Thursday, June 11, 2020

Henry VI, Part 2 - Reading Shakespeare Project



Henry VI, Part 2


Henry VI, Part 2 (often written as 2 Henry VI) is a history play by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1591 and set during the lifetime of King Henry VI of England. Whereas Henry VI, Part 1 deals primarily with the loss of England's French territories and the political machinations leading up to the Wars of the Roses, and Henry VI, Part 3 deals with the horrors of that conflict, 2 Henry VI focuses on the King's inability to quell the bickering of his nobles, the death of his trusted adviser Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the rise of the Duke of York and the inevitability of armed conflict. As such, the play culminates with the opening battle of the War, the First Battle of St Albans (1455).
Although the Henry VI trilogy may not have been written in chronological order, the three plays are often grouped together with Richard III to form a tetralogy covering the entire Wars of the Roses saga, from the death of Henry V in 1422 to the rise to power of Henry VII in 1485. It was the success of this sequence of plays that firmly established Shakespeare's reputation as a playwright.
Henry VI, Part 2 has the largest cast of all Shakespeare's plays and is seen by many critics as the best of the Henry VI trilogy.
Characters
Of the King's Party
Of the Duke of York's Party
The Petitions and the Combat
  • Thomas Horner – armourer
  • Peter Thump – his apprentice
  • Petitioners, Prentices, Neighbours
The Conjuration
The False Miracle
Eleanor's Penance
Murder of Gloucester
  • Two Murderers
Murder of Suffolk
The Cade Rebellion
Others
  • Vaux – messenger
  • Messengers, soldiers, guards, servants, commons, rebels, etc.
Synopsis
The play begins with the marriage of King Henry VI of England to the young Margaret of Anjou. Margaret is the protégée and lover of William de la Pole, 4th Earl of Suffolk, who aims to influence the king through her. The major obstacle to Suffolk and Margaret's plan is the Lord Protector; Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who is extremely popular with the common people and deeply trusted by the King. Gloucester's wife, however, has designs on the throne, and has been led by an agent of Suffolk to dabble in necromancy. She summons a spirit and demands it reveal the future to her, but its prophecies are vague and before the ritual is finished, she is interrupted and arrested. At court she is then banished, greatly to the embarrassment of Gloucester. Suffolk then conspires with Cardinal Beaufort and the Duke of Somerset to bring about Gloucester's ruin. Suffolk accuses Gloucester of treason and has him imprisoned, but before Gloucester can be tried, Suffolk sends two assassins to kill him. Meanwhile, Richard, 3rd Duke of York, reveals his claim to the throne to the Earls of Salisbury and Warwick, who pledge to support him.
Suffolk is banished for his role in Gloucester's death, whilst Winchester (Cardinal Beaufort) contracts a fever and dies, cursing God. Margaret, horrified at Suffolk's banishment, vows to ensure his return, but he is killed by pirates shortly after leaving England, and his head sent back to the distraught Margaret. Meanwhile, York has been appointed commander of an army to suppress a revolt in Ireland. Before leaving, he enlists a former officer of his, Jack Cade, to stage a popular revolt in order to ascertain whether the common people would support York should he make an open move for power. At first, the rebellion is successful, and Cade sets himself up as Mayor of London, but his rebellion is put down when Lord Clifford (a supporter of Henry) persuades the common people, who make up Cade's army, to abandon the cause. Cade is killed several days later by Alexander Iden, a Kentish gentleman, into whose garden he climbs looking for food.
York returns to England with his army, claiming that he intends to protect the King from the duplicitous Somerset. York vows to disband his forces if Somerset is arrested and charged with treason. Buckingham swears that Somerset is already a prisoner in the tower, but when Somerset enters ("at liberty"), accompanied by the Queen, York holds Buckingham's vow broken, and announces his claim to the throne, supported by his sons, Edward and Richard. The English nobility take sides, some supporting the House of York, others supporting Henry and the House of Lancaster. A battle is fought at St Albans in which the Duke of Somerset is killed by Richard, and Lord Clifford by York. With the battle lost, Margaret persuades the distraught King to flee the battlefield and head to London. She is joined by Young Clifford, who vows revenge on the Yorkists for the death of his father. The play ends with York, Edward, Richard, Warwick and Salisbury setting out in pursuit of Henry, Margaret and Clifford.
Sources
Shakespeare's primary source for 2 Henry VI was Edward Hall's The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York (1548). He also drew upon the second edition of Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (1587). Although Holinshed's treatment of the Wars of the Roses is derived in large part from Hall's work, even to the point of reproducing large portions of it verbatim, there are enough differences between Hall and Holinshed to establish that Shakespeare must have consulted both of them.
For example, the marked contrast between Henry and Margaret, a recurring theme in the play, comes from Hall, who presents Henry as a "saint-like" victim of circumstances, and Margaret as a cunning and manipulative egotist. Shakespeare must have used Hall to establish York's claim to the throne (outlined in 2.2), as the corresponding section in Holinshed adds an extra generation to York's lineage. However, the meeting between Buckingham and York before the Battle of St Albans (dramatised in 5.1) is found only in Holinshed.
Only Holinshed contains information about the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, which Shakespeare used for the scenes of Cade's rebellion throughout Act 4 (for example, details such as having people killed because they could read, and promises of setting up a state with no money). The presentation of Henry's reaction to the rebellion also differs in Hall and Holinshed. In Hall, Henry pardons everyone who surrenders and lets them all return home unpunished, and this is how Shakespeare presents it in the play. In Holinshed, by contrast, Henry convenes a court and has several of the leaders executed (as he did in reality). Another historical parallel found in Holinshed is that Henry is presented as unstable, constantly on the brink of madness, something which is not in Hall, who presents a gentle but ineffective King (again, Shakespeare follows Hall here).
Shakespeare's largest departure from Hall and Holinshed is in his conflation of the Cade rebellion, York's return from Ireland and the Battle of St Albans into one continuous sequence. Both Hall and Holinshed present these events as covering a four-year period (as they did in reality), but in the play they are presented as one leading directly, and immediately, to the other. This is how the events are depicted in Robert Fabyan's New Chronicles of England and France (1516), suggesting that this too may have been a source.
Another definite source for Shakespeare was Richard Grafton's A Chronicle at Large (1569). Like Holinshed, Grafton reproduces large passages of unedited material from Hall, but some sections are exclusive to Grafton, showing Shakespeare must also have consulted him. The false miracle for example (dramatised in 2.1) is found only in Grafton, not in Hall or Holinshed (although a similar scene is also outlined in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, Book of Martyrs (1563), with which Shakespeare may have been familiar).
Date and text
On 12 March 1594, a play was entered in the Stationers' Register by the bookseller Thomas Millington and printed in quarto by Thomas Creede later that year as The First part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinall of VVinchester, vvith the notable Rebellion of Jacke Cade: And the Duke of Yorkes first claime vnto the Crowne. It has been theorised that The Contention is a reported text of a performance of what is today called Henry VI, Part II. If so, the play was written no later than 1594.
However, it has been suggested the play may have been written several years earlier. Robert Greene's pamphlet Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit (entered in the Stationers' Register on 20 September 1592) mocks Shakespeare as "an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his 'tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide', supposes that he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you." This parody of 3 Henry VI, 1.4.138, where York refers to Margaret as a "tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!", proves that 3 Henry VI was well known by September 1592, which means it must have been staged before 23 June, when the government closed the theatres to prevent the spread of plague. As it is known for certain that 3 Henry VI was a sequel to 2 Henry VI, it is certain that if 3 Henry VI was on stage by June 1592, so too was 2 Henry VI and that both were probably written in 1591 or 1592.
For a discussion of whether the three parts of the trilogy where composed in chronological order, see 1 Henry VI.
Text
The 1594 quarto text of The Contention was reprinted twice, in 1600 (in quarto) and 1619 (in folio). The 1600 text was printed by Valentine Simmes for Millington. The 1619 text was part of William Jaggard's False Folio, which was printed for Thomas Pavier. This text was printed together with a version of 3 Henry VI which had been printed in octavo in 1595 under the title The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the Whole Contention betweene the two Houses, Lancaster and Yorke. In the False Folio, the two plays were grouped under the general title The Whole Contention betweene the Two Famous Houses, Lancaster and Yorke, With the Tragicall ends of the good Duke Humfrey, Richard Duke of Yorke, and King Henrie the sixt. Also printed with The Whole Contention was Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The 1619 text of 2 Henry VI was not directly taken from The Contention however. The original text was edited to correct an error in York's outline of his genealogy in 2.2.
The text of the play that today forms 2 Henry VI was not published until the 1623 First Folio, under the title The second Part of Henry the Sixt, with the death of the Good Duke Humfrey.
When the play came to be called Part 2 is unclear, although most critics tend to assume it was the invention of John Heminges and Henry Condell, the editors of the First Folio, as there are no references to the play under the title Part 2, or any derivative thereof, before 1623.
Analysis and criticism
Critical history
Some critics argue that the Henry VI trilogy were the first ever plays to be based on recent English history, and as such, they deserve an elevated position in the canon, and a more central role in Shakespearean criticism. According to F.P. Wilson for example, "There is no certain evidence that any dramatist before the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 dared to put upon the public stage a play based upon English history [...] so far as we know, Shakespeare was the first." However, not all critics agree with Wilson here. For example, Michael Taylor argues that there were at least thirty-nine history plays prior to 1592, including the two-part Christopher Marlowe play Tamburlaine (1587), Thomas Lodge's The Wounds of Civil War (1588), George Peele's The Troublesome Reign of King John (1588), the anonymous Edmund Ironside (1590), Robert Green and Thomas Lodge's Selimus (1591) and another anonymous play, The True Tragedy of Richard III (1591). Paola Pugliatti however argues that the case may be somewhere between Wilson and Taylor's argument; "Shakespeare may not have been the first to bring English history before the audience of a public playhouse, but he was certainly the first to treat it in the manner of a mature historian rather than in the manner of a worshipper of historical, political and religious myth."
In any case, there is much more critical disagreement about the play, not the least of which concerns its relationship to The Contention.
The Contention as reported text
Over the years, critics have debated the connection between 2 Henry VI and The Contention, to the point where four main theories have emerged:
  1. The Contention is a reconstructed version of a performance of what we today call 2 Henry VI; i.e. a bad quarto, an attempt by actors to reconstruct the original play from memory and sell it. Originated by Samuel Johnson in 1765 and refined by Peter Alexander in 1929. Traditionally, this is the most accepted theory.
  2. The Contention is an early draft of the play that was published in the 1623 Folio under the title The second Part of Henry the Sixt. Originated by Edmond Malone in 1790 as an alternate to Johnson's memorial report theory. Supported today by critics such as Steven Urkowitz.
  3. The Contention is both a reported text and an early draft of 2 Henry VI. This theory has been gaining increasing support from the latter half of the 20th century, and is championed by many modern editors of the play.
  4. Shakespeare did not write The Contention at all; it was an anonymous play which he used as the basis for 2 Henry VI. Originated by Georg Gottfried Gervinus in 1849, this theory remained popular throughout the nineteenth century, with Robert Greene the leading candidate as a possible author. It has fallen out of favour in the twentieth century.
Traditionally, critical opinion has tended to favour the first theory; that The Contention is a bad quarto, a memorial reconstruction, perhaps by the actor who had played Suffolk and/or Cade in early performance. Samuel Johnson put forth this theory in 1765, but was challenged by Edmond Malone in 1790, who suggested that The Contention could be an early draft of 2 Henry VI. Malone's view was the dominant one until 1929, when Peter Alexander and Madeleine Doran, working independently of one another, re-established the dominance of the bad quarto theory.
They focused on a genealogical error in The Contention, which they argue seems unlikely to have been made by an author, and is therefore only attributable to a reporter. In The Contention, when York sets out his claim to the throne, he identifies Edmund of Langley as Edward III's second son, instead of his fifth. In 2 Henry VI, Langley is correctly placed in the genealogy. This error renders unnecessary York's need to claim the throne through his mother's ancestry: were he descended from the second son, he himself would be descended directly from an elder son than Henry. It has been argued that "no one who understood what he was writing – that is, no author – could have made this error, but someone parroting someone else's work, of which he himself had but a dim understanding – that is, a reporter – easily could."
Act 3, Scene 1 has been pinpointed as another scene which provides evidence that The Contention is a reported text. In The Contention, after the court has turned on Gloucester, Suffolk then illogically switches back to discussing the regentship of France. Horner and Thump are introduced and Gloucester arranges for them to formally duel. At this point, Gloucester leaves, but without any discernible reason. Margaret then strikes Eleanor, Gloucester returns, and he and his wife leave together. Steven Urkowitz (a staunch opponent of the theory of bad quartos in general) argues that the difference in the two scenes is an example of "the finely Shakespearean first choices recorded in the Quarto." Roger Warren, however, argues that the scene provides strong evidence that The Contention is a reported text; "it is not hard to conjecture how the Quarto's version came about. The conflicting claims of York and Somerset led to the Armourer and his Man being introduced too soon; whoever was compiling the Quarto text remembered that Humphrey left the stage, though not why, but did remember that while he was offstage Margaret struck his wife. The utterly unmotivated exit and reappearance of Humphrey in itself rules out any possibility that the Quarto's scene is a legitimate alternative to the Folio version, rather than a confused report of it."
Further evidence for the reported text theory is provided in how other plays are used throughout The Contention. For example, Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is quoted in the witchcraft scene ("Now Faustus, what wouldst thou have me do?" (1.3.36) is reproduced as "Now Bolingbroke, what wouldst thou have me do?"), and Marlowe's Edward II is paraphrased in Act 3, Scene 1 (Marlowe's "The wild O'Neill, with swarms of Irish kerns,/Lives uncontrolled within the English pale" (2.2.163–164) becomes "The wild O'Neill, my lords, is up in arms,/With troops of Irish kerns that uncontrolled/Doth plant themselves within the English pale"). Even a line from 3 Henry VI is used in Act 3, Scene 1 ("If our King Henry had shook hands with death" (1.4.103)), all of which seems to suggest that, as is so often the case in the bad quartos, the reporter was filling in blanks (i.e. passages he could not remember) with extracts from other plays.
The Contention as early draft
Steven Urkowitz has spoken at great length about the debate between the bad quarto theory and the early draft theory, coming down firmly on the side of the early draft. Urkowitz argues that the quarto of 2 Henry VI and the octavo of 3 Henry VI actually present scholars with a unique opportunity to see a play evolving, as Shakespeare edited and rewrote certain sections; "the texts of 2 and 3 Henry VI offer particularly rich illustrations of textual variation and theatrical transformation." Urkowitz cites the dialogue in the opening scene of 2 Henry VI as especially strong evidence of the early draft theory. In The Contention, Henry receives Margaret with joy and an exclamation that all his worldly troubles are behind him. Margaret is then depicted as utterly humble, vowing to love the King no matter what. After the initial meeting then, Henry asks Margaret to sit beside him before bidding the Lords to stand nearby and welcome her. In 2 Henry VI, on the other hand, Henry is more cautious in greeting Margaret, seeing her as a relief for his problems, but only if she and he can find common ground and love one another. She herself is also much bolder and self-congratulatory in 2 Henry VI than in The Contention. Additionally, in 2 Henry VI there is no reference to anyone sitting, and the lords kneel before speaking to Margaret. Urkowitz summarises these differences by arguing,
In the visible geometry of courtly ceremony, the Folio version offers us a bold Queen Margaret and an exuberant king who stands erect while the visibly subordinated nobles kneel before them. In contrast to the modest queen seated beside the king surrounded by standing nobles, in this text at the equivalent moment, we have an assertive queen standing upright with her monarch, visibly subordinating the kneeling, obedient lords. Distinct theatrical representations of psychological and political tensions distinguish the two versions of the passage. Both texts "work" by leading an audience through an elaborate ceremonial display fraught with symbolic gestures of emotional attachment, sanctification, regal authority, and feudal obedience, but each displays a distinct pattern of language and coded gestures. Such fine-tuning of dramatic themes and actions are staples of professional theatrical writing.
The differences in the texts are of the sort one tends to find in texts that were altered from an original form, and Urkowitz cites Eric Rasmussen, E.A.J. Honigmann and Grace Ioppolo as supporting this view. He refers to the case of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal (1777), which existed in an earlier form, also by Sheridan, in a two-part play The Slanderers and Sir Peter Teazel, which he argues contain the same type of modifications as is found in the Henry VI plays.
Urkowitz is not alone in finding evidence to support the early draft theory. For example, in The Contention, Margery Jourdayne is referred to as "the cunning witch of Ely", but in 2 Henry VI she is referred to merely as "the cunning witch." The traditional argument to explain this disparity is that such information was added by either Shakespeare or someone else during rehearsals, but was not found in the prompt book which was used to print the First Folio. However, R.B. McKerrow argues against the likelihood of this theory. He asks why a writer would go back to a chronicle source to add a piece of information which is of no importance dramatically, and brings nothing to the scene. McKerrow suggests that the line was cut after performance. A similar example is found in Act 4, Scene 7 where Cade orders his men to kill Lord Saye and Sir James Comer. In 2 Henry VI, Cade orders them to cut off Saye's head and then go to Cromer's house and kill him, but in The Contention, he tells them to bring Saye to "Standard in Cheapside", and then go to Cromer's house in "Mile End Green." McKerrow argues that such unimportant detail suggests removal after performance rather than addition before performance.
More evidence is found in Act 2, Scene 1. In The Contention, after Winchester has accepted Gloucester's challenge to a duel (l. 38; "Marry, when thou dar'est"), there is additional dialogue not found in 2 Henry VI;
GLOUCESTER
Dare? I tell thee priest,
Plantagenets could never brook the dare.

WINCHESTER
I am Plantagenet as well as thou,
And son of John of Gaunt.

GLOUCESTER
In bastardy.

WINCHESTER
I scorn thy words.
Again, McKerrow's argument here is not that these lines were added during rehearsals, but that they existed in an early draft of the play and were removed after rehearsals, as they were simply deemed unnecessary; the animosity between the two had already been well established.
However, the theory that The Contention may be an early draft does not necessarily imply that it could not also represent a bad quarto. Traditionally, most critics (such as Alexander, Doran, McKerrow and Urkowitz) have looked at the problem as an either–or situation; The Contention is either a reported text or an early draft, but recently there has been some argument that it may be both. For example, this is the theory supported by Roger Warren in his Oxford Shakespeare edition of the play. It is also the theory advanced by Randall Martin in his Oxford Shakespeare edition of 3 Henry VI. The crux of the argument is that both the evidence for the bad quarto theory and the evidence for the early draft theory are so compelling that neither is able to completely refute the other. As such, if the play contains evidence of being both a reported text and an early draft, it must be both; i.e. The Contention represents a reported text of an early draft of 2 Henry VI. Shakespeare wrote an early version of the play, which was staged. Shortly after that staging, some of the actors constructed a bad quarto from it and had it published. In the meantime, Shakespeare had rewritten the play into the form found in the First Folio. Warren argues that this is the only theory which can account for the strong evidence for both reporting and revision, and it is a theory which is gaining increased support in the late twentieth/early twenty-first century.
Language
Language, throughout the play, helps to establish the theme as well as the tone of each particular episode. For example, the opening speech of the play is an ornate, formal declaration by Suffolk:
As by your high imperial majesty
I had in charge at my depart for France,
As Procurator to your excellence,
To marry Princess Margaret for your grace,
So in the famous ancient city Tours,
In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,
The Dukes of Orléans, Calabre, Bretagne, and Alençon,
Seven earls, twelve barons, and twenty reverend bishops,
I have performed my task and was espoused,
And humbly now upon my bended knee,
In sight of England and her lordly peers,
Deliver up my title in the Queen
To your most gracious hands, that are the substance
Of that great shadow I did represent:
The happiest gift that ever marquis gave,
The fairest queen that ever king received.
(1.1.1–16)
The substance of Suffolk's speech is "As I was instructed to marry Margaret on your behalf, I did so, and now I deliver her to you." However, the formality of the scene and the importance of the event require him to deliver this message in heightened language, with the formal significance of Henry's marriage to Margaret mirrored in the formal language used by Suffolk to announce that marriage.
Language conveys the importance of religion throughout the play. Henry's language often echoes the Bible. For example, hearing of the Cade rebellion, he comments "Ο graceless men, they know not what they do" (4.4.37), echoing the Gospel of Luke: "Father, forgive them: for they know not what they do" (23:34). Earlier in the play, he refers to heaven as "the treasury of everlasting joy" (2.1.18), recalling the Gospel of Matthew's "lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven" (6:20), and then a few lines later he muses "blessèd are the peacemakers on earth" (2.1.34), echoing Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. On both of these occasions however, Cardinal Winchester, ostensibly a pious man, distorts Henry's genuine piety. After Henry's assessment of heaven, Winchester says to Gloucester, "Thy heaven is on earth, thine eyes and thoughts/Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart" (2.1.19–20). Then, after Henry praises peacemakers, Winchester hypocritically says, "Let me be blessèd for the peace I make,/Against this proud Protector with my sword" (2.1.35–36). The Cardinal mocks religion shortly before the murder of Gloucester. Speaking of the forthcoming murder, Suffolk says, "And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,/Say but the word and I will be his priest" (3.1.271–272), to which Winchester responds "But I would have him dead, my Lord of Suffolk,/Ere you can take due orders for a priest" (3.1.273–274), disdaining priesthood and trivialising murder. After Gloucester is dead, Winchester continues to blaspheme himself, proclaiming the death of Gloucester to be "God's secret judgement" (3.2.31), a callous and knowing distortion.
Shakespeare uses language to distinguish between different types of characters. The courtly scenes tend to be spoken in blank verse, whereas the commons tend to speak in prose, with fewer metaphors and less decorative language (Shakespeare uses this contrast in several plays, such as The Two Gentlemen of Verona, where prose marks the servants out from their masters). When power begins to go to Jack Cade's head, he begins to slip into a more courtly way of speaking. This is most noticeable in his adoption of the 'royal we', using phrases such as "our jurisdiction regal" (4.7.24), and "we charge and command" (4.7.116).
The longest speech in the play is Margaret's lament to Henry after they have found Gloucester's dead body. This lengthy speech is full of classical allusions, elaborate metaphors and verbosity as Margaret moves through a litany of topics in an effort to make her point:

Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?
I am no loathsome leper, look on me.
What, art thou like the adder waxen deaf?
Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.
Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?
Why then Queen Margaret was ne'er thy joy.
Erect his statua and worship it,
And make my image but an alehouse sign.
Was I for this nigh wracked upon the sea,
And twice by awkward winds from England's bank
Drove back again unto my native clime?
What boded this, but well forewarning winds
Did seem to say, 'Seek not a scorpion's nest,
Nor set no footing on this unkind shore'?
What did I then, but cursed the gentle gusts
And he that loosed them forth their brazen caves,
And bid them blow towards England's blessèd shore,
Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?
Yet Aeolus would not be a murderer,
But left that hateful office unto thee.
The pretty vaulting sea refused to drown me,
Knowing that thou wouldst have me drowned on shore
With tears as salt as sea through thy unkindness.
The splitting rocks cow'red in the sinking sands,
And would not dash me with their ragged sides,
Because thy flinty heart, more hard than they,
Might in thy palace perish Margaret.
As far as I could ken thy chalky cliffs,
When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,
I stood upon the hatches in the storm,
And when the dusky sky began to rob
My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view,
I took a costly jewel from my neck—
A heart it was, bound in with diamonds—
And threw it towards thy land. The sea received it,
And so I wished thy body might my heart.
And even with this I lost fair England's view,
And bid mine eyes be packing with my heart,
And called them blind and dusky spectacles,
For losing ken of Albion's wishèd coast.
How often have I tempted Suffolk's tongue—
The agent of thy foul inconstancy—
To sit and witch me, as Ascanius did,
When he to madding Dido would unfold
His father's acts, commenced in burning Troy!
Am I not witched like her? Or thou not false like him?
Ay me, I can no more. Die Margaret,
For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.
(3.2.73–121)
There is some debate amongst critics as to the meaning and purpose of this speech, although all tend to agree that the meaning is inherently tied up in the elaborate language. Some critics (such as Stanley Wells) argue that the speech, with its wordiness, abstraction, strained allusions, and lengthy metaphors, is poorly written, evidence that Shakespeare was not yet in control of his medium. Proponents of this theory point to The Contention, where only seven lines are retained, with the argument being that the rest of the speech was cut from performance. L.C. Knights, by contrast, argues that the speech is deliberately excessive and highly-wrought because Margaret is trying to deflect the already confused and dejected Henry from accusing Suffolk of the murder.
Peter Hall suggested that "the speech is there to establish the emotional, hysterical side of Margaret's nature. I think that is why the language gets so extremely elaborate – it is an attempt by Margaret to contain her turbulent emotions by expressing them in such a strange way."
The complete antithesis of this theory has also been suggested as a possibility: that the speech shows not that Margaret is losing control, but that she is completely in control of herself and her emotions. This theory is most noticeable in how director Jane Howell had Julia Foster act the part in the 1981 BBC Television Shakespeare adaptation. Here, Margaret uses her speech to vent her intense emotions, not to contain them. The far ranging metaphors and classical allusions are her way of letting go of her pent up rage and emotion, her disdain for Henry and her inherent passion.
In Terry Hands' 1977 production for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Margaret (played by Helen Mirren) tried to bring Henry back from the brink of madness by engaging his mind in an elaborate, difficult to follow verbal dance. Henry's preceding speech to Suffolk, where he demands Suffolk not look at him, and then immediately demands that he wants to look into Suffolk's eyes was played by Alan Howard in such a way as to suggest that Henry was losing his grip on reality, and in response to this, Mirren played the speech in such a way as to engage Henry's mind in the here and now, focus his thoughts and prevent them drifting away.

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