In yesterday's post, I referred to Richard II as a forerunner of Hamlet, and although that would probably not be considered a controversial statement by too many, I'd still like to mention one supporting passage, which I find to be perhaps the most extraordinary in the entire play. It occurs in 3.2, the scene in which Richard returns from his Irish wars and is met with a barrage of bad news: 1. His arrival a day late has led to rumours of his decease amongst his Welsh troops, and they have disbanded. 2. Bolingbroke, returned from banishment to claim the inheritance that Richard commandeered, has gathered followers with every step, and it seems inevitable that a bloodless revolution and Richard's deposition are just around the corner. 3. Richard discovers that his friends and counselors, Bushy, Green, and the Earl of Wiltshire have all been put to death by Bolingbroke, this after having roundly cursed them for not doing better in the kingdom's defense. And throughout the scene, his followers have tried to shore him up, telling him that he's not defeated yet and so forth, but it's at this point that Richard tells them to stop doing so. Here's the speech (with its seeds of Hamlet):

... of comfort no man speak:

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,

Let's choose executors and talk of wills:

And yet not so, for what can we bequeath

Save our deposed bodies to the ground?

Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,

And nothing can we call our own but death

And that small model of the barren earth

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings;

How some have been deposed; some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;

Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;

All murder'd: for within the hollow crown

That rounds the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,

Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,

Infusing him with self and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life,

Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus

Comes at the last and with a little pin

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!

Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence: throw away respect,

Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while:

I live with bread like you, feel want,

Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,

How can you say to me, I am a king?