RICHARD Good King, great King, and yet not greatly good,
And if my word be sterling yet in England,
Let it command a mirror hither straight
That it may show me what a face I have
Since it is bankrupt of his majesty.
BOLINGBROKE Go some of you and fetch a looking glass.
[Exit an attendant]
NORTHUMBERLAND Read o’er this paper while the glass doth come.
RICHARD Fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell!
BOLINGBROKE Urge it no more, my lord Northumberland.
NORTHUMBERLAND The commons will not then be satisfied.
RICHARD They shall be satisfied. I’ll read enough
When I do see the very book indeed
Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself. (4.1.263-275)
Another change of direction from Richard; his devices just keep coming. An address to Bolingbroke, finally, with a characteristic needle to undercut the (sarcastic?) deference: Good King, great King (so far, so respectful)—and yet not greatly good. You’ve got the power, but have you got the right? Are you in the right? Are you proud of yourself? But, on: and if my word be sterling, that is, currency, current, counts for anything, like still-legal coinage (a 1590s audience might think of the portrait of the sovereign on some coins, although it wasn’t yet universal, and the way in which even old coins could still be legal tender)—if anything I say still counts, if I can still issue an order that will be listened to and obeyed: someone bring me a mirror. That mirror will show me what a face I have since it is bankrupt of his majesty, bankrupt continuing and perhaps justifying sterling. If I am no longer a king, what do I look like? What’s left of me? Do I still exist?
Bolingbroke will play along, perhaps a bit exasperatedly (this is his first intervention in the scene for nearly 70 lines) but in the meantime, Northumberland’s not giving up: go on, just while you’re waiting, read the bloody indictment. Richard’s outburst—fiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell!—shows how on edge he is, and also his sense that he is in a kind of limbo, or purgatory, an in-between state, perhaps still falling, yet to hit rock bottom. Give over, Northumberland, says Bolingbroke, more pragmatic, playing a longer game; the commons will not then be satisfied, Northumberland replies: is this a genuine concern, or just inflexibility, stubbornness, annoyance at not getting his own way? But Richard, characteristically, picks up and elaborates the sentiment: they shall be satisfied. I’m doing this my way. I’ll read enough when I do see the very book indeed where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself. I’m going to examine my own face in the mirror, read it, interpret it, as if it’s a record of my sins. (The reading conceit partly relies on the knowledge that the word mirror or glass often appears in the titles of conduct books or advice manuals or collections of moralised histories, the most famous example being the Mirror for Magistrates, which mostly describes the falls of princes.) I don’t need your poxy charge-sheet, Richard is saying; all I have to do is read the reflection of my own sinful, ravaged, mortal face. I’ll do it my way. And turn mine eyes into my very soul, as Gertrude will say, in Hamlet.
