The most obvious symbolism, and one that runs throughout
the play is the use of the soil or earth as a metaphor for the actual kingdom of England
itself. This isn't an original image, since one of the common understandings of the
role of a monarch is that he IS his people, he IS the land -- hence the use of the royal
"We" instead of "I," used by Richard II very frequently in this play. He considers
himself, as King, to be the land.
So, in this scene the
Queen sits in the garden with her waiting women, sad and without occupation. The
gardeners enter, and as the Queen listens to their conversation, it becomes clear that
the Gardener is likening an unweeded garden to the state of affairs in England. The
Gardener suggests that the King should have behaved more like a dedicated gardener and
make sure to pull the "weeds" and kill the "caterpillars" (those subjects who are
causing mischief in the "garden") so that the "fairest flowers," "wholesome herbs" and
"fruit trees" might flourish.
It is significant that the
Gardner, quite a low man on the totem pole in the kingdom, has common sense advice,
through the extended gardening metaphor that he employs, for the King. He sees that
King Richard has been the author of his own demise:
He that hath suffer'd this disorder'd
spring
Hath now himself met with the fall of
leaf.
The weeds which his broad-spreading leaves did
shelter,
That seem'd in eating him to hold him
up,
Are pluck'd up root and all by
Bolingbroke.
The Gardener
extends his use of metaphors here to include a timely symbol of the King's reign. The
King oversaw a very "disorder'd spring," so that he must reap the consequences at the
present, during the "fall of the leaf." In this way, Shakespeare implies that it is the
natural order of things, just as one season follows another, for a King who has misused
his power such as Richard to be swept away and replaced. This is the way of Nature in
the garden, and the way of the world at large.
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