Shakespeare practice

You can read literature with a Dharma eye, to develop insight. And you can work on issues along the way as well. For instance, I noticed my mind wandering when I was reading Richard the 3rd. Just like when my mind wanders when I'm watching my breath. Second, I noticed a need for patience, a very important virtue. I wanted Shakespeare to get to it, I lost the pleasure in the moment and language and drama. So I get to work on concentration and patience. But it's the insight that I like. Here is Queen Margaret (Margaret of Anjou) on impermanence:

I call'd thee then vain flourish of my fortune;
I call'd thee then poor shadow, painted queen;
The presentation of but what I was;
The flattering index of a direful pageant;
One heaved a-high, to be hurl'd down below;
A mother only mock'd with two sweet babes;
A dream of what thou wert, a breath, a bubble,
A sign of dignity, a garish flag,
To be the aim of every dangerous shot,
A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.
Where is thy husband now? where be thy brothers?
Where are thy children? wherein dost thou, joy?
Who sues to thee and cries 'God save the queen'?
Where be the bending peers that flatter'd thee?
Where be the thronging troops that follow'd thee?
Decline all this, and see what now thou art:
For happy wife, a most distressed widow;
For joyful mother, one that wails the name;
For queen, a very caitiff crown'd with care;
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues;
For one that scorn'd at me, now scorn'd of me;
For one being fear'd of all, now fearing one;
For one commanding all, obey'd of none.
Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about,
And left thee but a very prey to time;
Having no more but thought of what thou wert,
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not
Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?
Now thy proud neck bears half my burthen'd yoke;
From which even here I slip my weary neck,
And leave the burthen of it all on thee.
Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mischance:
These English woes will make me smile in France.

This is from Act 4, Scene 4. Queen Margaret was King Henry VI's wife, and then Edward took over, and then Edward died, and his brothers were erased, so that Richard could step into being king. So what we have in this part of the scene is Queen Margaret (H6) Queen Elizabeth (EIV) and Richard's mother all talking about how horrible he is. Then in parallel to Act 1, scene 2 (where he tried to get the widow of the murdered man to marry him), he works to convince the mother of the princes Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, that he should marry princess Elizabeth to consolidate the regime.  Another harrowing dialogue of the oily Richard trying to persuade of marriage to make a queen.

I probably alternate between this blog and my Shakespeare blog, where I read through Shakespeare chronologically, and now I am on my second reading of Shakespeare with the 2020 Shakespeare Project.