Pythagorean Proportion and Music of the Spheres inRichard II

“The Pythagoreans … defined justice unqualifiedly as reciprocity.”(Aristotle,Eth. Nic.V. 8. 1132b 21)It is one of time's ironies thatRichard II, once troublesome to scholars for its “imperfection,” is now enjoying increasing appreciation for unity and harmony. One modern analysis of imagery even recognizes the play as “a succession of balances” whose theme advances “almost as the proof of a mathematical proposition”(italics mine). Other recent scholarship speaks in terms of a “symphony” of repeated key words and balanced scenes, and still another study defends its “emotional consistency,” and “logical continuity.”Clearly, in spite of some diminution of quality in later acts, what emerges in the end-product is a well-balanced, well-tuned, completely metrical mechanism, whose major moving parts signify interaction, change, and integration in the realms of personal, political, and cosmic order, with an appropriate counterpoint of Pythagorean imagery, e.g., “heaven,” “soul,” “balance,” “time,” and “music” or “harmony.”