As did 22 Æneas old Anchises bear, So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders; Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine. [Exit. Enter RICHARD PLANTAGENET and SOMERSET fighting, and Rich. So, lie thou there; For underneath an alehouse' paltry sign, Hath made the wizard famous in his death.- Sword, 24hold thy temper; heart, be wrathful still : Alarums: excursions. 22. See J. Cæs., 1. 2. 120. 23. See above, i. 4. 34. Enter King HENRY, Queen MAR GARET, and others, retreating. Q. Mar. Away, my lord! you're slow; for shame, away! ness. 25. See above, 1, note (d). K. Hen. Can we 26 outrun the heavens? good Margaret, 26. So as to escape stay. Q. Mar. What are you made of? you'll nor fight nor fly: To give the enemy way; and to secure us [Alarum afar off. If you be ta'en, we then should see the bottom Re-enter young CLIFFORD. Y. Clif. But that my heart's on future mischief set, I would speak blasphemy ere bid you fly: But fly you must; uncurable 28 discomfit To see their 30 day, and them our fortune give: 80 [Exeunt. 90 their decrees. 27. Who can do. 28. Discomfiture, discouragement. 29. See above, 35. 30. I.e., of defeat. 1. Injury. 2. Height. 3. Whatever happens. 4. See Cor., II. 2. 101; 1 K. Henr. 4, v. 1. 122. 5. See iv. 7. 7. 6. See above, 10. SCENE III-Fields near Saint Alban's. Alarums: retreat. Flourish; then enter YORK, RICHARD PLANTAGENET, WARWICK, and Soldiers, with drum and colours. York. Old Salisbury, who can report of him,— Aged contusions and all 1brush of time, Three times to-day I holp him to his horse, But still, where danger was, still there I met him; Enter SALISBURY. Sul. Now, by my sword, well hast thou fought to-day; And it hath pleas'd him that "three times to-day 7. Secured, got full Well, lords, we have not got that which we have: possession of. 8. Enemies who will be apt to rally: 8 Being opposites of such repairing nature. York. I know our safety is to follow them; War. After them! nay, before them, if we can. 20 30 [Exeunt. NOTES ON KING HENRY VI. PART II. ACT I.-Scene 1. (a) "Suffolk's elevation to the rank of duke did not take place till three years afterwards."-COURTENAY, p. 261. (b) "There is sad confusion here as to Warwick. The Warwick of the play is clearly intended to be the younger Neville, son of Salisbury; but he did not attain the title until 1449; Beauchamp, his brother-in-law and predecessor, died in the year of the present scene, 1445; but he it was who had distinguished himself in France, though it was Neville himself who acquired popularity."COURTENAY, p. 269. Scene 3. (a) This refers to the next scene. "Whatever part Beaufort may have had in that affair, Queen Margaret certainly had none. Though Suffolk announces it to the queen, as a contrivance to get the duchess out of her way, it really occurred three years before she came to England [see Holinshed, p. 204]."-COURTENAY, p. 272. (b) "The scene of the dropped fan, and the box of the ear, and the descriptive tirade [see above, 72-84, commended by Mrs Jameson as a burst of female spite which is admirable'] are imaginary." -COURTENAY, p. 272. (c) "For," at the beginning of the line above, may have so easily led to its repetition by a careless copyist at the beginning of this, that I have ventured to substitute "since." Scene 4. (a) Dyce remarks that the text in that place is "manifestly corrupted and mutilated." As commonly received, it stands thus : "Come, come, my lords; These oracles are hardly attain'd And hardly understood." : Theobald proposed to read "hardily" in the second line, for the sake of the metre; and this was accepted by Dyce in his first edition: but in his second he rejected it, thinking, with Collier, that "the poet would scarcely have written 'hardily' in one line and 'hardly' in the next." I have ventured upon a correction, which, while it meets that objection, remedies the metre, and affords a suitable meaning. ACT II.-Scene 1. (a) "The second act exhibits the court hawking at St Albans, renews the quarrel between Gloucester and the Cardinal, and exhibits the Queen taking a decided part against the Lord Protector. The Cardinal, churchman as he is, agrees to fight a duel with Gloster; indeed makes the first overture towards this method of settling the dispute, for which there is no known authority. The Queen's part is taken from Holinshed."-COURTENAY, p. 275. (b) Dyce remarks: "I know not how to treat this line, which is unmetrical, and hardly gives the sense required by the context. The earlier editors altered it in two ways, and very violently: Pope reading And Capell 'Before your highness to present the man ;' 'Here are the townsmen on procession Come to present,' &c." I have ventured to insert " For" before "to," as a simpler remedy. [I see Keightley has made the same suggestion.] ACT III.-Scene 1. (a) Dyce, Variorum, Globe, Leopold, &c., all following the folio, print "My lords, at once:" with a colon; and Knight has even a full stop. But is this right? Even if it were allowable and Shakspearian English, it is not in keeping with the king's character to be so peremptory. A comma, which I find only in Schmidt's Lexicon, gives, I think, the true construction. See note in margin. = intelli (b) I have not scrupled to make that line metrical by printing "note" for "notice." Besides the reference given in the margin, see King Henry VIII., i. 2. 52, and other examples of "note gence, information, knowledge," in Schmidt's Lex.,' 9. (c) The reading of that line, as it commonly stands"As Humphrey prov'd by reasons to my liege " is complained of by Johnson as "very much perplexed," and by M. Mason as "absolutely nonsense." Hanmer proposed "Humphrey's" (ie., is), which I have followed; and I have also adopted "treason," which occurred to Johnson, but was rejected by him, without, I think, sufficient cause, for "reasons." Scene 2. (a) "The obscure story of the arrest and death of Gloucester will, it may be safely assumed, never be cleared up; and the depth of the darkness that covers it has inevitably been made the occasion of broadcast accusations and suspicions of every sort. . . . On the whole, the evidence, both of direct statement and of silence among contemporary writers, tends to the belief that Gloucester's death was owing to natural causes, probably to a stroke of paralysis; his arrest, to some design in which all the leading lords were partakers." -STUBBS, p. 135, and p. 137. Shakspeare has followed Holinshed, who, quoting Hall, says, that "all indifferent persons might well understand that he died some violent death."-P. 211. (b) "I have already shown [see i. 1, note (b)] that there was no Earl of Warwick in 1447. And I find neither in Holinshed nor in more authentic records any popular commotion or interference on the part of the Commons at this time; I say the Commons, because I think it clear that, though in one place the men of Bury' are spoken of [below, in this scene, 241], those who threaten to break into the king's presence are intended to be 'the Commons in Parliament assembled.' . . . Therefore, the language in which Suffolk speaks of the representatives of the people, below, at v. 272, ''Tis like the Commons,' &c., is a gratuitous interpolation by the dramatist. Three years afterwards, it is true, Suffolk was impeached; but no one of the charges against him—which, being in Holinshed, were before Shakspeare - mentions the death of Gloucester." - COURTENAY, p. 283, sq. The sentence of Suffolk's banishment, though antedated in the play, was passed by the king, or at least pronounced by his immediate command.-See below, act iv. 1, note (h). |