Enter Richard and York

RICHARD        Alack, why am I sent for to a king

Before I have shook off the regal thoughts

Wherewith I reigned? I hardly yet have learned

To insinuate, flatter, bow and bend my knee.

Give sorrow leave a while to tutor me

To this submission.               (4.1.163-168)

Bagot, Aumerle, Bolingbroke himself (and never mind all the other restless, jostling lords), and even Carlisle: they’ve been the warm-up act. Here’s Richard, albeit with a slow-burn of an opener (the first of many, many burns to come) and a decided air of, let’s get this party started. All eyes upon him, and all ears: he often wears pale colours, and informal or stripped away garments that are a stark contrast to his golden, probably armed appearance at Flint. And he could speak softly, even querulously (although it could be petulant, outraged): what can you want right now with moi? Why have I been summoned to see a king when I’m still half a king myself? I don’t know how to act, this is all new to me; I don’t know who I am, yet, or who I’m meant to be. (Truth.) I’m in between, unformed, as if I’ve taken off a kingly garment, shook off the regal thoughts wherewith I reigned, but have not yet put on another identity. Then a characteristic needle: I hardly yet have learned to insinuate, flatter, bow and bend my knee. I haven’t had time to learn how to crawl and curry favour, what all of you lately were doing to me, that’s what courtiers and commons do—but again, the truth: I’ve never had to bow to anyone before; I don’t know how. (The sense of his body, his new awareness of it, without the carapace of kingship. Can monarchy be put aside and unlearned as easily as that?) And then a—characteristic—ramping up of the emotional content, in parallel with a more intense, and strange, conceit: give sorrow leave a while to tutor me to this submission. Please give me more time to get used to this; it’s so strange. My grief will be my teacher, if you allow me space and time to grieve.