While reading through the first half of the play, I noticed Shakespeare incorporated a lot of his characters to curse one another. In the begining John Gaunt becomes sick, and stricken with saddness because King Richard ll has banished his son Bolingbroke. Now Gaunt is on his death bed and he won't get to see his son. He asks to meet with King Richard in order to make arrangements with him, so his son at least gets his riches and land when he dies. Richard ll becomes all defensive and hard headed when Gaunt starts accusing Richard of being a horrible king. He begins by saying he taxes too much, and all the people are very unhappy to have such a greedy King to lead them.
Act 2 Scene 1:
"O, spare me not, my brother Edward's son,
For that I was his father Edward's son;
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapp'd out and drunkenly caroused:
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul,
Whom fair befal in heaven 'mongst happy souls!
May be a precedent and witness good
That thou respect'st not spilling Edward's blood:
Join with the present sickness that I have;
And thy unkindness be like crooked age,
To crop at once a too long wither'd flower.
Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee!
These words hereafter thy tormentors be!
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:
Love they to live that love and honour have"
We see how Gaunt curses King Richard ll to a bad life just how he is dying, Richard should feel just as horrible. Also we get the scene in Act 3 scene 4 where Queen Isabel is distraught and needs to find out what has happened to her dear Richard. She decides to hide out in the garden with her ladies and listen in on the gossip between the gardeners. When she hears of her Richard getting captured byBolingbroke she runs out of her hiding spot and confronts the gardener. Outraged at the fact that they kept this news from her.
"For telling me these news of woe/ Pray God the plants thou grafi'st may never grow"
She curses the gardener as we see above by saying may his garden never grow. The gardener however does not become angry, but he continues anyway to plant and take pitty upon the Queen.
We see curses running throughout this play and we can say how much these character believe in God hurting those who do wrong and by cursing eachother they damn them to getting what they deserve.
New Paltz Students Blogging about Shakespeare
3 comments:
It seems to be a common occurrence in Shakespeare's works that characters curse those whom have done them wrong. It appears to have been the fashion of the time, so to speak. In Shakespeare's plays, something either came of it, or did not, but regardless, the people who said it were experiencing extreme grief at the hands of someone else, and needed to foist their troubles on that person. Here are some "cursing" lines from other Shakespeare plays, as an example:
"Cursed be the hand that made these fatal holes!
Cursed be the heart that had the heart to do it!
Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!"
(Lady Anne, Richard III. Act 1, Scene 2)
"A plague upon Antenor! I would they had broke 's neck!"
(Pandarus, Troilus and Cressida. Act 4, Scene 2.)
"All the infections that the sun sucks up
From bogs, fens, flats, on Prosper fall and make him
By inch-meal a disease! His spirits hear me
And yet I needs must curse."
(Caliban, The Tempest. Act 2, Scene 2)
I'm sure there are a lot of other examples that I don't know about. Therefore, while cursing does come up a lot in Richard II, I do not think it is unique to that play alone. Someone always seems to be wreaking havoc on someone else's life, and then paying for it.
I agree with Rachel, cursing is quite common in Shakespeare's plays. I think that the people cursing others are just angry and expressing it the best way they know how, by cursing. I don't think that the people cursing also have the mystical power to have any true ill-doing happen to them. I think it would be interesting to examine in Shakespeare's canon what character's actually do have the power to threaten with a curse.
This is a very nice insight, Michele, and Rachel's follow-up helps, too. Those who curse in Shakespeare are often those without power (women, slaves, commoners, etc.). They use their verbal powers to confront and erode systems of power. That certainly is what is happening here, as a widow of the king's enemy lashes out in the only way she can.
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