("Richard III"), "The Personal Librarian"

[fiefoe]

Shakespeare must have expected his audience to know all the historical figures pretty well already.

Richard III - Act II Scene 1

 I, that am rudely stamped and want love’s majesty
 To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
 I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
 Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
20 Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
 Into this breathing world scarce half made up,

 And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
 To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
30 I am determinèd to prove a villain
 And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

 I’ll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence
 With lies well steeled with weighty arguments,

 For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter.
 What though I killed her husband and her father?
 The readiest way to make the wench amends
160 Is to become her husband and her father;

 O, gentlemen, see, see dead Henry’s wounds
 Open their congealed mouths and bleed afresh!—
 Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,
60 For ’tis thy presence that exhales this blood

ANNE
 Villain, thou know’st nor law of God nor man.
75 No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
RICHARD
 But I know none, and therefore am no beast.

defused infection of ⟨a⟩ man,  lump of foul deformity

RICHARD
 85 Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me have
 Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
ANNE
 Fouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make
 No excuse current but to hang thyself.

 Dost grant me, hedgehog?  (==> Boar??)

ANNE
 Thou wast the cause and most accursed effect.
RICHARD
130 Your beauty was the cause of that effect—
 Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep
 To undertake the death of all the world,
 So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.

ANNE
 Black night o’ershade thy day, and death thy life.
RICHARD
 Curse not thyself, fair creature; thou art both.

RICHARD, ⌜rising⌝
 Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.
ANNE
205 I have already.
RICHARD   That was in thy rage.
 Speak it again and, even with the word,
 This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,
 Shall for thy love kill a far truer love.

RICHARD
 Bid me farewell.
ANNE   ’Tis more than you deserve;
 But since you teach me how to flatter you,
 Imagine I have said “farewell” already.

 And I no friends to back my suit ⟨at all⟩
 But the plain devil and dissembling looks?
 And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!

QUEEN MARGARET
 I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s,
145 Or Edward’s soft and pitiful, like mine.
 I am too childish-foolish for this world.

 Thou elvish-marked, abortive, rooting hog,
240 Thou that wast sealed in thy nativity
 The slave of nature and the son of hell,
 Thou slander of thy heavy mother’s womb,

 They that stand high have many blasts to shake
 them,
 And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

CLARENCE
 Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes
 Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept—
 As ’twere in scorn of eyes—reflecting gems,
 That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep
 And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.
KEEPER
35 Had you such leisure in the time of death
 To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

SECOND MURDERER  Nay, I prithee stay a little. I hope
 this passionate humor of mine will change. It was
 wont to hold me but while one tells twenty.

FIRST MURDERER  Where’s thy conscience now?
SECOND MURDERER  O, in the Duke of Gloucester’s
 purse.

https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/richard-iii/read/
//Their verbal sparring takes the form of stichomythia, a rhetorical device in which speakers alternate lines, each repeating and distorting what the other has said, often using oppositions or reversals.

=======================
Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray must have done much research, but I wish they wrote more about those rare books instead of Belle's love affairs with much older men.

• Since Woodrow Wilson assumed the presidency of Princeton University three years ago and instituted all sorts of scholastic reform, the number of lectures open to staff and members of the community has increased. While Gertrude and I revel in being included in the academic life of the campus, I loathe certain of Wilson’s other decisions, such as maintaining Princeton as a whites-only university when all the other Ivy League schools have admitted colored folks.
• While Mr. Junius Morgan is ostensibly a banker, he has generously donated dozens of ancient and medieval manuscripts to the university, which is why he also holds the titular position of associate head librarian.
• My discussions with Junius about the dark voyages in The Aeneid and The Odyssey are some of the brightest moments in my days. While Junius admires Odysseus, I identify always with Aeneas, the Trojan refugee who desperately tries to fulfill his destiny in a world that holds no place for him. Aeneas was driven by duty, sacrificing for the good of others.
• There are only about one hundred and fifty printed books of Virgil’s poetry in existence.
• “Next, it was the children’s schools,” my father continued. “You only wanted them in all-white schools.” <> “Because I want the best for them,” she cried.
• was that my father? How could a man renowned for his oratory skills—the Richard Greener, first colored graduate of Harvard, former professor at the University of South Carolina, and former dean of Howard University School of Law, who gave speeches all around the country—be now, it seemed, rendered speechless?
• If anyone ever got wind of the fact that you listed us as white in a census document, they would consider me a traitor, and no one would hire me or have me speak or write on issues of race ever again. And that is my life’s work, Genevieve.”
• “The fight for equality is over, Richard. You lost it. We lost it fifteen years ago when the Supreme Court overturned the Civil Rights Act that would have given all black and colored people the equal rights we deserve.
• This volume was printed in 1485 by the famous printer and publisher William Caxton, who is credited with bringing the printing press to England. Entitled Le Morte Darthur, it recounts the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and their quest for the mythical Holy Grail. Is the acquisition of this particular elusive book Mr. Morgan’s own sacred quest?
• The ceiling glimmers with gold leaf and an intricate series of painted lunettes and spandrels, which appear to have two distinct themes: great historical figures and their muses in the lunettes, and the signs of the zodiac in the spandrels. I feel like I’m standing at the center of a jewel box.
• “So do you like our McKim, Mead, and White design? Lucky that we worked with McKim instead of White, isn’t it?”... Stanford White, the architect who was famous for creating the Washington Square Arch, was dead. Harry Thaw, the crazed ex-husband of the beautiful Evelyn Nesbit, shot three bullets into him in Madison Square Garden.
• All of us, under the ever-proper, ever-watchful, always lovely Mama. <> She is the gatekeeper, the one who transformed us, although I wear the scars of the greatest conversion.
• I watched him chuckle as he told me tales about rowing down the Charles River with his friend Oliver Wendell Holmes.
• President McKinley, before he was assassinated, appointed Richard to a diplomatic position in India. Richard didn’t go because of the bubonic plague, but since then, Richard was transferred to Vladivostok,
• Anne Morgan: She is part owner of the Villa Trianon near Versailles to assist in promoting the interior decorating career of her friend Elsie de Wolfe. She helped organize the very first social club for women in New York City, the Colony Club, and lately, she’s developed an interest in supporting female workers of various industries and the cause of women’s suffrage.
• I carefully choose the word “insulting” because my patron prides himself on always paying asking price and never bargaining—he finds haggling to be “demeaning,” so merely flagging Olschki’s price as bloated would not move him. But Mr. Morgan is not a man to tolerate an insult.
• A broad, delighted, proud grin. Relief courses through me. This woman, defined by her skin, the shade of a new penny, and by the debilitating laws of segregation dividing our country and our people into two halves, seems proud that one of her own has wriggled free from the restraints still inflicted upon some, like the chains that bound our ancestors.
• “Don’t let Miss Morgan’s coldness bother you. Everyone knows she only has time for Elsie and Bessie, who—they say—are all in a Boston marriage together.”
  I laughed with him as though Boston marriages were commonplace in my world, but in truth, I’d never met a woman who was in a romantic relationship with another woman, let alone two.
  “I’m not certain how such a thing works,” Mr. Seligmann continued. “But they’ve made it abundantly clear that there’s only room for those three.
• Elsie de Wolfe: the esteemed interior decorator—the person who veritably created the profession—seems kindly, and the light, brightly colored interiors for which she’s become famous would certainly suggest a blithe temperament.
• But don’t you think we owe it to other women to push aside slander and gossip about one of our own?” I do not expect an answer, but I do anticipate a reaction. “I certainly ignore the chatter I hear about you and Miss Marbury.” <> From the frozen expression on Elsie’s face, I’ve achieved my goal. By appealing to her stated commitment to women’s interests—while subtly hinting at the whispers about her own life—I have boxed her in. How can she persist in her persecution of me at the same time she publicly espouses support for women, especially given that she now knows I’m aware she has secrets of her own?
• I lean away, astonished at my own misstep. Mr. Morgan and I have had these moments of attraction, but we’ve never touched in this way. Yet, who can deny this frisson has been building between us?
  What am I doing? I cannot succumb to this man—this notorious philanderer, more than forty years older than me. I begin to pull away just as Mr. Morgan abruptly lets go. Glancing down, I berate myself for my impulsiveness, when I feel his finger under my chin.
• as we pull into the station in Washington, DC. We hurriedly gather up our belongings. Russell begins to exit out of the front of the train car, but Mama stops him. She gestures to the back of the car and leads us through a rear door into another, connected car—the one for colored people.
• Is that why Uncle Mozart stopped visiting? I thought it was because he’d always come to see Papa, but he’d stopped because of Mama? Because she didn’t want him to be seen with us? I think of the times when I prefer to be with Louise or Ethel, rather than Russell, because the fairer shade of their skin validates mine. Is that how Mama feels about her brother, too?
• No one is exempt from the denigration that accompanies this deep-seated racism. Even President Roosevelt faced the contempt of the Southern Democrats when he tried to welcome Booker T. Washington into the White House, an invitation that yielded threats by senators to lynch hundreds of coloreds. Segregation is really just slavery by another name, lynching is one of its proponents’ weapons,
• “Miss Greene. I’d like to introduce you to my partner in the gallery, Alfred Stieglitz.” <> The fellow, who has a thick mustache that makes him look older than his thirty-odd years, gives me a quick bow. Steichen and Stieglitz joined forces a few years ago to create not only this gallery—dubbed 291 for its address at 291 Fifth Avenue—but also the Photo-Secessionist movement to promote photography as a fine art. Both men are committed to elevating the reputation of their craft, in which they use a variety of painterly techniques to imbue their subjects with specific moods and meanings. But recently, they decided to display the latest modern art from Europe alongside photography,
• “With a few spare lines, Rodin somehow manages to convey movement and intention all at once,” I say, marveling at the manner in which the sculptor shares so much with so little.
• I explain to Mama that in the late fourteen hundreds, an English merchant and diplomat named William Caxton used the new printing technology invented by Johannes Gutenberg twenty years prior to make the first English-language books. “After all,” I point out, “Caxton not only made available a larger range of texts to English speakers but unified the English language. His books are important for not only historical and literary significance but also linguistic.”
• “I would hate to have traveled all this way only to return home empty-handed. In fact, I might become so despondent that I would be unable to attend the auction at all,” I say, my eyes downcast. <> He has many objets d’art and books listed in the catalog. The recusal of the Pierpont Morgan Library would affect the ultimate amount paid for those as well. Mr. Morgan is known for bidding high on many objects, and the others at the auction will likely assume I’ll do the same, thereby artificially increasing the prices.
• “Will you promise you won’t bid against me for the Caxtons at the auction tomorrow?” His tone is pleading and his eyes beseeching, and if I hadn’t been so ambitious and didn’t have this compulsion to succeed—and if I hadn’t already swept the Caxton collection out from under the auction—I might have been persuaded.
• Bernard Berenson: His main patron is that irritating Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston, where he’s from, and he styles himself as the preeminent authority on Italian Renaissance art.” <> Mr. Morgan has had little actual exposure to Mrs. Gardner, but it was enough that she had a private art collection that people were discussing favorably. He does not like competition.
• With your eye, you could ensure that the library artwork echoes Mr. Morgan’s Renaissance-inspired walls and decor. I’d love to see a Perugino or Botticelli on those red walls, so the paintings match the quality of the book collection you’ve assembled. You deserve to be surrounded by art equal to your talent.” He pauses. “And beauty.”
• “My mother is a woman before her time,” Rachel explains. “She is progressive in her attitudes about work—she undertakes projects right alongside Bernard—and she is forward thinking in her attitudes about relationships. ... Not only because of my family’s financial dependence but because a marriage means children, and that is something I cannot hazard. Without the fairer skin of my siblings, I could never risk bearing a child whose skin color might reveal my deception. <> Perhaps Bernard’s unique marriage could allow me to experience the man I desperately want to know better, without the danger that he’ll expect more from me than I can give.
• Bernard understands that a behind-the-scenes glimpse at my favorite museum is far more romantic than any lavish present or dinner date might be.
• A wave of relief passes through me that I’ve been directed to an activity, because I have no idea how one is meant to behave in situations such as these. Is there a script one follows when engaging in peccadilloes? I quickly banish the thought. I don’t want to think of our encounter in base terms, because in truth, my feelings for him are soaring.
• I act the part of the sophisticate and art expert among the country’s wealthiest people, while Katrina risks all to bring the constitutional right to vote to all women, and Evelyn models a truly free existence as an artist. I feel simultaneously rudderless and inspired by these old friends.
• Mr. Morgan treasures the two Memling paintings he already owns. I am telling him the truth; it would be a tremendous coup to have Memling’s only illuminated manuscript. The only untruth I utter is that I’m not entirely sold on the claim that the manuscript is indeed a Memling; I think it’s more likely to be a Simon Bening.
• Although Mary and Bernard continue with their lighthearted exchange—talking of London restaurants and upcoming auctions—their discussion happens without me, except for the occasional shake or nod of the head. I feel like a harlot. It is all I can do to remain at this table. How can I possibly be at ease with the wife of the man with whom I’m in love? The man with whom I’ve planned a romantic trip à deux in Italy.
• _ Imagine, I think, when I was a young girl, entranced by medieval and Renaissance artwork alongside Papa, if I had known that one day I’d stand before the hills that inspired my beloved masterpieces. With the man who wrote the definitive treatise on the art so treasured by me and Papa.
• Who is Bernard, really? The words he’d spoken tonight sounded like Russian. Perhaps the label Mr. Morgan spat out is the truth. Maybe Bernard is a Russian Jewish immigrant and Bernard Berenson isn’t even the name to which he’d been born but a name he assumed as he fashioned a place for himself in a world to which he didn’t belong. Much like Belle da Costa Greene.
• “Papa was friends with Charles Sumner?” Mama’s words stun me. How could Papa have been friends with the famous senator from Massachusetts who’d fought for the civil and voting rights for freed slaves after the war? <> “Well, of course,” Mama says. “Your father was friends with most of the men involved in the civil rights movement at the time. Frederick Douglass. Booker T. Washington. W. E. B. DuBois. Well, when he wasn’t having disputes with them over how best to secure equality, that is.”
• This morning has presented unique challenges. Three of Mr. Morgan’s four mistresses are in town for the season, and he’s assigned me the unpleasant task of keeping them separate when their visits overlap—which has occurred on three distinct occasions today, and it’s just approaching noon. All this on the morning of one of the highest-profile auctions I will ever attend,
• “Arabella’s nephew?” The familial relationship to my social acquaintance, the collector Arabella Huntington, becomes clearer. <> Alfred’s whisper drops to a near indiscernible level. “Some say that Henry is in love with Arabella, and that he is pursuing her now that his uncle—Arabella’s husband—has passed away.
• Caxton: “Fifty thousand dollars.” I signal to the auctioneer and my competitor that I will have this item. It is not an amount that I ever expected to say, but I’m determined to secure Mr. Morgan this coveted treasure.
• When did he stop asking me to read to him or play cards? <> Maybe it wasn’t the kiss. Perhaps it started a few months later when I became more sought after on the heels of the Caxton acquisition and the rumors grew about my supposed romantic relationships. Or was it this past April when we heard the terrible news about the Titanic? He was a part owner and was meant to sail on that fateful maiden voyage from England to New York.
• “I find that hard to believe.” After a puff on his cigar, he sends a large smoke ring in my direction. It encircles me, making me feel as if there is a noose around my neck.
• “You cannot treat me like something you have bought and paid for.” My voice quivers as I speak. “Like one of your manuscripts. Or—” The rest of the words hover on the tip of my tongue, begging to be released. Or a slave, I think over and over. <> Yes, I have lived my adult life as a white woman, but when I lay my head down at night I am as colored as the first enslaved African men and women who landed in this country three hundred years ago. After all my father has done to fight for equality, after all my mother has given up to ensure that I had the best opportunities, I will not permit myself to be spoken to as if I am owned. Not by Mr. Morgan, not by anyone.
• When Katrina sees my expression, she whispers, “We were just reciting a part of the Declaration of Sentiments from the Seneca Falls Convention.” I feel even worse. Shouldn’t I have known that? How out of touch with the critical issues of my gender and race I’ve allowed myself to become, I think. My independence seems self-focused and in name only; am I just a fraud?
• When a white waiter returns with my drink in place of the colored man, I know that I must stop behaving so recklessly, as if I’m going to make a decision about my race right here at the Martha Washington Hotel. There must be some other way I can appease my restlessness without risking my identity.
• Mary: “Belle, I don’t think you realize the effect you had—and continue to have—on Bernard,” she presses. “You managed to scale the wall around his heart that he built in his youth as a means of surviving a world filled with prejudice for people like him. It was difficult for him, a young boy from Lithuania living in Boston. I’m sure he’s told you the stories.”... I interrupt her. “I hardly think he’s been pining for the past three years, Mary. I’ve heard he’s been consoling himself with his new friend, Edith Wharton.”
• And while we still feel that we need to address my father’s somewhat objectionable and problematic practice of keeping as much as two-thirds of the family financial capital in artwork, perhaps we don’t have to divest the collection here at the library.
• Morgan Jr: Last year, while in England, Jack was attacked by a German sympathizer who’d learned of his financial support for England and France, quite against Wilson’s orders on neutrality for American citizens.
• --For the last six weeks, I’ve been out late too many nights and consumed too many glasses of fine wine. War hasn’t halted the high life in London; instead, it seems to have fueled it.
• How could this be true? Even if he only authenticates artwork that he truly finds to be worthy, the scheme stinks of self-dealing. If the art community learned of it, the arrangement would destroy Bernard’s reputation as the unbiased Italian Renaissance expert. I can’t even contemplate the possibility that he might authenticate pieces that don’t merit his attention.
• I now understand why Bernard betrayed me. He’d been in league with them for years, perhaps the entire time I’ve known him. And by offering them information about me and the Morgans, he was trying to prove himself valuable at a time when he’d outlived his usefulness.
• He shakes his head. “I don’t know why I told the Duveens about the Chinese porcelains. It was a mistake, a moment of weakness. But it was the only one.” His face appears earnest, but I know it’s willful oblivion. A reluctance on his part to acknowledge and own his culpability.
• “Move away,” they say, standing on either side of me. Together, they peel Bernard’s fingers off me, then hold him back while I hasten to the Rolls-Royce and climb inside.
• At first, I’m taken aback, but then, I suppose I usually visit the monument on March 31, the anniversary of Mr. Morgan’s death, when the site is prepared for visitors. <> But I need to visit with him today. Because this is the only suitable place to mourn the death of my father.
• anarchist attacks: Then, only five months later, a horse-drawn carriage pulled up in front of Jack’s offices and set off an explosion that extended half a mile and killed thirty-eight people, including several Morgan employees. Jack’s own thirty-year-old son Junius, who worked in the Morgan offices, narrowly escaped death.

https://www.wikiart.org/en/andrea-mantegna/san-zeno-altarpiece