LADY              Madam, we’ll tell tales.

QUEEN           Of sorrow or of joy?

LADY                                                  Of either, madam.

QUEEN           Of neither, girl.

For if of joy, being altogether wanting,

It doth remember me the more of sorrow;

Or if of grief, being altogether had,

It adds more sorrow to my want of joy.

For what I have I need not to repeat,

And what I want it boots not to complain.

LADY              Madam, I’ll sing.

QUEEN                                               ’Tis well that thou hast cause,

But thou shouldst please me better wouldst thou weep.

LADY              I could weep, madam, would it do you good.

QUEEN           And I could sing, would weeping do me good,

And never borrow any tear of thee.            (3.4.10-23)

 

This exchange, and this scene, recapitulates Richard’s ‘hollow crown’ speech in many respects (telling sad stories of the deaths of kings), as well as recalling the Queen’s earlier meditation, with Bushy, on the nature of grief. Trim lines or undercast the Queen at your peril; she is a serious, complex character, who carries much ethical and affective weight in her short scenes. Here she demonstrates a more sophisticated, if bleaker, response than Richard to the potential of narrative, of art, to offer consolation. What will it do, to tell tales? The Lady continues to be obliging (although sometimes frustrated in performance): the tales could be of sorrow or of joy, but neither of those options will satisfy the Queen. Stories of joy, which is altogether wanting, lacking in their current plight, will only be a reminder of sorrow; if the tales are sorrowful already, well, they already have enough of that (grief is altogether had), so it will only add still more sorrow to her want of joy. (The plaintively alliterative remember me the more helps to give the speech the quality not only of complaint, but lament, aligning this Queen with her tragic predecessors in other history plays—above all the grieving queens in Richard III—and also with the Duchess of Gloucester, earlier in the play: Grief boundeth where it falls, not with the empty hollowness, but weight.) What I have already (grief) there’s no point in repeating; what I lack (joy) it won’t do any good lamenting. The control of the parallel structures with just slight variation (what I have / what I want; I need not / it boots not; to repeat / to complain) reinforces the sense of helpless stasis at the same time as it adds to the Queen’s characteristically gnomic, philosophical tone. (Which also, as I read it, anticipates Hamlet’s expressions of grief and what might be described as his depression.)

But the Lady isn’t giving up (she will next propose a book club, a pampering session, and a jigsaw): Madam, I’ll sing. A bitter note creeps in from the Queen: ’tis well that thou hast cause, lucky you, that you’ve got anything to sing about. But you’d suit my mood better if you wept. (And also, perhaps, meanly, you’d make a nicer sound if you just sobbed and wailed.) I could weep, madam, would it do you good (this is a game, perhaps, a slight jollying along, a familiar routine, cheering up the Queen). If weeping alleviated my sorrow, the Queen replies, then I could sing too, for joy; I wouldn’t need your tears. But here we are.