GARDENER O what pity it is
That he had not so trimmed and dressed his land
As we this garden! We at time of year
Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees,
Lest being over-proud in sap and blood
With too much riches it confound itself.
Had he done so to great and growing men
They might have lived to bear and he to taste
Their fruits of beauty. Superfluous branches
We lop away that bearing boughs may live.
Had he done so, himself had borne the crown
Which waste of idle hours hath quite thrown down. (3.4.55-66)
The garden conceit continues to be elaborated, but here becomes focused on fruit trees. What pity it is, that Richard the king has not taken as good care of his kingdom, that he has not so trimmed and dressed his land, ordered and maintained it, as the gardeners have their garden. Every year, in the proper season, we wound the bark, the skin of our fruit trees, to allow excess sap, the blood of the tree, to be purged; this wounding, bleeding, like purging a body in blood-letting, rebalances it. (The arboricultural practice here is sound: instead of producing too many fast-growing, sappy new shoots, the tree will fruit more heavily, from its older wood.) Without that purgation of excess, the tree will be damaged, even destroyed, with too much riches, over-proud; it will outgrow its own strength. The tree is like a body, whose constituent parts must work in harmony, and whose humours must be balanced. If Richard had, in a timely and ordered fashion, curbed (and even purged) such great and growing men, men getting above their station, out of control, then they might have proved fruitful, valuable and worthy subjects, courtiers, friends, and advisors; and they would have lived. (Bolingbroke could be included in this number, an over-proud subject now grown dangerous because of his ill-treatment; this isn’t just about Bushy and Green and Richard’s other over-indulged favourites.) The tree must be pruned, checked, and its overgrown and unproductive branches cut away, to enable bearing boughs, those that are fruitful, to live. If Richard had been a better steward of his kingdom, then he would have continued to bear the crown. Instead, he’s wasted it all in idle hours, and both he and the crown are now quite thrown down. His weakness, his reluctance to curb his friends, and his indulgence of them, has been his ruin, and the ruin of his kingdom.
The tree, like the garden, could be used as an allegory of the state. At Elizabeth I’s coronation entry into the City of London in 1559, one of the pageant stages consisted of two hills, each with a tree, one (dead) representing a decaying commonwealth, the other (leafy) a flourishing one: between them was a cave, out of which Time led his daughter Truth, who presented the Bible (in English) to the Queen. The pageant was constructed over the Little Conduit in Cheapside, one of the main public water fountains in the city: there was (perhaps, at least as I’ve argued elsewhere) a triangulation being made between the conduit, the Bible (as a source of spiritual refreshment), and the Queen herself, who would nourish her land and people and enable their flourishing as a godly Protestant Queen.
