The history plays of William Shakespeare are often considered among his most complex, as they form a continuum spanning the reigns of several monarchs and are interwoven frequently in terms of plot, characters and both conventional and unconventional dramatic devices. Shakespeare inherited a wealth of tradition from his Greek predecessors whose style, form, techniques and themes were widely reflected to varying degrees in intervening centuries, notably in French, Italian and Early British Drama dating from Medieval to Pre-Elizabethan times.
Although Richard III is one of Shakespeare's earliest works, following the Henry VI trilogy, a handful of sonnets and two narrative poems, the play displays signs of considerable talent, if not quite budding genius, in spite of certain blundering passages and annoying diversions. It is also clearly one of Shakespeare's most violent, homicidal and curse-ridden creations, because Richard's excesses surpass even those of Iago or Shylock in villainy and mayhem.
The complexity of Richard III, with reference to the play's scope and structure, is legendary, encompassing a wide range of characters drawn from history and imagination. It could pass for what some analysts call a docu-drama, inasmuch as its principal character, a usurping, plotting tyrant, is portrayed with all the traits and personality flaws of a megalomaniac. Whether Richard III, in real life, was guilty of all the atrocities attributed to him by Shakespeare, and foreshadowed by Margaret, former Queen of Henry VI, is certainly subject to close critical scrutiny. Indeed, volumes have been devoted to this theme as mirrored within the lines of Richard III.
However, the focus of the present study intends to illuminate a unifying device, as implied above, which dates from the days of Aristophanes and Sophocles. The Greek chorus, chanting impending doom, eternal truths or forthcoming events, was found useful then, and was, centuries later, adapted -- slightly modified for histrionic effect -- by Shakespeare to provide cohesion, depth, unity and continuity to the convoluted tale of Richard III.
Building on this almost Delphic concept, by placing Margaret in Act I, Scene iii, as a prophetess of events to unfold, Shakespeare combines the foreshadowing effect of the Oracle with the classic Greek choral concept, as he introduces an extraneous figure -- one who couldn't possibly have been in Edward's Court, because she was in France, deposed -- to serve as a foreboding and prophetic element, casting a pall of gloom over the First Act.
The angry outburst of old Queen Margaret, whose son had been mercilessly slain, and whose entire life, in fact, had been exceptionally harsh, sets the tone for the balance of this play. Her utterance, actually a series of curses, in response to Richard's rejection of her rightful place as Queen, forms the backdrop against which her ill-fated prophecies are ultimately realized. Reproduced below is the main body of her retort to Richard, whom she recognized as the ultimate murderer of his political rivals, personal friends, young children, and loyal supporters, some of whom are referred to obliquely in her first lengthy interjection:
Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven? Why, then, give way, dull clouds, to my quick curses! Though not by war, by surfeit die your king, As ours by murder to make him a king! Edward, thy son, that now is Prince of Wales, For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales, Die in his youth by like untimely violence! Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen, Outlive they glory like my wretched self! Long mayest thou live to wail thy children's death And see another as I see thee now, Decked in thy rights as thou art stalled in mine! Long die thy happy days before thy death, And, after many length'ned hours of grief, Die neither mother, wife, nor England's Queen! Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by, And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son Was stabbed with bloody daggers. God I pray him That none of you may live his natural age, But by some unlooked accident cut off!
(Act I, Scene iii, Lines 194-213)
In this passage, bearing many of the characteristics of the Greek Choral device, in spite of its energetic and deprecatory nature, Margaret calls out to the clouds to open briefly to admit her supplications and entreaties. She is, in a sense asking God to cast judgment on, and even punish those who have caused her many misfortunes in life. She predicts the death of Edward IV who, she intimates, shall die of gluttony and worldly indulgence, and alludes to the accession of kings to the throne by murder. She goes on to predict the death of young Edward, Prince of Wales, by violence, which later occurs, and states that, like herself, Elizabeth shall live tragic and prolonged days well beyond her present reign as Queen. Because they failed to act to prevent her son's death, Margaret also curses Dorset, Rivers and Hastings, all of whom, she predicts, will die premature and violent deaths.
Because many courtiers are present during this series of epithets and maledictions, they later recall the curses uttered by Margaret and their recollections form a sort of liet-motif throughout the play, as these predictions come true. There is, of course, nothing rational about these statements; they float above and beyond the actual action, or working-out, of the play. However, they actually constitute a framework within which these events transpire. This device also further clarifies the plot in the spectator's mind. Shakespeare apparently realized, early in his career, that Elizabethan audiences needed to be constantly reminded of historically complex relationships and events occurring on stage. Dialogue, because of its highly personalized and often emotional nature, was not enough; indeed, reinforcement of plot-line and thematic content was necessary. Both Margaret and occasionally Anne played this clarifying role.
Queen Margaret's excerpt is not presented in verse, although it possesses the force of anger, bitterness and passion. Its structure is well suited to projection of these heated sentiments and, when Margaret returns later in the Fourth Act, the spectator readily recalls the venom and force of this peripheral, yet crucial character.
Shakespeare drew on his own knowledge of historical reality, of course, in order to create this seeming appearance of prophetic insight on the part of Margaret who, in reality, could not possibly have known about these, or the other events, she foretells in Richard III. However, so skillfully is this Scene constructed that the spectator must surely tremble at the intensity of her curses.
Far from being a play of light-hearted mirth, Richard III, in the spirit of Margaret's ominous series of predictions, is a tale of ambition, fratricidal enmity, treachery, faithlessness and butchery. Elizabethan audiences were enthralled. Shakespeare, who had been unsuccessful prior to this play, gained new popularity. He did so by using time-tested techniques and multi-textured ploys, such as Margaret's almost Hellenic appearance in Act I. She, and later self-cursed Anne, soon to be Richard's wife after he kills those most dear to her, serve almost as the "swaying" chorus members of Ancient Greek Tragedy (strophe and antistrophe), at least in verbal terms, if not in actual motion. It can be asserted that the supreme ironies of justice and injustice are continuously highlighted by the contributions of both Margaret and Anne, powerless figures ensnared in Richard's furious drive toward the throne.
Keeping in mind the explication of Margaret's passage, cited above, and her brief reappearance in Act IV, it will prove useful to examine three of her ten or more primary prophecies or curses, as they are fulfilled, with a view toward revealing their magnitude and implications within Richard III, as an entity.
One of the play's most dramatic execution sessions, occurring at Pomfret Castle, the site a century earlier of Richard II's death, involves Richard's rivals within the House of York, the Woodville branch of the family, specifically Earl Rivers, Elizabeth's brother, and Lord Grey, her son by a previous marriage. They are summarily executed, in partial fulfillment of Margaret's curse, in Act III, Scene iii. It will be noted that Dorset was safe at this point in time, but that his younger brother, Lord Grey, was actually killed -- a minor deviation from Margaret's curse.
Later, of course, in Act III, Scene iv, Hastings is executed, much to his own surprise, by an infuriated Richard, who had suspected, indeed accused, him of consorting with Edward IV's former mistress, and of conspiring against him. This was a convenient mechanism, or pretense, for ridding Richard of Hastings. Thus, through a seemingly realistic series of events, a second of Margaret's major predictions came to pass. The effect produced on stage, critics agree, is ethereal and somber, underscoring the audience's impression of Richard as a monstrous and barbarous monarch.
The third curse, arguably contained in Margaret's cited passage, but only by allusion to "murder", could be construed to involve the death of Buckingham, ordered by Richard on the basis of a purely intellectual and arrogant motive, at least in the Shakespearean version.
Although Buckingham had been loyal to Richard, he refused to assassinate the two young princes (still another of Margaret's predictive curses uttered elsewhere in the play), and was quite eager to inherit, as promised by Richard, the Earldom of Hereford.
Buckingham, once undyingly loyal, begins to harbor reservations about Richard and raises an army against him. His army is dispersed; Buckingham is taken and executed, lamenting the day he assisted in "placing" Richard on the throne, through mutual connivance and dishonest practices.
Margaret had been passively observing these proceedings since Act IV, the audience can rightfully assume, and although she hadn't specifically predicted the death of Buckingham which finally occurs in Act V, she is assuredly lingering over the carnage , watching the House of York collapse as its members destroy each other:
Here in these confines slily have I lurked; To watch the waning of mine enemies.
Act IV, Scene iv, Lines 3-4.
As the Greek device accurately foreshadowed, Richard rose through murder and, through betrayal of his friends, he remained in power until his defeat at the hands of Richmond.
The presence of Margaret hovering about, almost in the classic tragic sense, as a choral backdrop, echoing and highlighting these somber events, adds intensity and depth to this widely acclaimed masterwork. The broad implications of Margaret's curses clearly remain in the "consciousness" of the audience and serve to propel events forward almost as if fate or destiny, as predefined by the bitter, deposed Queen of Henry VI, played a tangible role in determining the unraveling of this intriguing sequence of historical events.
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