Enter Keeper to Richard with meat

KEEPER          [to Groom] Fellow, give place, here is no longer stay.

RICHARD        If thou love me ’tis time thou wert away.

GROOM           What my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.

Exit Groom

KEEPER          My lord, will’t please you to fall to?

RICHARD        Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do.

KEEPER          My lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton,

Who lately came from the King, commands the contrary.

RICHARD        The devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!

Patience is stale and I am weary of it.

[He beats the Keeper]

KEEPER          Help, help, help!                                            (5.5.95-104)

Here is the guard, the Keeper, described so dismissively by Richard as that sad dog; he’s a functionary, taking orders from others. He’s jumpy, not least because he’s let the Groom in, perhaps, and the Groom now has to get out, both because he’s there illicitly (or semi-illicitly) and because the Keeper—as will shortly be seen—is presumably under orders as to what he must do now. The meat he brings isn’t meat, just food, some kind of prison rations, and for the sake of stage management and wardrobe, something like bread would be preferable, that’s not going to go everywhere when it goes flying… A little poetic jockeying for position: the Keeper has told the Groom to go, pulling rank slightly by addressing him as fellow, but Richard repeats the order, personalising it and giving it an emotional colour: if thou love me ’tis time thou wert away. A double meaning, of course: go, if thou (using the intimate thou) love me, do as I say, but also, this place isn’t safe for anyone who loves me, who might be seen as being on my side. Richard caps the Keeper by completing the couplet, and the Groom turns it into a triplet with his sad line of unfarewell: what my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say. He appreciates the danger he’s in, and he knows, too, that there’s no point in staying; he knows, perhaps, what’s about to happen. He doesn’t dare say anything, not even farewell, let alone another expression of love and loyalty. But he will say it in his heart. Exit Groom.

The Keeper has to be anxious, agitated, pressing Richard to eat, albeit with courtesy: my lord, will’t please you to fall to? Taste of it first, as thou art wont to do; why aren’t you tasting it, in case it’s poisoned? That’s what you’re meant to do, that’s what you’ve done up until now. The couplet here suggests that Richard knows exactly what’s going on, that he’s wearily going through the motions. And the Keeper confirms his suspicions: My lord, I dare not. He’s terrified; his orders have been countermanded, he’s acting under duress. Sir Pierce of Exton—oh him, the name might be familiar if you know the history, but he wasn’t named in the previous scene in which he appeared—is lately come from the King. That lately introduces a note of urgency, as well as bringing the outside world into this scene which has hitherto been so dreamlike, Richard’s own little world. Exton’s given the order: no more tasting. No tasting of this meat in particular. And Richard snaps: the devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee! Not the King—perhaps the reference to the King has been an additional final straw here—not simply Bolingbroke, but Henry of Lancaster, the only title which Bolingbroke initially returned from banishment to claim. He can go to hell, and so can you. (This line is verbatim from Holinshed.) And a line more in keeping with Richard’s previous utterances: patience is stale and I am weary of it. I can’t do this any longer, the waiting, the isolation, the suffering of a slow, lonely death. So he lashes out, both in anger and frustration at this pathetic, cowed servant, but also, perhaps, because he’s sick of waiting and he just wants this to be over. Help, help, help! calls the Keeper. And so, it seems, there are people waiting just outside…

This is post 250. Not many more to go…