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In the Spotlight
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|Quote in Context                                                                     |
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|Down, down I come;                                                                   |
|Like glistering Phaethon,                                                           |
|Wanting the manage of unruly jades.                                                  |
|                   Richard II (3.3), King Richard                                   |
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|As Richard's throne is usurped he compares himself to glistering Phaethon. Richard   |
|is referring to the fable of Phaethon, son of Helios, who convinced his father to   |
|allow him to drive the chariot of the sun, with its mighty steeds, across the path   |
|of the sky from east to west. But Phaethon was an incompetent charioteer, unable to |
|control the willful horses. Just as Phaethon has failed to control his unruly horses|
|(jades), King Richard has failed to control his unruly subjects.                    |
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|Bard Bites                                                                           |
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|The average length of a play in Elizabethan England was 3000 lines. With 4,042 lines|
|and 29,551 words, Hamlet is the longest Shakespearean play (based on the first       |
|edition of The Riverside Shakespeare (1974)). With 1,787 lines and 14,369 words, The|
|Comedy of Errors is the shortest Shakespearean play (also based on the first edition|
|of The Riverside Shakespeare). ...