The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 15.0054  Thursday, 8 January 2004

From:           Rolland Banker <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Wednesday, 7 Jan 2004 18:48:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject:        Cormorant

Insomuch as RII is about Richard endlessly drawing comparisons between
himself and Jesus, and proving himself not so much a king as a poet; so
too Jesus proved himself not so much a king of this world "else my
servants would fight" to release him, he died as a Saviour.

Check out Psalm 102 in your King James especially verse 6:

         I am like a pelican of the wilderness.

The whole Psalm reads like a rough draft of some of Richard's plaintive
pleas. (Shakespeare again was revising an older play)

Hence, the precious stones of line 46 in the context used of "the office
of a wall." reminds me of the "precious stones" scattered throughout and
making up the wall of heaven or the new Jerusalem. See Revelations 21:
11,19 that is being compared to England, that demi-paradise, in the play.

The saved, according to Revelations 2:17, will also receive a "white
stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving
he that receiveth it." There's your signet. And see Gaunt talking about
his appropriate name!

So to "redeem from broking pawn" is another type of salvation which
dovetails nicely with the "precious stone" stuff.

The cormorant is an unclean fowl under the Levitical law. The Saviour in
the new testament is always likened to unclean animals: an eagle, a
mother hen, a snake, a lion, etc.; eating and drinking and lascivious too!

As for the Ashmole Collection I haven't a clue.

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