Some thoughts after reading the Colley Cibber adaptation of Richard III
Symposium1
having discovered the text online at the Richard III Society site. I had
become curious about it after reading about the Booth family; it was this
version which was enacted through the nineteenth century--indeed since it was
introduced in 1700 this adaptation didn't lose favor until the beginning of
this century. Perhaps it's fitting that I read it at the very end of the
century.
I had wondered why Gene Smith's book mentioned that John Wilkes Booth had had
posters made bearing the lines "I have no brother - I am like no brother….I am
-- MY SELF -- ALONE" for Richard III, as these lines are found in Shakespeare's
3 Henry VI. But they're in the Cibber version.
I can appreciate the desire to capture some of Gloucester's actions and
powerful speeches from 3H6 and include them in the story of Richard III. But
Cibber has made more changes than just that. The play starts with Henry VI in
the Tower, receiving the news of his son Edward's death. Cibber neatly
borrows the lines of Northumberland in hearing of Harry Percy's death in the
beginning of 2 Henry IV:
NORTHUMBERLAND. Yea, this man's brow, like to a title-leaf,
Foretells the nature of a tragic volume.
[KING HENRY. Fatal indeed! His brow's the title page
That speaks the Nature of a Tragick Volume.]
NORTHUMBERLAND. (to Morton) How doth my son and brother?
[KING HENRY. (to Tressel) Say, Friend, how does my Queen, my Son!]
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dread in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's [KH: poor son's] death ere thou report'st it.
This thou wouldst say: 'Your son did thus and thus;
Your brother thus [KH: and thus your Queen]; so fought the noble
Douglas[KH: valiant Oxford]'-
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds;
But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with 'Brother, son, and all, are dead.'
[KH: Ending with Queen and Son, and all are Dead."
MORTON. Douglas is living, and your brother, yet;
But for my lord your son-
[Tressel: Your Queen yet lives, and many of your Friends,
But for my Lord your son-]
NORTHUMBERLAND. [Why, he is dead.
See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!
He that but fears the thing he would not know
Hath by instinct knowledge from others' eyes
That what he fear'd is chanced. Yet speak, Morton;
Tell thou an earl his divination lies,
And I will take it as a sweet disgrace
And make thee rich for doing me such wrong.}
[KH: Why, he is dead - yet speak, I Charge thee!
Tell thou thy Master his Suspicion lies,
And I will take it as a kind Disgrace
And thank thee well, for doing me such wrong.]
Even the description of Hotspur's honor is heaped on the young prince:
MORTON. In few, his death- whose spirit lent a fire
Even to the dullest peasant in his camp-
[Tressel: Sir, I am sorry I must force you to
Believe, what wou'd to Heav'n I had not seen!
But in this last Battle, near Tewkesbury,
Your Son, whose Active Spirit lent a Fire
Ev'n to the dullest Peasant in your Camp,
Still made his way, where Danger stood t'oppose him,
A braver Youth of more Couragious Heat,
Ne'er spurr'd his Courser at the Trumpets sound…]
It seems this Henry VI is almost wholly borrowed of stronger men than
Shakespeare's priest-like king. He is given young Bolingbroke's words to Gaunt
upon his banishment in Richard II:
BOLINGBROKE. O, who can hold a fire in his hand
By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?
Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?
[King Henry: 'O! who can hold a Fire in his Hand,'
'By thinking of the Frosty Caucasus?'
'Or wallow Naked in December's Snow,'
'By bare remembrance of the Summer's Heat?
Away! by Heav'n, I shall abhor his Sight,
Whoever bids me be of Comfort more:
If thou wilt sooth my Sorrows, then I'll thank thee:
Ay! now thou'rt kind indeed! theseTears oblige me.]
And Richard enters, with some of the the most famous lines of his opening
soliloquy clipped, thus:
GLOUCESTER. {Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.}
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front,
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
{Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass-
I-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph-}
I-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
{Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time}
Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away {the time} [my hours],
Unless to {spy} [see] my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity.
{And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the King
In deadly hate the one against the other;
And if King Edward be as true and just
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up-
About a prophecy which says that G
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.}
Skipping the Clarence plot entirely, Cibber conjoins this excerpt from
Gloucester's powerful speech in 3H6 after Edward marries the Lady Grey:
Then, since this earth affords no joy to me
But to command, to check, to o'erbear such
As are of {better} [happier] person than myself,
{I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,
And whiles I live t' account this world but hell,
Until my misshap'd trunk that bear this head
Be round impaled with a glorious crown.}
[Why then to me this restless World's but Hell,
Till this misshapen trunks aspiring head
Be circled in a glorious Diadem -
But then 'tis fixt on such an heighth, O! I
Must stretch the utmost reaching of my Soul.
I'll climb betimes without Remourse or Dread,
And my first step shall be on Henry's Head."
And so King Henry's death scene comes off pretty much as Shakespeare wrote it
in 3H6. Afterward Richard leaps, however, from his hint at fratricide:
"Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light,"
to his words at the end of I.i. of Richard III:
"And, if I fail not in my deep intent,
Clarence hath not another day to live;
Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to bustle in!"
He leaves out the bit setting up the courtship of Lady Anne:
{For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.
What though I kill'd her husband and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends
Is to become her husband and her father;
The which will I-not all so much for love
As for another secret close intent
By marrying her which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market.}
And jumps to:
"Clarence still breathes; Edward still lives and reigns;
When they are gone, then must I count my gains."
Leaving out all of the detail of the imprisonment of the Duke of Clarence, the
suspicion heaped on the Queen and her kinsmen, and the famous murderers' scene,
the whole existence of Clarence in Cibber's version is barely notable except to
add crimes to Richard. He moves into the Lady Anne scene, inserting
Richard's 3H6 lament that:
"Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb;
And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size;
To disproportion me in every part."
concluding:
[And am I then a man to be belov'd?
O monstrous Thought! More vain my Ambition.]
This speech in Henry VI, after noting his brother Edward's happy, if hasty and
unwise, marriage, made me feel truly sorry for the unhappy Duke of Gloucester,
but inserted here before the politic wooing of Lady Anne it doesn't feel the
same. Well, Anne appropriates here for her father-in-law Henry VI the lament
spoken at the beginning of 1 Henry VI about his father Henry V:
{Hung be the Heavens with black, yield day to night,
Comets importing change of Times and States,
Brandish your fiery Tresses in the Sky,
And with'em scourge the bad revolting Stars
That have consented to King Henry's death:}
O be accurst the Hand that shed this Blood;
Accurst the Head that had the Heart to do it, '
More direful hap betide that hated Wretch '
Than I can wish to Wolves, to Spiders, Toads, '
Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives: '
If ever he have Wife, let her be made '
More miserable by the Life of him,
Than I am now by Edward's death and thine.
It seems evident that Colley Cibber has propped up the passive Henry the Sixth
quite a bit more than Shakespeare intended, to make Richard seem all the more a
villain. And, of course, inserting details of Prince Edward's death, while not
containing the detail of the murder of the young Rutland, or the horrible death
of York himself, tilts the scales heavily.
But I think the thing I miss the most in Cibber's version is the presence of
Margaret. We are told simply that she survived her husband, and she never
appears to curse, prophesy and rail. Neither are we ever shown the sickly King
Edward - his decline and death are merely mentioned, and in practically the
same moment we hear of Clarence's death. And the Duchess of York already
suspects her third son is to blame. Add to this an inserted scene to show the
unhappiness of Lady Anne after her marriage and how calculated was Richard's
plan to replace her. Anne is given the benefit of a snipped of Henry IV's
speech just before "uneasy lies the head that wears a crown":
{Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king?}
Shaping it into:
[When, when shall I have rest? Was Marriage made
To be the Scourge of our Offences here?
Ah no! 'Twas meant a Blessing to the Vertuous,
It once was so to me, tho' now my Curse:
The fruit of Edward's Love was sweet and pleasing:
But oh! Untimely cropt by cruel Richard,
Who rudely having grafted on his stock
Now makes my Life yield only sorrow.
Let me have Musick to compose my thoughts. [Song here.
It will not be: Nought but the grave can close my Eyes.
-- How many labouring Wretches take their rest,
While I, night after night, with cares lie waking,
As if the gentle Nurse of Nature, Sleep,
Had vow'd to rock my peevish sense no more.
'O partial sleep! Canst thou in smoaky Cottages
'Stretch out the Peasants Limbs on Beds of Straw,
'And lay him fast, cram'd with distressful Bread?
Yet in the softest breeze of Peaceful Night
'Under the Canopis of costly State,
'Tho' lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody,
Refuse one moments slumber to a Princess?
O mockery of Greatness! But see,
He comes! The rude disturber of my Pillow.]
And then Richard enters, and the sharp scene between them is almost amusingly
frank in its brutality:
(in an aside upon his entrance)
[Ha! still in tears; let 'em flow on; they're signs
Of a substantial grief -- Why don't she die?
She must: My Interest will not let her live.
The fair Elizabeth hath caught my Eye,
My Heart's vacant; and she shall fill her place -- ]
ANN. Have I deserv'd this usage?
RICHARD. You have: You do not please me as at first.
ANN. What have I done? What horrid Crime committed?
RICHARD. To me the worst of Crimes, out-liv'd my liking.
ANN. If that be Criminal, Just Heaven be kind,
And take me while my Penitence is warm:
O Sir, forgive and kill me.
RICHARD. Umh! No, -- The medling World will call it murder,
And I wou'd have 'em think me pitifull:
Now wert thou not afraid of self-Destruction,
Thou hast a fair excuse for't.
ANN. How fain wou'd I be Friends with Death? O name it.
RICHARD. Thy Husbands hate: Nor do I hate thee only
From the dull'd edge of sated Appetite
But from the eager Love I bear another:
Some call me Hypocrite: What think'st thou now,
Do I dissemble?
ANN. Thy Vows of Love to me were all dissembled.
RICHARD. Not one: For when I told thee so, I lov'd:
Thou art the only Soul I never yet deceiv'd:
And 'tis my honesty that tells thee now
With all my heart, I hate thee ---
If this have no Effect, she is immortal. [Aside.
Earlier, the greeting of the young prince Ewarrd with the little barbs put out
by the tender Duke of York remained in Cibber's version intact. So does the
scene where Buckingham leads the Lord Mayor and others to urge the 'pious'
Richard to accept the crown ("Since you will buckle Fortune on my back…" At
the conclusion of this business, Cibber's little added soliloquy for Richard is
rather effective, I think - and again it's a speech that figures into the life
and philosophy of John Wilkes Booth, so I was familiar with it:
Why now my golden dream is out --
Ambition like an early Friend throws back
My Curtains with an eager Hand, o'rejoy'd
To tell me what I dreamt is true -- A Crown!
Thou bright reward of ever daring minds,
O! How thy awful Glory fills my Soul!
Nor can the means that got thee dim thy lustre;
For, not mens Love, Fear pays thee Adoration:
And Fame not more survives from Good than Evil deeds.
Th'aspiring youth that fir'd th'Ephesian Dome
Out-lives in Fame the pious Fool that rais'd it:
Conscience, lie still -- More lives must yet be drain'd,
Crowns got with Blood must be with Blood maintain'd. [Exit.
Thus, as elsewhere, I would not say Cibber was a butcher, though he scupted
this play into a different vehicle. Gone are the choral laments of the three
queens together, of Clarence's orphans. Instead there's a new scene, with the
princes, the Queen, the Duchess of York, and Lady Anne sobbing it out together.
All right, maybe Shakespeare couldn't let us see the princes again because
those young actors also played the women? The leave-taking of the Queen from
her 'tender babes' is heartbreaking but brief, while lacking Shakespeare's
lengthy poetry of lament.
Moving on to Richard's court scene containing his order, "I wish the bastards
dead," and precipitating Buckingham's fateful pause, Cibber is more conclusive
about Queen Anne's fate. Instead of just telling Catesby to "give out / That
Anne, my queen, is sick and like to die" he goes a step further and shows how
her death is exacted:
RICHARD. Hark thee, Ratcliff, when saw'st thou Ann, my Queen?
Is she still weak? Has my Physician seen her?
RATCLIFF. He has, my Lord, and fears her mightily.
RICHARD. But he's excelling skillful, she'll mend shortly.
RATCLIFF. I hope she will, my Lord.
RICHARD. And, if she does, I have mistook my man. (aside.
I must be married to my Brother's Daughter,
At whom I know the Brittain Richmond aims;
And by that knot looks proudly on the Crown.
But then to stain me with her Brother's Blood:
Is that the way to wooe the Sisters Love?
- No matter what's the way - For while they live
My goodly Kingdom's on a weak Foundation.
'Tis done: My daring heart's resolv'd - they're dead.
I'll admit I get kind of a kick out of Richard's put-down of Buckingham, but
Cibber has clipped the best part of it. He leaves out all but the last line of
this volley:
BUCKINGHAM. My lord, your promise for the earldom-
KING RICHARD. Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,
The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle
And call'd it Rugemount, at which name I started,
Because a bard of Ireland told me once
I should not live long after I saw Richmond.
BUCKINGHAM. My lord-
KING RICHARD. Ay, what's o'clock?
BUCKINGHAM. I am thus bold to put your Grace in mind
Of what you promis'd me.
KING RICHARD. Well, but o'clock?
BUCKINGHAM. Upon the stroke of ten.
KING RICHARD. Well, let it strike.
BUCKINGHAM. Why let it strike?
KING RICHARD. Because that like a Jack thou keep'st the stroke
Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.
I am not in the giving vein to-day.
BUCKINGHAM. May it please you to resolve me in my suit.
KING RICHARD. Thou troublest me; I am not in the vein.
However, I suppose the melodrama calls for it - there is indeed a scene where
the princes are seen to be smothered by Tirrel's men. I greatly prefer not
seeing this horror, which is structured a bit like the Clarence murder scene
and as pathetic as the death of young Rutland. Missing also from the Colley
Cibber play is the "strawberry" scene which claims Hastings' head. Though his
death is commanded by Richard, the loss of this scene quits us of the chance to
see Richard in one of his most conniving and powerful scenes - where he and
Buckingham play the entire council like playing upon a pipe.
The rest of the play is pretty much a condensed version of the Shakespeare
original. There's a dream scene, but it's sparsely populated and far less
choral in nature. The spectres appear to Richard alone and not to Richmond.
And in the end, after the famous "a horse, a horse," Richmond and Richard face
off alone instead of having him surrounded:
Re-enter Richard, and Richmond meeting.
RICHARD. Of one, or both of us the time is come.
RICHMOND. Kind Heaven I thank thee, for my Cause is thine;
If Richard's fit to live let Richmond fall.
RICHARD. Thy Gallant bearing, Harry, I cou'd plaud,
But that the spotted Rebel stains the Soldier.
RICHMOND. Nor shou'd thy Prowess, Richard, want my praise,
But that thy cruel deeds have stampt thee Tyrant.
So thrive my Sword as Heaven's high Vengeance draws it.
RICHARD. My Soul and Body on the Action both.
RICHMOND. A dreadful lay: Here's to decide it. (Allarm, fight.
RICHARD. Perdition catch thy Arm. The chance is thine: (Richard is wounded.
But oh! the vast Renown thou hast acquired
In Conquering Richard, does afflict him more
Than even his Bodies parting with its Soul:
{Now let the World no longer be a Stage
To feed contention in a lingring Act:
But let one spirit of the First-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set
On bloody Actions, the rude Scene may end,
And darkness be the Burier of the Dead.} (Dies.
[Ha! Poor Northumberland is robbed again; this is his speech following the
news of the death of Hotspur which was lifted earlier for Henry VI's hearing of
the death of his son.]
RICHMOND
Farewel, Richard, and from thy dreadful end
May future Kings from Tyranny be warn'd;
Had thy aspring Soul but stir'd in Vertue
With half the Spirit it has dar'd in Evil,
How might thy Fame have grac'd our English Annals:
But as thou art, how fair a Page thou'st blotted.
Hark! the glad Trumpets speak the Field our own.
So, there's no "the bloody dog is dead." I don't totally miss that line; it
has a bad connotation for me. In the Orlando production of three years ago,
Richmond pronounced it while slitting Richard's throat and dropping him to the
ground, leaving one feeling that "bloody dog" wasn't too far from Richmond as
well. In any case, seeing Richard killed by a team of soldiers always rings
unfair compared to seeing him die in hand-to-hand combat with Richmond.
I'm glad I explored this version; RIII has been on my mind of late. I've seen
two admirable stage versions in the past few years and have just finished the
BBC tetralogy. Shocking ending, that - Jane Howell has us panning across the
heaped dead bodies hearing only the laughter, the terrible inhuman laughter
that turns out to be Margaret insanely rocking the dead Richard in hollow
triumph. Whew, what an effect.
The Colley Cibber adaptation is perhaps just a relic; but to me, having become
interested in nineteenth century theater, this is the version of this play that
each of the Booths performed. I'm glad that the original has been restored to
its rightful place, because I can't imagine this play without the impassioned
speech of Clarence, the railings of Margaret, the formal foreboding of the
dream sequence. But I wish it were presented in conjunction with 2 and 3
Henry VI, so that the story of the Yorks' rise and fall would be more
completely understood.
Well, as usual, I can't quite explain my compulsion to share my thoughts with
the newsgroup, except that I hope to engage the responses of those who have a
similar interest, and who probably know more than I do. If you're interested
in reading the Cibber version please check this page on the Richard III Society
web site:
http://www.r3.org/bookcase/cibber1.html
The Society is something I find somewhat interesting in itself, so if you
haven't already done so, you might want to take a look around there.
--Ann