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Question
The poet does not wish to exchange places with the athletes. How does he justify his view?
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Solution
In the very first stanza, the poet admits that right from his boyhood days, he was glad to watch others play all kinds of games including boxing. He was glad that he was not one of them. His limp and bashful spirit feeds on the heroism of other players. He watches with a palpitating heart when ‘A’ runs ninety yards to bag a medal. He watches with obvious alarm when ‘B’ knocks another boxer down cracking his vertebrae and spines. The players maim each other. His ego would never be pleased to swap places with such popular players. He listens to the mention of prudence/common sense and refrains from hurting himself or others by not participating in any game whatsoever. Thus he justifies his view to continue as a spectator.
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The historical background:
The poem is an extract from William Shakespeare’s play King Richard the Second. The play is based on true events that occurred towards the end of the 14th century.
Richard II was crowned the King of England in the year 1367. He continued to be the British Monarch until 1399, when he was deposed by his cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, who crowned himself King Henry the Fourth in the same year. Shakespeare’s play is a dramatic rendition of the last two years of King Richard II’s life. In this brief span of time, he was ousted from his royal position and sent to prison, where he died in captivity.
The following extract is set in the Coast of Wales. King Richard and some of his followers awaited the arrival of the Welsh army [after facing defeat at the hands of his cousin, Bolingbroke], of about 10000 warriors. But to their shock and surprise, they received the message that the army was not coming to their rescue. His followers tried to boost their King’s courage against the news, only in vain. When Richard came face to face with the reality of his terrible fate, he spoke the following verse, famously known as the “Hollow Crown” speech in theatrical circles. In it, King Richard is reminded of the power of Death that overshadows everything else, including the power of rulers, and renders them as powerless as any commoner at a moment’s notice.
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| barren-earth | friends | graves | slain |
| rebellious | poisoned | worms | grief |
| impregnable | epitaphs | death | farewell |
| reverence | king | pin |
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“Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s,
And nothing can we call our own but death;”
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“Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,…”
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How are eternal truths and wisdom brought to the reader here?
