Do you have any keepsake you cherish, which you preserve in a private place, almost in secret, which from time to time you revisit with reverence because, well, you must? Which, if your world was burning down, you’d seize and save at any cost? Which, were it derided or debased, you’d defend with your life, as a Christian might the cross? Which you wear in your heart like an amulet, without which, you think, you could not survive? Do you wonder why this little scrap means so much you, more than you could ever express? Have you blushed at the intensity of your affection, should it ever be known?

My keepsakes are mostly music – songs without words, words without songs, songs with words. Today – hush! – let me offer a glimpse of one. For more than half a century its cadences have curled through my consciousness, sometimes snippets, sometimes gobbets, cautioning, counseling, consoling. You may know these words, even love them, but I doubt with such a disproportionate passion. Shakespeare made much precious music, more than anyone, but little else that invades and inspires me so. Though I know the speech by heart, I reread it at least annually syllable by syllable with exhausting exhilaration. The mystery of love! (I append it because it’s more than half a missive’s length.)

Richard II, a flighty, prodigal, fickle, irresponsible monarch in Shakespeare’s telling, has been deposed by his successor, and imprisoned in Pomfret Castle, where he’s likely to be bumped off. That Richard has been an abominable leader Shakespeare makes no bones, yet Shakespeare envisions the fallen king in his final hour with a passionate insight that persuades us the young playwright is describing himself. With nothing better to do – no subjects to command or papers to peruse – Richard sets himself to self-understanding. “I have been studying,” he tells us, “how I may compare this prison where I live unto the world.” But it’s not easy, his thought-exercise. The world is populous, and Richard is alone – that’s one difference – and his every observation seems to contain its contradiction.

And who is he, anyway? King or silly beggar? Hero or zero? Yes, alas, to all, a swarm of identities. “Thus play I in one person many people and none contented.” Will the real Richard please stand up! Not a chance. He is all of them – and dissatisfied with all. The more he explores the less he knows for sure. How hard it is to be human, so, so hard, but one certainty he gleans:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedNor I nor any man that but man isWith nothing shall be pleased, till he be easedWith being nothing.

Nonentity is our only reliable identity – inevitable for every human – so relax, acquiesce, accept your abysmal condition as the precondition of a quiet heart.

These words stun me for being mine. Richard, Shakespeare, “any man that but man is”, I should get over our vanity and self-importance and vain aspirations and be that most triumphant of accomplishments, a mere human being. Balm – and a bomb! What a shock – having been raised proud – not to matter!

Some people know who they are, no worries. Their outlook fits their actuality like a well-worn slipper a knobby foot. Writhing like Richard’s – or mine – they may deem odd, even psychotic. They focus on what to do in the world, not on who they are.

I envy their equanimity. But we must take ourselves as we find them, play the hand we’ve been dealt. I – and Richard – and his creator – are doomed to remorseless self-discovery – and wringing music from our findings.

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Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedI have been studying how I may compareThis prison where I live unto the world:And for because the world is populousAnd here is not a creature but myself,I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,My soul the father; and these two begetA generation of still-breeding thoughts,And these same thoughts people this little world,In humours like the people of this world,For no thought is contented. The better sort,As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'dWith scruples and do set the word itselfAgainst the word:As thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,'It is as hard to come as for a camelTo thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plotUnlikely wonders; how these vain weak nailsMay tear a passage through the flinty ribsOf this hard world, my ragged prison walls,And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.Thoughts tending to content flatter themselvesThat they are not the first of fortune's slaves,Nor shall not be the last; like silly beggarsWho sitting in the stocks refuge their shame,That many have and others must sit there;And in this thought they find a kind of ease,Bearing their own misfortunes on the backOf such as have before endured the like.Thus play I in one person many people,And none contented: sometimes am I king;Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar,And so I am: then crushing penuryPersuades me I was better when a king;Then am I king'd again: and by and byThink that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke,And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be,Nor I nor any man that but man isWith nothing shall be pleased, till he be easedWith being nothing.