QUEEN           What, is my Richard both in shape and mind

Transformed and weakened? Hath Bolingbroke

Deposed thine intellect, hath he been in thy heart?

The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw

And wounds the earth if nothing else with rage

To be o’erpowered, and wilt thou pupil-like

Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod

And fawn on rage with base humility,

Which art a lion and the king of beasts?

RICHARD      A king of beasts indeed–if aught but beasts

I had still been a happy king of men.  (5.1.26-36)

The Queen’s suggestion here that Richard act more like a lion sits somewhat uneasily with the man we’ve come to know thus far in the play. There might be an over-all mismatch, but the effect is powerful, and also rings true in its details. Richard is both in shape and mind transformed and weakened; he has lost his identity, especially as it’s been expressed in garments, objects, gestures, actions. His exterior has been transformed and weakened in that respect, and so has his interior, his mind—which is the point that the Queen is making. Are you are altered on the inside as you are on the outside? Yes, because it seems that without those externals to hold him together and tell him who he is, Richard barely exists. Hath Bolingbroke deposed thine intellect, hath he been in thy heart? Yes: Richard’s mind seems broken (‘O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown’, Ophelia will say of Hamlet) as if Bolingbroke has indeed been in his heart—or, one might say, has got right under his skin. (To continue the architectural conceit of the Queen’s previous speech, it’s as if Richard’s heart, his body, his identity has been a citadel, now sacked by Bolingbroke.)

The lion comparison does seem a bit much though: Richard’s personal badge, after all, is the white hart, and he has shown few lion-like qualities. But the three lions are the royal arms of Plantagenet, the royal arms of England, and that may well be part of the reference here, especially if such banners have appeared in the staging. Richard is emphatically not acting like his namesake, the Lionheart. The lion, the Queen points out, will continue to show defiance even when fatally wounded, thrusting forth his paw and wounding even the earth, striking, tearing, clawing, if there’s nothing else within range to express its rage at being overpowered. The lion goes down fighting, to the death. But you, pupil-like, like a schoolboy, a child, accept your punishment, your beating, take correction mildly; you kiss the rod with which you’re being beaten; you fawn on rage—here, Bolingbroke’s anger—with base humility, cringing away. You’re demeaning yourself by being compliant and polite, by not fighting back. You are meant to be a lion, the king of beasts! I am indeed a king of beasts, Richard can only reply–they’ve been cruel, savage, inhumane, beastly to me, in their betrayal–and if they’d been aught but beasts, if they’d been otherwise, I’d still be a happy king of men.

It has to ring hollow, but that doesn’t stop its emotional appeal—something about the wounded lion, and, perhaps, the cringing, beaten, frightened, compliant child, who still wants to be loved, even by his abuser. Objectively, the Queen’s speech here is all wrong. Slantwise, it speaks a kind of emotional truth.