GAUNT           Though Richard my life’s counsel would not hear,

My death’s sad tale may yet undeaf his ear.

YORK              No, it is stopped with other flatt’ring sounds,

As praises, of whose taste the wise are feared,

Lascivious metres, to whose venom sound

The open ear of youth doth always listen,

Report of fashions in proud Italy,

Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation

Limps after in base imitation.

Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity—

So it be new there’s no respect how vile—

That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?

Then all too late comes counsel to be heard

Where will doth mutiny with wit’s regard.

Direct not him whose way himself will choose,

’Tis breath thou lack’st and that breath wilt thou lose. (2.1.15-30)

 

Gaunt’s optimistic: I’m dying, these will be my last words, he says; surely my nephew will listen to what I have to say, even though he didn’t take my counsel, my advice when I was alive. His death’s sad tale is both the account of Gaunt’s death and what he said at that moment: story-telling is important in this play (Richard later asks for ‘sad stories of the deaths of kings’ and spends his last speech trying to get a narrative, a scenario, in some kind of order) and it’s particularly related to death and identity. There’s a glance here, perhaps, at the Mirror for Magistrates tradition, in which stories told by historical figures, or rather their ghosts, were framed as cautionary and moralizing; this popular sixteenth-century work was a major influence on early modern tragedies and history plays. Such a tale might undeaf Richard’s ear, make him amenable to wise counsel, Gaunt hopes, but his brother York is skeptical: the King’s ear is stopped with other flatt’ring sounds. Flattery is a key word here, for although York goes on to suggest that Richard’s just easily distracted by trivial things—fashion and poetry, for instance—what he’s most worried about is the way in which the King is being manipulated and misled by flatterers and favourites, who tell him what he wants to hear, praises, of whose taste the wise are feared. York and Gaunt are the wise elder statesmen who should be marked and revered as the King’s counsellors, but instead (as we’ve just seen) Richard hangs out with his lightweight favourites, Bushy, Bagot, and Green, and Aumerle too (York’s son, perhaps a reason why he is being a little delicate and oblique in his accusation).

York describes praises as being tasted; they’re implicitly sweet, picking up on Gaunt’s synaesthetic suggestion in the previous passage that last things, last words are the sweetest, and he moves on to contrast that with the venom sound of lascivious metres. Poetry is poison! It will rot your brain, especially the new-fangled stuff like sonnet sequences. (Words as poisoning through the ear is a commonplace; the poisoning of a King through the ear of course comes back, in a creepily literalised form, in Hamlet.) But young people can’t get enough of those cool verses; they prefer them to the sober advice of their elders.

And Richard’s also into fashion, Italian fashion, foreign fashion. Here fashions probably encompasses behaviour, manners, and courtesy, not just dress, although it was another commonplace that the English had no fashion of their own, but merely imitated, aped—tardily, belatedly—the fashions of other nations, often by combining garments and styles from a number of countries. (In the 2015 Globe production, an early scene between Richard and his followers—possibly 1.4?—included a peacocking model in outrageous costume, as Richard consulted a look-book, or possibly 1390s Vogue; it was a neat idea but was trimmed in previews.) Richard’s a butterfly, always after the latest thing, the latest rumour, the latest novelty: so it be new, there’s no respect how vile, he’s captivated by it, by vanity, not simply vain things, in the sense of conceited, but worldly, empty, worthless things.

It’s no wonder that counsel is always too late for him, because Richard’s will, his passions, his emotions, his fallen nature, will always sway his wit, his intelligence and rationality. (The conflict between wit and will is another commonplace; not least in its ironic disparagement of poetry, this passage feels quite Sidneian to me, thinking about his contrasting of the ‘erected wit’ and the ‘infected will’ in his Defence of Poesie, and his exploration of the ways in which poetry moves.) And therefore it’s hopeless trying to direct the King, because he’s wayward and capricious. Via the half-rhyme of heard/regard, York finishes with a couplet: Richard will simply choose his own way, so save your breath. You’re short of it, and you’ll simply lose it, waste it, if you try to say anything to him now.

Gaunt remains magnificently unswayed by this…