Enter Earl of Salisbury and a Welsh Captain
CAPTAIN My lord of Salisbury, we have stayed ten days
And hardly kept our countrymen together,
And yet we hear no tidings from the King;
Therefore we will disperse ourselves. Farewell.
SALISBURY Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman,
The King reposeth all his confidence in thee.
CAPTAIN ’Tis thought the King is dead. We will not stay.
The bay trees in our country are all withered
And meteors fright the fixèd stars of heaven.
The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change.
Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,
The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other to enjoy by rage and war.
These signs forerun the death or fall of kings—
Farewell, our countrymen are gone and fled,
As well assured Richard their King is dead. Exit. (2.4.1-17)
This little scene (this is more than the first half of it) feels almost like the beginning of another play, or at least the opening of the play’s second (or third) movement, even though the play’s not quite half-way through yet. This is Salisbury’s first appearance in the play, and he’s being introduced in a tight spot; they perhaps enter as if in conversation, Salisbury already trying to persuade the anonymous Welsh captain not to go. In the previous scene it’s been established that Bolingbroke is in the ascendant, and, in the equal and opposite movement so characteristic of this play, it’s now apparent that the King’s fortunes are definitely in decline—but it’s cleverly being set up by this fraught exchange between two minor characters, not even any of the big hitters, as if Richard’s closest friends and supporters have already deserted him. They’re somewhere in Wales (the scene is taken from the chronicles) and it’s all going badly wrong. Salisbury has managed to muster an army in support of the King, but they have stayed, waited, stuck around, for ten whole days (presumably in a state of both readiness and some discomfort). We have hardly kept our countrymen together, hardly meaning not barely, but with great difficulty, but there hasn’t been any news from the King. So we’re off. Farewell!
Stay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman, pleads Salisbury, sounding disconcertingly like a somewhat niche boy band. The King is counting on you! He knows he can depend on you! Sorry, lad, replies the trusty Welshman. We’ve heard that the King is dead, so we’re not going to stick around here (presumably in some discomfort), waiting, making do, kicking our heels. And then he goes into full-on mystic mode, a neat anticipation of the brilliant, defiant, annoying, sometimes ridiculous Welsh prince Glendower, who will appear in 1 Henry IV. The bay trees in our country are all withered and meteors fright the fixèd stars of heaven. This apparently adapts a detail from Holinshed about withering bay trees—not often associated with Wales (sounds a bit more… Mediterranean?) but here suggesting too the bay or laurel garlands of victory. This is not a good omen. Even more: meteors. Definitely not a good omen. They fright the fixèd stars, which are permanent, unchanging; meteors (and comets) herald often cataclysmic change. But that’s just the start: the moon is red, bloody, rather than pale-faced as it should be! (It looks like Mars, perhaps, presaging war.) The lean-looked prophets (thin, impoverished, and therefore clearly more authentic and believable) whisper fearful change. (The Welsh are held to be superstitious.) And even more, the world is turning upside-down (an anticipation of the Fool’s prophecy—attributed, of course, to the Welsh Merlin—in King Lear): Rich men look sad and ruffians, the poor, the commoners, the petty criminals dance and leap. The rich think they’re going to lose what they have, while those who have little look forward to profiting by rage and war, rebellion and civil disorder. These signs forerun the death or fall of kings (and this would perhaps resonate even more, when Julius Caesar joined the repertory a few years later, with its terrible portents of the death of Caesar); here the Captain is almost casual in his emphasis, just in case Salisbury might take refuge in imagining that some more non-specific, generalised disaster were at hand.
So, yeah, we’re out of here. Our countrymen are gone and fled, as well assured Richard the King is dead. And the Captain isn’t going to stay any longer to see if Salisbury has an answer to that emphatic rhyming couplet.
