Shakespeare

The Invention of Richard of Gloucester 23opponents. His concluding couplet—“Can I doe this, and cannot get a Crowne?/ Tut, were it farther off, Ile plucke it downe” (TLN 1718–19; ll. 194–95)—epitomizes his new conviction that gaining the throne is mere child’s play for theaccomplished intriguer that he has suddenly become. During the course of thisspeech, the character of Richard of Gloucester undergoes a radicalmetamorphosis.The structure of the soliloquy is unusual in that it twice raises and resolvesthe same question. Following the exordium quoted above, in which he expresseshis hatred for his brother and his desire to supplant him as king, Richarddescribes the conflict between his present situation and the desired kingship interms of an extended geographical simile.Why then I doe but dreame on Soueraigntie,Like one that stands vpon a Promontorie,And spyes a farre-off shore, where bee would tread,Wishing his foot were equall with his eye,And chides the Sea, that sunders him from thence,Saying hee’le lade it dry, to haue his way:So doe I wish the Crowne, being so farre off,And so I chide the meanes that keepes me from it,And so (I say) Ile cut the Causes off,Flattering me with impossibilities:My Eyes too quicke, my Heart o’re weenes too much,Vnlesse my Hand and Strength could equall them.(TLN 1658–69; ll. 134–45)Richard compares his situation to someone who looks out across an immensebody of water toward a distant shore, and he imagines that it would be as difficultto attain the crown as it would be to bail or drain this sea dry. Having created thismodest allegorization of his psychic distress, he then, in lines 146–71 (TLN1670–95), concedes that his ambition is intimately tied to his deformity: he seeksthe crown because he is not a man to “be belou’d.” But this revelation isimmediately followed by a second dark conceit that in essence repeats thecontent of the first; this time, Richard describes his dilemma not in terms of a seabut in terms of a forest.And yet I know not how to get the Crowne,For many Liues stand betweene me and home:And I, like one lost in a Thornie Wood,That rents the Thornes, and is rent with the Thornes,Seeking a way, and straying from the way,Not knowing how to finde the open Ayre,But toyling desperately to finde it out,