RICHARD Too well, too well thou tell’st a tale so ill.
Where is the Earl of Wiltshire, where is Bagot,
What is become of Bushy, where is Green,
That they have let the dangerous enemy
Measure our confines with such peaceful steps?
If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.
I warrant they have made peace with Bolingbroke.
SCROOP Peace have they made with him indeed, my lord.
RICHARD O villains, vipers, damned without redemption,
Dogs easily won to fawn on any man,
Snakes in my heart-blood warmed that sting my heart;
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas,
Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war
Upon their spotted souls for this offence. (3.2.121-134)
The quibbling on ill, meaning unpleasant as well as badly, and well, meaning skilfully as well as healthy, positive is something that Shakespeare does elsewhere: in Romeo and Juliet, Romeo asks of Balthazar, in Mantua, ‘How doth my lady Juliet? … For nothing can be ill if she be well’, to which Balthazar fatefully replies ‘Then she is well, and nothing can be ill’, 5.1.15-17). And Richard rightly notes that Scroop has told his story eloquently. But it’s as if Richard now thinks, hang on, where are my friends? Where are the people I expected to be here to meet me, or at the least to be leading the defence of the realm on my behalf? Where is the Earl of Wiltshire (this might well be a running joke: he’s never appeared), where is Bagot, what is become of Bushy, where is Green? He’s indignant, that they seem to have disappeared, let him down, let the dangerous enemy measure our confines with such peaceful steps, that is, measure, tread on, our territory unopposed, with such peaceful steps, with no one even putting up a fight. If we eventually prevail, wrest back control, their heads shall pay for it. My friends have betrayed me; I bet they’ve made peace with Bolingbroke. If they have, they’ll die for it.
They have indeed made peace (another quibble: much worse in Macbeth, when Ross puts off telling Macduff the terrible news of his family’s murder by saying that ‘they were well at peace when I did leave ’em’, 4.3). And this is the news, of apparent personal betrayal, that rouses Richard to bitter fury: villains, vipers, damned without redemption (recall the friendly snakes that he’s previously imagined as stinging Bolingbroke on his behalf). They’re dogs, easily won to fawn on any man: dogs are usually archetypes of loyalty and fidelity, but here they’ve become fickle, overly-friendly, indiscriminate in their favours and easily giving their allegiance to a new master. They are snakes in my heart-blood warmed that sting my heart, like the frozen snake in Aesop’s fable that bit the man who warmed it by holding it close. And they are three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas: one of the first, and most explicit comparisons that Richard makes between himself and Christ. If they’ve made peace, then they’re damned for this betrayal: terrible hell make war upon their spotted, sinful souls for this offence.
Of course there is much dramatic irony here: just as with the desertion of the Welsh, we know already that Bushy and Green, at least, are dead. We know more than the king. His power is slipping away…
