RICHARD What said our cousin when you parted with him?
AUMERLE ‘Farewell’.
And for my heart disdainèd that my tongue
Should so profane the word, that taught me craft
To counterfeit oppression of such grief
That words seemed buried in my sorrow’s grave.
Marry, would the word ‘farewell’ have lengthened hours
And added years to his short banishment,
He should have had a volume of farewells,
But since it would not, he had none of me. (1.4.10-19)
Aumerle is being pretty bitchy here, a stark contrast to his apparent affectionate leave-taking of Bolingbroke in the previous scene. Who’s he showing off to? The King, directly? Is Aumerle competing with Green and Bagot in sarcastic, callous word-play and behaviour? Lots of opportunities to establish the dynamics of Richard’s relationships with his various companions, courtiers, and subordinates: playground pecking orders, or more decadent and dissolute? Some recent productions have suggested a homoerotic relationship between Richard and Bagot, Bushy, and Green, or between Richard and Aumerle. What did Bolingbroke say when you parted, asks the King? ‘Farewell’: scope for comedy here (accentuated on the page, with the short line; there’s a pause, so perhaps a gesture), maybe imitating Bolingbroke’s delivery, and mocking his reputation for taciturnity. (We have only a moment before seen Bolingbroke’s eloquence; here he’s perhaps being ridiculed as a man of few words.) And Aumerle makes himself out to be at once clever, principled, and duplicitous: he couldn’t bring himself to say farewell to Bolingbroke, because he wouldn’t really mean it (his heart disdained that his tongue should so profane the word), so he pretended to be overcome with grief, to counterfeit such abject sorrow that he was unable to speak, burying words in his sorrow’s grave. (Bolingbroke has been lost for words in the previous scene, as he attempts to find a way of taking his leave of his father Gaunt.) As if that wasn’t petty enough, Aumerle goes on: if merely saying ‘farewell’ had the effect of adding years to his short banishment, he’d have said it over and over again, giving Bolingbroke a volume of farewells, a whole book full of them. But whether he said farewell or not to his cousin, it would make absolutely no difference—so he didn’t bother.
