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A Language Analysis of Richard III: Act I, Scene ii
Alex Segal
In William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Richard the Third, the play’s second scene, between Richard and Anne, is the chief example of a love scene that is not a love scene. In this selection, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, successfully woos Anne over the corpse of her father-in-law, whom he killed.
Richard and Anne’s scene is a verbal tennis match between worthy opponents. Unlike the “nunnery” scene between Hamlet and Ophelia in Hamlet, Richard and Anne’s dialogue exhibits a fair-matched push and pull dynamic. However, in the end, Richard always manages to spike the ball past her.
In this scene, Shakespeare gives the characters a sort of antithetical speaking pattern. For example, when Richard says, “Fairier than tongue can name thee…” Anne replies, “Fouler than heart can think thee…” (81-83). This antithetical word-play, however, is punctuated by breaks in meter such as:
Anne: Didst thou not kill this king?
Glou: I grant ye.
(101-102)
And:
Glou: Yes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.
Anne: Some dungeon.
Glou: Your bedchamber.
(110-112)
In both of these instances, Shakespeare purposefully breaks the meter of the scene at crucial moments wherein Richard gains the upper-hand in the conversation with his startling rhetoric. Both times, Shakespeare utilizes the shared line, which causes the dialogue to speed up before coming to a distinctive stop. The lost meter dictates a pause in the dialogue. In the first example, the one-syllable words provide a distinguishable break from the previous word patterns. Also, Shakespeare uses one-syllable words to show characters speaking straight from the heart and getting right to the point.
Shakespeare uses verse in this scene to represent control. Given the circumstances, Anne proves herself to be of very strong character for staying relatively composed. However, at every break, mutation, or stray from the meter, Anne looses a little more control of the conversation. Interestingly enough, in Anne’s opening speech, the word “Lancaster” (4, 6) never fits the meter-thereby mirroring the Lancaster’s loss of the kingdom to the Yorks. Richard takes control from Anne in the same way that the House of York takes control from the House of Lancaster.
In contrast, Richard maintains the meter of his speech even when she spits at him:
Anne: Where is he?
Glou: Here. ([She] spits are him.) Why dost thou spit at me?
(143-144)
Shakespeare allows within this shared line no metric break for pause or reaction. This shows Richard’s control in the face of something even as repulsive as a wad of saliva.
Richard manipulates the conversation further via other tools. From lines 104 to 108, Richard’s words are those of tactful sympathy. This maneuver creates a situation wherein Anne finds herself unable to push back because Richard is not initiating the first blow. Later, at line 114, Richard changes the subject entirely after having expressed his supposed sexual longing for Anne. This sort of tantric argumentation allows Richard to further obtain control of the situation by causing dumbfounding intrigue. He takes this a step further by giving Anne the opportunity to kill him. The more power he grants her, the more power he himself is actually exercising.
This scene has a strong predatory dynamic wherein Richard is the predator pursuing the love of his prey, Anne. Anne’s first speech might as well be considered her grazing by the waterhole while Richard stalks her from behind the tall grass. Their dialogue in the first part of the scene represents a ravenous struggle, but with each bitter wound, Anne is worn down until, finally, at line 192, the meter quickens as Richard closes in for the kill. Soon thereafter, Anne demonstrates her utter exhaustion when her speech has been reduced to, “What is it?” (209). It is at this point that Richard is ready to sup of the body that wears his ring.
To reinforce this predatory dynamic, the scene exhibits a great deal of animal imagery. Aside from Anne’s reference to Richard as “hedgehog” (103), an allusion to the wild boar on his crest, there are several other bestial word choices. She refers to him as a “fouler toad” (147) and wishes her eyes were “basilisks,” serpents whose glance was alleged to cause death, “to strike [Richard] dead” (150). In her opening speech, she makes it clear that she despises Richard more than “wolves…spiders, toads, or any creeping venom’d thing that lives” (19-20). Nonetheless, Richard insists that he is “no beast” (72).
Greater than the scene’s animal imagery is its religious imagery. Religiosity, a deeply-founded aspect of the culture, is expressed heavily through comparisons to Richard as the devil-this being the most significant representation of evil fathomable to Anne and a Shakespearean audience. These religious references are often found in antithetical parings, for example:
Anne: O wonderful, when devils tell the [troth]!
Glou: More wonderful, when angels are so angry.
(73-74)
And:
Glou: Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
Anne: Foul devil, for God’s sake hence, trouble us not…
…
Glou: Lady, you know no rules of charity…
Anne: Villain, thou know’st nor law of God nor man…
(48-70)
In the latter example, the juxtaposition of God’s charity and God’s vengeance is an antithesis that parallels the ideological differences between the New Testament of the Bible and the Old Testament. Richard is tacitly adding insult to injury by attacking Anne’s concept of God. It is also notable that Richard refers to Anne using the respectful pronoun “you,” while her retort contains the subservient pronoun “thou.”
Within the text of this scene there are several implicit and explicit predictions, premonitions, and curses-many of which are embedded within Anne’s opening speech. Prior to the play’s central curse administered by the old Queen Margaret, Anne directs a curse at Richard without ever directly mentioning his name, but completely exercising the literary devise of repitition:
Anne: O, cursed be the hand that made these holes!
Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it!
Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!
…
If ever you have child, abortive be it, (21)
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
May fight the hopeful mother at the view,
And that be heir to his unhappiness!
If ever he have wife, let her be made (26)
More miserable by the [life] of him
Than I am made by my young lord and thee!
(14-28)
From lines 21 to 25, the curse prescribes the birth of Richard’s child. Interestingly enough, however, the description is remarkably similar to the birth of Richard himself. Then, in a twist of irony, Anne extends the curse to Richard’s future wife, who, by the end of this scene, is determined to be her.
Later in the scene, Richard, in wooing Anne, tells of how her beauty “did haunt [him] in [his] sleep” (122). This statement also drips with irony, since, at the end of the play, Anne’s ghost haunts Richard in his sleep. These curses and predictions reinforce the vast power held by language.
The scene ends, to the astonishment of everyone including Richard, with Anne being successfully wooed by the Duke. Richard, entirely impressed with himself, exclaims, “Was ever woman in this humor woo’d?/ Was ever woman in this humor won?” (227-228)-the answer to both of these questions is yes, as seen in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus and 1 Henry VI. Nonetheless, it is a remarkable feat.
This scene shows Richard at his best, love him or hate him. It also provides a nice contrast to act IV, scene iv, wherein Richard tries to use a similar strategy to woo young Elizabeth through Queen Elizabeth, to no avail. The overwhelming dissimilarity of outcome represents the lack of power Richard really has available to him as he gains the power of the throne.