Class Bnnfcr y4 7 fa fifyiMif W IP ^ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. HISTORY OF HENRIE THE FOYRTH; With the battellat Shrewsturie ? betweene the King and Lord Henry Percy , (urnamed HcnrieHotfpur of the North. With the humorous conceits of Sir IohnFalftalffe. AT LONDON, Printed by P. S. for tAndrewWife, dwelling in Paules Churchyards the fignc of theAogelL l%9%+ Facsimile of Title-Page, First Quarto OJ^JUeo^n C %1^J^4^^>^ KING HENRY THE FOURTH PART I INTRODUCTION JTO NOTES W HENKfNORMAN HUDSON, LLDT^ EDITED AND ILEVrSEDBY EBENEZER CHARITON BLACK LL-D- (GLASGOW) 2nS^ GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON NEWYORK CHICAGO LONDON ATLANTA DALLAS COLUMBUS SAN FRANCISCO 2 3 M TO ^ **<*> Entered at Stationers' Hall Copyright, 18S0 By HENRY N. HUDSON Copyright, 1908 By KATE W. HUDSON Copyright, 1922 By GINN AND COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 422.9 DEC -6 i 3Ebe gtftengum grcgg GINN AND COMPANY • PRO- PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. CI A 6 922 3 3 PREFACE The text of this edition of King Henry the Fourth, Part I, is based on a collation of the earlier Quartos and the seventeenth century Folios, the Globe edition, the Cambridge (W. A. Wright) edition of 1891, and that of Delius (1882). As compared with the text of the earlier editions of Hudson's Shakespeare, it is conservative. Ex- clusive of changes in spelling, punctuation, and stage di- rections, very few emendations by eighteenth century and nineteenth century editors have been adopted ; and these, with the more important variations from the First Folio, are indicated in the textual notes. These notes are printed immediately below the text, so that a reader or student may see at a glance the evidence in the case of a disputed reading, and have some definite understanding of the rea- sons for those differences in the text of Shakespeare which frequently surprise and very often annoy. Such an ar- rangement should be of special help in the case of a play so widely read and not infrequently acted, as actors and interpreters seldom agree in adhering to one text. A con- sideration of the more poetical, or the more dramatically effective, of two variant readings will often lead to rich results in awakening a spirit of discriminating interpreta- tion and in developing true creative criticism. In no sense is this a textual variorum edition. The variants given are only those of importance and high authority. Vi THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE The spelling and the punctuation of the text are mod- ern, except in the case of verb terminations in -ed, which, when the e is silent, are printed with the apostrophe in its place. This is the general usage in the First Folio. The important contractions in the First Folio which may in- dicate Elizabethan pronunciation (T th" for 'in the/ 'wond'red' for 'wonder'd,' for example) are also followed. Modern spelling has to a certain extent been adopted in the text variants, but the original spelling has been re- tained wherever its peculiarities have been the basis for important textual criticism and emendation. With the exception of the position of the textual vari- ants, the plan of this edition is similar to that of the old Hudson Shakespeare. It is impossible to specify the vari- ous instances of revision and rearrangement in the matter of the Introduction and the interpretative notes, but the endeavor has been to retain all that gave the old edition its unique place and to add the results of what seems vital and permanent in later inquiry and research. In this edi- tion, as in the volumes of the series already published, the chapters entitled Sources, Date of Composition, Early Editions, Versification and Diction, Duration of Action, Dramatic Construction and Development with Analysis by Act and Scene, and Stage History are wholly new. In this edition, too, is introduced a chronological chart cover- ing the important events of Shakespeare's life as man and as author, and indicating in parallel columns his relation to contemporary writers and events. As a guide to read- ing clubs and literary societies, there has been appended to the Introduction a table of the distribution of charac- ters in the play, giving the acts and scenes in which each PREFACE vii character appears and the number of lines spoken by each. The index of words and phrases has been so ar- ranged as to serve both as a glossary and as a guide to the more important grammatical differences between Elizabethan and modern English. While it is important that the principle of suum cuique be attended to so far as is possible in matters of research and scholarship, it is becoming more and more difficult to give every man his own in Shakespearian annotation. The amount of material accumulated is so great that the identity-origin of much important comment and sugges- tion is either wholly lost or so crushed out of shape as to be beyond recognition. Instructive significance perhaps attaches to this in editing the works of one who quietly made so much of materials gathered by others. But the list of authorities given on page lv will indicate the chief source of much that has gone to enrich the value of this edition. Especial acknowledgment is here made of the obligations to Dr. William Aldis Wright and Dr. Hor- ace Howard Furness, whose work in the collation of Quartos, Folios, and the more important English and American editions of Shakespeare has been of so great value to all subsequent editors and investigators. With regard to the general plan of this revision of Hud- son's Shakespeare, Professor W. P. Trent, of Columbia University, has offered valuable suggestions and given important advice. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Page . . . xi I. Sources The Political Action Holinshed's Chronicles Hall's Chronicle Stow's Annals Daniel's Civil Wars The Comic Scenes The Famous Victories oe Henry the Fifth .' xvi The Name 'Falstaff' xvu II. Date of Composition External Evidence xxm Internal Evidence XX1V XXV III. Early Editions « ... xxv Quartos ... xxvi toLio:: XXVll Rowe's Editions IV Versification and Diction xxvm TT ... xxvm Blank Verse Alexandrines . . . xxx Rhyme .... xxxi Prose V. Dramatic Construction and Development . . xxxii Analysis by Act and Scene XXX1U xxxvii VI. Duration of Action P. A. Daniel's Time Analysis xxxvm ix X THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE Page VII. Historical Connections xxxix Genealogical Table xl VIII. The Characters xlii The King xlii Hotspur xliii Glendower xliv The Prince xliv Falstaff xlvi IX. Stage History xlix The Seventeenth Century 1 The Eighteenth Century lii The Nineteenth Century lii Authorities (with Abbreviations) lv Chronological Chart lvi Distribution of Characters lx THE TEXT Act I 3 Act II 36 Act III 79 Act IV in Act V 130 Index of Words and Phrases 155 FACSIMILE Title-Page, First Quarto Frontispiece INTRODUCTION Note. In citations from Shakespeare's plays and nondramatic poems the numbering has reference to the Globe edition, except in the case of this play, where the reference is to this edition. I. SOURCES The ultimate source of all Shakespeare's plays which are based directly on English history, is that fervor of na- tional enthusiasm which characterized the closing decade of the sixteenth century in England. It is significant that the serious Elizabethan drama began in patriotism and had a distinct political motive. The perils and difficulties of a nation rent asunder by bitterly opposing factions confronted Queen Elizabeth at the beginning of her reign, and when Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, both of them soon to be recognized as shrewd political leaders, wrote Gorboduc, the first regular English tragedy, their main object was to warn the English people of the danger in a kingdom divided against itself and to show the maiden queen the perils involved in uncertainty as to legitimate succession to a throne. The story material of Gorboduc was taken from British legendary history, and blank verse, destined to be the great national measure, was here used for the first time in an original English play. With the steady growth of national spirit devel- oped the taste for chronicle plays dealing with the his- tory of the nation in its formative period. The national xii THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE drama grew up with the increasing pride of nation. In the defeat of the Armada this national consciousness reached full tide, and when Shakespeare began to write for the stage, the chronicle play dealing with stirring mo- ments in the story of Britain was the dominant type of serious drama. Alert and sensitive to contemporary in- fluences, as a popular writer for the theatre must be, Shakespeare wrote ten history plays, which, beginning in imitation and collaboration, show steadily increasing power and originality till they culminate in a supreme trilogy — two plays on the reign of Henry the Fourth and one on that of Henry the Fifth, the hero king who won the battle of Agincourt. The Political Action i. Holinshed' s Chronicles} As in his other plays deal- ing with English history, Shakespeare derived the great body of his material for King Henry the Fourth from the Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, of Raphael Holinshed (Holynshed, Hollynshed, Holling- shead, etc.), first published in two folio volumes in 1577. A second edition appeared in 1 586-1 587, "newlie aug- mented and continued." In this second edition are many significant changes in the text, and the fact that Shake- speare adopts these 2 strengthens the conclusion that this 1 In W. G. Boswell-Stone's Shakspere's Holinshed are given all the portions of the Chronicles which are of special interest to the student of Shakespeare. 2 For example, * pick-thanks,' used by Shakespeare in III, ii, 25, is found only in the second edition of the Chronicles. Boswell-Stone gives many proofs of this kind from the various plays in which Shakespeare takes material directly from Holinshed. INTRODUCTION xiii was the edition used by him. It is interesting to find that many of Holinshed's inaccuracies are repeated in the play. Among these may be mentioned the confusing of Edward Mortimer, the second son of the first Earl of March, with his nephew, the Earl of March, who was legitimate heir to the throne (I, iii, 84, see note), and the naming of the Earl of Fife as son to the conquered Doug- las (I, i, 71-72, see note). Everywhere in King Henry the Fourth the source material is treated with much more freedom than in the case of the earlier history plays, such as King Richard the Second. Among the more striking deviations from the Chronicles are: (1) the change in the ages of King Henry and Hotspur, who for the pur- pose of dramatic contrast is made exactly the same age as Prince Henry; (2) the shifting of the reconciliation between the king and the prince (III, ii) to a much earlier period than Holinshed allows; (3) the representation of the prince as the rescuer of his father and the victor over Hotspur (V, iv) ; (4) the absence of Glendower and his Welsh adherents from the battle of Shrewsbury; and (5) the introduction of Prince John of Lancaster, Lady Percy, and Lady Mortimer, who are not mentioned by Holinshed in the narrative of the first part of the Percy rebellion. Some of these changes were probably due to the influence of Daniel, who in the fourth book of his epic poem, The Civil Wars (see below), traverses the same historical ground and arranges his matter as a poet would. Shakespeare's deviations from Holinshed and from the bald facts of history are in the interests of dramatic economy, dramatic time, and artistic effectiveness. The essential facts are not altered. He deals with source xiv THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE material as Scott did in his historical novels, and as Turner treated the features of a landscape in his pictures of places. Shakespeare selects and arranges details to get the spirit of a movement and the imaginative truth of a series of events. 2. Hall's Chronicle. For not a few of the minor inci- dents and details of his historical plays Shakespeare draws on what is usually called Hall's Chronicle, the original title of which is The Union of the Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and York, by Edward Hall (Halle), first published in 1542. In at least one passage in King Henry the Fourth, Part I (III, i, 149-^50), is obvious in- debtedness to this source. While Holinshed reports " a vaine prophesie, as though King Henrie was the moldwarpe . . . and they three were the dragon, the lion, and the woolfe, which should diuide this realme betweene them," no mention is made of Merlin. In Hall's Chronicle is this passage: "a certayne writer writeth that this earle of Marche, the Lorde Percy and Owen Glendor wer vn- wysely made beleue by a Welsh Prophecier that king Henry was the Moldwarpe ... by the deuiacion and not deuinacion of that mawmet 1 Merlyne." Merlin is also credited with the prophecy in The Legend of Glen- dour in The Mirrour for Magistrates, 1559. 3. Stow's Annals. Another of Shakespeare's source books in English history is Annates, or a General Chronicle of England from Brut until the present yeare of Christ, 1580, by John Stow (Stowe). Stow, one of the early editors of Chaucer, was a diligent historian and antiquary, and assisted in the continuation of Holinshed's Chron- iCf. II, iii, 91. INTRODUCTION xv ides. In the Annals he gives some details of the "recrea- tion " robberies in which Prince Henry indulged, and says : "accompanied with some of his yong Lords and gentle- men, he would wait in disguised aray for his owne re- ceiuers, and distresse them of their money ; and sometimes at such enterprises both he and his company were surely beaten: and when his receiuers made to him their com- plaints how they were robbed in their comming vnto him, hee would give them discharge of so much money as they had lost ; and, besides that, they should not depart from him without great rewards for their trouble and vexa- tion." So in II, iv, 540-541, Shakespeare makes Prince Henry say in regard to the booty taken from the travelers on Gadshill, "The money shall be paid back again with advantage." 4. Daniel 7 s Civil Wars. Entered in The Stationers 7 Registers, October, 1594, and published in the following year, was an interesting historical poem in ottava rima by Samuel Daniel, entitled The First Four Bookes of the Civil Wanes between the Howses of Lancaster and Yorke. In the fourth book the subject is the reign of Henry the Fourth, and here Shakespeare's more noteworthy devia- tions from Holinshed, mentioned above, are anticipated. In a remarkable passage, too, Daniel refers to "wrong- revenging Nemesis" dogging the king because he is an usurper — a significant suggestion of the brooding fears which Shakespeare attributes to him (III, ii, 4-7) as the result of what in King Henry the Fourth, Part II (IV, v, 185-186), he is made to describe as the "by-paths and indirect crook'd ways I met this crown." xvi THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE The Comic Scenes 5. The Famous Victories 0) Henry the Fifth. Shake- speare's subplots and comic scenes are usually of his own invention, and nothing in humorous literature is more original in its general spirit and atmosphere than the glorious comedy associated with Falstaff and his fellows. The mere letter of this matter is developed from a crude anonymous chronicle play entered in The Stationers' Registers, 1594, under the title The famous victories of HENR YE the FFYFTH conteyninge the honorable battell of Agin-court. This play was acted as early as 1588 and printed in 1598 "as it was plaide by the Queenes Maies- ties Players." In the first half the old tavern in East- cheap is mentioned as the scene of the prince's revelries ; much is made of his association with such boon compan- ions as Sir John Oldcastle (familiarly known as 'Jockey' and the original name of Falstaff in Shakespeare's play), Ned (Poins's name is c Edward'), Gadshill, and the Host- ess; here is a carrier journeying to London with a " great rase of ginger" (II, i, 22), and with no small gusto is represented the robbery of the king's receivers at Gads- hill, followed by the tavern quarrel which leads to the intervention of the sheriff. One passage, in which Dericke and John Cobler act out the arraignment of the prince before the chief justice, when the prince gives his lordship a box on the ear and is immediately committed to prison, may be quoted as showing a very probable suggestion for the bit of splendid comedy (II, iv, 370-472) where Falstaff and Prince Henry enact an imaginary meeting between the prince and his father : INTRODUCTION xvn Dericke. Faith John, He tell thee what, thou shalt be my Lord Chiefe Justice, and thou shalt sit in the chaire, And ile be the yong Prince, and hit thee a box on the eare, And then thou shalt say, to teach you what prerogatives meane, I commit you to the Fleete. John. Come on, Ile be your Judge, But thou shalt not hit me hard. Dericke. No, no. John. What hath he done? Dericke. Marry he hath robd Dericke. John. Why then I cannot let him goe. Dericke. I must needs have my man. John. You shall not have him. Dericke. Shall I not have my man, say no and you dare. How say you, shall I not have my man ? John. No marry shall you not. Dericke. Shall I not John? John. No Dericke. Dericke. Why then take you that till more come, Sownes, shall I not have him? John. Well I am content to take this at your hand, But I pray you who am I ? Dericke. Who art thou, Sownds, doost not know thy selfe? John. No. Dericke. Now away simple fellow, Why, man, thou art John the Cobler. John. No, I am my Lord Chiefe Justice of England. Dericke. Oh John, Masse thou saist true, thou art indeed. John. Why then, to teach you what prerogatives mean, I com- mit you to the Fleete. The Name 'Falstaff' The original name of Falstaff in both parts of King Henry the Fourth was Oldcastle. This is established be- yond question by evidence internal (within the two plays) and external (contemporary references and allu- xviii THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE sions). In Part I, I, ii, 40-41, Prince Henry calls Fal- staff "my old lad of the castle." In II, ii, 106, the metrically defective line, "Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death," is made normal when 'Oldcastle' is substituted for 'Falstaff.' In Part II, III, ii, 25-26, Falstaff is said to have been "page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk," as the historical Oldcastle actually was; and in the Quarto version the abbreviation c 01d.' is actually left standing before one of Falstaff's speeches (I, i, 113-115). But the most important internal evidence is the explicit statement in the Epilogue of Part II, 27- 30: "for any thing I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already a be kill'd with your hard opinions ; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man." Sir John Oldcastle, "the good Lord Cobham," was a famous Lollard who suffered martyrdom early in the fifteenth century. After his death his character was held up to ridicule and worse by his enemies, who circulated the story that he was a glutton, a profligate, and above all a corrupter of Prince Henry. This is the Oldcastle of The Famous Victories, and there is evidence that Henry Brooke, eighth Lord Cobham, son of Elizabeth's Lord Chamberlain, who claimed descent from Oldcastle, took steps to check the degradation of the memory of the dis- tinguished martyr. 1 One interesting attempt to offset the vilification of Oldcastle on the public stage was made in a play in two parts, acted in 1599, and entered in The Stationers' Registers, August 11, 1600, under the title x "By a curious coincidence, Cooling Castle, the property of Old- castle's third wife, where he shut himself up for a time in 1413, is situate in the vicinity of Gadshill."— A. W. Ward. INTRODUCTION xix History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, with his Martyrdom. Of two early editions of the first part of this counterblast one has Shakespeare's name impudently foisted on the title-page. This use of his name may have led to its inclusion among Shakespeare's writings in the Third Folio/ and to its being recognized by Schlegel and Tieck as unquestionably by Shakespeare. 2 The Prologue makes clear that it was intended as a reply to Shakespeare's treatment of the famous knight : It is no pampered glutton we present, Nor aged Councellor to youthful sinne; But one whose vertue shone above the rest, A valiant martyr and a vertuous Peere. Such agitation as these facts indicate unquestionably led Shakespeare to substitute the name of Falstaff for that of Oldcastle. According to Nicholas Rowe (1674- 17 18), Shakespeare's earliest biographer, who preserves many traditions, collected for him at Stratford and else- 1 "Unto this impression," runs the title-page of the second issue of the Third Folio, 1664, "is added seven Playes never before printed in folio, viz. : Pericles, Prince of Tyre. The London Prodigal. The History of Thomas Ld. Cromwell. Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cob- ham. The Puritan Widow. A Yorkshire Tragedy. The Tragedy of Locrine." Pericles has of course its rightful place in the Shakespeare canon ; the other six are spurious pieces which had been attributed by unscrupulous publishers to Shakespeare in his lifetime. They may be called the Shakespeare Apocrypha. 2 The real authorship is made fairly clear by an entry in Hens- lowe's Diary, October 16, 1599: "payd for the first part of the Lyfe of Sir Jhon Ouldcastell, and in earnest of the Second Pte. for the use of the company, ten Pound." The money was received by "Thomas Downton to paye Mr. Monday, Mr. Drayton, Mr. Wilson and Hathaway." xx THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE where by Thomas Betterton, the famous actor, the change was due to a court command: "This part of Falstaff is said to have been written originally under the name of Oldcastle ; some of that family being then remaining, the Queen was pleas'd to command him to alter it; upon which he made use of Falstaff." The change had been made before the play was licensed for publication, Feb- ruary 25, 1 597-1 598, for the entry in The Stationers' Registers reads "with the conceipted mirthe of Sir John Falstaff." Illuminating evidence regarding the change of name and contemporary criticism thereon is found irt the writings of Thomas Fuller (1 608-1 661) and others. In The Church History 0) Britain Fuller speaks with en- thusiasm of the change: "Stage-poets have themselves been very bold with, and others very merry at the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, whom they have fancied a boon companion, a jovial royster, and a coward to boot. The best is, Sir John Fastolfe hath relieved the memory of Sir John Oldcastle, and of late is substituted buffoon in his place." Later, in The History of the Worthies of England, Fuller condemns the use of the name of the historical Sir John Fastolf and comments sarcastically on the changed spelling : "To avouch him by many arguments valliant is to maintain that the sun is bright, though since, the stage has been overbold with his memory, mak- ing him a thrasonical puff and emblem of mock valour. True it is, Sir John Oldcastle did first bear the brunt, being made the makesport in plays for a coward. Now, as I am glad that Sir John Oldcastle is put out, so am I sorry that Sir John Fastolfe is put in to relieve his INTRODUCTION xxi memory in this base service, to be the anvil for every dull wit to strike upon. Nor is our comedian excusable by some alteration of his name, writing him Sir John Falstaff (and making him the property and pleasure of King Henry V. to abuse) seeing the vicinity of sounds in- trench on the memory of that worthy knight, and few do heed the inconsiderable difference in spelling." 1 Fuller here refers to Sir John Fastolf of Caister (circa i37 8 ~ 1459), often referred to in The Paston Letters, who like Oldcastle was a Lollard and, strangely enough, the owner of a Boar's-Head Tavern in Southwark. He won dis- tinction in the French wars and was named lieutenant of Harfleur under Henry the Fifth. After the defeat at Patay he was charged with cowardice and deprived of the Garter, but the charge was afterwards disproved and the Garter restored. In King Henry the Sixth, Part I, he is represented as a coward deserting the post of danger and rightfully deprived of his knight's honors and banished. Halliwell-Phillipps, in his essay On the Character of Fal- staff, quotes from an Oxford scholar, Dr. Richard James, who' about 1625, protested that Shakespeare, after of- fending Oldcastle's descendants by giving his < buffoon' the name of that noble martyr, "was put to make an ignorant shift of abusing Sir John Fastolf, a man not inferior in vertue, though not so famous .in piety." Simi- larly George Daniel, the seventeenth century poet, com- plains of the way in which Shakespeare had made use of Fastolf's honored name to escape the charge of having iln the earlier Quartos Falstaff 's name is usually spelled Day 1a. robbery at Gadshill planned. Act II, Scene i. Inn^i yard at Rochester. Act II, Scene ii. Gads- hill. The robbery. ► Day 2a. Act II, Scene iv. The Boar's-Head, East- cheap. Prince Hal,^ Falstaff, etc., at night and early morning. = Act III, Scene ii. At Court. Day 3a. INTRODUCTION xxxix of the insurgents is received. This Day 5 is also a continua- tion of Day 3a, which com- mences in Act II, Scene iv. Day 6. Act III, Scene Hi. East- cheap. Prince Hal informs Falstaff of his appointment to a charge of foot for the wars. The morrow of Day 5. Interval: a week. Day 7. Act IV, Scene i. Rebel camp near Shrewsbury. Interval: a few days. Day 8. Act IV, Scene ii. Near Coventry. Falstaff with his ragged regiment. Day 9. Act IV, Scene Hi. The rebel camp. Blunt comes with offers of peace from the king. Act IV, Scene iv. York. The Archbishop prepares for the good or ill fortune of the morrow. Day 10. Act V, Scenes i-v. The battle of Shrewsbury. VII. HISTORICAL CONNECTIONS The following table, pages xl and xli, gives the more im- portant historical characters of King Henry the Fourth and shows in what other plays of Shakespeare they, their ancestors, or their descendants are either mentioned or appear as dramatis persona?. A study of this table will show the significant way in which the ten historical plays, dealing with the formative period of England's political development, are interrelated. xl THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE HISTORICAL Edward III '327-1377 H 5 1 Edward 1 Williarr Lionel Philippa <■ » (3) Catharine Swynford = the Black d. 1335 Duke of Clar- Roet (?) Prince ence d. 1369 Geoffrey Duke of 1 Aquitaine = Chaucer (?) Thomas Ralph Joan d. 1376 (1) Elizabeth 1 Beaufort Neville = Beaufort H5 de Burgh Thomas Earl of Earl of 1 Chaucer Dorset West- Joan of Philippa = Duke of moke- Kent (I) the = Matilda Exeter LAND Fair Maid Edmund Burghersh d. 1425 d. 1425 Mortimer Michael H5 H4 12 H5 RICHARD II Earl of de la Pole 1377-1399 March Earl of R2 1 Suffolk — Anne Morti- d. 1415 (1) Anne of mer H 5 Bohemia (See descend- 1 (2) Isabella ants of Ed- (3) William of France mund Langley de la Pole = 1 Uice = (2) Thomas Montague R2 Duke of York) Earl of Suffolk Earl of Salisbury d. 1428 exc. 1450 H6i H 5 Signs and Abbreviations in the Tables Charles de la Bret Constable of France k.A. 1415 H5 1- d.= exc.= k.= k.A.= R 2 = R3 = H4 1 - H 4 * = H6' = H6 2 = H63 = H = = Kj = direct descent from married to brother or sister brother or sister of the half blood died executed killed killed at Agincourt one of the dramatis persona? in Richard II do. Richard III do. 1 Henry IV do. 2 Henry IV do. / Henry VI do. 2 Henry VI do. J Henry VI do. Henry V do. King John Italics indicate that the person is only mentioned in the play. Numerals in parentheses before a name indicate a first, second, or third marriage. Nu- merals after a king's reign indicate the dates of his reign. (2) Owen Tudor = Edmund Tudor I Henry Tudor Earl of Richmond HENRY VII TUDOR 1485-1509 H6 3 R 3 INTRODUCTION xli CONNECTIONS = Philippa of Hainault I d- 1369 1 John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster d. 1399 R2 (2) Constance of Castile (1) Blanche of Lancaster Chaucer's ' Duchesse ' ? d. 1369 Henry Bolingbroke Earl of Derby Duke of Hereford Duke of Lancaster HENRY IV LANCASTER 1399-1413 R2 H4 13 (2) Joan of Navarre d. 1437 (i)Maryde Bohun d. 1394 Edmund Langley =(2) Joan of Kent (II) Duke of York d. 1402 R2 ■ (1) Isabella of Castile, d. 1393 I Duchess of York R2 (3) Henry, 3 Baron Scrope of Masham Lord Scroop exc. 1415 H 5 Thomas Duke of Gloucester d. 1397 Edward Earl of Rutland Duke of Aumerle Duke of York k.A. 1415 R2 H5 Richard Earl of Cambridge exc. 1415 H S Anne Mortimer I Richard Plantagenet Duke of York d. 1460 H6 123 Constance Thomas Despenser d. 1400 Isabella. Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick d. 1439 H 5 I EDWARD IV 1461-1483 R 3 H6 2 * Elisabeth R3 Edmund Earl of Rutland H63 I George Dukeof Clarence d. 1479 H6 3 R3 RICHARD III 1483-1485 H623 R3 Edward of Wales EDWARD V R3 Richard Duke of York R3 Thomas Duke of Henry of Monmouth ' Prince Hal' Clarence Duke of Lancaster v . .,. HENRY V H>//j 1413-1422 H 4 HS KATHARINE OF FRANCE d. 1437 I s HENRY VI 1422-1471 H6 123 John Duke of Bedford Regent of France d- 1435 . H 4 H 5 H6 1 Humphrey ' Good Duke Humphrey' Duke of Gloucester d. 1447 H4 1 H 5 H6« xlii THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE VIII. THE CHARACTERS The King The character of King Henry the Fourth in this play is a natural development of his character as Bolingbroke in King Richard the Second. Shakespeare gives at full length and done to the life the portrait of a man in act prompt, bold, decisive, in thought sly, subtle, far-reaching ; a character hard and cold indeed to the feelings, but written all over with success ; a character that has no im- pulsive gushes or starts, but is an embodiment of study, forecast, and calm suiting of means to preappointed ends. And this perfect self-command is in great part the secret of his strange power over others, making them almost as pliant to his purposes as are the cords and muscles of his own body; so that, as the event proves, he grows great by their feeding, till he can compass food enough without their help, and, if they go to hindering him, can eat them up. For so it turned out with the Percys ; strong sinews indeed with him for a head ; while, against him, their very strength served but to work their own overthrow. Some points of this description are well illustrated in what Hotspur says of him just before the battle of Shrews- bury, in the speech beginning (IV, hi, 52-53): The king is kind ; and well we know the king Knows at what time to promise, when to pay. Hotspur, to be sure, exaggerates a good deal here, as he does everywhere, still his charges have a considerable basis of truth. As further matter to the point, observe the ac- count which the king gives of himself when remonstrating with the prince against his idle courses ; which is not less INTRODUCTION xliii admirable for truth of history than for skill of pencil. Equally fine, also, is the account of his predecessor im- mediately following that of himself, where we see that he has the same sharp insight of men as of means and has made Richard's follies and vices his tutors ; from his mis- carriages learning how to supplant him, and perhaps en- couraging his errors, that he might make a ladder of them to mount up and overtop him. Though policy is the leading trait in this able man, it is not so prominent as to obscure other and better traits. Even in his policy there is much of the breadth and large- ness which distinguish the statesman from the politician. Hotspur Hotspur is as much a monarch in his sphere as King Henry and Falstaff are in theirs ; only they rule more by power, he by stress : there is something in them that takes away the will and spirit of resistance; he makes every- thing bend to his arrogant, domineering, capricious temper. Who that has been with him in the scenes at the Palace and at Bangor can forget his bounding, sarcastic, over- bearing spirit? He is irascible, headstrong, impatient; every effort to arrest or divert him only produces a new impatience. Whatever thought strikes him, it forthwith kindles into an overmastering passion that bears down all before it. He has a rough and passionate soul, great strength and elevation of mind, with little gentleness and less delicacy, and a M force of will that rises into poetry by its own chafings." His contempt of poetry is highly char- acteristic; though it is significant that he speaks more poetry than anyone else in the play. But poetry is alto- xliv THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE gether an impulse with him, not a purpose, as it is with Glendower; and he loses all thought of himself and his speech, in the intensity of passion with which he contem- plates the object or occasion that moves him. Glendower The best of historical matter for poetical and dramatic uses has seldom been turned to better account than in the portrait of Glendower. He is represented, with great art and equal truth, according to the superstitious belief of his time ; a belief in which he himself doubtless shared : for, if the winds and tempests came when he wished them, it was natural for him to think, as others thought, that they came because he wished them. A man of wild and mys- terious imaginations, he has a practical skill that makes them tell against the king ; his dealing in magic rendering him even more an object of fear than his valor and con- duct. And his behavior in the disputes with Hotspur approves him as much superior in the external qualities of a gentleman as he is more superstitious. Though no suspicion of anything false or mean can attach to Hot- spur, it is characteristic of him to indulge his haughty temper even to the thwarting of his purpose: he will hazard the blowing up of the conspiracy rather than put a bridle on his impatience ; and this the Welshman, with all his grandeur and earnestness of pretension, is too prudent to do. The Prince Shakespeare brings what the old chroniclers describe as a miracle of grace in the conversion of Prince Henry from being an idler and a libertine into a wise and noble leader, INTRODUCTION xlv within the ordinary rules of character development. He represents the changes as taking place by the methods and proportions of nature. His early "addiction to courses vain" is accounted for by the character of Falstaff, it being no impeachment of his intellectual or moral man- hood that he is drawn away by such a mighty magazine of fascinations. It is true, he is not altogether unhurt by his connection with Sir John; he is himself sensible of this, and the knowledge goes far to justify his final treat- ment of Falstaff. But, even in his wildest merrymakings, there may still be tasted in him a spice and flavor of manly rectitude; undesigned by him indeed, and the more assuring that he evidently does not taste it himself. Shakespeare has nothing finer in its way than the gradual sundering of the ties that bind the prince to Falstaff, as the higher elements of his nature are called forth by emergent occasions ; and his turning the dregs of unworthy companionship into food of noble thought and sentiment. His whole progress through this transformation, till "like a reappearing star" he emerges from the cloud of wildness wherein he had obscured his contemplation, is dappled with rare spots of beauty and promise. The king displays his usual astuteness in endeavoring to make the fame of Hotspur tell upon the prince ; though he still strikes wide of his real character, misderiving his conduct from a want of noble aptitudes, whereas it springs rather from a lack of such motives and occasions with which his better aptitudes can combine. But the king knows right well there is matter in him that will take fire when such sparks are struck into it. Accordingly, before they part, the prince speaks such words, and in such a xlvi THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE spirit, as to win his father's confidence; the emulation kindled in him being no less noble than the object of it. Now it is that his many-sided, harmonious manhood be- gins fully to unfold itself. He has already discovered forces answering to all the attractions of Falstaff ; and it is to be hoped that none will think the worse of him for preferring the climate of Eastcheap to that of the Court. But the issue proves that he has far better forces, which sleep indeed during the absence, but spring forth at the coming, of their proper stimulants and opportunities. In the close-thronging dangers that beset his father's throne he has noble work to do ; in the thick-clustering honors of Hotspur, noble motives for doing it ; and the two to- gether furnish those more congenial attractions whereby he is gradually detached from a life of hunt-sport and drawn up into the nobly proportioned beauty with which both poetry and history have invested him. Falstaff Falstaff is the character in the mighty world of Shake- speare's creations who has received most attention at the hands of the master. Falstaff dominates both parts of King Henry the Fourth] he is the hero of The Merry Wives of Windsor ; Dame Quickly's account of his death is the most impressive passage in King Henry the Fifth. Little wonder that he is universally recognized as the most humorous creation in all literature. His character baffles definition. He has so much, or is so much, that it is not easy to tell what he is. Diverse and even opposite qual- ities meet in him; yet they poise so evenly, blend so happily, and work together so smoothly, that no general- INTRODUCTION xlvii ities can set him off ; in any attempt to grasp him in a formal conclusion, the best part of him still escapes be- tween the fingers. One of the wittiest of men, he is not a wit; one of the most sensual of men, he cannot with strict justice be called a sensualist ; he has a strong sense of danger and a lively regard to his own safety, a peculiar vein indeed of cowardice, or something very like it, yet he is not a coward ; he lies and brags prodigiously, still he is neither a liar nor a braggart. One thing specially characteristic of Falstaff is an amazing fund of good sense. His stock of this, to be sure, is pretty much all enlisted in the service of sensuality, yet in such a way that the servant still overpeers and outshines the master. His thinking has such agility, and is at the same time so pertinent, as to do the work of the most prompt and sparkling wit ; yet in such sort as to give the impression of something much larger and stronger than wit. For mere wit, be it ever so good, requires to be spar- ingly used, and the more it tickles the sooner it tires ; like salt, it is grateful as a seasoning but will not do as food. Never at a loss, and never apprehensive that he shall be at a loss, Falstaff never exerts himself, nor takes any concern for the result ; so that nothing is strained or far- fetched: relying calmly on his strength, he invites the toughest trials, as knowing that his powers will bring him off without any using of the whip or the spur, and by merely giving the rein to their natural briskness and celer- ity. Hence it is also that he so often lets go all regard to prudence of speech and thrusts himself into tight places and predicaments: he thus makes or seeks occasions to exercise his fertility and alertness of thought, being well xlviii THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE assured that he shall still come off uncornered, and that the greater his seeming perplexity, the greater will be his triumph. He tells his incomprehensible lies, surely, not expecting them to be believed, but partly for the pleasure he takes in the excited play of his faculties, partly for the surprise he causes by his still more incomprehensible feats of dodging. He has an eternal joy in what Robert Louis Stevenson has called the deepest imaginative pleasure of life and what every healthy child revels in — egregious make-believe. Falstaff's overflowing humor results in a placid good nature towards those about him, and attaches them by the mere remembrance of pleasure in his company. He often abuses his associates outrageously, so far as this can be done by words, but they are not really hurt by it and never think of resenting it. Perhaps, indeed, they do not respect him enough to feel resentment towards him. But, in truth, the juiciness of his spirit not only keeps malice out of him, but keeps others from imputing it to him. His tempests of abuse break on himself as often as on others and mean just as much in the one case as in the other: they are but exercises of his powers, and this, merely for the exercise itself ; that is, they are play, having indeed a kind of earnestness, but the earnestness of sport. Whether alone or in company, he not only has all his faculties about him, but takes the same pleasure in exerting them, if it may be called exertion ; for they always seem to go of their own accord. It is remarkable that Falstaff soliloquizes more than any of Shakespeare's characters except Hamlet ; thought being equally an ever-springing impulse in them both, though in very different forms. INTRODUCTION xlix It is also of interest and significance that throughout the plays in which he is a dominant figure, his speeches con- tain more allusions to Bible story and doctrine than may be found in the speeches of any other Shakespeare char- acter. Most of these allusions are far from being irrever- ent and cannot be construed as anti-Puritan. In this connection some words in the hostess's story of his death (King Henry the Fifth, II, iii) may be remembered: . . .he's in Arthur's bosom, if ever man went to Arthur's bosom. A made a finer end, and went away and it had been any christom child ; a parted ev'n just between twelve and one, ev'n at the turn- ing o' th' tide : for after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers, and smile upon his fingers' ends, I knew there was but one way; for his nose was as sharp as a pen, and a babbled of green fields. IX. STAGE HISTORY The immediate popularity of King Henry the Fourth is attested by the numerous references to it by Shake- speare's contemporaries, their imitations of it, and the fact that it was printed at least five times before the author's death. From the first Falstaff was acclaimed as the great stage character of the play. In Ben Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, performed in 1599, Falstaff was alluded to as a recognized character type ; and there is in- teresting proof of the vogue of the fat knight in the well- authenticated tradition that The Merry Wives of Windsor was written at the request of Queen Elizabeth, who was so delighted with the character as portrayed in King Henry the Fourth that she wished to see a play in which he would be the hero and the hero in love. John Lowin 1 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE ( 1 576-1 659), whose name appears in the First Folio as one of the "Principal Actors/' and who certainly was the most famous Falstaff in the reign of Charles the First, is often credited with being the original interpreter of the part, but a comparison of dates makes this conclusion im- probable. Malone gave the distinction of being the origi- nal Falstaff to John Heminge, who with Henry Condell signed "The Epistle Dedicatorie" of the First Folio. In a memorandum supposed to be by Inigo Jones, for the costume of a personage in a court masque, performed early in the reign of James the First, is this description of what was probably the costume of the character in Shake- speare's own day : "Like a Sir John Falstaffe, in a robe of russet, quite low, with a great belly, like a swollen man, long moustachios, the shoes short, and out of them great toes, like naked feet : buskins, to show a great swollen leg." The Seventeenth Century A version of King Henry the Fourth, under the title of Hotspur, was acted before King James in 16 13. This per- formance, it may be surmised from the title, put emphasis upon the gallant chieftain of the north, as was but natural when the play was given in the presence of England's first king from Scotland. Lowin continued to be identified with the part of Falstaff until 1647, when the Puritans closed the theatres. There is a tradition that after this he kept an inn, The Three Pigeons at Brentford, and would often recite Falstaff's speeches to regale his customers. Another tradition, well authenticated, tells of his surviving the Restoration and instructing the great Shakespearian actor, Betterton, in stage business which he had learned in the INTRODUCTION H spacious times when Shakespeare himself trod the boards. An abridgment of King Henry the Fourth, Part I, based on the Falstaff scenes, was published under the title of The Bouncing Knight in Francis Kirkman's Wits or Sport upon Sport (1662), and professed to be a version per- formed surreptitiously when the Puritans were in power. After the Restoration, King Henry the Fourth, Part I, seems to have been popular on the stage. The first repre- sentative of Falstaff on the re-opening of the theatres was one Cartwright, who had been a bookseller in Holborn. Pepys has several references to the play which he saw for the first time on the last night of the year, 1660. He says that he had bought a book of the play and wished to see it acted, "but my expectation being too great, it did not please me, as otherwise I believe it would : and my having a book I believe did spoil it a little." Seven years later he saw the play again and comments on it and the au- dience characteristically : To the King's playhouse and there saw Henry the Fourth ; and, contrary to expectation, was pleased in nothing more than in Cart- wright's speaking of Falstaff 's speech about "What is Honour?' The house full of Parliament-men, it being holyday with them : and it was observable how a gentleman of good habit sitting just before us, eating of some fruit in the midst of the play, did drop down as dead, being choked; but with much ado Orange Mall did thrust her finger down his throat, and brought him to life again. Thomas Betterton (1635-1710), the great Shakespeare actor of the Restoration, in his younger days played Hot- spur with distinction, and his contemporary Colley Cibber describes the "wild impatient starts, that fierce and flash- ing fire," which he threw into the part. Hi THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE The Eighteenth Century In 1700 Betterton, finding himself too old to take the part of Hotspur, exchanged it for that of Falstaff and won the supreme success of his career, acting in both parts of King Henry the Fourth and in The Merry Wives of Wind- sor. His Falstaff is said to have been influenced by the 1 business' of a Dublin actor called Baker, who from being a master-paver took to play-acting and became noted for such comedy parts as Sir Epicure Mammon (Ben Jonson's The Alchemist) and Falstaff. Genest in his Account of the English Stage mentions among the Falstaffs, from 1700 to 1775, Estcourt, Harper, Jack Evans, Powell, Booth, Bullock, Hall, and Mills. Perhaps the most notable per- formance of the play in these years was given at Covent Garden, December 6, 1746, when David Garrick played Hotspur to the Falstaff of James Quin, who had come to be recognized as the supreme interpreter of the part. The last noteworthy Falstaff of the eighteenth century was Henderson, who excelled particularly in the soliloquy in which Falstaff describes his ragged recruits. The Nineteenth Century In 1 802-1 803 the play, revised for stage purposes, was produced by the Kembles at Covent Garden, with John Philip Kemble himself as Hotspur. At later performances Fawcett, Dowton, Stephen Kemble, and even Charles Kemble, known as "the elegant," all essayed the part of Falstaff. Elliston's Falstaff and Macready's Hotspur were the features of a famous performance at Drury Lane in 1826; and a quarter of a century later, at the Princess's Theatre, when Bartley, who had become known as a most INTRODUCTION liii unctuous and humorous impersonator of the fat knight, took his leave of the stage, Charles Kean was Hotspur. America gave the world a most noteworthy Falstaff in the interpretation by James Henry Hackett, who was identi- fied with the part from 1832 to 1872. More recent years have seen noteworthy revivals of King Henry the Fourth under the direction of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and Sir Frank R. Benson, and the play is one of those staged with success at the annual Shakespeare Festivals at Stratford- on-Avon. AUTHORITIES (With the more important abbreviations used in the notes) Q l = First Quarto, 1598. Q o = Second Quarto, 1599. Q~ = Third Quarto, 1604. Q 4 = Fourth Quarto, 1608. Q 5 = Fifth Quarto, 1613. Qq = all the Quartos given above. F x = First Folio, 1623. F 2 = Second Folio, 1632. F 3 = Third Folio, 1664. F = Fourth Folio, 1685. Ff = all the seventeenth century Folios. Rowe = Rowe's editions, 1709, 1714. Pope = Pope's editions, 1723, i7 2 8. Theobald = Theobald's editions, i733> 1740. Hanmer = Hanmer's edition, 1744. Johnson = Johnson's edition, 1765. Capell = Capell's edition, 1768. Malone = Malone's edition, 1790. Steevens = Steevens's edition, 1793. Globe = Globe edition (Clark and Wright), 1864. Clar = Clarendon Press edition (W. A. Wright) . Dyce = Dyce's (third) edition, 1875. Delius = Delius's (fifth) edition, 1882. Camb = Cambridge (third) edition (W. A. Wright), 1891. Herford= C. H. Herford's The Eversley Shakespeare, 1903. Abbott = E. A. Abbott's A Shakespearian Grammar. Cotgrave = Cotgrave's Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, 161 1. Schmidt = Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon. Skeat = Skeat's An Etymological Dictionary. Murray = A New English Dictionary (The Oxford Dictionary). 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OF SPEECHES LINES SPEECHES LINES King I,i 5 74 Worcester I, iii 15 63 I,iii 4 45 III, i 2 ! 9 III, ii 5 125 IV, i 5 21 V, i 6 47 IV, iii 3 5 V, iv 6 '9 V, i 2 47 V, v -A 25 V, ii 6 34 3° 335 V, v 1 34 3 192 Prince I, ii 29 79 II, ii 13 28 Northumber- II, iv 75 210 land I, iii 10 3i III, ii 4 44 III, iii 17 43 Hotspur I, iii 22 157 IV, ii 4 8 II, iii 11 65 V,i 6 28 III, i 27 "3 V, iii 4 9 IV, i T4 74 V, iv 13 74 IV, iii 10 69 V, v 2 V, ii 7 38 167 537 V, iii V, iv 5 8 _5 16 Lancaster V, iv V, v 4 1 7 101 540 5 9 Mortimer Archbishop of III, i 13 45 Westmore- York IV, iv 5 33 land I,i IV, ii 5 2 34 6 Douglas IV, i 5 12 V, iv j 1 IV, iii 3 3 ~8 — V, ii 3 6 4i V, iii 5 16 Blunt I, iii V, iv 2 8 7 III, ii 1 7 18 45 IV, iii 6 17 _Z V, iii -^ Glendower III, i 19 74 11 38 lx DISTRIBUTION OF CHARACTERS lxi NO. OF NO. OF no. of NO. OF SPEECHES LINES speeches LINES Vernon IV, i IV, iii 5 5 23 J 9 2 Carrier II, i 5 13 V, ii J 21 Sheriff II, iv 5 8 13 63 OSLER II, i 1 1 Falsxaff I,ii 11, ii 24 16 11 55 Chamberlain II, i 6 18 II, iv III, iii IV, ii 55 30 11 213 113 60 Messenger IV, i V, ii 4 2 6 2 V, i 4 «7 6 8 V, iii 5 20 V, iv 5 j6 Bardolph II, i II, ii \ 1 1 150 59' II, iv 5 1 1 Michael IV, iv 3 8 III, iii IV, ii 7 _2 1 1 _3 POINS I, ii II, ii 9 4 44 7 17 27 II, iv _L2 22 Peto II, iv 5 14 32 73 Travellers 11, ii 3 5 Gadshill II, i II, ii 4 36 6 Thieves II, ii 1 1 II, iv 18 _3 45 Servant II, iii 3 3 Francis II, iv 13 13 Lady Percy II, iii 8 45 III, i 15 1 1 56 Vintner II, iv 1 4 Hostess II, iv 8 12 i Carrier II, i 7 20 III, iii i5 21 II, iv 1 8 __5 25 23 45 KING HENRY THE FOURTH PART I DRAMATIS PERSON^ 1 King Henry the Fourth - Henry, Prince of Wales, "1 . ., v . ' ' }■ sons to the King John of Lancaster, J Earl of Westmoreland Sir Walter Blunt Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland Henry Percy, surnamed Hotspur, son to the Earl of Northumberland Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March Richard Scroop, Archbishop of York Archibald, Earl of Douglas Owen Glendower Sir Richard Vernon Sir John Falstaff 3 Sir Michael, a friend to the Archbishop of York Poins Gadshill Peto Bardolph 4 Lady Percy, wife to Hotspur, and sister to Mortimer Lady Mortimer, daughter to Glendower, and wife to Mortimer Mistress Quickly, hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap Lords, Officers, Sheriff, Vintner, Chamberlain, Drawers, two Carriers, Travelers, and Attendants Scene : England and Wales 1 Rowe was the first to give a list of Dramatis Personse. 2 Notes on the historical relations of the Dramatis Persons are given either in the Introduction (Historical Connections) or when each character is introduced into the play. 3 Falstaff. The name is spelled 'Falstaffe' or 'Falstalffe' in the Quartos, but ' Falstaffe ' in the First Folio. 4 Bardolph. The Quartos give ' Bardoll' or ''Bardol.* 2 ACT I Scene I. [London. The Palace] Enter King Henry, Lord John of Lancaster, the Earl of Westmoreland, [Sir Walter Blunt] and others King Henry. So shaken as we are, so wan with care, Find we a time for frighted Peace to pant, And breathe short-winded accents of new broils To be commenc'd in strands afar remote. No more the thirsty entrance of this soil 5 4. strands Capell | stronds QqF{F 2 \ storms F 3 F 4 . ACT I. Scene I. In the Folios, not in the Quartos, the play is divided into acts and scenes, which are given with Latin nomen- clature. The bracketed matter in the stage directions throughout the play is the work of Rowe and later editors. 1-4. The image is of Peace so scared and out of breath with domestic strife that she can but make a brief pause, and pant forth short and broken speech of new wars to be undertaken in foreign lands. This play distinctly is continuous with Richard II, at the close of which Bolingbroke avows his purpose to atone for the death of Richard by leading out another Crusade : I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land, To wash this blood off from my guilty hand. And in fact he was hardly more than seated on the throne before he began to be so harassed by acts of rebellion and threats of invasion that he conceived the plan of drowning the public sense of his usurpation in an enthusiasm of foreign war and conquest. 5. entrance: mouth. Cf. Genesis, iv. 11 : "And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand." 3 4 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood ; No more shall trenching war channel her fields, Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs Of hostile paces : those opposed eyes, Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, 10 All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in the intestine shock And furious close of civil butchery, Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming ranks, March all one way and be no more oppos'd 1 5 Against acquaintance, kindred and allies : The edge of war, like an ill-sheathed knife, No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends, As far as to the sepulchre of Christ, Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross 20 We are impressed and engag'd to fight, Forthwith a power of English shall we levy ; Whose arms were moulded in their mothers' womb To chase these pagans in those holy fields Over whose acres walk'd those blessed feet 25 Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail'd For our advantage on the bitter cross. But this our purpose now is twelve month old, And bootless 'tis to tell you we will go : Therefore we meet not now. Then let me hear 30 28. now is twelve month Q X Q 2 | is a twelvemonth Ff. 7. trenching : entrenching, throwing up breastworks. 13. furious close : fierce hand-to-hand encounter. 14. mutual : united. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, IV, i, 121. 18. his : its. 'Its' was just coming into use in Shakespeare's day. 30. Therefore . . . now: this is not why we are meeting. scene I HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 5 Of you, my gentle cousin Westmoreland, What yesternight our council did decree In forwarding this dear expedience. Westmoreland. My liege, this haste was hot in question, And many limits of the charge set down 35 But yesternight : when all athwart there came A post from Wales loaden with heavy news ; Whose worst was, that the noble Mortimer, Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight Against the irregular and wild Glendower, 40 Was by the rude hands of that Welshman taken, A thousand of his people butchered ; Upon whose dead corpse there was such misuse, Such beastly shameless transformation, By those Welshwomen done as may not be 45 Without much shame retold or spoken of. King Henry. It seems then that the tidings of this broil Brake off our business for the Holy Land. Westmoreland. This match'd with other did, my gracious lord ; 42. A thousand Qq | And a thousand Ff. 31. 'Cousin' was often used in the general sense of 'kinsman.' Ralph Neville, the Earl of Westmoreland, married for his first wife Joan, daughter to John of Gaunt, by Catharine Swynford, and therefore half-sister to Henry IV (see Introduction, His- torical Connections). 33. dear expedience : momentous enterprise. 34. hot in question : most earnestly discussed. 43. corpse : corpses. So we have 'horse' for 'horses,' 'house' for 'houses,' 'sense' for 'senses,' etc. See Abbott, §471. 6 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i For more uneven and unwelcome news 5 o Came from the north and thus it did import : On Holy-rood day, the gallant Hotspur there, Young Harry Percy and brave Archibald, That ever-valiant and approved Scot, At Holmedon met, 55 Where they did spend a sad and bloody hour ; As by discharge of their artillery, And shape of likelihood, the news was told ; For he that brought them, in the very heat And pride of their contention did take horse, 60 Uncertain of the issue any way. King Henry. Here is a dear, a true industrious friend, Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted from his horse, Stain'd with the variation of each soil Betwixt that Holmedon and this seat of ours ; 65 And he hath brought us smooth and welcome news. The Earl of Douglas is discomfited : Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights, Balk'd in their own blood did Sir Walter see On Holmedon's plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took 70 65. that Qq I the Ff. 52. rood : cross. Cf. 2 Henry IV, III, ii, 3 ; Richard III, III, ii, 77 ; Romeo and Juliet, I, iii, 36 ; Hamlet, III, iv, 14. Holy- rood Day was the 14th of September. Hotspur is said to have been so called by the Scots, because, from the age of twelve years, when he first began to bear arms against them, "his spur was never cold." Cf. II, iv, 102-104. 58. news. Used indifferently as singular or plural ; hence 'was' and 'them.' 'Tidings' was similarly used. 64. A most vivid expression of Sir Walter's speed and diligence. 69. Balk'd: heaped. A 'balk' was a ridge left unplowed be- tween two furrows; and to 'balk' was to 'plow up in ridges.' scene i HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 7 Mordake the Earl of Fife, and eldest son To beaten Douglas ; and the Earl of Athol, Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith : And is not this an honourable spoil ? A gallant prize? ha, cousin, is it not? 75 Westmoreland. In faith, It is a conquest for a prince to boast of. King Henry. Yea, there thou mak'st me sad and mak'st me sin In envy that my* Lord Northumberland Should be the father to so blest a son, 80 A son who is the theme of honour's tongue ; Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant ; Who is sweet Fortune's minion and her pride : Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him, See riot and dishonour stain the brow 85 Of my young Harry. O that it could be prov'd That some night-tripping fairy had exchang'd In cradle-clothes our children where they lay, 71. the Pope I QqFf omit. 71-72. This reads as if the Earl of Fife were the son of Douglas, whereas he was son to the Duke of Albany, who was then regent of Scotland. The matter is thus given by Holinshed : " Of prison- ers among other were these : Mordacke earle of Fife, son to the governour, Archembald earle Dowglas, which in the fight lost one of his eies." Shakespeare's mistake was evidently caused by the omission of the comma after 'governour.' 76-77. In faith, It is. Quartos and Folios give these words to King Henry. Steevens made the emendation. 83. minion : darling, favorite, pet. Frequently so. 87. Shakespeare here and elsewhere suggests that Hotspur and the Prince of Wales were of the same age; Hotspur was really the older by three years. 8 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i And call'd mine Percy, his Plantagenet! Then would I have his Harry, and he mine. 90 But let him from my thoughts. What think you, coz, Of this young Percy's pride? the prisoners, Which he in this adventure hath surpris'd, To his own use he keeps ; and sends me word, I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife. 95 Westmoreland. This is his uncle's teaching : this is Worcester, Malevolent to you in all aspects ; Which makes him prune himself, and bristle up The crest of youth against your dignity. 89. Among the pranks which the ancient 'night-tripping fairies' were supposed to enact, was that of stealing choice babies out of their cradles, and leaving inferior specimens, 'changelings,' in their stead. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, II, i, 120. 92-95. prisoners . . . Fife. Percy had an exclusive right to all the prisoners except the Earl of Fife. By the law of arms, every man who had taken any captive, whose redemption did not exceed ten thousand crowns, had him to himself to release or ran- som at his pleasure. But Percy could not refuse the Earl of Fife ; for since he was a prince of the royal blood, Henry might justly claim him, by his acknowledged military prerogative. 97. Malevolent . . . aspects. An astrological allusion. Worces- ter is represented as a malignant star that influenced the conduct of Hotspur. And the effect of planetary predominance, which was held to be irresistible, is implied. Cf. The Winter's Tale, II, i, 107 ; Troilus and Cressida, I, iii, 92 ; King Lear, II, ii, 112. 'Aspect' in Shakespeare is always accented on the second syllable. 98. prune. "The metaphor is taken from a cock, who in his pride 'prunes' himself, that is, picks off the loose feathers to smooth the rest. To 'prune' and to 'plume,' spoken of a bird, is the same." — Johnson. Cf. Cymbeline, V, iv, 118: His royal bird Prunes the immortal wing, and cloys his beak. scene ii HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 9 King Henry. But I have sent for him to answer this ; And for this cause awhile we must neglect iot Our holy purpose to Jerusalem. Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we Will hold at Windsor; so inform the lords: But come yourself with speed to us again ; 105 For more is to be said and to be done Than out of anger can be uttered. Westmoreland. I will, my liege. Exeunt Scene II. [London. An apartment of the Prince's] Enter the Prince of Wales and Falstaff Falstaff. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad? Prince of Wales. Thou art so fat-witted, with drink- ing of old sack and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast for- gotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes 104. so QqF 2 F 3 F 4 I and soFj. 4. after noon Qq | in the afternoone Ff. 106-107. For more . . . uttered. The king means that he must not give the reins to his tongue while his mind is in such a state of perturbation. That he should thus keep his lips closed when he is in danger of speaking indecorously is a fine trait in his character. 3. sack. "The generic name of Spanish and Canary wines." — Schmidt. 4-6. thou hast forgotten . . . know. The prince implies that Falstaff's concern is with the night rather than with the day. 10 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i capons, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day. 10 Falstaff. Indeed, you come near me now, Hal ; for we that take purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not by Phoebus, he, Uhat wandering knight so fair.' And, I prithee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as, God save thy grace, — majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none, — 16 Prince of Wales. What, none? Falstaff. No, by my troth, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter. Prince of Wales. Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly. 21 Falstaff. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty: let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon ; 9-10. taffeta : a rich silk of a wavy luster. — thou shouldst . . . superfluous : you should give yourself the unnecessary trouble. 12. the seven stars : the Pleiades. 13. that wandering knight so fair. Falstaff quotes from some ballad based, as Steevens conjectured, on the Spanish romance El Donzel del Febo, translated into English in 1579. 18-ig. not so much . . . butter : not so much grace as will serve for saying grace before meat. Eggs and butter appear to have been a favorite breakfast dish. Cf. II, i, 56. 20. roundly : speak plainly, directly, without ceremony. 23-25. squires . . . beauty. Falstaff is an inveterate player on words, as here between 'night' and 'knight,' 'beauty' and 'booty.' A 'squire of the body' originally meant an attendant on a knight. — Diana's foresters. Hall in his Chronicle tells of a pageant ex- hibited in the reign of Henry VIII, wherein certain persons ap- peared as 'foresters' and were called 'Diana's knights.' scene ii HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 1 1 and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal. 28 Prince of Wales. Thou say'st well, and it holds well too ; for the fortune of us that are the moon's men doth - ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof, now : a purse of gold most resolutely snatch'd on Monday night and most disso- lutely spent on Tuesday morning ; got with swearing 'Lay by' and spent with crying 'Bring in'; now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows. 37 Falstaff. By the Lord, thou say'st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench ? 38. By the Lord Oq | Ff omit (see note below). 28. countenance: appearance of favor, moral support. See Murray. 35. Lay by. This was in use as a nautical term for 'slacken sail.' So in Henry VIII, III, i, 10-11 : Even the billows of the sea Hung their heads, and then lay by. In the text it may be a phrase addressed by highwaymen to the persons they have waylaid, like "Stand! and deliver," or it may be a phrase used by highwaymen to each other when watching for their game. — Bring in : the call for more wine. 36-37. The allusion is to the ladder by which the criminal mounted the scaffold. The 'ridge' was the crossbeam of the gallows. For 'ridge' the later Folios have 'ride.' 38. By the Lord. Omitted, like so many similar expressions, from the First Folio. A statute was passed early (1603) in the reign of James I forbidding the profane naming of the Deity and the citation of Scripture in a stage play. Hence the omission from the First Folio (1623) of many expressions found in the early Quartos (1598, i599)- 12 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i Prince of Wales. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance? 42 Falstaff. How now, how now, mad wag ! what, in thy quips and thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin ? 45 Prince of Wales. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern ? Falstaff. Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft. Prince of Wales. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part? 51 Falstaff. No ; I'll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there. Prince of Wales. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch ; and where it would not, I have used my credit. 56 Falstaff. Yea, and so us'd it that, were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent — But, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England 57. were it not Qq | were it Ff. 40-41. honey of Hybla. Hybla in Sicily, like Mount Hymettus in Greece, was famous for its bees and honey. The Folios omit ' of Hybla.' Cf. Julius Caesar, V, i, 34. — old lad of the castle: roy- sterer. It is certain that in this play, as originally written, Falstaff bore the name of Oldcastle (see Introduction) ; and the expression 'old lad of the castle' had a point to it now lost. 44. quiddities : subtleties, frivolous distinctions. From the late Latin quidditas, a term much used by mediaeval schoolmen. 45. buff jerkin : a jerkin or coat made of ox-hide, commonly worn by sheriff's officers. It seems to have been called a 'robe of durance,' both because of its great .durability and because it was the wearer's business to put debtors and criminals in 'durance.' scene ii HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 13 when thou art king? and resolution thus fobb'd as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law ? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief. 62 Prince of Wales. No ; thou shalt. Falstaff. Shall I? O rare! By the Lord, I'll be a brave judge. 6 5 Prince of Wales. Thou judgest false already: I mean, thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman. Falstaff. Well, Hal, well ; and in some sort it jumps with my humour as well as waiting in the court, I can tell you. 7i Prince of Wales. For obtaining of suits? Falstaff. Yea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe. 'Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib cat or a lugg'd bear. 75 Prince of Wales. Or an old lion, or a lover's lute. 62. king Q 1 I a king Q 2 Ff. 60. fobb'd : cheated, tricked. Cf. Coriolanus, I, i, 97- 61. antic : buffoon. Cf. Richard II, III, ii, 162. 69-70. jumps with: suits. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, II, 73. suits. A quibble between 'suits' meaning 'petitions and the 'suits of clothes.' A hangman received his victim's clothes as a perquisite. 74. 'Sblood. As a sort of compromise between reverence and profanity, various oaths became so curtailed and disguised in the use that their original meaning was almost lost. Among these "Sblood' and 'Zounds' were very common, the original forms being 'God's blood' and 'God's wounds.' 75. gib cat: male cat. 'Gib' was a contraction of 'Gilbert.' Cf. the common expression 'tomcat' of to-day— a lugg'd bear: a performing bear dragged or led by the head through the streets. Cf. "the head-lugg'd bear," King Lear, TV, ii, 4 2 - 14 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i Falstaff. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe. Prince of Wales. What say'st thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch? 80 Falstaff. Thou hast the most unsavoury similes and art indeed the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince. But, Hal, I prithee, trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a com- modity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir, but I mark'd him not ; and yet he talk'd very wisely, but I regarded him not; and yet he talk'd wisely, and in the street too. 89 Prince of Wales. Thou didst well ; for wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it. 91 82. rascalliest Q t | rascallest Ff. 90-91. wisdom . . . and 84. to God Qq I Ff omit (and so elsewhere). Qq | Ff omit. 77-78. drone . . . bagpipe. The 'drone' was the bass tube of a bagpipe, which emits only one deep monotonous sound like that of a drone bee. Steevens refers to a " sweete ballad of The Lincoln- shire Bagpipes" referred to in a work published in 1590. 79. hare. The hare seems to have been proverbial as a type of melancholy. In illustration of the text, Staunton aptly quotes from Turberville's Book on Hunting and Falconry. "The hare first taught us the use of the hearbe called wyld Succory, which is very excel- lent for those which are disposed to be melancholicke: shee herselfe is one of the most melancholicke beasts that is, and to heale her own infirmitie she goeth commonly to sit under that hearbe." 80. Moor-ditch: a part of the ditch surrounding the city of London, opening on an unwholesome morass, and therefore with an air of melancholy. So in Taylor's Pennylesse Pilgrimage (1618): " My body being tired with travel, and my mind attired with moody muddy, Moore-ditch melancholy." 82. comparative: fond of making comparisons. CI. Ill, ii, 67. 90-91. The prince's words are based on Proverbs, i, 20. scene ii HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 1 5 Falstaff. O, thou hast damnable iteration and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal ; God forgive thee for it ! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing ; and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over : by the Lord, and I do not, I am a villain: I'll be damn'd for never a king's son in Christendom. 99 Prince of Wales. Where shall we take a purse to- morrow, Jack? Falstaff. 'Zounds, where thou wilt, lad ; I'll make one ; and I do not, call me villain and baffle me. Prince of Wales. I see a good amendment of life in thee ; from praying to purse-taking. 105 Falstaff. Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation, Hal; 'tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation. Enter Poins Poins ! Now shall we know if Gadshill have set a match. O, if men were to be saved by merit, what hole in hell 108. Scene III. Pope. 108. match Qq | Watch Ff. 92. damnable iteration : quoting Scripture to wicked ends. 98, 103. and : if. So in the Folios ; the Quartos and most modern editions use the form 'an.' 'And' meaning 'if is common in Middle and Elizabethan English, as well as in colloquial and pro- vincial use to-day. See Abbott, §§ 101, 103. 103. baffle : use contemptuously, treat with ignominy. Orig- inally to ' baffle ' involved a punishment of infamy inflicted on recreant knights, one part of which was hanging them up by the heels. The degrading of a false knight is set forth in The Faerie Queene, V, iii, 37. 108. Gadshill. This is not only the name of a character in the play but (as in line 126) the name of a place, a low wooded hill a 16 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act I were hot enough for him? This is the most omnipotent villain that ever cried 'Stand' to a true man. m Prince of Wales. Good morrow, Ned. Poins. Good morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse ? what says Sir John Sack and Sugar ? Jack ! how agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good-Friday last for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon's leg? 117 Prince of Wales. Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his bargain ; for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs : he will give the devil his due. 120 Poins. Then art thou damn'd for keeping thy word with the devil. Prince of Wales. Else he had been damn'd for coz- ening the devil. 124 Poins. But, my lads, my lads, to-morrow morning, by four o'clock, early at Gadshill ! there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses : I have vizards for you all ; you have horses for yourselves : Gadshill lies to-night in little more than two miles northwest of Rochester, on the road between London and Canterbury. It was notorious in Shake- speare's day for highway robberies. To-day the Sir John Falstaff inn stands on the summit of the hill, and a little lower on the opposite side of the road is Gad's Hill Place, where Charles Dickens lived from 1857 to his death in 1870. — set a match: made an appointment. 114. Sack and Sugar. Nares has pretty much proved Sir John's favorite beverage to have been the Spanish wine now called sherry. So in Blount's Glossographia : " Sherry sack, so called from Xeres y a town of Corduba in Spain, where that kind of sack is made." Indeed Falstaff expressly calls it sherris-sack (2 Henry IV, IV, iii, 104). scene ii HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 17 Rochester: I have bespoke supper to-morrow night in Eastcheap : we may do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns ; if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged. 133 Falstaff. Hear ye, Yedward ; if I tarry at home and go not, I'll hang you for going. 135 Poins. You will, chops? Falstaff. Hal, wilt thou make one? Prince of Wales. Who, I rob? I a thief? not I, by my faith. 139 Falstaff. There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou cam'st not of the blood royal, if thou dar'st not stand for ten shillings. Prince of Wales. Well then, once in my days I'll be a madcap. Falstaff. Why, that's well said. 145 Prince of Wales. Well, come what will, I'll tarry at home. Falstaff. By the Lord, I'll be a traitor then, when thou art king. Prince of Wales. I care not. 150 Poins. Sir John, I prithee, leave the prince and me alone : I will lay him down such reasons for this adven- ture that he shall go. 153 Falstaff. Well, God give thee the spirit of persuasion and him the ears of profiting, that what thou speak'st 131. Eastcheap, a thoroughfare and market near London Bridge, was famous for its flesh and fish markets and its taverns. Here was Dame Quickly 's tavern. 134. Yedward : a familiar corruption of Edward. 141-142. royal . . . shillings. A pun on 'royal,' which was a coin valued at 10s. Cf. II, iv, 291. 1 8 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i may move and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a false thief ; for the poor abuses of the time want countenance. Fare- well : you shall find me in Eastcheap. 159 Prince of Wales. Farewell, thou latter spring ! fare- well, All-hallown summer ! Exit Falstaff Poins. Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us to-morrow : I have a jest to execute that I cannot man- age alone. Falstaff, Bardolph, Peto and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already waylaid ; yourself and I will not be there ; and when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head off from my shoulders. 168 Prince of Wales. How shall we part with them in setting forth? Poins. Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure to fail, and then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves ; which they shall have no sooner achieved, but we'll set upon them. 175 Prince of Wales. Yea, but 'tis like that they will 160. Farewell, thou Pope | Fare- 164. Bardolph, Peto Theobald | wel the QqFf. Haruey Rossill QqFf (see note). 161. All-hallown : All-hallows-day. All Saints' Day, the first of November. Nothing could more happily express the character of Falstaff as sowing wild oats in his old age, or as carrying on the May and June of life to the verge of winter. 164. "Theobald was the first to suggest that Harvey and Rossill were the names of the actors who performed the parts of Peto and Bardolph. But in II, iv, 173, 175, 179 for ^Ross.' which is found in the Quartos the Folios substitute not *Bard.' but 'Gad.' i.e. ' Gadshill. ,'" — Cambridge. scene ii HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 19 know us by our horses, by our habits and by every other appointment, to be ourselves. 17& Poins. Tut! our horses they shall not see; I'll tie them in the wood ; our vizards we will change after we leave them: and, sirrah, I have cases of buckram for the nonce, to immask our noted outward garments. Prince of Wales. Yea, but I doubt they will be too hard for us. 184 Poins. Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned back ; and for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I'll for- swear arms. The virtue of this jest will be, the in- comprehensible lies that this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper : how thirty, at least, he fought with ; what wards, what blows, what extremities he en- dured ; and in the reproof of this lies the jest. 192 Prince of Wales. Well, I'll go with thee: provide us all things necessary and meet me to-morrow night in Eastcheap ; there I'll sup. Farewell. 195 Poins. Farewell, my lord. Exit Prince of Wales. I know you all, and will awhile uphold The unyok'd humour of your idleness: 189. same Q x | Ff omit. 178. appointment : equipment, outfit. 1 81-182. sirrah. Used merely in a playful, familiar way, with- out implying any lack of respect. — for the nonce: for the occa- sion, for the once. See Murray. 183. doubt : fear, suspect. Frequently so. 191. wards : guards in fencing, postures of defence. 192. reproof : refutation, disproof. 198. unyok'd : untamed. Like steers not broken into work. 20 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i Yet herein will I imitate the sun, Who doth permit the base contagious clouds 200 To smother up his beauty from the world, That, when he please again to be himself, Being wanted, he may be more wond'red at, By breaking through the foul and ugly mists Of vapours that did seem to strangle him. 205 If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work ; But when they seldom come, they wish'd for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents. So, when this loose behaviour I throw off 210 And pay the debt I never promised, By how much better than my word I am, By so much shall I falsify men's hopes; And like bright metal on a sullen ground, My reformation, glittering o'er my fault, 215 Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes Than that which hath no foil to set it off. I'll so offend, to make offence a skill ; Redeeming time when men think least I will. Exit 199-205. Cf. the description of the sun, Sonnets, xxxiii, 5-8. 205. strangle. Cf. Macbeth, II, iv, 7: "And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp." 209. accidents : happenings, occurrences. 213. hopes : expectations, anticipations. Cf. Othello, I, iii, 203. 214. sullen: dark, black. Cf. Richard, the Second, V, vi, 48. 218. I will offend in such a way as to make my wrong-doing seem skillful policy. Johnson says: "This speech is very artfully introduced, to keep the prince from appearing vile in the opinion of the audience : it prepares them for his future reformation ; and, what is yet more valuable, exhibits a natural picture of a great mind offering excuses to itself." scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 2 1 Scene III. [London. The palace] Enter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hot- spur, Sir Walter Blunt, with others King Henry. My blood hath been too cold and temperate, Unapt to stir at these indignities, And you have found me ; for accordingly You tread upon my patience : but be sure I will from henceforth rather be myself, 5 Mighty and to be fear'd, than my condition ; Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down, And therefore lost that title of respect Which the proud soul ne'er pays but to the proud. Worcester. Our house, my sovereign liege, little deserves 10 The scourge of greatness to be us'd on it ; And that same greatness too which our own hands Have holp to make so portly. Northumberland. My lord, — King Henry. Worcester, get thee gone ; for I do see Danger and disobedience in thine eye : 16 O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory, Scene III | Scene IV Pope. 3. Littledale's emendation is ingenious: "And you have found me so; accordingly ..." 'For' would be an easy misprint for 'soe' written with the long 's.' 6. condition : temper, disposition. Often so. The king means that he will rather be what his office requires than what his natural disposition prompts him to be. 13. holp. An old past form of the verb 'help.' — portly: stately, imposing. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, III, ii, 283-284. 2 2 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i And majesty might never yet endure The moody frontier of a servant brow. You have good leave to leave us: when we need 20 Your use and counsel, we shall send for you. Exit Worcester You were about to speak. To Northumberland Northumberland. Yea, my good lord. Those prisoners in your highness' name demanded, Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took, Were, as he says, not with such strength denied 25 As is deliver 'd to your majesty : Either envy, therefore, or misprision Is guilty of this fault and not my son. Hotspur. My liege, I did deny no prisoners. But I remember, when the fight was done, 30 When I was dry with rage and extreme toil, Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword, Came there a certain lord, neat, and trimly dress'd, Fresh as a bridegroom ; and his chin new reap'd Show'd like a stubble-land at harvest-home; 35 He was perfumed like a milliner ; 23. name Qq | Ff omit. 27. Either . . . therefore Qq | Who either through envy Ff. 19. frontier : military outwork, threatening fortification. So in II, iii, Si- 27. envy : malice. The sense it more commonly bears in Shakespeare. — misprision : misapprehension. 35. stubble-land. The courtier's beard, according to the fashion in Shakespeare's time, would not be closely shaved, but trimmed, and would therefore look like a stubble field. 36. milliner: "a vendor of 'fancy' wares and articles of ap- parel, especially of such as were originally of Milan manufacture." — Murray. Cf. The Winter's Tale, IV, iv, 192. scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 23 And 'twixt his finger and his thumb he held A pouncet-box, which ever and anon He gave his nose and took't away again ; Who therewith angry, when it next came there, 40 Took it in snuff ; and still he smil'd and talk'd, And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by, He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly, To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse Betwixt the wind and his nobility. 45, With many holiday and lady terms He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded My prisoners in your majesty's behalf. I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold, To be so pest'red with a popinjay, 50 Out of my grief and my impatience, Answer'd neglectingly I know not what, He should, or he should not ; for he made me mad To see him shine so brisk and smell so sweet And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman 55 Of guns and drums and wounds, — God save the mark ! — And telling me the sovereign 'st thing on earth Was parmaceti for an inward bruise ; And that it was great pity, so it was, This villainous salt-petre should be digg'd 60 Out of the bowels of the harmless earth, 60. This Qq I That Ff. 38. pouncet-box : a small box with a perforated lid, used for holding musk or other perfumes. "Perhaps originally a misprint for 'pounced-box,' i.e. pierced or perforated box." — Murray. 41. Took it in snuff : snuffed it up. But there is a quibble on the phrase, which was equivalent to 'taking offense.' 58. parmaceti: spermaceti. A popular form. 24 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd So cowardly ; and but for these vile guns, He would himself have been a soldier. This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord, 65 I answer'd indirectly, as I said ; And I beseech you, let not his report Come current for an accusation Betwixt my love and your high majesty. Blunt. The .circumstance considered, good my lord, Whatever Lord Harry Percy then had said 71 To such a person and in such a place, At such a time, with all the rest retold, May reasonably die and never rise To do him wrong or any way impeach 75 What then he said, so he unsay it now. King Henry. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners, But with proviso and exception, That we at our own charge shall ransom straight His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer ; 80 Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd The lives of those that he did lead to fight Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower, Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March 66. I answer'd Qq | Made me to answer Ff. 64. soldier. A trisyllable here, as in Hamlet, I, v. 141 ; Julius Ccesar, IV, i, 28. See Abbott, § 479. 78. exception. A quadrisyllable. Cf. lines 147, 150, and 226. 84. Earl of March. The Mortimer who had been sent into Wales was not the Earl of March, but Sir Edmund Mortimer, uncle to the Earl, and therefore perhaps distrusted by the king, as the natural protector of his nephew. At this time the Earl of March was but about ten years old, and was held in safe-keeping scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 25 Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then, 85 Be emptied to redeem a traitor home? Shall we buy treason ? and indent with fears, When they have lost and forfeited themselves? No, on the barren mountains let him starve ; For I shall never hold that man my friend 90 Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost To ransom home revolted Mortimer. y Hotspur. Revolted Mortimer ! He never did fall off, my sovereign liege, But by the chance of war : to prove that true 95 Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds, Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took, While on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank, In single opposition, hand to hand, He did confound the best part of an hour 100 In changing hardiment with great Glendower : Three times they breath'd and three times did they drink, Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood ; at Windsor. The mistake runs through Holinshed's chapter on the reign of Henry IV. 87. indent with : make a covenant or compact with. The expression here suggests to compromise or make terms.— fears: persons to be feared.— Shakespeare sometimes uses subject and object interchangeably. Cf. Macbeth, I iii, 138-139 : " Present fears Are less than horrible imaginings," where 'fears' is put for 'danger,' that is, the things or persons feared. The meaning of the passage in the text probably is, Shall we buy off traitors, or make terms with persons once dangerous indeed, but who have now forfeited and lost whatsoever rendered them formidable ? 100. confound: spend, consume. Cf. Coriolanus, I, vi, 17-18: " How couldst thou in a mile confound an hour ? " 101. changing hardiment: courageous exchange of blows. 2 6 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks, Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds, 105 And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank Bloodstained with these valiant combatants. Never did base and rotten policy Colour her working with such deadly wounds; Nor never could the noble Mortimer no Receive so many, and all willingly : Then let not him be sland'red with revolt. King Henry. Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him; He never did encounter with Glendower : I tell thee, 115 He durst as well have met the devil alone As Owen Glendower for an enemy. Art thou not asham'd? But, sirrah, henceforth Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer : Send me your prisoners with the speediest means, 120 Or you shall hear in such a kind from me As will displease you. My Lord Northumberland, We license your departure with your son. Send us your prisoners, or you will hear of it. Exeunt King Henry, [Blunt, and train] 108. base and Ff | bare and Qq. 112. not him Q x | him not Ff. 106. crisp: rippled, curled. Cf. The Tempest, IV, i, 130: "leave your crisp channels." The same image occurs in Beaumont and Fletcher's Loyal Subject : " The Volga trembled at his terror, and hid his seven curled heads." So in Ben Jonson's Vision of Delight : "The rivers run as smoothed by his hand, Only their heads are crisped by his stroke." 109. Colour : disguise. 113. belie him: give a false account of his conduct. scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 27 Hotspur. And if the devil come and roar for them, 125 I will not send them : I will after straight And tell him so ; for I will ease my heart, Albeit I make a hazard of my head. Northumberland. What, drunk with choler? stay and pause awhile : Here comes your uncle. Re-enter Worcester Hotspur. Speak of Mortimer ! 130 'Zounds, I will speak of him ; and let my soul Want mercy, if I do not join with him : Yea, on his part I'll empty all these veins, And shed my dear blood drop by drop in the dust, But I will lift the down-trod Mortimer 135 As high in the air as this unthankful king, As this ingrate and cank'red Bolingbroke. Northumberland. Brother, the king hath made your nephew mad. Worcester. Who struck this heat up after I was gone? Hotspur. He will, forsooth, have all my prisoners ; And when I urg'd the ransom once again 141 Of my wife's brother, then his cheek look'd pale, And on my face he turn'd an eye of death, Trembling even at the name of Mortimer. 128. Albeit I make a Qq | Although it be with Ff. 125. And if. For this intensification of the conditional use of 'and,' see Abbott, §103. So in II, iii, 87; IV, ii, 7. 137. cank'red: malignant. Used of anything that corrodes. 143. eye of death: eye that threatens death. 28 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i Worcester. I cannot blame him: was not he pro- claim'd 145 By Richard that dead is the next of blood? Northumberland. He was ; I heard the proclama- tion : And then it was when the unhappy king, — Whose wrongs in us God pardon! — did set forth Upon his Irish expedition ; 1 50 From whence he intercepted did return To be depos'd and shortly murdered, Worcester. And for whose death we in the world's wide mouth Live scandaliz'd and foully spoken of. Hotspur. But, soft, I pray you ; did King Richard then 155 Proclaim my brother Edmund Mortimer Heir to the crown? Northumberland. He did ; myself did hear it. Hotspur. Nay, then I cannot blame his cousin king, That wish'd him on the barren mountains starve. But shall it be, that you, that set the crown 160 152. murdered Q : | murthered Ff (and so elsewhere). 145-146. proclaim'd . . . the next of blood. Roger Morti- mer, Earl of March, was declared heir-apparent to the crown in 1385, but was killed in Ireland in 1398. His mother was Philippa, the only child of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, who was the second son of Edward III. In the strict order of succession the crown was due to Edmund Mortimer, the son of Roger, who was accord- ingly proclaimed heir-apparent by Richard II. 149. wrongs in us : the wrongs which we inflicted on him. The Percys had been the chief supporters of Bolingbroke in his usurpation. scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 29 Upon the head of this forgetful man And for his sake wear the detested blot Of murderous subornation, shall it be, That you a world of curses undergo, Being the agents, or base second means, 165 The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather? O, pardon me that I descend so low, To show the line and the predicament Wherein you range under this subtle king; Shall it for shame be spoken in these days, 170 Or fill up chronicles in time to come, That men of your nobility and powder Did gage them both in an unjust behalf, As both of you — God pardon it ! — have done, To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose, 175 And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke? And shall it in more shame be further spoken, That you are fool'd, discarded and shook off By him for whom these shames ye underwent? No ; yet time serves wherein you may redeem 180 Your banish 'd honours and restore yourselves Into the good thoughts of the world again, Revenge the jeering and disdain'd contempt 167. me Q x I if Ff. 163. murderous subornation : instigation to murder. 168. predicament : class or description of men. i73- gage: pledge. — both. Referring to 'nobility' and 'power.' 176. canker : dog-rose. The rose of the hedge, not of the garden. Cf. Much Ado About Nothing, I, iii, 28-29: "I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace." 183. disdain'd: disdainful, disdaining. An instance of the in- discriminate use of active and passive forms. See Abbott, § 374. 30 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i Of this proud king, who studies day and night To answer all the debt he owes to you 185 Even with the bloody payment of your deaths : Therefore, I say, — Worcester. Peace, cousin, say no more : And now I will unclasp a secret book, And to your quick-conceiving discontents I'll read you matter deep and dangerous, 190 As full of peril and adventurous spirit As to o'er-walk a current roaring loud On the unsteadfast footing of a spear. Hotspur. If he fall in, good night ! or sink or swim : Send danger from the east unto the west, 195 So honour cross it from the north to south, And let them grapple : O, the blood more stirs To rouse a lion than to start a hare ! Northumberland. Imagination of some great exploit. Drives him beyond the bounds of patience. 200 Hotspur. By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap, To pluck bright honour from the pale-fac'd moon, Or dive into the bottom of the deep, Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned honour by the locks ; 205 So he that doth redeem her thence might wear Without corrival all her dignities : But out upon this half-fac'd fellowship ! Worcester. He apprehends a world of figures here, But not the form of what he should attend. 210 Good cousin, give me audience for a while. 201. Hotspur Q 1 | Ff omit. 211. After this line the Folios insert 'And list to me.' scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 31 Hotspur. I cry you mercy. Worcester. These same noble Scots That are your prisoners, — Hotspur. I'll keep them all ; By God, he shall not have a Scot of them ; No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not: 215 I'll keep them, by this hand. Worcester. You start away And lend no ear unto my purposes. Those prisoners you shall keep. Hotspur. Nay, I will ; that's flat : He said he would not ransom Mortimer; Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer; 220 But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I'll holla * Mortimer! ' Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but c Mortimer,' and give it him, 225 To keep his anger still in motion. Worcester. Hear you, cousin ; a word. Hotspur. All studies here I solemnly defy, Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke : And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales, 230 But that I think his father loves him not 224. For the omission of the relative see Abbott, §244. 228. defy : renounce, abjure. So in IV, i, 6. Cf. King John, III, iv, 23 : "No, I defy all counsel, all redress." 230. sword-and-buckler. "Upon the introduction of the rapier and dagger, the sword and buckler fell into desuetude among the higher classes, and were accounted fitting weapons for the vulgar only, such as Hotspur implies were the associates of the prince." — Staunton. 32 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i And would be glad he met with some mischance, I would have him poison'd with a pot of ale. Worcester. Farewell, kinsman : I'll talk to you When you are better temp'red to attend. 235 Northumberland. Why, what a wasp-stung and impatient fool Art thou to break into this woman's mood, Tying thine ear to no tongue but thine own ! Hotspur. Why, look you, I am whipp'd and scourg'd with rods, Nettled and stung with pismires, when I hear 240 Of this vile politician, Bolingbroke. In Richard's time, — what do you call the place? — A plague upon it, it is in Gloucestershire ; Twas where the madcap duke his uncle kept, His uncle York ; where I first bow'd my knee 245 Unto this king of smiles, this Bolingbroke, — 'Sblood! — When you and he came back from Ravenspurgh. Northumberland. At Berkley castle. 236. wasp-stung Q x | wasp-tongu'd 247. 'Sblood Q x | Ff omit (and Ff. elsewhere). 233. Hotspur is here speaking out of his anger and impatience : not that he could seriously think of doing what he says ; for he is the soul of honor, and incapable of anything mean. 240. pismires : ants. Still common in dialect. 241. politician: schemer. This word has usually a sinister sig- nification in Shakespeare. — Bolingbroke. Henry Plantagenet, the king of this play, was surnamed Bolingbroke from a castle in Lin- colnshire, where he was born. His father, John of Gaunt, was so called from the place of his birth, the city of Ghent in Flanders. 244. kept: dwelt. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, III, iii, 18-19: "The most impenetrable cur That ever kept with men." scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 33 Hotspur. You say true: 250 Why, what a candy deal of courtesy This fawning greyhound then did proffer me ! Look, 'when his infant fortune came to age,' And * gentle Harry Percy,' and 'kind cousin'; O, the devil take such cozeners ! God forgive me ! 255 Good uncle, tell your tale ; I have done. Worcester. Nay, if you have not, to it again ; W r e will stay your leisure. Hotspur. I have done, i' faith. Worcester. Then once more to your Scottish pris- oners. Deliver them up without their ransom straight, 260 And make the Douglas' son your only mean For powers in Scotland ; which, for divers reasons Which I shall send you written, be assur'd, Will easily be granted. You, my lord, To Northumberland Your son in Scotland being thus employ'd, 265 Shall secretly into the bosom creep Of that same noble prelate, well belov'd, The archbishop. Hotspur. Of York, is it not? 258. i' faith Ch | in sooth Ff (and elsewhere). 251. a candy deal of courtesy : a deal of sugared courtesy. Cf. Hamlet, III, ii, 65: "No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp." 255. cozeners : cheats, swindlers. Hotspur is snapping off a pun or play between 'cousin' and 'cozener.' Cf. Richard HI, IV, iv, 222-223: "Cousins, indeed; and by their uncle cozen'd Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life." 261-262. mean For powers : agent for raising forces. 34 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act i Worcester. True ; who bears hard 270 His brother's death at Bristol, the Lord Scroop. I speak not this in estimation, As what I think might be, but what I know Is ruminated, plotted and set down, And only stays but to behold the face 275 Of that occasion that shall bring it on. Hotspur. I smell it : upon my life, it will do well. Northumberland. Before the game's afoot, thou still let'st slip. Hotspur. Why, it cannot choose but be a noble plot : And then the power of Scotland and of York, 280 To join with Mortimer, ha? Worcester. And so they shall. Hotspur. In faith, it is exceedingly well aim'd. Worcester. And 'tis no little reason bids us speed, To save our heads by raising of a head ; For, bear ourselves as even as we can, 285 The king will always think him in our debt, And think we think ourselves unsatisfied, Till he hath found a time to pay us home : 278. games 's Ff | game is QiQ 2 Globe. 272. in estimation : on mere conjecture or inference. 278. still: always, continually. Often so. — let'st slip. The met- aphor is taken from hunting. To 'let slip' is to loose the hounds from the leash of leather by which they were held in hand till it was time to let them pursue the game. Cf. Julius Caesar, III, ii, 2 73> Coriolanus, I, vi, 39; Henry V, II, ii, 3. 284. head : armed force. Cf. V, i, 66. 288. pay . . . home : punish thoroughly. Cf. The Tempest, V, i, 70-71 : "I will pay thy graces Home both in word and deed"; where, however, 'pay' means 'reward.' scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 35 And see already how he doth begin To make us strangers to his looks of love. 290 Hotspur. He does, he does : we'll be reveng'd on him. Worcester. Cousin, farewell : no further go in this Than I by letters shall direct your course. When time is ripe, which will be suddenly, I'll steal to Glendower and Lord Mortimer ; 295 Where you and Douglas and our powers at once, As I will fashion it, shall happily meet, To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms, Which now we hold at much uncertainty. Northumberland. Farewell, good brother : we shall thrive, I trust. 300 Hotspur. Uncle, adieu : O, let the hours be short Till fields and blows and groans applaud our sport ! Exeunt 292. Cousin. Often used as a title of courtesy, and applied to 'uncle,' 'nephew,' 'niece,' or even 'grandchild.' Cf. I, i, 31, and see note. ACT II Scene I. [Rochester. An inn yard] Enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand 1 Carrier. Heigh-ho! an it be not four by the day, I'll be hang'd : Charles' wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not pack'd. What, ostler ! Ostler. [Within] Anon, anon. 4 1 Carrier. I prithee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the point; poor jade, is wrung in the withers out of all cess. i. an: if. So in Quartos and Folios. See note, I, ii, 98. 2. Charles' wain. The common name for the constellation called the Great Bear. The name is derived from Charlemagne. "The guess 'churl' or 'carl's wain' has been made in ignorance of the history." — Murray. 4. Anon: immediately. Equivalent to the modern waiter's ' Com- ing!' So in II, iv, 25, 36, 43, 51, 86, and elsewhere. 5. beat Cut's saddle. 'Cut' seems to have been a common name for a horse, and the general meaning is, *beat the saddle until it is soft.' Probably 'Cut' in this sense is connected with 'curtal,' which originally meant a horse with its tail cut or docked and sometimes with the ears cropped (cf. II, iii, 68). Both 'cut' and 'curtal' came to be applied to persons in an offensive sense. 6-7. flocks: flakes of wool. — wrung . . . withers. The 'with- ers' of a horse is the ridge between the shoulder bones at the bottom of the neck, under the point of the saddle. 'Wrung' as thus used is the same as 'gall'd.' Cf. Hamlet, III, ii, 252-253. — out of all cess: beyond all measure. The etymological spelling is 'sess,' an aphetic form of 'assessment.' 36 scene i HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 37 Enter another Carrier 2 Carrier. Peas and beans are as dank here as a dog, and that is the next way to give poor jades the bots: this house is turned upside down since Robin Ostler died. " 1 Carrier. Poor fellow, never joy'd since the price of oats rose; it was the death of him. 2 Carrier. I think this be the most villainous house in all London road for fleas: I am stung like a tench. 16 1 Carrier. Like a tench! by the mass, there is ne'er a king christen could be better bit than I have been since the first cock. What, ostler! come away and be hang'd! come away. 20 2 Carrier. I have a gammon of bacon and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing-cross. 9. that Q x I this Ff. 17- by the mass Q x | Ff omit. 14. this be Q x | this is Ff. 18. christen Q x \ in Christendome Ff. 8. dank: moist, damp. So in A Midsummer Night's Dream, II, ii, 75; Romeo and Juliet, II, iii, 6; Julius Ccesar, II, i, 263. 9. dog. The dog was probably as much overworked in allitera- tive comparisons three centuries ago as he is now. — the next way: the nearest way. So in III, i, 261. 10. bots: parasitical worms especially infesting horses. 15-16. stung . . . tench. Probably another jingling simile, like 'dank as a dog,' but in Holland's translation (London, 1601) of the ninth book of Pliny's Natural History is an account of the old belief that fishes in summer were often stung by fleas. 22. razes : roots tied in a bundle. In The Famous Victories of Henry V (see Introduction, Sources) is a reference to "the great rase of ginger," of which Dericke the carrier is robbed at Gadshill. — Charing-cross. This ancient shrine, now in the heart of London, was in the outskirts in the sixteenth century. 38 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii 1 Carrier. God's body! the turkeys in my pannier are quite starv'd. What, ostler! A plague on thee! hast thou never an eye in thy head? canst not hear? And 'twere not as good deed as drink, to break the pate on thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hang'd ! hast no faith in thee? 28 Enter Gadshill Gadshill. Good morrow, carriers. What's o'clock? 1 Carrier. I think it be two o'clock. 30 Gadshill. I prithee, lend me thy lantern, to see my gelding in the stable. 1 Carrier. Nay, by God, soft ; I know a trick worth two of that, i' faith. Gadshill. I pray thee, lend me thine. 35 2 Carrier. Ay, when? canst tell? Lend me thy lantern, quoth he? marry, I'll see thee hang'd first. Gadshill. Sirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London? 39 2 Carrier. Time enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee. Come, neighbour Mugs, we'll call up the gentlemen: they will along with company, for they have great charge. Exeunt Carriers 23. God's body Q l | Ff omit. 31. lantern Q x | Lanthorne F 1 F 2 . 23. turkeys. An anachronism. Turkeys were not brought into England until the reign of Henry VIII. 26. And: if. See note, I, ii, 98. So in II, ii, 43; iii, 21; iv, 143, 237, 377, 413 ; HI, i, 262 ; iii, 7, 152. 30. two o'clock. The carrier has already said (lines 1-2), "an it be not four by the day, I'll be hang'd." Probably he suspects Gadshill, and tries to mislead him. scene i HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 39 Gadshill. What, ho ! chamberlain ! 44 Chamberlain. [Within] At hand, quoth pick-purse. Gadshill. That's even as fair as — at hand, quoth the chamberlain ; for thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving direction doth from labouring; thou lay'st the plot how. 49 Enter Chamberlain Chamberlain. Good morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that I told you yesternight : there 's a franklin in the wild of Kent hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold : I heard him tell it to one of his company last night at supper ; a kind of auditor ; one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter : they will away presently. 57 Gadshill. Sirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicho- las' clerks, I'll give thee this neck. 44. Scene II Pope. 44. chamberlain. An attendant at an inn, in charge of the bed- chambers. As here represented, chamberlains often concerted with highwaymen for the waylaying of travelers. 45. A slang phrase of the time, often found in old plays. 52. franklin: freeholder, yeoman. The designation of a class of small landowners, of free but not noble birth and ranking next below the gentry. See the description of the Franklin in Chaucer's Prologue. — wild: weald, open country. 54. auditor: officer of the revenue or exchequer. 55. abundance of charge. Probably money belonging to the state; as Bardolph afterwards says (II, ii, 52-53), "'tis going to the king's exchequer." 58-59. Saint Nicholas' clerks: thieves, highwaymen. Since Nicholas or Old Nick was a cant name for the devil, thieves were equivocally called 'St. Nicholas' clerks.' 40 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Chamberlain. No, I'll none of it : I pray thee, keep that for the hangman ; for I know thou worshipp'st Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may. 62 Gadshill. What talkest thou to me of the hangman ? if I hang, I'll make a fat pair of gallows; for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou know'st he is no starveling. Tut ! there are other Trojans that thou dream'st not of, the which for sport sake are con- tent to do the profession some grace ; that would, if matters should be look'd into, for their own credit sake, make all whole. I am join'd with no foot land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad mus- tachio purple-hued malt-worms ; but with nobility and tranquillity, burgomasters and great oneyers, such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak 66. starveling. Cf. Starveling in A Midsummer Night's Dream. — Trojans. Another cant term for thieves. Cf. Love's Labour's Lost, V, ii, 640; Henry V, V, i, 20. See note. II, i, 12. 70. foot land-rakers : tramps going on foot, vagabonds. 71-72. long-staff . . . strikers : fellows that infested the roads with long-staffs and knocked men down for a paltry coin. 'Striker' was a common name for a petty thief. — mad . . . malt-worms: topers whose fierce-looking mustachios are stained purple with liquor. 73. oneyers. Many emendations have been suggested, such as 'moneyers,' 'owners,' 'mynheers,' etc. Malone interpreted the word as 'public accountants'; Grant White contends that it is a playful expression for' ones ' with the punning sense of ' owners ' added. 74. hold in. Apparently a term of the chase, applied to a pack of hounds when they all acted in concert, or pulled together in pursuit of the game. So that the sense of the phrase as applied to men would be 'stick by each other,' or 'be true to each other.' This interpretation appears to be sustained by a passage in Turber- ville's Booke of Hunting: "If they run it endways orderly and make it good, then, when they hold in together merrily, we say, They are scene i HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 41 sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray : and yet, 'zounds, I lie ; for they pray continually to their saint, the commonwealth ; or rather, not pray to her, but prey on her, for they ride up and down on her and make her their boots. 79 Chamberlain. What, the commonwealth their boots? will she hold out water in foul way ? Gadshill. She will, she will ; justice hath liquor'd her. We steal as in a castle, cock-sure ; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible. 84 Chamberlain. Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible. Gadshill. Give me thy hand : thou shalt have a share in our purchase, as I am a true man. 89 Chamberlain. Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief. Gadshill. Go to; c homo' is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring my gelding out of the stable. Farewell, you muddy knave. Exeunt 79, 80. boots. Used in the double sense of * booty' and 'advan- tage.' Cf. Ill, i, 67-68. 81. hold . . . way : keep out water on a muddy road. 82. liquor'd: greased with tallow. Cf. The Merry Wives of Windsor, IV, v, 100-102: "They would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor fishermen's boots with me." 84. receipt . . . invisible. Fern-seed was thought to have the power of rendering invisible those who carried it. So in Ben Jon- son's New Inn, i, 1 : "Because indeed I had No med'cine, sir, to go invisible ; No fern-seed in my pocket." 89. purchase: gain, profit, whether legally or illegally obtained. Cf. Henry V, III, ii, 44-45 : "They will steal any thing, and call it purchase." — true man. Repeatedly in this play for 'honest man,' 42 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Scene II. [The highway, near Gadshill] Enter Prince Henry and Poins Poins. Come, shelter, shelter : I have remov'd Fal- staff's horse, and he frets like a gumm'd velvet. Prince Henry. Stand close. Enter Falstaff Falstaff. Poins ! Poins, and be hang'd ! Poins ! Prince Henry. Peace, ye fat-kidney'd rascal ! what a brawling dost thou keep ! 6 Falstaff. Where's Poins, Hal? Prince Henry. He is walk'd up to the top of the hill : I'll go seek him. 9 Falstaff. I am accurs'd to rob in that thief's com- pany : the rascal hath remov'd my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the squier further afoot, I shall break my wind. Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly Scene II | Scene III Pope. and so antithetic to 'thief.' In II, ii, 91, the prince says, "The thieves have bound the true men." The usage was common. 2. frets . . . velvet. A quibble. Velvet and taffeta were some- times stiffened with gum ; in which cases the fabric soon got fretted away and spoilt. Cf. Marston, The Malcontent (1604) : "I'll come among ye, like gum into taffeta, to fret, fret." 10. to rob: in robbing. The infinitive used indefinitely or ge- rundively. Often so in Shakespeare. See Abbott, § 356. 12. by the squier : measured by the foot-rule. 14. scape. An aphetic form of 'escape.' Cf. 'squire 'for 'esquire.' So in line 59; III, i, 69; V, iii, 30. scene ii HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 43 any time this two and twenty years, and yet I am be- witch'd with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hang'd ; it could not be else ; I have drunk medicines. Poins ! Hal ! a plague upon you both ! Bardolph ! Peto ! I'll starve ere I'll rob a foot further. An 'twere not as good a deed as drink, to turn true man and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chew'd with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me ; and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough : a plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another! [They whistle] Whew ! A plague upon you all ! Give me my horse, you rogues ; give me my horse, and be hang'd ! 29 Prince Henry. Peace, ye fat-guts! lie down; lay thine ear close to the ground and list if thou canst hear the tread of travellers. 32 Falstaff. Have you any levers to lift me up again, being down ? 'Sblood, I'll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father's exchequer. What a plague mean ye to colt me thus ? 36 Prince Henry. Thou liest ; thou art not colted, thou art uncolted. Falstaff. I prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to my horse, good king's son. 40 28. plague Q t I plague light Ff. 18. medicines . . . love him. Alluding to the love-philters, potions or powders, which were supposed to have the effect in question. Cf. Othello, I, in, 60-61 : "She is abus'd, stol'n from me, and corrupted By spells, and medicines, bought of mountebanks." 36. colt : trick, fool, deceive. The prince proceeds to play on the word, for Falstaff has lost his horse. 44 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Prince Henry. Out, ye rogue ! shall I be your ostler ? Falstaff. Go hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters! If I be ta'en, I'll peach for this. And I have not ballads made on you all and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison : when a jest is so forward, and afoot too ! I hate it. 46 Enter Gadshill, [Bardolph and Peto with him] Gadshill. Stand. Falstaff. So I do, against my will. Poins. O, 'tis our setter: I know his voice. Bardolph, what news? 50 Bardolph. Case ye, case ye ; on with your vizards : there 's money of the king's coming down the hill ; 'tis going to the king's exchequer. Falstaff. You lie, ye rogue ; 'tis going to the king's tavern. 55 Gadshill. There's enough to make us all. Falstaff. To be hang'd. Prince. Sirs, you four shall front them in the narrow lane ; Ned Poins and I will walk lower : if they scape from your encounter, then they light on us. 60 Peto. How many be there of them? Gadshill. Some eight or ten. Falstaff. 'Zounds, will they not rob us? 42. Go Ff I Q l omits. 61. How . . . there Qi | But how many be Ff . 43. garters. An allusion to the Order of the Garter and to the proverb, ''Let him hang himself in his own garters." 44. ballads . . . you. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, V, ii, 216. 49. setter. Gadshill was to 'set a match' (I, ii, 108). 50. what news? Johnson assigned this to Bardolph and gave Bardolph's reply to Gadshill. scene ii HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 45 Prince Henry. What, a coward, Sir John Paunch ? Falstaff. Indeed, I am not John of Gaunt, your grandfather ; but yet no coward, Hal. 66 Prince Henry. Well, we leave that to the proof. Poins. Sirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge : when thou needest him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast. 70 Falstaff. Now cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged. Prince Henry. Ned, where are our disguises? Poins. Here, hard by: stand close. Exeunt Prince Henry and Poins Falstaff. Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I : every man to his business. 76 Enter the Travellers First Traveller. Come, neighbour: the boy shall lead our horses down the hill; we'll walk afoot awhile, and ease our legs. Thieves. Stand ! 80 Travellers. Jesus bless us ! Falstaff. Strike ; down with them ; cut the villains' throats : ah ! whoreson caterpillars ! bacon-fed knaves ! they hate us youth : down with them ; fleece them. Travellers. O, we are undone, both we and ours for ever ! 86 77. Scene IV Pope. 80. Stand Q x | Stay Ff. 75. happy . . . dole: may happiness be ours. This was a com- mon proverb. 'Dole' means 'lot' or 'share' meted out by fortune. Cf. The Winter's Tale, I, ii, 163; The Merry Wives of Windsor, III, iv, 68; The Taming of the Shrew, I, i, 144. 46 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ir Falstaff. Hang ye, gorbellied knaves, are ye un- done ? No, ye fat chuffs ; I would your store were here ! On, bacons, on ! What, ye knaves ! young men must live. You are grandjurors, are ye ? we'll jure ye, 'faith. 90 Here they rob them and bind them. Exeunt Re-enter Prince Henry and Poins Prince Henry. The thieves have bound the true men. Now could thou and I rob the thieves and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month and a good jest for ever. Poins. Stand close ; I hear them coming. 95 Enter the Thieves again Falstaff. Come, my masters, let us share, and then to horse before day. An the Prince and Poins be not two arrant cowards, there's no equity stirring: there's no more valour in that Poins than in a wild-duck. Prince Henry. Your money! 100 Poins. Villains ! As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them ; they all run away ; and Fal- staff, after a blow or two, runs away too, leaving the booty behind them 87. gorbellied: pot-bellied. Falstaff, u a huge hill of flesh," reviling his victims for their corpulence, is an obvious stroke of humor. Similar are his exclamations " they hate us youth" (line 84) and "young men must live" (line 89). 88. chuffs. A 'chuff,' according to Richardson, is a "burly, swollen man ; swollen either with gluttony and guzzling, or with ill tempers." Very often the word carried with it the suggestion of miserliness and avarice. See Murray. 90. grandjurors: men of social pretensions. scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 47 Prince Henry. Got with much ease. Now merrily to horse : The thieves are all scatt'red and possess'd with fear So strongly that they dare not meet each other ; Each takes his fellow for an officer. 105 Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death, And lards the lean earth as he walks along: Were 't not for laughing, I should pity him. Poins. How the rogue roar'd ! Exeunt Scene III. [Warkworth Castle] Enter Hotspur, solus, reading a letter Hotspur. 'But, for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.' He could be contented : why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house: he shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. 'The purpose you undertake is dangerous'; — why that's certain: 'tis dan- gerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink ; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. 'The purpose you undertake is danger- ous ; the friends you have named uncertain ; the time itself unsorted ; and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise of so great an opposition.' Say you so, say Scene III [ Scene V Pope. 1. Enter . . . letter. This letter has been ascribed to George Dunbar (see note, III, ii, 164), Earl of March, in Scotland, and also to Rokeby, High Sheriff of Yorkshire. It is unnecessary to ascribe it to any particular person. 48 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie. What a lack-brain is this ! By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid ; our friends true and constant : a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation ; an excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this ! Why, my lord of York commends the plot and the general course of the action. 'Zounds, and I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan. Is there not my father, my uncle and myself? lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York and Owen Glendower? is there not besides the Douglas ? have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month ? and are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this ! an infidel ! Ha ! you shall see now in very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the king and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself and go to buffets, for moving such a dish of skim milk with so honourable an action! Hang him! let him tell the king: we are prepar'd. I will set for- ward to-night. 34 Enter Lady Percy Plow now, Kate ! I must leave you within these two hours. Lady Percy. O, my good lord, why are you thus alone ? 16. By the Lord Qq | I protest Ff. 35. Scene VI Pope. 30-31. I could divide . . . buffets: I could cut myself into two parts, and set the parts to cuffing each other. 35. Kate. Shakespeare seems to have had a special liking for the name of Kate. The name of Hotspur's wife was Elizabeth. Holinshed, however, calls her Elinor. scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 49 For what offence have I this fortnight been A banish'd woman from my Harry's bed? Tell me, sweet lord, what is't that takes from thee Thy stomach, pleasure and thy golden sleep? 40 Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth, And start so often when thou sit'st alone? Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks ; And given my treasures and my rights of thee To thick-eyed musing and curs'd melancholy? 45 In thy faint slumbers I by thee have watch'd, And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars ; Speak terms of manage to thy bounding steed ; Cry < Courage ! to the field ! ' And thou hast talk'd Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, 50 Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets, Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin, Of prisoners' ransom and of soldiers slain, And all the currents of a heady fight. Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war 55 And thus hath so bestirr'd thee in thy sleep, That beads of sweat have stood upon thy brow, Like bubbles in a late-disturbed stream ; And in thy face strange motions have appear'd, Such as we see when men restrain their breath 60 54. currents Q : | current Ff. 50. retires: retreats. Cf. King John, II, i, 326; Henry V, IV, iii, 86. This meaning was common from 1550 to 1600. 51. frontiers: outworks. Cf. I, iii, 19, and see note. 52. basilisks: pieces of ordnance. So called from the fabulous reptile of that name. — culverin : long cannon. From Italian colubro, 'snake.' Names of reptiles were often given to early cannon. 54. currents: courses. — heady: impetuous. 50 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii On some great sudden hest. O, what portents are these? Some heavy business hath my lord in hand, And I must know it, else he loves me not. Hotspur. What, ho ! [Enter Servant] Is Gilliams with the packet gone ? Servant. He is, my lord, an hour ago. 65 Hotspur. Hath Butler brought those horses from the sheriff ? Servant. One horse, my lord, he brought even now. Hotspur. What horse? a roan, a crop-ear, is it not? Servant. It is, my lord. Hotspur. That roan shall be my throne. Well, I will back him straight : O Esperance ! 70 Bid Butler lead him forth into the park. [Exit Servant] Lady Percy. But hear you, my lord. Hotspur. What say'st thou, my lady? Lady Percy. What is it carries you away ? Hotspur. Why, my horse, my love, my horse. 75 Lady Percy. Out, you mad-headed ape ! A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen As you are toss'd with. In faith, 61. hest Q x I haste Q 2 F 3 | hast F 1 F 2 . 61. hest: behest, command. Cf. The Tempest, I, ii, 274. 68. crop-ear: horse with docked ears. See note, II, i, 5. 70. Esperance. The motto of the Percy family. Cf. V, ii, 70. 77-78. A weasel . . . toss'd with. The ill-temper of the wea- sel was proverbial. Cf. Cymbeline, III, iv, 162. As the spleen was held to be the special seat of all sudden and explosive emotions, whether of mirth or anger, it is aptly assigned as the cause of Hot- spur's waywardness and capricious moodiness. scene in HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 51 I'll know your business, Harry, that I will. I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir 80 About his title, and hath sent for you To line his enterprize : but if you go, — Hotspur. So far afoot, I shall be weary, love. Lady Percy. Come, come, you paraquito, answer me Directly unto this question that I ask : 85 In faith, I'll break thy little finger, Harry, And if thou wilt not tell me all things true. Hotspur. Away, Away, you trifler ! Love ! I love thee not, I care not for thee, Kate : this is no world 90 To play with mammets and to tilt with lips : We must have bloody noses and crack'd crowns, And pass them current too. God's me, my horse ! What say'st thou, Kate? what would'st thou have with me? Lady Percy. Do you not love me? do you not. indeed ? 95 Well, do not then ; for since you love me not, 82. line: strengthen. Often so. Cf. Macbeth, I, iii, 11 2-1 13: "did line the rebel With hidden help and vantage." 84. paraquito: small parrot. Also called 'perroquet' and 'par- rakeet.' The allusion is to its ceaseless chatter. 91. mammets: puppets, dolls. The word is a variant of 'mau- met,' from 'Mahomet,' and means properly 'a false god,' 'idol.' Cf. Romeo and Juliet, III, v, 185-187: And then to have a wretched puling fool, A whining mammet, in her fortunes tender, To answer, ' I'll not wed ; I cannot love, I am too young ; I pray you, pardon me.' 92-93. crowns . . . current. A play between the two senses of 'crowns,' that is, heads and the coins so named. As Johnson said: 52 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii I will not love myself. Do you not love me ? Nay, tell me if you speak in jest or no. JIotspur. Come, wilt thou see me ride? And when I am o' horseback, I will swear ioo I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate; I must not have you henceforth question me Whither I go, nor reason whereabout : Whither I must, I must ; and, to conclude, This evening must I leave you, gentle Kate. 105 I know you wise, but yet no farther wise Than Harry Percy's wife : constant you are, But yet a woman : and for secrecy, No lady closer ; for I well believe Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know; \y no And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate. Lady Percy. How ! so far ? Hotspur. Not an inch further. But hark you, Kate : Whither I go, thither shall you go too ; To-day will I set forth, to-morrow you. 115 Will this content you, Kate? Lady Percy. It must of force. Exeunt 106. farther Q l | further Ff. '"Crack'd crowns' signifies at once cracked money and a broken head. 'Current' will apply to both: as it refers to money, its sense is well known ; as it is applied to a broken head, it insinuates that a soldier's wounds entitle him to universal respect." Malone pointed out that the same quibble occurs in the First Part of the play Sir John Oldcastle, 1600, IV, i: I'll none of your crack'd French crowns — King. No crack'd French crowns ! I hope to see more crack'd French crowns ere long. 1 10. "A woman conceals what she knows not." — Ray's Proverbs. scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART^I 53 Scene IV. [The Boar's-Head Tavern, Eastcheap] Enter the Prince, and Poins Prince Henry. Ned, prithee, come out of that fat room, and lend me thy hand to laugh a little. Poins. Where hast been, Hal? 3 Prince Henry. With three or four loggerheads amongst three or four score hogsheads. I have sounded the very base-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash of drawers ; and can call them all by their christen names, as Tom, Dick, and Francis. They take it already upon their salvation, that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy ; and tell me flatly I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff, but a Scene IV I Scene VII Pope. 8. christen Qi | Ff omit. 7. all q! I Ff omit. 9- salvation Q x [ confidence Ff. Scene IV. The Boar's-Head Tavern. This is the place of re- sort of the prince and his boon companions in The Famous Vic- tories of Henry V. The original tavern stood near the Blackfnars Playhouse; it was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, but was re- built on the same site and remained until it was torn down in 1831. Goldsmith in his Essays describes a visit to the house evidently under the impression that it was the earlier tavern. "Shakespeare has blended a verity of history and a daily visible actuality of his own London life into one piece of imperishable enamel-painting, by making the Boar's-Head Tavern in Eastcheap the meeting-place of Prince Hal, Sir John Falstaff, Ned Poins, Bardolph, Pistol, and Hostess Quickly."— Co wden Clarke. 1-2 fat room. It does not well appear what room Poins was in or 'why it is called 'fat.' 'Fat' and Wat' were both used for 'wine-vats.' Probably the word here means 'stuffy,' 'dense with fumes of liquor.' Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, II, vii, 122. 7 leash : trio. Properly a string or thong for leading a dog It came to signify a 'trio' because three dogs were usually tied together. 54 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy, by the Lord, so they call me, and when I am king of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dyeing scarlet ; and when you breathe in your watering, they cry ' hem ! ' and bid you play it off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour, that I can drink with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour, that thou wert not with me in this action. But, sweet Ned, — to sweeten which name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar, clapp'd even now into my hand by an under-skinker, one that never spake other English in his life than ' Eight shillings and sixpence/ and 'You are welcome,' with this shrill addition, 'Anon, anon, sir ! Score a pint of bastard in the Half-moon/ or so. But, Ned, to drive away the time till Falstaff come, I prithee, do thou stand in some by-room, while I ques- tion my puny drawer to what end he gave me the sugar ; and do thou never leave calling 'Francis,' that his tale 12. Corinthian. This word, like 'Trojan' (II, i, 66), appears to have been a cant term to describe a profligate idler or gay fellow about town. Here, as the words that follow show, it is used as a compliment. The word had reference to the morals of ancient Corinth. Cf. 'Ephesians,' 2 Henry IV, II, ii, 164. 15-16. breathe in your watering : stop and take breath when you are drinking. The figure is from watering horses. 22. Sugar was kept folded up in paper, ready to be delivered to those who called for sack. 23. under-skinker: under-drawer, tapster. 25-26. 'Anon, anon, sir!* See note, II, i, 4. — bastard: a sweet Spanish wine. See note, line 72. — Half-moon. A room in the tavern. So with 'Pomgarnet,' lines 36-37. 29. puny. A play on ' puisne,' the technical term for a younger son and wittily applied here to the under-skinker. scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 55 to me may be nothing but 'Anon.' Step aside, and I'll show thee a precedent. 32 Poins. Francis ! Prince Henry. Thou art perfect. Poins. Francis! Exit Poins Enter Francis Francis. Anon, anon, sir. Look down into the Pom- garnet, Ralph. 37 Prince Henry. Come hither, Francis. Francis. My lord? Prince Henry. How long hast thou to serve, Francis? Francis. Forsooth, five years, and as much as to — Poins. [Within] Francis! 42 Francis. Anon, anon, sir. Prince Henry. Five year ! by'r lady, a long lease for the clinking of pewter. But, Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the coward with thy indenture and show it a fair pair of heels and run from it? 47 Francis. O Lord, sir, I'll be sworn upon all the books in England, I could find in my heart. Poins. [Within] Francis! 50 Francis. Anon, sir. Prince Henry. How old art thou, Francis? 32. precedent Pope | president 36. Scene VIII Pope. — Enter Ff I present Q v Francis | Enter Drawer Q 1 Ff. 32. precedent: something serving as a sample, specimen. 36-37. Pomgarnet: Pomegranate. See note, lines 25-26. 'Pom- garnet' is the spelling in the early Quartos and the Folios and prob- ably was intended to show the drawer's pronunciation. 44. by'r lady: by our Lady. A common oath, referring to Saint Mary the Virgin. Quartos and Folios have 'berlady.' 56 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Francis. Let me see — about Michaelmas next I shall be — Poins. [Within] Francis! 55 Francis Anon, sir. Pray stay a little, my lord. Prince Henry. Nay, but hark you, Francis : for the sugar thou gavest me, 'twas a pennyworth, wast't not ? Francis. O Lord, I would it had been two ! 59 Prince Henry. I will give thee for it a thousand pound : ask me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it. Poins. [Within] Francis! Francis. Anon, anon. Prince Henry. Anon, Francis ? No, Francis ; but to-morrow, Francis ; or Francis, o' Thursday ; or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But, Francis! 66 Francis. My lord? Prince Henry. Wilt thou rob this leathern jerkin, crystal-button, not-pated, agate-ring, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch, — 70 Francis. O Lord, sir, who do you mean? Prince Henry. Why, then, your brown bastard is your only drink ; for look you, Francis, your white can- 53. Michaelmas: the festival of St. Michael and All Angels. 68-70. Wilt thou . . . Spanish-pouch. The prince refers to Francis's master, to whom he applies these contemptuous epithets. — crystal-button. Vintners wore crystal-buttoned jerkins. — not- pated. Either 'with close-cropped hair,' or 'bull-headed' (cf. ' knotty-pated,' line 228). In Chaucer's Prologue the Yeoman is described as having a 'not-heed.' — puke-stocking: dark-colored stocking. 'Puke' is a color between russet and black. — caddis- garter. 'Caddis' was a kind of worsted lace or ribbon. — Spanish- pouch. Variously interpreted as 'fat-bellied,' or 'wine-bag' (i.e. drunkard), or as referring to the vintner's dress. 72. brown bastard. 'Bastard' wine was either white or brown. scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 57 vas doublet will sully : in Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much. 75 Francis. What, sir? Poins. [Within] Francis! Prince Henry. Away, you rogue ! dost thou not hear them call ? Here they both call him; the drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go Enter Vintner Vintner. What, standest thou still, and hearest such a calling? Look to the guests within. [Exit Francis] My lord, old Sir John, with half-a-dozen more, are at the door : shall I let them in ? 83 Prince Henry. Let them alone awhile, and then open the door. [Exit Vintner] Poins ! Re-enter Poins Poins. Anon, anon, sir. Prince Henry. Sirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the door : shall we be merry ? 88 Poins. As merry as crickets, my lad. But hark ye; what cunning match have you made with this jest of the drawer? come, what's the issue? Prince Henry. I am now of all humours that have 74-75. in Barbary ... so much. Making a remark or asking a question utterly irrelevant to the matter in hand is an old trick of humor. In I, ii, 38-39, we had it in the question, "And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench ? " Here it is used for the purpose of mystifying poor Francis. Ben Jonson calls this kind of humor "a game of vapours." 58 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii show'd themselves humours since the old days of good- man Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o'clock at midnight. 95 [Re-enter Francis] What's o'clock, Francis? Francis. Anon, anon, sir. Exit Prince Henry. That ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet the son of a woman ! His industry is up-stairs and down-stairs ; his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the north ; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife * Fie upon this quiet life ! I want work.' *0 my sweet Harry,' says she, 'how many hast thou killed to-day?' 'Give my roan horse a drench,' says he ; and answers 5 Some fourteen,' an hour after ; 'a trifle, a trifle.' I prithee, call in Falstaff ; I'll play Percy, and that damn'd brawn shall play Dame Mortimer his wife. ' Rivo ! ' says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call in tallow. m Enter Falstaff, [Gadshill, Bardolph, and Peto ; Francis following with wine] Poins. Welcome, Jack: where hast thou been? Falstaff. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a ven- geance too ! marry, and amen ! Give me a cup of sack, 112. Scene IX Pope. 102. me. The ethical dative. See Abbott, § 220. 109. brawn. A reference to Falstaff's plumpness and rotundity. no. Rivo! An exclamation, apparently of Spanish origin. scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 59 boy. Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew nether stocks and mend them and foot them too. A plague of all cowards ! Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant ? He drinks Prince Henry. Didst thou never see Titan kiss a dish of butter? pitiful-hearted Titan, that melted at the sweet tale of the sun's ! if thou didst, then behold that compound. 121 Falstaff. You rogue, here's lime in this sack too; there is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man : yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villainous coward ! Go thy ways, old Jack ; die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhang'd in England ; and one of them is fat and grows old : God help the while ! a bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms or any thing. A plague of all cowards, I say still. 132 116. foot ... too Q x I Ff omit. 131. psalms . . . thing Q x | all 125. in it Q L I Ff omit. manner of songs Ff. 115. nether stocks: short stockings. So in King Lear, II, iv, 11. 118. Titan: the sun-god, the sun. For 'Titan' in the next line Theobald substituted 'butter.' Warburton suggested that 'pitiful- hearted Titan' should be parenthetic, and so 'that' would refer back to the 'butter.' 122. lime . . . sack. Putting lime in sack and other wines ap- pears to have been a common device for making them seem fresh and sparkling, when in truth they were spiritless and stale. Eliot, in his Orthoepia (1593), says: "The vintners of London put in lime, and thence proceed infinite maladies, especially the gouts." 127. shotten: spawned (and therefore lean and worthless). 131. weaver . . . anything. Weavers are mentioned in Twelfth Night, II, iii, 61, as lovers of music. Many of the refugees from 60 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Prince Henry. How now, wool-sack ! what mutter you? Falstaff. A king's son ! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild-geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You Prince of Wales! 138 Prince Henry. Why, you whoreson round man, what's the matter? Falstaff. Are not you a coward ? answer me to that : and Poins there? Poins. 'Zounds, ye fat paunch, and ye call me coward, by the Lord, I'll stab thee. 144 Falstaff. I call thee coward ! I'll see thee damn'd ere I call thee coward : but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back : call you that backing of your friends ? A plague upon such backing ! give me them that will face me. Give me a cup of sack ; I am a rogue, if I drunk to-day. Prince Henry. O villain! thy lips are scarce wip'd since thou drunk'st last. 153 Falstaff. All's one for that. (He drinks) A plague of all cowards, still say I. Prince Henry. What's the matter? 144. by the Lord Q t | Ff omit. Flanders who fled from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva were weavers, and, being Calvinists, were distinguished for their love of psalmody. 136. dagger of lath. The kind of weapon given to the Vice in the old miracle plays and moral plays ; hence it came to be a theme of frequent allusion. Cf. Twelfth Night, IV, ii, 134. scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 61 Falstaff. What's the matter! there be four of us here have ta'en a thousand pound this day morning. Prince Henry. Where is it, Jack? where is it? Falstaff. Where is it ! taken from us it is : a hun- dred upon poor four of us. 161 Prince Henry. What, a hundred, man? Falstaff. I am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose ; my buckler cut through and through ; my sword hack'd like a hand-saw — ecce signum! I never dealt better since I was a man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards! Let them speak: if they speak more or less than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness. 171 Prince Henry. Speak, sirs ; how was it ? Gadshill. We four set upon some dozen — Falstaff. Sixteen at least, my lord. Gadshill. And bound them. 175 Peto. No, no, they were not bound. Falstaff. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them ; or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew. Gadshill. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us — 1S0 Falstaff. And unbound the rest, and then come in the other. Prince Henry. What, fought you with them all ? 163. at half-sword : at half the length of the sword, at close quarters with swords. A term of fencing. 167-168. ecce signum : behold the proof. The expression was used in the ritual of the Church. 62 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Falstaff. All ! I know not what you call all ; but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish : if there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legg'd creature. 187 Prince Henry. Pray God you have not murd'red some of them. Falstaff. Nay, that's past praying for: I have pep- per'd two of them; two I am sure I have paid, two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward ; here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me — 195 Prince Henry. What, four ? thou saidst but two even now. Falstaff. Four, Hal ; I told thee four. Poins. Ay, ay, he said four. 199 Falstaff. These four came all a-front, and mainly thrust at me. I made me no more ado but took all their seven points in my target, thus. Prince Henry. Seven? why, there were but four even now. Falstaff. In buckram? 205 Poins. Ay, four, in buckram suits. Falstaff. Seven, by these hilts, or I am a villain else. Prince Henry. Prithee, let him alone ; we shall have more anon. Falstaff. Dost thou hear me, Hal? 210 194. ward: posture of defense. His usual mode of 'warding' off the adversary's blows. Cf. I, ii, 191. 200. mainly: violently, mightily, with might and main. 207. hilts. For the plural applied to a single sword, cf . Henry V, II, Chorus, 9. scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 63 Prince Henry. Ay, and mark thee too, Jack. Falstaff. Do so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram that I told thee of — Prince Henry. So, two more already. Falstaff. Their points being broken, — 215 Poins. Down fell their hose. Falstaff. Began to give me ground: but I follow'd me close, came in foot and hand ; and with a thought seven of the eleven I paid. 219 Prince Henry. O monstrous ! eleven buckram men grown out of two ! Falstaff. But, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me ; for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand. 225 Prince Henry. These lies are like their father that begets them ; gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brain'd guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch, — 229 Falstaff. What, art thou mad? art thou mad? is not the truth the truth? Prince Henry. Why, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green, when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand ? come, tell us your reason : what say'st thou to this? 235 215-216. points . . . hose. Falstaff uses the word 'point' for the 'sharp end of a weapon'; Poins uses it for the 'tagged lace' with which garments were then fastened. 223. Kendal green. The livery of Robin Hood and his men. The color took its name from Kendal, in Westmoreland, formerly celebrated for its cloth manufacture. 22g. tallow-catch. Probably a tub of tallow. 64 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Poins. Come, your reason, Jack, your reason. Falstaff. What, upon compulsion? 'Zounds, and I were at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion ! if reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I. 241 Prince Henry. I'll be no longer guilty of this sin ; this sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horse-back- breaker, this huge hill of flesh, — 244 Falstaff. 'Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat's tongue, you stock-fish ! O for breath to utter what is like thee ! you tailor's-yard, you sheath, you bow- case, you vile standing-tuck, — Prince Henry. Well, breathe awhile, and then to it again : and when thou hast tir'd thyself in base compari- sons, hear me speak but this. 251 Poins. Mark, Jack. Prince Henry. We two saw you four set on four and 251. this Q x I thus Ff. 238. strappado. A military punishment of Spanish origin, de- scribed by Randle Holme in his Armoury (1688) as follows: "The person is drawn up to his height, and then suddenly to let him fall half-way with a jerk . . . which punishment is better to be hanged than for a man to undergo." 240. reasons. 'Reason' and 'raisin' were pronounced alike. 245. elf-skin. Hanmer suggested 'eel-skin,' and this reading has been adopted by many editors. 248. standing-tuck. 'Tuck 'was one of the names for a straight, slim sword, or rapier. This and the foregoing terms are applied to the prince in allusion to his slenderness of person. Shakespeare had historical authority for this; as Stowe says of the prince, "He ex- ceeded the mean stature of men, his neck long, body slender and lean, and his bones small." scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 65 bound them, and were masters of their wealth. Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down. Then did we two set on you four ; and, with a word, out-fac'd you from your prize, and have it ; yea, and can show it you here in the house: and, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roar'd for mercy and still run and roar'd, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight ! What trick, what device, what starting-hole, canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame? 264 Poins. Come, let's hear, Jack; what trick hast thou now? Falstaff. By the Lord, I knew ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear you, my masters : was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? should I turn upon the true prince ? why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules : but beware instinct ; the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter ; I was now a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself and thee during my life ; I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But, by the Lord, lads, I am glad you have the money. Hostess, clap to the doors : watch to-night, pray to-morrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the titles of good fellowship come to you ! What, shall we be merry? shall we have a play extempore? 279 Prince Henry. Content ; and the argument shall be thy running away. Falstaff. Ah, no more of that, Hal, and thou lovest me! 271-272. lion . . . prince. A very popular mediaeval belief. 66 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Enter Hostess Hostess. O Jesu, my lord the prince! 284 Prince Henry. How now, my lady the hostess ! what say'st thou to me? Hostess. Marry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door would speak with you : he says he comes from your father. 289 Prince Henry. Give him as much as will make him a royal man, and send him back again to my mother. Falstaff. What manner of man is he ? Hostess. An old man. Falstaff. What doth gravity out of his bed at mid- night? Shall I give him his answer? 295 Prince Henry. Prithee, do, Jack. Falstaff. Faith, and I'll send him packing. < Exit Prince Henry. Now, sirs : by'r lady, you fought fair ; so did you, Peto ; so did you, Bardolph : you are lions too, you ran away upon instinct, you will not touch the true prince ; no, fie ! 301 Bardolph. Faith, I ran when I saw others run. 284. Scene X Pope. 285. my lady the hostess. A sportive rejoinder to her 'my lord the prince.' Cf. Richard II, V, v, 67. 291. royal man. The hostess has just called the messenger a 'nobleman.' The prince refers to this, and at the same time plays on the words 'royal man.' 'Royal' and 'noble' were names of coin, the one being 105., the other 65. Sd. If, then, the messenger were already a 'noble' man, 35. \d. would make him a 'royal' man. Hearne relates how "Mr. John Blower, in a sermon before her Majesty, first said, 'My royal queen,' and a little after, 'My noble queen.' Upon which says the queen, 'What, am I ten groats worse than I was?'" scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 67 Prince Henry. Faith, tell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff's sword so hack'd ? Peto. Why, he hack'd it with his dagger, and said he would swear truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to do the like. 308 Bardolph. Yea, and to tickle our noses with spear- grass to make them bleed, and then to beslubber our garments with it and swear it was the blood of true men. I did that I did not this seven year before, I blush 'd to hear his monstrous devices. 313 Prince Henry. O villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken with the manner, and ever since thou hast blush'd extempore. Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou ran'st away : what instinct hadst thou for it? Bardolph. My lord, do you see these meteors? do you behold these exhalations ? 320 [Pointing to his own face] Prince Henry. I do. Bardolph. What think you they portend ? Prince Henry. Hot livers and cold purses. Bardolph. Choler, my lord, if rightly taken. Prince Henry. No, if rightly taken, halter. 325 311. true men. 'True' for 'honest.' Cf. II, i, 89, and see note. 315. with the manner: in the act. A legal phrase. 316. fire. The prince means the fire in Bardolph's face. 320. 'Exhalation' in Shakespeare always means 'meteor.' 323. Hot . . . purses. Hard drinking and poverty. 324-325. Choler . . . halter. A quibble here between 'choler' and 'collar' and a play on the double meaning of 'rightly taken'; i.e. 'correctly understood' and 'cleverly captured.' 68 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Re-enter Falstaff Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone. How now, my sweet creature of bombast ! How long is't ago, Jack, since thou sawest thine own knee? Falstaff. My own knee ! when I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an eagle's talon in the waist ; I could have crept into any alderman's thumb-ring: a plague of sigh- ing and grief ! it blows a man up like a bladder. There's villainous news abroad : here was Sir John Bracy from your father ; you must to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the north, Percy, and he of Wales, that gave Amamon the bastinado and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook — what a plague call you him? 338 Poins. O, Glendower. Falstaff. Owen, Owen, the same ; and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o' horseback up a hill perpendicular, — Prince Henry. He that rides at high speed and with his pistol kills a sparrow flying. 345 Falstaff. You have hit it. Prince Henry. So did he never the sparrow. 326. Scene XI Pope. 327. bombast : cotton. Gerard (Herbale, 1597) calls the cotton- plant the 'bombaste' tree. It is here used for 'stuffing of clothes.' 336. Amamon. A demon, described in Scot's Discoverie (1584) as one of the four who rule over all the other fiends. 337- Welsh hook: a kind of hedging-bill made with a hook at the end, and a long handle like the partisan or halbert. 345. pistol. Johnson points out an anachronism here. Pistols scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 69 Falstaff. Well, that rascal hath good mettle in him ; he will not run. 349 Prince Henry. Why, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running ! Falstaff. O' horseback, ye cuckoo ; but afoot he will not budge a foot. Prince Henry. Yes, Jack, upon instinct. 354 Falstaff. I grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps more : Worcester is stolen away to-night ; thy father's beard is turn'd white with the news : you may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible afeard? thou being heir-apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art thou not horribly afraid? doth not thy blood thrill at it? 364 Prince Henry. Not a whit, i' faith ; I lack some of thy instinct. Falstaff. Well, thou wilt be horribly chid to-morrow when thou comest to thy father : if thou love me, practise an answer. Prince Henry. Do thou stand for my father, and ex- amine me upon the particulars of my life. 371 Falstaff. Shall I ? content : this chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre, and this cushion my crown. were not in use in the time of Henry IV. The anachronism is re- peated in Falstaff's speech, V, iii, 50. 356. blue-caps. The 'blue-cap' was of old the national head- dress of Scottish soldiers. The Scotsmen themselves are here ap- propriately called c blue-caps.' 373. state: chair of state. Cf. Macbeth, III, iv, 5. 70 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Prince Henry. Thy state is taken for a join'd-stool, thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown for a pitiful bald crown ! 376 Falstaff. Well, and the fire of grace be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be mov'd. Give me a cup of sack to make my eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept ; for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein. 381 Prince Henry. Well, here is my leg. Falstaff. And here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility. Hostess. O Jesu, this is excellent sport, i' faith ! 385 Falstaff. Weep not, sweet queen; for trickling tears are vain. Hostess. O, the father, how he holds his countenance ! Falstaff. For God's sake, lords, convey my tristful queen ; For tears do stop the flood-gates of her eyes. Hostess . O Jesu, he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see! 391 388. tristful Rowe | trustfull Q^L 374. join'd-stool: joint-stool, a kind of folding-chair. 380. passion: suffering. The original (Latin) meaning. So in line 410. 381. King Cambyses* vein. The banter is here on the play called A Lamentable Tragedie mixed full of Pleasant Mirthe, containing the Life of Cambises, King of Persia, by Thomas Preston, printed in 1570 but acted earlier. 382. leg: bow of reverence, obeisance. 388. tristful: sorrowful, grieving. Rowe's famous emendation of the 'trustfull' of Quartos and Folios. Cf. Hamlet, III, iv, 50. 391. harlotry. Sometimes used adjectively as a general term of reproach; hore probably in the sense of 'vagabond.' scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 71 Falstaff. Peace, good pint-pot ; peace, good tickle- brain. Harry, I do not only marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied : for though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have partly thy mother's word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip, that doth warrant me. If then thou be son to me, here lies the point ; why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at ? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher and eat blackberries? a question not to be ask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses ? a question to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch : this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile ; so doth the company thou keepest : for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in passion, not in words only, but in woes also : and yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name. 392-393. tickle-brain. A slang term for some potent kind of liquor. Falstaff here addresses the hostess. 394. From here to the end of the speech is a clever travesty of Euphuism. The passage about the camomile is borrowed from Lyly ; it had already been imitated by Greene in Philomela (i595)- 402. micher : truant. Cf. Lyly's Mother Bombie (1594) : "How like a micher he stands, as if he had trewanted from honestie." In Akerman's Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases we find : "Moocher. — A truant; a blackberry moucher. A boy who plays truant to pick blackberries." 407-408. pitch . . . defile. "He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith." — Ecclesiasticus, xiii, 1. 72 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Prince Henry. What manner of man, and it like your majesty? 414 Falstaff. A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpu- lent ; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble carriage ; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r lady, inclining to three score ; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff : if that man should be lewdly given, he deceiveth me ; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then, peremptorily I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month? 425 Prince Henry. Dost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I'll play my father. Falstaff. Depose me? if thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker or a poulter's hare. 430 Prince Henry. Well, here I am set. Falstaff. And here I stand : judge, my masters. Prince Henry. Now, Harry, whence come you? Falstaff. My noble lord, from Eastcheap. Prince Henry. The complaints I hear of thee are grievous. 43 6 Falstaff. 'Sblood, my lord, they are false: nay, I'll tickle ye for a young prince, i' faith. Prince Henry. Swearest thou, ungracious boy? henceforth ne'er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace : there is a devil haunts thee in the like- 437- 'Sblood Q 1 I Yfaith FjFg. 438. i'faith Q l | Ff omit. 430. rabbit-sucker: sucking rabbit. — poulter : poulterer. scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 73 ness of an old fat man ; a tun of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of drop- sies, that huge bombard of sack, that stuff'd cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend vice, that grey iniquity, that father ruffian, that vanity in years ? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it ? wherein neat and cleanly, but to carve a capon and eat it? wherein cunning, but in craft ? wherein crafty, but in villainy ? wherein villain- ous, but in all things? wherein worthy, but in nothing? Falstaff. I would your grace would take me with you: whom means your grace? 454 Prince Henry. That villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan. Falstaff. My lord, the man I know. Prince Henry. I know thou dost. 458 444. bolting-hutch: trough or tub into which meal is bolted. 445. bombard: large leather bottle for holding liquor. 446-447. roasted Manningtree ox . . . belly. Manningtree in Essex was noted for its fine pastures and large oxen, and had the privilege of holding fairs on condition that every year there should be given a certain number of stage-plays. These were associated with great feasting and general festivities, and the roasting of oxen whole was common. These plays retained many of the alle- gorical characters of the old moral plays, including such as are mentioned in the next line, the 'Vice,' 'Iniquity,' 'Ruffian,' and 'Vanity.' Malone quotes in this connection Nash, The Choosing of Valentines : or gee a of stnmge moralitie; Showen by bachelrie of Manningtree, Whereto the country franklins flock-meale swarme. 450. cunning: knowing, skillful. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, IV, ii, 2. 453-454. take me with you : let me understand you. 74 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act n Falstaff. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked ! if to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned : if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord ; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins : but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's com- pany, banish not him thy Harry's company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world. 47I Prince Henry. I do, I will. [A knocking heard. Exeunt Hostess, Francis, and Bardolph] Re-enter Bardolph, running Bardolph. O, my lord, my lord ! the sheriff with a most monstrous watch is at the door. Falstaff. Out, ye rogue ! Play out the play : I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff. 47 6 Re-enter the Hostess Hostess. O Jesu, my lord, my lord ! Prince Henry. Heigh, heigh ! the devil rides upon a fiddlestick: what's the matter? Hostess. The sheriff and all the watch are at the door: they are come to search the house. Shall I let them in? 482 478-479. the devil . . . fiddlestick: here's a fine commotion. The later Quartos and the Folios give this speech to Falstaff. scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 75 Falstaff. Dost thou hear, Hal ? never call a true piece of gold a counterfeit : thou art essentially mad, without seeming so. 485 Prince Henry. And thou a natural coward, without instinct. Falstaff. I deny your major : if you will deny the sheriff, so ; if not, let him enter : if I become not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up ! I hope I shall as soon be strangled with a halter as another. 491 Prince Henry. Go, hide thee behind the arras : the rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true face and good conscience. 494 484. mad F 3 F 4 | made Q^F*. 484-485. The probable meaning is : You are essentially, really, truly a madcap, and are not merely putting on the semblance or acting the part of one : it is a matter of character, and not of mere imitation, with you ; and to say you have but assumed the role of a make-sport for the fun and humor of it is like calling a true piece of gold a counterfeit. 488. Falstaff has some knowledge of technical terms in logic, such as the major and minor premises of a syllogism or propo- sition. But he here uses 'major' in the sense of 'proposition,' putting a part for the whole. It would seem that 'major' and 'mayor' were sounded much alike. So Falstaff makes a pun or quibble between 'major,' as a term in logic, and 'mayor,' as the head of a civic corporation, and the sheriff's official superior. So that his meaning is : I deny your statement, what you have just said or affirmed ; if you will deny the sheriff, very well. 489. become . . . cart: do not adorn a hangman's cart. 492. arras : tapestry. From Arras, a town in Artois. Tapestry was fixed on frames of wood at such distance from the wall as to keep it from being rotted by the dampness; large spaces were thus left between the arras and the walls, sufficient to contain even one of Falstaff's bulk. The old dramatists avail themselves of this con- venient hiding-place on all occasions. 76 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ii Falstaff. Both which I have had : but their date is out, and therefore I'll hide me. Prince Henry. Call in the sheriff. Exeunt all except the Prince and Peto Enter Sheriff and the Carrier Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me? Sheriff. First, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry Hath followed certain men unto this house. 500 Prince Henry. What men? Sheriff. One of them is well known, my gracious lord, A gross fat man. Carrier. As fat as butter. Prince Henry. The man, I do assure you, is not here; For I myself at this time have employ 'd him. 505 And, sheriff, I will engage my word to thee That I will, by to-morrow dinner-time, Send him to answer thee, or any man, For any thing he shall be charg'd withal : And so let me entreat you leave the house. 510 498. Scene XII Pope. 504-505. Shakespeare has been blamed for putting this false- hood into the prince's mouth. The blame, whatever it be, should rather light on the prince ; and even he is to be blamed rather for what he has all along been doing than for What he now says. To have betrayed Falstaff, after what has passed between them, would have been something worse than telling a falsehood ; more wicked even, let alone the meanness of it. Shakespeare did not mean to represent the prince as altogether unhurt by his connec- tion with Sir John. scene iv HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 77 Sheriff. I will, my lord. There are two gentlemen Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks. Prince Henry. It may be so: if he have robb'd these men, He shall be answerable ; and so farewell. Sheriff. Good night, my noble lord. 515 Prince Henry. I think it is good morrow, is it not ? Sheriff. Indeed, my lord, I think it be two o'clock. Exeunt [Sheriff and Carrier] Prince Henry. This oily rascal is known as well as Paul's. Go, call him forth. Peto. Falstaff! — Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse. 5 21 Prince Henry. Hark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets. (He searcheth his pockets, and find- eth certain papers) What hast thou found ? Peto. Nothing but papers, my lord. 525 Prince Henry. Let's see what they be: read them. Peto. [Reads] Item, A capon, 2s. 2d. Item, Sauce, 4 d . Item, Sack, two gallons, ... 5s. 8d. Item, Anchovies and sack after supper, 2s. 6d. Item, Bread, ob. Prince Henry. O monstrous ! but one half-penny- worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack! What there is else, keep close ; we'll read it at more advantage : 519. Paul's: St. Paul's Church or Cathedral. The nave was a place of general resort. Cf. 2 Henry IV, I, ii, 58. 520. Johnson and many editors transfer to Poins this and the following speeches ascribed to Peto in the Quartos and Folios. 532. ob: obolus. A Greek coin, here used for halfpenny. 78 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act ir there let him sleep till day. I'll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I'll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot ; and I know his death will be a march of twelve- score. The money shall be paid back again with advan- tage. Be with me betimes in the morning ; and so, good morrow, Peto. 542 Peto. Good morrow, good my lord. Exeunt 539-540. his death . . . twelve-score: a march of twelve- score yards will be his death. ACT III Scene I. [Bangor. The Archdeacon's house] Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer, and Glendower Mortimer. These promises are fair, the parties sure, And our induction full of prosperous hope. Hotspur. Lord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower, Will you sit down? And uncle Worcester: a plague upon it! 5 I have forgot the map. Glendower. No, here it is. Sit, cousin Percy ; sit, good cousin Hotspur, For by that name as oft as Lancaster Doth speak of you, his cheek looks pale and with A rising sigh he wisheth you in heaven. 10 Hotspur. And you in hell, as oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of. Glendower. I cannot blame him : at my nativity The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, Of burning cressets; and at my birth 15 The frame and huge foundation of the earth Shaked like a coward. 2. induction: commencement, beginning. The introductory scene of a play was called the 'induction.' Cf. Richard III, IV, iv, 5. 15. cressets : fire-baskets used as beacons, and sometimes as torches to light processions. 79 80 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act in Hotspur. Why, so it would have done at the same season, if your mother's cat had but kitten'd, though yourself had never been born. 20 Glendower. I say the earth did shake when I was born. Hotspur. And I say the earth was not of my mind, If you suppose as fearing you it shook. Glendower. The heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble. Hotspur. O, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire, 25 And not in fear of your nativity. Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions ; oft the teeming earth Is with a kind of colic pinch'd and vex'd By the imprisoning of unruly wind 30 Within her womb ; which, for enlargement striving, Shakes the old beldam earth and topples down Steeples and moss-grown towers. At your birth Our grandam earth, having this distemperature, In passion shook. Glendower. Cousin, of many men 35 I do not bear these crossings. Give me leave To tell you once again that at my birth The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes, The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields. 40 These signs have mark'd me extraordinary ; And all the courses of my life do show I am not in the roll of common men. Where is he living, clipp'd in with the sea 34. distemperature: disorder. So in V, i, 3. scene i HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 81 That chides the banks of England, Scotland, Wales, 45 Which calls me pupil, or hath read to me ? And bring him out that is but woman's son Can trace me in the tedious ways of art And hold me pace in deep experiments. Hotspur. I think there 's no man speaks better Welsh. I'll to dinner. 5I Mortimer. Peace, cousin Percy ; you will make him mad. Glendower. I can call spirits from the vasty deep. • Hotspur. Why, so can I, or so can any man ; But will they come when you do call for them? 55 Glendower. Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command The devil. Hotspur. And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil By telling truth : tell truth and shame the devil. i If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither, 60 And I'll be sworn I have power to shame him hence. O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil ! Mortimer. Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat. Glendower. Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head Against my power ; thrice from the banks of Wye 65 And sandy-bottom'd Severn have I sent him Bootless home and weather-beaten back. Hotspur. Home without boots, and in foul weather too ! How scapes he agues, in the devil's name? 64-65. made head Against: attacked in force. 82 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act in Glendower. Come, here's the map: shall we divide our right 70 According to our threefold order ta'en ? Mortimer. The archdeacon hath divided it Into three limits very equally : England, from Trent and Severn hitherto, By south and east is to my part assign 'd : 75 All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore, And all the fertile land within that bound, To Owen Glendower : and, dear coz, to you The remnant northward, lying off from Trent. And our indentures tripartite are drawn ; 80 Which being sealed interchangeably, A business that this night may execute, To-morrow, cousin Percy, you and I And my good Lord of Worcester will set forth To meet your father and the Scottish power, 85 As is appointed us, at Shrewsbury. My father Glendower is not ready yet, Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days. Within that space you may have drawn together Your tenants, friends and neighbouring gentlemen. 90 Glendower. A shorter time shall send me to you, lords : And in my conduct shall your ladies come ; From whom you now must steal and take no leave, 74. hitherto : up to this point. His finger is on the map. 80. indentures tripartite are drawn : the agreement having three parties to it is drawn up in three corresponding copies. Hol- inshed speaks of the 'tripartite indenture.' 81. sealed interchangeably. Each copy was to be sealed and signed by all three. scene i HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 83 For there will be a world of water shed Upon the parting of your wives and you. 95 Hotspur. Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here, In quantity equals not one of yours : See how this river comes me cranking in, And cuts me from the best of all my land A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out. 100 I'll have the current in this place damm'd up ; And here the smug and silver Trent shall run In a new channel, fair and evenly ; It shall not wind with such a deep indent, To rob me of so rich a bottom here. 105 Glendower. Not wind ? it shall, it must ; you see it doth. Mortimer. Yea, but Mark how he bears his course, and runs me up With like advantage on the other side; Gelding the opposed continent as much no As on the other side it takes from you. Worcester. Yea, but a little charge will trench him here 100. cantle Ff | scantle Q v 96. moiety. Properly a ' half -share,' but often used loosely, as here, to mean a 'share' or 'portion.' 98. comes me cranking in : bends in on my share of the land. 100. cantle: corner, segment. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, III, x, 6 : "The greater cantle of the world is lost." 105. bottom: intervale, alluvial land along a stream. no. Gelding: lopping, cutting off from. — continent. Used in a general sense for that which holds in or contains anything; hence the bank of a river. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, II, i, 92. 84 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act hi And on this north side win this cape of land ; And then he runs straight and even. Hotspur. I'll have it so : a little charge will do it. 115 Glendower. I'll not have it alt'red. Hotspur. Will not you? Glendower. No, nor you shall not. Hotspur. Who shall say me nay ? Glendower. Why, that will I. Hotspur. Let me not understand you, then; speak it in Welsh. 120 Glendower. I can speak English, lord, as well as you; For I was train 'd up in the English court ; Where, being but young, I framed to the harp Many an English ditty lovely well And gave the tongue a helpful ornament, 125 A virtue that was never seen in you. Hotspur. Marry, And I am glad of it with all my heart : I had rather be a kitten and cry mew Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers; 130 I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on the axle-tree ; And that would set my teeth nothing on edge, Nothing so much as mincing poetry : Tis like the forc'd gait of a shuffling nag. 135 Glendower. Come, you shall have Trent turn'd. Hotspur. I do not care : I'll give thrice so much land To any well-deserving friend ; But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, 131. canstick. The Quarto reading. A common contraction of 1 candlestick,' which is the form of the word found in the Folios. scene I HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 85 I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair. 140 Are the indentures drawn? shall we be gone? Glendower. The moon shines fair; you may away by night: I'll haste the writer and withal Break with your wives of your departure hence: I am afraid my daughter will run mad, 145 So much she doteth on her Mortimer. Exit Mortimer. Fie, cousin Percy! how you cross my father ! Hotspur. I cannot choose : sometime he angers me With telling me of the moldwarp and the ant, Of the dreamer Merlin and his prophecies, 150 And of a dragon and a finless fish, A clip-wing 'd griffin and a moulten raven, A couching lion and a ramping cat, And such a deal of skimble-skamble stuff As puts me from my faith. I tell you what; 155 He held me last night at least nine hours In reckoning up the several devils' names 147. Scene II Pope. 143. writer. The writer of the indentures already mentioned. 144. Break with: broach the subject to, inform. 149. moldwarp: mole. 'Moldwarp' means literally 'earth thrower.' 150. It would be hard to find a better description of much old Cymric verse than that in the lines which immediately follow. Mer- lin (Merrdhin) was the great magician whose "deep science and hell-dreaded might" were much celebrated in the ancient literature of Wales. Some of his wonderful doings, especially his magic mirror, are choicely sung in The Faerie Queene, III, ii. 152. moulten. Past participle of * moult.' Pope suggested 'moult- ing.' See Abbott, §374. 154. skimble-skamble stuff : confused, disconnected matter. 86 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act in That were his lackeys: I cried 'hum/ and 'well, go to/ But mark'd him not a word. O, he is as tedious As a tired horse, a railing wife ; 160 Worse than a smoky house : I had rather live With cheese and garlic in a windmill, far, Than feed on cates and have him talk to me In any summer-house in Christendom. Mortimer. In faith, he is a worthy gentleman, 165 Exceedingly well read, and profited In strange concealments, valiant as a lion And wondrous affable and as bountiful As mines of India. Shall I tell you, cousin ? He holds your temper in a high respect 170 And curbs himself even of his natural scope When you come 'cross his humour ; faith, he does : I warrant you, that man is not alive Might so have tempted him as you have done, Without the taste of danger and reproof: 175 But do not use it oft, let me entreat you. Worcester. In faith, my lord, you are too wilful- blame ; And since your coming hither have done enough 172. come 'cross | come crosse Q x | doe crosse F^. 160-161. An old Welsh proverb says: "Three things will drive a man from home — a leaky roof, a smoky chimney, and a scolding wife." Cf. Chaucer, Wife of Bath's Prologue, 278-280. 163. cates: dainties, delicacies. Shakespeare plays on the word in The Taming of the Shrew, II, i, 190 : "For dainties are all Kates." 166-167. Exceedingly . . . concealments: extremely proficient in all the wonderful secret arts. 177- too wilful-blame: wilfully blameworthy. Cf. King John, V, ii, 124: "The Dauphin is too wilful-opposite." scene -i HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 87 To put him quite beside his patience. You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault : 180 Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood, — And that's the dearest grace it renders you, — Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage, Defect of manners, want of government, Pride, haughtiness, opinion and disdain : 185 The least of which haunting a nobleman Loseth men's hearts and leaves behind a stain Upon the beauty of all parts besides, Beguiling them of commendation. Hotspur. Well, I am school'd : good manners be your speed ! 190 Here come our wives, and let us take our leave. Re-enter Glendower with the ladies Mortimer. This is the deadly spite that angers me; My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh. Glendower. My daughter weeps : she will not part with you ; She'll be a soldier too, she'll to the wars. 195 Mortimer. Good father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy Shall follow in your conduct speedily. Glendower speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers him in the same 192. Scene III Pope. 196. aunt Percy. It has already been seen that Hotspur's wife was sister to Sir Edmund Mortimer and aunt to the young Earl of March. And she has been spoken of in the play as Mortimer's sister, yet he here calls her his 'aunt.' From which it appears that 88 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act hi Glendower. She is desperate here; a peevish self- will'd harlotry, one that no persuasion can do good upon. The lady speaks in Welsh Mortimer. I understand thy looks : that pretty Welsh Which thou pour'st down from these swelling heavens I am too perfect in ; and, but for shame, 202 In such a parley should I answer thee. The lady speaks again in Welsh I understand thy kisses and thou mine, And that 's a feeling disputation : 205 But I will never be a truant, love, Till I have learn 'd thy language ; for thy tongue Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd, Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower, With ravishing division, to her lute. 210 Glendower. Nay, if you melt, then will she run mad. The lady speaks again in Welsh Mortimer. O, I am ignorance itself in this! Glendower. She bids you on the wanton rushes lay you down Shakespeare not only mistook Sir Edmund for the Earl of March, or rather followed an authority who had so mistaken him, but sometimes confounded the two. 198-199. peevish self-will'd harlotry. Used somewhat as a general term of reproach touched with affection without any such sense as is attached to the terms in modern English. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, IV, ii, 14, where Capulet uses it of his daughter: "A peevish self-will'd harlotry it is." 201. swelling heavens : cerulean eyes welling up with emotion. 205. feeling disputation : conversation carried on with feeling. 210. division: variation (in music), melody. 213. wanton rushes. English noblemen, even down to Shake- speare's time, had their floors carpeted with 'rushes'; and it scene i HENRY THE FOURTH, PART I 89 And rest your gentle head upon her lap, And she will sing the song that pleaseth you 215 And on your eyelids crown the god of sleep, Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness, Making such difference 'twixt wake and sleep As is the difference betwixt day and night The hour before the heavenly-harness 'd team 220 Begins his golden progress in the east. Mortimer. With all my heart I'll sit and hear her sing: By that time will our book, I think, be drawn. Glendower. Do so ; And those musicians that shall play to you 225 Hang in the air a thousand leagues from hence, And straight they shall be here : sit, and attend. Hotspur. Come, Kate, thou art perfect in lying down: come, quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap. Lady Percy. Go, ye giddy goose. The music plays Hotspur. Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh ; 231 And 'tis no marvel he is so humorous. By'r lady, he is a good musician. would seem that even this was thought luxurious enough to be termed 'wanton.' 223. book. It was usual to give this name to any manuscript of bulk, such as patents, grants, articles, and covenants. 232. humorous: capricious, wayward, subject to fits and starts. The Word comes to have this meaning from the theory of the old physiologists that four cardinal 'humors' — blood, choler or yel- low bile, phlegm, melancholy or black bile — determine, by their conditions and proportions, a person's physical and mental qual- ities. Cf. The Merchant of Venice, IV, i, 43 ; As You Like It, I, ii. 278. 90 THE NEW HUDSON SHAKESPEARE act hi Lady Percy. Then should you be nothing but mu- sical, for you are altogether governed by humours. Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh. 236 Hotspur. I had rather hear Lady, my brach, howl in Irish. Lady Percy. Wouldst thou have thy head broken ? Hotspur. No. 240 Lady Percy. Then be still. Hotspur. Neither ; 'tis a woman's fault. Lady Percy. Now God help thee ! Hotspur. To the Welsh lady's bed. Lady Percy. What's that? 245 Hotspur. Peace ! she sings. Here the lady sings a Welsh song Hotspur. Come, Kate, I'll have your song too. Lady Percy. Not mine, in good sooth. 248 Hotspur. Not yours, in good sooth ! Heart ! you swear like a comfit-maker's wife. 78 strangle : 20 205 strappado : 64 238 stubble-land : 22 35 stung . . . tench : 37 15-16 subornation : 29 163 such solemnity : 94 59 sue . . . peace : 125 62 sugar : 54 22 suggestion : 124 51 suits : 13 73 sullen : 20 214 Sunday-citizens: 91258 Sutton Co'fcT : 118 3 swelling heavens : 88 201 sword and buckler : 31 230 taffeta : 10 9 take a muster : 118 133 take ... inn : 104 29 take me with you : 73 453-454 tallow catch : 63 229 task: 111 9 task'd : 126 92 taste: 117 119 tench : 37 16 that wandering . . . fair : 10 13 therefore . . . now : 4 30 therein . . . hope : 113 49-50 thou hast forgotten . . . know : 9 4-6 thou shouldst . . . su- perfluous : 10 9-10 ticklebrain : 71 392-393 Titan: 59 118 tithe : 103 55 to: 96 98; 106 115 to rob : 42 10 toasts-and-butter : 119 20-21 too wilful-blame : 86 177 took it in snuff : 23 41 toss : 121 66 touch : 128 10 trenching : 4 7 tristful : 70 388 Trojans : 40 66 true man : 41 89 true men : 67 311 Turk Gregory : 143 44 turkeys : 38 23 turn tailor . . . teacher : 91 261-262 two o'clock : 38 30 under-skinker : 54 23 unyok'd : 19 198 vaulted: 116 107 velvet guards : 91 258 vile participation : 96 87 warm : 119 17 water-colours : 134 80 we stand opposed : 133 67 well, if Percy . . . pierce him : 144 57 well said : 148 75 well-respected : 122 10 where : 113 53 wild trick: 137 11 with cap and knee : 125 68 Yedward : 17 134 younger sons . . . younger brothers : 119 27-28 younker : 104 79 youth : 148 77 STANDARD ENGLISH CLASSICS Addison and Steele : Sir Roger de Coverley Papers (Litchfield) Arnold : Sohrab and Rustum (Trent and Brewster) Austen: Pride and Prejudice (Sicha) Blackmore : Lorna Doone (Trent and Brewster) Browning, Elizabeth Barrett: Selections (Lee) Browning, Robert: Selections (Lovett) Bunyan : Grace Abounding (Baldwin) Bunyan : Pilgrim's Progress (Revised Edition) Burke: Speech on American Taxation (Moffatt) Burke: Speech on Conciliation with America (Lamont) Burns : Representative Poems, with Carlyle's Essay on Burns (Hanson) Byron: Selections (Tucker) (Revised) Carlyle : Essay on Burns (Hanson) Coleridge: Ancient Mariner, Christabel, and Kubla Khan (Gibbs) Cook and Benham : Specimen Letters Cooper: Last of the Mohicans (Dunbar) Cooper: The Spy (Griffin) Defoe : Robinson Crusoe (Trent) De Quincey : English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc (Turk) De Quincey: Revolt of the Tartars (Simonds) Dickens: David Copperfield (Buck) Dickens : Tale of Two Cities (Linn) Dryden : Palamon and Arcite (Eliot) Eliot, George : Mill on the Floss (Dorey) Eliot, George : Silas Marner (Witham) Franklin : Autobiography (Montgomery and Trent) Gaskell : Cranford (Simonds) Goldsmith : She Stoops to Conquer (Miles) Goldsmith : The Deserted Village and the Traveller, with Gray's Elegy (Pound) Goldsmith: Vicar of Wakefield (Montgomery) Huxley: Selections (Cushing) Irving : Oliver Goldsmith : A Biography (Gaston) Irving: Sketch Book (Complete) (Litchfield) Lamb : Essays of Elia (Wauchope) Lamb : Selected Essays (Wauchope) Lincoln : Selections (Tarbell) Lodge : Rosalynde (Baldwin) Macaulay: England in 1685 (Bates) Macaulay: Essay on Addison (Smith) Macaulay: Essay on Milton (Smith) GINN AND COMPANY Publishers STANDARD ENGLISH CLASSICS ( Continued} Macaulay : Essays on Addison and Milton (in one volume) (Smith) Macaulay : Essays on Lord Clive and Warren Hastings (Gaston) Macaulay : Lays of Ancient Rome, The Armada, Ivry, and The Battle of Naseby (Daniell) Macaulay: Life of Samuel Johnson (Hanson) Macaulay : Speeches on Copyright, with Lincoln's Address at Cooper Union (Gaston) Milton: L'AUegro, II Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas (Hunt- ington) Milton: Paradise Lost, Books I and II, and Lycidas (Sprague) Old Testament: Selections (Snyder) Palgrave : Golden Treasury. 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