Shakespeare For Runners, Part 1

If you weren’t an English major, you probably just groaned at the title above. But stick with me, if only because it’s another of my hair-brained ideas out for all to see.

Every year I get a running log either from Runner’s World magazine or at the bookstore. And every time I open it up I read those inspirational quotes and sayings thrown into the calendar that are supposed to motivate you to achieve your goals and dreams and other crap. Funny thing is, those quotations never make it any easier for me to get out the door for a tough training run nor do they help me cross the finish line. I’m thinking other thoughts then, like ‘this hurts’ and ‘who came up with this stupid course’ and my favorite of all, ‘thank God that’s over’. But never something so dumb and puerile as ‘the first step is the most important on the road of life’ and other Hallmark card sentiments they throw at you, quoting some track coach who never ran a day in his life.

I decided I had to find my own quotations. And from less-obvious personalities than marathoners of the 1970s. So off I went in search of quotes from poets and writers and real people who weren’t afraid to say or write things along the lines of ‘this hurts’. I quickly realized I could spend years cataloguing identical missives in modern Russian literature, just for starters.

And back to the basics I went, only to settle on the greatest playwright in the English language, and possibly in any language. Shakespeare had it all, even if he’s not your cup of tea, so to speak. His dialogue may not always be easy for modern ears to follow, and it takes some getting used to, but he sure knew how to create a character or two. And scene, and situation, and everything else.

Well, I don’t have the time nor the expertise to go into why we should all at least know something about Shakespeare and his work, so I’ll get into the quotation that I found that I, and hopefully you, may relate to.

Richard II was one of his early historical dramas, and like many of them, does not have what we’d call a happy ending. Richard II (1367-1400) was not well-liked, he suffered continual bouts of assholism, and really, really enjoyed being in charge of everyone else. Historically, his enemies tried to overthrow him twice and finally succeeded; they hated him so much that when they threw him into prison they just let him rot there, as if he wasn’t worth the trouble of execution. Shakespeare makes him out to be a bit indecisive, and kind of, well, a downer. And a bit of a prissy miss thang, letting a ‘snap’ fly when making a point now and then. Oh, yes, she did!

So today’s quote is from Richard II, Act 3, Scene II. The Que-, uh, King, realizes that everything is over, he’s lost the battle against Bolingbroke over his crown, and it’s a bad day all around. It’s no pep talk; he tells his friends that it’s too late to even save themselves and they might as well just give up and go to Denny’s. ‘Cause that bitch Tyra ain’t never gonna let them walk the runway.

(Here’s the excerpt, you may skim like many a freshman lit class student has done before you:)

KING RICHARD II: 

No matter where; of comfort no man speak: 

Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; 

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes 

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth, 

Let's choose executors and talk of wills: 

And yet not so, for what can we bequeath 

Save our deposed bodies to the ground? 

Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's, 

And nothing can we call our own but death 

And that small model of the barren earth 

Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. 

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground 

And tell sad stories of the death of kings; 

How some have been deposed; some slain in war, 

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; 

Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd; 

All murder'd: for within the hollow crown 

That rounds the mortal temples of a king 

Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits, 

Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp, 

Allowing him a breath, a little scene, 

To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks, 

Infusing him with self and vain conceit, 

As if this flesh which walls about our life, 

Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus 

Comes at the last and with a little pin 

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king! 

Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood 

With solemn reverence: throw away respect, 

Tradition, form and ceremonious duty, 

For you have but mistook me all this while: 

I live with bread like you, feel want, 

Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, 

How can you say to me, I am a king?


Now wasn’t that delightful? Who wouldn’t invite this guy to happy hour? OK, OK, you got it, he’s not being particularly uplifting (for good reason, he wasn’t around for much longer), but sometimes life is not so uplifting, either.

And here’s what I think we can take away from this little, albeit beautifully written tirade. Obviously, at some point in our lives we feel like this and can relate on some level. Of course, we may not relate to this situation, but to the emotion in the text (which is one reason why Shakespeare is a genius). Here, all is lost, but Richard, after all, is a human being, and he at least understands that and admits it (finally) at the very end, right when it’s too late to find out. And besides, being king is so ten minutes ago.

When do I feel (sort of) like this? For starters, when I’m hating the world and everyone who ever lived, at mile marker 20 and beyond. No, I don’t get this dramatic, but in my own mind it’s not a happy place. I definitely ‘kill with looks’ and ‘write sorrow on the bosom of the earth’. See? I’m quoting Shakespeare already, and you can, too.

And my favorite line of all, the one you can quote all you want because after all it’s Shakespeare, give it up:

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground 

And tell sad stories of the death of kings; 


That is the famous quote here anyway, but my favorite part:

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

So if you made it this far today, that’s the famous line you can at least throw down during your final marathon death march. Amaze and amuse your friends (that is, if you have any left) with this little gem and others and be sure to mention Richard II Act 3, Scene II. Now, isn’t that better than:

‘A wish is a dream your heart makes.’ – A. Funicello


P.S. For the sake of full disclosure, I am not entirely impartial about Richard II. You see, last year I researched my own genealogy and discovered that I’m a descendant of King Edward III (1312-1377), he’s a great-(add seventeen more ‘great-’s) grandfather. And Richard II is a grandson of his. Which means this Richard has a cousin Richard, too. Funny enough, I’m also descended from an Ann Shakespeare; not sure if she’s related to you-know-who, but I’ll have to find out more on that.