GAUNT O spare me not, my brother Edward’s son,
For that I was his father Edward’s son.
That blood already, like the pelican,
Hast thou tapped out and drunkenly caroused.
My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul—
Whom fair befall in heaven ’mongst happy souls—
May be a precedent and witness good
That thou respect’st not spilling Edward’s blood.
Join with the present sickness that I have,
And thy unkindness be like crookèd age
To crop at once a too-long-withered flower.
Live in thy shame but die not shame with thee—
These words hereafter thy tormentors be.
Convey me to my bed, then to my grave.
Love they to live that love and honour have. Exit [with attendants] (2.1.124-138)
This is Gaunt’s final blast, pulling out all the stops, not giving a damn. Richard’s just threatened him with execution, suggesting that he’s only sparing him because he’s family (and royal), because he too, like Richard’s own father, is a son of Edward III. Don’t let that stop you, mocks Gaunt, and he picks up on the family references to taunt his nephew further: by reminding Richard (and the audience, both on and off-stage) that Richard is both the grandson of Edward III (great king) and son of Edward the Black Prince, and not really living up to his heritage.
(Edward III is now partly, and pretty securely, attributed to Shakespeare. It was printed in 1596 and was probably written around 1592; it’s unclear which company or companies performed it, but it was certainly being played on the London stage at the time when Richard IIwas being written and first performed. Both King Edward and Prince Edward are heroic figures, with much of the play devoted to their victories in France, above all at Crécy. But the play is also about the moral reformation of the king: in the first scenes, he is overcome by an adulterous passion for the Countess of Salisbury, of which he subsequently repents, living an exemplary life thereafter. So, like Thomas of Woodstock, it’s an important ‘intertext’ for Richard II, and in this scene, as elsewhere in the play, it probably accounts for the loaded citation of the Edwards—a reminder that Shakespeare’s play is part of an ecosystem of history plays that goes well beyond Shakespeare’s own tetralogies.)
Back to Gaunt’s speech. Why would you hesitate to shed the blood of this family, he asks Richard?—after all, you’ve already tapped it out (as if from a cask of wine) and drunkenly caroused it, a further dig at Richard’s apparently louche and riotous living. He’s not accusing Richard of being a vampire, but rather he’s suggesting that he is like a travesty of the pelican (who was believed to feed her chicks with blood drawn from her own breast: often used as an image of Christ’s sacrifice, and adopted as a symbol by Elizabeth I): Richard has shed his own, or rather his family’s blood already, but has done so lightly and wasted it; he is not nourishing his people. It’s a bit of a stretch to call Gloucester a plain, well-meaning soul: the historical Gloucester certainly wasn’t, and he was probably guilty enough of the treason of which he was accused (but in the Woodstock play, he is presented much more positively, and as a foil for the king). But Gaunt’s point stands: you didn’t hesitate to spill Edward’s blood in killing your uncle Thomas, God rest his soul. (Given that the first scenes of the play have been entirely occupied with the combat between Bolingbroke and Mowbray, ostensibly over the matter of responsibility for Gloucester’s death, this is a gloves-off moment.) Go on, do it, I’m dying anyway: join with the present sickness that I have, and let your unkindness (both your cruelty and your unnaturalness, your betrayal of your kin, your family) be like old age itself, and crop at once a too-long-withered flower. Ageis crookèd because it deforms and stoops the body, but here it also evokes a scythe or sickle, turning Richard into a grim reaper as well as an executioner; Gaunt is the almost-dead flower, his head perhaps to be cut off, in a final glance back at his evocation of the garden of England, Eden, demi-paradise.
And he finishes with a curse: live in thy shame but die not shame with thee. Your reputation is ruined for good. A second rhyming couplet to get him off the stage: convey me to my bed, then to my grave (it’s much more efficient for him to die offstage; no body to carry off). I don’t have anything more to live for; there is no love, no honour left.
Gaunt out.
