“Welcome to another #ShakespeareSunday! Today’s theme chosen by @246Theater: LOSS and HEARTBREAK!”
On seeing this tweet from @HollowCrownFans, I immediately thought of the heartrending scene in Henry VI, part 3 where the king observes two soldiers with the enemy soldiers they have slain: the first realises the corpse he is looking to rob is actually his father’s and the second realises the man he has just killed is his own son.
The hideousness of civil war is here deftly shown – turning family on itself, and leaving none untouched.
Henry has just been wishing he were a lowly man rather than a monarch, thinking there would be little demands upon him then. Into this come the two soldiers, and he witnesses what demands there are on ‘ordinary’ men – fighting their own flesh and blood without realising, because they are at the mercy of the royalty and nobility who press them into military service.
Heartbreak and loss, indeed.
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