BOLINGBROKE [To Gaunt] O thou, the earthly author of my blood,
Whose youthful spirit in me regenerate,
Doth with a twofold vigour lift me up
To reach at victory above my head,
Add proof unto my armour with thy prayers,
And with thy blessings steel my lance’s point
That it may enter Mowbray’s waxen coat
And furbish new the name of John of Gaunt
Even in the lusty haviour of his son. (1.3.69-77)
And suddenly Bolingbroke speaks with intense immediacy and intimacy—to his father, John of Gaunt. He switches pronoun, from the more formal you (with which he’s even addressed his dear cousin Aumerle) to the intimate, familiar thou, and he shifts from couplets into blank verse. What he describes is a symbiotic relationship between himself and his father, another kind of doubling at work in the play: Gaunt is the earthly author of his blood, his mortal father (his divine father is, of course, God), but it is Gaunt’s youthful spirit which is reborn, regenerated in him. And it’s that spirit which is doubled, twofold in its vigour, therefore, because it is both father’s and son’s. And then—ping—Bolingbroke thinks up, he reaches, he aspires. (Shades of Romeo and Juliet, and a reminder that these plays’ dramaturgy shares a central vertical axis. Bolingbroke made Richard come down.) But he is also asking his father’s blessing; he may himself kneel down. So the kinds of relationships and hierarchies that are being modeled here, both physically and rhetorically, are shifting and complex, down and up and down. Bolingbroke asks his father to pray for his protection—add proof, that is, strength, impenetrability unto my armour with thy prayers—and also to sharpen his attack on Mowbray, steel my lance’s point, with thy blessings. His armour will be hardened, while Mowbray’s will be as soft as wax. And those prayers and blessings will ensure that the name, the reputation, the honour of John of Gaunt will be furbished new, restored, reinvigorated, polished up, in the lively, vigorous, valorous actions, the lusty haviour of his son.
