‘So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf’ from King Henry VI Part 3
In this occasional series, we ask theatre insiders to pick a speech that strikes a chord with them. In part six, Shakespeare academic Dr Will Sharpe, shares his pick with writer Andy McLean.
When we caught up with Dr Will Sharpe in Stratford-upon-Avon (next door to William Shakespeare’s boyhood home, no less) we found him deeply immersed in Henry VI Part 3. Will is editing the play for the Arden Shakespeare Fourth Series, and is clearly relishing the task.
“This play is classic early Shakespeare – emotionally raw and powerful,” said Will. “And some of my favourite lines come near the end when Richard, Duke of Gloucester [the scoundrel who later becomes King Richard III], comes to the Tower of London to kill Henry, who is imprisoned there.
“Henry is a broken man by this stage. He’s lost everything he holds dear: his crown, his freedom, and his son,” Will continued. “His words so evocatively capture the depth of that grief. Through that almost homespun early imagery of elemental forces and classical mythology (Icarus and Daedalus), Shakespeare strips everything away to expose Henry’s devastation and hopelessness. But with Richard poised to strike, Henry makes surrendering the only thing he has left – his life – an unexpectedly defiant final stand against him.”
Here is some of Henry and Richard’s remarkable exchange, from Act 5 Scene 6:
Henry:
So flies the reckless shepherd from the wolf;
So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece
And next his throat unto the butcher’s knife.
What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?
Richard:
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
Henry:
The bird that hath been limèd in a bush,
With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush;
And I, the hapless male to one sweet bird,
Have now the fatal object in my eye
Where my poor young was limed, was caught, and
killed.
Richard:
Why, what a peevish fool was that of Crete
That taught his son the office of a fowl!
And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drowned.
Henry:
I Daedalus, my poor boy Icarus,
Thy father Minos, that denied our course;
The sun that seared the wings of my sweet boy
Thy brother Edward, and thyself the sea
Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.
Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
My breast can better brook thy dagger’s point
Than can my ears that tragic history.
Bell Shakespeare will present a Play In A Day reading of the preceding play in this triad, Henry VI Part 2, in Sydney on 15 September 2026. Dr Will Sharpe is the author of Shakespeare & Collaborative Writing (Oxford University Press) and a Teaching Fellow in Shakespeare at the University of Birmingham in the UK.
