Enter York.
GREEN Here comes the Duke of York.
QUEEN With signs of war about his agèd neck.
O, full of careful business are his looks!
Uncle, for God’s sake, speak comfortable words.
YORK Should I do so, I should belie my thoughts.
Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the earth
Where nothing lives but crosses, cares and grief.
Your husband, he is gone to save far off
Whilst others come to make him lose at home.
Here am I left to underprop his land
Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.
Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made,
Now shall he try his friends that flattered him. (2.2.73-85)
Poor old York, not least because he has to enter on such an obvious line. Green could well speak it with some relief: someone else with bad news, surely, to take the heat off him. York has signs of war about his agèd neck (now that Gaunt is dead, York takes over as the play’s Old Man); the signs of war are a gorget, the residual throat armour that could be worn as a signifier of military identity with, in effect, street clothes (so, a silk doublet or here, probably, a gown, given York’s age). (My favourite example is the portrait of Philip Sidney, desperate to be allowed to go abroad to fight the Spanish; his gorget is aspirational. Gorgets survive as weird vestigial metal plates worn with military uniform well into the twentieth century; some WW2 German uniforms, for instance.) York shouldn’t be having to do this. He looks solemn and worried, full of careful business, but nevertheless the Queen asks him—addressing him familiarly, even affectionately, as Uncle—and she asks for reassurance, consolation, comfortable words. Does he perhaps bring better news? No chance.
Were I to offer any comfort, replies York, grimly, I’d be merely pretending, and misrepresenting what I’m actually thinking. Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the earth (only God can offer any comfort in this scenario)—and on earth, where we are, there’s only trouble, burdens, anxieties, sorrow, crosses, cares and grief. We’re all doomed! (Not quite, but almost.) But the situation, as he starkly sets it out, is dire. Richard is gone to save far off, to fight the rebellion in Ireland, and in the meantime, others come to make him lose at home—to make him lose everything remains implicit, but it’s more than a skirmish or a battle that’s meant here. York being named regent seemed a bit of a joke when Richard did it as a final flamboyant/slightly malicious gesture two scenes ago – but now the situation is deadly serious, and the responsibilities are massive and all too real. I am left to underprop his land, says York, desperately, helplessly, and I am too old. I am weak with age; I cannot even support myself. Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit made: this is the crisis that his extravagance has led to (with surfeit having a particularly bodily aspect to it, as if Richard’s overstuffed himself with rich food: the body politic is sick). But York can still make a pointed remark at the men he despises: now shall he try the friends that flattered him, try in the sense of test, try like gold in a fire to see if they are true. Will those friends—Bushy, Bagot, and Green—prove actively false, or merely weak and inadequate?
