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Foreshadowing
Explanation and Analysis—Some Unborn Sorrow:
King Richard II’s wife, the Queen, foreshadows the troubles to come, which will separate her from her husband and ultimately lead to his removal from the throne and death. Explaining her anxieties to Bushy, she states:
Yet again methinks
Some unborn sorrow ripe in Fortune’s womb
Is coming towards me, and my inward soul
With nothing trembles. At some thing it grieves
More than with parting from my lord the King.
The Queen, largely secluded in the castle, has been present for neither the exile of Henry Bolingbroke nor the unjust dispossession of the late John of Gaunt. However, she has an instinctive sense that something is wrong in the kingdom, and she proves to be more perceptive than the King in recognizing the discontent among his subjects.
Though she cannot identify the exact nature of the tragedy that will befall her and her husband, she nonetheless senses “some unborn sorrow” that is “coming towards” her. Her vague and imprecise language reflects the fact that she does not yet have a clear picture of this threat. Her “inward soul” trembles at “nothing,” and she grieves at “some thing” that she cannot easily identify.
Nevertheless, she insists that her sense of foreboding surpasses mere anxiety. Though she does not like to be separated from her husband, who is traveling to Ireland in order to suppress rebels there, she maintains that her feelings cannot simply be accounted for by the distance between them. Her instinctive feelings of doom foreshadow later events in the play, contributing to the sense that Richard’s downfall is inevitable.
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