Again about “My Kingdom for a Horse”: the Way of Interpretation of “Richard III”

Abstract

The article reveals a new way of interpreting the last words of Shakespeare’s Richard III on the Bosworth battlefield (5.4.7, 13). As evidenced by numerous parodies and anecdotes the phrase became an idiom in the age of Shakespeare, and in the 19th century Russian translations has survived metamorphoses ranging from the fairy “half the kingdom” to the alternative “the whole kingdom” for a horse. The available interpretations in scientific editions don’t clarify the expression. It is absent in historical (Hall, Holinshed) and possible literary (Richardus Tertius, True Tragedy) sources, but corresponds to the logic of character and actions of Shakespeare’s Richard. We traced the development of the “white horse” motive, identified its heraldic symbolism and the leading biblical allegory associated with the image of the victor in the battle for the world (Rev. 19: 11, 16), as well as the playwright’s emphasis on the tyrant’s progressing madness. The revealed increase in biblical lexis (“irons of wrath,” “cast,” etc) and imagery (non-sunrise, the paradox of “George” and “dragon”), the symbolism of the stage space (set in accordance with the iconography of the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment) allow us to read the denouement of the cross-cutting theme of the fight between “the world” and “nothing” (1.2.240) in spirit and tradition of religious play. Richard’s “wager” takes the play beyond the boundaries of the genres codified by the Folio (Histories and Tragedies) and raises it to a mystery play, demonstrating the last battle in Heaven. Paradoxically, the first Russian translator of the play, S. Sergievsky, at the end of the 18th century most accurately succeeded in conveying the meaning of the “bet,” following the French translation by Pierre Antoine de La Place.