Mortimer uses a simile that compares King Edward II and his personal army to “players” or actors. After his uncle, Mortimer Senior, has been captured by Scottish forces while in service of the King, Mortimer Junior arrives in court to persuade the King to pay off his uncle’s ransom. When the King declines to pay the ransom, Mortimer openly criticizes the King, mocking his lack of martial prowess and experience in war and using a simile in the process:
When wert thou in the field with banner spread?
But once, and then thy soldiers marched like players,
With garish robes, not armour; and thyself,
Bedaubed with gold, rode laughing at the rest,
Nodding and shaking of thy spangled crest,
Where women’s favours hung like labels down.
The King, Mortimer claims, has only ever been “in the field of battle” one time, and on that occasion his soldiers marched “like players” wearing “garish robes, not armour.” Mortimer describes the King on that occasion as “Bedaubed” —or adorned—“with gold” and as wearing a crest full of gifts from women. Mortimer criticizes the temperament of the King here, implying that he is effeminate and frivolous, “laughing” and showing off in battle rather than attending seriously to the outcome. By describing the King and his army as being “like players,” he suggests that they were merely dressed up like soldiers rather than demonstrating the real strength and focus required for war.
Lancaster alludes to the mythological figure of Helen of Troy in his condemnation of Piers Gaveston. In Scene 9, Gaveston and the King separate after facing an overwhelming assault from the combined forces of the various rebelling lords, and Gaveston is captured while attempting to flee. The lords are now able to speak with Gaveston without censorship, and they criticize him in harsh terms. Lancaster states:
Monster of men,
That, like the Greekish strumpet, trained to arms
And bloody wars so many valiant knights,
Look for no other fortune, wretch, than death.
Kind Edward is not here to buckler thee.
Lancaster compares Gaveston in a simile to “the Greekish strumpet,” a derogatory description of Helen of Troy, a figure in Greek mythology who was generally considered to be the most beautiful woman in the world. A daughter of Zeus, Helen was married to Menelaeus of Sparta but was abducted and brought to Troy by Paris. This abduction was the primary cause of the Trojan War as reported in most mythological accounts, including Homer’s Iliad.
Lancaster’s allusion is layered. Much as Paris was willing to make great sacrifices for his relationship with the beautiful Helen, King Edward II has defended the charming Gaveston despite the dire consequences. Lancaster characterizes Helen as a “strumpet" whose sexual promiscuity has resulted in the deaths of many soldiers and civilians in the Trojan War; likewise, Gaveston’s return from exile has divided the nation, setting the armies of the King and the lords against each other.
