A Kingdom For A Horse
Posted: Tue Nov 19, 2024 9:46 pm
Douglas Mercer
November 19 2024
Richard 3 died at the Battle Of Bosworth in 1485, the end of the so called War Of The Roses. As the new Tudor Dynasty took over it was important to blacken Richard’s name; Thomas More wrote a history of Richard 3 that was very pleasing to his masters and he give us a long dark narrative of the killing of the princes; later William Shakespeare would finish off the effort by portraying him as an unhinged psychopathic sadist and limping and mincing hunchback.
But neither More nor Shakespeare believed in what they were doing, these were just fictions meant to instruct for those who could hear; when the time came most in England made peace with the new edicts of Protestantism when death beckoned; More did not. And when Shakespeare witnessed the bare ruined choirs of his youth (the Puritans painted over the colorful pictures on walls with white paint) he penned Henry 8, a play that is so faithful to the ruling narrative line of the Tudors that the more exact it is the more lacerating the indignation and the more painful and cutting is the irony. Shakespeare gave us the meaning of this parody by too blatant faithfulness by subtitling the play All Is True.
During the War Of The Roses a man who was suspected by both sides of being disloyal was asked who the King Of England was. He averred that if you put the Royal Crown on a post he would kneel and worship.
"Specialists from Liverpool John Moores University worked on reconstructing the English ruler's voice. The team began by creating a digital model of the ruler's head, starting with his skull."
"For a precise reconstruction, first of the bone model and then the entire face, and consequently the paths Richard III's voice took before being spoken, collaboration was needed among experts in linguistics, archaeology, forensic psychology, and speech therapy. Despite the involvement of so many people, we cannot be completely certain that Richard III's voice sounded exactly like the one reconstructed."
"Decades of research on language, history, and anatomy have allowed us to hear what the king who ruled England in the 15th century sounded like. Historians and experts worked on reconstructing Richard III's voice, and advanced technology helped them in this effort."
His voice is a mix, at times he speaks the august and plain English prose of the 18th century, at time he lapses into the musicality of the 14th. Listening to him you can see how our ancestors spoke and how they were groping towards the perfection of their language which we now speak. Light is leegt and language is longe. It took Tyndale to flatten English out into the hard and sometimes harsh clear accents of a Nebraska sportscaster. Shakespeare came along and gave the hardening edge its latent poetry, but it was not until the 20th century that American Standard English was able to perfect what had only been potential until then.
An American Poet said that English and French were the same language, and he had a point. It’s not quite true but close and the Normans brought in their French so we have cow and then beef, kingly and then royal; we have pierced to the root which is about as hard and Saxon as one can get and one can get pretty hard and Saxon: pierced to the root.
Chaucer has perced to the roote (per-sod to the rota); the language was groping its way to the flat midwestern diction of its ultimate perfection as the perfect language, the receptor language which all language streams poured into and found their final meaning; it took Tyndale to flatten it out and be rid of the most musical excesses: the salt of the earth, mother tongue, the root of goodness, be cold, sober, wise and circumspect, the powers that be, returning to Saxon roots.
It took Shakespeare to combine the two streams by roaming all over the scale, the heights of song, but always back to earth with his flatness of prose: the quality of mercy never strains, and his prayer which pierces so deeply that it assaults mercy itself; assaulting mercy itself, piercing it to the root: this is the language of the future, a language that still waiting to be heard. Hard, cold, driven, and yet with a subtle lilt in it which one can never be sure is faithfulness or irony.
Surprisingly, until 2012, his remains were lost. That's when historian Philipp Langley and his team found Richard III's remains under a parking lot in Leicester.
Richard III ruled England from 1483 to 1485. He was only 32 when he died in the Battle of Bosworth. Over the years, many legends and controversies have arisen around his figure.
Most famously when he fell Richard said “my kingdom for a horse”
When wishes are horses beggars will ride is an old English saying.
All, as they say, is true.
***
Notes
The clarity of the sun is so great that when it is poured on the other heavenly bodies it shines with no less light and splendor nor does it suffer any diminution of its strength but is pleased to be seen as a king amidst its nobles.
On 29 June 1613, the original Globe Theatre in London, where most of William Shakespeare’s plays debuted, was destroyed by fire during a performance of All is True (known to modern audiences as Henry VIII). A theatrical cannon misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching resulting in the loss of the theater.
When one begins thinking one begins speaking English--old saying
November 19 2024
Richard 3 died at the Battle Of Bosworth in 1485, the end of the so called War Of The Roses. As the new Tudor Dynasty took over it was important to blacken Richard’s name; Thomas More wrote a history of Richard 3 that was very pleasing to his masters and he give us a long dark narrative of the killing of the princes; later William Shakespeare would finish off the effort by portraying him as an unhinged psychopathic sadist and limping and mincing hunchback.
But neither More nor Shakespeare believed in what they were doing, these were just fictions meant to instruct for those who could hear; when the time came most in England made peace with the new edicts of Protestantism when death beckoned; More did not. And when Shakespeare witnessed the bare ruined choirs of his youth (the Puritans painted over the colorful pictures on walls with white paint) he penned Henry 8, a play that is so faithful to the ruling narrative line of the Tudors that the more exact it is the more lacerating the indignation and the more painful and cutting is the irony. Shakespeare gave us the meaning of this parody by too blatant faithfulness by subtitling the play All Is True.
During the War Of The Roses a man who was suspected by both sides of being disloyal was asked who the King Of England was. He averred that if you put the Royal Crown on a post he would kneel and worship.
"Specialists from Liverpool John Moores University worked on reconstructing the English ruler's voice. The team began by creating a digital model of the ruler's head, starting with his skull."
"For a precise reconstruction, first of the bone model and then the entire face, and consequently the paths Richard III's voice took before being spoken, collaboration was needed among experts in linguistics, archaeology, forensic psychology, and speech therapy. Despite the involvement of so many people, we cannot be completely certain that Richard III's voice sounded exactly like the one reconstructed."
"Decades of research on language, history, and anatomy have allowed us to hear what the king who ruled England in the 15th century sounded like. Historians and experts worked on reconstructing Richard III's voice, and advanced technology helped them in this effort."
His voice is a mix, at times he speaks the august and plain English prose of the 18th century, at time he lapses into the musicality of the 14th. Listening to him you can see how our ancestors spoke and how they were groping towards the perfection of their language which we now speak. Light is leegt and language is longe. It took Tyndale to flatten English out into the hard and sometimes harsh clear accents of a Nebraska sportscaster. Shakespeare came along and gave the hardening edge its latent poetry, but it was not until the 20th century that American Standard English was able to perfect what had only been potential until then.
An American Poet said that English and French were the same language, and he had a point. It’s not quite true but close and the Normans brought in their French so we have cow and then beef, kingly and then royal; we have pierced to the root which is about as hard and Saxon as one can get and one can get pretty hard and Saxon: pierced to the root.
Chaucer has perced to the roote (per-sod to the rota); the language was groping its way to the flat midwestern diction of its ultimate perfection as the perfect language, the receptor language which all language streams poured into and found their final meaning; it took Tyndale to flatten it out and be rid of the most musical excesses: the salt of the earth, mother tongue, the root of goodness, be cold, sober, wise and circumspect, the powers that be, returning to Saxon roots.
It took Shakespeare to combine the two streams by roaming all over the scale, the heights of song, but always back to earth with his flatness of prose: the quality of mercy never strains, and his prayer which pierces so deeply that it assaults mercy itself; assaulting mercy itself, piercing it to the root: this is the language of the future, a language that still waiting to be heard. Hard, cold, driven, and yet with a subtle lilt in it which one can never be sure is faithfulness or irony.
Surprisingly, until 2012, his remains were lost. That's when historian Philipp Langley and his team found Richard III's remains under a parking lot in Leicester.
Richard III ruled England from 1483 to 1485. He was only 32 when he died in the Battle of Bosworth. Over the years, many legends and controversies have arisen around his figure.
Most famously when he fell Richard said “my kingdom for a horse”
When wishes are horses beggars will ride is an old English saying.
All, as they say, is true.
***
Notes
The clarity of the sun is so great that when it is poured on the other heavenly bodies it shines with no less light and splendor nor does it suffer any diminution of its strength but is pleased to be seen as a king amidst its nobles.
On 29 June 1613, the original Globe Theatre in London, where most of William Shakespeare’s plays debuted, was destroyed by fire during a performance of All is True (known to modern audiences as Henry VIII). A theatrical cannon misfired, igniting the wooden beams and thatching resulting in the loss of the theater.
When one begins thinking one begins speaking English--old saying
