
IDLE: No.
INGN: No.
IDEL: Ran.
INGN: Ran.
IDEL: Hiss.
INGN: His-s-s-s-s-s.
IDEL:Ing-no-ran-hiss.
INGN: Ing-no-ran-hys-s-s-s.
IDEL: All together: Ing.
INGN: Ing.
IDEL: Go on!
INGN: Hys-s-s-s.
IDEL: No, horeson, no.
INGN: No, no, no, no.
IDLE: lng-no.
INGN: Ing-no.
IDLE: Go on now!
INGN: His-s-s-s-s.
IDEL: Yet again; ran, whoreson, ran, ran.
INGN: Ran, whoreson, ran, ran.
IDLE: Ran, say!
INGN: Ran say.
IDLE: Ran, whoreson !
INGN: Ran, whoreson.
IDLE: Ran.
INGN: Ran.
IDLE: Ing-no-ran.
INGN: Ing-no-ran.
IDEL: Go on, now' What said the goose?
INGN: Dog barked.
IDLE: Dog barked? Hiss, whoreson, his-s-s-s-s-s!
INGN: His-s-s-s-s-s-s.
IDLE: Ing-no-ran-hiss.
INGN: Ing-no-ran-his-s-s-s.
IDLE: How goes it now, fool? Is not there thy name?
INGN: Yes.
IDLE: Well then, can you say to me what thou hast learned? Ing-no-ran-hiss.
INGN: I don’t know. I forget.
APPENDIX
Popular plays of the late fifteenth century and Henricianperiod (1470-1547):
Mankind
Mundus et Infans
Hickescorner
The Interlude of Youth
Pardoner and the Friar
Four PP
John John
Magnificence
King John
Three Laws
Popular plays of Elizabeth’s early reign, until the opening of the Theater, 1558-1576:
The Marriage of Wit and Wisdom
Mary Magdalen
King Darius
Like Will to Like
Enough Is as Good as a Feast
New Custom
The Tide Tarrieth No Man
The Trial of Treasure
The Longer Thou Livest the More Fool Thou Art
Cambises
Horestes
All for Money
Common Conditions
Clyomon and Clamydes
Ralph Roister Doister (with Matthew Merrygreek) 1552
