GROOM O how it erned my heart when I beheld
In London streets that coronation day
When Bolingbroke rode on roan Barbary,
That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,
That horse that I so carefully have dressed.
RICHARD Rode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle friend,
How went he under him?
GROOM So proudly as if he disdained the ground.
RICHARD So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back? (5.5.76-84)
Like the music, like the Groom himself, this little vignette is like a window into another world, a world of London, of streets and people, and one particular horse. The Groom has been devoted to this horse, and he knows that Richard has been too; it erned his heart, made his heart ache, the Groom says, when he saw Bolingbroke riding on roan Barbary on the day of his coronation. In the darkness of the prison, there’s a flash of colour (another strange brooch in this all-hating world?), the roan coat of the horse, chestnut or bay mixed with white, a colour that has texture; Richard remembers the feel of the horse under him, its gait, because he has ridden it often; he remembers the touch of its mane, its flanks, its sound and its smell. (An audience far more used to horses would perhaps find this a powerful nostalgia cue.) The Groom remembers the care that he used to take of the horse too, preparing it for its royal rider. (Has the Groom lost his job with Richard’s fall? Is he too adrift in the world?) The horse has a name which announces its pedigree: it’s a fine Arab steed, Barbary. Richard seems, initially at least, to have a mixed motivation for asking how went he under him? how well did the horse perform, with Bolingbroke on his back? How did my beloved horse do? But also, whose side is the horse on? Did he behave, for this new rider who has so emphatically supplanted the former one? The horse was stunning, going so proudly as if he disdained the ground, picking up his feet, elegant and neat. Richard can’t believe it, or can’t bear to: so proud that Bolingbroke was on his back?Richard knows that feeling, of disdaining the ground, and of pride, or hubris (he fell like Phaëton)—and yet here he is, floored once again by the memory of a horse.
