# Scene III explained — Richard II

> Chapter companion for Richard II by William Shakespeare.

## What happens

The trial by combat between Bolingbroke and Mowbray is halted by King Richard, who instead banishes both: Bolingbroke for ten years (later reduced to six) and Mowbray for life. Gaunt counsels his son to bear exile with stoic resolve, but Bolingbroke struggles with the weight of his sentence. The scene closes with Gaunt's foreboding sense of his own mortality.

## Themes in this chapter

### Kingship and Divine Right

Richard unilaterally halts the divinely ordained combat and imposes his own judgment, asserting his sovereign will over the proceedings.

### Language and Power

Mowbray's lament over losing his native tongue highlights how language is tied to identity and how banishment silences a person's voice.

### Grief and Mortality

Gaunt's speech about his 'oil-dried lamp' and Bolingbroke's sorrow over exile explore the themes of loss, time, and the inevitability of death.

## Character check-ins

### King Richard II

Halts the combat and pronounces banishment on both Bolingbroke and Mowbray, asserting royal authority.

### Henry Bolingbroke

Accepts banishment with outward submission but expresses deep grief in dialogue with Gaunt.

### Thomas Mowbray

Receives a harsher sentence of lifelong exile and laments the loss of his native language.

### John of Gaunt

Attempts to console Bolingbroke with philosophical advice, while revealing his own sorrow and premonition of death.

### Duke of Aumerle

Bids farewell to Bolingbroke, promising to correspond.

### Lord Marshal

Oversees the trial preparations and announces the combatants.

## Key lines

> The language I have learn'd these forty years, My native English, now I must forego: And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp...

After forty years of speaking English, I am forced to give it up; my tongue is now useless, like an unstrung instrument.

_Mowbray expresses the profound personal loss of losing his native language through exile._

> 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?

No one can endure real pain by imagining comfort; imagination cannot satisfy genuine hunger or cold.

_Bolingbroke rejects Gaunt's stoic advice, arguing that positive thinking cannot alleviate real suffering._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/richard_ii_se/chapters/act-i-scene-iii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/richard_ii_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/richard_ii_se/chapters