Geeking out to a degree that frightens even me

So I'm taking my lunch hour to go over my monologue, and I decide to print the whole thing out and scan it. I'm not mathematical about my poetry, I just don't have it in me. Free verse kind of girl, you know. Anyway, I mentioned that I was doing a monologue from Richard III, by Queen Margaret in Act 4, Scene iv. Go read it and then come back, it's approximately lines 35-80 starting at "If ancient sorrow be most reverend" and ends with "And makes her pew-fellow with other's moan." (I'm cutting out the Duchess of York's two lines)

Back now? Okay, first off, don't you just love this? Did you read the whole scene? I'd love to do the whole scene, but what I've got is long enough, thanks. Anyway, it's written mostly in iambic pentameter, which you should know because you all have registerable brain function. However, there is a break--six lines have eleven syllables, and end in what's called a "feminine," or if we are being politically correct, "amphibrac" feet. Persuch*:

"I had/ an Ed/ward till/ a Rich/ard kill'd him"

There are five lines structured this way, completely parallel ("I had an Edward"; "I had a Harry"; "Thou hadst and Edward"; "Thou hadst a Richard"; and "Thou hadst a Clarence."). They're a litany of the murders Richard has committed thus far and build the tension and the passion of Queen Margaret as she rants. Basic science of listener attention, right? Then we slip back into iambic pentameter because we are Shakespeare and we probably snore in iambic pentameter.

Until we get to line 79: "Preys on/ the is/sue of/ his moth/ers body"--feminine again. We're talking about his murders, the evil Richard is doing, so rhythmically it matches the lines that named his victims and his guilt. What's more, by putting it in the meter of the earlier lines, it highlights Margaret's belief that the Duchess of York (who she is addressing at this point) is partly to blame for all Richard has done because she gave him life in the first place. This? Is brilliant. It stunned me for a minute while I was making my little scansion marks. Of course . . . I thought.

I wonder about Shakespeare sometimes. How did he do it? Did he stay up late every night, burning down candles and sweating blood? Or did it come easy to him, pouring out of his quill like blood from a vein? Did he sit there and tap his foot for the beat of every line, picking this word over that one so it would fit his meter? Did he write it all out once and tinker with it from there, or did he fuss over each scene until it was perfect until moving on to the next? Did he cap up his inkwell when the play opened, or was he scribbling notes in the margins of Tempest until the day he died? Of all the words he wrote, what were his favorite? Which did he hate, never able to be satisfied with no matter how many times he tried?

So that's my geektasm for today. While we're here and on the subject, I need an opinion on another line in there, line 76: "Thy womb let loose to chase us to our graves." In your reading, was that first foot a trochee? ("Thy womb" as opposed to "Thy womb") I feel like it is, but I can't think of a reason for it to be. The attention has already shifted from Queen Elizabeth to the Duchess of York (line 47ish, "From forth the kennel of thy womb . . .") so it doesn't signal that. It's not a radical announcement or something dramatic and startling--it's not the first time Margaret makes this statement. So there is no reason for it to not be iambic, and Shakespeare always has a reason. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but I naturally hit the "thy" harder than the "womb." Read it out loud (quietly, or your coworkers will look at you funny) and let me know what you think.

Friday fun up next, I promise.

* TM Junior, by way of someone I've never met.