The most famous part of Richard II has got to be John of Gaunt’s “This England” speech. The bit that everyone knows begins about 10 lines in:

This royal thrown of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happy lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England…  

[2.1.40-50]

This eloquent and highly quotable piece of patriotism has become a victim of its own success. It’s one of those bits of literature that’s so great, so famous that it’s left its author behind and taken on a life of its own.

It’s also a great example of how projects like Chilled Shakespeare can help people enjoy the works of Shakespeare. When you read these lines in their proper context, they take on far greater depth of meaning. They are spoken by a dying man, John of Gaunt. His son has just been banished and not he’s not at all happy. He’s predicting disaster for “this land of such dear souls, this dear dear land…” and the King refuses to listen.

Richard II is a great play for reading with an informal group. It has a high proportion of verse helping build momentum and the imagery within it is very compelling. This speech demonstrates both of those points, but it also shows the value of reading the wider text. The first 10 lines are often overlooked, but they deserve some attention.

Gaunt begins his speech with:

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired,
And thus, expiring, do foretell of him.
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder.
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, that soon preys upon itself.
This royal thrown of kings…

[2.1.31-40]

In the notes to the Arden edition, editor Charles Forker describes this bit as a “piling up of proverbial maxims” and that there was greater ‘tolerance’ of this type of rhetoric in the Elizabethan period (page 245). This is interesting because he makes a point about changing trends and preferences in literature which suggests why the famous bit of the speech begins after these are out the way. It’s a shame because their familiarity makes them friendly and approachable. They help to show that Shakespeare’s times weren’t so different to our own.

One of the most interesting lines to me is “insatiate cormorant/consuming means, soon preys upon itself”. I once saw a cormorant on the side of a lake, early one morning. It had just eaten a big fish, swallowed it whole, and it looked like it was in a kind of lethargy, too tired to fly. In fact, it’s quite common to see cormorants on the beach just a few minutes from the pub where we meet.

This often forgotten bit of the speech is less pretty than the famous lines later on, but it has the potential to appeal on a more universal level. England is a multicultural society. Such strong patriotism probably doesn’t appeal to the wider population as it once did. However, we are all affected by underlying ideas of “…consuming means, soon preys upon itself”. In the western world, our culture is dominated by the idea of consumption, we are all consumers. Everywhere we look we see adverts, brand names, corporate logos.

In Gaunt’s warning, we can see ourselves because Richard’s faults are so human. He is a King, but we are frequently reminded that he’s still just a man. Most memorably: “…I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, need friends…” [3.2.175-176].

We are all like Richard, regardless of who you are and where you come from. It must also be a universal fear that we are all “violent fires that soon burn themselves out”. Shakespeare has a similar idea in Romeo and Juliet, where Friar Laurence says “these violent delights have violent ends”. But I prefer to make a contrasting comparison with Macbeth’s “out brief candle”. To him, human beings, living creatures, are like candles gradually using up finite resources and life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing [Macbeth 5.5.30-32].

There’s no violence in the light of a candle, yet he still manages to talk about “sound and fury”. Richard, in the beginning of his play, is only considering the short term. He doesn’t stop to think about what might happen if his plans for war go wrong. Macbeth is looking much further, from “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” all the way to “the last syllable of recorded time”. Regardless of the starting point, both metaphors, Richard’s roaring fire and Macbeth’s little candle, come to the same conclusion.

They say the earth has existed for 4.5 billion years and humanity only 300,000. In that time we have brought about potentially disastrous environmental changes. Perhaps Humanity itself is the violent fire soon to burn itself out?

Shortly after Gaunt has finished, Richard calls him a “lunatic lean-witted fool”. The King has already decided to “farm our royal realm” and after that we watch his graceful, downward trajectory.

The relevance of the famous “this England” speech goes far beyond a bit nostalgic patriotism for merry England. Gaunt could have easily been talking about any place, or even the planet as a whole. In fact, he says “this earth” several times before he gets to “this England”. By showing that wider context of the individual famous bits, groups like Chilled Shakespeare have the power to open up classic texts like this and introduce them to new audiences.

Now when I go back and read that speech again, I’ll imagine the “happy breed of men” is all mankind and “this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea” is the planet Earth in an ocean of space.