“Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth, Have any resting for her true King’s Queen.”
Shakespeare here reiterates Isabel’s despair and the enormity that her husband’s pending departure is having on her state of mind. Nothing can provide Isabel with comfort when her Richard is being destroyed, she can find no peace. This also serves to emphasise the importance Shakespeare places on Isabel’s influence on the audience’s perception of Richard. Again the audience see Richard as a compassionate, husband. Secondly Shakespeare highlights an issue formerly dealt with by the Bishop of Carlisle in act 4 scene 1, that is the issue of Richard as the truly anointed monarch in God’s eyes.
Shakespeare’s staging of the next events have great significance in this scene, the passage begins when Queen Isabel has arrived for her final meeting with her husband, her first meeting with the deposed King. The entrance of Richard with a prison guard not only evokes pathos for Richard and displays the effect this ordeal has on those close to him, but mainly acts as a visual reminder of Richard’s fallen state. This is of significant relevance to Isabel in that it gives rise to her next speech which proves to reveal a lot more in terms of Shakespeare’s intentions for Isabel’s character and her contribution to the play.
“But soft, but see, or rather do not see my fair rose wither.”
The quality of language used here by Shakespeare expresses Isabel’s love for Richard as well as her desperation and inability to bear the change of circumstances which find them in a situation where they have to part. The poetic quality of the line communicates the turmoil that Isabel finds herself in, paradoxically destroyed by the destruction of her husband. The imagery however is especially notable. Isabel’s comparison of Richard to a “rose” is very important both in revealing aspects of Isabel’s character, but also Richard’s. The rose is famed for its symbolism of beauty, but equally, its perishability. This communicates to the audience, in a melancholy tone, the transience of Richard’s glory as king, and how his “withering” effects his Queen.
“Yet look up, behold, that you in pity may dissolve to dew, and wash him fresh again with true love tears.”
The extension of this metaphor into a conceit is designed by Shakespeare to garner sympathy. The idea of Isabel’s tears of love renewing Richard’s broken state is a lachrymose idea, and proves very provocative for the audience, with this romantic and upsetting image. This once more establishes Isabel as a figure of grief. From the lachrymose style of this metaphor, we can see Shakespeare’s attempts to express to the audience how consistent Isabel is in gathering sympathy for her husband.
“Ah thou the model where old Troy did stand, thou map of honour, thou King Richard’s tomb, and not King Richard;”
This idea sees Isabel imbuing Richard with classical greatness, a technique employed by Shakespeare to express the role that Isabel takes in supporting Richard as the appointed King. The comparison of Richard to Troy is fitting in that Troy did fall, but nobly. Troy was a great city, a symbol of honour, which was unrightfully stolen and plundered. Shakespeare uses this metaphor to communicate to the audience Isabel’s feeling about her King, who was unrightfully usurped and broken. Richard is now only the shadow of his former greatness, a symbol of his own death a “map of honour”. The language here is very much couched in imagery of decay and demise to highlight the sinister and grave circumstances that they as a couple are facing. This attitude emphasises Isabel’s contribution to the play as a device, divised by Shakespeare used to add emotional colour to the character of Richard.
“Thou most beauteous inn, why should hard favour be lodged in thee, when triumph is become an alehouse guest.”
Shakespeare uses this metaphor to outline Isabel’s despair at the injustice of Richard’s predicament. She cannot conceive of why Richard has been degraded publicly, when he has the God given right to rule. More so Shakespeare is eager to present the more personal side of this argument. Although Isabel is distraught at the appointed King being usurped, she is further torn apart by the fact that her husband, for whom she cares a great deal, has been humiliated and treated like a criminal. For Shakespeare the voice of Isabel accents the human and romantic aspect of Richard, which serves to gather yet more sympathy from the audience for his cause.
Richard pleas with Isabel not to grieve for him, as her distress will hasten his own death. Join not with grief fair woman…my end too sudden.” Richard seems to be attempting to accept his fate and move on. Subsequently Isabel’s reaction sees her assert some spirit, in her shock at Richard’s submission.
“What is my Richard both in shape and mind transformed and weakened?”
Shakespeare deliberately presents the previously unseen aspect of Isabel’s person at this point, to display that in desperate circumstances Isabel alters her character,to benefit her husband. The audience observe here a strong woman, desperate to stir her newly submissive husband into action. The rhythm of this line reflects her mindset, the pairs of words serve to express her frustration, at this change in Richard, “shape and mind” “transformed and weakened”. She attacks him in her frustration, asserting her strength to evoke a reaction.
“Hath Bolingbroke deposed thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?”
Shakespeare continues Isabel’s burst of spirit here with a series of questions bombarding Richard to evoke a response and spur him out of submission. The staging of this part of the scene would be quite dramatic the language lends itself to Isabel quickly attacking Richard with multiple questions in desperate exasperation at her changed husband. The clever play on words “deposed thine intellect” sees Shakespeare portraying a further feisty and fiery side to Isabel. She is as well as a support system and a figure of grief, a great influence on Richard. Shakespeare portrays her cunning approach as a strong character trait which up until now the audience had only seen faint evidence of.
“The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw and wounds the earth, if nothing else with rage to be o’erpowered;”
Shakespeare echoes the qualities of the Duchess of Gloucester here reprimanding York, with a fiery outburst from Isabel. Her role is entirely non political, and Shakespeare is communicating to the audience that although Isabel may assert her wifely authority over Richard she is trammelled, as a woman her opinions count for nothing outside this personal relationship. This is perhaps why Shakespeare focuses on Isabel’s contribution to the play so acutely.
Isabel plays on Richard’s masculinity and nobility with the apposite imagery of the lion. Richard as King was compared to a lion. Isabel is urging him to show some courage even if it is in his last days. He should in reflection of his true identity go out with a fight. The audience can envisage Isabel now urgently pleaing with Richard to redeem his former glory, and be the “lion” once again.
“And wilt thou pupil like take the correction mildly, kiss he rod, an d fawn on rage with base humility, which art a lion and the king of beasts?”
Shakespeare then in a final crescendo for Isabel sees her make a last attempt to stir Richard, comparing him unfavourably, to a school boy accepting punishment. She tells Richard that his meek acceptance of Bolingbroke’s power over him and worse still his seeming embrace of his fate is a show of base humility, far below his true station. This robust show of spirit and urgency communicates to the audience Shakespeare’s desire to highlight Isabel’s role as a wife, one who cares for Richard not only romantically but practically. Isabel is trying to be practical, to renew Richard’s honour as the “king of beasts” and mend his broken spirit.
Shakespeare focuses on Isabel’s role in the play on several different occasions throughout. Act two scene two for example is the audience’s first meeting with Isabel. In this scene Shakespeare firmly establishes the Queen as a figure of grief and foreboding. Shakespeare is careful to point out the close relationship that Richard and Isabel have that will become important in the latter part of the play. She laments the absence of her husband, which has struck her with over powering grief, “To please the King I did; to please myself I cannot do it.” The audience is also presented with further lamentation from Isabel as she encounters “some unborn sorrow”, and she proceed to use the metaphor of her burden as she is yet to birth this “ nameless woe”, “And I, a gasping new delivered mother, have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow joined.” Her interactions with Bushy in this scene are important to note. Shakespeare extends Isabel’s role as a grieving Queen as she seems to share her personal lamentations with all who surround her. Shakespeare is eager to present Isabel as a character consumed by grief and sorrow. Her language is laced with imagery of woe and trouble. Isabel is presented to the audience as a weeping figure, who loves but has always some regret or sorrowful burden to carry, “I cannot be but sad: so heavy sad.”
Shakespeare’s presentation of Queen Isabel in act three scene four is interesting, with regard to the transition she seems to make, from the weeping lady to a wife who demands to hear the news of her husband, and resolves to follow him to London. The scene opens with Isabel grief stricken, unable to be consoled by anything;
“My legs can keep no measure in delight when my poor heart no measure keeps in grief.”
She then over hears talk of Richard’s deposition from the gardeners. Shakespeare presents here the fiery disposition that Isabel later possesses fully in act five scene one. She venomously demands facts from the gardener who she overheard “Speak thou wretch.” Shakespeare here highlights that Isabel amidst her grief flickers with rage, in matters concerning her husband’s deposition. Her love for Richard means she can be pushed to extremes either of grief or equally of anger. She then fades back to sorrow “to meet at London, London’s king in woe.” Shakespeare communicates to the audience Isabel’s role as wife, her love for Richard is undeniable, and can push her to change her temper.
The mood and tone at the end of act five scene one is used by Shakespeare to emphasise the type of relationship that Richard and Isabel share. The dramatic methods used in this part of the scene are focused on presenting the love that Isabel has for Richard, and to evoke pathos for the predicament they face. Shakespeare uses very eloquent and poetic language. The combination of stichomythia and rhyming couplets here, adds to the emotion of the dialogue. The repetition of “hand” and “heart” serves to highlight the separation this couple are about to endure.
“And must we be divided? Must we part?
Ay hand from hand, my love and heart from heart.
Banish us both and send the King with me.
That were some love, but little policy.
Then whither he goes let me go.”
Shakespeare here has created a situation which cannot fail in provoking the sympathy and emotion of the audience. Richard has lost everything. Not only has his crowned glory been stripped from him, but his beloved wife must be parted from him too.
Shakespeare through dramatic methods such as language, imagery, staging and interaction uses Isabel’s character throughout the play as a device to compliment the character of Richard. Isabel appears throughout the play to grieve for Richard, to love him and to generate sympathy for him. In a play which could see Richard portrayed as the villain who let England slip into disrepair, Isabel exists to counter balance the negative aspects of Richard’s personality with the positive which, if it weren’t for Shakespeare’s inclusion of her character would remain unseen.
