I want to be a melting, nameless snowman… (4.1.253-262) #KingedUnKinged

NORTHUMBERLAND            My lord—

RICHARD                                No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,

Nor no man’s lord. I have no name, no title—

No, not that name was given me at the font—

But ’tis usurped. Alack the heavy day

That I have worn so many winters out

And know not now what name to call myself.

O that I were a mockery king of snow,

Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke

To melt myself away in water-drops.         (4.1.253-262)

Northumberland is nothing if not persistent, and also tone-deaf, and Richard’s lost patience with him. But, typically, he makes more of it than simple frustration or insult: I am no lord of thine, thou haught insulting man—which sounds like he’s saying, at first, I don’t want to be your lord, you arrogant idiot. I am no man’s lord; fair enough, he’s lost his sovereign status, although he is still, presumably, to be regarded as one of the highest nobles in the land, of royal status and descent. Being Richard, however, there’s more to come. I have no name, no title—no not that name was given me at the font—but ’tis usurped. You’ve taken everything else from me—why not my name as well? He’s underscoring the way in which he cannot separate his personal identity from his identity as king; if I’m no longer king, then I do not exist anymore. Usurped has a particular sting in the circumstances, but the font also resonates, implicitly part of the wateriness of Richard’s language, his regular recourse to washing and to weeping. He sees what is happening to him as a kind of un-baptism. A rueful moment of self-deprecation: alack the heavy day that I have worn so many winters out and know not now what name to call myself. How weird it is that I’ve got to this advanced age (heavy irony; he often looks so young) and don’t know to what name I should answer, who I am.

A moment of transcendent wateriness: O that I were a mockery king of snow, pathos in the suggestion of the snowman, incongruous, vivid, childlike. And Bolingbroke is now the sun, all-powerful, glorious heat and light, as Richard himself was once. I could melt myself away in water-drops. Melt myself, characteristically self-reflexive, but most of all, the urge just to disappear, not to have to be a moment longer; not simply to drown in his own tears, but a willed non-existence: I can’t do this anymore. Has Richard wept throughout these speeches? Perhaps.

 

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