^'*: ktfvS
THE LIBRARY
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^, LIBRARY
LOS ANG .if.
THE
PLAYS
OF
VOLUME THE FOURTEENTH.
Printed by S. Hamilton, Weybridge> Surry.
THE
PLAYS
OF
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
VOLUME THE FOURTEENTH.
CONTAINING
KING HENRY VI. PART III.
DISSERTATION.
KING RICHARD III.
LONDON:
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1813.
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KING HENRY VI
PART III.*
VOL. xiv. B
* THIRD PART OP KING HENRY VI.] The action of this
play (which was at first printed under this title, The True Tra-
gedy of Richard Duke of York, and the good King Henry the
Sixth ; or, The Second Part of the Contention of York and Lan-
caster,) opens just after the first battle at Saint Albans, [May
23, 1455,] wherein the York faction carried the day ; and closes
with the murder of King Henry VI. and the birth of prince Ed-
ward, afterwards King Edward V. [November 4, 14-71.] So that
this history takes in the space of full sixteen years. THEOBALD.
I have never seen the quarto copy of the Second part of THE
WHOLE CONTENTION, &c. printed by Valentine Simmes for
Thomas Millington, 1600 ; but the copy printed by W. W. for
Thomas Millington, 1600, is now before me ; and it is not pre-
cisely the same with that described by Mr. Pope and Mr. Theo-
bald, nor does the undated edition (printed in fact, in 1619,)
correspond with their description. The title of the piece printed
in 1600, by W. W. is as follows : The True Tragedie ofRicharde
Duke of Yorke, and the Death of good King Henrie the Sixt :
With the whole Contention between the Two Houses Lancaster and
Yorke : as it was sundry Times acted by the Right Honourable
the Earle of Pembrooke his Servants. Printed at London by
W. W.for Thomas Millington, and are to be sold at his Shoppe
under St. Peter's Church in CornewalL, 1600. On this piece
Shakspeare, as I conceive, in 1591 formed the drama before us.
See Vol. XIII. p. 2, and the Essay at the end of this play.
MALONE.
The present historical drama was altered by Crowne, and
brought on the stage in the year 1680, under the title of The
Miseries of Civil War. Surely the works of Shakspeare could
have been little read at that period ; for Crowne, in his Prologue,
declares the play to be entirely his own composition :
" For by his feeble skill 'tis built alone,
" The divine Shakspeare did not lay one stone."
whereas the very first scene is that of Jack Cade copied almost
verbatim from The Second Part of King Henry VI. and several
others from this third part, with as little variation. STEEVENS.
B 2
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
his Sons.
of the Duke of York's
parti/.
King Henry the Sixth :
Edward, Prince of Wales, his Son.
Lewis XI. King of France.
Duke of Somerset. Duke o/~Exeter. "]
EarlofOxford. EarlofNorthum- I Lords on K.
berland. Earl of Westmoreland. | Henry's side.
Lord Clifford. ' J
Richard Plantagenet, Duke oyfYork :
Edward, Earl of March , afterwards King '
Edward IV.
Edmund, Earl of Rutland,
George, afterwards Duke of Clarence,
Richard, afterwards Duke o/~Glocester,
Duke of Norfolk,
Marquis of Montague,
Earl of Warwick,
Earl of Pembroke,
Lord Hastings,
Lord Stafford,
Sir John Mortimer^ \ Uncles to the Duke of
Sir Hugh Mortimer, ) York.
Henry, Earl of Richmond, a Youth.
Lord Rivers, Brother to Lady Grey.
Stanley. Sir John Montgomery.
merville. Tutor to Rutland. Mayor o/'York.
Lieutenant of the Tower. A Nobleman. Two
Keepers. A Huntsman. A Son that has killed
his Father. A Father that has killed his Son.
Queen Margaret.
Lady Grey, afterwards Queen to Edward IV t
Bona, Sister to the French Queen.
Soldiers, and other Attendants on King Henry and
King Edward, Messengers, Watchmen, 8$c,
SCENE, during part of the third Act, in France j
during all the rest of the Play, in England.
Sir William
Sir John So-
THIRD PART OF
KING HENRY VI. 1
ACT I. SCENE I.
London. The Parliament-House.
Drums. Some Soldiers of York's party break in.
Then, Enter the Duke of YORK, EDWARD, RI-
CHARD, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, WARWICK, and
Others, with white Roses in their Hats.
WAR. I wonder, how the king escap'd our hands.
YORK. While we pursu'd the horsemen of the
north,
He slily stole away, and left his men :
Whereat the great lord of Northumberland,
Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,
c Cheer* d up the drooping army ; and himself,
' Lord Clifford, and lord Stafford, all a-breast,
' Charg'd our main battle's front, and, breaking in,
1 Third Part of King Henry VI.~\ This play is only divided
from the former for the convenience of exhibition ; for the series
of action is continued without interruption, nor are any two
scenes of any play more closely connected than the first scene of
this play with the last of the former. JOHNSON.
6 THIRD PART OF ACTI.
6 Were by the swords of common soldiers slain. 2
EDW. Lord Stafford's father, duke of Bucking-
ham,
' Is either slain, or wounded dangerous :
I cleft his beaver with a downright blow ;
e That this is true, father, behold his blood.
[Showing his bloody Sword.
MONT. And, brother, here's the earl of Wilt-
shire's blood, [To YORK, showing his.
Whom I encounter'd as the battles join'd.
RICH. Speak thou for me, and tell them what I
did. 3
[Throwing down the Duke of SOMERSET'S
Head.
* Were by the staords of common soldiers slain."] See the Se-
pond Part of this Play, Vol. XIII. p. 386, n. 1. REED.
This is an inadvertency in our author. The elder Clifford was
slain by York, and his son lives to revenge his death.
M. MASON.
Dr. Percy in a note on the preceding play, has pointed out
the inconsistency between this account, and the representation
there, Clifford being killed on the stage by the Duke of York,
the present speaker. Shakspeare was led into this inconsistency
by the author of the original plays : if indeed there was but one
author, for this circumstance might lead us to suspect that the
first and second part of The Contention &c. were not written by
the same hand. However, this is not decisive ; for the author,
whoever he was, might have been inadvertent, as we find Shak-
speare undoubtedly was. MALONE.
3 Rich. Speak thou for me, and tell them 'what I. did."] Here,
as Mr. Elderton of Salisbury has observed to me, is a gross ana-
chronism. At the time of the first battle of Saint Albans, at
which Richard is represented in the last scene of the preceding
play to have fought, he was, according to that gentleman's cal-
culation, not one year old, having (as he conceives,) been born
at Fotheringay Castle, October 21, 14-54-. At the time to which
the third scene of the first Act of this play is referred, he was,
according to the same gentleman's computation, but six years
old ; and in the fifth Act, in which Henry is represented as hav-
sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 7
* YORK. Richard hath best deserv'd of all my
sons.
What, is your grace 4 dead, my lord of Somerset ?
NORF. Such hope have all the line of John of
Gaunt !
RICH. Thus do I hope to shake king Henry's
head.
WAR. And so do I. Victorious prince of York,
Before I see thee seated in that throne
Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,
I vow by heaven, these eyes shall never close.
This is the palace of the fearful king,
* And this the regal seat : possess it, York ;
For this is thine, and not king Henry's heirs'.
YORK. Assist me then, sweet Warwick, and I
will;
' For hither we have broken in by force.
NORF. We'll all assist you j he, that flies, shall
die.
ing been killed by him in the Tower, not more than sixteen and
eight months.
For this anachronism the author or authors of the old plays
on which our poet founded these two parts of King Henry the
Sixth, are answerable. MALONE.
4 What, is your grace ] The folio reads But is your grace,
&c. It was evidently a mistake of the transcriber, the word in
the old play being What, which suits sufficiently with York's ex-
ultation ; whereas But affords no sense whatsoever. MALONE.
Though the sense and verse is complete without either But or
What, I suppose we ought to read :
What, 's your grace dead, my lord of Somerset ?
I do not, however, perceive the inefficiency of but. This
conjunction is sometimes indeterminately used ; and is also in-
sultingly employed in Twelfth Night : " But , are you not mad
indeed, or do you but counterfeit ?" STEEVENS.
8 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
YORK. Thanks, gentle Norfolk. Stay by me,
my lords ;
* And, soldiers, stay, and lodge by me this night.
WAR. And, when the king comes, offer him no
violence,
* Unless he seek to thrust you out by force.
\_Theyretire.
* YORK. The queen, this day, here holds her
parliament,
* But little thinks we shall be of her council :
* By words, or blows, here let us win our right.
RICH. Arm'd as we are, let's stay within this
house.
WAR. The bloody parliament shall this be calPd,
Unless Plantagenet, duke of York, be king;
And bashful Henry depos'd, whose cowardice
Hath made us by-words to our enemies.
' YORK. Then leave me not, my lords ; be reso-
lute;
I mean to take possession of my right.
WAR. Neither the king, nor he that loves him
best,
* The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,
Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells. 5
' I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares :
Resolve thee, Richard ; claim the English crown.
[WARWICK leads YORK to the Throne, 'who
seats himself.
4 if Warwick shake his bells.~\ The allusion is to falconry.
The hawks had sometimes little bells hung upon them, perhaps
to dare the birds ; that is, to fright them from rising.
JOHNSOK.
so. i. KING HENRY VI.
Flourish. Enter King HENRY, CLIFFORD, NOR-
THUMBERLAND, WESTMORELAND, EXETER, and
Others, with red Roses in their Hats.
K. HEN. My lords, look where the sturdy rebel
sits,
Even in the chair of state ! belike, he means,
(Back'dby the power of Warwick, that false peer,)
To aspire unto the crown, and reign as king.
Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father ;
And thine, lord Clifford ; and you both have vow'd
revenge
On him, his sons, his favourites, and his friends.
' NORTH. If I be not, heavens, be reveng'd on
me!
CLIP. The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn
in steel.
WEST. What, shall we suffer this ? let's pluck
him down :
c My heart for anger burns, I cannot brook it.
K. HEN. Be patient, gentle earl of Westmore-
land.
CLIP. Patience is for poltroons, and such as he j 6
He durst not sit there had your father liv'd.
My gracious lord, here in the parliament
Let us assail the family of York,
NORTH. Well hast thou spoken, cousin ; be it so.
K. HEN. Ah, know you not, the city favours
them,
And they have troops of soldiers at their beck ?
6 and such as he :~\ Thus the second folio. The first
folio and the quartos omit and. STEEVENS.
10 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
EXE. But, when the duke is slain, they'll quickly
fly. 7
K. HEN. Far be the thought of this from Henry's
heart,
To make a shambles of the parliament-house !
Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words, and threats,
Shall be the war that Henry means to use.
\They advance to the Duke.
Thou factious duke of York, descend my throne,
And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet ;
I am thy sovereign.
YORK. Thou art deceiv'd, 8 I am thine.
EXE. For shame, come down ; he made thee duke
of York.
YORK. 'Twas myinheritance, as the earldom was. 9
EXE. Thy father was a traitor to the crown.
WAR. Exeter, thou art a traitor to the crown,
In following this usurping Henry.
7 Exe. But, token &c.] This line is by the mistake of the com-
positor given to Westmoreland. The king's answer shows that
it belongs to Exeter, to whom it is assigned in the old play.
MALONE.
8 Thou art deceiv'd,"] These words, which are not in the folio,
were restored from the old play. The defect of the metre in the
folio, makes it probable that they were accidentally omitted. The
measure is, however, still faulty. MALONE.
9 as the earldom was.] Thus the folio. The quarto 1600,
and that without date, read as the kingdom is. STEEVENS.
York means, I suppose, that the dukedom of York was his in-
heritance from his father, as the earldom of March was his in-
heritance from his mother, Anne Mortimer, the wife of the Earl
of Cambridge ; and by naming the earldom, he covertly asserts
his right to the crown ; for his title to the crown was not as Duke
of York, but Earl of March.
In the original play the line stands [as quoted by Mr. Steevens ;]
and why Shakspeare altered it, it is not easy to say ; for the new
line only exhibits the same meaning more obscurely. MALONE.
ac.i. KING HENRY VI. 11
CLIP. Whom should he follow, but his natural
king ?
WAR. True, Clifford ; and that's Richard, 1 duke
of York.
' K. HEN. And shall I stand, and thou sit in my
throne ?
' YORK. It must and shall be so. Content thyself.
WAR. Be duke of Lancaster, let him be king.
WEST. He is both king and duke of Lancaster ;
And that the lord of Westmoreland shall maintain.
WAR. And Warwick shall disprove it. You for-
get,
That we are those, which chas'd you from the field,
And slew your fathers, and with colours spread
March'd through the city to the palace gates.
6 NORTH. Yes, Warwick, I remember it to my
grief;
And, by his soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.
' WEST. Plantagenet, of thee, and these thy sons,
Thy kinsmen, and thy friends, I'll have more lives,
Than drops of blood were in my father's veins.
' CLIP. Urge it no more ; lest that, instead of
words,
I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger,
As shall revenge his death, before I stir.
c WAR. Poor Clifford ! how I scorn his worthless
threats !
YORK. Will you, we show our title to the crown ?
' If not, our swords shall plead it in the field.
1 and that's Richard,'] The word and, which was acci-
dentally omitted in the first folio, is found in the old play.
MALONE.
12 THIRD PART OF ACTI.
K. HEN. What title hast thou, traitor, to the
crown ?
Thy father was, as thou art, duke of York ; *
Thy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, earl of March :
I am the son of Henry the fifth, 3
Who made the Dauphin and the French to stoop,
And seiz'd upon their towns and provinces.
WAR. Talk not of France, sith 4 thou hast lost it
all.
K. HEN. The lord protector lost it, and not I ;
When I was crown'd, I was but nine months old.
RICH. You are old enough now, and yet, me-
thinks you lose :
Father, tear the crown from the usurper's head.
EDW. Sweet father, do so ; set it on your head.
MONT. Good brother, [To YORK.] as thou lov'st
and honour' st arms,
Let's fight it out, and not stand cavilling thus.
RICH. Sound drums and trumpets, and the king
will fly.
YORK. Sons, peace !
* Thy father vcas, as thou art, duke of York ;] This is a mis-
take, into which Shakspeare was led by the author of the old play.
The father of Richard Duke of York was Earl of Cambridge,
and was never Duke of York, being beheaded in the life-time of
his elder brother Edward Duke of York, who fell in the battle
of Agincourt. The folio, by an evident error of the press, reads
My father. The true reading was furnished by the old play.
MALONE.
3 I am the son of Henry thejifth,"] The military reputation of
Henry the Fifth is the sole support of his son. The name of
Henry the Fifth dispersed the followers of Cade. JOHNSON.
* sith ] i. e. since. So, in Measure for Measure :
" Sith 'twas my fault to give the people scope."
STEEVENS.
sc. i. KING HENRY VI. is
K. HEN. Peace them ! and give king Henry
leave to speak.
WAR. Plantagenet shall speak first : hear him,
lords ;
And be you silent and attentive too,
For he, that interrupts him, shall not live.
4 K. HEN. Think'st thou, that I will leave my
kingly throne, 5
Wherein my grandsire, and my father, sat ?
No : first shall war unpeople this my realm ;
4 Ay, and their colours often borne in France ;
And now in England, to our heart's great sorrow,
Shall be my winding-sheet. 6 Why faint you, lords?
* My title's good, and better far than his.
WAR. But prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be
king. 7
s Think* st thou, &c.] The old play here exhibits four lines
that are not in the folio. They could not have proceeded from
the imagination of the transcriber, and therefore they must be
added to the many other circumstances that have been already
urged, to show that these plays were not originally the produc-
tion of Shakspeare :
" Ah Plantagenet, why seek'st thou to depose me ?
" Are we not both Plantagenets by birth,
" And from two brothers lineally discent ?
" Suppose by right and equity thou be king,
" Think'st thou," &c. M ALONE.
6 Shall be my winding-sheet.] Perhaps Mr. Gray had this
passage in his mind, when he wrote :
" Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
" The winding-sheet of Edward's race ." STEEVENS.
7 But prove it, Henry, and thou shalt be king."] Thus the
second folio. The first omits the necessary word But.
STEEVENS.
Henry is frequently used by Shakspeare and his contempora-
ries as a word of three syllables. MALONE.
But not as in the present instance, where such a trisyllable must
prove offensive to the ear. STEEVENS.
14 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
K. HEN. Henry the fourth by conquest got the
crown.
YORK. 'Twas by rebellion against his king.
K. HEN. I know not what to say ; my title's
weak.
Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir ?
YORK. What then ?
* K. HEN. An if he may, then am I lawful king :
4 For Richard, in the view of many lords,
Resigned the crown to Henry the fourth ;
Whose heir my father was, and I am his.
YORK. He rose against him, being his sovereign,
And made him to resign his crown perforce.
WAR. Suppose, my lords, he did it unconstrained,
Think you, 'twere prejudicial to his crown ? 8
EXE. No ; for he could not so resign his crown,
But that the next heir should succeed and reign.
K. HEN. Art thou against us, d'uke of Exeter ?
EXE. His is the right, and therefore pardon me.
* YORK. Why whisper you, my lords, and answer
not?
EXE. My conscience tells me he is lawful king.
8 Think you, 'twere prejudicial to his crown?] The phrase
prejudicial to his crown, if it be right, must mean, detrimental
to the general rights of hereditary royalty ; but I rather think
that the transcriber's eye caught crown from the line below, and
that we should read prejudicial to his son, to his next heir.
JOHNSON.
Dr. Percy observes on Dr. Johnson's note, that son could not
have been the right word, as Richard the Second had no issue ;
and our author would hardly have used it simply for heir general.
Prejudicial to the crown, is right, i. e. to the prerogative of the
crown. STEEVENS.
s. /. KING HENRY VI. 15
K. HEN. All will revolt from me, and turn to
him. .>
NORTH. Plantagenet, for all the claim thou lay'st,
Think not, that Henry shall be so depos'd.
' WAR. Depos'd he shall be, in despite of all.
NORTH. Thou art deceived : 'tis not thy southern
power,
' Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,
Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,
Can set the duke up, in despite of me.
CLIP. King Henry, be thy title right or wrong,
Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence :
May that ground gape, and swallow me alive, 9
* Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father !
* K. HEN. O Clifford, how thy words revive my
heart !
YORK. Henry of Lancaster, resign thy crown :
What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?
WAR. Do right unto this princely duke of York ;
Or I will fill the house with armed men,
And, o'er the chair of state, where now he sits,
Write up his title with usurping blood.
\_He stamps, and the Soldiers show themselves.
' K. HEN. My lord of Warwick, hear me but
one word ; l
9 May that ground gape, and swallow me alive,] So, ia
Phaer's translation of the fourth JEneid :
* But rather would I wish the ground to gape for me
below." STEEVENS.
1 hear but one word ,] Hear is in this line, as in some
other places, used as a dissyllable. See Vol. XI. p. 4-11, n. 4-.
The editor of the third folio, and all the subsequent editors, read
hear me but one word. MALONE.
The word hear, in this place, may certainly pass as a dis-
16 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
e Let me, for this my life-time, reign as king.
YORK. Confirm the crown to me, and to mine
heirs,
And thou shalt reign in quiet while thou hVst.
K. HEN. I am content : Richard Plantagenet,
Enjoy the kingdom after my decease. 2
CLIP. What wrong is this unto the prince your
son?
WAR. What good is this to England, and him-
self?
WEST. Base, fearful, and despairing Henry !
* CLIP. How hast thou injur'd both thyself and
us?
WEST. I cannot stay to hear these articles.
NORTH. Nor I.
CLIP. Come, cousin, let us tell the queen these
news.
* WEST. Farewell, faint-hearted and degenerate
king,
* In whose cold blood no spark of honour bides.
NORTH. Be thou a prey unto the house of York,
c And die in bands for this unmanly deed !
9 CLIP. In dreadful war may'st thou be overcome !
syllable. Respecting that referred to by Mr. Malone, I am of a
contrary opinion. STEEVENS.
Since the third folio reads hear me but one word, which im-
proves both the language and the metre, why should it not be
followed? M. MASON.
9 1 am content : #c.] Instead of this speech the old play has
the following lines :
" King. Convey the soldiers hence, and then I will.
" War. Captaine, conduct them into Tuthilfields."
See Vol. XIII. p. 210, n. 9 ; p. 220, n. 6; p. 234-, n. 1 ; p. 317,
n. 3 ; p. 322, n. 3. MALONE.
sc. i. KING HENRY VI. 17
Or live in peace, abandoned, and despis'd !
[Exeunt NORTHUMBERLAND, CLIFFORD,
and WESTMORELAND.
* WAR. Turn this way, Henry, and regard them
not.
EXE. They seek revenge, 3 and therefore will not
yield.
K.HEN. Ah, Exeter!
WAR. Why should you sigh, my lord ?
K. HEN. Not for myself, lord Warwick, but my
son,
Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.
But, be it as it may : I here entail
* The crown to thee, and to thine heirs for ever ;
Conditionally, that here thou take an oath
To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,
To honour me as thy king and sovereign ;
* And neither 4 by treason, nor hostility,
* To seek to put me down, and reign thyself.
* They seek revenge, ~] They go away, not because they doubt
the justice of this determination, but because they have been
conquered, and seek to be revenged. They are not influenced
by principle, but passion. JOHNSON.
4 And neither ] Neither, either, tvhether, brother, rather t
and many similar words, were used by Shakspeare as monosylla-
bles. So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream ;
" Either death or you I'll find immediately."
The editor of the second folio, who appears to have been en-
tirely ignorant of our author's metre and phraseology, not know-
ing this, omitted the word And. MALONE.
My ignorance must be content to accompany that of the editor
of the second folio ; for how either, brother, neither, or rather,
can be pronounced as monosyllables, I am yet to learn.
The versification, however, in this and the preceding play is
often so irregular, that I leave the passage before us as it stands
in the first folio. STEEVENS.
VOL. XIV. C
18 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
YORK. This oath I willingly take, and will per-
form. [Coming from the Throne.
WAR. Long live king Henry! Plantagenet,
embrace him.
' K. HEN. And long live thou, and these thy for-
ward sons !
YORK. Now York and Lancaster are reconcil'd.
EXE. Accurs'd be he, that seeks to make them
foes! [Senet. The Lords come forward.
' YORK. Farewell, my gracious lord j I'll to my
castle. 5
WAR. And I'll keep London, with my soldiers.
NORF. And I to Norfolk, with my followers.
MONT. And I unto the sea, from whence I came.
[Exeunt YORK, and his Sons, WARWICK,
NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, Soldiers, and
Attendants.
* K. HEN. And I, with grief and sorrow, to the
court.
Enter Queen MARGARET and ilie Prince of Wales.
EXE. Here comes the queen, whose looks be-
wray 6 her anger :
I'll steal away.
K. HEN. Exeter, so will I. [Going.
s m to my castle.'] Sandal Castle near Wakefield, in
Yorkshire. MALONE.
6 bewray ] i. e. betray, discover. So, in K. Lear :
" Mark the high noises, and thyself bewray."
Again, ibid :
" He did beixray his practice." STEEVENS.
3C. /, KING HENRY VI. 19
' Q. MAR. Nay, go not from me, I will follow
thee.
K. HEN. Be patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.
* Q. MAR. Who can be patient in such extremes?
* Ah, wretched man ! 'would I had died a maid,
* And never seen thee, never borne thee son,
* Seeing thou hast prov'd so unnatural a father !
* Hath he deserv'd to lose his birthright thus ?
* Hadst thou but lov'd him half so well as I j
* Or felt that pain which I did for him once ;
* Or nourish'd him, as I did with my blood j
* Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood
there,
* Rather than made 7 that savage duke thine heir,
* And disinherited thine only son.
* PRINCE. Father, you cannot disinherit me :
* If you be king, why should not I succeed ?
* K. HEN. Pardon me, Margaret ; pardon me^
sweet son ;
* The earl of Warwick, and the duke, enforc'd me.
* Q. MAR. Enforced thee ! art thou king, and
wilt be forc'd ?
I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch!
Thou hast undone thyself, thy son, and me ;
' And given unto the house of York such head,
* As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.
* To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,
* What is it, but to make thy sepulchre,, 8
7 Rather than made ] Old copy Rather than have made.
The compositor inadvertently repeated the word have, from
the preceding line. STEEVENS.
Rather is here used as a monosyllable. See p. 17, n. 4.
MALONE.
* What is it, but to make thy sepulchre,] The Queen's re-
C 2
20 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
* And creep into it far before thy time ?
* Warwick is chancellor, and the lord of Calais j
Stern Faulconbridge commands the narrow seas j*
The duke is made protector of the realm ;
* And yet shalt thou be safe ? * such safety finds
* The trembling lamb, environed with wolves.
' Had I been there, which am a silly woman,
* The soldiers should have toss'd me on their pikes,
* Before I would have granted to that act.
* But thou preferr'st thy life before thine honour :
* And seeing thou dost, I here divorce myself,
proach is founded on a position long received among politicians,
that the loss of a king's power is soon followed by loss of life.
JOHNSON.
9 Stern Faulconbridge commands the narrow seas;~\ So, in
Marlowe's Edward II :
" The haughty Dane commands the narroiu seas."
This may be too slight a circumstance to prove Marlowe the
author of The Whole Contention ; it is, however, in other re-
spects, sufficiently probable that he had some hand in it.
The person here meant was Thomas Nevil, bastard son to the
lord Faulconbridge, " a man," says Hall, " of no lesse corage
then audacitie, who for his euel condicions was such an apte per-
son, that a more meter could not be chosen to set all the worlde
in a broyle, and to put the estate of the realme on an yl hazard."
He had been appointed by Warwick vice-admiral of the sea, and
had in charge so to keep the passage between Dover and Calais,
that none which either favoured King Henry or his friends
should escape untaken or undrowned: such at least were his in-
structions, with respect to the friends and favourers of King
Edward, after the rupture between him and Warwick. On
Warwick's death, he fell into poverty, and robbed, both by sea
and land, as well friends as enemies. He once brought his
ships up the Thames, and with a considerable body of the men
of Kent and Essex, made a spirited assault on the city, with a
view to plunder and pillage, which was not repelled but after a
sharp conflict and the loss of many lives ; and, had it happened
at a more critical period, 'might have been attended with fatal
consequences to Edward. After roving on the sea some little
time longer, he ventured to land at Southampton, where he was
taken and beheaded. See Hall and Holinshed. RITSON.
K. i. KING HENRY VI. SJ
< Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,
' Until that act of parliament be repeal'd,
' Whereby my son is disinherited. 1
The northern lords, that have forsworn thy colours,
Will follow mine, if once they see them spread :
' And spread they shall be ; to thy foul disgrace,
' And utter ruin of the house of i ork.
' Thus do I leave thee : Come, son, let's away ;
* Our army's ready j come, we'll after them.
K. HEN. Stay, gentle Margaret, and hear me
speak.
Q. MAR. Thou hast spoke too much already; get
thee gone.
K. HEN. Gentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with
me?
Q. MAR. Ay, to be murder'd by his enemies.
PRINCE. When I return with victory from the
field, 2
I'll see your grace : till then, I'll follow her.
Q. MAR. Come, son, away j we may not linger
thus.
\_~Exeunt Queen MARGARET, and the Prince.
* K. HEN. Poor queen ! how love to me, and to
her son,
4 Hath made her break out into terms of rage !
* Reveng'd may she be on that hateful duke ;
* Whose haughty spirit, winged with desire,
1 Whereby my son is disinherited.'] The corresponding line in
the old play is this. The variation is remarkable :
" Wherein thou yieldest to the house of York."
MALONE.
* from thejield,'] Folio to the field. The true read-
ing is found in the old play. MALONE.
22 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
* Will cost my crown, and, like an empty eagle, 3
3 Whose haughty spirit, tvinged with desire,
Will cost my crown, and, like an empty eagle, &c.] Read
coast, i. e. hover over it. WARBURTON.
Dr. "Warburton's alteration aims at a distinction without a
difference, both cost and coast being ultimately derivations of
the same original. HENLEY.
The word which Dr. Warburton would introduce, has been
supposed to violate the metaphor ; nor indeed is to coast used as
a term of falconry in any of the books professedly written on that
subject. To coast is a sea-faring expression, and means to keep
along shore. We may, however, maintain the integrity of the
figure, by inserting the word cote, which is used in Hamlet, and
in a sense convenient enough on this occasion :
" We coted them on the way."
To cote is to come up with, to overtake, to reach. So, in
The Return from Parnassus, a comedy, 1606 :
" marry, we presently coted and outstript them.'*
Yet, on further inquiry, I am become less certain, that to
coast is merely a sea-faring expression. It is used in the follow-
ing instance to denote speed :
" And all in haste she coasteth to the cry."
Shakspeare's Venus and Adonis.
Again, in The Loyal Subject, by Beaumont and Fletcher :
" Take you those horse, and coast them."
Again, in The Maid of the Mill, by the same authors, two gen-
tlemen are entering, and a lady asks :
" who are those that coast us?"
Mr. Toilet therefore observes, that Dr. Warburton's interpre-
tation may be right, as Holinshed often uses the verb to coast,
i. e. to hover, or range about any thing. So, in Chapman's ver-
sion of the fifth Iliad :
" Atrides yet coasts through the troops, confirming men
so stay'd."
See Holinshed, Vol. III. p. 352 : " William Douglas still coasted
the Englishmen, doing them what damage he might." So again,
. p. 387, and 404, and in other writers. STEEVENS.
I have no doubt but coast is the true reading. To coast is to
keep along side of it, and watch it. In King Henry VIII. the
Chamberlain says of Wolsey :
" the king perceives him how he coasts
" And hedges his own way."
ac. i. KING HENRY VI. 23
* Tire on the flesh of me, and of my son ! 4
* The loss of those three lords 5 torments my heart :
* I'll write unto them, and entreat them fair ;
* Come, cousin, you shall be the messenger. 6
* EXE. And I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.
[Exeunt.
And in the last Act of The Loyal Subject, Arenas says :
" Lord Barris,
" Take you those horse, and coast them." M. MASON.
Will cost my croww,] i. e. will cost me my crown ; will induce
on me the expence or loss of my crown. MALONE.
Had this been our author's meaning, he would have otherwise
formed his verse, and written " cost me my crown." So, ia
King Lear :
" The dark and vicious place where thee he got,
" Cost him his eyes." STEEVENS.
4 Tire on thejlesh ofme,~} To tire is to fasten, to fix the ta-
lons, from the French tirer. JOHNSON.
To tire is to peck. So, in Decker's Match me in London t
1631:
" the vulture tires
" Upon the eagle's heart." STEEVENS.
5 those three lords j That is, of Northumberland,
Westmoreland, and Clifford, who had left him in disgust.
JOHNSON.
6 you shall be the messenger."] Instead of the six last lines
of this speech, the first copy presents these:
" Come, cousin of Exeter, stay thou here,
" For Clifford and those northern lords be gone,
" I fear towards Wakefield, to disturb the duke."
See p. 16, n. 2, and the notes there referred to. MALONE.
24, THIRD PART OF ACT i*
SCENE II.
A Room in Sandal Castle, near Wakefield, in York-
shire.
Enter EDWARD, RICHARD, and MONTAGUE.
c RICH. Brother, though I he youngest, give me
leave,
EDW. No, I can better play the orator.
MONT. But I have reasons strong and forcible,
Enter YORK.
' YORK. Why, how now, sons and brother, 7 at a
strife ?
* What is your quarrel ? how began it first ?
. 7 sons and brother,] I believe we should read cousin
instead of brother, unless brother be used by Shakspeare as a term
expressive of endearment, or because they embarked, like bro-
thers, in one cause. Montague was only cousin to York, and in
the quarto he is so called. Shakspeare uses the expression, bro-
ther of the war, in King Lear. STEEVENS.
It should be sons and brothers; my sons, and brothers to each
other. JOHNSON.
Brother is right. In the two succeeding pages York calls
Montague brother. This may be in respect to their being bro-
thers of the war, as Mr. Steevens observes, or of the same coun-
cil, as in King Henry VIII. who says to Cranmer : " You are
brother of us." Montague was brother to Warwick ; War-
wick's daughter was married to a son of York : therefore York
and Montague were brothers. But as this alliance did not take
place during the life of York, I embrace Mr. Steevens's interpre-
tation rather than suppose that Shakspeare made a mistake
about the time of the marriage. TOLLET.
The third folio reads as Dr. Johnson advises. But as York
sc. ii. KING HENRY VI. 25
' EDW. No quarrel, but a slight contention. 8
YORK. About what ?
' RICH. About that which concerns your grace,
and us ;
* The crown of England, father, which is yours.
* YORK. Mine, boy? not till king Henry be
dead.
* RICH. Your right depends not on his life, or
death.
* EDW. Now you are heir, therefore enjoy it
now:
* By giving the house of Lancaster leave to breathe,
* It will outrun you, father, in the end.
' YORK. I took an oath, that he should quietly
reign.
* EDW. But, for a kingdom, any oath may be
broken :
* I'd break a thousand oaths, to reign one year.
' RICH. No ; God forbid, your grace should be
forsworn. 9
again in this scene addresses Montague by the title of brother,
and Montague uses the same to York, Dr. Johnson's conjecture
cannot be right. Shakspeare certainly supposed them to be bro-
thers-in-law. MALONE.
8 No quarrel, but a slight contention."] Thus the players, first,
in their edition ; who did not understand, I presume, the force
of the epithet in the old quarto, which I have restored sweet
contention, i. e. the argument of their dispute was upon a grate-
ful topick ; the question of their father's immediate right to the
crown. THEOBALD.
Sweet is, I think, the better reading of the two ; and I should
certainly have received it had it been found in the folio, which
Mr. Malone supposes to be the copy of this play, as reformed by
Shakspeare. STEEVENS.
9 Rich. No; Godforbid, &c.] Instead of this and the three
following speeches, the old play has these lines :
26 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
' YORK. I shall be, if I claim by open war.
4 RICH. I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me
speak.
* YORK. Thou canst not, son ; it is impossible.
4 RICH. An oath is of no moment, 1 being not
took
' Before a true and lawful magistrate,
* That hath authority over him that swears :
' Henry had none, but did usurp the place ;
* Then, seeing 'twas he that made you to depose,
* Your oath, my lord, is vain and frivolous.
* Therefore, to arms. * And, father, do but think,
* How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown ;
* Within whose circuit is Elysium,
* And all that poets feign of bliss and joy.
* Why do we linger thus ? I cannot rest,
" Rich. An if it please your grace to give me leave,
" I'll shew your grace the way to save your oath,
" And dispossess King Henry from the crown.
" York. I pr'ythee, Dick, let me hear thy devise."
MALONE.
1 An oath is of no moment,"] The obligation of an oath is here
eluded by very despicable sophistry. A lawful magistrate alone
has the power to exact an oath, but the oath derives no part of its
force from the magistrate. The plea against the obligation of an
oath obliging to maintain a usurper, taken from the unlawful-
ness of the oath itself in the foregoing play, was rational and
just. JOHNSON.
This speech is formed on the following one in the old play :
" Rich. Then thus, my lord. An oath is of no mo-
ment,
" Being not sworn before a lawful magistrate ;
" Henry is none, but doth usurp your right ;
" And yet your grace stands bound to him by oath:
" Then, noble father,
" Resolve yourself, and once more claim the crown."
MALONE.
sc. ii. KING HENRY VI. 27
* Until the white rose, that I wear, be died
* Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry's heart.
* YORK. Richard, enough ; I will be king, or
die.
' Brother, thou shalt to London presently, 2
* And whet on Warwick to this enterprise.
' Thou, Richard, shalt unto the duke of Norfolk,
6 And tell him privily of our intent.
4 You, Edward, shall unto my lord Cobham,
With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise :
c In them I trust ; for they are soldiers,
' Witty and courteous, liberal, full of spirit. 3
4 Brother, thou shalt to London presently,'] Thus the original
play:
" Edward, thou shalt to Edmond Brooke, lord Cobham,
" With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise.
" Thou, cousin Montague, shalt to Norfolk straight,
" And bid the duke to muster up his soldiers,
" And come to me to Wakefield presently.
" And Richard, thou to London straight shall post,
" And bid Richard Nevil Earl of Warwick
" To leave the city, and with his men of war
" To meet me at St. Albans ten days hence.
" My self here in Sandall castle will provide
" Both men and money, to further our attempts."
MALONE.
3 Witty and courteous, liberal, full of spirit."} What a blessed
harmonious line have the editors given us ! and what a promising
epithet, in York's behalf, from the Kentishmen being so witty !
I cannot be so partial, however, to my own county, as to let
this compliment pass. I make no doubt to read :
for they are soldiers,
Wealthy and courteous, liberal, full of spirit.
Now these five characteristicks answer to Lord Say's de-
scription of them in the preceding play :
" Kent, in the commentaries Caesar writ,
" Is term'd the civil'st place in all this isle ;
" The people liberal, valiant, active, wealthy."
THEOBALD.
This is a conjecture of very little import. JOHNSON.
28 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
' While you are thus employed, what resteth more,
' But that 1 seek occasion how to rise ;
' And yet the king not privy to my drift,
* Nor any of the house of Lancaster ?
Enter a Messenger. 4
* But, stay; What news ? Why com'st thou in such
post ?
' MESS. The queen, with all the northern earls
and lords, 5
I see no reason for adopting Theobald's emendation. Witty
anciently signified, of sound judgment. The poet calls Buck-
ingham, " the deep revolving, 'witty Buckingham." STEEVENS.
4 Enter a Messenger."] Thus the quartos ; the folio reads,
Enter Gabriel. STEEVENS.
Gabriel was the actor who played this inconsiderable part. He
is mentioned by Heywood, in his Apology for Actors, 1612.
The correction has been made [by Mr. Theobald] from the old
play. MALONE.
* The queen, ivitk all &c.] I know not whether the author
intended any moral instruction, but he that reads this has a stri-
king admonition against that precipitancy by which men often
use unlawful means to do that which a little delay would put ho-
nestly in their power. Had York staid but a few moments, he had
saved his cause from the stain of perjury. JOHNSON.
It will be no more than justice to York, if we recollect that
this scene, so far as respects the oath, and his resolution to
break it, proceeds entirely from our author's imagination.
Neither the Earl of March nor Richard was then at Sandal ; the
latter being likewise a mere child, barely turned of eight years
old. His appearance, therefore, and actions in this, and, at
least, the two first Acts of the following play, are totally unsup-
ported by. history and truth.
It may be likewise observed that the Queen was not actually
present at this battle, not returning out of Scotland till some little
time after. This insurrection, which the Duke, not in breach
of,but in strict conformity with, his oath to the King, and in dis-
sc. ii. KING HENRY VI. 29
' Intend here to besiege you in your castle :
' She is hard by with twenty thousand men j 6
' And therefore fortify your hold, my lord.
charge of his duty as protector of the realm, had marched from
London to suppress, was headed by the Duke of Somerset, the
Earl of Northumberland, and the Lord Nevil, who in direct vio-
lation of a mutual agreement, and before the day prefixed for the
battle, fell suddenly upon the Duke's army, made him and
Salisbury prisoners, and treated him in the manner here described.
See Whethamstede. Salisbury was next day killed at Pontefract
by a bastard son of the Duke of Exeter, and beheaded, with
York, Rutland, and others, after death. W. Wyrcester.
RITSON.
In October 1460, when it was established in parliament that
the Duke of York should succeed to the throne after Henry's
death, the Duke and his two sons, the Earl of March, and the
Earl of Rutland, took an oath to do no act whatsoever that might
" sound to the abridgement of the natural life of King Henry the
Sixth, or diminishing of his reign or dignity royal." Having
persuaded the King to send for the Queen and the Prince of
Wales, (who were then in York,) and finding that she would
not obey his requisition, he on the second of December set out
for his castle in Yorkshire, with such military power as he had ;
a messenger having been previously dispatched to the Earl of
March, to desire him to follow his father with all the forces he
could procure. The Duke arrived at Sandal Castle on the 24-th
of December, and in a short time his army amounted to five
thousand men. An anonymous Remarker, [the author of the
preceding note,] however, very confidently asserts, that " this
scene, so far as respects York's oath and his resolution to break it t
proceeds entirely from the author's imagination." His oath is on
record ; and what his resolution was when he marched from Lon-
don at the head of a large body of men, and sent the message
above stated to his son, it is not very difficult to conjecture.
MALONE.
ivith twenty thousand men;~\ In the quarto this speech
stands as follows :
' My lord, the queene with thirty thousand men
' Accompanied with the earles of Cumberland,
* Northumberland, and Westmorland,
' With others of the house of Lancaster,
* Are marching towards Wakefield,
* To besiedge you in your castle heere." STEEVENS.
SO THIRD PART OF ACT t.
* YORK. Ay, with my sword. What ! think'st
thou, that we fear them ?
* Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me ;
' My brother Montague shall post to London :
* Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,
* Whom we have left protectors of the king,
* With powerful policy strengthen themselves,
* And trust not simple Henry, nor his oaths.
* MONT. Brother, I go j I'll win them, fear it
not :
* And thus most humbly I do take my leave. \_Ejnt.
Enter Sir JOHN and Sir HUGH MORTIMER.
YORK. Sir John, and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine
uncles!
* You are come to Sandal in a happy hour ;
The army of the queen mean to besiege us.
SIR JOHN. She shall not need, we'll meet her in
the field.
6 YORK. What, with five thousand men ?
RICH. Ay, with five hundred, father, for a need.
A woman's general ; What should we fear ?
\_A March afar off.
* EDW. I hear their drums ; let's set our men in
order ;
* And issue forth, and bid them battle straight.
* YORK. Five men to twenty! 7 though the odds
be great,
7 Five men to twenty! &c.] Thus, in the old play:
" York. Indeed many brave battles have I won
" In Normandy, whereas the enemy
" Hath been ten to one, and why should I now
" Doubt of the like success. I am resolv'd.
" Come, let us go.
" Edw. Let us march away. I hear their drums."
MALONE.
ac. m. KING HENRY VI. si
* I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.
* Many a battle have I won in France,
* When as the enemy hath been ten to one ;
' Why should I. not now have the like success?
[Alarum. Exeunt.
SCENE III.
Plains near Sandal Castle.
Alarums: Excursions. Enter RUTLAND, and his
Tutor. 8
6 RUT. Ah, whither shall I fly to 'scape their
hands ! 9
Ah, tutor ! look, where bloody Clifford comes !
Enter CLIFFORD, and Soldiers.
CLIP. Chaplain, away ! thy priesthood saves thy
life.
As for the brat of this accursed duke,
Whose father 1 slew my father, he shall die.
TUT. And I, my lord, will bear him company.
CLIP. Soldiers, away with him.
1 his Tutor, ,] A priest called Sir Robert Aspall, Hall,
Henry VI. fol. 99. RITSON.
9 Ah, whither &c.] This scene in the old play opens with
these lines:
" Tutor. Oh, fly my lord, let's leave the castle,
" And fly to Wakefield straight." MALONE.
1 Whose father ] i. e. the father of which brat, namely the
Duke of York. MALONE.
32 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
' TUT. Ah, Clifford ! murder not this innocent
child,
' Lest thou be hated both of God and man.
[Exit, forced off by Soldiers.
CLIP. How now ! is he dead already ? Or, is it
fear,
That makes him close his eyes ? 2 I'll open them.
' RUT. So looks the pent-up lion 3 o'er the wretch
* That trembles under his devouring paws >
And so he walks, insulting o'er his prey ;
' And so he comes to rend his limbs asunder.
* Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,
And not with such a cruel threat'ning look.
Sweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die ;
I am too mean a subject for thy wrath,
Be thou reveng'd on men, and let me live.
* is he dead already ? Or, is it fear,
That makes him close his eyes ?"] This circumstance is taken
from Hall : ** Whilst this battail was in fighting, a prieste called
Sir Robbert Aspall, chappelaine and schole-master to the yong
erle of Rutlande, ii sonne to the above named duke of Yorke,
scarce of the age of xii yeres, a faire gentleman, and a mayden-
like person, perceyving that flight was more safe-gard than tarry-
ing, bothe for hym and his master, secretly conveyd therle out of
the felde, by the lord Cliffordes bande, toward the towne ; but or
he could entre into a house, he was by the sayd Lord Clifford
espied, folowed, and taken, and by reson of his apparell, de-
maunded what he was. The yong gentleman dismayed, had not
a word to speake, but kneled on his knees, imploring mercy, and
desiring grace, both with holding up his handes, and making
dolorous countenance >w /or his speache was gone for feare."
MALONE.
* So looks the pent-up lion "] That is, The lion that hath been
long confined without food, and is let out to devour a man con-
demned. JOHNSON.
4 devouring paws .] Surely the epithet devouring, which
might well have characterised the whole animal, is oddly bestow-
ed on his paws. STEEVENS.
sc. in. KING HENRY VI. S3
CLIP. In vain thou speak* st, poor boy ; my fa-
ther's blood
Hath stopp'd the passage where thy words should
enter.
RUT. Then let my father's blood open it again;
He is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him.
CLIP. Had I thy brethren here, their lives, and
thine,
Were not revenge sufficient for me ;
No, if I digg'd up thy forefathers' graves,
And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,
It could not slake mine ire, nor ease my heart.
The sight of any of the house of York
Is as a fury to torment my soul ; 5
' And till I root out their accursed line,
6 And leave not one alive, I live in hell.
Therefore [Lifting his Hand.
RUT. O, let me pray before I take my death :
To thee I pray ; Sweet Clifford, pity me !
CLIP. Such pity as my rapier's point affords.
' RUT. I never did thee harm ; Why wilt thou
slay me ?
CLIP. Thy father hath.
RUT. But 'twas ere I was born. 6
* The sight of any of the house of York
Is as a fury &c.] In Romeo and Juliet the same idea is ex-
pressed in humbler language : " A dog of the house of Montague
moves me." STEEVKNS.
6 But 'twas ere I teas born.'] Rutland is under a mistake.
The battle of St. Albans, in which old Clifford was slain, hap-
pened in 1455 ; that of Wakefield in 1460. He appears to have
been at this time about seventeen years old. RITSON.
The author of the original play appears to have been as in-
correct in his chronology as Shakspeare. Rutland was born, I
believe, in 1448 ; according to Hall, in 1448 ; and Clifford's
VOL. XIV. D
S4 THIRD
Thou hast one son, for his sake pity me ;
Lest, in revenge thereof, sith 7 God is just,
He be as miserably slain as I.
Ah, let me live in prison all my days ;
And when I give occasion of offence,
Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause.
CLIP. No cause ?
Thy father slew my father ; therefore, die.
[CLIFFORD stabs him.
RUT. Diif octant, laudis summa sit ista tiwe/ B
[Dies.
CtiF. Plantagenet ! I come, Plantagenet !
And this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade,
Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,
Congeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both.
\Exit,
father was killed at the battle of St. Albans, in 1455. Conse-
quently Rutland was then at least seven years old ; more proba-
bly twelve. The same observation has been made by an anony-
mous writer. MALONE.
7 sith ] i. e. since. So, in The Merry Wives of
Windsor :
" sith you yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender.'*
STEEVENS.
8 Diifaciant, &c.~] This line is in Ovid's Epistle from Phillis
to Demophoon. I find the same quotation in Have with you to
Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, &c. 1596.
STEEVENS.
sc. iv. KING HENRY VI. 35
SCENE IV.
The same.
Alarum. Enter YORK.
r YORK. The army of the queen hath got the
field :
* My uncles both are slain in rescuing me j 9
* And all my followers to the eager foe
e Turn back, and fly, like ships before the wind,
' Or lambs pursu'd by hunger-starved wolves.
* My sons God knows, what hath bechanced
them:
But this I know, they have demean'd themselves
Like men born to renown, by life, or death.
' Three times did Richard make a lane to me ;
And thrice cried, Courage, father ! fight it out !
* And full as oft came Edward to my side,
With purple faulchion, painted to the hilt
' In blood of those 1 that had encounter' d him :
e And when the hardiest warriors did retire,
* Richard cried, Charge! and give no foot of
ground !
c And cried, A crown, or else a glorious tomb I
6 A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre !
With this, we charg'd again : but, out, alas !
9 My uncles both are slain in rescuing me ;~] These were two
bastard uncles by the mother's side, Sir John and Sir Hugh
Mortimer. See Grafton's Chronicle, p. 649. PERCY.
1 With purple Jaulchion, painted to the hilt
In blood of those ] So, in King Henry V:
" With pennons painted in the blood o/'Harfleur."
STEEVEKS.
D2
36 THIRD PART OF ACT I.
6 We bodg'd again ; 2 as I have seen a swan
e "With bootless labour swim against the tide,
' And spend her strength with over-matching waves.
\_A short Alarum within.
' Ah, hark ! the fatal followers do pursue ;
' And I am faint, and cannot fly their fury :
* And, were I strong, I would not shun their fury :
' The sands are numbered, that make up my life j
c Here must I stay, and here my life must end.
Enter Queen MARGARET, CLIFFORD, NORTHUM-
BERLAND, and Soldiers.
' Come, bloody Clifford, rough Northumber*
land,
' I dare your quenchless fury to more rage j
* I am your butt, and I abide your shot.
NORTH. Yield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.
CLIP. Ay, to such mercy, as his ruthless arm,
With downright payment, show'd unto my father.
* We bodg'd again ;~] I find bodgery used by Nashe in his
Apologie of Pierce Penniless, 1593, for botchery: " Do you
know your own misbegotten bodgery ?" To bodge might there-
fore mean, (as to botch does now) to do a thing imperfectly and
aukwardly; and thence to Jail or miscarry in an attempt. Cole,
in his Latin Dictionary, 1679, renders " To botch or bungle,
opus corrumpere, disperdere."
I suspect, however, with Dr. Johnson, that we should read
We budg'd again. " To budge" Cole rer\ders,j)edem referre, to
retreat: the precise sense required here. So, Coriolanus, speak-
ing of his army who \iaAJted from their adversaries :
** The mouse ne'er shunn'd the cat, as they did budge
" From rascals worse than they." MALONE.
I believe that we bodg'd only means, tue boggled, made bad
or bungling tvork of our attempt to rally. A low unskilful tailor
is often called a botcher. STEEVENS.
sc. ir. KING HENRY VI. 37
Now Phaeton hath tumbled from his car,
And made an evening at the noontide prick. 3
YORK. My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth
' A bird that will revenge upon you all :
* And, in that hope, I throw mine eyes to heaven,
Scorning whatever you can afflict me with.
' Why come you not ? what ! multitudes, and fear ?
CLIP. So cowards fight, when they can fly no
further ;
c So doves do peck the falcon's piercing talons j
So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,
Breathe out invectives 'gainst the officers.
YORK. O, Clifford, but bethink thee once again,
c And in thy thought o'er-run my former time :
* And, if thou canst for blushing, view this face j
And bite thy tongue, that slanders him with cow-
ardice,
' Whose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere
this.
CLIP. I will not bandy with thee word for word j
But buckle with thee blows, twice two for one.
[Draws.
Q, MAR. Hold, valiant Clifford ) for a thousand
causes,
I would prolong awhile the traitor's life :
Wrath makes him deaf: speak thou, Northumber-
land.
NORTH. Hold, Clifford ; do not honour him so
much,
To prick thy finger, though to wound his heart :
3 noontide prick."] Or, noontide point on the dial.
JOHNSON.
The same phrase occurs in Romeo and Juliet, Act II. sc. iv.
STEEVENS.
38 THIRD PART OF ACTT.
What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,
For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,
When he might spurn him with his fpot away ?
It is war's prize* to take all vantages ;
And ten to one is no impeach of valour.
\_They lay hands on YORK, who struggles.
CLIP. Ay, ay, so strives the woodcock with the
gin.
NORTH. So doth the coney struggle in the net.
[YORK is taken prisoner.
YORK. So triumph thieves upon their conquer'd
booty ;
So true men yield, 5 with robbers so o'er-match'd.
NORTH. What would your grace have done unto
him now ?
Q. MAR. Brave warriors, Clifford, and Northum-
berland,
Come make him stand upon this molehill here ;
' That raught 6 at mountains with outstretched
arms,
4 It is tvar's prize ] Read -praise. WARBURTON.
I think the old reading right, which means, that all 'vantages
are in war lawful prize ; that is, may be lawfully taken and used.
JOHNSON.
To take all advantages, is rather to the discredit than to the
praise of war, and therefore Warburton's amendment cannot be
right ; nor can I approve of Johnson's explanation ; it appears
to me that it is war's prize, means merely that is the estimation
of people at war ; the settled opinion. M. MASON.
" dolus, an virtus, quis in hoste requirat ?" Virg.
MALONE.
* So true men yield,"] A true man has been already explained
to be an honest man, as opposed to a thief. See Vol. VJ. p. 349,
n. 8. MALONE.
6 That raught ] i. e. That reached. The ancient preterite
and participle passive of reach. So, in Antony and Cleopatra .
** The hand of death has raught him," STEEVENS.
ac. iv. KING HENRY VI. 39
Yet parted but the shadow with his hand.
* What! was it you, that would be England's king ?
Was't you that revelFd in our parliament,
And made a preachment of your high descent ?
Where are your mess of sons to back you now ?
The wanton Edward, and the lusty George ?
* And where's that valiant crook-back prodigy,
Dicky your boy, that, with his grumbling voice,
Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies ?
Or, with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?
Look, York ; I stain'd this napkin 7 with the blood
That valiant Clifford, with his rapier's point,
Made issue from the bosom of the boy :
And, if thine eyes can water for his death,
I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.
6 Alas ! poor York ! but that I hate thee deadly,
I should lament thy miserable state.
I pr'ythee, grieve, to make me merry, York ;
Stamp, rave, and fret, that I may sing and dance. 8
What, hath thy fiery heart so parch' d thine entrails,
That not a tear can fall for Rutland's death ?
* Why art thou patient, man ? thou shouldst be
mad j
* And I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.
Thou would' st be fee'd, I see, to make me sport ;
York cannot speak, unless he wear a crown.
A crown for York; and, lords, bow low to him.
7 this napkin ] A napkin is a handkerchief.
JOHNSON.
So, in As you like it : " To that youth he calls his Rosalind,
he sends this bloody napkin," STEEVENS.
8 Stamp, rave, and fret, &c.] I have placed this line as it
stands in the old play. In the folio it is introduced, I believe, by
the carelessness of the transcriber, some lines lower, after the
words " do mock thee thus ;" where it appears to me out of its
place. MALONE.
40 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
Hold you his hands, whilst I do set it on.
[Putting a paper Crown on his Head. 9
9 Putting a paper Crown on his Head.'] Shakspeare has on this
occasion deviated from history, if such of our English Chronicles
as I have occasionally looked into, may be believed. According
to these, the paper crown was not placed on the Duke of York's
head till after it had been cut off. Rutland likewise was not killed
by Clifford, till after his father's death. STEEVENS.
The ingenious commentator is most certainly mistaken. Shak-
speare, so far from having deviated from history, has followed it
with the utmost precision. Whethamstede expressly tells us,
th.at the Lancastrians, in direct breach of a mutual agreement,
and before the day appointed for the battle, fell suddenly upon
the Duke's army, and took him and the Earl of Salisbury prison-
ers ; treating both, but especially the Duke, in the most shame-
ful manner : Nam, says he, statuentes eum super unum parvum
Jbrmicarium colliculum, et quoddam sertum vile, ex palustri
gramine confectum, imponentes, per modum coronce, super caput
suum, non aliter quam Judcei coram domino incurvaverunt genua
sua coram ipso, dicentes illusorie : Ave rex, sine regimine; ave
rex, absque hereditate ; ave dux et princeps, absque omni po-
pulo penitus et possessione. Ex hits una cum aliis variis, in
eum probrose opprobrioseque dictis, coegerunt ipsum demum per
capitis abscissionem clameum relinquere suce just'icice vendicacionis,
p. 489. Not a single circumstance is omitted, or varied in the
scene. It is not, however, imagined that Shakspeare had ever
consulted Whethamstede : he found the same story no doubt in
some old black letter .Chronicle, or he might possibly have it
from a popular tradition. RITSON.
According to Hall the paper crown was not placed on York's
head till after he was dead ; but Holinshed after giving Hall's
narration of this business almost verbatim, adds : " Some write,
that the Duke was taken alive, and in derision caused to stand
upon a mole-hill, on whose heade they put a garland instead of
a crowne, which they had fashioned and made of segges or bul-
rushes, and havjng so crowned him with that garlande, they
kneeled downe afore him, as the Jewes did to Christe in scorne,
saying to him, hayle king without rule, hayle king without
heritage, hayle duke and prince without people or possessions.
And at length having thus scorned hym with these and dyverse
other the like despitefull woordes, they stroke off his heade,
which (as yee have heard) they presented to the queen."
Both the chroniclers say, that the Earl of Rutland was kjlled
sc. iv. KING HENRY VI. 41
Ay, marry, sir, now looks he like a king !
Ay, this is he that took king Henry's chair;
And this is he was his adopted heir.
But how is it that great Plantagenet
Is crown'd so soon, and broke his solemn oath ?
As I bethink me, you should not be king,
Till our king Henry had shook hands with death. *
And will you pale 2 your head in Henry's glory,
And rob his temples of the diadem,
Now in his life, against your holy oath ?
O, 'tis a fault too too unpardonable !
Off with the crown ; and, with the crown, his head ;
And, whilst we breathe, take time to do him dead. 3
CLIP. That is my office, for my father's sake.
Q. MAR. Nay, stay ; let's hear the orisons he
makes.
YORK. She-wolf of France, but worse than wolves
of France,
6 Whose tongue more poisons than the adder's tooth !
How ill-beseeming is it in thy sex,
To triumph like an Amazonian trull,
by Clifford during the battle of Wakefield ; but it may be pre-
sumed that his father had first fallen. The Earl's tutor probably
attempted to save him as soon as the rout began. MALONE.
1 Till our king Henry had shook hands tvith death.~\ On York's
return from Ireland, at a meeting of parliament it was settled,
that Henry should enjoy the throne during his life, and that York
should succeed him. See Hall, Henry VI. fol. 98. MALONE.
* And luill you pale ] i. e. impale, encircle with a crown.
MALONE.
So, in Antony and Cleopatra :
" Whate'er the ocean pales, or sky inclips." STEEVENS.
to do him dead.~] To kill him. See Vol. VI. p. 170,
n. 3. MALONE.
See this play, p. 53, n. 9. STEEVENS.
4.2 THIRD PART OF ACT /.
e Upon their woes,* whom fortune captivates ?
But that thy face is, visor-like, unchanging,
Made impudent with use of evil deeds,
I would assay, proud queen, to make thee blush :
To tell thee whence thou cam'st, of whom deriv'd,
Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not
shameless.
Thy father bears the type 5 of king of Naples,
Of both the Sicils, and Jerusalem ;
Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.
Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult ?
It needs not, nor it boots thee not, proud queen j
Unless the adage must be verified,
That beggars, mounted, run their horse to death.
*Tis beauty, that doth oft make women proud ;
But, God he knows, thy share thereof is small :
J Tis virtue, that doth make them most admir'd;
The contrary doth make thee wonder'd at :
'Tis government, that makes them seem divine j*
The want thereof makes thee abominable :
Thou art as opposite to every good,
As the Antipodes are unto us,
Or as the south to the septentrion. 7
4 Upon their l woes y ~] So, the folio. The quarto reads Upon
his woes. STEEVENS.
5 the type ] i. e. the distinguishing mark ; an obsolete
use of the word. So again, in King Richard III :
" The high imperial type of this earth's glory."
STEEVENS.
6 ' Tis government, that makes them seem divine ;] Government ,
in the language of that time, signified evenness of temper, and
decency of manners. JOHNSON.
So, in King Henry IV. P. I. Falstaff says :
" Let men say, we be men of good government." STEEVENS.
7 . septentrion.'] i. e. the North. Septentrio, Lat. Milton
uses the same word as an adjective :
" cold septentrion blasts." STEEVENS.
sc. iv. KING HENRY VI. 43
O, tiger's heart, wrapped in a woman's hide ! B
How could'st thou drain the life-blood of the child,
To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,
And yet be seen to bear a woman's face ?
Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible ;
' Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.
' Bid'st thou me rage ? why, now thou hast thy
wish : 9
* Would'st have me weep ? why, now thou hast thy
will :
' For raging wind blows up incessant showers, 1
And, when the rage allays, the rain begins. 2
These tears are my sweet Rutland's obsequies ;
8 O, tiger's heart, wrapp'd in a "woman's hide /] We find al-
most the same line in Acolastus his Afterwitte, 1600 :
" O woolvish hearty wrapp'd in a "woman's hide !"
MALONE.
9 thy wish : &c.] So the folio : The quarto reads
thy "will in the first line, and thy wish in the second.
STEEVENS.
1 For raging wind Hows up incessant showers,"] Thus the
folio. The quartos read
For raging winds blow up a storm of tears. STEEVENS.
s Would'st have me weep ? ixhy, now thou hast thy "will :
For raging wind blows up incessant showers,
And, when the rage allays, the rain begins.] We meet with
the same thought in our author's Rape ofLucrece :
" This windy tempest, till it blows up rain,
" Held back his sorrow's tide, to make it more ;
" At last it rains, and busy winds give o'er.
t* Then son and father weep with equal strife,
" Who should weep most for daughter or for wife."
Again, in Macbeth :
" that tears shall drown the wind."
Again, in Troilus and Cressida :
" Where are my tears? rain, rain, to lay this wind?"
Again, in King John :
" This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul "
MALONE.
44 THIRD PART OF ACT i.
6 And every drop cries vengeance for his death, 3
* 'Gainstthee, fell Clifford, and thee, false French-
woman.
.ZVosTiff.Beshrew me,buthis passions move me so,
That hardly can I check my eyes from tears.
YORK. That face of his the hungry cannibals
Would not have touch'd, would not have stain'd
with blood: 4
But you are more inhuman, more inexorable,
3 And every drop cries vengeance for his death,'] So the folio.
The quarto thus :
And every drop begs vengeance as it falls,
On thee, &c. STEEVENS.
4 usould not have stain' d with blood .] Thus the first folio.
STEEVENS.
would not have stain* d the roses just luith blood :] So the
second folio nonsensically reads the passage ; but the old quarto,
&c. of better authority, have it thus :
That face of his the hungry cannibals
Would not have touch'd, would not have stain' d with blood.
And this is sense. Could any one now have believed that an
editor of common understanding should reject this, and fasten
upon the nonsense of the later edition, only because it afforded
matter of conjecture ? and yet Mr. Theobald will needs correct,
roses just with blood, to roses juic'd with blood, that is, change
one blundering editor's nonsense for another's. But if there ever
was any meaning in the line, it was thus expressed :
Would riot have stain'd the roses just in bud.
And this the Oxford editor hath espoused. WARBURTON.
As, without correction, the words the roses just, do not make
good sense, there is very little reason to suspect their being in-
terpolated, and therefore it is mostprobable they were preserved
among the players by memory. The correction is this :
That face of his the hungry cannibals
Would not have touch'd :
Would not have stain'd the roses just \' th' bloom.
The words [the roses just~\ were, I suppose, left out by the first
editors, in order to get rid of the superfluous hemistich.
MUSGRAVE.
ac. iv. KING HENRY VI. 45
O, ten times more, than tigers of Hyrcania. 5
See, ruthless queen, a hapless father's tears :
This cloth thou dipp'dst in blood of my sweet boy,
And I with tears do wash the blood away.
Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this :
\_He gives back the Handkerchief.
And, if thou tell'st the heavy story right,
Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears ; 6
Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears,
And say, Alas, it was a piteous deed !
There, take the crown, and, with the crown, my
curse ; 7
And, in thy need, such comfort come to thee,
As now I reap at thy too cruel hand !
Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world ;
My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads !
NORTH. Had he been slaughter-man to all my
kin,
' I should not for my life but weep with him,
To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul. 8
s of Hyrcania.] So the folio. The quartos read of
Arcadia. STEEVENS.
6 And, if thou tell'st the heavy story right,
Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;'] So, in King
Richard II :
" Tell thou the lamentable tale of me,
" And send the hearers weeping to their beds."
STEEVENS.
7 There, take the crown, and, with the crown, my curse ;~\
Rowe has transferred this execration to his dying Hengist in
The Royal Convert :
" wear my crown ;
" Take it, and be as curs'd with it as I was."
STEEVENS.
8 / should not for my life but weep ivith him,
To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.~] So the folia. The
quartos as follows :
" I could not choose but weep with him, to see
" How inward anger gripes his heart." STEEVENS.
46 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
Q. MAR. What, weeping-ripe, my lord North-
umberland ?
Think but upon the wrong he did us all,
And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.
CLIP. Here's for my oath, here's for my father's
death. [Stabbing Mm.
Q. MAR. And here's to right our gentle-hearted
king. 9 [Stabbing him.
YORK. Open thy gate of mercy, gracious God !
' My soul flies through these wounds to seek out
thee. [Dies.
Q. MAR. Off with his head, and set it on York
gates ;
So York may overlook the town of York. 1
[Exeunt.
9 And here's to right our gentle-hearted king.~\ So the folio.
The quarto thus :
" And there's to right our gentle harted kind."
Of these variations there are many, but it is useless labour to
enumerate them all. STEEVENS.
1 So York may overlook &c.] This gallant nobleman fell by
his own imprudence, in consequence of leading an army of only
five thousand men to engage with twenty thousand, and not
waiting for the arrival of his son the Earl of March, with a large
body of Welshmen. He and Cicely his wife, with his son Ed-
mond Earl of Rutland, were originally buried in the chancel of
Foderingay church ; and (as Peacham informs us in his Complete
Gentleman^ 4to. 1627,) "when the chancel in that fune of
knocking churches and sacred monuments in the head, was also
felled to the ground," they were removed into the churchyard ;
and afterwards " lapped in lead they were buried in the church
by the commandment of Queen Elizabeth ; and a mean monu-
ment of plaister wrought with the trowel erected over them, very
homely, and far unfitting so noble princes."
*' I remember, (adds the same writer,) Master Creuse, a gen-
tleman and my worthy friend, who dwelt in the college at the
same time, told me, that their coffins being opened, their bodies
appeared veryplainly to be discerned, and withal that the dutchess
ACT a. KING HENRY VI. 47
ACT II. SCENE I.
A Plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire.
Drums. Enter EDWARD, and RICHARD, with
their Forces, marching.
* EDW. I wonder, how our princely father 'scap'd;
* Or whether he be 'scap'd away, or no,
* From Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit 5
* Had he been ta'en, we should have heard the
news;
Had he been slain, we should have heard the
news;
*Or, had he 'scap'd, methinks, we should have
heard
* The happy tidings of his good escape.
' How fares my brother ? 2 why is he so sad ?
RICH. I cannot joy, until I be resolv'd
Where our right valiant father is become.
Cicely had about her necke, hanging in a silke ribband, a pardon
from Rome, which, penned in a very fine Roman hand, was as
faire and fresh to be read, as it had been written yesterday."
This pardon was probably a dispensation which the Duke pro-
cured, from the oath of allegiance that he had sworn to Henry
in St. Paul's church on the 10th of March, 14-52. MALONE.
* HOIK fares my brother?"] This scene in the old quartos be-
gins thus :
" After this dangerous fight and hapless war,
" How doth my noble brother Richard fare ?"
Had the author taken the trouble to revise his play, he hardly
would have begun the first Act and the second with almost the
same exclamation, expressed in almost the same words. War-
wick opens the scene with
" I wonder, how the king escap'd our hands."
STEEVENS.
48 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
( I saw him in the battle range about ;
4 And watch'd him, how he singled Clifford forth.
4 Methought, he bore him 3 in the thickest troop,
As doth a lion in a herd of neat :
* Or as a bear, encompassed round with dogs ;
* Who having pinch'd a few, and made them cry,
* The rest stand all aloof, and bark at him.
* So far'd our father with his enemies ;
4 So fled his enemies my warlike father ;
4 Methinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son. 4
See, how the morning opes her golden gates,
And takes her farewell of the glorious sun ! 5
* How well resembles it the prime of youth,
* Trimm'd like a younker, prancing to his love !
EDW. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns? 6
RICH. Three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun;
3 Methought, he bore him ] i. e. he demeaned himself. So,
in Measurefor Measure :
" How I may formally in person bear me ." MALONE.
4 Methinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son."] The old quarto
reads pride, which is right, for ambition, i. e. We need not
aim at any higher glory than this. WARBURTON.
I believe prize is the right word. Richard's sense is, though
we have missed the prize for which we fought, we have yet an
honour left that may content us. JOHNSON.
Prize , if it be the true reading, I believe, here means privi-
lege. So, in the former Act :
" It is war's prize to take all 'vantages." MALONE.
4 And takes her farewell of the glorious sun /] Aurora takes
for a time her farewell of the sun, when she dismisses him to his
diurnal course. JOHNSON.
6 do I see three suns ?] This circumstance is mentioned
both by Hall and Holinshed : " at which tyme the son (as
some write) appeared to the earle of March like three sunnes*
and sodainely joyned altogither in one, uppon whiche sight hee
tooke such courage, that he fiercely setting on his enemyes put
them to flight ; and for this cause menne ymagined that he gave
the sun in his full bryghtnesse for his badge or cognisance."
These are the words of Holinshed. MALONE.
so. /. KING HENRY VI. 49
Not separated with the racking clouds,*
But sever* d in a pale clear-shining sky.
See, see! they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,
As if they vow'd some league inviolable :
Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.
In this the heaven figures some event.
* EDW. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never
heard of.
I think, it cites us, brother, to the field ;
That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,
' Each one already blazing by our meeds, 8
Should, notwithstanding, join our lights together,
' And over-shine the earth, as this the world.
c Whatever it bodes, henceforward will I bear
Upon my target three fair shining suns.
* RICH. Nay, bear three daughters; by your
leave I speak it,
* You love the breeder better than the male.
7 the racking clouds,'} i.e. the clouds in rapid tumultuary
motion. So, in The Raigne of King Edward III. 1596:
" .. like inconstant clouds
" That, rack'd upon the carriage of the winds,
" Encrease" &c. STEEVENS.
Again, in our author's 32d Sonnet :
" Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
" With ugly rack on his celestial face." MALONE.
8 blazing by our meeds,] Illustrious and shining by the
armorial ensigns granted us as meeds of our great exploits.
Meed likewise is merit. It might be plausibly read:
blazing by our deeds. JOHNSON.
Johnson's first explanation of this passage is not right. Meed
here means merit.
So, in the fourth Act, the King says :
" My meed hath got me fame."
And in Timon of Athens the word is used in the same sense :
No meed but he repays
"Sevenfold above itself." M. MASON.
VOL. XIV. E
50 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
Enter a Messenger.
' But what art thou, whose heavy looks foretel
' Some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue ?
MESS. Ah, one that was a woful looker on,
When as the noble duke of York was slain,
* Your princely father, and my loving lord.
* EDW. O, speak no more ! 9 for I have heard too
much. l y ( j
* RICH. Say how he died, for I will hear it all.
* MESS. Environed he was with many foes ; 2
.1 'I;;;'} os'ui 1 *''^'\^i
9 0, speak no more .'] The generous tenderness of Edward,
and savage fortitude of Richard, are well distinguished by their
different reception of their father's death. JOHNSON.
-for I have heard too much."] So the folio. The quartos
thus:
" for I can hear no more.
" Rich. Tell on thy tale," &c. STEEVENS.
* Environed he was with many foes ;~\ Thus,. in the old play :
" O, one that was a woeml looker on,
" When as the noble duke of York was slain.
" When as the noble duke was put to flight, .
** And then persude by Clifford and the queene,
" And many soldiers moe, who all at once
" Let drive at him, and forst the duke to yield ;
" And then they set him on a moul-hill there?,:
" And crown'd the gracious duke in high despight ;
" Who then with tears began to wail his fall.
" The ruthlesse queene perceiving he did weepe,
" Gave him a handkerchief to wipe his eyes,
" Dipt inthebloud of sweete young Rutland, by
" Rough Clifford slaine; who weeping tookeit up 1 :
" Then through his brest they thrust their bloudie swords,
" Who like a lambe fell at the butcher's feate.
" Then on the gates of Yorke they set his head
" And there it doth remaine the piteous spectacle
" That ere mine eyes beheld." MALONE.
sc. i. KING HENRY VI. 51
* And stood against them as the hope of Troy 3
* Against theGreeks,thatwould have enter'dTroy.
* But Hercules himself must yield to odds ;
* And many strokes, though with a little axe,
* Hew down and fell the hardest-timber* d oak.
' By many hands your father was subdu'd ;
' But only slaughtered by the ireful arm
' Of unrelenting Clifford, and the queen :
* Who crown' d the gracious duke in high despite;
' Laugh'd in his face ; and, when with grief he
wept,
c The ruthless queen gave him, to dry his cheeks,
e A napkin steeped in the harmless blood
' Of sweet young Rutland, by rough Clifford slain:
* And, after many scorns, many foul taunts,
4 They took his head, and on the gates of York
' They set the same ; and there it doth remain,
' The saddest spectacle that e'er I view'd.
Epw. Sweet duke of York, our prop to lean
upon;
' Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay!
* O Clifford, boist'rous Clifford, thou hast slain
* The flower of Europe for his chivalry ;
* And treacherously hast thou vanquished him,
* For, hand to hand, he would have vanquished
thee !
Now my soul's palace is become a prison :
Ah, would she break from hence ! that this my
body
' Might in the ground be closed up in rest :
c For never henceforth shall I joy again, V,'
' Never, O never, shall I see more joy.
6 RICH. I cannot weep ; for all my body's moisture
3 the hope of Troy ] Hector. MALONE.
E 2
52 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart:
* Nor can my tongue unload my heart's great bur-
den;
* For self-same wind, that I should speak withal,
* Is kindling coals, that fire all my breast,
* And burn me up with flames, 4 that tears would
quench.
* To weep, is to make less the depth of grief : 5
* Tears, then, for babes ; blows, and revenge, for
me!
' Richard, I bear thy name, I'll venge thy death,
* Or die renowned by attempting it.
EDW. His name that valiant duke hath left with
thee;
* His dukedom and his chair with me is left. 6
RICH. Nay, if thou be that princely eagle's bird,
Show thy descent by gazing 'gainst the sun : 7
4 And burn me up toithjlames, &c. J So, in King John :
" France, I am burn'd up with consuming wrath," &c.
STEEVENS.
5 To taeepy &c.~\ Here, in the original play, instead of these
two lines, we have
" I cannot joy, till this white rose be dy'd
" Even in the heart-bloud of the house of Lancaster.*'
MALONE.
His dukedom and his chair with me is left.~\ So the folio.
The quarto thus:
" His chair, and dukedom, that remains for me."
STEEVENS.
7 Shout thy descent by gazing y gainst the sun:'] So, in Spenser's
Hymn of Heavenly Beauty:
** like the native brood of eagle's kind,
... Q n t na t bright sun of glory fix thine eyes."
Again, in Solyman and Perseda :
" As air-bred eagles, if they once perceive
" That any of their brood but close their sight,
" When they should gaze against the glorious sun ;
" They straitway seize upon him with their talons,
ac. /. KING HENRY VI. 53
For chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom say;
Either that is thine, or else thou wert not his.
March. Enter WARWICK and MONTAGUE, with
Forces. 9
WAR. How now, fair lords ? What fare ? what
news abroad ?
* RICH. Great lord of Warwick, if we should re-
count
Our baleful news, and, at each word's deliverance,
Stab poniards in our flesh till all were told,
The words would add more anguish than the wounds.
O valiant lord, the duke of York is slain.
EDW. O Warwick! Warwick! that Plantagenet,
Which held thee dearly, as his soul's redemption,
Is by the stern lord Clifford done to death. 9
" That on the earth it may untimely die,
" For looking but askew at heaven's bright eye."
STEEVENS.
Enter Warwick &c.] This meeting was at Chipping- Norton.
W. Wyrcester, p. 488. RITSON.
9 Is by the stern lord Clifford done to death.] Done to death
for kitted, was a common expression long before Shakspeare's
time. Thus Chaucer :
" And seide, that if ye done us both to dien." GRAY.
Spenser mentions a plague " which many did to dye."
JOHNSON.
Faire mourir, a French phrase. So, in The Battle of Alcazar,
1594:
" We understand that he was done to death.'*
Again, ibid:
" done to death with many a mortal wound."
Again, in Orlando Furioso, 1599 :
" I am the man that did the slave to death."
STEEVENS.
54 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
WAR. Ten days ago I drown' d these news in
tears :
And now, to add more measure to your woes,
I come to tell you things since then befall'n.
After the bloody fray at Wakeh'eld fought,
Where your brave father breath'd his latest gasp,
Tidings, as swiftly as the posts could run,
Were brought me of your loss, and his depart.
I then in London, keeper of the king,
Muster' d my soldiers, gathered flocks of friends,
And very well appointed, as I thought, l
March'd towards Saint Alban's to intercept the
queen,
Bearing the king in my behalf along :
For by my scouts I was advertised,
That she was coming with a full intent
To dash our late decree in parliament,
' Touching king Henry's oath, and your succession.
Short tale to make, we at Saint Alban's met,
Our battles join'd, and both sides fiercely fought:
But, whether 'twas the coldness of the king,
Who look'd full gently on his warlike queen,
That robb'd my soldiers of their hated spleen ;
Or whether 'twas report of her success ;
Or more than common fear of Clifford's rigour,
' Who thunders to his captives 2 blood and death,
I cannot judge : but, to conclude with truth,
Their weapons like to lightning came and went ;
Our soldiers' like the night-owl's lazy flight, 3
1 And very well &c.] This necessary line I have restored from
the old quartos. STEEVENS.
* to his captives ] So the folio. The old play reads
captaines. MALONE.
3 like the night-otvl's lazy flight,] This image is not very
congruous to the subject, nor was it necessary to the comparison,
which is happily enough completed by the thrasher. JOHNSON.
sc. i. KING HENRY VI. 56
' Or like a lazy thrasher with a flail, 4
Fell gently down, as if they struck their friends.
I cheer'd them up with justice of our cause,
With promise of high pay, and great rewards :
But all in vain ; they had no heart to fight,
And we, in them, no hope to win the day,
So that we fled; the king, unto the queen ;
Lord George your brother, Norfolk, and myself,
In haste, post-haste, are come to join with you ;
For in the marches here, we heard, you were,
Making another head to fight again.
' EDW. S Where is the duke of Norfolk, gentle
Warwick ?
Dr. Johnson objects to this comparison as incongruous to the
subject ; but I think, unjustly. Warwick compares the languid
blows of his soldiers, to the lazy strokes which the wings of the
owl give to the air in its flight, which is remarkably slow.
M. MASON.
4 Or like a lazy thrasher 3 The old play more elegantly
reads Or like an idle thrasher, &c. MALONE.
* Ediv. &c.] The exact ages of the Duke of York's children,
introduced in the present play, will best prove how far our au-
thor has, either intentionally or otherwise, deviated, in this par-
ticular, from historical truth.
Edward, Earl of March, afterwards Duke of York, and King
of England, his second son, was born at Rouen, on Monday the
27th or 28th of April, 144-2; Edmund, Earl of Rutland, his
third son, at the same place, on Monday the 17th of May, 1443 ;
George of York, afterwards Duke of Clarence, his sixth son, in
Dublin, on Tuesday the 21st of October, 1449 ; and Richard
of York, afterwards Duke of Gloster, and King of England, his
eighth son, at Fotheringay, on Monday the 2d of October, 1452;
Henry, thejlrst son, born in 1441, William, the fourth, in 1447,
John, the Jifth, in 1448, and Thomas, the seventh, in 1451,
died young. He had likewise four daughters. The battle of
Wakefield was fought the 29th of December, 1460, when
Edward, of course, was in his nineteenth year, Rutland in his
eighteenth, George in his twelfth, and Richard in his ninth.
RITSON.
,*6 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
And when came George from Burgundy to Eng-
land ?
' WAR. Some six miles off the duke is with the
soldiers :
And for your brother, he was lately sent
From your kind aunt, duchess of Burgundy,
6 With aid of soldiers to this needful war. 6
RICH. 'Twas odds, belike, when valiant Warwick
fled:
Oft have I heard his praises in pursuit,
But ne'er, till now, his scandal of retire.
WAR. Nor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou
hear :
For thou shalt know, this strong right hand of mine
Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry's head,
And wring the awful scepter from his fist ;
Were he as famous and as bold in war,
As he is fam'd for mildness, peace, and prayer.
RICH. I know it well, lord Warwick : blame me
not;
J Tis love, I bear thy glories, makes me speak.
But, in this troublous time, what's to be done ?
Shall we go throw away our coats of steel,
' Edw. when came George from Burgundy to England?
War. he was lately sent
From your kind aunt, duchess of Burgundy,
With aid of soldiers to this needful war.] This circumstance
is not warranted by history. Clarence and Gloster (as they were
afterwards created) were sent into Flanders immediately after the
battle of Wakefield, and did not return until their brother Edward
got possession of the crown. Besides, Clarence was not now
more than twelve years old.
Isabel, Duchess of Burgundy, whom Shakspeare calls the
Duke's aunt, was daughter of John I. King of Portugal, by
Philippa of Lancaster, eldest daughter of John of Gaunt. They
were, therefore, no more than third cousins. RITSON.
sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 57
And wrap our bodies in black mourning gowns,
Numb'ring our Ave-Maries with our beads?
Or shall we on the helmets of our foes
Tell our devotion with revengeful arms ?
If for the last, say Ay, and to it, lords.
WAR. Why, therefore Warwick came to seek
you out ;
And therefore comes my brother Montague.
Attend me, lords. The proud insulting queen,
With Clifford, and the haught Northumberland, 7
And of their feather, many more proud birds,
Have wrought the easy-melting king like wax. 8
He swore consent to your succession,
His oath enrolled in the parliament ;
And now to London all the crew are gone,
To frustrate both his oath, and what beside
May make against the house of Lancaster.
* Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong: 9
7 haught Northumberland,'] So, Grafton in his Chronicle
says, p. 417: " the lord Henry Percy, whom the Scottes
for his haut and valiant courage called sir Henry Hotspurre."
PERCY.
The word is common to many writers. So, in Marlowe's
King Edward II. 1598 :
" This haught resolve becomes your majesty."
Again, in Kyd's Cornelia, 1594 :
" Pompey,that second Mars, whose haught renown," &c.
Again, in Lyly's Woman in the Moon, 1597:
" Thy mind as haught as Jupiter's high thoughts."
STEEVENS.
8 the easy-melting Icing like wax.] So again, in this play,
of the Lady Grey :
" As red as fire ; nay, then her ixax must melt."
JOHNSON.
9 is thirty thousand strong :] Thus the folio. The old
play reads
" Their power, I guess tliemjlftie thousand strong."
A little lower the same piece has eight and forty thousand.
MA LONE.
58 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
Now, if the help of Norfolk, and myself,
With, all the friends that thou, brave earl of March,
Amongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,
' Will but amount to five and twenty thousand,
Why, Via ! to London will we march amain ;
And once again bestride our foaming steeds,
' And once again cry Charge upon our foes !
But never once again turn back, and fly.
RICH. Ay, now, methinks, I hear great Warwick
speak :
Ne'er may he live to see a sunshine day,
* That cries Retire, if Warwick bid him stay.
EDW. Lord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I
lean;
' And when thou fall'st, (as God forbid the hour !)
Must Edward fall, which peril heaven forefend !
WAR. No longer earl of March, but duke of
York;
* The next degree is, England's royal throne :
For king of England shalt thou be proclaim'd
In every borough as we pass along ;
And he that throws not up his cap for joy,
' Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.
King Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,
Stay we no longer dreaming of renown,
' But sound the trumpets, and about our task.
* RICH. Then, Clifford, were thy heart as hard
as steel,
* (As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,)
* I come to pierce it, or to give thee mine.
* EDW. Then strike up, drums ; God, and Saint
George, for us !
sc. zr. KING HENRY VI. 59
Enter a Messenger.
WAR. How now ? what news ?
MESS. The duke of Norfolk sends you word by
me,
The queen is coming with a puissant host ;
And craves your company for speedy counsel.
' WAR. Why then it sorts, 1 brave warriors: Let's
away. \_Exeunt.
SCENE II.
Before York.
Enter King HENRY, Queen MARGARET, the Prince
of Wales, CLIFFORD, and NORTHUMBERLAND,
with Forces.
Q. MAR. Welcome, my lord, to this brave town
of York.
Yonder's the head of that arch-enemy,
That sought to be encompass'd with your crown :
' Doth not the object cheer your heart, my lord ?
' K. HEN. Ay, as the rocks cheer them that fear
their wreck;
To see this sight, it irks my very soul.
Withhold revenge, dear God ! 'tis not my fault,
Not wittingly have I infring'd my vow.
1 Why then it sorts,'] Why then things are as they should be.
JOHNSON.
So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608 : " thy love shall
tort to such happy success as thou thyself dost seek for."
STEEVENS.
60 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
CLIP. My gracious liege, this too much lenity
And harmful pity, must be laid aside.
To whom do lions cast their gentle looks ?
Not to the beast that would usurp their den.
Whose hand is that, the forest bear doth lick ?
Not his, that spoils her young before her face.
Who 'scapes the lurking serpent's mortal sting ?
Not he, that sets his foot upon her back.
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on j
* And doves will peck, in safeguard 2 of their brood.
Ambitious York did level at thy crown,
Thou smiling, while he knit his angry brows :
He, but a duke, would have his son a king,
And raise his issue, like a loving sire ;
Thou, being a king, bless'd with a goodly son,
Didst yield consent to disinherit him,
c Which argued thee a most unloving father. 3
Unreasonable creatures feed their young :
And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,
Yet, in protection of their tender ones,
Who hath not seen them (even with those wings
' Which sometime they have us'd with fearful
flight,)
Make war with him that climb 5 d unto their nest,
Offering their own lives in their young's defence?
For shame, my liege, make them your precedent!
Were it not pity that this goodly boy
Should lose his birthright by his father's fault ;
And long hereafter say unto his child,
What my great-grandfather andgrandsire got,
My careless father fondly 1 " gave away ?
* in safeguard ] Thus the folio. The quartos read in
rescue. STEEVENS.
3 unloving father, ,] The quartos read unnatural father.
STEEVENS.
4 fondly ] i. e. foolishly. So, in King Richard II:
sc. ii. KING HENRY VI. 61
Ah, what a shame were this ! Look on the boy j
And let his manly face, which promiseth
Successful fortune, steel thy melting heart,
To hold thine own, and leave thine own with him.
K. HEN. Full well hath Clifford play'd the ora-
tor,
Inferring arguments of mighty force.
' But, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear,
That things ill got had ever bad success ? 5
And happy always was it for that son,
Whose father 6 for his hoarding went to hell ?
I'll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind ;
And 'would, my father had left me no more !
For all the rest is held at such a rate,
* As brings a thousand-fold more care to keep,
4 Than in possession any jot of pleasure. 7
Ah, cousin York! ' would thy best friends did know,
' How it doth grieve me that thy head is here !
' Q. MAR. My lord, cheer up your spirits ; our
foes are nigh,
' And this soft courage makes your followers faint.
e You promised knighthood to our forward son ;
sorrow and grief of heart
" Makes him sipeakjondly ." STEEVENS.
didst thou never hear,
That things ill got had ever bad success ? &c.] The proverb
quoted by his majesty on this occasion, seems to militate directly
against his own argument, and shows that things ill got might
have good success. M. MASON.
Whose father &c.] Alluding to a common proverb :
" Happy the child whose father went to the devil."
JOHNSON.
7 Than in possession any jot of pleasure. ~\ Thus the folio. The
quarto thus :
" Than may the present profit countervaile."
STEEVBNS.
62 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
6 Unsheath your sword, and dub him presently.
Edward, kneel down.
K. HEN. Edward Plantagenet, arise a knight ;
And learn this lesson, Draw thy sword in right.
PRINCE. My gracious father, by your kingly
leave, '
I'll draw it as apparent to the crown,
And in that quarrel use it to the death.
CLIP. Why, that is spoken like a toward prince.
Enter a Messenger.
MESS. Royal commanders, be in readiness :
* For, with a band of thirty thousand 8 men,
Comes Warwick, backing of the duke of York;
And, in the towns as they do march along,
Proclaims him king, and many fly to him :
' Darraign 9 your battle, for they are at hand.
CLIP. I would, your highness would depart the
field;
The queen 1 hath best success when you are absent.
8 thirty thousand ] The quarto reads J?^y thousand.
STEEVENS.
9 Darraign ] That is, Range your host, put your host in
order. JOHNSON.
Chaucer, Skelton, and Spenser, use this word.
Thus also, in Guy Earl of Warwick, a Tragical History^
1661:
" Darraign our battles, and begin the fight.'*
The quartos read Prepare your battles, &c. STEEVENS.
1 / would, your highness would depart thejicld ;
The queen &c.] This superstitious belief, relative to the for-
tunes of our unhappy prince, is yet more circumstantially intro-
duced by Dray ton in The Miseries of Queen Margaret:
se. n. KING HENRY VI. 63
Q. MAR. Ay, good my lord, and leave us to our
fortune.
K. HEN. Why, that's my fortune too: therefore
Til stay.
NORTH. Be it with resolution then to fight.
PRINCE. My royal father, cheer these noble
i j
lords,
And hearten those that fight in your defence :
Unsheath your sword, good father j cry, Saint
George!
March. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE, RICHARD,
WARWICK, NORFOLK, MONTAGUE, and Sol-
diers.
' EDW. Now, perjur'd Henry ! wilt thou kneel
for grace,
* And set thy diadem upon my head ;
* Or bide the mortal fortune of the field ?
Q. MAR. Go, rate thy minions, proud insulting
boy!
' Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms,
* Before thy sovereign, and thy lawful king?
" Some think that Warwick had not lost the day,
" But that the king into the field he brought ;
" For with the worse that side went still away
" Which had king Henry with them when they fought:
" Upon his birth so sad a curse there lay,
" As that he never prospered in aught.
" The queen wan two, among the loss of many,
ft Her husband absent ; present, never any.*'
STEEVENS.
So, Hall : " Happy was the queene in her two battayls, but
unfortunate was the king in al his enterprises; for where his
person was present, the victorie fledde ever from him to the other
parte." Henry VI. fol. C. MALONE.
64, THIRD PART OF ACT n.
EDW. I am his king, and he should bow his
knee ;
I was adopted heir by his consent :
Since when, his oath is broke; 2 for, as I hear,
You that are king, though he do wear the crown,
Have caus'd him, by new act of parliament,
' To blot out me, and put his own son in.
' CLIP. And reason too ;
Who should succeed the father, but the son ?
' RICH. Are you there, butcher ? O, I cannot
speak !
' CLIP. Ay, crook-back ; here I stand, to answer
thee,
* Or any he the proudest of thy sort.
RICH. 'Twas you that kilPd young Rutland, was
it not ?
9 1 am his king, and he should bow his knee ;
I was adopted heir by his consent :
Since when, his oath is broke;] Edward's argument is
founded on the following article in the compact entered into by
Henry and the Duke of York, which the author found in Hall's
Chronicle, but which I believe made no part of that agreement :
" Provided alwaye, that if the king did closely or apertly studye
or go about to breake or alter this agreement, or to compass or
imagine the death or destruction of the sayde duke or his bloud,
then he to forfet the crowne, and the duke of Yorke to take it."
If this had been one of the articles of the compact, the Duke
having been killed at Wakefield, his eldest son would have now
a title to the crown. MALONE.
Since when, &c.] The quartos give the remainder of this
speech to Clarence, and read :
To blot our brother out, &c. STEEVENS.
Here is another variation of the same kind with those which
have been noticed in the preceding play, which could not have
arisen from a transcriber or printer. Though Shakspeare gave
the whole of this speech to Edward by substituting me for brother,
the same division which is found in the quarto, is inadvertently
retained in the folio. MALONE.
sc.ir. KING HENRY VI. 65
CLIP. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied.
RICH. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the
fight.
WAR. What say'st thou, Henry, wilt thou yield
the crown ?
' Q. MAR. Why, how now, long-tongu'd War-
wick ? dare you speak ?
When you and I met at Saint Alban's last,
Your legs did better service than your hands. 3
WAR. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis
thine.
CLIP. You said so much before, and yet you
fled.
WAR. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me
thence.
' NORTH. No, nor your manhood, that durst
make you stay.
RICH. Northumberland, I hold thee rever-
ently;
Break off the parle ; for scarce I can refrain
The execution of my big-swoln heart
Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.
CLIP. I slew thy father: Call' st thou him a child?
RICH. Ay, like a dastard, and a treacherous
coward,
As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland ;
But, ere sun-set, I'll make thee curse the deed.
K. HEN. Have done with words, my lords, and
hear me speak.
3 Your legs did better service than your hands."] An allusion
to the proverb: " One pair of heels is worth two pair of
hands." STEEVENS.
VOL. XIV. F
66 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
Q. MAR. Defy them then, or else hold close thy
lips.
K. HEN. I pr'ythee, give no limits to my tongue ;
I am a king, and privileged to speak.
CLIP. My liege, the wound, that bred this meet-
ing here,
Cannot be cur'd by words ; therefore be still.
RICH. Then, executioner, unsheath thy sword :
By him that made us all, I am resolv'd, 4
* That Clifford's manhood lies upon his tongue.
' EDW. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no?
A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day,
That ne'er shall dine, unless thou yield the crown.
WAR. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head j
For York in justice puts his armour on.
6 PRINCE. If that be right, which Warwick says
is right,
There is no wrong, but every thing is right.
RICH. Whoever got thee, 5 there thy mother
stands ;
For, well I wot, thou hast thy mother's tongue.
Q. MAR. But thou art neither like thy sire, nor
dam;
But like a foul misshapen stigmatick, 6
4 I am resolv'd,'] It is my firm persuasion ; I am no long-
er in doubt. JOHNSON.
4 Rich. Whoever got thee, &c.] In the folio this speech is
erroneously assigned to Warwick. The answer shows that it be-
longs to Richard, to whom it is attributed in the old play.
MALONE.
6 misshapen stigmatick,] " A stigmatic" says J. Bullo-
kar in his English Expositor, 1616, " is a notorious lewd fellow,
which hath been burnt with a hot iron, or beareth other marks
about him as a token of his punishment."
sc. ii. KING HENRY VI. 67
Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided,
* As venom toads, or lizards* dreadful stings. 7
RICH. Iron of Naples, hid with English gilt, 8
Whose father bears the title of a king,
(As if a channel should be call'd the sea, 9 )
The word is likewise used in Drayton's Epistle from Q. Mar-
garet to W. dc la Poole :
" That foul, ill favour'd, crook-back'd stigmatick."
Again, in Drayton's Epistle from King John to Matilda :
" These for the crook'd, the halt, the stigmatick."
STEEVENS.
7 lizards' dreadful stings."] Thus the folio. The quartos
have this variation :
" or lizards' fainting looks."
This is the second time that Shakspeare has armed the lizard
(which in reality has no such defence) with a sting; but great
powers seem to have been imputed to its looks. So, in Noah's
Flood, by Drayton :
*' The lizard shuts up his sharp-sighted eyes,
** Amongst the serpents, and there sadly lies."
STEEVENS^
Shakspeare is here answerable for the introduction of the
lizard's sting ; but in a preceding passage, Vol. XIII. p. 298, the
author of the old play has fallen into the same mistake.
MALONE.
* gMt"] Gilt is a superficial covering of gold.
So, in King Henry V :
" Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd."
STEEVENS.
9 (As if a channel should be call'd the sea,)~\ A channel, in
our author's time, signified what we now call a kennel. So, in
Stowe's Chronicle, quarto, 1605, p. 1148: " such a storme
of raine happened at London, as the like of long time could not
be remembered ; where-through, the channels of the citie sud-
denly rising," &c. Again, in King Henry IV. P. II : " quoit
him into the channel." MALONE.
Kennel is still pronounced channel in the North. So, in Mar-
lowe's Edward II :
" Throw off his golden mitre, rend his stole,
" And in the channel christen him anew."
F 2
68 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
6 Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art ex-
traught,
* To let thy tongue detect 1 thy base-born heart ?
EDW. A wisp of straw* were worth a thousand
crowns,
Again :
" Here's channel water, as our charge is given."
Again :
" To which the channels of the castle run." RITSON,
1 To let thy tongue detect ] To show thy meanness of birth
by the indecency of language with which thou railest at my de-
formity. JOHNSON.
To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart ?~] So the folio.
The quartos :
" To parly thus with England's lawful heirs."
STEEVENS.
* A wisp of straw ] I suppose, for an instrument of correc-
tion that might disgrace, but not hurt her. JOHNSON.
I believe that a wisp signified some instrument of correction
used in the time of Snakspeare. The following instance seems
to favour the supposition. See A Woman never Vexed, a comedy
by Rowley, 1632:
" Nay, worse ; I'll stain thy ruff; nay, worse than that,
" I'll do thus : [Holds up a wisp.
" dost laisp me thou tatterdemallion ?"
Again, in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1604- :
" Thou little more than a dwarf, and something less than a.
woman !
" Cris. A wispe ! a wispe! a wispe!"
Barrett, in his Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, inter-
prets the word wispe by peniculus or crTrovyof , which signify any
thing to wipe or cleanse with ; a cook's linen apron, &c. Pew-
ter is still scoured by a wispe of straw, or hay. Perhaps Edward
means one of these wisps, as the denotement of a menial servant.
Barrett adds, that, like a wase, it signifies " a wreath to be laied
under the vessel that is borne upon the head, as women use." If
this be its true sense, the Prince may think that such a wisp
would better become the head of Margaret, than a crown.
It appears, however, from the following passage in Thomas
Drant's translation of the seventh satire of Horace, 1567, that si
wisps was the punishment of a scold :
sc. n. KING HENRY VI. 69
To make this shameless callet know herself. 3
* Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou,
* Although thy husband may be Menelaus ; 4
* And ne'er was Agamemnon's brother wrong'd
*' So perfyte and exacte a scouldc that women mighte
geve place
* Whose tailing tongues had won a wispe," &c.
STEEVENS.
See also, Nashe's Apology of Pierce Pennilesse, 1593 : " Why,
thou errant butter-whore, thou cotquean and scrattop of scolds,
wilt thou never leave afflicting a dead carcasse ? continually read
the rhetorick lecture of Ramme- Alley ? a wispe, a wispe, you
kitchen-stuffe wrangler." Again, in A Dialogue between John
and Jone, striving who shall wear the Breeches, PLEASURES or
POETRY, bl. 1. no date :
" Good gentle Jone, with-holde thy hands,
" This once let me entreat thee,
" And make me promise, never more
" That thou shalt mind to beat me ;
" For feare thou tveare the wispe, good wife,
" And make our neighbours ride ." MALONE.
3 To make this shameless callet know herself.'} Shakspeare
uses the word callet likewise in The Winter's Tale, Act II. sc.
iii:
" A callat
" Of boundless tongue ; who late hath beat her husband,
** And now baits me."
Callet, a lewd woman, a drab, perhaps so called from the
French calote, which was a sort of head-dress worn by country
girls. See Glossary to Urry's Chaucer. So, in Chaucer's Re-
medy of Love, v. 307 :
" A cold old knave cuckolde himself wenyng,
" And of calot of lewd demenyng."
So, Skelton, in his Elinour Rumming, Works, p. 133 :
" Then Elinour said, ye callettes,
" I shall break your palettes."
Again, in Ben Jonson's Volpone :
" Why the callet you told me of here,
" I have tane disguis'd." GREY.
4 Menelaus ;~] i. e. a cuckold. So, in Troilus and Cressicla,
Thersites, speaking of Menelaus, calls him " the goodly trans-
formation of Jupiter there, the primitive statue and oblique me-
morial of cuckolds." STEEVENS.
70 THIRD PART OF ACT u.
* By that false woman, as this king by thee.
' His father revell'd in the heart of France,
And tam'd the king, and made the Dauphin stoop ;
And, had he match' d according to his state,
He might have kept that glory to this day :
But, when he took a beggar to his bed,
And grac'd thy poor sire with his bridal day ;
6 Even then that sunshine brew'd a shower for him,
c That wash'd his father's fortunes forth of France,
And heap'd sedition on his crown at home.
' For what hath broach'd thistumult, 5 but thypride ?
Hadst thou been meek, our title still had slept ;
And we, in pity of the gentle king,
Had slipp'd our claim until another age.
' GEO. But, when we saw our sunshine made thy
spring,
* And that thy summer bred us no increase, 6
We set the axe to thy usurping root :
And though the edge hath something hit ourselves,
* Yet, know thou, since we have begun to strike,
6 We'll never leave, till we have hewn thee down,
Or bath'd thy growing with our heated bloods.
EDW. And, in this resolution, I defy thee ;
Not willing any longer conference,
* hath broach'd this tumult,"] The quarto reads, " hath
mov'd this," Sfc. STEEVENS.
toe saw our sunshine made thy springy
And that thy summer bred us no increase,'] When we saw
that by favouring thee we made thee 'grow in fortune, but that
we received no advantage from thy fortune flourishing by our
favour, we then resolved to destroy thee, and determined to try
some other means, though our first efforts have failed.
JOHNSON.
The quartos read :
" But when we saw our summer brought thee gain,.
*' And that the harvest brought us no increase."
STEEVENS.
sc. in. KING HENRY VI. 71
Since thou deny'st the gentle king to speak.
Sound trumpets ! let our bloody colours wave !
And either victory, or else a grave.
Q. MAR. Stay, Edward.
EDW. No, wrangling woman ; we'll no longer
stay:
These words will cost ten thousand lives to-day.
[Exeunt.
SCENE III.
A Field of Battle 1 between Towton and Saxton in
Yorkshire.
Alarums : Excursions. Enter WARWICK.
6 WAR. Forspent with toil, 8 as runners with a race,
I lay me down a little while to breathe :
7 A Field of Battle &c. ] We should read near Towton.
Shakspeare has here, perhaps intentionally, thrown three different
actions into one. The Lord Fitzwater, being stationed by King
Edward, to defend the pass of Ferrybridge, was assaulted by
the Lord Clifford, and immediately slain, " and with hym" says
Hall " the bastard of Salisbury, brother to the earl of War-
wycke, a valeaunt yong gentleman, and of great audacitie.
When the earl of Warwicke," adds he, " was informed of this
feate, he lyke a man desperated, mounted on his hackeney, and
came blowing to kyng Edwarde, saiyng : Syr, I praye God have
mercy of their soules, which in the beginning of your enterprise
hath lost their lyfes, and because I se no succors of the world,!
remit the vengeance and punishment to God our creator and Re-
deemer ; and with that lighted doune, and slewe his horse with
his swourde, saying : let them flye that wyl, for surely I wil
tarye with him that wil tarye with me, and kissed the crosse of
his swourde." Clifford, in his retreat, was beset with a party
of Yorkists, when, " eyther," says the historian, " for heat or
payne, putting off his gorget, sodainly with an arrowe ( as some
say) without an hedde [he] was striken into the throte, and in-
72 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
For strokes receiv'd, and many blows repaid,
Have robb'dmystrong-knit sinews of theirstrength,
' And, spite of spite, 9 needs must I rest awhile.
Enter EDWARD, running.
EDW. Smile, gentle heaven I 1 or strike, ungentle
death !
' For this world frowns, and Edward's sun is
clouded.
WAR. How now, my lord ? what hap ? what
hope of good ?
continent rendered his spirite, and the erle of Westmerlandes
brother, and almost all his company were thare slayn, at a place
called Dinting-dale, not farr fro Towton." In the afternoon of
the next day (Palm Sunday eve 1461) on a plain field between
Towton and Saxton, joined the main battles which continued
engaged that night, and the greater part of the following day :
upwards of 30,000 men, all English (including many of the
nobility and the flower of the gentry, especially of the northern
parts) being slain on both sides. This battle, says Carte, " de-
cided the fate of the house of Lancaster, overturning in one day
an usurpation strengthened by sixty-two years continuance, and
established Edward on the throne of England." RITSON.
An authentick copy of King Edward's account of this battle,
together with a list of the noblemen and knights who were slain
in it, may be seen in Sir John Fenn's Collection of the Paston
Letters, Vol. I. p. 216, &c. HENLEY.
8 Forspent 'with toil,'] Thus the folio. The quartos read
" Sore spent," fyc. STEEVENS.
9 Andy spite of spite,] So, in Kins John:
" And, spite of spite, alone holds up the day."
STEEVENS.
1 Smile, gentle heaven ! &c.] Thus the folio. Instead of
these lines, the quartos give the following :
" Smile, gentle heavens, or strike, ungentle death,
" That we may die unless we gain the day !
" What fatal star malignant frowns from heaven
" Upon the harmless line of York's true house !"
STEEVENS.
ac. m. KING HENRY VI. 73
Enter GEORGE.
* GEO. Our hap is loss, our hope but sad despair ; 2
' Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us :
' What counsel give you, whither shall we fly ?
' EDW. Bootless is flight, they follow us with
wings ;
' And weak we are, and cannot shun pursuit.
Enter RICHARD.
4 RICH. Ah, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn
thyself?
* Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk, 3
* Our hap is loss, &c.] Thus the folio. The quartos thus :
" Come, brother, come, let's to the field again,
" For yet there's hope enough to win the day ;
" Then let us back to cheer our fainting troops,
" Lest they retire now we have left the field.
" War. How now, my lords ? what hap ? what hope
of good?" STEEVENS.
Our hap is loss, our hope but sad despair ;] Milton seems to
have copied this line :
" Thus repuls'd, ourjinal hope
" Is flat despair." MALONE.
3 Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,"] This pas-
sage, from the variation of the copies, gave me no little per-
plexity. The old quarto applies this description to the death of
Salisbury, Warwick's father. But this was a notorious deviation
from the truth of history. For the Earl of Salisbury in the battle
at Wakefield, wherein Richard Duke of York lost his life, was
taken prisoner, beheaded at Pomfret, and his head, together with
the Duke of York's, fixed over York gates. Then the only bro-
ther of Warwick, introduced in this play, is the Marquess
of Montacute (or Montague, as he is called by our author):
but he does not die till ten years after, in the battle at
Barnet ; where Warwick likewise was killed. The truth is, the
74 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
6 Broach'd with the steely point of Clifford's lance:
6 And, in the very pangs of death, he cried,
brother here mentioned is no person in the drama, and his death
is only an accidental piece of history. Consulting the Chronicles,
upon this action at Ferrybridge, I find him to have been a natu-
ral son of Salisbury, (in that respect a brother to Warwick,)
and esteemed a valiant young gentleman. THEOBALD.
Thy brother's blood &c.] Instead of this speech, which is
printed, like almost all the rest of the play, from the folio, the
quartos give the following :
" Thy noblefather in the thickest throngs
" Cried still for Warwick, his thrice valiant son ;
" Until with thousand swords he was beset,
" And many wounds made in his aged breast.
" And, as he tottering sat upon his steed,
" He waft his hand to me, and cried aloud,
" Richard, commend me to my valiant son :
" And still he cried, Warwick, revenge my death !
" And with these words he tumbled off his horse ;
" And so the noble Salisbury gave up the ghost."
STEEVENS.
It is here only necessary to refer to former notes on similar
variations ; See Vol. XIII. p. 210, n. 9 ; p. 220, n. 6 ; p. 234,
n. 1 ; p. 317, n. 3 ; p. 322, n. 3.
Thy brother's blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,~\ In this line,
of which there is no trace in the original play, Shakspeare had
probably the sacred writings in his thoughts : " And now art
thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to re-
ceive thy brother's blood.*' Genesis, iv. 11.
The old play (as Theobald has observed) applies this descrip-
tion to the death of Salisbury, contrary to the truth of history,
for that nobleman was taken prisoner at the battle of Wakefield,
apd afterwards beheaded at Pomfret. But both Hall and Ho-
linshed, in nearly the same words, relate the circumstance on
which this speech, as exhibited in \hefolio, is founded ; and from
the latter our author undoubtedly took it. " The Lord Fitz-
walter [who had been stationed to keep the pass of Ferrybridge]
hearing the noise, [made by Lord Clifford and a body of light-
horsemen, who attacked by surprize the party stationed at the
bridge,] sodainly rose out of his bedde, and unarmed, with a
pollax in his hande, thinking that it had bin a fraye amongst his
men, came down to appease the same, but ere he knew what the
sc. in. KING HENRY VI. 75
' Like to a dismal clangor heard from far,
* Warwick, revenge ! brother, revenge my death I
' So underneath the belly of their steeds,
' That stain' d their fetlocks in his smoking blood,
' The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.
' WAR. Then let the earth be drunken with our
blood :
I'll kill my horse, because I will not fly. 4
* Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,
* Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage j
* And look upon, 5 as if the tragedy
* Were play'd in jest by counterfeiting actors ?
6 Here on my knee I vow to God above,
' I'll never pause again, never stand still,
* Till either death hath clos'd these eyes of mine,
' Or fortune given me measure of revenge.
EDW. O Warwick, I do bend my knee with
thine ;
matter merit, he was slaine, and with him the bastard of Salis-
bury, brother to the erle of Warwick, a valiant young gentleman,
and of great audacitie." Holinshed, p. 664. In this action at
Ferrybridge, which happened on the 28th of March, 1461, the
day before the great battle of Towton, Lord Clifford was killed.
The author of this play has blended the two actions together.
MALONE.
4 I'll kill my horse, &c.] So, in The Miseries of Queen Mar-
garet, by Drayton :
" Resolv'd to win, or bid the world adieu :
" Which spoke, the earl his sprightly courser slew.'*
Again, in Daniel's Civil Wars, B. VIII. st. xiii.
From Hall, Henry VI. p. 102. See p. 71, n. 7.
STEEVENS.
* And look upon,] And are mere spectators. So, in The
Winter's Tale, where I idly suspected some corruption in the
text :
" And look on alike." MALONE.
76 THIRD PART OF ACT if.
' And, in this vow, do chain my soul to thine. 6
* And, ere my knee rise from the earth's cold face,
* I throw my hands, mine eyes, my heart to thee,
Thou setter up and plucker down of kings !
* Beseeching thee, 7 if with thy will it stands,
6 That to my foes this body must be prey,
c Yet that thy brazen gates of heaven may ope,
* And give sweet passage to my sinful soul !
* Now, lords, take leave until we meet again,
Where-e'er it be, in heaven, or on earth.
* RICH. Brother, give me thy hand ; and,
gentle Warwick,
* Let me embrace thee in my weary arms :
' I, that did never weep, now melt with woe,
c That winter should cut off our spring-time so.
6 And, in this uow, do chain my soul to thine."] Thus the fo-
lio. The quarto as follows :
" And in that vow now join my soul to thee."
STEEVENS.
7 Beseeching thee,] That is, beseeching the divine power,
Shakspeare in new-forming this speech may seem, at the first view
of it, to have made it obscure, by placing this line immediately
after" Thou setter up," &c.
What I have now observed is founded on a supposition that the
words " Thou setter up," &c. are applied to Warwick, as they
appear to be in the old play. However, our author certainly in-
tended to deviate from it, and to apply this description to the
Deity ; and this is another strong confirmation of the observation
already made relative to the variations between these pieces and
the elder dramas on which they were formed. In the old play
the speech runs thus :
" Lord Warwick, I do bend my knees with thine,
" And in that vow now join my soul to thee,
" Thou setter-up and puller-down of kings :
" Vouchsafe a gentle victory to us,
" Or let us die before we lose the day !"
The last two lines are certainly here addressed to the Deity ;
but the preceding line, notwithstanding the anachronism, seems
to be addressed to Warwick. MALONE.
ac. m. KING HENRY VI. 77
* WAR. Away, away ! Once more, sweet lords,
farewell.
' GEO. Yet let us all together to our troops,
' And give them leave to fly that will not stay ;
And call them pillars, that will stand to us ;
* And, if we thrive, promise them such rewards
' As victors wear at the Olympian games :
* This may plant courage in their quailing 8 breasts;
* For yet is hope of life, and victory.
* Fore-slow no longer, 9 make we hence amain. 1
\JRxeunt.
quailing ] i. e. sinking into dejection. So, in Cym-
beline :
my false spirits
" Quail to remember : " STEEVENS.
9 Fore-slow no longer,'] To fore-slota is to be dilatory, to loiter.
So, in The Battle of Alcazar, 1594:
" Why, king Sebastian, wilt thou nowforesloto ?"
Again, in Marlowe's Edward II. 1598 :
" Foresloia no time ; sweet Lancaster, let's march."
Again, in Promos and Cassandra, 1578 :
" Good knight, for time do not my suitf&reslotv."
STEEVENS.
1 make toe hence amain."] Instead of this and the two
preceding speeches, we have in the old play the following :
" Geo. Then let us haste tochearethe souldiers' hearts,
" And call them pillers that will stand to us,
" And highly promise to remunerate
" Their trustie service in these dangerous warres.
" Rich. Come, come away, and stand not to debate,
" For yet is hope of fortune good enough.
" Brothers, give me your handes, and let us part,
" And take our leaves untill we mecte againe ;
*' Where ere it be, in heaven or in earth.
" Now I that never wept, now melt in woe,
" To see these dire mishaps continue so.
" Warwick, farewell."
" War. Away, away; once more, sweet lords, fare-
well." MALONE.
78 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
SCENE IV.
The same. Another Part of the Field.
Excursions. Enter RICHARD and CLIFFORD.
' RICH. Now, Clifford, I have singled thee alone : 2
' Suppose, this arm is for the duke of York,
* And this for Rutland ; both bound to revenge,
' Wert thou environ' d with a brazen wall. 3
CLIP. Now, Richard, I am with thee here alone :
This is the hand, that stabb'd thy father York ;
And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland;
And here's the heart, that triumphs in their death,
And cheers these hands, that slew thy sire and
brother,
To execute the like upon thyself j
And so, have at thee.
\_They Jight. WARWICK enters; CLIFFORD
fees.
s Novo, Clifford, I have singled thee alone: &c.] Thus the
folio. The quartos thus :
" Now, Clifford, for York and young Rutland's death,
" This thirsty sword, that longs to drink thy blood,
" Shall lop thy limbs, and slice thy cursed heart,
" For to revenge the murders thou hast made."
STEEVENS.
3 Wert thou environed tvith a brazen 'wall.] So, in the second
Thebaid of Statius, v. 453 :
" non si te ferreus agger
** Ambiat, " STEEVENS.
sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 79
4 RICH. Nay, Warwick, 4 single out some other
chase ;
* For I myself will hunt this wolf \o death.
\_Exeunt.
SCENE V.
Another Part of the Field.
Alarum. Enter King HENRY.
* K. HEN. This battle fares like to the morning's
war, 5
When dying clouds contend with growing light ;
4 Nay, Warwick, &c.] We have had two very similar lines
in the preceding play, p. 384 :
" Hold, Warwick, seek thee out some other chace ;
" For I myself must hunt this deer to death."
See p. 102, n. 2. MALONE.
* This battle Jares like to the morning's war, &c.] Instead of
this interesting speech, the quartos exhibit only the following :
" O gracious God of heaven, look down on us,
" And set some ends to these incessant griefs !
" How like a mastless ship upon the seas,
" This woeful battle doth continue still,
* ( Now leaning this way, now to that side driven,
" And none doth know to whom the day will fall.
" Oh, would my death might stay these civil* jars !
" Would I had never reign'd, nor ne'er been king !
" Margaret and Clifford chide me from the field,
" Swearing they had best success when I was thence.
** Would God that I were dead, so all were well ;
" Or, would my crown suffice, I were content
" To yield it them, and live a private life !"
The leading thought in both these soliloquies is borrowed
from Holinshed, p. 665 : " This deadly conflict continued ten
hours in doubtful state of victorie, uncertainlie heaving and
setting on both sides," &c.
* The quarto, 1600, printed by W. W. reads cruel jars.
80 THIRD PART OF ACT u.
* What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails, 6
* Can neither call it perfect day, nor night.
' Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea,
' Forc'd by the tide to combat with the wind ;
' Now sways it that way, like the self-same sea
' Forc'd to retire by fury of the wind :
' Sometime, the flood prevails; and then, the wind;
' Now, one the better ; then, another best ;
' Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast, 7
' Yet neither conqueror, nor conquered :
' So is the equal poise of this fell war.
* Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
* To whom God will, there be the victory !
' For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,
' Have chid me from the battle ; swearing both,
4 They prosper best of all when I am thence.
* 'Would I were dead ! if God's good will were so :
c For what is in this world, but grief and woe ?
* O God ! methinks, it were a happy life, 8
Virgil, however, JEn. Lib. X, v. 354, has a similar comparison :
" . .. Expellere tendunt
" Nunc hi, nunc illi : certatur limine in ipso
" Ausoniae. Magno discordes aethere venti
" Praelia ceu tollunt, animis et viribus aequis :
" Non ipsi inter se, non nubila, non mare cedunt ;
" Anceps pugna diu : stant obnixi omnia contra," &c.
This simile, however, originates with Homer ; Iliad, XIV.
STEEVENS.
6 the shepherd, blowing of his nails,] So, in Love's La-
bour* 's Lost:
" When icicles hang by the wall,
" And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, ." MALONE.
7 Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,"] Hence, per-
haps, the vulgarism that gives such acknowledged force to the
following line in Lee's Rival Queens :
" When Greeks join'd Greeks, then was the tug of war/'
STEEVENS.
9 methinks, it were a happy life,~\ This speech is mourn-
ful and soft, exquisitely suited to the character of the King, and
sc. 7. KING HENRY VI. 81
: To be no better than a homely swain ;
* To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
* To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
* Thereby to see the minutes now they run :
* How many make the hour full complete, 9
* How many hours bring about the day,
* How many days will finish up the year,
* How many years a mortal man may live.
* .When this is known, then to divide the times :
* So many hours must I tend my flock j
* So many hours must I take my rest ;
* So many hours must I contemplate ;
* So many hours must I sport myself j
* So many days my ewes have been with young j
* So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean \ l
* So many years 2 ere I shall sheer the fleece :
makes a pleasing interchange, by affording, amidst the tumult
and horror of the battle, an unexpected glimpse of rural inno-
cence and pastoral tranquillity. JOHNSON.
This speech strongly confirms the remark made by Sir Joshua
Reynolds on a passage in Macbeth, Vol. X. p. 72, n. 3.
MALONE.
9 Thereby to see the minutes how they run :
How many make the hour full complete,] So, in our author's
Rape of Lucrece :
" Stuff up his lust, as minutes Jill up hours." MALONE.
1 ere the poor fools will yean ;] Poor fool, it has already
been observed, is an expression of tenderness, often used by our
author. MALONE.
So, in King Lear, scene the last :
" And my poor fool is hang'd."
See notes on this passage, Vol. XVII. STEEVENS.
* So many years ere I shall sheer thejleece .] i. e. the years
which must elapse between the time of the yeaning of the ewes,
and the lambs arriving to such a state as to admit of being shorn.
Mr. Rowe changed years to months ; which was followed by the
subsequent editors ; and in the next line inserted the word weeks;
not observing that hours is used there, and throughout this speech,
VOL. XIV. G
82 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
* So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and
years,
* Pass'd over to the end they were created,
* Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
* Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
* Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
* To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
* Than doth a -rich embroider'd canopy
* To kings, that fear their subjects' treachery ?
* O, yes it doth ; a thousand fold it doth.
* And to conclude, the shepherd's homely curds,
* His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
* His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
* All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
* Is far beyond a prince's delicates,
* His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
* His body couched in a curious bed,
* When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.
Alarum. Enter, a Son that has killed his Father,*
dragging in the dead Body.
SON. Ill blows the wind, that profits no-body.
* This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight,
* May be possessed with some store of crowns :
* And I, that haply take them from him now,
* May yet ere night yield both my life and them
as a dissyllable. Years is in that line likewise used as a word
of two syllables. MALONE.
This dissyllabical pronunciation will by no means suit the con-
clusion of a verse, however it may be admitted in other parts of
it. I have retained Mr. Howe's very necessary insertion.
STEEVENS.
. ' Enter a Son &c.] These two horrible incidents are selected
to show the innumerable calamities of civil war. JOHNSON.
: . In the battle of Constantine and Maxentius, by Raphael, the
second of these incidents is introduced on a similar occasion.
STEEVENB.
ta r. KINO HENRY VI. 83
* To some man else, as this dead man doth me.
* Who's this ? O God ! it is my father's face,
' Whom in this conflict I unwares have kill'd.
* O heavy times, begetting such events !
' From London by the king was I press* d forth ;
' My father, being the earl of Warwick's man,
* Came on the part of York, press'd by his master;
' And I, who at his hands receiv'd my life,
' Have by my hands of life bereaved him.
c Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did !
And pardon, father, for I knew not thee !
* My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks ;
* And no more words, till they have flow'd their fill.
* K. HEN. O piteous spectacle ! 4 O bloody times !
Whilst lions war, and battle for their dens,:
' Poor harmless lambs abide their enmity.
* Weep, wretched man, I'll aid thee tear fo'r tear ;
* And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war,
* Be blind with tears, and break o'ercharg'd with
grief. 5
. 4 O piteous spectacle ! &c.] In the old play the King does
not speak, till both the Son and the Father have appeared, and
spoken, and then the following words are attributed to him, out
of which Shakspeare has formed two distinct speeches :
" Woe above woe ! grief more than common grief!
" Whilst lions waff, and battle for their dens,
*' Poor lambs do feel the rigour of their wraths.
" The red rose and the white are on his face,
" The fatal colours, of our striving houses.
*' Wither one rose, and let the other perish,
" For, if you strive, ten thousand lives must perish."
MALONE.
* And let our hearts, and eyes, like civil war,
Be blind with tears, and break o'erchartr'd with grief.'] The
meaning is here inaccurately expressed. The King intends to
say that the state of their hearts and eyes shall be like that of the
kingdom in a civil war, all shall be destroyed by power formed
within themselves. JOHNSON.
G 2
THIRD PART OF ACT n.
Enter a Father, 'who has killed his Son, with the
Body in his Arms.
e PATH. Thou that so stoutly hast resisted me,
' Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold ;
4 For I have bought it with an hundred blows.
4 But let me see : is this our foeman's face ?
4 Ah, no, no, no, it is mine only son !
* Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,
* Throw up thine eye ; see, see, what showers arise,
* Blown with the windy tempest of my heart, 6
* Upon thy wounds, that kill mine eye and heart!
4 O, pity, God, this miserable age !
4 What stratagems, 7 how fell, how butcherly,
what showers arise,
Blown with the windy tempest of my heart,"] This image
had occurred in the preceding Act :
For raging wind blows up incessant showers. STEEVENS.
7 What stratagems,] Stratagem seems to stand here only for
an event of war, or may intend snares and surprizes. JOHNSON.
Stratagem is used by Shakspeare not merely to express the
events and surprizes of war. 'The word means in this place some
dreadful event, as it does also in The Second Part ofK. Henry
IV. where Northumberland says:
" Every minute now
" Should be the father of some stratagem. 11
Stratagemma, in Italian, bears the same acceptation which
Shakspeare gives to the English word Stratagem, in these two
passages. Bernini in his History of Heresies, says : " Ma Dio
puni la Francia, & la Spagna, co'l flagello dei Vandali, per
1'Eresia abbracciata, & piu gravamente puni lloma, prevaricata
di nuovo, al culto de gl' idoli, con il sacco che gli diedero.
Orosio, che descrisse quelle stratagemme, paragoni Roma a
Sodoma, chiamando i Romani peccatori.'*
It is evident, that in this passage stratagemme means disastrous
events, as stratagem does in this place. M. MASON.
" Stratageme. A policie or subtle device in warre, whereby
the enemie is often vanquished." Bullokar's English Expositor^
sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 85
4 Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural,
' This deadly quarrel daily doth beget !
' O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon, 8
* And hath bereft thee of thy life too late I 9
octavo, 1616. Florio, in his Italian Diet. 1598, defines Strata-
gema, " a policie, a wile, or wittie shift in warre." This was
undoubtedly its ordinary sense in our author's time, though then
and afterwards it was occasionally used for any subtle device or
policy. Here it has unquestionably its ordinary signification.
MALONE.
Mr. Malone asserts that stratagem in this place means a subtle
device in war ; but I still adhere to my former opinion, that it
means a disastrous event, or an atrocious action. Can we sup->
pose that a father in the paroxysm of despair, on finding that he
had killed with his own hand, his only son, should call that horrid
deed a subtle device in war ? When Lorenzo says, in The Mer-
chant of Venice, that
" The man who hath no musick in himself &c.
" Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,"
Could he mean to rank the subtle devices of war in the same class
with the worst of crimes ?
We find the word stratagem in The True Chronicle History of
King Lear, p. 417, where Regan says to the Messenger
" Hast thou the heart to act a stratagem,
" And give a stab or two, if need require ?
" Messenger. I have a heart compact of adamant
" Which never knew what melting pity meant.
" I weigh no more the murd'ring of a man,
" Than I respect the cracking of a flea,
" When I do catch her biting on my skin.
" If you will have your husband or your father,
" Or both of them, sent to another world,
" Do but command me do it, it shall be done."
It is evident that Regan's stratagem, or subtle device, was
assassination. M. MASON.
8 O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,~\ Because had he
been born later, he would not now have been of years to engage
in this quarrel. WARBURTON.
9 And hath bereft thee of thy life too late /] i. e. He should
have done it by not bringing thee into being, to make both father
and son thus miserable. This is the sense, such as it is, of the
two lines ; however, an indifferent sense was bettex than none,
86 THIRD PART OF ACT m
K. HEN. Woe above woe ! grief more than com-
mon grief!
' O, that my death would stay these ruthful deeds!
* O pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity !
The red rose and the white are on his face,
The fatal colours of our striving houses :
* The one, his purple blood right well resemblea >
* The other, his pale cheeks, methinks, present :
as it is brought to by the Oxford editor, by reading the lines thus:
O boy ! thy father gave thee life too late.
And hath bereft thee of thy life too soon. WARBURTON.
I rather think the meaning of the line, And hath bereft thee
of thy life too soon, to be this : Thy father exposed thee to danger
by giving thee life too soon, and hath bereft thee of life by living
himself too long. JOHNSON.
The Oxford editor might have justified the change he made,
from the authority of the quarto, according to which I would
read ; explaining the first line thus : Thy father begot thee at too
late a period of his life, and therefore thou inert not old and strong
enough to cope with him. The next line can want no explana-
tion. Mr. Toilet thinks, that by too late is meant too lately, as
in King Richard III. Act III :
" Too late he died that might have kept that title."
STEEVENS.
Too late, without doubt, means too recently. The memory
of thy virtues and thy hapless end is too recent, to be thought of
without the deepest anguish. The same quaint expression is
found in our author's Rape ofLucrece :
" O, quoth Lucretius, I did give that life,
" Which she too early and too late hath spill'd.'*
Here late clearly means lately. Again, in this Third Part of
King Henry VI:
" Where fame, late entering at his heedful ears.'*
In the old play this and the preceding line stand thus :
" Poor boy, thy father gave thee life too late,
" And hath bereft thee of thy life too soon." MALONE.
The present reading appears to be far the more eligible. Had
the son been younger, he would have .been precluded from the
levy that brought him into the field ; and had the father recog-
nized him before the mortal blow, it would not have been too
late to have saved him from death. HENLEY.
sc. v. KING HENRY VI. 87
Wither one rose, and let the other flourish !
' If you contend, a thousand lives must wither. l
SON. How will my mother, for a father's death,
Take on with me, 2 and ne'er be satisfied?
PATH. How will my wife, for slaughter of my son,
c Shed seas of tears, and ne'er be satisfied ?
* K. HEN. How will the country, 3 for these wo-
ful chances,
e Misthink the king, and not be satisfied ?
* SON. Was ever son, so ru'd a father's death ?
c PATH. Was ever father, so bemoan'd a son ? 4
1 If you contend, a thousand lives must wither.] Thus the
folio. The quartos thus:
" For if you strive, a thousand lives must perish"
STEEVENS.
I think the word wither is more likely to have been inadver-
tently repeated by the transcriber, than substituted by Shak-
speare for the former word. MALONE.
1 Take on tvitk me,~\ Be enraged at me. So, in a pamphlet
by T. Nashe, 1592: " Some will take on, like a madman," &c.
See Vol. VII. p. 344, n. 6. MALONE.
To take on is a phrase still in use among the vulgar, and sig-
nifies to persist in clamorous lamentation. STEEVENS.
s How "will the country, &c.] So the folio. The quartos thus:
" How will the country now misdeem their king !
" Oh, would my death their minds could satisfy !"
To mis-think is to think ill, unfavourably. So, in The North-
ern Lass, 1633 :
" and heaven pardon me what I mis-thought every hour
of the night !" STEEVENS.
This word, which Shakspeare substituted for misdeem, he has
again used in Antony and Cleopatra :
" Be it known, that we the greatest are mis-thought,
" For things that others do." MALONE.
- 4 Was ever son, so ru'd a father's death ?
Was mr father, so bemoan' d his son f] The variation is. here
88 THIRD PART OF ACT n.
' K. HEN.W&S ever king, so griev'd for subjects'
woe ?
' Much is your sorrow; mine, ten times so much.
* SON. I'll bear thee hence, 5 where I may weep
my fill. [Exit, with the Body.
* FATH. These arms of mine shall be thy wind-
ing-sheet ;
* My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre ;
* For from my heart thine image ne'er shall go,
* My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell ;
* And so obsequious will thy father be, 6
* Sad for the loss of thee, 7 having no more,
* As Priam was for all 8 his valiant sons.
I'll bear thee hence ; and let them fight that will,
For I have murder 1 d where I should not kill.
[Exit, with the Body,
worth remarking, for in the old play the corresponding lines
are:
" Was ever son so rude, his father's blood to spill !
" Was ever father so unnatural, his son to kill ?"
MALONE,
* Pll bear thee hence, &c.] Thus the folio. The old play
thus:
" I'll bear thee hence from this accursed place,
" For woe is to me, to see my father's face." MALONE,
' And so obsequious 'will thy father be,~] Obsequious is here
careful of obsequies, or of funeral rites. JOHNSON.
In the same sense it is used in Hamlet :
** to do obsequious sorrow." STEEVENS.
* Sadjbr the loss oftkee,'] The old copy reads men for the
loss &c. Mr. Rowe made the alteration ; but I think we might
read:
" so obsequious will thy father be,
<* Man, for the loss of thee" &c. STEEVENS.
8 As Priam inasfor all ] I having but one son, will grieve
as much for that one, as Priam, who had many, could grieve for
many. JOHNSON.
sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 89
* K. HEN. Sad-hearted men, much overgone with
care,
* Here sits a king more woful than you are.
Alarums : Excursions. Enter Queen MARGARET,
Prince of Wales, and EXETER.
' PRINCE. Fly, father, fly ! for all your friends
are fled,
* And Warwick rages like a chafed bull :
* Away! for death doth hold us in pursuit.
* Q. MAR. Mount you, my lord, towards Ber-
wick post amain :
* Edward and Richard, like a brace of greyhounds
* Having the fearful flying hare in sight,
* With fiery eyes, sparkling for very wrath,
* And bloody steel grasp* d in their ireful hands,
* Are at our backs ; and therefore hence amain.
e EXE. Away ! for vengeance comes along with
them:
* Nay, stay not to expostulate, make speed ;
Or else come after, I'll away before.
* K. HEN. Nay, take me with thee, good sweet
Exeter ;
* Not that I fear to stay, but love to go
* Whither the queen intends. Forward ; away !
[Exeunt,
90 THIRD PART OF ACTII.
SCENE VI.
The same.
A loud Alarum. Enter CLIFFORD, wounded.'
6 CLIP. Here burns my candle out, ay, here it
dies, 1
Which, while it lasted, gave king Henry light.
O, Lancaster ! I fear thy overthrow,
More than my body's parting with my soul.
My love, and fear, glew'd many friends to thee;
' And, now I fall, thy tough commixtures melt. 2
Impairing Henry, strengthening mis-proud York,
The common people swarm like summer flies : 3
6 Enter Clifford, Mounded."] The quarto adds, with an arrow
in his neck. In ridicule of this, Beaumont and Fletcher have
introduced Ralph, the grocer's prentice, in The Knight of the
Burning Pestle, with a forked arrow through his head. It ap-
pears, however, from rfolinshed, p. 664, that this circumstance
has some relation to the truth : " The lord Clifford, either for
heat or paine, putting off his gorget suddenlie, with an arrow
(as some saie) without a head, was striken into the throte, and
immediately rendered his spirit." STEEVENS.
1 Here burns my candle out, ay, here it dies,"} So, in the first
part of this play :
" Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer?' STEEVENS.
* thy tough commixtures melt.] Perhaps better, the tough
commixture. JOHNSON.
The quartos read " t hat tough commixture melts."
STEEVENS.
s The common people swarm like summer Jlies :~\ This line,
which is not in the folio, was recovered from the old play by Mr.
Theobald. The context shows, that like a line in The Second
Part of King Henry VI. it was omitted by the negligence of the
transcriber or compositor. MALONE.
sc. r/. KING HENRY VI. 91
And whither fly the gnats, but to the sun ? 4
And who shines now but Henry's enemies ?
O Pho2bus ! hadst thou never given consent 5
That Phaeton should check thy fiery steeds,
Thy burning car never had scorch'd the earth :
And, Henry, hadst thou sway'd as kings should do,
Or as thy father, and his father, did,
Giving no ground unto the house of York,
* They never then had sprung like summer flies ;
' I, and ten thousand in this luckless realm,
Had left no mourning widows for our death,
And thou this day hadst kept thy chair in peace.
For what doth cherish weeds but gentle air ?
' And what makes robbers bold, but too much le-
nity ?
Bootless are plaints, and cureless are my wounds ;
4 No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight; 6
The foe is merciless, and will not pity ;
For, at their hands, I have deseiVd no pity.
* The air hath got into my deadly wounds,
And much effuse of blood doth make me faint:
4 The common people swarm like summer flies:
And "whither fly the gnats, but to the sun ?] Hence, perhaps,
originated the following passage in The Bard of Gray :
" The swarm that in thy noontide beam were born ?
" Gone to salute the rising morn." STEEVENS.
5 Phoebus ! hadst thou never given consent ~] The Duke
of York had been entrusted by Henry with the reins of govern-
ment both in Ireland and France; and hence perhaps was taught
to aspire to the throne. MALONE.
6 No ivay to fly, nor strength to hold out flight .] This line is
clear and proper as it is now read ; yet perhaps an opposition of
images was meant, and Clifford said :
No ixiay to fly, nor strength to hold out fight. JOHNSON.
The sense of the original reading is No way to fly, nor with
strength sufficient left to sustain myself in flight, if there were.
STEEVENS.
92 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
Come, York, and Richard, Warwick, and the rest j
' I stabb'd your fathers' bosoms, split my breast. 17
[He faints.
Alarum and Retreat. Enter EDWARD, GEORGE,
RICHARD, MONTAGUE, WARWICK, and Soldiers.
6 EDW. Now breathe we, lords ; 8 good fortune
bids us pause,
' And smooth the frowns of war 9 with peaceful
looks.
* Some troops pursue the bloody-minded queen;
* That led calm Henry, though he were a king,
* As doth a sail, fill'd with a fretting gust,
7 / stabb'd your fathers* bosoms, split my breast.^ So the folio.
The quartos read :
" I stabb'd your father's, noiu come split my breast."
STEEVENS.
8 Now breathe we, lords ;] Instead of this speech the quartos
have the following :
" Thus far our fortunes keep an upward course,
" And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.
" Some troops pursue the bloody-minded queen,
" That now towards Berwick doth post amain :
*' J5ut think you that Clifford is fled away with them ?"
STEEVENS.
This battle, in which the house of York was victorious, was
fought on a plain between Towton and Saxton, on the 29th of
March, (Palm Sunday) 1461. The royal army consisted, ac-
cording to Hall, of about forty thousand men ; and the young
Duke of York's forces were 48,760. In this combat, which
lasted fourteen hours, and in the actions of the two following
days, thirty-six thousand seven hundred and seventy-six persons
are said to have been killed ; the greater part of whom were un-
doubtedly Lancastrians. MA LONE.
9 And smooth the frowns of war ] So, in K. Richard III:
" Grim-visag'd war hath smoothed his wrinkled front."
STEEVENS.
sc. VL KING HENRY VI. 93
* Command an argosy to stem the waves.
' But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?
WAR. No, 'tis impossible he should escape :
For, though before his face I speak the words,
Your brother Richard mark'd him for the grave : l
* And, wheresoe'er he is, he's surely dead.
[CLIFFORD groans, and dies.
EDW. Whose soul 2 is that which takes her heavy
leave ?
RICH. A deadly groan, like life and death's de-
parting. 3
EDW. See who it is : and, now the battle's ended,
If friend, or foe, let him be gently us'd.
1 marled Mm for the grave: ] Young has transferred this
expression to Alonzo in The Revenge:
" This only marks my body for the grave."
. A similar phrase occurs in Chapman's version of the fifth Iliad:
" Our bravest foe is mark'd for death; he cannot long
sustain
" My violent shaft, " STEEVENS.
1 Edw. Whose soul &c.] I have distinguished this and the two
following speeches according to the authority of the quarto. The
folio gave all to Richard, except the last line and half.
STEEVENS.
I have also followed the original regulation, because it seems
absurd that Richard should first say to his brother, or to one of
the soldiers, " See who it is;" and then, himself declare that
it is Clifford; and therefore I suppose the variation in the folio
arose, not from Shakspeare, but from some negligence or inac-
curacy of a compositor or transcriber. MALONE.
3 like life and death's departing.] Sir Thomas Hanmer
reads, like life in death departing ; which Dr. Warburton has
received. JOHNSON.
The quartos read, like life and death's departure. STEEVENS.
like life and death's departing.] Departing for separation.
MALONE.
There is no occasion for correction. " 'Till death us depart"
was the expression in the old Marriage Service. FARMER.
94 THIRD PART OF ACT IL
* RICH. Revoke that doom of mercy, for 'tis
Clifford;
* Who not contented that he lopp'd the branch
' In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth, 4
* But set his murdering knife unto the root
' From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring,
* I mean, our princely father, duke of York.
WAR. From off the gates of York fetch down
the head,
Your father's head, which Clifford placed there :
' Instead whereof, let this supply the room ;
Measure for measure must be answered.
EDW. Bring forth that fatal screech-owl to our
house,
4 That nothing sung but death to us and ours : 5
4 Now death shall stop his dismal threatening sound,
* And his ill-boding tongue no more shall speak.
[Attendants bring the Body forward.
WAR. I think his understanding is bereft :
4 In hevoing Rutland ivhen his leaves putforth,"] It is manifest
from this and many other passages, that the author of the old
play, where the corresponding line stands thus :
" Who killed our tender brother Rutland ."
imagined that Rutland was younger than George and Richard ;
whereas he was in fact older than them both, being the Duke of
York's second son ; in consequence of which he bore a title by
courtesy : and a particular stipulation was made in the compact
entered into between Henry and the Duke of York, that Rut-
land, as well as his elder brother Edward Earl of March, should
swear to the due observance of the agreement. Shakspeare has,
we see, fallen into the same error; as have Habington in his ner-
vous and elegant History of Edward IV. and several other his-
torians. M ALONE.
* screech-owl to our house,
That nothing sung but death 8fC.~] So, in K. Richard III:
" Out on you, otvlsi nothing but songs of death ?"
STEEVENS.
sc. VL KING HENRY VI. 95
Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to
thee ?
Dark cloudy death o'ershades his beams of life,
And he nor sees, nor hears us what we say.
RICH. O, 'would he did ! and so, perhaps, he
doth;
* 'Tis but his policy to counterfeit,
' Because he would avoid such bitter taunts
* Which in the time of death he gave our father.
GEO. If so thou think'st, vex him with eager
words. 6
RICH. Clifford, ask mercy, and obtain no grace.
EDW. Clifford, repent in bootless penitence.
WAR. Clifford, devise excuses for thy faults.
GEO. While we devise fell tortures for thy faults.
6 RICH. Thou didst love York, and I am son to
York.
EDW. Thou pitied J st Rutland, I will pity thee.
GEO. Where's captain Margaret, to fence you
now?
WAR. They mock thee, Clifford ! swear as thou
wast wont.
* RICH. What, not an oath ? nay, then the world
goes hard,
' When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath :
I know by that, he's dead ; And, by my soul,
' If this right hand would buy two hours' life,
That I in all despite might rail at him,
8 eager ivords."] Sour words ; words of asperity.
JOHNSON.
So, in Hamlet:
" It is a nipping and an eager air." STEEVENS.
96 THIRD PART OF ACTS.
' This hand should chop it off j and with the issu-
ing blood
Stifle the villain, whose unstaunched thirst
York and young Rutland could not satisfy.
WAR. Ay, but he's dead : Off with the traitor's
head,
And rear it in the place your father's stands.
And now to London with triumphant march,
There to be crowned England's royal king.
c From whence shall Warwick cut the sea to France,
And ask the lady Bona for thy queen :
So shalt thou sinew both these lands together ;
' And, having France thy friend, thou shalt not
dread
The scatter'd foe, that hopes to rise again ;
For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,
Yet look to have them buz, to offend thine ears.
First, will I see the coronation ;
' And then to Britany I'll cross the sea, 7
To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.
EDW. Even as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it
be:
* For on thy shoulder do I build my seat ;
* And never will I undertake the thing,
* Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.
* Richard, I will create thee duke of Gloster ;
* And George, of Clarence ; Warwick, as ourself,
' Shall do, and undo, as him pleaseth best.
RICH. Let me be duke of Clarence ; George, of
Gloster j
7 And then to Britany I'll cross the sea,"] Thus the folio. The
quartos thus :
" And afterward I'll cross the seas to France."
STEEVENS.
Acrm. KING HENRY VI. 9?
For Gloster's dukedom is too ominous. 8
WAR. Tut, that's a foolish observation ;
Richard, be duke of Gloster : Now to London,
To see these honours in possession. \_Exeunt.
ACT III. SCENE I.
A Chace in the North of England.
Enter Two Keepers, 9 with Cross-bows in their
Hands.
* 1 KEEP. Under this thick-grown brake 1 we'll
shroud ourselves j
8 #00 ominous."] Alluding, perhaps, to the deaths of Tho-
mas of Woodstock, and Humphrey, Dukes of Gloster.
STEEVENS.
The author of the original play, in which this line is found^
probably had here a passage in Hall's Chronicle in his thoughts :
" It seemeth to many men that the name and title of Gloucester
hath bene unfortunate and unluckie to diverse, whiche for their
honor have bene erected by creation of princes to that stile and
dignitie; as Hugh Spencer, Thomas of Woodstocke, son to kynge
Edwarde the thirde, and this duke Humphrey, [who was killed
at Bury ;] whiche three persons by miserable death finished their
daies ; and after them king Richard the iii. also duke of Glou-
cester, in civil warre was slaine and confounded ; so that this
name of Gloucester is taken for an unhappie and unfortunate
stile, as the proverbe speaketh of Sejanes horse, whose ryder was
ever unhorsed, and whose possessorwas ever.brought to miserie."
MALONE.
9 two Keepers,"] In the folio, instead of ttvo keepers, we
have, through negligence, the names of the persons who repre-
sented these characters ; Sinklo and Humphrey. See Vol. IX.
p. 23, n. 7. .MALONE. ,
VOL. XIV. H
98 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
6 For through this launch anon the deer Will come ;
Dr. Grey observes from Hall and Holinshed, that the name of
the person who took King Henry, was Cantlowe. See Mr, Tyr*
whitt's note on the first scene in The Taming of a Shrew.
I learn also from one of the Paston Letters, Vol. I. p. 249,
that Giles Senctlowe was among the persons then in Scotland
with the Queen. STEEVENS.
One Giles Santlowe, Esquire, is among those attainted by King
Edward's first parliament, and may possibly be here meant, but
no person of that name seems to have been any way concerned
in the capture of the late king ; who, according to W. Wyrcester,
was actually taken in Lancashire, by two knights named John
Talbois and Richard Tunstall, July, 1464. Drummond of
Hawthornden observes, it was recorded " that a son of Sir Ed-
"ward Talbots apprehended him as he sat at dinner in Wadding'
toun-hall ; and like a common malefactor, with his legs under
the horse's belly, guarded him toward London." It is a more
certain fact, which I have from records in the Duchy Office, that
King Edward granted to Sir James Harrington a rent-charge of
one hundred pounds out ofhis lordship of Rowland in Lancashire,
in recompence ofhis great and laborious diligence about the cap-
ture and detention of the king's great traitor, rebel and enemy,
lately called Henry the Sixth, made by the said James ; and like-
wise annuities to Richard Talbdt, Thomas Talbol, Esquires,
Talbot, and Lively, for their services in the same capture.
See also, Rymer's Fcedera, xi. 548. Henry had for some time
been harboured by James Maychell ofCrakehtherpe,Westonore*
land, Id. 575. It seems clear> however, that the present scene
is io be placed near the Scottish border. The King himself says :
*' From Scotland am I stol'n, even of pure love ;"
And Hall (and Holinshed after him) tells us " He was no
sooner entered into England,] but he was khOwen and taken
of one Conflow, and brought toward the king." RITSON.
1 - brake '] A brake anciently signified a 'thicket. So,
in A Midsummer- Night's Dream : " This green plot shall be our
stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring house.** Again : " Enter
into that brake, and so every one according to his cue." See
the latter part of a note on Measure for Measure, Vol. VL p. 2$2.
STEEVENS.
* - this laund ] , Ldund means the same as lawn ; plain
extended between woods.
So, in the old play of Orlando Furioso, 1594 :
* And '.hat they trace the shady lawnds," &c.
w. /. KING HENRY VI. 99
* And in this covert will we make our stand,
' Culling the principal of all the deer.
* 2 KEEP. 1*11 stay above the hill, so both may
shoot.
* 1 KEEP. That cannot be; the noise of thy
cross-bow 3
* Will scare the herd, and so my shoot is lost.
* Here stand we both, and aim we at the best :
* And, for the time shall not seem tedious,
* I'll tell thee what befell me on a day,
* In this self-place where now we mean to stand.
' 2 KEEP. Here comes a man, let's stay till he
be past. 4
Enter King HENRY, disguised, with a Prayer-book.
K. HEN. From Scotland am I stol'n, even of
pure love,
' To greet mine own land with my wishful sight. 5
' No, Harry, Harry, 'tis no land of thine ;
* Thy place is rill'd, thy scepter wrung from thee,
Again :
" Tread she these lawnds, kind Flora boasts her pride."
STEEVEIJS.
3 the noise of thy cross-boiv ] The poet appears not to
have forgot the secrets of his former profession.
So, in The Merry Devil of Edmonton, 1608 :
" Did I not hear a bow go off, and the buck bray ?"
STEEVENS.
4 let's stay till he be past.'] So the folio. The quartos
read:
" let's listen him a while." STEEVENS.
4 To greet mine oivn land with my tvishjul sight.~\ So the folio.
The quartos perhaps better, thus :
" And thus disguis'd to greet my native land."
STEEVEXS.
100 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
* Thy balm wash'd off, 6 wherewith thou wast
anointed :
No bending knee will call thee Caesar now,
* No humble suitors press to speak for right,
* No, not a man comes for redress of thee ;
For how can I help them, and not myself?
* 1 KEEP. Ay, here's a deer whose skin's a
keeper's fee :
' This is the quondam king ; 7 let's seize upon him.
6 Thy balm tuash'd off","] This is an image very frequent in the
works of Shakspeare. So again, in this scene :
" I was anointed king."
It is common in these plays to find the same images, whether
jocular or serious, frequently recurring. JOHNSON.
So, in King Richard II :
" Not all the water in the rough rude sea
" Can wash the balm from an anointed king."
It is observable that this line is one of those additions to the
original play, which are found in the folio, and not in the quarto.
MALONE.
7 This is the quondam king ; &c.] Thus the folio. The quartos
thus :
" Ay, marry, sir, here's a deer ; his skin is a
'* Keeper's fee. Sirrah stand close ; for as I think,
" This is the king, king Edward hath depos'd."
STEEVENS.
Quondam had not in Shakspeare's time uniformly acquired a
ludicrous sense. " Make them quondams (says Latimer in one
of his Sermons,) out with them, cast them out of their office."
And in another place : " He will have every man a quondam, as
he is. As for my quondamship I thank God that he gaue me the
grace to come by it, by so honest a meanes as I did ; I thanke
him for myne owne quondamship, and as for them I will not
haue them made quondams, if they discharge their office. I
would haue them doe their duety. I would haue no more
quondams, as God help me." Fol. 53.
Again, in Warner's Albiori 's England, B. V. ch. 28, 1602 :
" Not knights alone, but prelates too, and queens where-
of were twain,
" The quondam & in esse queenes ." HOLT WHITE.
sc. i. KING HENRY VI. 101
* K. HEN. Let me embrace these sour ad-
versities; 8
* For wise men say, it is the wisest course.
* 2 KEEP. Why linger we ? let us lay hands upon
him.
* 1 KEEP. Forbear a while ; we'll hear a little
more.
K. HEN. My queen, and son, are gone to France
for aid ;
And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick
' Is thither gone, to crave the French king's sister
To wife for Edward : If this news be true,
Poor queen, and son, your labour is but lost ;
For Warwick is a subtle orator,
And Lewis a prince soon won with moving words.
By this account, then, Margaret may win him ;
' For she's a woman to be pitied much :
* Her sighs will make a battery in his breast ;
* Her tears will pierce into a marble heart ;
* The tiger will be mild, while she doth mourn ; 9
* And Nero will 1 be tainted with remorse,
* To hear, and see, her plaints, her brinish tears.
* Ay, but she's come to beg ; Warwick, to give :
She, on his left side, craving aid for Henry ;
He, on his right, asking a wife for Edward.
She weeps, and says her Henry is depos'd ;
He smiles, and says his Edward is install'd j
8 these sour adversities ;~\ The old copy reads the
soivre adversaries. STEEVENS.
Corrected by Mr. Pope. MALONE.
9 The tiger will be mild, while she doth mourn ;"] So, in
Othello :
" She will sing the savageness out of a bear." STEEVENS.
1 And Nero tvill ] Perhaps we might better read A Nero
txill . STEEVENS.
102 THIRD PART OF Afff m.
* That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no
more :
* Whiles Warwick tells his title, smooths the
wrong,
* Inferreth arguments of mighty strength ; 2
* And, in conclusion, wins the king from her,
* With promise of his sister, and what else,
* To strengthen and support king Edward's place.
* O Margaret, 3 thus 'twill be; and thou, poor soul,
* Art then forsaken, as thou went'st forlorn,
2 KEEP. Say, what art thou, that talk'st of kings
and queens ?
' K. HEN. More than I seem, and less than I
was born to : 4
' A man at least, for less I should not be ; 5
And men may talk of kings, and why not I ?
' 2 KEEP. Ay, but thou talk'st as if thou wert a
king.
6 K. HEN. Why, so I am, in mind ; 6 and that's
enough. 7
2 Inferreth arguments of mighty strength ;~\ In the former Act
was the same line :
** Inferring arguments of mighty force." JOHNSON.
This repetition, like many others in these two plays, seems to
have arisen from Shakspeare's first copying his original as it lay
before him, and afterwards in subsequent passages (added to the
old matter) introducing expressions which had struck him in
preceding scenes. In the old play the line occurs but once.
MALONE.
3 O Margaret, &c.] The piety of Henry scarce interests us
more for his misfortunes, than this his constant solicitude for the
welfare of his deceitful Queen. STEEVENS.
4 less than I was born to:~) Thus the folio. The quartos
thus : for less I should not be. STEEVENS.
* ~if or l ess ^ should 'not be ;] Such is the reading of the
folio. The quartos thus- and more I cannot be. STEEVENS.
6 but thou talk'st as if thou wert a king.
K, Hen. Why, so I am, iv mind ;] There seems to be an al-
sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 103
2 KEEP. But, if thou be a king, where is thy
crown ?
K. HEN. My crown is in my heart, not on my
head ;
* Not deck'd with diamonds, and Indian stones,
* Nor to be seen : ' my crown is call'd, content ;
' A crown it is, that seldom kings enjoy,
' 2 KEEP. Well, if you be a king crown'd with
content,
Your crown content, and you, must be contented
' To go along with us : for, as we think,
6 You are the king, king Edward hath depos'd ;
' And we his subjects, sworn in all allegiance, 8
' Will apprehend you as his enemy.
* K. HEN. But did you never swear, and break
an oath ?
* 2 KEEP. No, never such an oath, nor will not
now.
* K. HEN. Where did you dwell, when I was
king of England ?
* 2 KEEP. Here in this country, where we now
remain.
* K. HEN. I was anointed king at nine months
old;
lusion to a line in an old song, (quoted in Every Man out of his
Humour} :
" My mind to me a kingdom is." MALONE.
See Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, 3d edit.
Vol. I. p. 293. STEEVENS.
7 and that 1 s enough.] So the folio. The quartos thus :
" though not in show." STEEVENS.
* And iue his subjects, &c.] So the folio. The quartos thus :
" And therefore we charge you in God's name, and the
king's,
" To go along with us unto the officers." STEEVENS.
104 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
* My father and my grandfather, were kings ;
* And you were sworn true subjects unto me :
* And, tell me then, have you not broke your
oaths ?
* 1 KEEP. No ;
For we were subjects, but while you were king.
* K. HEN. Why, am I dead ? do I not breathe
a man ?
* Ah, simple men, you know not what you swear.
* Look, as I blow this feather from my face,
* And as the air blows it to me again, 9
* Obeying with my wind when I do blow,
* And yielding to another when it blows,
* Commanded always by the greater gust ;
* Such is the lightness of you common men.
* But do not break your oaths ; for, of that sin
* My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.
* Go where you will, the king shall be com-
j j
manded ;
* And be you kings ; command, and I'll obey.
* 1 KEEP. We are true subjects to. the king,
king Edward.
* K. HEN. So would you be again to Henry,
* If he were seated as king Edward is.
1 KEEP. We charge you, in God's name, and
in the king's, 1
To go with us unto the officers.
9 Look, as Iblotv this feather from my face,
And as the air blows it to me again, &C.J So, in The Winter's
Tale :
" I am a feather for each wind that blows."
1 - and in the king's,'} The preposition in, which is
wanting in the old copy, I have supplied for the sake of metre.
STEEVENS.
sc. n. KING HENRY VI; 105
* K, HEN. In God's name, lead ; 2 your .king's
name be obey'd:
* And what God will, then let your king perform ;
* And what he will, I humbly yield unto.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.
London. A Room in the Palace.
Enter King EDWARD, GLOSTER, CLARENCE, and
Lady GREY.
* K. EDW. Brother of Gloster, at Saint Albans*
field
* This lady's husband, sir John Grey, 3 was slain,
His lands then seiz'd on by the conqueror :
Her suit is now, to repossess those lands j
' Which we in justice cannot well deny,
Because in quarrel of the house of York
' The worthy gentleman did lose his life. 4
9 In God's name, lead; &c.] So the folio. Instead of thi*
peech, the quartos have the following :
" God's name be fulfill'd, your king's name be
" Obey'd ; and be you kings ; command, and I'll obey."
STEEVENS.
3 sir John Grey,"] Vid. Hall, Third Year of Edward
IV. folio 5. It was hitherto falsely printed Richard. POPE.
Sir John Grey was slain at the second battle of St. Albans,
fighting on the side of King Henry. MALONE.
4 His lands then seiz'd on by the conqueror :
Her suit is now, to repossess those lands;
Which toe injustice cannot well deny,
Because in quarrel of the house of York
The worthy gentleman did lose his life.~\ This is in every par-
ticular a falsification of history. Sir John Grey, as has been
already observed, fell in the second battle of St. Albans, which
106 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
GLO. Yourhighness shall do well, to grant her suit;
* It were dishonour, to deny it her.
K. Enw. Itwere no less; butyet 1*11 make a pause.
6 (jO, Yea ! is it so ? 5
I see, the lady hath a thing to grant,
Before the king will grant her humble suit.
CLAR. He knows the game ; How true he keeps
the wind ? \_Aside.
GLO. Silence 1 [Aside.
6 K. EDW. Widow, we will consider 6 of your suit;
was fought on Shrove-Tuesday, Feb. 17, 1460-1, fighting on the
side of king Henry ; and so far is it from being true that his
lands were seized by the conqueror, (Queen Margaret,) that
they were in fact seized by the very person who now speaks, af-
ter his great victory at Towton, on the 29th of March, 1461.
The present scene is laid in 1464.
Shakspeare in new moulding this play followed implicitly his
author, (for these five lines, with only a slight variation in the
third, and fifth, are found in the old play, ) without giving him-
self the trouble to examine the history ; but a few years after-
wards, when he had occasion to write his Richard III. and was
not warped by a preceding misrepresentation of another writer,
he stated from the chronicles this matter truly as it was ; and
this is one of the numerous circumstances that prove incontesta-
bly, in my apprehension, that he was not the original author of
this and the preceding play.
; In King Richard III. Act I. sc. iii. Richard addressing himself
to Queen Elizabeth, (the lady Grey of the present scene,) says :
" In all which time you, and your husband Grey t
" Were factious^/br the house of Lancaster ;
" (And Rivers so were you :) was not your husband
" In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain ?"
He calls it Margaret's battle, because she was there victorious.
MALONE.
* Glo. Yea! is it so* &c.~] So the folio. The quartos read
with the following variations :
" Glo. I, is the wind in that door ?
" Clarence. I see the lady'* 8fc. STEEVENS.
* Widotv, tve ivill consider-*-"] This is a very lively and spritely
dialogue ; the reciprocation is quicker than is common in Shak-
speare. JOHNSON.
sc. n. KING HENRY VI. 107
' And come some other time, to know our mind.
' L. GREY. Right gracious lord, I cannot brook
delay :
' May it please your highness to resolve me now ;
' And what your pleasure is, shall satisfy me.
* GLO. [Aside.'] Ay, widow ? then I'll warrant
you all your lands,
c An if what pleases him, shall pleasure you.
c Fight closer, or, good faith, you'll catch a blow.
* CLAR. I fear her not, unless she chance to fall.
[Aside.
* GLO. God forbid that ! for he'll take vantages.
[Aside.
c K. EDW. How many children hast thou,
widow ? tell me.
CLAR. I think, he means to beg a child of her.
[Aside.
GLO. Nay, whip me then ; he'll rather give her
two. [Aside.
L. GREY. Three, my most gracious lord.
GLO. You shall have four, if you'll be rul'd by
him. [Aside.
' K. EDW. 'Twere pity, they should lose their
father's land.
L. GREY. Be pitiful, dread lord, andgrantit then.
K. EDW. Lords, give us leave ; I'll try this wi-
dow's wit.
GLO. Ay good leave have you j 7 for you will have
leave,
7 good leave have you ; ] So, in King John :
" Good leave ; good Philip."
Good leave, are words implying readiness of assent.
STEEVENS.
108 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
e Till youth take leave, and leave you to the crutch.
[GLOSTER mid CLARENCE retire to the other
side.
* K. EDW. Now tell me, madam, do you love
your children ?
* L. GREY. Ay, full as dearly as I love myself.
* K. EDW. And would you not do much, to do
them good ?
* L. GREY. To do them good, I would sustain
some harm.
* K. EDW. Then get your husband's lands, to do
them good.
* L. GREY. Therefore I came unto your majesty.
K. EDW. I'll tell you howtheselands are tobegot.
* L. GREY. So shall you bind me to your high-
ness' service.
* K. EDW. What service wilt thou do me, if I
give them ?
* L. GREY. What you command, that rests in me
to do.
* K. EDW. But you will take exceptions to my
boon.
* L. GREY. No, gracious lord, except I cannot
do it.
* K. EDW. Ay, but thou canst do what I mean
to ask.
* L. GREY. Why, then I will do what your grace
commands.
* GLO. He plies her hard ; and much rain wears
the marble. 8 [Aside.
* much rain \uears the marble.'] So, in Watson's 47th
Sonnet :
sc. ii. KING HENRY VI. 109
* CLAR. As red as fire ! nay, then her wax must
melt. \_Aside.
L. GREY. Why stops my lord ? shall F not hear
my task ?
K. EDW. An easy task ; 'tis but to love a king.
L. GREY. That's soon perform' d, because I am
a subject.
K. EDW. Why then, thy husband's lands I freely
give thee.
L. GREY. I take my leave with many thousand
thanks.
GLO. The match is made ; she seals it with a
curt'sy.
' K. EDW. But stay thee, 'tis the fruits of love I
mean.
* L. GREY. The fruits of love I mean, my loving
liege.
* K. EDW. Ay, but, I fear me, in another sense.
What love, think'st thou, I sue so much to get ?
c L. GREY. My love till death, 9 my humble
thanks, my prayers ;
' That love, which virtue begs, and virtue grants.
K. EDW. No, by my troth, I did not mean such
love.
* L. GREY. Why, then you mean not as I thought
you did.
'* In time the marble iveares with weakest showres."
See note on Dodsley's Collection of Old Plays, edit. 1780.
Vol. XII. p. 387. STEEVENS.
9 My love till death, &c.] The variation is here worth noting.
In the old play we here find
" My humble service, such as subjects owe,
" And the laws command.'* MALONE.
110 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
'* K. EDW. But now you partly may perceive my
mind.
* L. GREY. My mind will never grant what I
perceive
* Your highness aims at, if I aim aright.
K. EDW. To tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.
* L. GREY. To tell you plain, I had rather lie in
prison.
K. EDW. Why, then thou shalt not have thy
husband's lands.
L. GREY. Why, then mine honesty shall be my
dower j
For by that loss I will not purchase them.
' K. EDW. Therein thou wrong' st thy children
mightily.
L. GREY. Herein your highness wrongs both
them and me.
But, mighty lord, this merry inclination
' Accords not with the sadness 1 of my suit ;
Please you dismiss me, either with ay, or no.
K. EDW. Ay; if thou wilt say ay, to my request :
No ; if thou dost say no, to my demand.
L. GREY. Then, no, my lord. My suit is at an
end.
* GLO. The widow likes him not, she knits her
brows. \_Aside.
CLAR. He is the bluntest wooer in Christendom.
\_Aside.
the sadness] i. e. the seriousness. So, in Romeo and
Juliet :
" Tell me in sadness who is she you love."
STEEVENS.
s*\//. KING HENRY VI. ill
' Kb EDW. \_Aside.~] Her looks do argue her re-
plete with modesty ; 2
* Her words do show her wit incomparable j
* All her perfections challenge sovereignty :
One way, or other, she is for a king ;
And she shall be my love, or else my queen.
Say, that king Edward take thee for his queen ?
L. GREY. *Tis better said than done, my gracious
lord :
I am a subject fit to jest withal,
But far unfit to be a sovereign.
K. EDW. Sweet widow, by my state I swear to
thee,
I speak no more than what my soul intends ;
And that is, to enjoy thee for my love*
L. GREY. And that is more than I will yield
unto :
6 I know, I am too mean to be your queen ;
And yet too good to be your eoncubing. 3
* Her looks do argue her replete with modesty ;] Si> the folio.
The quartos read :
" Her looks are all replete with majesty" STEEVENS.
3 And yet too good to be your concubine. 1 ] So, in Warner's
Man's England, 1602, B. VII. chap, xxxiv:
" His plea was love, my suit was land : I pile him, he
plies me ;
" Too t>ace to be his queen, too good his concubine to
be."
Shakspeafe, however, adopted the words from Stowe's
Chronicle. STEEVENS.
These wwds, which are found in the old play, (except that
we there have bad, instead of mean,) Were taken by the author
of that piece from Hall's Chronicle : rt whiche demaund she
so wysiely and with so covert speeche aunswered and repugned,
affyrmyng that as she was for his honour far unable to be his
spouse and bedfellowe, so for her awne poor honestie she was to
good to be either his cottcubine, or sovefeigne lady ; that where
he was a littel before heated with the dart of Cupido, he was
nowe," &c. MALONE.
112 THIRD PART OF ACT ni.
K. EDW. You cavil, widow j I did mean, my
queen.
L. GREY. 'Twill grieve your grace, my sons
should call you father.
K. EDW. No more, than when thy daughters
call thee mother.
Thou art a widow, 4 and thou hast some children ;
And, by God's mother, I, being but a bachelor,
Have other some : why, 'tis a happy thing
To be the father unto many sons.
4 Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.
GLO. The ghostly father now hath done his shrift.
[Aside.
CLAR. When he was made a shriver, 'twas for
shift. [Aside.
K. EDW. Brothers, you muse what chat we two
have had.
* GLO. The widow likes it not, for she looks sad. 5
K. EDW. You'd think it strange if I should marry
her.
CLAR. To whom, my lord ?
K. EDW. Why, Clarence, to myself.
GLO. That would be ten days' wonder, at the
least.
CLAR. That's a day longer than a wonder lasts. 6
4 Thou art a twWow, &c.] This is part of the King's reply to
his mother in Stowe's Chronicle : " That she is a widow, and
hath already children ; by God's blessed lady I am a batchelor,
and have some too, and so each of us hath a proofe that neither
of us is like to be barrain ;" &c. STEEVENS.
she looks sad.] Old copy very sad. For the sake of
metre I have omitted this useless adverb. STEEVENS.
6 That's a day longer &c.] A nine days wonder was prorer-
sc:n;* KING HENRY VI. its
* GLO. By so much is the wonder in extremes.
K. EDW. Well, jest on, brothers : I can tell you
both,
Her suit is granted for her husband's lands.
Enter a Nobleman.
* NOB. My gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken,
f And brought your prisoner to your palace gate.
K. EDW. See, that he be convey' d unto the
Tower :
' And go we, brothers, to the man that took him,
' To question of his apprehension.
' Widow, go you along j Lords, use her honour-
able.
\_Exeunt King EDWARD, Lady GREY, CLA-
RENCE, and Lord.
GLO. Ay, Edward will use women honourably.
'Would he were wasted, marrow, bones, and all,
' That from his loins no hopeful branch may spring,
' To cross me from the golden time I look for i
c And yet, between my soul's desire, and me,
* (The lustful Edward's. title buried,) .
c Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,
' And all the unlook'd-for issue of their bodies,
' To take their rooms, ere I can place myself:
A cold premeditation for my purpose !
*. Why, then I do but dream on sovereignty ;
* Like one that stands upon a promontory,
* And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,
bial. Thus, in a Sermon at Paul's Crosse, Nov. 25, 1621, by
Henry King, p. 53 : " For mendacia diu non fallunt, and having^
arrived at nine days, the age of a wonder Belied in laughter."
REEIX
VOL. XIV. I
114 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
* Wishing his foot were equal with his eye ;
* And chides the sea that sunders him from thence,
* Saying he'll lade it dry to have his way :
* So do I wish the crown, being so far off ;
* And so I chide the means that keep me from it ;
* And so I say I'll cut the causes off,
* Flattering me with impossibilities.
* My eye's too quick, my heart o'erweens too much,
* Unless my hand and strength could equal them.
* Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard ;
* What other pleasure can the world afford ?
' I'll make my heaven 7 in a lady's lap,
' And deck my body in gay ornaments,
And witch sweet ladies with my words and looks.
' O miserable thought ! and more unlikely,
c Than to accomplish twenty golden crowns !
Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb : 8
' And, for I should not deal in her soft laws
* She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
' To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub ; 9
* To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to mock my body ;
' To shape my legs of an unequal size ;
* To disproportion me in every part,
* Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear- whelp, 1
7 I'll make my heaven &c.] Thus the folio. The quartos alter
and transpose the two lines, as follows :
I will go clad my body laith gay ornaments,
And lull myself within a lady's lap. STEEVENS.
* love forswore me in my mother's tuomb :"] This line is
found also in a play entitled Wily Beguiled. The earliest edition
that I have seen of that piece, was printed in 1606 ; but it had
been exhibited on the stage soon after the year 1590. MALONE.
9 like a 'wither'd shrub ,] So the folio. The quartos
Eke a wither'd shrimp. STEEVENS.
1 unlick'd bear-whelp,'] It was an opinion which, in spite
of its absurdity, prevailed long, that the bear brings forth only
sc. ii. KING HENRY VI. 115
* That carries no impression like the dam.
And am I then a man to be belov'd ?
' O, monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought !
* Then, since this earth affords no joy to me,
* But to command, to check, to o'erbear such
* As are of better person than myself, 8
* I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown ;
* And, whiles I live, to account this world but hell,
* Until my misshap'd trunk that bears this head,
* Be round impaled with a glorious crown. 3
* And yet I know not how to get the crown,
* For many lives stand between me and home :
* And I, like one lost in a thorny wood,
* That rents the thorns, and is rent with the thorns ;
shapeless lumps of animated flesh, which she licks into the fdrm
of bears. It is now well known that the whelps of the bear are
produced in the same state with those of other creatures.
JOHNSON.
* to o'erbear such
As are of better person than myself, ] Richard speaks hefe
the language of nature. Whoever is stigmatized with deformity
has a constant source of envy in his mind, and would counter-
balance by some other superiority those advantages which he
feels himself to want. Bacon remarks that the deformed are
commonly daring ; and it is almost proverbially observed that
they are ill-natured. The truth is, that the deformed, like all
other men, are displeased with inferiority, and endeavour to gain
ground by good or bad means, as they are virtuous of corrupt.
JOHNSON.
123 45 678
* Until my misshap'd trunk that bears this head,
Be round impaled &c.] A transposition seems tobe necessary:
12857 3 46
" Until my head, that this misshap'd trunk bears.'*
Otherwise the trunk that bears the head is to be encircled with
the crown, and not the head itself. STEEVENS.
Sir T. Hanmer reads as Mr. Steevens recommends. I believe
our author is answerable for this inaccuracy. MALONE.
I 2
116 THIRD PART Otf ACT in.
* Seeking a way, and straying from the way ;
* Not knowing how to find the open air,
* But toiling desperately to find it out,
* Torment myself to catch the English crown :
* And from that torment I will free myself,
* Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.
Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile ;
.'. And cry, content, to that which grieves my heart j
* And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
* And frame my face to all occasions.
* I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall ;
* I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk ;
* I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
* Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,
* And, like a Sinon, take another Troy :
I .can add colours to the cameleon ;
'Change shapes, with Proteus, for advantages,
' And set the murd'rous Machiavel to school. 4
impaled ] i. e. encircled. So, in Heywood's Rape of
Lucrece, 1630:
" Tear off the crown that yet empales his temples."
STEEVENS*
4 And set the murd'rous Machiavel to school."] As this is an
anachronism, and the old quarto reads :
" And set t he aspirins Catiline to school ."
I don't know why it should not be preferred. WARBURTON.
This is not the first proof I have met with, that Shakspeare, in
his attempts to familiarize ideas, has diminished their propriety.
STEEVENS.
Catiline first occurred to the author of the old play, who was
probably a scholar; and Machiavel, who is mentioned in various
books of our author's age, as the great exemplar of profound
politicians, naturally was substituted by Shakspeare in his room.
See this play, P. I. Act V. sc. iv :
" Alengon! that notorious Machiavel!"
In King Edward II. Marlowe, who was probably the author
p$:T.he True Tragedie of Richards Duke ofYorke, in like man-
ner introduces Catiline :
KING HENRY VI. 117
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown ?
* Tut ! were it further off, I'll pluck it down.
[Exit.
SCENE III.
France. A Room in the Palace.
Flourish. Enter LEWIS the French King, and
Lady BONA, attended ; the King takes his State.
Then enter Queen MARGARET, Prince EDWARD
her Son, and the Earl of OXFORD.
' K. LEW. Fair queen of England, 5 worthy Mar-
garet, [Rising.
' Sit down with us ; it ill befits thy state,
* And birth, that thou should'st stand, while Lewis
doth sit.
* Q. MAR. No, mighty king of France; 6 now
Margaret
" Spencer, the father of that wanton Spencer,
" That like the lawless Catiline of Rome,
" Revell'd in England's wealth and treasury." MALOU E.
* Fair queen of England, &c.] Thus the folio. The quartos
give the following :
" Welcome, queen Margaret, to the court of France.
" It fits not Lewis to sit whilst thou dost stand,
" Sit by my side ; and here I vow to thee,
" Thou shalt have aid to re-possess thy right,
" And beat proud Edward from his usurped seat,
" And place king Henry in his former rule."
STEEVENS.
See the notes referred to in p. 74, n. 3. MALONE.
5 No, mighty king of. France ; &c.] Instead of this speech
the quartos only supply the following :
" Queen. I humbly thank your royal majesty,
" And pray the God of heaven to bless thy state,
f ' Great king of France, that thus regard's! our wrongs."
STEEVENS.
118 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
* Must strike her sail, and learn a while to serve,
* Where kings command. I was, I must confess,
* Great Albion's queen in former golden days :
* But now mischance hath trod my title down,
* And with dishonour laid me on the ground ;
* Where I must take like seat unto my fortune,
* And to my humble seat conform myself.
* K. LEW. Why, say, fair queen, whence springs
this deep despair ?
* Q. MAR. From such a cause as fills mine eyes
with tears,
* And stops my tongue, while heart is drown'd in
cares.
* K. LEW. Whate'er it be, be thou still like thy-
self,
* And sit thee by our side : yield not thy neck
\_Seats her by him.
* To fortune's yoke, but let thy dauntless mind
* Still ride in triumph over all mischance.
*Be plain, queen Margaret, and tell thy grief;
* It shall be eas'd, if France can yield relief.
* Q. MAR. Those gracious words revive my
drooping thoughts,
* And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.
* Now, therefore, be it known to noble Lewis,
* That Henry, sole possessor of my love,
* Is, of a king, become a banish' d man,
* And forc'd to live in Scotland a forlorn ;
* While proud ambitious Edward, duke of York,
* Usurps the regal title, and the seat
* Of England's true-anointed lawful king.
* This is the cause, that I, poor Margaret,
* With this my son, prince Edward, Henry's heir,
* Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid j
* And, if thou fail us, all our hope is done :
ac. m. KING HENRY VI. 119
* Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help ;
* Our people and our peers are both misled,
* Our treasure seiz'd, our soldiers put to flight,
* And, as thou see'st, ourselves in heavy plight.
* K. LEW. Renowned queen, with patience calm
the storm,
* While we bethink a means to break it off.
* Q. MAR. The more we stay, the stronger grows
our foe.
* K.LEW. The more I stay, the more 1*11 succour
thee.
*Q. MAR. O, but impatience waiteth on true
sorrow :
* And see, where comes the breeder of my sorrow.
Enter WARWICK, 7 attended.
* K. LEW. What's he, approacheth boldly to our
presence ?
7 Enter Warwick^ This nobleman's embassy and commis-
sion, the insult he receives by the King's hasty marriage, and
his consequent resolution to avenge it, with the capture, impri-
sonment, and escape of the King, Shakspeare, it is true, found
in Hall and Holinshed ; but later, as well as earlier writers, of
better authority, incline us to discredit the whole ; and to refer
the rupture between the King and his political creator, to causes
which have not reached posterity, or to that jealousy and ingra-
titude so natural, perhaps, to those who are under great obliga-
tions too great to be discharged. Beneficia, (says Tacitus,) eo
usque Iceta sunt, dum videntur exsolvi posse : ubi multum anteve-
nre, pro gratia odium redditur.
There needs no other proof how little our common histories
are to be depended upon than this fabulous story of Warwick
and the Lady Bona. The King was privately married to Lady
Elizabeth Widville, in 14-63, and in February 14-65, Warwick
actually stood sponsor to the Princess Elizabeth their first child.
What secretly displeased him was: 1. the King's marrying one
ef the Queen's sisters to the Duke of Buckingham ; 2. his con-
THIRD PART OF ACT.JII.
Q. MAR. Our earl of Warwick, Edward's greatest
friend.
K.LEW. Welcome, brave Warwick! What brings
thee to France ?
\_Descendingfrom his state. Queen MARGARET
rises.
* Q. MAR. Ay, now begins a second storm to rise ;
* For this is he, that moves both wind and tide.
4 WAR. From worthy Edward, king of Albion,
My lord and sovereign, and thy vowed friend, *
I come, in kindness, and unfeigned love,
First, to do greetings to thy royal person ;
And, then, to crave a league of amity ;
And, lastly, to confirm that amity
With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe to grant
That virtuous lady Bona, thy fair sister,
To England's king in lawful marriage.
4 Q. MAR. If that go forward, Henry's hope is
done. 8
ferring the office of Lord Treasurer (which he had taken from
the LordMontjoy,) upon Lord Rivers, the Queen's brother;
3. his making a match between the son and heir of the Lord
Herbert and another of the Queen's sisters ; and between that
nobleman's daughter and the young Lord Lisle ; and creating
young Herbert Knight and Lord of Dunstar ; 4, his making a
match between Sir Thomas Grey, the Queen's son, and Lady
Ann daughter and heiress of the Duke of Exeter, the King's
niece, who had been talked of as a wife for the Earl of Nor-
thumberland, Warwick's brother. See Wilhelmi Wyrcester.
Annales, which are unfortunately defective from the beginning
of November 1468, at which time no open rupture had taken
place between the King and Warwick, who, for any thing that
appears to the contrary, were, at least, upon speaking terms.
RITSON.
9 Henry's hope is done.'] So the folio. The quartos read:
all our hope is done. STEEVENS.
We have had nearly the same line in Margaret's former speech
p< 119. The line having madeaa impression on Shakspeare, he
at?.///.. KING HENRY VI. 121
WAR. And, gracious madam, [To BONA.] in our
king's behalf,
* I am commanded, with your leave and favour,
Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue
To tell the passion of my sovereign's heart ;
Where fame, late entering at his heedful ears,
Hath plac'd thy beauty's image, and thy virtue. '
Q. MAR. King Lewis, and lady Bona, hear
me speak,
* Before you answer Warwick. His demand 1
* Springs not from Edward's well-meant honest
love,
* But from deceit, bred by necessity ;
* For how can tyrants safely govern home,
* Unless abroad they purchase great alliance ?
* To prove him tyrant, this reason may suffice,
* That Henry liveth still : but were he dead,
* Yet here prince Edward stands, king Henry's son.
* Look therefore, Lewis, that by this league and
marriage
* Thou draw not on thy danger and dishonour :
* For though usurpers sway the rule a while,
* Yet heavens are just, andtime suppresseth wrongs.
WAR. Injurious Margaret !
PRINCE. And why not queen ?
introduced it in that speech, which appears (except in this in-
stance) to have been entirely his own production; andafterwards
inadvertently suffered it with a slight variation to remain here,
where only it is found in the old play. MALONE.
9 Hath plac'd thy beauty's image, and thy virtue. ~] So the folio.
The quarto thus :
" Hath plac'd thy glorious image, and thy vertues."
STEEVENS.
1 : His demand &c.] Instead of the remainder of this
speech the old play has the following lines :
" hear me speak,
' ' Before you answer Warwick, or his words,
" For he it is hath done us all these 'wrongs." MALONE. :
122 THIRD PART OF ACT in.
WAR. Because thy father Henry did usurp ;
And thou no more art prince, than she is queen.
OXF. Then Warwick disannuls great John of
Gaunt,
Which did subdue the greatest part of Spain ;
And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the fourth,
* Whose wisdom was a mirror to the wisest ; *
And, after that wise prince, Henry the fifth,
Who by his prowess conquered all France :
From these our Henry lineally descends.
WAR. Oxford, how haps it, in this smooth dis-
course,
You told not, how Henry the sixth hath lost
All that which Henry the fifth had gotten ?
Methinks, these peers of France should smile at
that.
But for the rest, You tell a pedigree
Of threescore and two years ; a silly time
To make prescription for a kingdom's worth.
' OXF. Why, Warwick, canst thou speak against
thy liege,
* Whom thou obeyed' st thirty and six years, 3
And not bewray thy treason with a blush ?
WAR. Can Oxford, that did ever fence the right,
Now buckler falsehood with a pedigree ?
For shame, leave Henry, and call Edward king.
* OXF. Call him my king, by whose injurious
doom
* to the 'wisest;'] So the folio. The quartos to the
world. STEEVENS.
3 thirty and six years,'] So the folio. The quartos thirty
and eight years. STEEVENS.
The number in the old play is right. The alteration, how-
ever, is of little consequence. M ALONE.
sc. ui. KING HENRY VI. 123
' My elder brother, the lord Aubrey Vere,
Was done to death ? and more than so, my father,
Even in the downfall of his mellow* d years,
* When nature brought him to the door of death?*
No, Warwick, no ; while life upholds this arm,
This arm upholds the house of Lancaster.
WAR. And I the house of York.
K. LEW. Queen Margaret, prince Edward, and
Oxford,
* Vouchsafe, at our request, to stand aside,
' While I use further conference with Warwick.
* Q. MAR. Heaven grant, that Warwick's words
bewitch him not !
[Retiring with the Prince and OXFORD.
* K. LEW. Now Warwick, tell me, even upon
thy conscience,
4 Is Edward your true king ? for I were loath,
* To link with him that were not lawful chosen. 5
4 When nature brought him to the door of death ? ] Thus the
folio. The quartos :
" When age did call him to the door of death."
STEEVENS.
This passage unavoidably brings before the mind that admira-
ble image of old age in Sackville's Induction :
" His withered fist still knocking at deathe's dore," &c.
FARMER.
* that ivere not laivful chosen.~\ Thus the folio. The
quarto as follows :
" that is not lawful heir." STEEVENS.
Here we have another instance of an impropriety into which
Shakspeare has fallen by sometimes following and sometimes de-
serting his original. After Lewis has asked in the old play whe-
ther Henry was lawful heir to the crown of England, and has
been answered in the affirmative ; he next enquires whether he
is gracious, that is, a favourite with the people. Shakspeare has
preserved this latter question, though he made a variation in the
former ; not adverting that after a man has been chosen by the
voices of the people to be their king, it is quite superfluous to ask
124 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
WAR. Thereon I pawn my credit and mine
honour.
K. LEW. But is he gracious in the people's eye?
WAR. The more, that Henry was unfortunate. 6
K. LEW. Then further, all dissembling set aside,
c Tell me for truth the measure of his love
6 Unto our sister Bona. ;
WAR. Such it seems,
As may beseem a monarch like himself.
Myself have often heard him say, and swear,
That this his love was an eternal plant ; 7
Whereof the root was fix'd in virtue's ground,
The leaves and fruit maintained with beauty's sun;
whether he is popular or no. Edward was in fact chosen king,
both by the parliament and by a large body of the people assem-
bled in St. John's fields. See Fabian, who wrote about fifty
years after the time, p. 472, and Stowe, p. 688, edit. 1605.
MALONE.
I do not perceive the impropriety of the King's question, or
the cogency of the remark founded on it. Is it impossible that a
king, elected by his people, should soon afterwards become un-
popular ? STEEVENS.
6 that Henry 'was unfortunate."] He means, that Henry
was unsuccessful in war, having lost his dominions in France, &c.
MALONE.
7 That this his love was an eternal plant ;] The old quarto
reads rightly eternals alluding to the plants of Paradise.
WARBURTON.
In the language of Shakspeare's time, by an eternal plant was
meant what we now call a perennial one. STEEVENS.
The folio reads an external plant ; but as that word seems to
afford no meaning, and as Shakspeare has adopted every other
part of this speech as he found it in the old play, without alte*
ration, I suppose external was a mistake of the transcriber or
printer, and have therefore followed the reading of the quarto.
SGIII. KING HENRY VI. 125
Exempt from envy, but not from disdain, 8
Unless the lady Bona quit his pain.
K. LEW. Now, sister, let us hear your firm re-
i
solve.
BONA. Your grant, or your denial, shall be
mine :
Yet I confess, [To WAR.] that often ere this day,
When I have heard your king's desert recounted,
Mine ear hath tempted judgment to desire.
* K. LEW. Then, Warwick, thus, Our sister
shall be Edward's ;
* And now forthwith shall articles be drawn
* Touching the jointure that your king must make,
* Which with her dowry shall be counterpoised :
Draw near, queen Margaret ; and be a witness,
That Bona shall be wife to the English king.
PRINCE. To Edward, but not to the English king.
* Q. MAR. Deceitful Warwick ! it was thy de-
vice
* By this alliance to make void my suit ;
* Before thy coming, Lewis was Henry's friend.
* K. LEW. And still is friend to him and Mar-
garet :
* But if your title to the crown be weak,
8 Exempt from envy, but not from disdain,'] Envy is always
supposed to have some fascinating or blasting power ; and to be
out of the reach of envy is therefore a privilege belonging only
to great excellence. I know not well why envy is mentioned
here, or whose envy can be meant ; but the meaning is, that his
love is superior to envy, and can feel no blast from the lady's
disdain. Or that, if Bona refuse to quit or requite his pain, his
love may turn to disdain, though the consciousness of his own
merit will exempt him from the pangs of envy. JOHNSON.
I believe envy is in this place, as in many others, put for
malice or hatred. His situation places him above these, though
it cannot secure him from female disdain. STEEVENS.
126 THIRD PART OF ACT m.
* As may appear by Edward's good success,-
* Then 'tis but reason, that I be releas'd
* From giving aid, which late I promised.
* Yet shall you have all kindness at my hand,
* That your estate requires, and mine can yield.
WAR. Henry now lives in Scotland, at his ease ;
Where having nothing, nothing he can lose.
And as for you yourself, our quondam queen,
You have a father able 9 to maintain you ;
And better 'twere, you troubled him than France.
* Q. MAR. Peace, impudent and shameless War-
wick, peace ; l
* Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings ! 2
* I will not hence, till with my talk and tears,
* Both full of truth, I make king Lewis behold
' Thy sly conveyance, 3 and thy lord's false love ;
* For both of you are birds of self-same feather.
\_A Horn sounded within.
K. LEW. Warwick, this is some post to us, or
thee.
9 You have a father able ^ This seems ironical. The poverty
of Margaret's lather is a very frequent topick of reproach.
JOHNSON.
1 Peace, impudent and shameless Wartvick, peace ;3 the word
peace, at the end of this line, is wanting in the first folio, but is
supplied by the second. STEEVENS.
8 Proud setter-up and puller -down of kings /] The Queen here
applies to Warwick, the very words that Edward, p. 76, ad-
dresses to the Deity. M. MASON.
See p. 76, n. 7. The repetition has been already accounted
for, in p. 102, n. 2, &c. M ALONE.
3 Thy sly conveyance, ~] Conveyance is juggling, and thence is
taken for artifice and fraud. JOHNSON.
So, in King Richard II :
" conveyers are you all,
** That rise thus nimbly by a true king's fall."
STEEVENS.
sc.ni. KING HENRY VI. 127
Enter a Messenger.
MESS. My lord ambassador, these letters are for
you;
Sent from your brother, marquis Montague.
These from our king unto your majesty.
And, madam, these for you ; from whom, I know
not.
[To MARGARET. They all read their Letters.
OXF. I like it well, that our fair queen and mis-
tress
Smiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.
PRINCE. Nay, mark, how Lewis stamps as he
were nettled ;
* I hope, all's for the best.
' K. LEW. Warwick, what are thy news ? and
yours, fair queen ?
* Q. MAR. Mine, such as fill my heart with un-
hop'd joys.
WAR. Mine, full of sorrow and heart's discontent.
K. LEW. What ! has your king married the lady
Grey ?
' And now, to sooth your forgery and his,*
' Sends me a paper to persuade me patience ?
' Is this the alliance that he seeks with France ?
' Dare he presume to scorn us in this manner ?
* Q. MAR. I told your majesty as much before:
This proveth Edward' s love, and Warwick's honesty.
WAR. King Lewis, I here protest, in sight of
heaven,
4 . to sooth your forgery and his,"] To soften it, to make
it more endurable : or perhaps, to sooth us, and to prevent our
being exasperated by your forgery and his. MALONE.
128 THIRD PART OF ACT ill.
And by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,
That I am clear from this misdeed of Edward's;
No more my king, for he dishonours me ;
But most himself, if he could see his shame.
Did I forget, that by the house of York
My father came untimely to his death ? 3
Did I let pass the abuse done to my niece ? 6
Did I impale him with the regal crown ?
Did I put Henry from his native right ; 7
4 And am I guerdon' d 8 at the last with shame ?
* Shame on himself! for my desert is honour.
* And, to repair my honour lost for him,
5 Did I forget, that by the house of York
My father came untimely to his death?"] Warwick's father
came untimely to his death, being taken at the battle of Wake-
field, and beheaded at Pomfret. But the author of the old play
imagined he fell at the action at Ferry-bridge, and has in a former
scene, to which this line refers, (See p. 74, n. 3,) described his
death as happening at that place. Shakspeare very properly re-
jected that description of the death of the Earl of Salisbury; of
whose death no mention is made in this play, as it now stands ;
yet he has inadvertently retained this line which alludes to a pre-
ceding description that he had struck out ; and this is another
proof of his falling into inconsistencies, by sometimes following,
and sometimes deserting, his original. M ALONE.
6 Did I let pass the abuse done to my niece?'] Thus Holinshed,
p. 668 : <j( King Edward did attempt a thing once in the carles
house, which was much against the carles honestie (whether he
would have defloured his daughter or his niece,the certaintie was
not for both their honours revealed,) for surely such a thing was
attempted by king Edward." STEEVENS.
7 Did I put Henry from his native right; &c.] Thus the folio.
The quartos read:
" And thrust king Henry from his native home?
" And (most ungrateful) doth he use me thus ?"
STEEVENS.
guerdon'd ] i. e. rewarded. So, in P. II. of this
:;^
*:-. 4 f See you well guerdon'd for these good deserts."
STEEVENS.
ac. m. KING HENRY VI. 129
* I here renounce him, and return to Henry :
* My noble queen, let former grudges pass,
And henceforth I am thy true servitor j
I will revenge his wrong to lady Bona,
And replant Henry in his former state.
' Q. MAR. Warwick, these words have turn'd
my hate to love ;
' And I forgive and quite forget old faults,
* And joy that thou becom'st king Henry's friend.
WAR. So much his friend, ay, his unfeigned
friend,
That, if king Lewis vouchsafe to furnish us
With some few bands of chosen soldiers,
I'll undertake to land them on our coast,
And force the tyrant from his seat by war.
'Tis not his new-made bride shall succour him :
* And as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,
* He's very likely now to fall from him ;
* For matching more for wanton lust than honour,
* Or then for strength and safety of our country.
* BONA. Dear brother, how shall Bona be re-
veng'd,
* But by thy help to this distressed queen ?
* Q. MAR. Renowned prince, how shall poor
Henry live,
* Unless thou rescue him from foul despair ?
* BONA. My quarrel, and this English queen's,
are one.
* WAR. And mine, fair lady Bona, joins with
yours.
* K. LEW. And mine, with hers, and thine, and
Margaret's.
Therefore, at last, I firmly am resolv'd,
You shall have aid.
VOL. xiv. K
ISO THIRD PART OF ACT m.
* Q. MAR. Let me give humble thanks for all
at once.
K. LEW. Then England's messenger, return in
post;
And tell false Edward, thy supposed king, -
That Lewis of France is sending over maskers,
To revel it with him and his new bride :
* Thou seest what's past, go fear thy king 9 withal.
BONA. Tell him, In hope he'll prove a widower
shortly,
I'll wear the willow garland for his sake.
Q. MAR. Tell him, My mourning weeds are laid
aside,
And I am ready to put armour on. 1
WAR. Tell him from me, That he hath done me
wrong;
And therefore I'll uncrown him, ere't be long.
There's thy reward ; 2 be gone. [Exit Mess.
K. LEW. But, Warwick, thou,
And Oxford, with five thousand men,
Shall cross the seas, and bid false Edward battle : 5
9 go fear thy king ] That is, fright thy king. JOHNSON.
So, in King Henry IV. P. II :
" The peopled/ear me" &c. STEEVENS.
1 to put armour on.] It was once no unusual thing for
queens themselves to appear in armour at the head of their
forces. The suit which Elizabeth wore, when she rode through
the lines at Tilbury to encourage the troops, on the approach of
the armada, may be still seen in the Tower. STEEVENS.
8 thy reward;"} Here we are to suppose that, according
to ancient custom, Warwick makes a present to the Herald or
Messenger, whom the original copies call a Post. See Vol.
XII. p. 405, n. 8. STEEVENS.
3 and bid false Edward battle :~\ This phrase is common
to many of our ancient writers. So, in The Misfortunes of
Arthur^ a dramatick performance, 1587 :
sc.m. KING HENRY VI. isi
* And, as occasion serves, this noble queen
* And prince shall follow with a fresh supply.
* Yet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt ;
' What pledge have we of thy firm loyalty ?
WAR. This shall assure my constant loyalty :
That if our queen and this young prince agree,
I'll join mine eldest daughter, and my joy,
To him forthwith* in holy wedlock bands.
" my flesh abhors
" To bid the battle to my proper blood." STEEVENS.
4 Til join mine eldest daughter, and my joy,
To him forthwith ] Surely this is a mistake of the copy-
ists. Hall, in the ninth year of King Edward IV. says : " Ed-
ward prince of Wales wedded Anne second daughter to the earl
of Warwick." And the Duke of Clarence was in love with the
elder, the Lady Isabel ; and in reality was married to her five
years before Prince Edward took the Lady Anne to wife. And,
in King Richard the Third, Gloster, who married this Lady Anne
when a widow, says :
" For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter.
" What though I kill'd her husband and her father ?"
i. e. Prince Edward, and King Henry VI. her father-in-law.
See likewise Holinshed, in his Chronicle, p. 671 and 674.
THEOBALD.
This is a departure from the truth of history, for Edward
Prince of Wales (as Mr. Theobald has observed,) was married
to Anne, second daughter of the Earl of Warwick.
But notwithstanding this, his reading [youngest daughter] has,
I think, been improperly adopted by the subsequent editors ; for
though in fact the Duke of Clarence married Isabella, the eldest
daughter of Warwick, in 1468, and Edward Prince of Wales
married Anne, his second daughter, in 1470; neither of his
daughters was married at the time when Warwick was in France
negociating a marriage between Lady Bona and his King : so
that there is no inconsistency in the present proposal. Supposing,
however, that the original author of this play made a mistake,
and imagined that the youngest daughter of Warwick was mar-
K 2
132 v THIRD PART OF ACT m.
e Q. MAR. Yes, I agree, 5 and thank you for your
motion :
c Son Edward, she is fair and virtuous,
* Therefore delay not, give thy hand to Warwick j
6 And, with thy .hand, thy faith irrevocable,
' That only Warwick's daughter shall be thine.
* PRINCE. Yes, I accept her, for she well deserves
it;
* And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.
\_He gives his hand to WARWICK.
"* K. LEW. Why stay we now ? These soldiers
shall be levied,
c And thou, lord Bourbon, 6 our high admiral,
r. if . "* <"i r i> '
ried to Clarence, I apprehend he, and not his editor, ought to
answer for it.
This is one of the numerous circumstances which prove that
Shakspeare was not the original author of this play; for though
here, as in a former passage, (p. 112, n. 4.) he has followed the
old drama, when he afterwards wrote his King Richard III. and
found it necessary to consult the ancient historians, he repre-
sented Lady Anne, as she in fact was, the widow of Edward,
Prince of Wales, and the youngest daughter of the Earl of War-
wick. MALONE.
Is it improbable then that Shakspeare should have become
more accurate as he grew older ? Might he not, previous to the
composition of a later play, have furnished himself with that
knowledge of history which was wanting in his dramatick per-
formance of an earlier date ? STEEVENS.
* Yes, I agree, &c.] Instead of this speech, the quarto has
only the following :
" With all my heart ; I like this match full well.
" Love her, son Edward ; she is fair and young ;
" And give thy hand to Warwick, for his love."
STEEVENS.
15 And thou, lord Bourbon, &c.] Instead of this and the three
following lines, we have these in the old play :
" And you, lord Bourbon, our high admiral,
" Shall waft them safely to the English coasts ;
so. m. KING HENRY VI. 133
* Shall waft them over with our royal fleet.
' I long, till Edward fall by war's mischance,
' For mocking marriage with a dame of France.
[Exeunt all but WARWICK.
WAR. I came from Edward as embassador,
But I return his sworn and mortal foe :
Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me,
But dreadful war shall answer his demand.
Had he none else to make a stale, 7 but me ?
Then none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.
I was the chief that rais'd him to the crown,
And I'll be chief to bring him down again :
Not that I pity Henry's misery,
But seek revenge on Edward's mockery. \_Exit.
" And chase proud Edwards/row his slumbering trance,
" For mocking marriage with the name of France."
MALONE.
7 to make a stale, 3 i. e. stalking-horse, pretence. So, in
The Comedy of Errors:
" poor I am but his stale."
See Act II." sc. i. STEEVENS,
134 THIRD PART OF ACT rr.
ACT IV. SCENE I.
London. A Room in the Palace.
Enter GLOSTER, CLARENCE, SOMERSET, MON-
TAGUE, and Others.
' GLO. Now tell me, brother Clarence, 8 what
think you
4 Of this new marriage with the lady Grey ?
* Hath not our brother made a worthy choice ?
* CLAR. Alas, you know, 'tis far from hence to
France ;
* How could he stay till Warwick made return ?
* SOM. My lords, forbear this talk ; here comes
the king.
8 Nona tell me, brother Clarence,"] In the old play the King
enters here along with his brothers, not after them, and opens
the scene thus :
" Edtu. Brothers of Clarence and of Glocester,
What think you of our marriage with the lady Grey ?
" Glo. My lord, we think as Warwick and Lewis,
" That are so slack in judgment that they'll take
" No offence at this sudden marriage.
" Edw. Suppose they do, they are but Lewis and
Warwick ;
" And I am your king and Warwick's ; and will be
" Obey'd.
" Glo. And shall, because you are our king;
" But yet such sudden marriages seldom proveth well.
. Yea, brother Richard, are you against us too?"
MALONE.
sc. f. KING HENRY VI. 135
Flourish. Enter King EDWARD, attended; Lady
GREY, as Queen ; PEMBROKE, STAFFORD, HAST-
INGS, and Others. 9
* GLO. And his well-chosen bride.
* CLAR. I mind to tell him plainly what I think.
' K. EDW. Now, brother of Clarence, how like
you our choice,
4 That you stand pensive, as half malcontent ?
c CLAR. As well as Lewis of France, or the earl
of Warwick ;
* Which are so weak of courage, and in judgment,
* That they'll take no offence at our abuse.
* K. EDW. Suppose, they take offence without a
cause,
* They are but Lewis and Warwick ; I am Edward,
* Your king and Warwick's, and must have my will.
6 GLO. And you shall have your will, because our
king:
* Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.
K. EDW. Yea, brother Richard, are you offended
too P 1
e GLO. Not I :
e No ; God forbid, that I should wish them sever'd
' Whom God hath join'd together : ay, and 'twere
To sunder them that yoke so well together.
9 The stage direction in the folio, [ Four stand on one side, and
Jour on the other. ] is sufficient proof that the play, as exhibited
there, was printed from a stage copy. I suppose these eight im-
portant personages were attendants. STEEVENS.
1 are you offended too ?] So the folio. The quartos :
*' are you against us too ?" STEEVENS.
136 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
' K. EDW. Setting your scorns, and your mislike,
aside,
c Tell me some reason, why the lady Grey
c Should not become my wife, and England's
queen :
' And you too, Somerset, 2 and Montague,
' Speak freely what you think.
' CLAR. Then this is my opinion, 3 that king
Lewis
6 Becomes your enemy, for mocking him
* About the marriage of the lady Bona.
c GLO. And Warwick, doing what you gave in
charge,
* Is now dishonoured by this new marriage.
' K. EDW. What, if both Lewis and Warwick
be appeas'd,
c By such invention as I can devise ?
MONT. Yet to have join'd with France in such
alliance,
Would more have strengthen' d this our common-
wealth
' Gainst foreign storms, than any home-bred mar-
riage.
HAST. Why, knows not Montague, that of it-
self
* And you too, Somerset, &c.] In the old play Somerset does
not appear in this scene. MALONE.
3 Clar. Then this is my opinion, &c.] Instead of this and the
following speechy the quartos read thus :
" Clar. My lord, then this is my opinion ;
" That Warwick, being dishonour'd in his embassage,
" Doth seek revenge, to quit his injuries.
" Glo. And Lewis, in regard of his sister's wrongs,
*' Doth join with Warwick to supplant your state."
STEEVENS.
sc. i. KING HENRY VI. 137
* England is safe, if true within itself? 4
* MONT. Yes ; but the safer, when 'tis back'd
with France. 5
* HAST. 'Tis better using France, than trusting
France :
* Let us be back'd with God, and with the seas,*
* Which he hath given for fence impregnable,
* And with their helps only defend ourselves ;
* In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies.
CLAR. For this one speech, lord Hastings well
deserves
* To have the heir of the lord Hungerford.
' K. EDW. Ay, what of that ? it was my will, and
grant ;
4 Why, knows not Montague, that of itself
England is safe, if true within itself '?] In the old play these
lines stand thus :
" Let England be true within itself,
" We need not France nor any alliance with them."
It is observable that the first of these lines occurs in the old
play of King John, 1591, from which our author borrowed it,
and inserted it with a slight change in his own play with the same
title. MALONE.
The original of this sentiment is probably to be found in DR.
ANDREW BORDE'S Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge,
bl. 1. printed for Copland, Sign. A 4.
See Vol. X. p. 535. Neither the lapse of two centuries, nor
any circumstance which has occurred during that eventful period,
has in any degree shook the credit of this observation, or impaired
the confidence of the publick in the truth of it. " England is and
will be still safe, if true within itself." REED.
* Yes ; but the safer, &c.] Thus the second folio. Yes, in the
first, is omitted. STEEVENS.
6 with the seas,'] This has been the advice of every man
who in any age understood and favoured the interest of England.
JOHNSON.
138 THIRD PART OF ACTIV.
* And, for this once, my will shall stand for law.
' GLO. And yet, methinks, 7 your grace hath not
done well,
* To give the heir and daughter of lord Scales
1 Unto the brother of your loving bride ;
e She better would have fitted me, or Clarence :
* But in your bride you bury brotherhood.
' CLAR. Or else you would not have bestow' d the
heir 8
* Of the lord Bonville on your new wife's son,
* And leave your brothers to go speed elsewhere.
K. EDW. Alas, poor Clarence ! is it for a wife,
c That thou art malcontent ? I will provide thee.
* CLAR. In choosing for yourself, you show'dyour
judgment ;
c Which being shallow, you shall give me leave
* To play the broker in mine own behalf;
e And, to that end, I shortly mind to leave you.
* K. EDW. Leave me, or tarry, Edward will be
king,
* And not be tied unto his brother's will.
* Q. ELIZ. My lords, before it pleas'd his ma-
jesty
7 And yet, methinlcs, &c.] The quartos vary from the folio,
as follows :
" Cla. Ay, and for such a thing too, the lord Scale*
" Did well deserve at your hands, to have the
" Daughter of the lord Bonfield, and left your
*' Brothers to go seek elsewhere; but in your madness
" You bury brotherhood." STEEVENS.
* i you would not have bestou'd the heir ] It must be
remembered, that till the Restoration, the heiresses of great
estates were in the wardship of the King, who in their minority
gave them up to plunder, and afterwards matched them to his
favourites. I know not when liberty gained more than by the
abolition of the court of wards. JOHNSON.
sc. /. KING HENRY VI. J39
* To raise my state to title of a queen,
* Do me but right, and you must all confess
* That I was not ignoble of descent, 9
* And meaner than myself have had like fortune.
* But as this title honours me and mine,
* So your dislikes, to whom I would be pleasing,
* Do cloud my joys with danger and with sorrow.
6 K. EDW. My love, forbear to fawn upon their
frowns : l
* What danger, or what sorrow can befall thee,
* So long as Edward is thy constant friend,
c And their true sovereign, whom they must obey?
' Nay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,
6 Unless they seek for hatred at my hands :
e Which if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,
c And they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.
* GLO. I hear, yet say not much, but think the
more. [Aside.
Enter a Messenger.
* K. EDW. Now, messenger, what letters, or what
news,
From France ?
9 1 was not ignoble of descent,"] Her father was Sir
Richard Widville, Knight, afterwards Earl of Rivers ; her mo-
ther, Jaqueline, Duchess Dowager of Bedford, who was daugh-
ter to Peter of Luxemburgh, Earl of Saint Paul, and widow of
John Duke of Bedford, brother to King Henry V. MA&ONE.
1 My love, forbear &c.] Instead of this and the following
upeech, the old play has only these lines :
" Ed'w, Forbear, my love, to fawne upon their frowns,
" For thee they must obey, nay, shall obey,
" And if they look for favour at my hands.
" Mont. My lord, here is the messenger return'd from
Fraunce." MAI.ONE.
140 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
* MESS. My sovereign liege, no letters ; and few
words,
' But such as I, without your special pardon,
Dare not relate.
' K. EDW. Go to, we pardon thee : therefore, in
brief,
' Tell me their words as near as thou canst guess
them.
c What answer makes king Lewis unto our letters ?
MESS. At my depart, these were his very words ;
Go tell false Edward, thy supposed king,
That Lewis of France is sending over maskers,
To revel it with him and his new bride.
K. EDW. Is Lewis so brave ? belike, he thinks
me Henry.
6 But what said lady Bona to my marriage ? 2
MESS. These were her words, utter' d with mild
disdain ;
Tell him, in hope he'll prove a widower shortly,
I'll wear the willow garland for his sake.
K. EDW. I blame not her, she could say little
less;
c She had the wrong. But what said Henry's queen?
6 For I have heard, that she was there in place. 3
MESS. Tell him, quoth she, my mourning weeds
are done, 1 "
And I am ready to put armour on.
* to my marriage f] The quartos read
to these wrongs." STEEVENS.
3 she tuas there in place.] This expression, signifying, she
was there present, occurs frequently in old English writers.
MALONE.
En place, a Gallicism. STEEVENS.
4 are done,] i. e. are consumed, thrown off. The word
ac. i. KING HENRY VI. 141
' K. EDW. Belike, she minds to play the Amazon.
But what said Warwick to these injuries ?
' MESS. He, more incens'd against your majesty
' Than all the rest, discharg'd me with these words j
Tell him from me, that he hath done me wrong,
And therefore I'll uncrown him, ere't be long.
K. EDW. Ha ! durst the traitor breathe out so
proud words ?
' Well, I will arm me, being thus forewarn* d :
' They shall have wars, and pay for their presump-
tion.
6 But say, is Warwick friends with Margaret ?
MESS. Ay, gracious sovereign ; they are so link'd
in friendship,
4 That young prince Edward marries Warwick's
daughter.
CLAR. Belike, the elder ; Clarence will have the
younger. 5
* Now, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,
* For I will hence to Warwick's other daughter ;
* That, though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage
is often used in this sense by the writers of our author's age.
So, in his Rape of Lucrece :
" And if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done
" As is the morning's silver-melting dew." MALOKE.
3 Belike, the elder; Clarence tvill have the younger.] I have
ventured to make elder and younger change places in this line
against the authority of all the printed copies. The reason of it
will be obvious. THEOBALD.
Clarence having in fact married Isabella, the elder daughter
of Warwick, Mr. Theobald made elder and younger change
places in this line ; in which he has been followed, I think, im-
properly, by the subsequent editors : The author of the old play,
where this line is found, might from ignorance or intentionally
have deviated from history, in his account of the person whom
Clarence married. See a former note, p. 131, n. 4. MALONE.
142 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
* I may not prove inferior to yourself.
You, tnat love me and Warwick, follow me. 6
[Exit CLARENCE, and SOMERSET follows.
* GLO. Not 1 : 7
* My thoughts aim at a further matter ; I
* Stay not for love of Edward, but the crown.
[Aside.
K. EDW. Clarence and Somerset both gone to
"Warwick !
* Yet am I arm'd against the worst can happen ;
* And haste is needful in this desperate case.
6 you, that love me and Warwick, follow me."] That Clarence
should make this speech in the King's hearing is very improba-
ble, yet I do not see how it can be palliated. The King never
goes out, nor can Clarence be talking to a company apart, for he
answers immediately to that which the Post says to the King.
JOHNSON.
When the Earl of Essex attempted to raise a rebellion in the
city, with a design, as was supposed, to storm the Queen's
palace, he ran about the streets with his sword drawn, crying
out, " They that love me, follow me." STEEVENS.
Clarence certainly speaks in the hearing of the King, who im-
mediately after his brother has retired, exclaims, that he is gone
to join with Warwick.
This line is in the old quarto play. One nearly resembling it
is likewise found in The Battle of Alcazar, 1594 :
" Myself will lead the way,
" And make a passage with my conquering sword,
" Knee-deep in blood of these accursed Moors
" And they that love my honour, follow me."
So also, in our author's King Richard III:
" The rest that love me, rise, and follow me."
MALONE.
7 Glo. Nat I:~] After Clarence goes out, we have ia the old
play the following dialogue ; part of which Shakspeare rejected,
and transposed the rest :
" Edw. Clarence and Somerset fled to Warwick !
" What say you, brother Richard, will you stand t<
us?" &c. MALONE.
,JSee note 9, in the following page. STEEVENS.
sc. r. KING HENRY VI. 143
* Pembroke, and Stafford, 8 you in our behalf
' Go levy men, and make prepare for war ;
4 They are already, or quickly will be landed :
' Myself in person will straight follow you.
[Exeunt PEMBROKE and STAFFORD.
' But, ere I go, Hastings, and Montague,
e Resolve my doubt. You twain, of all the rest,
' Are near to Warwick, by blood, and by alliance:
* Tell me, if you love Warwick more than me ?
c If it be so, then both depart to him ;
c I rather wish you foes, than hollow friends ;
' But if you mind to hold your true obedience,
e Give me assurance with some friendly vow,
* That I may never have you in suspect.
MONT. So Godhelp Montague, as he proves true!
HAST. And Hastings, as he favours Edward's
cause !
* K. EDW. Now, brother Richard, will you stand
by us ?
GLO. Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand
you. 9
* Pembroke, and Stafford, &c.] The quartos give the passage
thus:
" Pembroke, go raise an army presently ;
" Pitch up my tent ; for in the field this night
" I mean to rest ; and, on the morrow morn,
" I'll march to meet proud Warwick, ere he land
" Those straggling troops which he hath got in France.
" But ere I go, Montague and Hastings, you
" Of all the rest are nearest allied in blood
" To Warwick ; therefore tell me if you favour
" Him more than me, or not ; speak truly, for
" I had rather have you open enemies
" Than hollow friends." STEEVENS.
9 Ay, in despite of all that shall withstand you.~\ The quartos
continue the speech thus :
144 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
' K. EDW. Why so ; then am I sure of victory.
e Now therefore let us hence ; and lose no hour,
e Till we meet Warwick with his foreign power.
\_Exeunt.
SCENE II.
A Plain in Warwickshire.
Enter WARWICK and OXFORD, with French and
other Forces.
WAR. Trust me, my lord, all hitherto goes well ;
The common people by numbers swarm to us.
Enter CLARENCE and SOMERSET.
But, see, where Somerset and Clarence come ;
Speak suddenly, my lords, are we all friends ?
CLAR. Fear not that, my lord.
WAR. Then, gentle Clarence, welcome unto
Warwick ;
And welcome, Somerset : I hold it cowardice,
To rest mistrustful where a noble heart
Hath pawn'd an open hand in sign of love ;
Else might I think, thatClarence, Edward's brother,
Were but a feigned friend to our proceedings :
But welcome, Clarence; 1 my daughter shall be thine.
" Ay, my lord, in despight of all that shall withstand you;
" For why hath nature made me halt downright
" But that I should be valiant, and stand to it ?
" For if I would, I cannot run away.'* STEEVENS.
1 But wekome, Clarence;'] Old copy, redundantly, sweet
Clarence. STEEVENS.
sc. ii. KING HENRY VI. 145
And now what rests, but, in night's coverture,
Thy brother being carelessly encamp'd,
His soldiers lurking in the towns about, 2
And but attended by a simple guard,
We may surprize and take him at our pleasure ?
Our scouts have found the adventure very easy: 3
* That as Ulysses, 4 and stout Diomede,
* With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus' tents,
*And brought from thence the Thracian fatal
steeds; 5
* So we, well cover'd with the night's black mantle,
* At unawares may beat down Edward's guard,
* And seize himself ; I say not slaughter him,
* For I intend but only to surprize him.
' You, that will follow me to this attempt,
* Applaud the name of Henry, with your leader.
{They all cry, Henry !
* His soldiers lurking in the towns about y ~\ Old copies tffwn.
STEEVENS.
Dr. Thirlby advised the reading towns here ; the guard in the
scene immediately following says :
" but why commands the king,
" That his chief followers lodge in towns about him ?'*
THEOBALD.
8 very easy .-] ere the quartos conclude this speech,
adding only the following lines :
" Then cry king Henry with resolved minds,
" And break we presently into his tent." STEEVENS.
4 That as Ulysses, &c.] See the tenth book of the Iliad.
These circumstances, however, were accessible, without refer-
ence to Homer in the original. STEEVENS.
* ; the Thracian fatal steeds ;] We are told by some of
the writers on the Trojan story, that the capture of these horses
was one of the necessary preliminaries to the fate of Troy.
STEEVENS.
VOL. XIV. L
146 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
Why, then, let's on our way in silent sort :
For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint
George ! 6 [Exeunt.
SCENE III.
Edward's Camp, near Warwick.
Enter certain Watchmen, to guard the King's Tent.
* I WATCH. Come on, my masters, each man
take his stand ;
* The king, by this, is set him down to sleep.
* 2 WATCH. What, will he not to-bed ?
* 1 WATCH. Why, no : for he hath made a so-
lemn vow
* Never to lie and take his natural rest,
* Till Warwick, or himself, be quite suppress'd.
*2 WATCH. To-morrow then, belike, shall be
the day,
* If Warwick be so near as men report.
* 3 WATCH. But say, I pray, what nobleman is
that,
* That with the king here resteth in his tent ?
* 1 WATCH. 'Tis the lord Hastings, the king's
chiefest friend.
-* and Saint George !~] After the two concluding lines of
this scene, which in the old play are given not to Warwick but
to Clarence, we there find the following speeches, which Shak-
speare has introduced in a subsequent place :
" War. This is his tent; and see where his guard doth
stand.
" Courage, my soldiers ; now or never.
" But follow me now, ^nd Edward shall be ours.
" All. A Warwick, a Warwick !" MALONE.
sc. m. KING HENRY VI. 147
* 3 WATCH. O, is it so ? But why commands the
king,
* That his chief followers lodge in towns about
him,
* While he himself keepeth in the cold field ?
* 2 WATCH. 'Tis the more honour, because more
dangerous.
* 3 WATCH. Ay ; but give me worship and
quietness,
* I like it better than a dangerous honour. 7
* If Warwick knew in what estate he stands,
* 'Tis to be doubted, he would waken him.
* 1 WATCH. Unless our halberds did shut up his
passage.
* 2 WATCH. Ay ; wherefore else guard we his
royal tent,
* But to defend his person from night-foes ?
Enter WARWICK, CLARENCE, OXFORD, SOMERSET,
and Forces.
6 WAR. This is his tent ; and see, where stand his
guard.
c Courage, my masters : honour now, or never !
' But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.
l WATCH. Who goes there ?
* 2 WATCH. Stay, or thou diest.
[WARWICK, and the rest, cry all Warwick !
Warwick ! and set upon the Guard ; who
fly, crying Arm ! Arm ! WARWICK, and
the rs t, following them.
7 I like it better than a dangerous honour."] This honest
Watchman's opinion coincides with that of Falstaff. See
Vol. XI. p. 406. STEEVENS.
L 2
148 THIRD PART OF ACT iv.
The Drum beating, and Trumpets sounding, Re-
enter WARWICK, and the rest, bringing the King
out in a Gown, sitting in a Chair : GLOSTER
and HASTINGS^.
*
SOM. What are they that fly there ?
* WAR. Richard, and Hastings : let them go,
here's the duke.
K. EDW. The duke ! why, Warwick, when we
parted last, 8
Thou call'dst me king.
WAR. Ay, but the case is alter'd :
6 When you disgraced me in my embassade,
* Then I degraded you from being king,
And come now to create you duke of York. 9
Alas ! how should you govern any kingdom,
That know not how to use ambassadors ;
Nor how to be contented with one wife ;
Nor how to use your brothers brotherly ;
* Nor how to study for the people's welfare ;
Nor how to shrowd yourself from enemies ?
* K. EDW. Yea, brother 1 of Clarence, artthou
here too ?
* token tve parted last,3 The word last , which is found
in the old play, was inadvertently omitted in the folio.
MALONE.
9 And come now to create you duke of York.] Might we not
read, with a slight alteration ?
And come to new-create you duke of York. JOHNSON.
1 Yea, brother &c.] In the old play this speech consists of
only these two lines :
'* Well, Warwick, let fortune do her worst,
" Edward in mind will bear himself a king.'*
Henry has made the same declaration in a former scene.
MALONE.
sc. ///. KING HENRY VI. 149
* Nay, then I see, that Edward needs must down.
' Yet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,
* Of thee thyself, and all thy complices,
' Edward will always bear himself as king :
* Though fortune's malice overthrow my state,
* My mind exceeds the compass of her wheel.
WAR. Then, for his mind, be Edward England's
king : 2 [ Takes off his Crown.
But Henry now shall wear the English crown,
* And be true king indeed ; thou but the shadow.
* My lord of Somerset, at mv request,
* See that forthwith duke Edward be convey' d
* Unto my brother, archbishop of York.
* When I have fought with Pembroke and his fel-
lows,
* I'll follow you, and tell what answer
6 Lewis, and the lady Bona, send to him :
Now, for a while, farewell, good duke of York.
* K. EDW. What fates impose, that men must
needs abide ;
* It boots not to resist both wind and tide.
[Exit King EDWARD, led out; SOMERSET with
him.
* OXF. What now remains, 3 my lords, for us to
do,
* But march to London with our soldiers ?
* Then, for his mind, be Edward England's king .] That is,
in his mind ; as far as his own mind goes. M. MASON.
3 What noiv remains, &c.] Instead of this and the following
speech, the quartos have :
" Clar. What follows now ? all hitherto goes well.
" But we must dispatch some letters into France,
150 THIRD PART OF ACT jy.
WAR. Ay, that's the first thing that we have to
do;
* To free king Henry from imprisonment,
And see him seated in the regal throne. \_Exeunt.
SCENE IV.
London. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Queen ELIZABETH and RIVERS.*
. Madam, what makes you in this sudden
change ?
" To tell the queen of our happy fortune ;
" And bid her come with speed to join with us.
" War. Ay, that's the first thing that we have to do,
" And free king Henry from imprisonment,
" And see him seated on the regal throne.
" Come, let's away ; and having past these cares,
" I'll post to York, and see how Edward fares."
STEEVENS.
4 Enter Rivers."] Throughout this scene the quartos vary
in almost every speech from the folio. The variations, however,
are hardly such as to deserve notice. STEEVENS.
They are, however, so marked, as to prove decisively, I think,
that either Shakspeare wrote two distinct pieces on this subject
at different periods, or that the play as exhibited in the folio was
his, and that in quarto the production of a preceding writer.
Let the second speech of Rivers be read with this view:
" Whatlosse? ofsomepitchtbattaile against Warwicke?
" Tush, feare not, fair queene, but cast these cares aside.
" King Edward's noble mind his honour doth display,
" And Warwick may lose, though then he got the day."
See also the speech of Clarence quoted in the last note.
MALONE.
Would not this prove rather too much, as a similar inference
might be drawn from the two copies of Romeo and Juliet, in
1597 and 1599 ? STEEVENS.
sc. iv. KING HENRY VI. 151
* Q. ELIZ. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to
learn,
' What late misfortune is befalTn king Edward ?
Riv. What, loss of some pitch' d battle against
Warwick ?
4 Q. ELIZ. No, but the loss of his own royal per-
son.
' Riv. Then is my sovereign slain ?
c Q. ELIZ. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken pri-
soner ;
c Either betray' d by falsehood of his guard,
' Or by his foe surpriz'd at unawares :
c And, as I further have to understand,
' Is new committed to the bishop of York,
' Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.
* Riv. These news, I must confess, are full of
grief:
: Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may ;
6 Warwick may lose, that now hath won the day.
* Q. ELIZ. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's
decay.
* And I the rather wean me from despair,
* For love of Edward's offspring in my womb :
* This is it that makes me bridle passion,
* And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross ;
* Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear,
* And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,
* Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown
c King Edward's fruit, true heir to the English
crown.
* Riv. But, madam, where is Warwick then be-
come ?
c Q. ELIZ. I am informed, that he comes towards
London,
152 THIRD PART OF ACT IT.
* To set the crown once more on Henry's head :
* Guess thou the rest ; king Edward's friends must
down.
' But, to prevent the tyrant's violence,
( (For trust not him that hath once broken faith,)
' I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary,
' To save at least the heir of Edward's right ;
6 There shall I rest secure from force, and fraud.
* Come therefore, let us fly, while we may fly j
* If Warwick take us, we are sure to die.
[Exeunt.
SCENE V. 5
A Park near Middleham 6 Castle in Yorkshire.
'*o I
Enter GLOSTEE, HASTINGS, Sir WILLIAM STANLEY,
and Others.
' GLO. Now, my lord Hastings, 7 and sir William
Stanley,
* Leave off to wonder why I drew you hither,
* Scene V.~] In new forming these pieces Shakspeare trans-
posed not only many lines and speeches, but some of the scenes.
This scene in the original play precedes that which he has made
the fourth scene of this Act. MALONE.
6 A Park near Middleham ] Shakspeare follows his autho-
rity Holinshed, in the representation here given of King Ed-
ward's capture and imprisonment. But honest Raphael misled
him, as he himself was misled by his predecessor Hall. The
whole is untrue : Edward was never in the hands of Warwick.
RITSON.
7 Now, my lord Hastings, &c.] I shall insert the speech cor-
responding to this in the old play, as the comparison will show
the reader in what manner Shakspeare proceeded, where he
sc. v. KING HENRY VI. 153
* Into this chiefest thicket of the park.
6 Thus stands the case : You know, our king, my
brother,
' Is prisoner to the bishop here, at whose hands
' He hath good usage and great liberty ;
* And often, but attended with weak guard,
' Comes hunting this way to disport himself.
* I have advertised him by secret means,
c That if about this hour, he make this way,
' Under the colour of his usual game,
' He shall here find his friends, with horse and
men,
' To set him free from his captivity.
Enter King EDWARD, and a Huntsman.
* HUNT. This way, my lord; for this way lies the
game.
' K. EDW. Nay, this way, man j see, where the
huntsmen stand.
' Now, brother of Gloster, lord Hastings, and the
rest,
* Stand you thus close, to steal the bishop's deer ?
merely retouched and expanded what he found in the elder
drama, without the addition of any new matter :
" Glo. Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,
" Know that the cause I sent for you is this.
*' I look my brother with a slender train
" Should come a hunting in this forest here.
*' The bishop of York befriends him much,
" And lets him use his pleasure in the chase.
** Now I have privily sent him word
" How I am come with you to rescue him ;
" And see where the huntsman and he doth come."
MALONE.
THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
' GLO. Brother, the time and case requireth haste;
4 Your horse stands ready at the park corner.
' K. EDW. But whither shall we then ?
c HAST. To Lynn, my lord ; and ship 8 from
thence to Flanders.
e GLO. Well guess' d, believe me ; for that was
my meaning.
* K. EDW. Stanley, I will requite thy forward-
ness.
* GLO. But wherefore stay we ? 'tis no time to
talk.
* K. EDW. Huntsman, what say'st thou? wilt thou
go along ?
* HUNT. Better do so, than tarry and be hang'd.
* GLO. Come then, away ; let's have no more
ado.
c K. EDW. Bishop, farewell : shield thee from
Warwick's frown ;
And pray that I may repossess the crown.
\JExeunt.
* and ship ] The first folio has shipt. The correction
was made by the editor of the second folio. MALONE.
sc. vi. KING HENRY VI. 155
SCENE VI.
A Room in the Tower.
Enter King HENRY, CLARENCE, WARWICK, SOMER-
SET, young RICHMOND, OXFORD, MONTAGUE,
Lieutenant of the Tower, and Attendants.
* K. HEN. Master lieutenant, now that God and
friends
* Have shaken Edward from the regal seat ;
* And turn'd my captive state to liberty,
* My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys ;
* At our enlargement what are thy due fees ?
* LIEU. Subjects may challenge nothing of their
sovereigns ;
* But, if an humble prayer may prevail,
* I then crave pardon of your majesty.
* K. HEN. For what, lieutenant? for well using
me?
* Nay, be thou sure, I'll well requite thy kindness,
* For that it made my imprisonment a pleasure :
* Ay, such a pleasure as incaged birds
* Conceive, when, after many moody thoughts,
* At last, by notes of household harmony,
* They quite forget their loss of liberty.
* But, Warwick, after God, thou set'st me free,
* And chiefly therefore I thank God, and thee ;
* He was the author, thou the instrument.
* Therefore, that I may conquer fortune's spite,
* By living low, where fortune cannot hurt me ;
* And that the people of this blessed land
156 THIRD PART OF ACTir.
* May not be punish'd with my thwarting stars;
* Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,
' I here resign my government to thee,
6 For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.
* WAR. Your grace hath still been fam'd for vir-
tuous ;
* And now may seem as wise as virtuous,
* By spying, and avoiding, fortune's malice,
* For few men rightly temper with the stars : 9
* Yet in this one thing let me blame your grace,
* For choosing me, when Clarence is in place. 1
* CLAR. No, Warwick, thou art worthy of the
sway,
* To whom the heavens, in thy nativity,
* Adjudg'd an olive branch, and laurel crown,
* As likely to be blest in peace, and war ;
* And therefore I yield thee my free consent.
* WAR. And I choose Clarence only for protector.
* K. HEN. Warwick, and Clarence, give me both
your hands ;
* Now join your hands, and, with your hands, your
hearts,
* That no dissention hinder government :
* I make you both protectors of this land ;
e While I myself will lead a private life,
* And in devotion spend my latter days,
To sin's rebuke, and my Creator's praise.
9 fetv men rightly temper vaitk the stars:"] I suppose the
meaning is, that few men conform their temper to their destiny ;
which King Henry did, when finding himself unfortunate he
gave the management of publick affairs to more prosperous hands.
JOHNSON.
1 -i in place."] i. e. here present. See p. 140, n. 3.
STEEVENS.
1C. vi. KING HENRY VI. 157
WAR. What answers Clarence to his sovereign's
will?
* CLAR. That he consents, if Warwick yield con-
sent;
* For on thy fortune I repose myself.
* WAR. Why then, though loath, yet must I be
content :
* We'll yoke together, like a double shadow
* To Henry's body, and supply his place ;
* I mean, in bearing weight of government,
* While he enjoys the honour, and his ease.
* And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful,
* Forthwith that Edward be pronounc'd a traitor,
* And all his lands and goods be confiscate. 2
CLAR. What else ? and that succession be deter-
min'd.
* WAR. Ay, therein Clarence shall not want his
part.
* K. HEN. But, with the first of all your chief
affairs,
* Let me entreat, (for I command no more,)
* That Margaret your queen, and my son Edward,
* Be sent for, to return from France with speed :
* For, till I see them here, by doubtful fear
* My joy of liberty is half eclips'd.
1 And all his lands and goods be confiscate."] For the insertion
of the word be, which the defect of the metre proves to have
been accidentally omitted in the old copy, I am answerable.
MALONE.
Mr. Malone's emendation is countenanced by the following
passage in The Comedy of Errors:
" Lest that thy goods too soon be confiscate"
The second folio, however, reads confiscated; and perhaps
this reading is preferable, because it excludes the disagreeable
repetition of the auxiliary verb be. STEEVENS.
158 THIRD PART OF ACT IT.
CLAR. It shall be done, my sovereign, with all
speed.
* K. HEN. My lord of Somerset, what youth is
that,
' Of whom you seem to have so tender care ?
' SOM. My liege, it is young Henry, earl of Rich-
mond.
* K. HEN. Come hither, England's hope : If se-
cret powers
\JLays his Hand on his Head.
* Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,
' This pretty lad 3 will prove our country's bliss.
3 This pretty lad ] He was afterwards Henry VII. a man
who put an end to the civil war of the two houses, but no other-
wise remarkable for virtue. Shakspeare knew his trade. Henry
VII. was grandfather to Queen Elizabeth, and 'the King from
whom James inherited. JOHNSON.
Shakspeare only copied this particular, together with many
others, from Holinshed : " whom when the king had a good
while beheld, he said to such princes as were with him : Lo,
surelie this is he, to whom both we and our adversaries, leaving
the possession of all things, shall hereafter give roome and
place." P. 678.
This pretty lad 'mil prove our country* s bliss.~\ Thus the folio.
The quartos thus :
" Thou, pretty boy, shalt prove this country's bliss.'*
STEEVENS.
Holinshed transcribed this passage almost verbatim from Hall,
whom the author of the old play, as I conceive, copied. This
speech originally stood thus :
" Come hither, pretty lad. If heavenly powers
" Do aim aright, to my divining soul,
" Thou, pretty boy, shalt prove this country's bliss;
" Thy head is made to wear a princely crown ;
" Thy looks are all replete with majesty :
" Make much of him, my lords," &c.
Henry Earl of Richmond was the son of Edmond Earl of
Richmond, and Margaret, daughter to John the first Duke of
Somerset. Edmond Earl of Richmond was half-brother to King
Henry the Sixth, being the son of that King's mother Queen^
sc. vi. KING HENRY VI.
' His looks are full of peaceful majesty ;
* His head by nature fram'd to wear a crown,
' His hand to wield a scepter ; and himself
' Likely, in time, to bless a regal throne.
Make much of him, my lords ; for this is he,
Must help you more than you are hurt by me.
Enter a Messenger.
* WAR. What news, my friend ?
* MESS. That Edward is escaped from your bro-
ther,
* And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.
* WAR. Unsavoury news : But how made he
escape ?
* MESS. He was convey'd by Richard duke of
Gloster,
* And the lord Hastings, who attended him 4
* In secret ambush on the forest side,
* And from the bishop's huntsmen rescued him;
* For hunting was his daily exercise.
* WAR. My brother was too careless of his
charge.
Catharine, by her second husband Owen Teuther or Tudor, who
was taken prisoner at the battle of Mortimer's Cross, and soon
afterwards beheaded at Hereford.
Henry the Seventh, to show his gratitude to Henry the Sixth
for this early presage in his favour, solicited Pope Julius to
canonize him as a saint ; but either Henry would not pay the
money demanded, or, as Bacon supposes, the Pope refused, lest
" as Henry was reputed in the world abroad but for a simple man,
the estimation of that kind of honour might be diminished, if
there were not a distance kept between innocents and saints.'*
MALONE.
4 attended him ] i. e. waited for him. So, in Co-
riolanus:
" I am attended at the cypress grove." STEEVENS.
160 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
*
But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide
A salve for any sore that may betide.
[Exeunt King HENRY, WAR. CLAR. Lieut.
and Attendants.
* SOM. My lord, I like not of this flight of Ed-
ward's :
* For, doubtless, Burgundy will yield him help ;
* And we shall have more wars, before't be long.
* As Henry's late presaging prophecy
* Did glad my heart, with hope of this young Rich-
mond;
* So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts
* What may befall him, to his harm, and ours :
* Therefore, lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,
* Forthwith we'll send him hence to Britany,
* Till storms be past of civil enmity.
* OXF. Ay ; for, if Edward repossess the crown,
* 'Tis like, that Richmond with the rest shall down.
* SOM. It shall be so ; he shall to Britany.
* Come therefore, let's about it speedily.
[Exeunt.
SCENE VII. 5
Before York.
Enter King EDWARD, GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and
Forces.
' K. EDW. Now,brother Richard, 6 lord 7 Hastings,
and the rest ;
* Scene VII.~\ This scene in the old play precedes that which
Shakspeare has made the sixth of the present Act. MALONE.
6 Now, brother Richard, &c.] Instead of this and the three
following speeches, the quartos read only :
ac. rn. KING HENRY VI. 161
* Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends,
' And says that once more I shall interchange
' My waned state for Henry's regal crown.
4 Well have we pass'd, and now repass'd the seas,
' And brought desired help from Burgundy :
' What then remains, we being thus arriv'd
' From Ravenspurg havenbefore the gates of York,*
* But that we enter, as into our dukedom?
" Enter Edward and Richard, tvith a troop of Hollanders.
" Edw. Thus far from Belgia have we past the seas,
" And march'd from Raunspur-haven unto York:
" But soft! the gates are shut; I like not this.
" Rich. Sound up the drum, and call them to thewalls."
STEEVENS.
7 lord ] Mr. M. Mason recommends the omission of
this word. REED.
lord Hastings, and the rest;~] "Leave out the word lord"
says one of our author's commentators. If we do not closely
attend to his phraseology and metre, and should think ourselves
at liberty to substitute modern phraseology and modern metre,
almost every line in his plays might be altered. Brother, like
many similar words, (rather, -whither, either, &c.) is here used
by Shakspeare, as a monosyllable, and the metre was to his ear
perfect. MALONE.
That there is a marked discrimination between ancient and
modern phraseology, no man will deny; but, surely, ancient
and modern five-foot verses can have no corresponding difference.
Where, in general, shall we find more perfect and harmonious
metre than that of Shakspeare ? His irregular lines are therefore
justly suspected of having suffered from omission or interpolation.
As to the latter part of Mr. Malone's note, in which brother
is said to be used as a monosyllable, valeat quantum valere
potest. STEEVENS.
Malone says that brother is to be pronounced as one syllable ;
but that alone will not be sufficient to complete the metre. We
must also lay the accent on the last syllable of the word Richarc?,
and the line must run thus :
" Now bro'r ftichard, Lord Hastings and the rest.'*
which would not be very harmonious. M. MASON.
8 From Ravenspurgh haven before the gates of York,'] We
may infer from the old quarto (See note 6, in the preceding page,)
VOL. XIV. M
162 THIRD PART OF ACT iv.
6 GLO. The gates made fast ! Brother, I like not
this;
* For many men, that stumble at the threshold,
* Are well foretold that danger lurks within.
* K. EDW. Tush, man ! abodements must not'
now affright us :
* By fair or foul means we must enter in,
* For hither will our friends repair to us.
* HAST. My liege, I'll knock once more, to
summon them.
Enter ', on the Walls, the Mayor o/*York, and his
Brethren.
6 MAY. My lords, we were forewarned of your
coming,
' And shut the gates for safety of ourselves ;
* For now we owe allegiance unto Henry.
* K. EDW. But, master mayor, if Henry be your
king,
' Yet Edward, at the least, is duke of York.
c MAY. True, my good lord ; I know you for no
less.
* K. EDW. Why, and I challenge nothing but mjr
dukedom ;
* As being well content with that alone.
* GLO. But, when the fox hath once got in his
nose,
* He'll soon find means to make the body follow.
[Aside.
that Ravenspurgh was occasionally pronounced as a dissyllable
Raunspurgh. This line will therefore become strictly metrical,
if we read (adopting an elision common to Shakspeare:)
" From Ravenspurgh haven 'fore the gates of York."
STEEVENS.
sc. ni. KING HENRY VI.
c HAST. Why, master mayor, why stand you in a
doubt ?
Open the gates, we are king Henry's friends.
' MAY. Ay, say you so ? the gates shall then be
open'd. [Exeuntfrom above.
* GLO. A wise stout captain, and persuaded soonl^
* HAST. The good old man would fain that all
were well, 1
* So 'twere not 'long of him : but, being enter' d,
* I doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade
* Both him, and all his brothers, unto reason.
Re-enter the Mayor and Two Aldermen, below.
* K. EDW. So, master mayor : these gates must
not be shut,
* But in the night, or in the time of war.
* What ! fear not, man, but yield me up the keys ;
[Takes his Keys.
c For Edward will defend the town, and thee,
' And all those friends that deign to follow me.
Drum. Enter MONTGOMERY, and Forces, march-
ing.
GLO. Brother, this is sir John Montgomery,
Our trusty friend, unless I be deceiv'd.
* K. EDW. Welcome, sir John ! But why come
you in arms ?
9 ' persuaded soon !] Old copy soon persuaded. This
transposition, which requires no apology, was made by Sir T.
Hanmer. STEEVENS.
The good old man ixiould fain that all were . well,^ Tha.
Mayor is willing we should enter, so he may not be blamed.
JOHNSON.
M 2
164 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
MONT. To help king Edward in his time of
storm,
As every loyal subject ought to do.
' K. EDW. Thanks, good Montgomery: But we
now forget
' Our title to the crown ; and only claim
' Our dukedom, till God please to send the rest.
' MONT. Then fare you well, for I will hence
again ;
I came to serve a king, and not a duke.
' Drummer, strike up, and let us march away.
[A March begun.
' K. EDW. Nay, stay, sir John, awhile j and we'll
debate,
' By what safe means the crown may be recovered.
' MONT. What talk you of debating ? in few
words,
* If you'll not here proclaim yourself our king,
* I'll leave you to your fortune ; and be gone,
To keep them back that come to succour you :
Why should we fight, if you pretend no title ?
* GLO. Why, brother, wherefore stand you on nice
points ?
* K. EDW. When we grow stronger, then we'll
make our claim :
* Till then, 'tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.
* HAST. Away with scrupulous wit ! now arms
must rule.
* GLO. And fearless minds climb soonest unto
crowns.
* Brother, we will proclaim you out of hand ;
* The bruit 2 thereof will bring you many friends.
* The bruit ] i. e. noise, report. So, in Preston's Cam-
Uses :
sc. rn. KING HENRY VI. 165
* K. EDW. Then be it as you will ; for 'tis my
right,
* And Henry but usurps the diadem.
MONT. Ay, now my sovereign speaketh like him-
self;
And now will I be Edward's champion.
HAST. Sound, trumpet ; Edward shall be here
proclaimed :
* Come, fellow-soldier, make thou proclamation.
[Gives him a Paper. Flourish.
SOLD. [Reads.] Edward the fourth, by the grace
of God, king of England and France, and lord of
Ireland, &c.
MONT. And whosoe'er gainsays king Edward's
right,
By this I challenge him to single fight.
[Throws down his Gauntlet.
ALL. Long live Edward the fourth !
* K. EDW. Thanks, brave Montgomery j and
thanks unto you all, 3
" whose manly acts do fly
" By bruit of fame."
See Vol. X. p. 287, n. 1. STEEVENS.
This French word bruit was very early made a denizen of our
language. Tims in the Bible : " Behold the noise of the bruit
is come.'* Jeremiah, x. 22. WHALLEY.
The word bruit is found in Bullokar's English Expositor, 8vo.
1616, and is defined " A reporte spread abroad." MALONE.
* Thanks, brave Montgomery; and thanks uno you alL~\
Surely we ought to read :
" Thanks, brave Montgomery; and thanks to all."
Instead of this speech, the quartos have only the following :
" Edw. We thank you all: lord mayor, lead on the
way.
" For this night we will harbour here in York;
" And then as early as the morning sun
166 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
If fortune gerve me, Til requite this kindness.
Now, for this night, let's harbour here in York :
And, when the morning sun shall raise his car
Above the border of this horizon,
We'll forward towards Warwick, and his mates ;
* For, well I wot, that Henry is no soldier.
* Ah, froward Clarence ! how evil it beseems thee,
* To flatter Henry, and forsake thy brother !
* Yet, as we may, we'll meet both thee and War-
wick.
* Come on, brave soldiers; doubt not of the day;
* And, that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.
[Exeunt.
SCENE VIIL*
London. A Room in the Palace.
Enter King HENRY, WARWICK, CLARENCE, MON-
TAGUE, EXETER, and OXFORD.
WAR. What counsel, lords ? Edward from Bel-
S*a,
ermans, and blunt Hollanders,
'* Lifts up his beams above this horizon,
" We'll march to London to meet with Warwick,
" And pull false Henry from the regal throne."
STEEVENS.
4 Scene VIII.'] This scene is, perhaps, the worst contrived of
^ny in these plays. Warwick has but just gone off the stage
when Edward says :
** And towards Coventry bend we our course,
" Where peremptory Warwick now remains."
M. MASON.
This scene in the original play follows immediately after
Henry's observation on young Richmond, which is in the sixth
scene of the present play. MALONE.
sc. vm. KING HENRY VI. 167
Hath pass'd in safety through the narrow seas,
And with his troops doth march amain to London ;
' And many giddy people flock to him.
* OXF. Let's levy men, and beat him back again.*
CLAR. A little fire is quickly trodden out ;
Which, being suffer'd, rivers cannot quench.
WAR. In Warwickshire I have true-hearted
friends,
Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war ;
Those will I muster up : and thou, son Clarence,
' Shalt stir, in Suffolk, 6 Norfolk, and in Kent,
s Let's levy men, and beat him back again.~\ This line ex-
presses a spirit of war so unsuitable to the character of Henry,
that I would give the first cold speech to the King, and the brisk
answer to Warwick. This line is not in the old quarto ; and
when Henry said nothing, the first speech might be as properly
given to Warwick as to any other.. JOHNSON.
Every judicious reader must concur in Dr. Johnson's opinion,
as far as it relates to the second of these two speeches.
STEEVENS.
This line is given in the folio to the King, to whom it is so un-
suitable, that I have no doubt it was merely a printer's error.
I have not, however, assigned it to Warwick, and the preceding
speech to Henry, as Dr. Johnson proposes, because it appears to
me safer to take the old play as a guide ; in which, as in Shak-
speare's piece, the first speech is attributed to Warwick. The
second speech is given to Oxford, and stands thus :
" Oxf. 'Tis best to look to this betimes ;
" For if this fire do kindle any further
" It will be hard for us to quench it out."
Shakspeare, in new-modelling this scene, probably divided
this speech between Oxford and Clarence, substituting the line
before us in the room of the words " 'Tis best to look to this
betimes." I have therefore given this line to Oxford. It might
with equal, or perhaps with more propriety, be assigned to War-
wick's brother, Montague. MALONB.
6 Shalt stir, in Suffolk, &c.] The old copy stir up. But the
omission of the adverb, which hurts the metre, is justified by the
following passages in King John, &c.
168 THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
'
* The knights and gentlemen to come with thee:
' Thou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,
6 Northampton, and in Leicestershire, shalt find
* Menwellinclin'dtohearwhatthoucommand'st:
And thou, brave Oxford, wondrous well belov'd,
In Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.
My sovereign, with the loving citizens,
* Like to his island, girt in with the ocean,
* Or modest Dian, circled with her nymphs,
Shall rest in London, till we come to him.
Fair lords, take leave, and stand not to reply.
Farewell, my sovereign.
K. HEN. Farewell, my Hector, and my Troy's
true hope. 7
* CLAR. In sign of truth, I kiss your highness'
hand.
* K. HEN. Well-minded Clarence, be thou for-
tunate !
" I'll stir them to it : Come, away, away!"
Again, ibid:
" An Ate stirring him to war and strife."
Again, in King Lear:
" If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts
" Against their father, " STEEVENS.
7 my Hector, and my Troy's true hope.~\ This line having
probably made an impression on our author, when he read over
the old play, he has- applied the very same expression to the Duke
of York, where his overthrow at Wakefield is described, and
yet suffered the line to stand here as he found it:
" Environed he was with many foes,
*' And stood against them, as the hope of Troy
" Against the Greeks."
The two latter lines, as the reader may find in p. 50, were
new, no trace of them being there found in the old play. Many
similar repetitions may be observed in this Third Part of King
Henry VI. from the same cause. MALONE.
ac. vm. KING HENRY VI. 169
* MONT. Comfort, my lord ; and so I take my
leave.
* OXF. And thus [Kissing HENRY'S hand.'] I seal
my truth, and bid adieu.
* K. HEN. Sweet Oxford, and my loving Mon-
tague,
* And all at once, once more a happy farewell.
WAR. Farewell, sweet lords j let's meet at Co-
ventry.
[Ebeunt WAR. CLAR. OXF. and MONT.
* K. HEN. Here at the palace will I rest a while.
* Cousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship ?
* Methinks, the power, that Edward hath in field,
* Should not be able to encounter mine.
* EXE. The doubt is, that he will seduce the rest.
* K. HEN. That's not my fear, my meed hath
got me fame. 8
* I have not stopp'd mine ears to their demands,
* Nor posted off their suits with slow delays ;
* My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,
* My mildness hath allay' d their swelling griefs,
* My mercy dry'd their water-flowing tears :
* my meed hat h got me fame."] Meed signifies reward.
We should read my deed; i. e. my manners, conduct in the
administration. WARBURTON.
This word signifies merit, both as a verb and a substantive :
that it is used as a verb, is clear from the following foolish cou-
plet which I remember to have read :
" Deem if I meed,
" Dear madam, read."
A Specimen of Verses that read the same way backward
andjbrward. SIR J. HAWKINS.
Meed here means merit, as it did in a former passage, [p. 4-9,
n. 6.] when Edward says of himself and his brothers :
" Each one already blazing by our meeds." M. MASON.
170 tl THIRD PART OF ACT ir.
* I have not been desirous of their wealth,
* Nor much oppressed them with great subsidies,
* Nor forward of revenge, though they much err'dj
* Then why should they love Edward more than
me?
* No, Exeter, these graces challenge grace :
* And, when the lion fawns upon the lamb,
* The lamb will never cease to follow him.
[Shout within. A Lancaster ! 9 A Lancaster !
EXE. Hark, hark, my lord! what shouts are
these ?
Enter King EDWARD, GLOSTER, and Soldiers.
' K. EDW. Seize on the shame-fac'd Henry, bear
him hence,
'And once again proclaim us king of England.
* You are the fount, that makes small brooks to
flow;
* Now stops thy spring ; my sea shall suck them
dry,
* And swell so much the higher by their ebb.
* Hence with him to the Tower ; let him not speak.
[Exeunt some with King HENRY.
' And, lords, to wards Coventry bend we our course,
* Where peremptory Warwick now remains :*
9 Shout within. A Lancaster !] Surely the shouts that ilshered
King Edward should be, A York ! A York ! I suppose the au-
thor did not write the marginal directions, and the players con-
founded the characters. JOHNSON.
We may suppose the shouts to have come from some of
Henry's guard, on the appearance of Edward. MALONE.
1 And, lords, towards Coventry bend we our course,
Where peremptory Warwick now remains,''] Warwick, as
Mr. M. Mason has observed, [p. 166, n. 4-.] has but just left the
stage, declaring his intention to go to Coventry. How then
sc. rm. KING HENRY VI. 171
' The sun shines hot, 2 and, if we use delay,
* Cold biting winter mars our hop'd-for hay.
* GLO. Away betimes, before his forces join,
* And take the great-grown traitor unawares :
* Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.
\JEixeunt.
could Edward know of that intention ? Our author was led into
this impropriety by the old play, where also Edward says :
" And now towards Coventry let's bend our course,
" To meet with Warwick and his confederates."
Some of our old writers seem to have thought, that all the
persons of the drama must know whatever was known to the wri-
ters themselves, or to the audience. MALONE.
* The sun shines hot, &c.] These lines are formed on two
others which are found in the old play in a subsequent scene in
the next Act, being spoken by Edward, after the battle of Bar-
net, and just before he sets out for Tewksbury.
" ' Come, let us go ;
" For if we slack this fair bright summers day,
" Sharp winters showers will mar our hope, for haie."
I suspect, Aaz'e was inadvertently written in the manuscript in-
stead of aye, and that Shakspeare was thus led to introduce an
idea different from that intended to be conveyed by the original
author. MALONE.
The old reading is undoubtedly the true one ; the allusion
being to a well-known proverb " Make hay while the sun
shines." See Ray's Collection, edit. 1768, p. 117. STEEVENS.
172 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
ACT V. SCENE I.
Coventry.
Enter, upon the Walls, WARWICK, the Mayor of
Coventry, Two Messengers, and Others.
WAR. Where is the post, that came from valiant
Oxford?
How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow ?
c 1 MESS. By this at Dunsmore, 3 marching hi-
therward.
WAR. How far off is our brother Montague ?
Where is the post that came from Montague ?
* 2 MESS. By this at Daintry, 4 with a puissant
troop.
Enter Sir JOHN SOMERVILLE.
1 WAR. Say, Somerville, what says my loving son?
' And, by the guess, how nigh is Clarence now ?
' SOM. At Southam I did leave him with his
forces,
* And do expect him here some two hours hence.
\_Drwn heard.
6 WAR. Then Clarence is at hand, I hear his drum.
* SOM. It is not his, my lord ; here Southam lies ;
* at Dunsmore,] The quartos read at Daintry: i.e.
Daventry. STEEVENS.
* at Daintry,'] The quartos read at Dunsmore.
STEEVENS.
sc. I. KING HENRY VI. 173
* The drum your honour hears, marcheth from
Warwick.
* WAR. Who should that be ? belike, unlook'd-
for friends.
* SOM. They are at hand, and you shall quickly
know.
Drums. Enter King EDWARD, GLOSTER, and
Forces, marching.
* K. EDW. Go, trumpet, to the walls, and sound
a parle.
* GLO. See, how the surly Warwick mans the wall.
WAR. O, unbid spite! is sportful Edward come ?
Where slept our scouts, 5 or how are they seduc'd,
That we could hear no news of his repair ?
* K. EDW. Now, Warwick, wilt thou ope the
city gates,
' Speak gentle words, and humbly bendthy knee?
* Call Edward king, and at his hands beg mercy,
* And he shall pardon thee these outrages.
' WAR. Nay, rather, wilt thou draw thy forces
hence,
Confess who set thee up and pluck'd thee down?
Call Warwick patron, and be penitent,
And thou shalt still remain the duke of York.
GLO. I thought, at least, he would have said
the king ;
Or did he make the jest against his will ?
* WAR. Is not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift ?
* GLO. Ay, by my faith, for a poor earl to give;
* Where slept our scouts f] So, in King John :
" O, where hath our intelligence been drunk ?
" Where hath it slept?" STEKVENS.
17* THIRD PART OF ACT?.
* I'll do thee service 6 for so good a gift.
* WAR. 'Twas I, that gave the kingdom to thy
brother.
K. EDW. Why, then 'tis mine, if but by War-
wick's gift.
6 WAR. Thou art no Atlas for so great a weight :
And, weakling, Warwick takes his gift again ;
And Henry is my king, Warwick his subject.
* K. EDW. But Warwick's king is Edward's pri-
soner :
* And, gallant Warwick, do but answer this,
What is the body, when the head is off?
' GLO. Alas, that Warwick had no more fore-
cast,
But, whiles he thought to steal the single ten,
' The king was slily finger' d from the deck ! 7
6 Pll do thee service ] i. e. enroll myself among thy depen-
dants. Cowell informs us, that servitium is '* that service which
the tenant, by reason of his fee, oweth unto his lord."
STEEVENS.
7 The king "was slily finger* d from Bedeck!] The quartos
read -finely finger'd.
Finely is subtly. So, in Holinshed's reign of King Henry VI.
p. 640: " In his way he tooke by fine force, a tower," &c.
Again, p. 649, " and byjine force either to win their pur-
pose, or end their lives in the same."
A pack of cards was anciently termed a deck of cards, or a pair
of cards. It is still, as I am informed, so called in Ireland. Thus,
in King Edward I. 1599 : " as it were, turned us, with duces
and trays, out of the deck"
Again, in The Two Maids of Moreclacke, 1609:
*' I'll deal the cards and cut you from the deck."
Again, in Selimus, Emperor of the Turks, 1594 :
" Well, if I chance but once to get the deck,
" To deal about and shuffle as I would." STEEVENS.
An instance of a pack of cards being called a deck, occurs in
the sessions paper, for January, 1788. So that the term appears
to be still in use. RITSON.
sc. i. KING HENRY VI.
You left poor Henry at the bishop's palace, 8
And, ten to one, you'll meet him in the Tower.
K.EDW. 'Tisevensoj yet you are Warwick still. 9
* GLO. Come, Warwick, take the time, 1 kneel
down, kneel down :
* Nay, when ? 3 strike now, or else the iron coolg.
* WAR. I had rather chop this hand off at a
blow,
* And with the other fling it at thy face,
* Than bear so low a sail, to strike to thee.
* K. EDW. Sail how thou canst, have wind and
tide thy friend ;
* This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,
* Shall, whiles the head is warm, and new cut off,
* Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood,
* Wind-changing Warwick now can change no more.
Enter OXFORD, with Drum and Colours.
* WAR. O cheerful colours ! see, where Oxford
comes !
OXF. Oxford, Oxford, for Lancaster !
[OXFORD and his Forces enter the City.
* the bishop* s palace,"] The palace of the bishop of Lon-
don. MALONE.
9 yet you are Warwick still.~] Thus the folio. The old
play reads and yet you are ould Warwick still. MALONE.
1 take the tlme^\ So, in Macbeth :
" but we'll take to-morrow."
An expression which Mr. Malone would change for" talk
to-morrow." See Vol. X. p. 145, n. 6. STEEVENS.
* Nay, when ?] This exclamation, expressive of impatience,
has already occurred in King Richard II. See Vol. XI. p. 12,
n. 5. STKBVBNS.
176 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
c GLO. The gates are open, let us enter too. 3
' K. EDW. So other foes may set upon our backs.
* Stand we in good array ; for they, no doubt,
* Will issue out again, and bid us battle :
c If not, the city, being but of small defence,
' We'll quickly rouse the traitors in the same.
WAR. O, welcome, Oxford! for we want thy help.
Enter MONTAGUE, with Drum and Colours.
MONT. Montague, Montague, for Lancaster !
\_He and his Forces enter the City.
6 GLO. Thou and thy brother both shall buy this
treason
* Even with the dearest blood your bodies bear.
* K. EDW. The harder match'd, the greater
victory ;
* My mind presageth happy gain, and conquest.
Enter SOMERSET, with Drum and Colours.
SOM. Somerset, Somerset, for Lancaster !
\JIe and his Forces enter the City.
GLO. Two of thy name, both dukes of Somerset,
Have sold their lives unto the house of York ; 4
And thou shalt be the third, if this sword hold.
3 The gates are open, let us enter too.~\ Thus the folio. The
quartos read :
" The gates are open, see, they enter in ;
" Let's follow them, and bid them battle in the streets.
" Ediv. No : so some other might set upon our backs,
" We'll stay till all be enter'd, and then follow them."
STEEVENS.
4 Two of thy name, both dukes of Somerset,
Have sold their lives unto the house of York;'] The firgt of
sc. /. KING HENRY VL 177
Enter CLARENCE, with Drum and Colours.
WAR. And lo, where George of Clarence sweeps
along,
Of force enough to bid his brother battle j 5
* With whom an upright zeal to right prevails,
* More than the nature of a brother's love :
* Come, Clarence, come ; thou wilt, if Warwick
calls.
CLAR. Father of Warwick, know you what this
means ?
[Taking the red Rose out of his Cap. 6
these noblemen was Edmund, slain at the battle of Saint Alban's,
1455. See Vol. XIII. p. 389. The second was Henry his son, be-
headed after the battle of Hexham, 1463. The present duke
Edmund, brother to Henry, was taken prisoner at Tewksbury,
147.1, and there beheaded, (infra, sc. v.) his brother John losing
his life in the same fight. RITSON.
s to bid his brother battle ;] Here the quartos conclude
this speech, and add the following :
** Clar. Clarence, Clarence, for Lancaster !
" Edw. Et tu brute ! wilt thou stab Caesar too ?
" A parly, sirra, to George of Clarence."
To bid battle is a phrase that often occurs in ancient writers.
Thus, in the Batrachomuomachia of Homer, as translated by
Chapman :
" O frogs ! the mice send threats to you of arms,
" And bid me bid you battle" STEEVENS.
This line of the old play, Et tu Brute ! &c. is found also in
Acolastus his Afterwitte, a poem by S. Nicholson, 1600 ; and
the Latin words, though not retained here, were afterwards
transplanted by Shakspeare into his Julius Casar, Act III.
MALONE.
6 Taking the red Rose out of his Cap.~\ This note of direc-
tion I restored from the old quarto. And without it , it is im-
possible that any reader can guess at the meaning of this line of
Clarence :
Look, here, I throw my infamy at thee. THEOBALD.
VOL. XIV. N
178 THIRD PART OF ACTV.
* Look here, I throw my infamy at thee :
I will not ruinate my father's house,
Who gave his blood to lime the stones 7 together,
* And set up Lancaster. Why, trow'st thou, War-
wick,
6 That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural, 8
* To bend the fatal instruments of war
* Against his brother, and his lawful king ? 9
* Perhaps, thou wilt object my holy oath :
* To keep that oath, were more impiety
* Than Jephtha's, 1 when he sacrific'd his daughter.
* I am so sorry for my trespass made,
* That, to deserve well at my brother's hands,
* I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe ;
* With resolution, wheresoe'er I meet thee,
* (As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad,)
* To plague thee for thy foul misleading me*
And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,
And to my brother turn my blushing cheeks.
* Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends j
7 to lime the stones ] That is, to cement the stones.
Lime makes mortar. JOHNSON.
8 That Clarence is so harsh, so blunt, unnatural,'] This line
(too long by a foot) was, in my opinion, interpolated by the
players, who appear the sworn enemies of an ellipsis. Omit the
words That and is, and no want of them will be felt by such
readers as are well acquainted with ancient language, Why,
conceivest thou, Warwick, Clarence so harsh, &c. ?
STEEVENS.
so blunt,"] Stupid, insensible of paternal fondness.
JOHNSON.
' To bend the fatal instruments of war
Against his brother, and his latyful king?"] Thus the folio.
The old play thus :
" To lift his sword against his brother's life."
MALONE.
1 Jephtha's, &c.} See the book of Judges, xi. 30.
STEEVENS,
sc. i. KING HENRY VI.
* And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,
c For "I will henceforth be no more unconstant.
' K. EDW. Now welcome more, and ten times
more belov'd,
Than if thou never hadst deserv'd our hate.
6 GLO. Welcome, good Clarence j this is brother-
like.
WAR. O passing traitor, 2 perjur'd, and unjust 1
K. EDW. What, Warwick, wilt thou leave the
town, and fight ?
Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears ?
* WAR. Alas, I am not coop'd here for defence :
I will away towards Barnet presently,
And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar'st.
K. EDW. Yes, Warwick, Edward dares, and leads
the way :
Lords, to the field j Saint George, and victory.
[March. Exeunt.
* passing traitor,"] Eminent, egregious ; traitorous be-
yond the common track of treason. JOHNSON.
So, in Othello :
" 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange."
S.TEEVINS.
1 80 THIRD PART OF ACT v.
SCENE II.
A Field ofBattk near Barnet.
Alarums, and Excursions. Enter King] EDWARD,
bringing in WARWICK wounded.
* K. EDW. So, lie thou there : die thou, and die
our fear ;
* For Warwick was a bug, that fear'd us all. 3
* Now, Montague, sit fast j I seek for thee,
* That Warwick's bones may keep thine company.
\JExit.
WAR. Ah, who is nigh ? come to me, friend, or
foe,
And tell me, who is victor, York, or Warwick ?
Why ask I that ? my mangled body shows,
* My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart
shows,
That I must yield my body to the earth,
And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.
Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,
- a bug, that fear'd its all."} Bug is a bugbear, a terri-
fick being. JOHNSON.
So, in Cymbeline :
" are become
" The mortal bugs of the field."
Again, in Stephen Gosson's Schoole of Abuse, 1579 : " These
bugs are fitter to fear babes than to move men." STEEVENS.
to fear in old language frequently signifies, to terrify.
MALONE.
So, in The Merchant of Venice :
" I tell thee, lady, this aspect of mine
" H&ihfear'd the valiant." STEEVENS.
sc. n. KING HENRY VI. 181
Whose arms 4 gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept ; 5
Whose top-branch overpeer'd Jove's spreading tree,
* And kept low shrubs from winter's powerful wind.
* These eyes, that now are dimm'd with death's
black veil,
* Have been as piercing as the mid-day sun,
* To search the secret treasons of the world :
The wrinkles in my brows, now fill'd with blood,
Were liken'd oft to kingly sepulchres ;
For who liv'd king, but I could dig his grave ?
And who durst smile, when Warwick bent his brow ?
Lo, now my glory smear 'd in dust and blood I
My parks, 6 my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me ; and, of all my lands,
Is nothing left me, but my body's length ! 7
4 Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge,
Whose arms &c.] It were better to read
Thus to the axe's edge the cedar yields,
Whose arms &c.
Otherwise, Whose arms will refer to the axe instead of the
cedar. STEEVENS.
* Thus yields the cedar to the axe's edge.
Whose arms gave shelter to the princely eagle,
Under whose shade the ramping lion slept ; &c.~] It has been
observed to me, that the 3 1st chapter of the prophet Ezekiel sug-
gested these images to Shakspeare. " All the fowls of heaven
made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all
the beasts of the field bring forth their young.'* STEEVENS.
6 My parks, &c.]
Cedes coemptis saltibus, et domo,
Villdque. Hor.
This mention of his parks and manors diminishes the pathetick
effect of the foregoing lines. JOHNSON.
7 and, of all my lands,
Is nothing left me, but my body's length /]
" Mors sola fatetur
" Quantula sint hominum corpuscula." Juv.
Camden mentions in his Remains, that Constantino, in order
182 THIRD PART OF ACT v.
Why, what is pomp, 8 rule, reign, but earth and
dust ?
And, live we how we can, yet die we must.
Enter OXFORD and SOMERSET.
* SOM. Ah, Warwick, Warwick ! 9 wert thou as
we are,
* We might recover all our loss again !
to dissuade a person from covetousness, drew out with his lance
the length and breadth of a man's grave, adding, " this is all
thou shalt have when thou art dead, if thou canst happily get so
much." MALONE.
8 iuhat is pomp, &c:] This and the following line make
no part of this speech in the old play; but were transposed by
Shakspeare from a subsequent speech, addressed by Warwick to
Somerset. MALONE.
9 Ak, Warwick, Warwick! &c.] These two speeches stand
thus in the quartos :
" Oxf. Ah, Warwick, Warwick ! chear up thyself,
and live ;
'* For yet there's hope enough to win the day.
" Our warlike queen with troops is come from France,
" And at Southampton landed hath her train ;
" And, might'st thou live, then would we never fly.
" War. Why, then I would not fly, nor have I now ;
" But Hercules himself must yield to odds :
" For many wounds receiv'd, and many more repaid,
" Hath robb'd my strong-knit sinews of their strength,
" And spite of spites needs must I yield to death."
STEEVENS.
One of these lines, " But Hercules," &c. Shakspeare has
transposed and inserted in the Messenger's account of the death
of the Duke of York. See p. 51. Not being aware of this,
I inadvertently marked that line as our author's, which I ought
not to have done. The three following lines have already been
spoken by Warwick in a former scene (see p. 72,) and there-
fore were here properly rejected by Shakspeare. MALONE.
ac f ii. KING HENRY VI. IBS
' The queen from France hath brought a puissant
power ;
* Even now we heard the news: Ah, could'st thou
fly!
* WAR. Why, then I would not fly. Ah, Mon-
tague,
* If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand,
* And with thy lips keep in my soul a while !
* Thou lov'st me not ; for, brother, if thou didst,
* Thy tears would wash this cold congealed blood,
* That glews my lips, and will not let me speak.
* Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.
' SOM. Ah, Warwick, Montague hath breath'd
his last ;
' And to the latest gasp, cried out for Warwick,
* And said Commend me to my valiant brother.
c And more he would have said; and more bespoke,
6 Which sounded like a cannon in a vault, 1
1 Which sounded like a cannon in a vault,"] The old quarto
reads clamour, which is undoubtedly right, i. e. a clamour of
tongues, which, as he says, could not be distinguished. This
was a pertinent similitude : the other absurd, and neither agrees
with what is predicated of it, nor with what it is intended to il-
lustrate. WARBURTON.
Which sounded like a cannon in a vault,
That might not be distinguished;^ That is, like the noise of a
cannon in a vault, 'which, &c. Shakspeare's alteration here is
perhaps not so judicious as many others that he has made. In
the old-play, instead of cannon, we have clamour, and the speech
stands thus :
" Thy brother Montague hath breath'd his last,
" And at the pangs of death I heard him cry,
" And say, commend me to my valiant brother ;
" And more he would have said, and more he said,
" Which sounded like a clamour in a vault,
" That could not be distinguish'd for the sound ;
" And so the valiant Montague gave up the ghost."
MALONE.
The indistinct gabble of undertakers, while they adjust a cof-
184 THIRL) PART OF ACT v.
* That might not be distinguished ; but, at last,
6 I well might hear delivered with a groan,
c O, farewell, Warwick !
WAR. Sweet rest to his soul I-
Fly, lords, and save yourselves ; for Warwick bids
You all farewell, to meet again in heaven. 2 [Dies.
OXF. Away, away, 3 to meet the queen's great
power !
[Exeunt, bearing (^WARWICK'S Body.
fin in a family vault, will abundantly illustrate the preceding
simile. Such a peculiar hubbub of inarticulate sounds, might
have attracted our author's notice : it has too often forced it-
self on mine. STEEVENS.
* to meet again in heaven."] I have supplied the word
ttgain, for the sake of metre, by the advice of Mr. Ritson, and
with countenance from the following line in King Richard III :
" Farewell, until we meet again in heaven."
STEEVENS.
3 Away, aiuay, &c,] Instead of this line, the quartos have
the following :
" Come, noble Somerset, let's take our horse,
" And cause retreat be sounded through the camp ;
" That all our friends remaining yet alive
" May be forewarn'd, and save themselves by flight.
" That done, with them we'll post unto the queen,
'* And once more try our fortune in the field."
STEEVENS.
It is unnecessary to repeat here an observation that has al-
ready been more than once made. I shall therefore only refer
to former notes. See p. 16, n. 2. MALONE.
sc. ///. KING HENRY VI. 185
SCENE III.
Another Part of the Field.
Flourish. Enter King EDWARD in triumph ; with
CLARENCE, GLOSTER, and the rest.
' K. EDW. Thus far our fortune keeps an up-
ward course,
* And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory. 4
* But, in the midst of this bright-shining day,
* I spy a black, suspicious, threat'ning cloud,
* That will encounter with our glorious sun,
4 Ere he attain his easeful western bed :
* I mean, my lords, those powers, 5 that the queen
4 Thus Jar our fortune keeps an upward course,
And we are grac'd with wreaths of victory.] Thus the folio.
The quartos thus :
" Thus still our fortune gives us victory,
" And girts our temples with triumphant joys.
" The big-bon'd traitor Warwick hath breath'd his last,
** And heaven this day hath smil'd upon us all."
STEEVENS.
It is observable, that the expression which Shakspeare had
substituted for " temples engirt with triumphant joys," occurs
again in King Richard III :
" Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, ."
Again, in his Rape ofLucrece ;
" Made glorious by his manly chivalry,
" With bruised arms, and wreaths of victory."
MALONE.
* I mean, my lords, those powers, &c.] Thus the folio.
The old play thus :
" I meane those powers which the queen hath got in
France,
" Are landed, and meane once more to menace us."
MALONE.
186 TH1KD TAKT OF ACT Y.
* Hath rais'd in Gallia, have arriv'd our coast, 6
And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.
* CLAR. A little gale will soon disperse that cloud,
* And blow it to the source from whence it came :
* Thy very beams will dry those vapours up ;
* For every cloud engenders not a storm.
* GLO. The queen is valu'd thirty thousand
strong,
* And Somerset, with Oxford, fled to her ;
* If she have time to breathe, be well assur'd.
Her faction will be full as strong as ours.
K. EDW. We are advertis'd by our loving friends,
That they do hold their course toward Tewksbury ;
' We having now the best at Barnet field,
e Will thither straight, For willingness rids way ;
e And, as we march, our strength will be augmented
In every county as we go along.
Strike up the drum j cry Courage ! and away. 7
[Exeunt.
' have arrived our coast,"] So, in Coriolanus :
** and now arriving
" A place of potency, ."
Again, in Julius Ccesar :
" But ere we could arrive the point propos'd, ."
Milton uses the same structure, Paradise Lost t B. II :
" ere he arrive
" The happy isle." STEEVENS.
7 Strike up the drum ; cry Courage ! and anay."] Thus the
folio. The quartos have the following couplet :
" Come, let's go ;
" For if we slack this faire bright summer's day,
" Sharp winter's showers will mar our hope for haie."
Something like this has occurred in p. 171. STEEVENS.
sc. iv. KING HENRY VI. 187
SCENE IV.
Plains near Tewksbury.
March. Enter Queen MARGARET, Prince ED-
WARD, SOMERSET, OXFORD, and Soldiers.
* Q. MAR. Great lords, 8 wise men ne'er sit and
wail their loss,
* But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
* What though the mast be now blown over-board,
* The cable broke, the holding anchor lost,
' And half our sailors swallow* d in the flood ?
* Yet lives our pilot still : Is't meet, that he
' Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,
* With tearful eyes add water to the sea,
8 Great lords, &c.] This speech in the old play stands thus :
" Queen. Welcome to England, my loving friends of
France,
" And welcome, Somerset and Oxford too.
" Once more have we spread our sails abroad ;
" And though our tackling be almost consumde,
" And Warwick as our maine-mast overthrowne,
Yet, warlike lordes, raise you that sturdie post
That bears the sailes to bring us unto rest.
And Ned and I, as willing pilots should,
For once, with careful mindes, guide on the Sterne,
To beare us through that dangerous gulfe,
" That heretofore hath swallowed up our friends."
There is perhaps no speech that proves more decisively than the
above, that The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses
of Yor/ce and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of the
Duke of Yorke, &c. printed in 1600, were the production of
some writer who preceded Shakspeare; and that what are now
called The Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. were
only a revisal and amplification of those pieces.
Here we have a thought which in the original play is expressed
in eleven lines, expanded by our author into thirty-seven lines.
MALONE.
188 TH1KU JPAKT OF ACT V.
* And give more strength to that which hath too
much ; 9
* Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,
* Which industry and courage might have sav'd ?
* Ah, what a shame ! ah, what a fault were this !
' Say, Warwick was our anchor ; What of that ?
* And Montague our top-mast ; What of him ?
* Our slaugbter'd friends the tackles; Whatof these?
* Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?
c And Somerset another goodly mast ?
c The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings?
< And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
* For once allow'd the skilful pilot's charge ?
* We will not from the helm, to sit and weep ;
* But keep our course, though the rough wind
say no,
* From shelves and rocks that threaten us with
wreck.
* As good to chide the waves, as speak them fair.
* And what is Edward, but a ruthless sea ?
9 With tearful eyes add 'water to the sea,
And give more strength to that luhich hath too much ;] See
note on As you like it y Vol. VIII. p. 44, n. 1. REED.
So, in our author's Lover's Complaint :
" Upon whose weeping margent she was set,
" Like usury, applying ivet to wet."
Again, in As you like it :
" Thou mak'st a testament
" As worl dings do, giving the sum of more
" To that luhich hath too much"
Again, in Romeo and Juliet:
" With tears augmenting the fresh morning dew."
So also, Spenser, in his Shepherd's Calendar, 1579:
" Thou, plenteous spring, hast lull'd me oft asleep,
" Whose streames my trickling tears did oft augment."
Of this thought, which we see Shakspeare has so often ex-
pressed, there is no trace in the old play. See note 8.
MALONE.
sc. IT.. KING HENRY VI. 189
* What Clarence, but a quicksand of deceit ?
* And Richard, but a ragged fatal rock ?
* All these the enemies to our poor bark.
* Say, you can swim ; alas, 'tis but a while :
* Tread on the sand; why, there you quickly sink :
* Bestride the rock ; the tide will wash you off,
* Or else you famish, that's a threefold death.
* This speak I, lords, to let you understand,
* In case some one of you would fly from us,
* That there's no hop'd-for mercy with thebrothers,
* More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and
rocks.
* Why, courage, then ! what cannot be avoided,
* 'Twere childish weakness to lament, or fear.
* PRINCE. Methinks, a woman 1 of this valiant
spirit
* Should, if a coward heard her speak these words,
* Infuse his breast with magnanimity,
* And make him, naked, foil a man at arms.
6 I speak not this, as doubting any here :
* For, did I but suspect a fearful man,
' He should have leave to go away betimes ;
1 Methinks, a ivoman &c.] In this speech there is much and
important variation in the quarto :
" Prince. And if there be (as God forbid there should)
* 'Mongst us a timorous or fearful man,
" Let him depart before the battles join ;
" Lest he in time of need entice another,
" And so withdraw the soldiers' hearts from us.
" I will not stand aloof, and bid you fight,
" But with my sword press in the thickest throngs,
" And single Edward from his strongest guard,
*' And hand to hand enforce him for to yield,
" Or leave my body, as witness of my thoughts."
STEEVENS.
Our author has availed himself of these lines in former scenes
of these plays. MALONE.
.
190 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
* Lest, in our need, he might infect another,
* And make him of like spirit to himself.
4 If any such be here, as God forbid !
' Let him depart, before we need his help.
* OXF. Women and children of so high a cou-
rage!
And warriors faint! why, 'twere perpetual shame.
6 O, brave young prince ! thy famous grandfather
Doth live again in thee ; Long may'st thou live,
To bear his image, and renew his glories !
c SOM. And he, that will not fight for such a hope,
* Go home to bed, and, like the owl by day,
e If he arise, be mock'd and wonder'd at. 2
* Q. MAR. Thanks, gentle Somerset ; sweet
Oxford, thanks.
* PRINCE. And take his thanks, that yet hath
nothing else.
Enter a Messenger.
' MESS. Prepare you,lords, 3 for Edward is at hand,
' Ready to fight ; therefore be resolute.
c OXF. I thought no less : it is his policy,
* To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.
But he's deceived, we are in readiness.
* If he arise, be mock'd and wondered at.] So the folio. The
old play thus ;
" Be hiss'd and wonder'd at, if he arise." MALONE.
' Prepare you, lords, &c.] In the old play these speeches
Stand thus :
" Mes. My lordes, duke Edward with a mightie power
" Is marching hitherward to fight with you.
" Oxf. I thought it was his policy to take us unprovided,
'* But here will we stand, and fight it to the death."
MALONK.
sc. 17. KING HENRY VI. 191
Q. MAR. This cheers my heart, to see your for-
wardness.
OXF. Here pitch our battle, hence we will not
budge.
March. Enter^ at a distance, King EDWARD,
CLARENCE, GLOSTER, and Forces.
* K* EDW. Brave followers, 4 yonder stands the
thorny wood,
' Which, by the heavens' assistance, and your
strength,
* Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.
* I need not add more fuel to your fire,
* For, well I wot, ye blaze to burn them out :
* Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords.
Q. MAR. Lords, knights, and gentlemen, what
I should say,
* My tears gainsay ; 5 for every word I speak,
* Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes. 6
4 K. Edw. Brave followers, &c.] This scene is ill-contrived,
in which the King and Queen appear at once on the stage at the
head of opposite armies. It had been easy to make one retire
before the other entered. JOHNSON.
4 My tears gainsay ;] To gainsay is to unsay, to deny, to con*
tradict. So, in A Knack to know a Knave, 1594:
" seeing my father grants,
" I will not gainsay" STEEVENS.
8 Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes.] This phrase is scrip-
tural : " Thou feedest them with the bread of tears, and givest
them tears to drink." Psalm Ixxxv. 5. STEEVENS.
So, in our author's Venus and Adonis :
" Dost thou drink tears, that thou provok*st such weep-
ing?"
These passages were probably recollected by Rowe, when he
wrote in his Jane Shore :
" Feed on my sighs, and drink my foiling tears."
So also, Pope, in the Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard .
" And drink the falling tears each other sheds."
192 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
c Therefore, no more but this : Henry, your sove-
reign, 7
* Is prisoner to the foe ; his state usurp'd,
* His realm a slaughter house, his subjects slain,
' His statutes cancell'd, and his treasure spent ;
' And yonder is the wolf, that makes this spoil.
* You fight in justice : then, in God's name, lords,
* Be valiant, and give signal to the fight.
[Exeunt both Armies.
SCENE V.
Another Part of the same.
Alarums : Excursions : and afterwards a Retreat.
Then Enter King EDWARD, CLARENCE, GLOS-
TER, and Forces ; with Queen MARGARET, Ox-
FORD, and SOMERSET, Prisoners.
6 K. EDW. Now, here a period of tumultuous
broils.
Away with Oxford to Hammes* castle 8 straight :
The folio has eye : but I imagine it was rather an error in
the transcriber than an alteration by Shakspeare. The old play
reads eyes. MALONE.
7 Henry, your sovereign, &c.] Instead of this and the
following lines, the original play has these :
" Henry your king is prisoner in the Tower ;
" His land and all our friends are quite distrest,
" And yonder stands the wolfe that makes all this,
" Then in God's name, lords, together crie saint George."
MALONE.
* to Hammes* castle ] A castle in Picardy, where Ox-
ford was confined for many years. MALONE.
to. v. KING HENRY VI. 193
For Somerset, 9 off with his guilty head.
' Go, bear them hence ; I will not hear them speak.
OXF. For my part, I'll not trouble thee with
words.
' SOM. Nor I, but stoop with patience to my
fortune.
\_~Exeunt OXFORD and SOMERSET, guarded.
* Q. MAR. So part we sadly in this troublous
world,
* To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.
* K. EDW. Is proclamation made, that, who
finds Edward,
* Shall have a high reward, and he his life ?
* GLO. It is : and, lo, where youthful Edward
comes.
Enter Soldiers, with Prince EDWARD.
* K. EDW. Bring forth the gallant, let us hear
him speak :
* What ! can so young a thorn begin to prick ? *
4 Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make,
' For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,
* And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to ? 3
9 For Somerset,"] Edmond Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, the
second son of Edmond Duke of Somerset who was killed at the
battle of Saint Albans. MALONE.
1 What ! can so young a thorn begin to prick ?] This is a
proverbial observation, which I find versified in " A Preaty In-
terlude, called Nice Wanton'"
" Early sharpe that wyll be thorne,
" Soone yll that wyll be naught," &c. STEEVENS.
* And all the trouble thou hast turn'd me to ?] This line was
one of Shakspeare's additions to the original play. We have al-
most the same words in The Tempest :
VOL. XIV. O
194 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
PRINCE. Speak like a subject, proud ambitious
York!
Suppose, that I am now my father's mouth ;
Resign thy chair, and, where I stand, kneel thou,
Whilst 1 propose the self-same words to thee,
Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.
Q. MAR. Ah, that thy father had been so re-
solv'd !
' GLO. That you might still have worn the pet-
ticoat,
And ne'er have stol'n the breech from Lancaster.
PRINCE. Let ^Esop 3 fable in a winter's night ;
His currish riddles sort not with this place.
GLO. By heaven, brat, I'll plague you for that
word.
Q. MAR. Ay, thou wast born to be a plague to
men,
GLO. For God's sake, take away this captive
scold.
PRINCE. Nay, take away this scolding crook-
back rather.
' K. EDW. Peace, wilful boy, or I will charm
your tongue. 4
O, my heart bleeds,
** To think of the teen [i. e. trouble] that I have turn'd
you to."
In the old play Prince Edward is not brought forth as here,
but enters with his mother ; and after Oxford and Somerset are
carried off, he is thus addressed by the King :
" Now, Edward, what satisfaction canst thou make,
" For stirring up my subjects to rebellion ?" MA LONE.
3 Let JEsop &c.] The Prince calls Richard, for his crooked-
ness, ^Esop; and the poet, following nature, makes Richard
highly incensed at the reproach. JOHNSON.
4 charm your tongue."] The quarto reads tame your
tongue.
sc. v. KING HENRY VI. 195
CLAR. Untutor'd lad, thou art too malapert.
PRINCE. I know my duty, you are all undutiful :
Lascivious Edward, and thou perjur'd George,
And thou misshapen Dick, I tell ye all,
I am your better, traitors as ye are ;
* And thou usurp'st my father's right and mine.
K. EDW. Take that, the likeness of this railer
here. 5 \_Stabs him.
The former is best. So, in Sir A. Gorges' translation of Lu-
can, 1614 :
" In hope that thy victorious arme
" Their dunghill crowing so will charme" STEEVENS.
This is the right reading. So, in Cynthia's Revels, Mercury
says to Cupid :
" How now, my dancing braggart ! charm your tongue"
And, in The Taming of the Shrew, Lucentio says :
" But I will charm him first to keep his tongue."
M. MASON.
The expression which our author substituted, is one that he
has often used. See Vol. XIII. p. 314-, n. 1. The meaning is,
I will compel you to be as silent, as you would be, if you were
charm'd, if you were deprived of speech by the power of in-
chantment. MALONE.
4 the likeness of this railer here. &c.] Thou that resem-
blest thy railing mother. JOHNSON.
That is, thou who art the likeness, &c. Mr. Rowe and the
other modern editors read thou likeness, and so we should now
write ; but the other was the phraseology of Shakspeare's time.
So, in Julius C<zsar :
" The last of all the Romans, fare thee well."
In that passage, as in the present, Mr. Rowe substituted thou
for the, though Shakspeare has employed the very words he
found in North's translation of Plutarch. MALONE.
The old copies describe Edward as striking the first blow, and
Gloster the next ; and, I believe, rightly, for history informs us
that Edward smote the Prince with his gauntlet, on which the
rest despatch'd him. The words sprawl* st thou ? seem evidently
to belong to Richard ; and I have therefore continued them to
him on the authority of ancient editions, in preference to the
allotment of modern innovation. See edit. 1765, Vol. V. p. 217.
STEEVENS.
O 2
196 THIRD PART OF ACTF.
* GLO. Sprawl' st thou ? take that, to end thy
agony. [GLO. stabs him.
* CLAR. And there's for twitting me with per-
jury. [CLAR. stabs him.
Q. MAR. O, kill me too !
GLO. Marry, and shall. [Offers to kill her.
' K.Enw. Hold, Richard, hold, for we have done
too much.
GLO. Why should she live, to fill the world with
words? 6
' K. EDW. What ! doth she swoon ? use means
for her recovery.
GLO. Clarence, excuse me to the king my brother;
' I'll hence to London on a serious matter :
* Ere ye come there, be sure to hear some news.
CLAR. What ? what ?
' GLO. The Tower, the Tower ! 7 [Exit.
' Q. MAR. O, Ned, sweet Ned ! speak to thy
mother, boy !
' Canst thou not speak ! O traitors ! murderers !
They, that stabb'd Caesar, shed no blood at all,
Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,
* If this foul deed were by, to equal it.
* He was a man ; this, in respect, a child ;
And men ne'er spend their fury on a child.
' What's worse than murderer, that I may name it ?
6 with words ? ] i.e. dispute, contention. So, in a for-
mer of these plays :
" Some words there grew 'twixt Somerset and me."
STEEVENS.
7 The Tower, the Tower /] The quarto adds Ptt root them,
out ', but, perhaps, injudiciously : and yet, without these words
the metre is imperfect. STEKVENS.
K. r. KING HENRY VI. 197
* No, no ; my heart will burst, an if I speak :
* And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.
* Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals !
* How sweet a plant have you untimely cropp'd !
' You have no children, butchers ! 8 if you had,
' The thought of them would have stirr'd up re-
morse :
' But, if you ever chance to have a child,
Look in his youth to have him so cut off,
* As, deathsmen ! you have rid this sweet young
prince i?
You have no children, butchers /] The same sentiment is re-
peated by Macduff, in the tragedy of Macbeth ; and this pas-
age may serve as a comment on that. BLACKSTONE.
The original play reads :
" You have no children, devils ; if you had,
" The thought of them would then have stopt your rage. 1 *
This thought occurring also (as Sir William Blackstone has
observed,) in Macbeth, [See Vol. X. p. 249, n. 7.] may per-
haps be urged as a proof of Shakspeare's being the author of the
first draught, as well as of the alterations and additions to it.
But how many thoughts and even expressions has he borrowed
from preceding writers ? Having ( as I suppose ) greatly enlarged,
and almost new-written, this and thepreceding play, the thoughts
they contain, whether found in the first copy, or his amplifica-
tion of it, Vere as likely to recur in a future piece, as any of
those which he has employed in one originally written by him-
self. In his original plays he frequently borrowed from himself.
MALONE.
9 you have rid this stveet young prince /] The condition
of this warlike Queen would move compassion, could it be for-
gotten that she gave York, to wipe his eyes in his captivity, a
handkerchief stained with his young child's blood. JOHNSON.
But surely it does move our compassion, though that be not
forgotten. When we see any of our fellow-creatures involved
in deep distress, from a just and tender cause, we attend only to
their present sufferings, and not to their former crimes.
M. MASON.
198 THIRD PART OF ACT v.
K. EDW. Away with her ; go, bear her hence
perforce.
Q. MAR. Nay, never bear me hence, despatch
me here ;
Here sheath thy sword, I'll pardon thee my death :
What ! wilt thou not ? then, Clarence, do it thou.
CLAR. By heaven, I will not do thee so much
ease.
Q. MAR. Good Clarence, do ; sweet Clarence,
do thou do it. 1
CLAR. Didst thou not hear me swear, I would
not do it ?
Q. MAR. Ay, but thou usest to forswear thyself;
'Twas sin before, 2 but now 'tis charity.
* What ! Wilt thou not ? where is that devil's
butcher,
Hard-favour' d Richard ? 3 Richard, where art thou?
Thou art not here : Murder is thy alms-deed ;
Petitioners for blood thou ne'er put'st back.
1 do thou do it.~] The old play reads kill me too.
MALONE.
* 9 Tuias sin before ,] She alludes to the desertion of Clarence.
JOHNSON.
3 where is that devil's butcher,
Hard favour' d Richard ?] Thus all the editions. But devil's
butcher, in other terms, I think, is kill-devil : rare news for the
free-thinkers, if there were any grounds for depending on it.
But the poet certainly wrote devil-butcher; and the first part of
the compound is to be taken adjectively, meaning execrable, in-
fernal, devilish. THEOBALD.
Devil's butcher, is a butcher set on by the devil. Either
reading may serve without so long a note. JOHNSON.
The folio adds, at the end of this line, the word Richard.
But both the metre and the old play show that it was an acci-
dental repetition by the transcriber, or compositor. MAI/ONE.
W. vi. KING HENRY VI. 199
' K. EDW. Away, I say j I charge ye, bear her
hence.
Q. MAR. So come to you, and yours, as to this
prince ! [Exit, led out forcibly.
K. EDW. Where's Richard gone ?
' CLAR. To London, all in post ; and, as I guess,
To make a bloody supper in the Tower.
K. EDW. He's sudden, if a thing comes in his
head.
* Now march we hence j discharge the common
sort
' With pay and thanks, and let's away to London,
* And see our gentle queen how well she fares ;
* By this, I hope, she hath a son for me.
[Exeunt.
SCENE VI,
London. A Room in the Tower.
King HENRY is discovered sitting with a Book in
his Handy the Lieutenant attending. Enter
GLOSTER.
GLO. Good day, my lord! What, at your book so
hard?
K. HEN. Ay, my good lord : My lord, I should
say rather ;
'Tis sin to flatter, good was little better :
Good Gloster, and good devil, were alike,
* And both preposterous ; therefore, not good lord.
* GLO. Sirrah, leave us to ourselves: we must
confer. \_Exit Lieutenant.
200 THIRD PART OF ACT r,
* K. HEN. So flies the reckless shepherd from
the wolf:
* So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece,
* And next his throat unto the butcher's knife.
What scene of death hath Roscius now to act ? 4
4 What scene of death hath Roscius now to act ?~\ Roscius was
certainly put for Richard by some simple conceited player who
had heard of Roscius and of Rome ; but did not know that he
was an actor in comedy, not in tragedy. WARBURTON.
Shakspeare had occasion to compare Richard to some player
about to represent a scene of murder, and took the first or only
name of antiquity that occurred to him, without being very
scrupulous about its propriety.
I know not, however, that it is proved, on classical authority,
that Roscius, though generally a comedian, was no occasional
actor in tragedy. Nash, in Pierce Penniless's Supplication to
the Devil, 1592, says : " Not Roscius nor JEsope, those ad-
mired tragedians, that have lived ever since before Christ was
born, could ever performe more in action than famous Ned
Allen."
Again, in Acolastus his Aftertvitte, 1600 :
" Through thee each murthering Roscius is appointed
" To act strange scenes of death on God's anointed."
Again, in Certaine Satyr es, 1598 :
" Was penn'd by Roscio the tragedian." STEEVENS.
What scene of death hath Roscius wore to act ?~] So, in Acolas-
tus his Afterwitte, a poem, 1600 :
*' What bloody scene hath cruelty to act ?"
Dr. Warburton reads Richard instead of Roscius, because
Roscius was a comedian. That he is right in this assertion, is
proved beyond a doubt by a passage in Quintilian, cited by W. R.
[probably Sir Walter Rawlinson] in The Gentleman's Maga-
zine, Vol. LIV. P. II. p. 886 : " Roscius citatior, ./Esopus gra-
vior fuit, quod ille comcedias, hie tragcedias egit." QUINTIL. Lib.
XL c. iii. But it is not in Quintilian or in any other ancient
writer we are to look in order to ascertain the text of Shakspeare.
Roscius was called a tragedian by our author's contemporaries,
as appears from the quotations in the preceding note ; and this
was sufficient authority to him, or rather to the author of the
original play, for there this line is found. MALONE.
sc. vi. KING HENRY VI. 201
GLO. Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind j
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
* K. HEN. The bird, that hath been limed in a
bush,
c With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush : 5
And I, the hapless male 6 to one sweet bird,
Have now the fatal object in my eye,
Where my poor young was lim'd, was caught, and
kill'd.
* GLO. Why, what a peevish fool 7 was that of
Crete,
' That taught his son the office of a fowl ?
' And yet, for all his wings, the fool was drown* d. 8
* misdoubteth every bush:'] To misdoubt is to suspect
danger, to fear. So, in Humour out of Breath, a comedy by
John Day, 1608 :
" Hip. Doubt and misdoubt! what difference is there here?
" Oct. Yes, much: when men misdoubt, 'tis said they fear."
STEEVENS.
6 hapless male ] The word male is here used in a very
uncommon sense, not for the male of the female, but for the
male parent: the sweet bird is evidently his son Prince Edward.
M. MASON.
7 peevishybo/ ] As peevishness is the quality of chil-
dren, peevish seems to signify childish, and by consequence silly.
Peevish is explained by childish, in a former note of Dr. War-
burton. JOHNSON.
Shakspeare employs the word peevish in the same sense in
Cymbeline, where the reader will find many instances of this use
of it. STEEVENS.
This epithet which Shakspeare has so frequently employed, was
one of his additions to the original play.
The ordinary signification of peevish in our poet's time was
foolish. See Minsheu's Diet. 1617, in v. MALONE.
8 the office of a fowl ?
And yet, for all his tvings, the fool ivas drown'd.'] The old
play reads :
" the office of a bird?
" And yet for all that the poor foul was drown'd."
MALONE.
202 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
* K. HEN. I, Daedalus ; my poor boy, Icarus ;
Thy father, Minos, that denied our course ;
* The sun, that sear'd the wings of my sweet boy,
4 Thy brother Edward ; and thyself, the sea,
4 Whose envious gulf did swallow up his life.
* Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!
* My breast can better brook thy dagger's point,
Than can my ears that tragick history.
* But wherefore dost thou come ? is't for my life ?
4 GLO. Think'st thou, I am an executioner ?
K. HEN. A persecutor, I am sure, thou art ;
4 If murdering innocents be executing,
4 Why, then thou art an executioner.
GLO. Thy son I kill'd for his presumption.
K. HEN. Hadst thou been kill'd, when first thou
didst presume,
Thou hadst not hVd to kill a son of mine.
4 And thus I prophecy, that many a thousand,
4 Which now mistrust no parcel of my fear ; 9
* And many an old man's sigh, and many a widow's,
4 And many an orphan's water-standing eye,
4 Men for their sons, wives for their husbands' fate, 1
4 And orphans for their parents' timeless death, 2
4 Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.
The owl shriek' d at thy birth, an evil sign ;
4 The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time ;
9 Which notv mistrust no parcel ofmyfoari\ Who suspect no
part of what my fears presage. JOHNSON.
* Men for their sons, wives for their husbands' fate,] The
vror&-fate was supplied by the editor of the second folio.
MALONE.
* And orphans &c.] The word and, which is necessary to
the metre, and is wanting in the first folio, was supplied by the
second. STEEVENS.
sc. vi. KING HENRY VI. 203
Dogs howPd, and hideous tempests shook down
trees ;
The raven rook'd her 3 on the chimney's top,
And chattering pies in dismal discords sung.
Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain,
And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope j
' To wit, an indigest 4 deformed lump,
Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.
Teeth hadst thou in thy head, when thou wast
born,
* The raven rook'd her ] To rook, or rather to ruck, is a
north-country word, signifying to squat down, or lodge on any
thing.
So, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, Mr. Tyrwhitt's edit. v. 1310:
" What is mankind more unto you yhold,
" Than is the shepe, that rouketh in the fold?"
Again, in the Nonnes Preestes Tale, ibid. v. 15,232 :
" O false morderour, rucking in thy den."
Again, in the Preface to Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil,
1582:
" I cannot devine upon such bookes that happlye rouke in
studentes mewes," &c.
Again, in the translation of the IVth Book :
" Also on the turrets the skrich howle, &c.
" doth ruck," &c.
Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. VII. ch. xxxvii:
" Have lazy wings, be ever lean, in sullen corners ruck**
Again, in Golding's translation of the 6th Book of Ovid's
Metamorphosis :
" The furies made the bridegrome's bed, and on the house
did rucke
" A cursed owle the messenger of ill successe and lucke."
Again, in the 15th Book :
" He rucketh downe upon the same, and in the spices
dies." STEEVENS.
4 an indigest ] The folio has indigested. But the
metre and the old play show that it was a misprint. Shakspeare
uses the word indigest in King John. MALONE.
" rudis indigestaque moles'* Ovid. Met. I. 7.
DOUCE.
204 THIRD PART OF ACTV.
To signify, thou cam'st to bite the world :
And, if the rest be true which I have heard,
* Thou cam'st 5
GLO. I'll hear no more ; Die, prophet, in thy
speech ; [Stabs him.
For this, amongst the rest, was I ordain' d.
K. HEN. Ay, and for much more slaughter after
this.
O God! forgive my sins, and pardon thee ! [Dies.
GLO. What, will the aspiring blood of Lancaster
Sink in the ground ? I thought it would have
mounted.
See, how my sword weeps for the poor king's death !
e O, may such purple tears be always shed
* From those that wish the downfal of our house!
' If any spark of life be yet remaining, 6
5 Andy if the rest be true which I have heard,
Thou cam'st ~] Had our editors had but a grain of sagacity,
or true diligence, there could have been no room for this absurd
break, since they might have ventured to fill it up with certainty
too. The old quarto would have led them part of the way :
Thou cam'st into the world
And that the verse is to be completed in the manner I have
given it, is incontestible ; for unless we suppose King Henry
actually reproaches him with this his preposterous birth, how can
Richard in his very next soliloquy say :
" Indeed, 'tis true, that Henry told me of;
'* For I have often heard my mother say,
" I came into the world with my legs forward.'*
I can easily see, that this blank was caused by the nicety of the
players, to suppress an indecent idea. But, with submission,
this was making but half a cure, unless they had expunged the
repetition of it out of Richard's speech too. THEOBALD.
Thou cam'st ] Thus the folio. The old play as follows:
" Thou cam'st into the "world
" Glo. Die prophet in thy speech; I'll hear no more."
MALONE.
' If any spark of life be yet remaining,] So, in the 6th Book
x. vi. KING HENRY VI. 205
Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither,
[Stabs him again.
I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.
Indeed, 'tis true, that Henry told me of ; 7
For I have often heard my mother say,
I came into the world with my legs forward:
Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste,
' And seek their ruin that usurp'd our right?
The midwife wonder'd ; and the women cried,
O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!
' And so I was ; which plainly signified
That I should snarl, and bite, and play the dog.
' Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so.
Let hell 8 make crook* d my mind to answer it.
of Ovid's Metamorphosis, translated by Arthur Golding,
1587:
" If any sparke of nature do within thy hart remaine."
STEEVKNS.
7 that Henry told me of;~\ Namely, that my birth was
attended with singular circumstances Theobald, grounding
himself on this and the two following lines, reads in a former
passage
" Thou cam'st into the luorld with fhy legs forward."
for " how," (says he,) can Richard say, " Indeed 'tis true that
Henry told me of," &c. " unless we suppose King Henry re-
proached him with his preposterous birth?" But surely Henry
has done so in the last ten lines of his speech, though he is at
length prevented by the fatal stab from mentioning ^further proof
of Richard's being born for the destruction of mankind. Theo-
bald's addition therefore to that line, has, I think, been adopted
too hastily by the subsequent editors, and the interruption in the
midst of Henry's speech appears to me not only preferable, as
warranted by the old copies, and by Gloster's subsequent words,,
[Die, prophet, in thy speech;] but more agreeable to nature.
MALONE.
* Let hell &c.] This line Dryden seems to have thought on
in his Oedipus .
" It was thy crooked mind hunch'd out thy back,
" And wander'd in thy limbs." STEEVENS.
206 THIRD PART OF ACTY.
I have no brother, I am like no brother :
' And this word love, which greybeards call di-
vine,
Be resident in men like one another,
And not in me ; I am myself alone.
Clarence, beware; thou keep'st me from the light j
But I will sort a pitchy day for thee : 9
For I will buz abroad such prophecies,
* That Edward shall be fearful of his life j 1
And then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.
* King Henry, and the prince his son, are gone :
* Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest ;
Counting myself but bad, till I be best.
* I'll throw thy body in another room,
And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom. [Exit.
After this line, we find in the old play the following:
" I had no father, I am like no father.'*
It might have been omitted in the folio merely by accident,
(as some lines in The Second Part of King Henry VI. certainly
were,) but its restoration is not necessary, for the sense is com-
plete without it. MALONE.
6 But I will sort a pitchy day for ihee:~\ But I will choose out
an hour whose gloom shall be as fatal to you. To sort is to select .
So, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1605:
" for they had sorted leisure."
Again, in The Lover's Melancholy, 1629:
" We shall sort time to take more notice of him.'*
STEEVENS.
1 For I will buz abroad such prophecies,
That Edward shall be fearful of his life;'] The quartos add
a line between these:
" such prophecies,
" Under pretence of outward seeming ill,
" That," &c. STEEVENS.
This line is not in the quarto printed by W. W. 1600; but it
is in the undated quarto, which in fact was printed in 1619,
from that printed in 1600 by V. S. MALONE.
sc. vu. KING HENRY VI. 207
SCENE VII.
The same. A Room in the Palace.
King EDWARD is discovered sitting on his Throne;
Queen ELIZABETH with the infant Prince, CLA-
RENCE, GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and Others, near
him.
K. EDW. Once more we sit in England's royal
throne,
Re-purchas'd with the blood of enemies.
What valiant foe-men, like to autumn's corn,
Have we mow'd down, 2 in tops of all their pride ?
Three dukes of Somerset, threefold renown* d
For hardy and undoubted champions :
Two Cliffords, as the father and the son,
And two Northumberlands ; two braver men
Ne'er spurr'd their coursers at the trumpet's sound :
* With them, the two brave bears, Warwick and
Montague,
That in their chains fetter'd the kingly lion,
And made the forest tremble when they roar'd.
Thus have we swept suspicion from our seat,
And made our footstool of security.
Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy :
Young Ned, for thee, thine uncles, and myself,
Have in our armours watch'd the winter's night ;
* like to autumn's corn,
Have iue mow'd down,] A kindred image occurs in King
Henry V. p. 378 :
" mowing like grass
" Your fresh-fair virgins, and your flow'ring infants."
STEEVENS.
208 THIRD PART OF ACT r.
4 Went all a foot in summer's scalding heat,
That thou might'st repossess the crown in peace j
And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.
GLO. I'll blast his harvest, if your head were laid;.
For yet I am not look'd on in the world.
This shoulder was ordain'd so thick, to heave ;
And heave it shall some weight, or break my back:
Work thou the way, and thou shalt execute. 3
[Aside.
K. EDW. Clarence, and Gloster, love my lovely
queen ;
And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.
CLAR. The duty, that I owe unto your majesty,
I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe.
K. EDW. Thanks, noble Clarence j worthy bro-
ther, thanks.*
* Work thou the way, and thou shalt execute.'] I believe we
should read :
and this shall execute.
Richard laying his hand on his forehead says:
Work thou the tvay
then bringing down his hand, and beholding it :
and this shall execute.
Though that may stand, the arm being included in the shoulder.
JOHNSON.
The quartos read:
" Work thou the way, and thou shalt execute."
I suppose he speaks this line, first touching his head, and then
looking on his hand. STEEVENS.
This is the reading of the old play. The folio reads and that
shalt execute. But as the word shalt is preserved, the other
must have been an error of the transcriber or compositor.
MALONE.
4 Thanks, noble Clarence; worthy brother, thanks.'] The
quarto appropriates this line to the Queen. The first and second
folio, by mistake, have given it to Clarence.
In my copy of the second folio, which had belonged to
sc. vn. KING HENRY VL 209
' GLO. And, that I love the tree from whence
thou sprang'st,
* Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit :
To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his"|
master; Aside
' And cried all hail ! when as he meant f
all harm.
+ *
K. EDW. Now am I seated as my soul delights,
Having my country's peace, and brothers' loves.
CLAR. What will your grace have done with
Margaret ?
Reignier, her father, to the king of France
Hath pawn'd the Sicils and Jerusalem,
And hither have they sent it for her ransome.
K. EDW. Away with her, and waft her hence to
France.
And now what rests, but that we spend the time
With stately triumphs, 5 mirthful comick shows,
Such as befit the pleasures of the court ? -
Sound, drums and [trumpets ! farewell, sour an-
noy!
For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy. \_Ezeunt.
King Charles the First, his Majesty has erased Cla, and written
King, in its stead. Shakspeare, therefore, in the catalogue of his
restorers, may boast of a Royal name. STEEVENS.
4 With stately triumphs,] Triumphs are publick shows. This
word has occurred too frequently to need exemplification in the
present instance. STEEVENS.
VOL. XIV.
210 THIRD PART OF
THE following SUMMARY ACCOUNT* of the times and
places of the several battles fought between the two houses of
York and Lancaster, and of the numbers killed on both sides,
is given by Trussel, at the end of his History of England, a book
of little value, but in matters of this kind tolerably correct. I
have compared his account with our earliest historians, and in
some places corrected it by them.
1. THE BATTLE OF SAINT ALBANS, fought on the 23d of
May 1455, between Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and
King Henry VI. In this battle the Duke of York was victorious,
and Henry was taken prisoner.
KILLED, on the royal side 5041, (among whom were Ed-
mond Duke of Somerset, Henry Earl of Northumberland,
Humphrey Earl of Stafford, and Thomas Lord Clifford ;) on the
side of the Duke of York, 600. TOTAL 5641.
2. THE BATTLE OF BLOARHEATH in Shropshire, fought on
the 30th of September 1459, between James Lord Audley on
the part of King Henry, and Richard Nevil Earl of Salisbury on
the part of the Duke of York ; in which battle Lord Audley was
slain, and his army defeated.
KILLED 2411.
3. THE BATTLE OF NORTHAMPTON, 20th of July, 1460,
between Edward Plantagenet, Earl of March, eldest son of the
Duke of York, and Richard Nevil Earl of Warwick, on the
one side, and King Henry on the other ; in which the Yorkists
were victorious.
KILLED 1035, among whom were John Talbot Earl of
Shrewsbury, Humphrey Duke of Buckingham, and Sir William
Lucy.
4. THE BATTLE OF WAKEFIELD, December 30, 1460, be-
tween Richard Duke of York and Queen Margaret ; in which
the Duke of York was defeated.
KILLED 2801, among whom were the Duke of York, Ed-
mond Earl of Rutland his second son, Sir John and Sir Hugh
Mortimer, his base uncles, and the Earl of Shrewsbury. Richard
Nevil Earl of Salisbury was in this battle taken prisoner, and
afterwards beheaded at Pomfret.
5. THE BATTLE OF MORTIMER'S CROSS, in Herefordshire,
* Mr. Ritson, among his RemarTts, 1783, p. 130, has also enumerated
the following battles, &c. but as Mr. Malone's subsequent account of the same
occurrences is the more ample of the two, I have adopted it. STEEVENS.
KING HENRY VI. 211
on Candlemas-day, 1460-1, between Edward Duke of York,
on the one side, and Jasper Earl of Pembroke, and James But-
ler Earl of Wiltshire, on the other ; in which the Duke of York
was victorious.
KILLED 3800, among whom was Sir Owen Tuther or
Tudors, who married Queen Katharine, the widow of King
Henry V.
6. THE SECOND BATTLE OF SAINT ALBANS, February 17,
1460-1, between Queen Margaret on the one side, and the Duke
of Norfolk and the Earl of Warwick on the other ; in which
the Queen obtained the victory.
KILLED 2303 ; among whom was Sir John Grey, a Lancas-
trian, whose widow, Lady Grey, afterwards married King Ed-
ward the Fourth.
7. THE ACTION AT FERRYBRIDGE, in Yorkshire, March
28, 1461, between Lord Clifford on the part of King Henry,
and the Lord Fitzwalter on the part of the Duke of York.
KILLED 230, among whom were Lord Fitzwalter, John
Lord Clifford, and the bastard son of the Earl of Salisbury.
8. THE BATTLE OF TOWTON, four miles from York, Palm-
Sunday, March 29, 1461, between Edward Duke of York and
King Henry ; in which King Henry was defeated.
KILLED 37,046, among whom were Henry Percy Earl of
Northumberland, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and the Lords Nevil,
Beaumond, Willoughby, Wells, Roos, Gray, Dacres, and Fitz-
hugh. The Earl of Devonshire was taken prisoner, and soon
afterwards beheaded at York.
9. THE BATTLE OF HEDGELEY MOOR, in Northumberland,
April 29, 1463, between John Nevil Viscount Montague, on
the part of King Edward IV. and the Lords Hungerford and
Roos on the part of King Henry VI: in which the Yorkists were
victorious.
KILLED 108, among whom was Sir Ralph Percy.
10. THE BATTLE OF HEXHAM, May 15, 1463, between
Viscount Montague and King Henry, in which that King was
defeated.
KILLED 2024. Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and
the Lord Roos and Hungerford, fighting on the side of King
Henry, were taken prisoners, and soon afterwards beheaded.
11. THE BATTLE OF HEDGECOTE, four miles from Banbury,
July 25, 1469, between William Herbert Earl of Pembroke, on
the part of King Edward, and the Lords Fitzhugh and Latimer,
P 2
212 THIRD PART OF
and Sir John Conyers, on the part of King Henry ; in which
the Lancastrians were defeated.
KILLED 5009. The Earl of Pembroke and his brother,
Richard Widville Earl of Rivers, father to King Edward's Queen,
Sir John Widville, John Tiptoft Earl of Worcester, the Lords
Willoughby, Stafford, and Wells, were taken prisoners, and soon
afterwards beheaded.
13. THE BATTLE OF STAMFORD, in Lincolnshire^ October 1,
1469, between Sir Robert Wells and King Edward; in which
the former was defeated and taken prisoner. The vanquished
who fled, in order to lighten themselves, threw away their coats,
whence the place of combat was called Losecoatfield.
KILLED 10,000.
14. THE BATTLE OF BARNET, on Easter-Sunday, April 14,
1471, between King Edward on one side, and the Earl of War-
wick, the Marquis of Montague, and the Earl of Oxford, on the
part of King Henry VI. in which the Lancastrians were defeated.
KILLED 10,300; among whom were the Earl of Warwick,
the Marquis of Montague, the Lord Cromwell, and the son and
heir of Lord Say.
In a letter which was written at London four days after
the battle of Barnet, the total number killed on both sides is
said to have been " more than a thousand" Paston Letters,
Vol. II. p. 65. Fabian, the nearest contemporary historian, says
1500.
The custom among our old writers of using Arabick numerals,
has been the cause of innumerable errors, the carelessness of a
transcriber or printer by the addition of a cipher converting hun-
dreds into thousands. From the inaccuracy in the present in-
stance we have ground to suspect that the numbers said to have
fallen in the other battles between the houses of York and Lan-
caster, have been exaggerated. Sir John Paston, who was him-
self at the battle of Barnet, was probably correct.
15. THE BATTLE OF TEWKSBURY, May 3, 1471, between
King Edward and Queen Margaret, in which the Queen was
defeated, and she and her son Prince Edward were taken prisoners.
On the next day the Prince was killed by King Edward and
his brothers, and Edmond Duke of Somerset beheaded.
KILLED 3,032. Shortly afterwards, in an action between
the bastard son of Lord Falconbridge and some Londoners, 1092
persons were killed.
16. THE BATTLE OF BoswoRTH,in Leicestershire, August 22,
1485, between King Richard III. and Henry Earl of Richmond,
KING HENRY VI.
afterwards King Henry VII. in which King Richard was defeated
and slain.
KILLED, on the part of Richard, 4-,013, among whom were
John Duke of Norfolk, and Walter Lord Ferrers ; on the part
of Richmond, 181.
THE TOTAL NUMBER of persons who fell in this contest, was
NINETY-ONE THOUSAND AND TWENTY-SIX. MALONE.
The three parts of King Henry VI. are suspected, by Mr.
Theobald, of being supposititious, and are declared, by Dr. War-
burton, to be certainly not Shakspeare's. Mr. Theobald's suspi-
cion arises from some obsolete words ; but the phraseology is like
the rest of our author's style, and single words, of which how-
ever I do not observe more than two, can conclude little.
- Dr. Warburton gives no reason, but I suppose him to judge
upon deeper principles and more comprehensive views, and to
draw his opinion from the general effect and spirit of the compo-
sition, which he thinks inferior to the other historical plays.
From mere inferiority nothing can be inferred; in the produc-
tions of wit there will be inequality. Sometimes judgment will
err, and sometimes the matter itself will defeat the artist. Of
every author's works one will be the best, and one will be the
worst. The colours are not equally pleasing, nor the attitude*
equally graceful, in all the pictures of Titian or Reynolds.
Dissimilitude of style and heterogeneousness of sentiment, may
sufficiently show that a work does not really belong to the reputed
author. But in these plays no such marks of spuriousness are
found. The diction, the versification, and the figures, are Shak-
speare's. These plays, considered, without regard to characters
and incidents, merely as narratives in verse, are more happily
conceived, and more accurately finished than those of K. John,
Richard II. or the tragick scenes of King Henry IV. and V. If
we take these plays from Shakspeare, to whom shall they be
given ? What author of that age had the same easiness of ex-
pression and fluency of numbers ?
Having considered the evidence given by the plays themselves,
and found it in their favour, let us now enquire what corrobora-
tion can be gained from other testimony. They are ascribed to
Shakspeare by the first editors, whose attestation may be received
in questions of fact, however unskilfully they superintended
their edition. They seem to be declared genuine by the voice
of Shakspeare himself, who refers to the second play in his epi-
logue to King Henry V. and apparently connects the first Act of
King Richard III. with the last of The Third Part of King
Henry VI. If it be objected that the plays were populaif and
214 THIRD PART OF
that therefore he alluded to them as well known ; it may be an-
swered, with equal probability, that the natural passions of a
poet would have disposed him to separate his own works from
those of an inferior hand. And, indeed, if an author's own
testimony is to be overthrown by speculative criticism, no man
can be any longer secure of literary reputation.
Of these three plays I think the second the best. The truth
is, that they have not sufficient variety of action, for the inci-
dents are too often of the same kind ; yet many of the cha-
racters are well discriminated. King Henry, and his Queen,
King Edward, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Earl of Warwick,
are very strongly and distinctly painted.
The old copies of the two latter parts of King Henry VI. and
of King Henry V. are so apparently imperfect and mutilated,
that there is no reason for supposing them the first draughts of
Shakspeare. I am inclined to believe them copies taken by some
auditor who wrote down, during the representation, what the
time would permit, then perhaps filled up some of his omissions
at a second or third hearing, and, when he had by this method
formed something like a play, sent it to the printer.
JOHNSON.
So, Heywood, in the Preface to his Rape ofLucrece, (fourth
impression,) 1630:
" for though some have used a double sale of their labours,
first to the stage and after to the press, for my own part I here
proclaim myself ever faithful to the first, and never guilty of the
last: yet since some of my plays have (unknown to me, and
without any of my direction,) accidentally come into the
printer's hands, and therefore so corrupt and mangled (copied
only by the ear,) that I have been as unable to know them as
ashamed to challenge them, this therefore I was thewillinger,"&c.
COLLINS.
There is another circumstance which may serve to strengthen
Dr. Johnson's supposition, viz. that most of the fragments of
Latin verses, omitted in the quartos, are to be found in the
folio j and when any of them are inserted in the former, they
are shamefully corrupted and misspelt. The auditor, who under-
stood English, might be unskilled in any other language.
STEEVENS*
I formerly coincided with Dr. Johnson on this subject, at a
time when I had examined the two old plays published in quarto
under the title of The Whole Contention of the Two famous
Houses of York and Lancaster, in two parts, with less attention
than I have lately done. That dramas were sometimes imper-
KING HENRY VI. 215
feetly taken down in the theatre, and afterwards published iii a
mutilated state, is proved decisively by the prologue to a play
entitled, If you knotu not Me you know Nobody, by Thomas
Heywood, 1623:
" . 'Twas ill nurst,
" And yet receiv'd as Well perform*d at first ;
** Grac'd and frequented ; for the cradle age
" Did throng the seats, the boxes, and the stage,
" So much, that some by stenography drew
" The plot, put it in print, scarce one word true :
** And in that lameness it has limp'd so long,
** The author now, to vindicate that wrong,
" Hath took the pains upright upon its feet
" To teach it walk ; so please you, sit and see it."
But the old plays in quarto, which have been hitherto supposed
to be imperfect representations of the second and third parts of
King Henry VI. are by no means mutilated and imperfect. The
scenes are as well connected, and the versification as correct, as
that of most of the other dramas of that time. The fact there-
fore, which Heywood's Prologue ascertains, throws no light uponr
the present contested question. Such observations as I have made
upon it, I shall subjoin in a distinct Essay on the subject.
MALONE.
I have already given some reasons, why I cannot believe, that
these plays were originally written by Shakspeare. The question,
who did write them ? is, at best, but an argument ad ig'noran-
tiam. We must remember, that very many old plays are ano-
nymous; and that play-txriting was scarcely yet thought repu-
table : nay, some authors express for it great horrors of repent-
ance. I will attempt, however, at some future time, to answer
this question : the disquisition of it would be toa long for this
place.
One may at least argue, that the plays were not written by,
Shakspeare, from Shakspeare himself. The Chorus at the end
of King Henry V. addresses the audience
" For their sake,
" In your fair minds let this acceptance take."
But it could be neither agreeable to the poet's judgment or hi3
modesty, to recommend his new play from the merit and succes^
of King Henry VI. His claim to indulgence is, that, though
bending and unequal to the task, he has ventured to pursue the
story : and this sufficiently accounts for the connection o
whole, and the allusions of particular passages.
216 THIRD PART OF
It is seldom that Dr. Farmer's arguments fail to enforce con- 1
viction ; but here, perhaps, they may want somewhat of their
usual weight. I think that Shakspeare's bare mention of these
pieces is a sufficient proof they were his. That they were so,
could be his only motive for inferring benefit to himself from the
spectator's recollection of their past success. For the sake of
three historical dramas of mine which have already afforded you
entertainment, let me (says he) intreat your indulgence to a
fourth. Surely this was a stronger plea in his behalf, than any
arising from the kind *e*eeption which another might have already
met with in the same way !of writing. Shakspeare's claim to
favour is founded on his having previously given pleasure in the
course of three of those histories ; because he is a bending, sup-
plicatory author, and not a literary bully, like Ben Jonson ; and
because he has ventured to exhibit a series of annals in a suite of
plays, an attempt which till then had not received the sanction
of the stage.
I hope Dr. Farmer did not wish to exclude the three dramas
before us, together with The Taming of the Shrew, from the
number of those produced by our author, on account of the
Latin quotations to be found in them. His proofs of Shak-
speare's want of learning are too strong to stand in need of such
a support. STEEVENS.
Though the objections which have been raised to the genuine-
ness of the three plays of Henry the Sixth have been fully con-
sidered and answered by Dr. Johnson, it may not be amiss to add
here, from a contemporary writer, a passage, which not only
points at Shakspeare as the author of them, but also shows, that,
however meanly we may now think of them in comparison with
his latter productions, they had, at the time of their appearance,
a sufficient degree of excellence to alarm the jealousy of the older
play-wrights. The passage, to which I refer, is in a pamphlet,
entitled, Greene's Groatsworth of Witte, supposed to have been
written by that voluminous author, Robert Greene, M. A. and
said, in the title-page, to be published at his dying request; pro-
bably about 1592. The conclusion of this piece is an address to
his brother poets, to dissuade them from writing any more for the
stage, on account of the ill treatment which they were used to
receive from the players. It begins thus : To those gentlemen,
his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in making
playes, R. G. wisheth a better exercise, &c. After having ad-
dressed himself particularly to Christopher Marlowe and Thomas
Lodge, (as I guess from circumstances, for their names are not
mentioned;) he goes on to a third, (perhaps George Peek;} and
KING HENRY VI. 217
having warned him against depending on so mean a stay as the
players, he adds : Yes, trust them not ; for there is an upstart
crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tygres head
wrapt in a players hyde, supposes hee is as well able to bombaste
out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolute Jo-
hannes fac totum is, in his own conceit, the onely Shake-scene
in a countrey. There can be no doubt, I think, that Shake-scene
alludes to Shakspeare; or that his tygres head wrapt in aplayert
hyde, is a parodie upon the following line of York's speech to
Margaret, Third Part of King Henry VI. Act I. sc. iv:
" Oh tygres heart, wrapt in a woman's hide."
TTRWHITT.
DISSERTATION
ON
THE THREE PARTS
OF
KING HENRY VI
THE CONTENTS.
THE subject stated. The inferior parts in these three plays
being of a different complexion from the inferior parts of Shak-
speare's undoubted performances, a proof that they were not
written originally and entirely by him, p. 223. Mr. Malone's
hypothesis. The First Part ofK. Henry VI. not written by him.
The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. formed by Shak-
speare on two elder plays, the one entitled The First Part of the
Contention of the Two famous Houses ofYorke and Lancaster,
luith the Death of the good Duke Humphrey, &c. the other, The
true Tragedie of Ricnarde Duke of Yorke, and the Death of
good King Henry the Sixt. p. 224.
THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI.
The diction, versification, and allusions, of this piece all dif-
ferent from the diction, versification, and allusions of Shakspeare,
and corresponding with those of the dramatists thatprecededhim,
p. 224231. Date of this play some years before 1592; p. 231.
Other internal evidence (beside the diction, &c.) that this piece
was not written by Shakspeare ; nor by the author of The First
Part of the Contention of the Two Houses, &c. nor by the au-
thor of The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke ofYorke, p. 231
234. Presumptive proof that this play was not written by
Shakspeare, from its not containing any similarities of thought
to his undisputed plays, nor of expression, (except in a single in-
stance,) and from its general paucity of rhymes, p. 234, 235.
THE SECOND AND THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI.
I. EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 1. The entry of The First Part of
the Contention of the Two Houses &c. at Stationers' Hall in 1594,
anonymous. 2. That piece, and The true Tragedie of Richard
Duke of Yorke, printed in 1600, anonymously. Shakspeare's
name afterwards fraudulently affixed to these pieces, and why.
The same artifice practised with respect to other plays on which
he had constructed dramas, p. 235, 236. 3. These two old plays
performed by Lord Pembroke's Servants, by whom Titus Andro-
nicus, and The old Taming of a Shrew were performed, and by
whom not one of Shakspeare's undisputed plays were represented,
p. 236. 4. Reasons assigned for supposing Robert Greene, or
George Peele, or both, the author or authors of the old plays,
p. 237, 238. 5. These pieces new-modelled and re-written by
Shakspeare, with great additions, which in the present edition
are distinguished by a peculiar mark, p. 238, 239. The mode
taken by Shakspeare, p. 239 242. 6. The fraud of Pavier the,
CONTENTS.
bookseller, who in the year 1619, after the death of Shakspeare,
affixed his name to these two old plays, accounted for, p. 243.
7. These two old pieces being printed and reprinted, and The
First Part of King Henry VI. not being printed, in Shakspeare's
life time, a presumptive proof that he new-modelled the former,
and had little or no concern with the latter, p. 244.
II. INTERNAL EVIDENCE. 1. The VARIATIONS between
the two old plays in quarto, and the corresponding pieces in the
folio edition of our author's dramatick works, of so peculiar a
nature, as to mark two distinct hands. Several passages and cir-
cumstances found in the old plays, of which there is no trace in
Shakspeare's new modification of them ; others materially
varying. These insertions and variations could not have arisen
from unskilful copyists or short-hand writers, who sometimes
curtail and mutilate, but do not invent and amplify, p. 244
249. 2. The RESEMBLANCES between certain passages in Shak-
speare's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. and his un-
disputed works, a proof that he wrote a large portion of those
plays; and 3. The DISCORDANCIES between them and his un-
disputed plays, a proof that he did not write the whole ; these
resemblances being found only in the folio, that is, in the plays
as new-modelled by Shakspeare ; and these discordancies being
found in the old quarto plays, from whence it must be presumed
that they were adopted through carelessness or haste, p. 24-9
251. 4. The peculiar INACCURACIES of Shakspeare ; and 5. his
peculiar PHRASEOLOGY, which are found in The Second and
Third Part of King Henry VI. as exhibited in folio, and not in
the old quarto plays printed in 1600, prove that there were two
distinct hands in these pieces; p. 252, 254. So also do, 6. The
TRANSPOSITIONS, p. 254; and 7. the REPETITIONS, p. 255;
and 8. the INCONSISTENCIES arising from sometimes following,
and sometimes departing from, an original model, p. 255, 256.
9. Hall, the historian, on whose Chronicle the old plays in quarto
were constructed ; but Holinshed and not Hall, Shakspeare's
historian, p. 256, 257.
The old plays on which Shakspeare formed his Second and
Third Parts of King Henry VI. probably written by the author
of King John, printed in 1591, whoever he was ; p. 258. An
attempt made to account for The First Part of King Henry VI.
being printed in the first folio edition of our poet's dramatick
works, p. 258, 259. Objections of Dr. Johnson and others,
enumerated. Recapitulation, p. 259, 260. A considerable part
of the English history dramatized before the time of Shakspeare ;
and many of his historical and other plays formed on those of*
preceding writers, p. 260 262. Conclusion, p. 262.
A
DISSERTATION
ON
THE THREE PARTS
OF
KING HENRY VI.
TENDING TO SHOW
That those Plays were NOT written ORIGINALLY by
SHAKSPEARE.
SEVERAL passages in The Second and Third Part of King
Henry VI. appearing evidently to be of the hand of Shakspeare,
I was long of opinion that the three historical dramas which are
the subject of the present disquisition, were properly ascribed to
him ; not then doubting that the whole of these plays was the
production of the same person. But a more minute investigation
of the subject, into which I have been led by the revision of all
our author's works, has convinced me, that, though the premises
were true, my conclusion was too hastily drawn ; for though the
hand of Shakspeare is unquestionably found in the two latter of
these plays, it does not therefore necessarily follow, that they
were originally and entirely composed by him. My thoughts
upon this point have already been intimated in the foregoing
notes ; but it is now necessary for me to state my opinion more
particularly, and to lay before the reader the grounds on which,
after a very careful enquiry, it has been formed.
What at present I have chiefly in view is, to account for the
visible inequality in these pieces ; many traits of Shakspeare being
clearly discernible in them, while the inferior parts are not merely
unequal to the rest, (from which no certain conclusion can be
drawn, ) but of quite a different complexion from the inferior
parts of our author's undoubted performances.
224 DISSERTATION ON
My hypothesis then is, that The First Part of King Henry VI.
as it now appears, ( of which no quarto copy is extant, ) was the
entire or nearly the entire production of some ancient dramatist;
that The Whole Contention of the Two Houses of York and Lan-
caster, &c. written probably before the year 1590, and printed
in quarto, in 1600, was also the composition of some writer who
preceded Shakspeare ; and that from this piece, which is in two
parts, (the former of which is entitled, The First Part of the
Contention of the TIKO famous Houses ofYorke and Lancaster ,
faith the Death of the good Duke Humphrey, &c. and the latter,
The true Tragedie ofRicharde Duke of Yorke, and the Death
of good King Henrie the Sixt, ) our poet formed the two plays,
entitled, The Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. as
they appear in the first folio edition of his works.
Mr. Upton has asked, " How does the painter distinguish
copies from originals but by manner and style ? And have not
authors their peculiar style and manner, from which a true critick
can form as unerring a judgment as a painter ?" Dr. Johnson,
though he has shown, with his usual acuteness, that " this illu-
stration of the critick's science will not prove what is desired,"
acknowledges in a preceding note, that " dissimilitude of style
and heterogeneousness of sentiment may sufficiently show that a
work does not really belong to the reputed author. But in these
plays (he adds) no such marks of spuriousness are found. The
diction, versification, and the figures, are Shakspeare's." By
these criterions then let us examine TheYirstPartofK. Henry VI.
(for I choose to consider that piece separately;) and if the dic-
tion, the figures, or rather the allusions, and the versification of
that play, (for these are our surest guides) shall appear to be
different from the other two parts, as they are exhibited in the f olio t
and from our author's other plays, we may fairly conclude that
he was not the writer of it.
I. With respect to the diction and the allusions, which I shall
consider under the same head, it is very observable that in The
First Part of King Henry VI. there are more allusions to mytho-
logy, to classical authors, and to ancient and modern history,
than, I believe, can be found in any one piece of our author's,
written on an English story ; and that these allusions are intro-
duced very much in the same manner as they are introduced in
the plays of Greene, Peele, Lodge, and other dramatists who
preceded Shakspeare ; that is, they do not naturally arise out of
the subject, but seem to be inserted merely to shew the writer's
learning.* Of these the following are the most remarkable :
* - i-^ to shew the writer's learning.'} This appearance of pedantry, if not
assumed in imitation of Greene &c. (See Vol. XIII. p. 3,) would only induce
KING HENRY VI. 225
_-li Mars his true moving, even as in the heavens,
So in the earth, to this day is not known.
2. A far more glorious star thy soul will make
Than Julius Caesar, or bright
This blank, Dr. Johnson with the highest probability conjec-
tures, should be filled up with " Berenice ;" a word that the
transcriber or compositor probably could not make out. In the
same manner he left a blank in a subsequent passage for the
name of" Nero," as is indubitably proved by the following line,
which ascertains the omitted word. See No. 6.
3. Was Mahomet inspired with a dove?
4. Helen, the mother of great Constantino,
Nor yet Saint Philip's daughters, were like thee.
5. Froisard, a countryman of ours, records, &c.
6. and, like thee, [Nero,]
Play on the lute, beholding the towns burning.
[In the original copy there is a blank where the word Nero is
now placed.]
7. The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,
Exceeding the nine Sybils of old Rome.
8. A witch, by fear, not force, like Hannibal,
Drives back our troops .
9. Divinest creature, Astraea's daughter .
10. Adonis' gardens,
That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next.
11. A statelier pyramis to her I'll rear,
Than Rhodope's, or Memphis', ever was.
12. an urn more precious
Than the rich-jewel'd coffer of Darius.
13. 1 shall as famous be by this exploit,
As Scythian Thomyris, by Cyrus' death.
14. 1 thought I should have seen some Hercules,
A second Hector, for his grim aspect.
15. Nestor-like aged, in an age of care.
16. Then follow thou thy desperate sire of Crete,
Thou Icarus.
17. Where is the great Alcides of the field ?
18. Now am I like that proud insulting ship,
That Caesar and his fortune bare at once.
Tne to think that the piece now under consideration might be the work of a ju-
venile writer ; and why not one of Shakspeare's earliest dramatick effusions ?
The first themes composed by schoolboys are always stuffed with a tritical pa-
rade of literature, such as is found in antiquated plays, some of which, our
author, while yet immature, might have taken for his model. STEEVBNS.
VOL. XIV. Q
226 DISSERTATION ON
19. Is Talbot slain; the Frenchman '6 only scourge,
Your kingdom's terror, and black Nemesis ?
20. Thou may'st not wander in that labyrinth ;
There Minotaurs, and ugly treasons lurk.
21. See, how the ugly witch doth bend her brows,
As if, with Circe, she would change my shape.
22. . thus he goes,
As did the youthful Paris once to Greece;
With hope to find the like event in love.
Of particular expressions there are many in this play that seem
to me more likely to have been used by the authors already named,
than by Shakspeare ; but I confess, with Dr. Johnson, that single
words can conclude little. However, I will just mention that
the words proditor and immanity, which occur in this piece, are
not, I believe, found in any of Shakspeare's undisputed perform-
ances : not to insist on a direct Latinism, pile-esteemed, which
I am confident was the word intended by the author, though,
being a word of his own formation, the compositor has printed
-pzY'flf-esteem'd, instead of it.*
The versification of this play appears to me clearly of a dif-
ferent colour from that of all our author's genuine dramas, while
at the same time it resembles that of many of the plays produced
before the time of Shakspeare.
In all the tragedies written before his time, or just when he
commenced author, a certain stately march of versification is
very observable. The sense concludes or pauses almost uniformly
at the end of every line ; and the verse has scarcely ever a re-
dundant syllable. As the reader may not have any of these
pieces at hand, (by the possession of which, however, his library
would not be much enriched,) I shall add a few instances, the
first that occur :
" Most loyal lords, and faithful followers,
" That have with me, unworthy general,
" Passed the greedy gulph of Ocean,
" Leaving the confines of fair Italy,
" Behold, your Brutus draweth nigh his end.
" And I must leave you, though against my will.
*' My sinews shrink, my numbed senses fail,
" A chilling cold possesseth all my bones ;
** Black ugly death, with visage pale and wan,
" Presents himself before my dazzled eyes,
*' And with his dart prepared is to strike."
Locrine t 1595.
* See King Henry VI. P. I. Vol. XIII. p. 39, n. 4.
KING HENRY VI. 227
" My lord of Gloucester, and lord Mortimer,
" To do you honour in your sovereign's eyes,
" That, as we hear, is newly come aland,
" From Palestine, with all his men of war,
" ( The poor remainder of the royal fleet,
" Preserv'd by miracle in Sicil road, )
' Go mount your coursers, meet him on the way ;
" Pray him to spur his steed, minutes and hours,
" Untill his mother see her princely son,
" Shining in glory of his safe return.*'
Edward I. by George Peele, 1593.
" Then go thy ways, and clime up to the clouds,
' And tell Apollo that Orlando sits
" Making of verses for Angelica.
* And if he do deny to send me down
" The shirt which Deianira sent to Hercules,
" To make me brave upon my wedding day,
" Tell him I'll pass the Alps, and up to Meroe,
** (I know he knows that watry lakish hill)
" And pull the harp out of the minstrels hands,
" And pawne it unto lovely Proserpine,
" That she may fetch the faire Angelica."
Orlando Furioso, by Robert Greene, printed in
1599 ; written before 1592.
" The work that Ninus rear'd at Babylon,
" The brazen walls fram'd by Semiramis,
" Carv'd out like to the portal of the sunne,
" Shall not be such as rings the English strand
" From Dover to the market-place of Rye."
* * *
" To plain our questions, as Apollo did."
* * *
" Facile and debonaire in all his deeds,
" Proportion'd as was Paris, when in gray,
'* He courted Oenon in the vale by Troy."
* # *
" Who dar'd for Edward's sake cut through the seas,
" And venture as Agenor's damsel through the deepe."
* * *
'* England's rich monarch, brave Plantagenet,
" The Pyren mountains swelling above the clouds,
"That ward this wealthy Castile in with walls,
" Could not detain the beauteous Eleanor ;
" But hearing of the fame of Edward's youth,
Q2
228 DISSERTATION ON
" She dar'd to brave Neptunus' haughty pride,
" And brave the brunt of froward Eolus."
# * #
" Daphne, the damsel that caught Phoebus fast,
*' And lock'd him in the brightness of her looks,
" Was not so beauteous in Apollo's eyes,
" As is fair Margaret, to the Lincoln earl.'*
# * *
*' We must lay plots for stately tragedies,
" Strange comick shews, such as proud Roscius
; ; '* Vaunted before the Roman emperours."
# * #
" Lacy, thou can'st not shrowd thy traiterous thoughts,
" Nor cover, as did Cassius, all his wiles ;
" For Edward hath an eye that looks as far
" As Lynceus from the shores of Greecia."
# * #
" Pardon, my lord : If Jove's great royalty
'* Sent me such presents as to Danae ;
" If Phoebus tied to Latona's webs,
" Came courting from the beauty of his lodge;
" The dulcet tunes of frolick Mercurie,
. . " Nor all the wealth heaven's treasury affords
'* Should make me leave lord Lacy or his love.''*
# * #
" What will thou do ?
" Shew thee the tree leav*d with refined gold,
'* Whereon the fearful dragon held his seate,
" That watch'd the garden call'd Hesperides,
"Subdued and wonne by conquering Hercules."
#
Margaret,
" That overshines our damsels, as the moone
11 Darkens the brightest sparkles of the night.'*
* * *
" Should Paris enter in the courts of Greece,
" And not lie fetter'd in fair Helen's looks ?
" Or Phoebus scape those piercing amorists,
" That Daphne glanced at his deitie ?
" Can Edward then sit by a flame and freeze,
'* Whose heats put Hellen and fair Daphne down ?*
; The Honourable Historic of Friar Bacon, &c. by Ra-
<-. bert Greene ; written before 1592, printed in 1598.
" King. Thus far, ye English Peers, have we display *d
" Our waving ensigns with a happy war ;
KING HENRY VI. 229
' Thus nearly hath our furious rage revengM
*< My daughter's death upon the traiterous Scot ;
" And now before Dunbar our camp is pitch'd,
" Which if it yield not to our compromise,
" The place shall furrow where the palace stood,
' And fury shall envy so high a power,
" That mercy shall be banish'd from our sword.
" Doug. What seeks the English king ?
" King. Scot, ope those gates, and let me enter in.
" Submit thyself and thine unto my grace,
" Or I will put each mother's son to death,
" And lay this city level with the ground."
James IV. by Robert Greene, printed in 1598;
written before 1592.
" Valeria, attend ; I have a lovely bride
" As bright as is the heaven chrystaline";
" As faire as is the milke- white way of Jove,
" As chaste as Phoebe in her summer sports,
" As soft and tender as the azure downe
" That circles Citherea's silver doves ;
" Her do I meane to make my lovely bride,
" And in her bed to breathe the sweet content
" That I, thou know'st, long time have aimed at."
The Taming of a Shrew, written before 1594-.
" Pol. Faire Emilia, summers bright sun queene,
" Brighter of hew than is the burning clime
" Where Phoebus in his bright equator sits,
" Creating gold and pretious minerals,
" What would Emilia doe, if I were fond
" To leave faire Athens, and to range the world ?
" Emil. Should thou assay to scale the seate of Jove,
" Mounting the subtle airie regions,
" Or be snatcht up, as erst was Ganimede,
*' Love should give wings unto my swift desires,
" And prune my thoughts, that I would follow thce,
" Or fall and perish as did Icarus." Ibid.
" Barons of England, and my noble lords,
" Though God and fortune hath bereft from us
" Victorious Richard, scourge of infidels,
** And clad this land in stole of dismal hue,
" Yet give me leave to joy, and joy you all,
" That from this wombe hath sprung a second hope,
" A king that may in rule and virtue both
" Succeed his brother in his emperie."
The troublesome RaigneofKing John t 1591.
230 DISSERTATION ON
as sometimes Phaeton,
" Mistrusting silly Merops for his sire " Ibid.
" As cursed Nero with his mother did,
" So I with you, if you resolve me not.'* Ibid.
* * #
" Peace, Arthur, peace ! thy mother makes thee wings,
" To soar with peril after Icarus." Ibid.
" How doth Alecto whisper in my ears,
" Delay not, Philip, kill the villaine straight." Ibid.
* * *
" Philippus atavis edite regibus,
" What saist thou, Philip, sprung of ancient kings,
'* Quo me rapit tempestas?" Ibid.
* * *
" Morpheus, leave here thy silent ebon cave,
" Besiege his thoughts with dismal phantasies ;
" And ghastly objects of pale threatning Mors,
" Affright him every minute with stern looks." Ibid.
* * *
" Here is the ransome that allaies his rage,
' The first freehold that Richard left his sonne,
" With which I shall surprize his living spies,
" As Hector's statue did the fainting Greeks." Ibid.
* * *
" This cursed country, where the traitors breathe,
" Whose perjurie (as proud Briareus)
" Beleaguers all the sky with misbelief." Ibid.
* * *
" Must Constance speak ? let tears prevent her talk.
" Must I discourse ? let Dido sigh, and say,
" She weeps again to hear the wrack of Troy." Ibid.
* # *
" John, 'tis thy sins that make it miserable,
" Quicguiddelirant reges,plectuntur Achivi." Ibid.
* * *
" King. Robert of Artoys, banish'd though thou be,
*' From France, thy native country, yet with us
" Thou shalt retain as great a signorie,
" For we create thee earle of Richmond here :
" And now go forwards with our pedigree ;
" Who next succeeded Philip of Bew ?
" Art. Three sonnes of his, which, all successfully,
" Did sit upon their father's regal throne ;
" Yet died, and left no issue of their loynes.
" King. But was my mother sister unto these ?
KING HENRY VI. 231
" Art. She was, my lord ; and only Isabel
" Was all the daughters that this Philip had."
The Raigne of King Edward III. 1596.
The tragedies of Marius and Sylla, by T. Lodge 1594, A
Looking Glass Jbr London and England, by T. Lodge and R.
Greene, 1598, Solyman and Perseda, written'before 1592, Seli-
mus f Emperour of the Turks, 1594, The Spanish Tragedy, 1592,
and Titus Andronicus, will all furnish examples of a similar ver-
ification ; a versification so exactly corresponding with that of
The First Part of King Henry VI. and The Whole Contention of
the TIKO Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. as it originally ap-
peared, that I have no doubt these plays were the production of
some one or other of the authors of the pieces above quoted or
enumerated.
A passage in a pamphlet written by Thomas Nashe, an inti-
mate friend, of Greene, Peele, &c. shows that The First Part of
King Henry VI. had been on the stage before 1592 ; and his
favourable mention of this piece inclines me to believe that it
was written by a friend of his. " How would it have joyed brave
Talbot, (says Nashe in Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to the
Devil, 1592,) the terror of the French, to thinke that after he
had lyen two hundred yeare in his tombe, he should triumph
again on the stage ; and have his bones new embalmed with the
tearesof ten thousand spectators at least, (at several times ) who
in the tragedian that represents his person behold him fresh
bleeding."
This passage was several years ago pointed out by my friend
Dr. Farmer, as a proof of the hypothesis which I am now endea-
vouring to establish. That it related to the old play of King
Henry F/.or, as it is now called, The First Part ofK. Henry VI.
cannot, I think, be doubted. Talbot appears in the First part,
and not in the second or third part ; and is expressly spoken of in
the play, (as well as in Hall's Chronicle,) as " the terror of the
French." Holinshed, who was Shakspeare's guide, omits the
passage in Hall, in which Talbot is thus described ; and this is
an additional proof that this play was not our author's. But of
this more hereafter.
The First Part of King Henry VI. (as it is now called) fur-
nishes us with other internal proofs also of its not being the work
of Shakspeare.
1. The author of that play, whoever he was, does not seem
to have known precisely how old Henry the Sixth was at the time
of his father's death. He opens his play indeed with the funeral
of Henry the Fifth, but no where mentions expressly the young
king's age. It is clear, however, from one passage, that he sup-
posed him to have passed the state of infancy before he lost his
father, and even to have remembered some of his sayings. In
the fourth Act, sc. iv. speaking of the famous Talbot, he says :
" When I uas young (as yet I am not old,)
" / do remember hoiv my father said,
" A stouter champion never handled sword."
But Shakspeare, as appears from two passages, one in the second,
and the other in the Third part of King Henry VI. knew that
that king could not possibly remember any thing his father had
said ; and therefore Shakspeare could not have been the author
of faejirst part.
" No sooner was I crept out of my cradle,
" But I was made a king at nine months old"
Kins Henry VI. P. II. Act IV. sc. ix.
" When I was crown'a, I was but nine months old."
King Henry VI. P. III. Act I. sc. i.
The first of these passages is found in the folio copy of The
Second Part of King Henry VI. and not in The First Part of
the Contention, &c. printed in quarto ; and according to my hy-
pothesis, was one of Shakspeare's additions to the old play. This
therefore does not prove that the original author, whoever he
was, was not likewise the author of The First Part of King
Henry VI ; but, what is more material to our present question,
it proves that Shakspeare could not be the author of that play.
The second of these passages is found in The true Tragedie of
Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. and is a decisive proof that The
First Part of King Henry VI. was written neither by the author
of that tragedy, nor by Shakspeare.
2. A second internal proof that Shakspeare was not the author
of thefast part of these three plays, is furnished by that scene,
(Act II. sc. v. Vol. XIII. p. 81,) in which it is said, that the
Earl of Cambridge raised an army against his sovereign. But
Shakspeare in his play of King Henry V. has represented the
matter truly as it was ; the Earl being m the second Act of that
historical piece condemned at Southampton for conspiring to
assassinate Henry.
3. I may likewise add, that the author of The First Part of
King Henry VI. knew the true pronunciation of the word
Hecate, and has used it as it is used by the Roman writers :
" I speak not to that railing Heca-te."
But Shakspeare in his Macbeth always uses Hecate as a dissylla-
ble ; and therefore could not have been the author of the other
piece.*
* It may. perhaps appear a minute remark, but I cannot help observing that
the second speech in this play ascertains the writer to have been very conversant
with Ilall'i Chronicle :
KING HENRY VI." 233
- Having now, as I conceive, vindicated Shakspeare from being
the writer of The First Part of King Henry VI. it may seem un-
necessary to enquire who was the author; or whether it was the
production of the same person or persons who wrote the two
pieces, entitled, The First Part of the Contention of the Tuo
Houses, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke,
&c. However, I shall add a word or two on that point.
We have already seen that the author of the play last named
could not have written The First Part of King Henry VI. The
following circumstances prove that it could not have been written
by the author of The First Part of the Contention, &c. supposing
for a moment that piece, and The true Tragedie of the Duke of
Yorke, &c. to have been the work of different hands.
1. The writer of The First Part of the Contention, &c. makes
Salisbury say to Richard Duke of York, that the person from
whom the Duke derived his title, (he means his maternal uncle
Edmund Mortimer, though he ignorantly gives him a different
appellation,) was "done to death by that monstrous rebel Owen
CJlendower ;" and Shakspeare in this has followed him :
" Sal. This Edmund, in the reign of Bolingbroke,
" As t have read, laid claim unto the crown ;
" And, but for Owen Glendower, had been king,
" Who kept him in captivity, till he died."
On this false assertion the Duke of York makes no remark. But
the author of The First Part of King Henry VI. has represented
" What should I say ?t his deeds exceed all speech."
This phrase is introduced on almost every occasion by that writer, when he
means to be eloquent. Holinshed, and not Hall, was Shakspeare's historian
(as has been already observed) ; this therefore is an additional proof that this
play was not our author's.
- Shakspeare in his Macbeth always uses Hecate as a dissyllable ; and
therefore could not have been the author of the other piece.] By similar reason-
ing we might infer that Shakspeare was not author of The Tempest ; for in thii
play Stephana is properly accented, but erroneously [Stephana] in The Mer-
chant of Venice ; and that because Prosper occurs in one scene, and Prosper*
in another, that both scenes were not of Shakspeare's composition. The same
might be. said of Antony and Cleopatra, in which both Enobarbe and Enobarbu*
are found. This argument also might lead us to imagine that part of the Iliad
which passes under the name of Mr. Pope, was not in reality translated by him ;
because in one book we have Idomeneus, Meriones, and Cebriones, and in
another Idbmen, Merion, and Cebrion. Most certainly, both Shakspeare and
Pope occasionally accommodated their proper names to the structure of their
yerses. The abbreviation Hecaf is therefore no proof of our author's igno-
rance that Hecate' was usually a trisyllable. STEEVENS.
t What should I say?] In page 611 of Mr. Malone's edition of King
ftichard HI. Vol. VI. this very phrase occurs :
" What shall I say more than I have inferr'd ?" STEEVENJ.
234 DISSERTATION ON
this Edmund Mortimer, not as put to death, or kept in captivity
to the time of his death, by Owen Glendower, (who himself
died in the second year of King Henry F.) but as a state prisoner,
who died in the Tower in the reign of King Henry VI, in the
presence of this very Duke of York, who was then only Richard
Plantagenet.*
2. A correct statement of the issue of King Edward the Third,
and of the title of Edmund Mortimer to the crown, is given in
The First Part of King Henry VI. But in The First Part of
the Contention, &c. we find a very incorrect and false statement
of Edward's issue, and of the title of Mortimer, whose father,
Roger Mortimer, the author of that piece ignorantly calls the
Jifth son of that monarch. Those two plays therefore could not
have been the work of one hand.
On all these grounds it appears to me clear, that neither Shak-
speare, nor the author of The First Part of the Contention, &c.
or The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. could have
been the author of The First Part of King Henry VI.
It is observable that in The Second and Third Part of King
Henry VI. many thoughts and many modes of expression are
found, which likewise occur in Shakspeare's other dramas : but
in the First Part I recollect but one marked expression, that is
also found in one of his undisputed performances :
" As I am sick with working of my thoughts."
So, in King Henry V:
" Work, luork your thoughts, and therein see a siege."
But surely this is too slight a circumstance to overturn all the
other arguments that have now been urged to prove this play
not the production of our author. The co-incidence might
be accidental, for it is a co-incidence not of thought but of
language ; or the expression might have remained in his mind
in consequence of his having often seen this play ; (we know that
he has borrowed many other expressions from preceding writers;)
or lastly, this might have been one of the very few lines that
he wrote on revising this piece ; which, however few they were,
might, with other reasons, have induced the first publishers of
his works in folio to print it with the second and third part, and
to ascribe it to Shakspeare.
Before I quit this part of the subject, it may be proper to men-
tion one other circumstance that renders it very improbable that
Shakspeare should have been the author of The First Part ofK.
Henry VI. In this play, though one scene is entirely in rhyme,
there are very few rhymes dispersed through the piece, and no
*See The First Part of King Henry VI. Vol. XIII. p. 73, and The Second
Part, p. 239.
KING HENRY VI. 235
Alternate rhymes ; both of which abound in our author's undis-
puted early plays. This observation indeed may likewise be ex-
tended to the second and third part of these historical dramas ;
and perhaps it may be urged, that if this argument has any
weight, it will prove that he had no hand in the composition of
those plays. But there being no alternate rhymes in those two
plays may be accounted for, by recollecting that in 1591, Shak-
speare had not written his Venus and Adonis, or his Rape of
Lucrece ; the measures of which perhaps insensibly led him to
employ a similar kind of metre occasionally in the dramas that
he wrote shortly after he had composed those poems. The
paucity of regular rhymes must be accounted for differently.
My solution is, that working up the materials which were fur-
nished by a preceding writer, he naturally followed his mode :
and in the original plays from which these two were formed very
few rhymes are found. Nearly the same argument will apply to
the first part ; for its date also, were that piece Shakspeare's,
would account for the want of alternate rhymes. The paucity
of regular rhymes indeed cannot be accounted for by saying that
here too our author was following the track of another poet ; but
the solution is unnecessary ; for from the beginning to the end
of that play, except perhaps in some scenes of the fourth Act,
there is not a single print of the footsteps of Shakspeare.
I have already observed, that it is highly improbable that The
First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses of York and
Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of
Yorke, &c. printed in 1600, were written by the author of The
First Part of King Henry VI. By whom these two plays were
written, it is not here necessary to inquire ; it is sufficient, if
probable reasons can be produced for supposing this two-part
piece not to have been the composition of Shakspeare, but the
work of some preceding writer, on which he formed those two
plays which appear in the first folio edition of his works, com-
prehending a period of twenty-six years, from the time of
Henry's marriage to that of his death.
II. I now therefore proceed to state my opinion concern-
ing The Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.
A book entituled, The First Part of the Contention of the
Two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, 'with the Death of
the good Duke Humphrie, and the Banishment and Deathe of
the Duke of Yorke, and the tragical Ende of the proud Cardinal
of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of Jack Cade, and
the Duke of Yorke's Jirst Claime unto the Crown, was entered
at Stationers* Hall, by Thomas Millington, March 12, 1593-4.
This play, however, (on which The Second Part of King
Henry VI. is formed) was not then printed; nor was The true
236 DISSERTATION ON
Tragedic of Richard Duke ' of Yorke, and the Death of good
King Henry the Sixt, &c. (on which Shakspeare's Third Part of
'King Henry VI. is founded) entered at Stationers* Hall at
the same time ; but they were both printed for T. Millington in
1600.*
The first thing that strikes us in this entry is, that the name of
Shakspeare is not mentioned; nor, when the two plays were
published in 1600, did the printer ascribe them to our author in
the title-page, (though his reputation was then at the highest,)
as surely he would have done, had they been his compositions.
In a subsequent edition indeed of the same pieces, printed by
one Pavier, without date, but in reality in 1619, after our great
Eoet's death, the name of Shakspeare appears ; but this was a
ookseller's trick, founded upon our author's celebrity ; on his
having new-modelled these plays ; and on the proprietors of the
Globe and Blackfriars' theatre not havingpublished Shakspeare's
Second and Third Parts of King Henry VI. The very same
deception was practised with respect to King John. The old
play (written perhaps by the same person who was the author
t)f The Contention of the Two famous Houses &c.) was printed
in 1591, like that piece, anonymously. In 1611, (Shakspeare's
King John, founded on the same story, having been probably
often acted and admired,) the old piece in two parts was re-
printed ; and, in order to deceive the purchaser, was said in the
title-page to be written by W. Sh. A subsequent printer in
1622 grew more bold, and affixed Shakspeare's name to it at
full length.
It is observable that Millington, the bookseller, by whom The
Jirst Part of the Contention of the Two famous Houses, &c. was
entered at Stationers' Hall, in 1593-4, and for whom that piece
and The Tragedie of the Duke of York, &c. were printed in
1600, was not the proprietor of L any one of Shakspeare's undis-
puted plays, except King Henry V. of which he published a
spurious copy, that, I think, must have been imperfectly taken
down in short hand in the play-house.
The next observable circumstance, with respect to these two
quarto plays, is, that they are said, in their title-pages, to have
been " sundry times acted by the earle of Pembrooke his ser-
vantes." Titus Andronicus and The old Taming of a Shrew,
were acted by the same company of comedians ; but not one of
our author's plays is said, in its title-page, to have been acted
by any but the Lord Chamberlain's, or the Queen's, or King's
*They were probably printed in 1600, because Shakspeare's alterations of them
were then popular, as King Leir and his Three Daughters was printed in 1605, be-
eause our author's play was probably at that time first produced.
KING HENRY VI. 237
servants.* This circumstance alone, in my opinion, might al-
most decide the question.
This much appears on the first superficial view of these pieces ;
but the passage quoted by Mr. Tyrwhitt from an old pamphlet,
entitled Greene's Groatsiuorth of Witte, &c. affords a still more
decisive support to the hypothesis that I am endeavouring to
maintain ; which, indeed, that pamphlet first suggested to me.
As this passage is the chief hinge of my argument, though it
has already been printed in a preceding page, it is necessary to
lay it again before the reader. " Yes," says the writer, Robert
Greene, ( addressing himself, as Mr. Tyrwhitt conjectures with
great probability, to his poetical friend, George Peele,) " trust
them [the players] not; for there is an upstart crowe BEAUTI-
FIED WITH OUR FEATHERS, that with his tygres heart wrapt in
a player's hide supposes hee is as well able to bombaste out
blank verse as the best of you ; and being an absolute Johannes
fac totum, is, in his own conceit, the only Shake-scene in a
country." " O tyger's heart, wrapt in a woman's hide !" is a
line of the old quarto play, entitled Thefrst Part of the Con-
tention of the Two Houses, &c.
That Shakspeare was here alluded to, cannot, I think, be
doubted. But what does the writer mean by calling him " a
trow beautified with our feathers?" My solution is, that
GREENE and PEELE were the joint authors of the two quarto
plays, entitled The first Part of the Contention of the Two
famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tra-
gedie pfRicharde Duke of Yorke, &c. or that Greene was the
author of one, and Peele of the other. Greene's pamphlet,
from whence the foregoing passage is extracted, was written re-
cently before his death, which happened in September, 1592.
How long he and Peele had been dramatick writers, is not pre-
cisely ascertained. Peele took the degree of Master of Arts at
Oxford, in 1579 : Greene took the same degree in Cambridge,
in 1583. Each of them has left four or five plays, and they
wrote several others, which have not been published. The
earliest of Peele's printed pieces, The Arraignment of Paris,
appeared in 1584 ; and one of Greene's pamphlets was printed
in 1583. Between that year and 1591 it is highly probable that
the two plays in question were written. I suspect they were
produced in 1588 or 1589. We have undoubted proofs that
Shakspeare was not above working on the materials of other
men. His Taming of the Shrew, his King John, and other
* The first edition of Romeo and Juliet, 1597, is said in its title-page to have
fceen acted " By the right honourable the L. of Hunsdon his servants."
STEKVJWS.
238 DISSERTATION ON
plays, render any arguments on that point unnecessary. Having
therefore, probably not long before the year 1592, when
Greene wrote his Dying Exhortation to a Friend, new-modelled
and amplified these two pieces, and produced on the stage what,
in the folio edition of his works, are called The Second and
Third Parts of King Henry VI. and having acquired consider-
able reputation by them, Greene could not conceal the mortifi-
cation that he felt at his own fame and that of his associate,
both of them old and admired play-wrights, being eclipsed by
a new upstart writer, (for so he calls our great poet,) who had
then first, perhaps, attracted the notice of the publick by ex-
hibiting two plays, formed upon old dramas written by them,
considerably enlarged and improved. He therefore, in direct
terms, charges him with having acted like the crow in the fable,
beautified himself ivith their feathers ; in other words, with
having acquired fame furtivis coloribus, by new-modelling a
work originally produced by them : and wishing to depreciate
our author, he very naturally quotes a line from one of the
pieces which Shakspeare had thus re-written ; a proceeding
which the authors of the original plays considered as an invasion
both of their literary property and character. This line, with
many others, Shakspeare adopted without any alteration. The
very term that Greene uses " to bombast out a blank verse,"
exactly corresponds with what has been now suggested. This
new poet, says he, knows as well as any man how to amplify
and swell out a blank verse. Bumbast was a soft stuff of a loose
texture, by which garments were rendered more swelling and
protuberant.
Several years after the death of Boiardo, Francesco Berni un-
dertook to new-versify Boiardo's poem, entitled ORLANDO IN-
NAMORATO. " Berni (as Baretti observes) was not satisfied
with merely making the versification of that poem better ; he
interspersed it with many stanzas of his own, and changed
almost all the beginnings of the cantos, introducing each of
them with some moral reflection arising from the canto fore-
going." What Berni did to Boiardo's poem after the death of
its author, and more, I suppose Shakspeare to have done to
The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses of Yorke
and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke
of Yorke, &c. in the life time of Greene and Peele, their lite-
rary parents ; and this Rifacimento (as the Italians call it) of
these two plays I suppose to have been executed by Shakspeare,
and exhibited at the Globe or Blackfriars theatre, in the year
1591.
I have said Shakspeare did what Berni did, and more. He
did not content himself with writing new beginnings to the acts ;
KING HENRY VI. 239
he new-versified, he new-modelled, he transposed many of the
parts, and greatly amplified and improved the whole. Several
lines, however, and even whole speeches which he thought suf-
ficiently polished, he accepted, and introduced into his own
work, without any, or with very slight, alterations.
In the present edition, all those lines which he adopted with-
out any alteration, are printed in the usual manner; those
speeches which he altered or expanded, are distinguished by in-
verted commas ; and to all the lines entirely composed by him-
self, asterisks are prefixed. The total number of lines in our
author's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI. is Six
THOUSAND AND FORTY-THREE: of these, as I conceive, 1771
lines were written by some author who preceded Shakspeare ;
2373 were formed by him on the foundation laid by his prede-
cessors ; and 1 899 lines were entirely his own composition.
That the reader may have the whole of the subject before
him, I shall here transcribe the fourth scene of the fourth Act
of The Third Part of King Henry VI. ^ which happens to be a
short one, ) together with the corresponding scene in the original
play ; and also a speech of Queen Margaret, in the fifth Act,
with the original speech on which it is formed. The first spe-
cimen will serve to show the method taken by Shakspeare, where
he only new-polished the language of the old play, rejecting
some part of the dialogue, and making some slight additions to
the part which he retained ; the second is a striking proof of his
facility and vigour of composition, which has happily expanded
a thought comprized originally in a very short speech, into thirty-
seven lines, none of which appear feeble or superfluous.
THE TRUE TRAGEDIE OF RICHARDE DUKE OP YORKE,
Sfc. Sign. F. 4. edit. 1600.
Enter the Qiieene, and the Lord Rivers.
Riv. Tell me, good madam,
Why is your grace so passionate of late.
Queene. Why, brother Rivers, heare you not the news
Of that success king Edward had of late ?
Riv. What ? losse of some pitcht battaile against Warwick ?
Tush ; fear not, fair queen, but cast these cares aside.
King Edwards noble minde his honours doth display;
And Warwicke may lose, though then he got the day.
Queene. If that were all, my griefes were at an end ;
But greater troubles will, I feare, befall.
Riv. What ? is he taken prisoner by the foe,
To the danger of his royal person then ?
240 DISSERTATION ON
Queene. I, there's my griefe ; king Edward is surprisde.
And led away as prisoner unto Yorke.
Riv. The newes is passing strange, I must confesse ;
Yet comfort yourselfe, for Edward hath more friends
Than Lancaster at this time must perceive,
That some will set him in his throne againe.
Queene. God grant they may ! but gentle brother, come,
And let me leane upon thine arm a while,
Until I come unto the sanctuarie ;
There to preserve the fruit within my womb,
King Edwards seed, true heir to Englands crowne. \_Exeunt.
KING HENRY VI. PART III. ACT IV. SCENE IV.
Enter the QUEEN and RIVERS.
Riv. Madam, what makes you in this sudden change ?
Queen. Why, brother Rivers, are you yet to learn,
What late misfortune is befall'n king Edward ?
Riv. What, loss of some pitch'd battle against Warwick ?
Queen. No, but the loss of his own royal person.
Riv. Then is my sovereign slain ?
Queen. Ay, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner ;
Either betray 'd by falshood of his guard,
Or by his foe surpriz'd at unawares :
And, as I further have to understand,
Is new committed to the bishop of York,
Fell Warwick's brother, and by that our foe.
Riv. These news, I must confess, are full of grief:
Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may ;
Warwick may lose, that now hath won the day.
Queen. Till then, fair hope must hinder life's decay*
And I the rather wean me from despair,
For love of Edward's offspring in my womb :
This is it that makes me bridle passion,
And bear with mildness my misfortune's cross ;
Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear,
And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,
Lest with my sighs or tears I blast or drown
King Edward's fruit, true heir to the English crown.
Riv. But, madam, where is Warwick then become ?
Queen. I am informed, that he comes towards London
To set the crown once more on Henry's head :
Guess thou the rest ; king Edward's friends must down.
But, to prevent the tyrant's violence,
(For trust not him that once hath broken faith,)
KING HENRY VI. 241
I'll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary,
To save at least the heir of Edward's right ;
There shall I rest secure from force, and fraud,
Come therefore, let Us fly, while we may fly ;
If Warwick take us, we are sure to die. [Exeunt.
THE TRUE TRAGEDIE OF RICHARDE DUKE OF YORKE,
8fC. Sign. G. 4. edit. 1600.
Enter the Queene, Prince Edward, Oxford, Somerset, with
drumme and souldiers.
Queen. Welcome to England, my loving friends of France ;
And welcome Somerset and Oxford too.
Once more have we spread our sailes abroad ;
And though our tackling be almost consumde,
And Warwicke as our main-mast overthrowne,
Yet, warlike lordes, raise you that sturdie post,
That bears the sailes to bring us unto rest ;
And Ned and I, as willing pilots should,
For once with careful mindes guide on the sterne,
To bear us thorough that dangerous gulfe,
That heretofore hath swallowed up our friendes.
KING HENRY VI. PART III. ACT V. SCENE IV.
March. Enter Queen MARGARET, Prince EDWARD,
SOMERSET, OXFORD, and Soldiers.
Q. Mar. Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
What though the mast be now blown over-board,
The cable broke, the holding anchor lost,
And half our sailors swallow'd in the flood ?
Yet lives our pilot still : Is't meet, that he
Should leave the helm, and, like a fearful lad,
With tearful eyes add water to the sea, 1 ' "^
And give more strength to that which hath too much ;
Whiles, in his moan, the ship splits on the rock,
Which industry and courage might have sav'd ?
Ah, what a shame ! ah, what a fault were this !
Say, Warwick was our anchor ; What of that ?
And Montague our top-mast ; What of him ?
Our slaughter 'd friends the tackles ; What of these ?
Why, is not Oxford here another anchor ?
VOL. XIV. R
242 DISSERTATION ON
And Somerset another goodly mast ?
The friends of France our shrouds and tacklings ?
And, though unskilful, why not Ned and I
For once allow' d the skilful pilot's charge ?
We will not from the helm, to sit and weep ;
But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,
From shelves and rocks that threaten us with wreck.
As good to chide the waves, as speak them fair.
And what is Edward, but a ruthless sea ?
What Clarence, but a quick-sand of deceit ?
And Richard, but a ragged fatal rock ?
All these the enemies to our poor bark.
Say, you can swim ; alas, 'tis but a while :
Tread on the sand ; why, there you quickly sink :
Bestride the rock ; the tide will wash you off,
Or else you famish, that's a threefold death.
This speak I; lords, to let you understand,
In case some one of you would fly from us,
That there's no hop'd for mercy with the brothers,
More than with ruthless waves, with sands, and rocks.
Why, courage, then ! what cannot be avoided,
'Twere childish weakness to lament, or fear.*
If the reader wishes to compare The First Part of the Con-
tention of the Two Houses, &c. with The Second Part of King
Henry VI. which was formed upon it, he will find various pas-
sages quoted from the elder drama in the notes on that play.
The two celebrated scenes, in which the dead body of the
Duke of Gloster is described, and the death of Cardinal Beau-
fort is represented, may be worth examining with this view;
and will sufficiently ascertain how our author proceeded in new-
modelling that play ; with what expression, animation, and
splendour of colouring, he filled up the outline that had been
sketched by a preceding writer. -j-
Shakspeare having thus given celebrity to these two old dramas,
by altering and writing several parts of them over again, the
bookseller, Millington, in 1593-4, to avail himself of the popu-
larity of the new and admired poet, got, perhaps from Peele,
who was then living, or from the author, whoever he was, or
from some of the comedians belonging to the Earl of Pembroke,
* Compare also the account of the death of the Duke of York (p. 50) and
King Henry's soliloquy (p. 79) with the old play as quoted in the notes.
Sometimes our author new-versified the old, without the addition of any new,
matter. 'See p. 152, n. 7.
t See Vol. XIII. p. 289, n. 6 ; and p. 3O4, n. 8. Compare also Clifford'?
speech to the rebels in p. 354, Buckingham's address to King Henry iu p. 2S4,
and Idea's speech in p. 363, with the old play, as quoted in the notes.
KING HENRY VI. 243
the original play on which The Second Part of King Henry VI.
was founded; and entered it on the Stationers' books, certainly
with an intention to publish it. Why it did not then appeal-,
cannot be now ascertained. But both that, and the other piece
on which The Third Part of King Henry VI. was formed, was
printed by the same bookseller in 1600, either with a view to
lead the common reader to suppose that he should purchase two
plays as altered and new-modelled by Shakspeare, or, without**
any such fraudulent intention, to derive a profit from the exhi-
bition of a work that so great a writer had thought proper to
retouch, and form into those dramas which for several years be-
fore 1600 had without doubt been performed with considerable
applause. In the same manner The old Taming of a Shrew, on
which our author formed a play, had been entered at Stationers'
Hall in 1594, and was printed in 1607,* without doubt with a
view to pass it on the publick as the production of Shakspeare.
When William Pavier republished The Contention of the Tivo
Houses, &c. in 1619,f he omitted the words in the original title-
page, " as it was acted by the earl ofPembrooke his servantes ;"
just as, on the republication of King John in two parts, in
1611, the words, " as it was acted in the honourable city of
London," were omitted ; because the omitted words in both
cases marked the respective pieces not to be the production of
Shakspeare.:}: And as in King John the letters W. Sh. were
added in 1611 to deceive the purchaser, so in the republication of
The Whole Contention &c. Pavier, having dismissed the words
above mentioned, inserted these: " Newly CORRECTED and
ENLARGED by William Shakspeare ;" knowing that these pieces
had been made the ground work of two other plays ; that they
had in fact been corrected and enlarged, (though not in that copy
which Pavier printed, which is a mere republication from the
edition of 1600,) and exhibited under the titles of The Second
and Third Part of King Henry VI. ; and hoping that this new
edition of the original plays would pass for those altered and
augmented by Shakspeare, which were then unpublished.
If Shakspeare had originally written these three plays of King
Henry VI. would they not probably have been found by the book-
* Also, as it has lately been discovered, by Cuthbert Burbie, in 1596. REED.
t Pavier's edition has no date, but it is ascertained to have been printed in
1619, by the signatures ; the last of which is Q. The play of Pericles was
printed in 1619, for the same bookseller, and Its first signature is R. The un-
dated copy, therefore, of The Whole Contention &c. and Pericles, must have
been printed at the same time.
| See Art Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. II. article,
King John.
R 2
244 DISSERTATION ON
seller in the same MS ? Would not the three parts have been pro>
cured, whether surreptitiously or otherwise, all together? Would
they not in that MS. have borne the titles of The First and Second
and Third Part of King Henry VI.? And would not the book-
seller have entered them on the Stationers' books, and published
such of them as he did publish, under those titles, and toith the
name of Shakspeare? On the other hand, if that which is now
distinguished by the name of The First Part of King Henri/ VI.
but which I suppose in those times was only called " The Histo-
rical Play of King Henry VI" if this was the production of
some old dramatist, if it had appeared on the stage some years
before 1591, (as from Nashe's mention of it seems to be implied,)
perhaps in 1587 or 1588, if its popularity was in 1594 in its
wane, and the attention of the publick was entirely taken up by
Shakspeare's alteration of two other plays which had likewise
appeared before 1591, would not the superior popularity of these
two pieces, altered by such a poet, attract the notice of the book-
sellers ? and finding themselves unable to procure them from the
theatre, would they not gladly seize on the originals on which
this new and admired writer had worked, and publish them as
soon as they could, neglecting entirely the preceding old play,
or First Part of King Henry VI. (as it is now called,) which
Shakspeare had not embellished with his pen ? Such, as we have
seen, was actually the process ; for Thomas Millington, ne-
glecting entirely The First Part of King Henry VI. entered the
ORIGINAL of The Second Part of King Henry VI. at Stationers'
Hall in 1593-4, and published the ORIGINALS of both that and
The Third Part in 1600. When Heminge and Condell printed
these three pieces in folio, they were necessarily obliged to name
the old play of King Henry VI. the first part, to distinguish it
from the two following historical dramas, founded on a later
period of the same king's reign.
Having examined such external evidence as time has left us
concerning these two plays, now denominated The Second and
Third Parts of King Henry VI. let us see whether we cannot by
internal marks ascertain how far Shakspeare was concerned in
their composition.
It has long been a received opinion that the two quarto plays,
one of which was published under the title of The First Part of
the Contention of the Two Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c.
and the other under the title of The true Tragedie of Richarde
Duke of Yorke, &c. were spurious and imperfect copies of Shak-
speare's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.; and many
passages have been quoted in the notes to the late editions of
Shakspeare, as containing merely the various readings of the
quartos and the folio ; the passages being supposed to be in sub-
KING HENRY VI. 245
stance the same, only variously exhibited in different copies.
The variations have been accounted for, by supposing that the
imperfect and spurious copies (as they were called) were taken
down either by an unskilful short-hand writer, or by some au-
ditor who picked up " during the representation what the time
would permit, then filled up some of his omissions at a second or
third hearing, and when he had by this method formed some-
thing like a play, sent it to the printer." To this opinion, I with
others for a long time subscribed : two of Heywood's pieces fur-
nishing indubitable proofs that plays in the time of our author
were sometimes imperfectly copied during the representation, by
the ear, or by short-hand writers.* But a minute examination
of the two pieces in question, and a careful comparison of them
with Shakspeare's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.
have convinced me that this could not have been the case with
respect to them. No fraudulent copyist or short-hand writer
would invent circumstances totally different from those which
appear in Shakspeare's new-modelled draughts as exhibited in the
first folio; or insert 'whole speeches? of which scarcely a trace is
found in that edition. In the course of the foregoing notes many
of these have been particularly pointed out. I shall now bring
into one point of view all those internal circumstances which
prove in my apprehension decisively, that the quarto plays were
not spurious and imperfect copies of Shakspeare's pieces, but
elder dramas on which he formed his Second and Third Part of
King Henry VI.
1. In some places a speech in one of these quartos consists of
ten or twelve lines. In Shakspeare's folio the same speech con-
sists of perhaps only half the number.f A copyist by the ear,
or an unskilful short-hand writer, might mutilate and exhibit a
poet's thoughts or expressions imperfectly ; but would he dilate
and amplify them, or introduce totally new matter ? Assuredly
he would not.
2. Some circumstances are mentioned in the old quarto plays,
of which there is not the least trace in the folio ; and many
minute variations are found between them and the folio, that
prove the pieces in quarto to have been original and distinct com-
positions.
In the last Act of The First Part of the Contention, &c. the
Duke of Buckingham after the battle of Saint Albans, is brought
in wounded, and carried to his tent ; but in Shakspeare's play he
is not introduced on the stage after that battle.
* See p. 214.
t See Vol. XIII. p. 202, n. 7 ; p. 236, n. 4 ; p. 373, n. 3 ; also p. 149.
u. 3 ; p. 176, n. 3, of the present volume.
246 DISSERTATION ON
In one of the original scenes between Jack Cade and his fol-
lowers, which Shakspeare has made the seventh scene of the
fourth Act of his Second Part of King Henry VI. Dick Butcher
drags a Serjeant, that is, a catch-pole, on the stage, and a dia-
logue consisting of seventeen lines passes between Cade, &c. at
the conclusion of which it is determined that the serjeant shall be
" brain'd with his own mace." Of this not one word appears in
our author's play.* In the same piece Jack Cade, hearing that
a knight, called Sir Humphrey Stafford, was coming at the head
of an army against him, to put himself on a par with him makes
himself a knight ; and finding that Stafford's brother was also a
knight, he dubs Dick Butcher also. But in Shakspeare's play
the latter circumstance is omitted.
In the old play Somerset goes out immediately after he is ap-
pointed regent of France. In Shakspeare's Second Part of King
Henry VI. he continues on the stage with Henry to the end of
the scene, (Act I. sc. iii.) and the King addresses him as they go
out.
In the old play, the Duchess of Gloster enters with Hume,
Bolingbroke, and Margery Jourdain, and after some conversation
with them, tells them that while they perform their rites, she
will go to the top of an adjoining tower, and there write down
such answers as the spirits, that they are to raise, shall give to her
questions. But in Shakspeare's play, Hume, Southixull, (who
is not introduced in the elder drama) and Bolingbroke, &c. enter
without the Duchess ; and after some conversation the Duchess
appears above, (that is, on the tower,) and encourages them to
proceed.'j-
In Shakspeare's play, when the Duke of York enters, and
finds the Duchess of Gloster, &c. and her co-adjutors performing
their magick rites, (Vol. XIII. p. 221,) the Duke seizes the paper
in which the answers of the spirit to certain questions are written
down, and reads them aloud. In the old play the answers are not
here recited by York; but in a subsequent scene Buckingham reads
them to the King ; (see p. 221, n. 7 ; and p. 234, n. 1,) and this
is one of the many transpositions that Shakspeare made in new-
modelling these pieces, of which I shall speak more fully hereafter.
In the old play, when the King pronounces sentence on the
Duchess of Gloster, he particularly mentions the mode of her
penance; and the sentence is pronounced in prose: " Stand
forth dame Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloster, and hear the
sentence pronounced against thee for these treasons that thou hast
* See Vol. XIII. p. 352, n. 4 ; and The First Part of the Contention &c.
1600, sign. G 3.
* See Vol. XIII. p. 216, n. 8.
KING HENRY VI. 247
committed against us, our state and peers. First, for thy haynous
crimes thou shalt two daies in London do penance barefoot in the
streets, with a white sheete about thy bodie, and a wax taper burn-
ing in thy hand : that done, thou shalt be banished for ever into
the Isle of Man, there to end thy wretched daies ; and this is
our sentence irrevocable. Away with her." But in Shak-
speare's play, (p. 243,) the King pronounces sentence in verse
against the Duchess and her confederates at the same time ; and
only says in general, that ** after three days open penance, she
shall be banished to the Isle of Man."
In Shakspeare's play, (p. 274,) when the Duke of York under-
takes to subdue the Irish rebels, if he be furnished with a suffi-
cient army, Suffolk says, that he " will see that charge per-
formed." But in the old play the Queen enjoins the Duke of
Buckingham to attend to this business, and he accepts the office.
In our author's play Jack Cade is described as a clothier, in
the old play he is " the dyer of Ashford." In the same piece,
when the King and Somerset appear at Kenelworth, a dialogue
passes between them and the Queen, of which not one word is
preserved in the corresponding scene in The Second Part of King
Henry VI. (p. 357.) In the old play, Buckingham states to the
King the grounds on which York had taken up arms ; but hi
Shakspeare's piece, (p. 373,) York himself assigns his reasons
for his conduct.
In the old play near the conclusion, young Clifford when he is
preparing to carry off the dead body of his father, is assaulted by
Richard, and after putting him to flight, he makes a speech con-
sisting of four lines. But in Shakspeare's play, (p. 389,) there
is no combat between them, nor is Richard introduced in that
scene. The four lines therefore above mentioned are necessarily
omitted.
In the old play the Queen drops her glove, and finding the
Duchess of Gloster makes no attempt to take it up, she gives
her a box on the ear :
" Give me my glove ; why, minion, can you not see ?"
But in Shakspeare's play, (p. 210,) the Queen drops not a glove,
but a.jan :
" Give me my Jan : What, minion, can you not ?"
In Shakspeare's Second Part of King Henry VI. (p. 311,)
Suffolk discovers himself to the Captain who had seized him, by
showing his George. In the old play he announces his quality by
a ring, a seal-ring we may suppose, exhibiting his arms. In the
same scene of Shakspeare's play, he observes that the Captain
threatens more
" Than Bargulus, the strong Illyrian pyrate."
But in the elder drama Suffolk says, he
248 DISSERTATION ON
" Threatens more plagues than mighty Abradas,
" The great Macedonian pirate."
In the same scene of the original play the Captain threatens
to sink Suffolk's ship ; but no such menace is found in Shak-
speare's play.
In The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. Richard
(afterwards Duke of .Gloster,) informs Warwick that his father
the Earl of Salisbury was killed in an action which he describes,
and which in fac took place at Ferrybridge in Yorkshire. But
Shakspeare in his Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 73,)
formed upon the piece above mentioned, has rightly deviated,
from it, and for father substituted brother, it being the natural
brother of Warwick, (the bastard son of Salisbury,) that fell at
Ferrybridge. The Earl of Salisbury, Warwick's father, was
beheaded at Pomfret.
In the same old play a son is introduced who has killed his
father, and afterwards a father who has killed his son. King
Henry, who is on the stage, says not a word till they have both
appeared, and spoken ; he then pronounces a speech of seven
lines. But in Shakspeare's play (p. 85,) this speech is enlarged,
and two speeches formed on it ; the first of which the King
speaks after the son has appeared, and the other after the entry
of the father.
In our author's play, (p. 134,) after Edward's marriage with
Lady Grey, his brothers enter, and converse on that event. The
King, Queen, &c. then join them, and Edward asks Clarence
how he approves his choice. In the elder play there is no pre-
vious dialogue between Gloster and Clarence ; but the scene
opens with the entry of the King, &c. who desires the opinion
of his brothers on.-his recent marriage.
In our author's play (p. 116,) the following line is found:
" And set the murderous Machiavel to school."
This line in The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c.
Stood thus :
" And set the aspiring Catiline' to school."
Catiline was the person that would naturally occur to Peele or
Greene, as the most splendid classical example of inordinate am-
bition ; but Shakspeare, who was more conversant with English
books, substituted Machiavel, whose name was in such frequent
use in his time that it became a specifickterm for a consummate
politician ;* and accordingly he makes his host in The Merry
Wives of Windsor, when he means to boast of his own shrewd-
ness, exclaim, " Am I subtle ? am I a Machiavel?"
Many other variations beside those already mentioned might
See Vol. XIII. p. 169, n. 7.
KING HENRY VI. 249
be pointed out ; but that I may not weary the reader, I will only
refer in a note to the most striking diversities that are found be-
tween Shakspeare's Second and Third Part of King Henry VI.
and the elder dramas printed in quarto.*
The supposition of imperfect or spurious copies cannot account
for such numerous variations in the circumstances of these pieces ;
(not to insist at present,on the language in which they are clothed;)
so that we are compelled (as I have already observed) to maintain,
either that Shakspeare wrote two plays on the story which forms
his Second Part of King Henry VI. a hasty sketch, and an en-
tirely distinct and more finished performance ; or else we must
acknowledge that he formed that piece on a foundation laid by
another writer, that is, upon the quarto copy of The First Part
of the Contention of the Two Houses of Yorke and Lancaster,
&c. and the same argument precisely applies to The Third Part
of King Henry VI. which is founded on The true Tragedie of
Richarde Duke of Yorke, &c. printed in quarto, 1600.
Let us now advert to the Resemblances that are found in these
pieces as exhibited in the folio, to passages in our author's undis-
puted plays ; and also to the Inconsistencies that may be traced
between them ; and, if I do not deceive myself, both the one
and the other will add considerable support to the foregoing ob-
servations.
In our author's genuine plays, he frequently borrows from
himself, the same thoughts being found in nearly the same ex-
pressions in different pieces. In The Second and Third Part of
King Henry VI. as in other dramas, these coincidencies with
his other works may be found ;f and this was one of the circum-
stances that once weighed much in my mind, and convinced me
x)f their authenticity. But a collation of these plays with the
old pieces on which they >are founded, has shewn me the fallacy
by which I was deceived : for the passages of these two parts of
Kins Henry VI. which correspond with others in our author's
undisputed plays, exist only in the folio copy, and not in the
quarto ; in other words, in those parts of these new-modelled
* See The Second Part of King Henry VI. p. 202, n. 7; p. 214, n. 6;
p. 217, n. 1 ; p. 220, n. 6 ; p. 242, n. 3 ; p. 26.5, n. 1 ; p. 272, n. 5; p. 277,
u. 5 ; p. 309, n. 8; p. 311, n. 2 ; p. 317, n. 3; p. 352, n. 5 ; p. 358, n. 4;
p. rf73, n. 2 and 3 ; p. 394, n. 1. Third Part of King Henry VI. p. 10,
n. 9 ; p. 13, n. 5 ; p. 16, n. 2 ; p. 23, n. 6 ; p. 25, n. 9 ; p. 27, n. 2 ; p. 64,
fl. 2; p. 73, n. 3 ; p. 77, n. 1 ; p. 83, n. 4 ; p. 117, n. 5 ; p. 123, n. 5;
p. 134, n. 8 ; p. 142, n. 7 ; p. 143, n. 8 and 9 ; p. 146, n. 6 ; p. 149, n. 3 ;
p. 165, n. 3 ; p. 184, n. 3.
t See The Second Part of King Henry VI. p. 187, n. 6; p. 207, n. 3;
p. 299, n. 5 ; p. 306, n. 2 ; p. 320, n. 6 ; p. 353, n. 5 ; p, 395, n. 4.
Third Part, p. 80, n. 6; p. 100, n. 6; p. 18, n. 9 ; p. 193, n. 2.
250 DISSERTATION ON
pieces, which were of Shakspeare's writing, and not in the ori-
ginals by another hand, on which he worked. This, I believe,
"will be found invariably the case, except in three instances.
The first is, " You have no children, butchers ;" which is, it
must be acknowledged, in The true Tragedie of Richarde Duke
of Yorke, &c. 1600; (as well as in The Third Part of King
Henry VI.) and is also introduced with a slight variation in
Macbeth.*
Another instance is found in King John. That king, when
charged with the death of his nephew, asks
" Think you, I bear the shears of destiny ?
** Have I commandment on the pulse of life ?"
which bears a striking resemblance to the words of Cardinal
Beaufort in The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses,
&.c. which Shakspeare has introduced in his Second Part of
King Henry VI:
" Died he not in his bed ?
" Can I make men live whe'r they will or no ?"
The third instance is found in The true Tragedie of Richarde
Duke of Yorke, &c. In that piece are the following lines, which
Shakspeare adopted with a very slight variation, and inserted in
his Third Part of King Henry VI :
" doves will peck in rescue of their brood.
" Unreasonable creatures feed their young ;
" And though man's face be fearful to their eyes,
" Yet, in protection of their tender ones,
" Who hath not seen them even with those same wings
" Which they have sometimes used in fearful flight,
" Make war with him that climb'd unto their nest,
" Offering their own lives in their young's defence ?"
So, in our author's Macbeth : ... .
" the poor wren
" The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
" Her young ones in the nest, against the owl."
But whoever recollects the various thoughts that Shakspeare
has borrowed from preceding writers, will not be surprized that
in a similar situation, in Macbeth, and King John, he should
have used the expressions of an old dramatist, with whose writ-
ings he had been particularly conversant; expressions too, which
he had before embodied in former plays : nor can, I think, these
three instances much diminish the force of the foregoing obser-
vation. That it may have its full weight, I have in the present
edition distinguished by asterisks all the lines in The Second and
Third Part of King Henry VI. of which there is no trace in the
* See p. 197 of thb volume, and Vol. X. 249, n. 7.
KING HENRY VI. 251
the old quarto plays, and which therefore I suppose to have been
written by Shakspeare. Though this has not been effected with-
out much trouble, yet, if it shall tend to settle this long-agitated
question, I shall not consider my labour as wholly thrown away.
Perhaps a similar coincidency in The First Part of King
Henry VI. may be urged in opposition to my hypothesis relative
to that play. " Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing
fire," are in that piece called the attendants on the brave Lord
Talbot ; as, in Shakspeare's King Henry V. " famine, sword,
and fire, are leash'd in like hounds, crouching under the mar-
tial Henry for employment." If this image had proceeded from
our author's imagination, this coincidency might perhaps coun-
tenance the supposition that he had some hand at least in that
scene of The First Part of King Henry VI. where these attend-
ants on war are personified. But that is not the case ; for the
fact is, that Shakspeare was furnished with this imagery by a
passage in Holinshed, as the author of the old play of King
Henry VI. was by Hall's Chronicle : " The Goddesse of warre,
called Bellonas hath these three hand-maides ever of necessitie
attendyng on her, bloud,fyre, andjamine.*"
In our present inquiry, it is undoubtedly a very striking cir-
cumstance that almost all the passages in The Second and Third
Part of King Henry VI. which resemble others in Shakspeare's
undisputed plays, are not found in the original pieces in quarto,
but in his Rifacimento published in folio. As these Resemblances
to his other plays, and a peculiar Shakspearian phraseology, as-
certain a considerable portion of these disputed dramas to be the
production of Shakspeare, so on the other hand certain passages
which are discordant (in matters of fact) from his other plays,
are proved by this discordancy, not to have been composed by
him ; and these discordant passages, being found in the original
quarto plays, prove that those pieces were composed by another
writer.
Thus, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 105,) Sir
John Grey is said to have lost " his life in quarrel of the house
of York ;" and King Edward stating the claim of his widow,
whom he afterwards married, mentions, that his lands after the
battle of Saint Albans, (February 17, 1460-1,) " were seized
on by the conqueror." Whereas, in fact, they were seized on
by Edward himself after the battle of Towton, (in which he
was conqueror, ) March 29, 14-61. The conqueror at the second
battle of Saint Albans, the battle here meant, was Queen Mar-
garet. This statement was taken from the old quarto play ; and,
from carelessness was adopted by Shakspeare without any mate-
rial alteration. But at a subsequent period when he wrote his
* Hall's Chron. Henry VI. fol. xxix.
252 DISSERTATION ON
King Richard III. he was under a necessity of carefully exa-
mining the English chronicles; and in that play, Act I. sc. Hi. he
has represented this matter truly as it was :
" In all which time, you, and your husband Grey,
" Were factious for the house of Lancaster ;
** (And, Rivers, so were you;) Was not your husband
" In Margaret's battle at Saint Albans slain ?"
It is called " Margaret's battle," because she was there victo-
rious.
An equally decisive circumstance is furnished by the same
play. In The Third Part of King Henry VI. (p. 131,) War-
wick proposes to marry his eldest daughter (Isabella} to Edward
Prince of Wales, and the proposal is accepted by Edward ; and
in a subsequent scene Clarence says, he will marry the younger
daughter ( Anne}. In these particulars Shakspeare has implicitly
followed the elder drama. But the fact is, that the Prince of
Wales married Anne the younger daughter of the Earl of War-
wick, and the Duke of Clarence married the elder, Isabella.
Though the author of The true Tragedie of the Duke of Yorke,
&c. was here inaccurate, and though Shakspeare too negligently
followed his steps, when he wrote his King Richard III. he had
gained better information; for there Lady ANNE is rightly re-
presented as the widow of the Prince of Wales, and the
youngest daughter of the Earl of Warwick :
" Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
" And leave the world to me to bustle in.
" For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter ;
" What though 1 kill'd her husband, and her father," &c.
i. e. Edward Prince of Wales, and King Henry VI.
King Richard III. Act I. sc. i.
I have said that certain passages in The Second and Third
Part of King Henry VI. are ascertained to be Shakspeare's by a
peculiar phraseology. This peculiar phraseology, without a single
exception, distinguishes such parts of these plays as are found in
the folio, and not in the elder quarto dramas, of which the phra-
seology, as well as the versification, is of a different colour.
This observation applies not only to the new original matter pro-
duced by Shakspeare, but to his alteration of the old. Our au-
thor in his undoubted compositions has fallen into an inaccuracy,
of which I do not recollect a similar instance in the works of any
other dramatist. When he has occasion to quote the same paper
twice, (not from memory, but verbatim,} from negligence he
does not always attend to the words of the paper which he has
occasion to quote, but makes one of the persons of the drama
recite them with variations, though he holds the very paper
KING HENRY VI. 253
quoted before his eyes. Thus, in AIVs well that ends well,
Act V. sc. iii. Helena says :
" here's your letter ; This it says '.
" When from myjinger you can get this ring,
" And are by me with child,"
Yet, as I have observed in Vol. V. p. 327, n. 6. Helena in
Act III. sc. ii. reads this very letter aloud, and there the words are
different, and in plain prose : " When thou canst get the ring
from my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a
child begotten of thy body," c. In like manner, in the first
scene of The Second Part of King Henry VI. Suffolk presents
to the Duke of Gloster, protector of the realm, the articles of
peace concluded between France and England. The protector
begins to read the articles, but when he has proceeded no further
than these words, " Item, that the dutchy of Anjou and the
county of Maine shall be released and delivered to the king her
father," he is suddenly taken ill, and rendered incapable of pro-
ceeding : on which the Bishop of Winchester is called upon to
read the remainder of the paper. He accordingly reads the
whole of the article, of which the Duke of Gloster had only read
a part : " Item, It is further agreed between them, that the
dutchies of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered over
to the king her father, and she sent," &c. Now though Maine
in our old chronicles is sometimes called a county, and sometimes
a dutchy, yet words cannot thus change their form under the
eyes of two readers : nor do they in the original play, entitled,
The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses, &c. for
there the article as recited by the protector corresponds with that
recited by the Bishop, without the most minute variation. " Item,
It is further agreed between them, that the dutchies of Anjou
and of Maine shall be released and delivered over to the king her
father, and she sent," &c. Thus in the old play says the Duke,
and so says the Cardinal after him. This one circumstance, in
my apprehenshion, is of such weight, that though it stood alone,
it might decide the present question. Our author has fallen into
a similar inaccuracy in the fourth scene of the same Act, where
the Duke of York recites from a paper the questions that had been
put to the Spirit, relative to the Duke of Suffolk, Somerset, &c.*
Many minute marks of Shakspeare's hand may be traced in
such parts of the old plays as he has new-modelled. I at present
recollect one that must strike every reader who is conversant with
his writings. He very frequently uses adjectives adverbially;
and this kind of phraseology, if not peculiar to him, is found
more frequently in his writings than those of any of his content-
* See Vol. XIII. p. 2*2$, B. 8.
254 DISSERTATION ON
poraries. Thus " I am myself indifferent honest ;" " as
dishonourable ragged as an old faced ancient ;" " equal raven-
ous ;" "leaves them invisible;" &c.* In The true Tra-
gedie of the Duke of Yorke, &c. the King, having determined
to marry Lady Grey, injoins his brothers to use her honourably.
But in Shakspeare's play the words are, "use her honourable**
So, in Julius Caesar :
" Young man, thou could'st not die more honourable**
In like manner, in The Third Part of King Henry VI. we
find this line :
" Is either slain, or wounded dangerous**
but in the old play the words are " wounded dangerously**
In the same play the word handkerchief is used; but in the
corresponding scene in The Third Part of King Henry VI.
(p. 51,) Shakspeare has substituted the northern term napkin,
which occurs so often in his works, in its room.f
The next circumstance to which I wish to call the attention of
those who do not think the present investigation wholly incurious,
is, the Transpositions that are found in these plays. In the pre-
ceding notes I have frequently observed that not only several lines,
but sometimes whole scenes,^ were transposed by Shakspeare.
In p. 50, 51, a Messenger, giving an account of the death
of the Duke of York, says :
" Environed he was with many foes ;
" And stood against them, as the hope of Troy
" Against the Greeks, that would have enter'd Troy.
" But Hercules himself must yield to odds ;"
When this passage was printed, not finding any trace of the last
three lines in the corresponding part of the old play, I marked
them inadvertently as Shakspeare's original composition ; but I
afterwards found that he had borrowed them from a subsequent
scene on a quite different subject, in which Henry, taking leave
of Warwick, says to him
" Farewell my Hector, and my Troy*s true hope!**
and the last line, " But Hercules,'* &c. is spoken by Warwick
near the conclusion of the piece, after he is mortally wounded
in the battle of Barnet.
So, in The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. after
the Duke has slain Clifford, he says
" Now, Lancaster, sit sure: thy sinews shrink."
Shakspeare has not made use of that line in that place, but
* See Vol. VIII. p. 551, n. 5 ; and p. 176, n. 6 ; Vol. VI. p. 318, n. 9.
In Othello both the words napkin, and handh
See p. 152, n. 5 ; p. 160, n. 5 ; p. 166, n. 4.
t In Othello both the words napkin, and handkerchief, may be found.
STKEVEN?.
KING HENRY VI. 255
availed himself of it afterwards, where Edward brings forth
Warwick wounded ; King Henry VI. P. III. Act V. sc. ii :
" Now, Montague, sit fast : I seek for thee," &c.
Many other transpositions may be traced in these plays, to
which I shall only refer in a note.*
Such transpositions as I have noticed, could never have arisen
from any carelessness or inaccuracy of transcribers or copyists ;
and therefore are to be added to the many other circumstances
which prove that The Second and Third Parts of K. Henry VI.
as exhibited in the folio, were formed from the materials of a
preceding writer.
It is also observable, that many lines arerepeatedin Shakspeare's
Second and Third Part of King Henry F/.f but no such repe-
titions are found in the old quarto plays. The repetition un-
doubtedly arose from Shakspeare's not always following his ori-
ginal strictly, but introducing expressions which had struck him
in other parts of the old plays ; and afterwards, forgetting that he
had before used such expressions, he suffered them to remain in
their original places also.
Another proof that Shakspeare was not the author of The
Contention of the Two Houses, &c. is furnished by the inconsist-
encies into which he has fallen, by sometimes adhering to, and
sometimes deviating from, his original : an inaccuracy which may
be sometimes observed in his undisputed plays.
One of the most remarkable instances of this kind of incon-
sistency is found in The Second Part of King Henry VI. p. 336,
where he makes Henry say :
" I'll send some holy bishop to intreat," &c.
a circumstance which he took from Holinshed's Chronicle;
whereas in the old play no mention is made of a bishop on this
occasion. The King there says, he will himself come and parley
with the rebels, and in the mean time he orders Clifford and
Buckingham to gather an army. In a subsequent scene, how-
ever, Shakspeare forgot the new matter which he had introduced
in the former ; and Clifford and Buckingham only parley with
Cade, &c. conformably to the old play. J
In Romeo and Juliet he has fallen into a similar inaccuracy.
In the poem on which that tragedy is founded, Romeo, in his
interview with the Friar, after sentence of banishment has been
* See Vol. XIII. p. 299, n. 4 ; p. 327, n. 8 ; p. 379, n. 3 ; and p. 146, a.
6 ; p. 182, n. 8 and 9 ; p. 189, n. 1, of the present volume.
t See also p. 79, n. 4; p. 102, n. 2 ; p. 120, n. 8; p. 126, n. 2.
f See Vol. XIII. p. 219, n. 4 ; and p. 123, n. 5 ; p. 126, n. 2, of the pre-
sent volume.
256 DISSERTATION ON
pronounced against him, is described as passionately lamenting
his fate in the following terms :
" First nature did he blame, the author of his life,
" In which his joys had been so scant, and sorrows aye
so rife ;
" The time and place of birth he fiercely did reprove ;
" He cryed out with open mouth against the stars above.
" On fortune eke he rail'd," &c.
The Friar afterwards reproves him for want of patience. In
forming the corresponding scene Shakspeare has omitted Romeo's
invective against his fate, but inadvertently copied the Friar's re-
monstrance as it lay before him .
" Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth ?"
If the following should be considered as a trifling circumstance,
let it be remembered, that circumstances which, separately con-
sidered, may appear unimportant, sometimes acquire strength,
when united to other proofs of more efficacy : in my opinion,
.however, what I shall now mention is a circumstance of con-
siderable weight. It is observable that the priest concerned with
Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Glocester, in certain pretended
operations of magick, for which she was tried, is called by Hall,
John Hum. So is he named in The First Part of the Contention
of the TIKO Houses qfYorke,.&c. the original, as I suppose, of
The Second Part of King Henry VI. Our author probably
thinking the name harsh or ridiculous, softened it to Hume ; and
by that name this priest is called in his play printed in folio. But
in Holinshed he is named Hun ; and so undoubtedly, or perhaps
for softness, Hune, he would have been called in the original
quarto play just mentioned, if Shakspeare had been the author
of it ; for Holinshed and not Hall was his guide, as I have shown
incontestably in a note on King Henry V. Vol. XII. p. 292. But
Hall was undoubtedly the historian who had been consulted by
the original writer of The Contention of the Two Houses of Yorke
and Lancaster ; as appears from his having taken a line from
thence, ." That Alexander Iden, an esquire of Kent , *" and from
the scene in which Cardinal Beaufort is exhibited on his death-
bed. One part of the particular description of the Cardinal's
death and dying words, in the old quarto play, is founded on a
passage in Hall, which Holinshed, though in general a servile
copyist of the former chronicler, has omitted. The passage is
this : " Dr. John Baker, his pryvie counsailerandhys chapellayn,
wrote, that lying on his death-bed he [Cardinal Beaufort] said
these words : Why should I dye, havyng so much ryches ? If
-* See Hall, Henry V. fol. Ixxix. Holinshed says, " a gentleman of Kent,
warned Alexander Idcn, awaited so his time," &c.
KING HENRY VL 2.57
the whole redlme would save my lyfe, I am able either by pelli-
cle to get it, or by riches to bye it. Fye ! will not death be hy-
ered, nor will money do nothynge ?" From this the writer of the
old play formed these lines :
" O death, if thou wilt let me live
" But one whole year, I'll give thee as much gold
" As will purchase such another island."
which Shakspeare new-modelled thus :
" If thou be'st death, I'll give thee England's treasure,
" Enough to purchase such another island,
" So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain;"
If Shakspeare had been the author of The First Part of the
Contention, &c. finding in his Holinshed the name Hun, he
would either have preserved it, or softened it to Hune. Working
on the old play, where he found the name of Hum, which
sounded ridiculous to his ear, he changed it to Hume. But who-
ever the original writer of the old play was, having used the
name of Hum, he must have formed his play on Hall's Chro-
nicle, where alone that name is found. Shakspeare therefore
having made Holinshed, and not Hall, his guide, could not have
been the writer of it.
It may be remarked, that by the alteration of this priest's
name, he has destroyed a rhyme intended by the author of the
original play, where Sir John begins a soliloquy with this jin-
gling line ;
" Now, Sir John Hum, no word but mum :
" Seal up your lips, for you must silent be."
which Shakspeare has altered thus :
" But how now, Sir John Hume ?
" Seal up your lips, and give no words but mum."
Lines rhyming in the middle and end, similar to that above
quoted, are often found in our old English plays, (previous to
the time of Shakspeare,) and are generally put into the mouths
of priests and friars.
It has already been observed, that in the original play on which
The Second Part of King Henry VI. is founded, " Abradas,
the Macedonian pirate," is mentioned. This hero does not ap-
pear in Shakspeare's new-modelled play, " Bargulus, the strong
Illyrian pirate," being introduced in his room. Abradas is spo-
ken of (as Mr. Steevens has remarked) by Robert Greene, the
very person whom I suppose to have been one of the joint au-
thors of the original plays, in a pamphlet, entitled, Penelope's
Web, 1589 : " Abradas, the great Macedonean pirate, thought
every one had a letter of mart that bare sayles in the ocean."
Of this pirate or his achievements, however celebrated he may
VOL. XIV. S
258 DISSERTATION ON
have been, I have not found the slightest trace in any book what-
soever, except that above quoted: a singular circumstance,
which appears to me strongly to confirm my hypothesis on the
present subject ; and to support my interpretation of Greene's
words in his Groatsivorth of Witte, in a former part of the pre-
sent disquisition.
However this may be, there are certainly very good grounds
for believing that The First Part of the Contention of the Two
Homes of York and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of
Richard Duke of Yorke, were written by the author or authors
of the old King John, printed in 1591.
In The true Tragedie &c. we find the following lines :
" Let England be true within itself,
" We need not France, nor any alliance with her."
The first of these lines is found, with a very minute variation,
in the old King John, where it runs thus :
" Let England live but true within itself, ."
Nor is this the only coincidence. In the deservedly admired
scene in which Cardinal Beaufort's death is represented, in the
original play, (as well as in Shakspeare's Second Part of King
Henry VI.} he is called upon to hold up his hand, as a proof of
his confidence in God :
" Lord Cardinal,
" If thou diest assured of heavenly blisse,
" Hold up thy hand, and make some sign to us.
[ The Cardinal dies.
" O see, he dies, and makes no sign at all :
" O God, forgive his soule !"
I quote from the original play It is remarkable that a simi-
lar proof is demanded in the old play of King John also, whe
that king is expiring :
Then, good my lord, if you forgive them all,
Lift up your hand, in token you forgive.'*
Again :
in token of thy faith,
And signe thou diest the servant of the Lord,
Lift up thy hand, that we may witnesse here
" Thou diest the servant of our Saviour Christ.
" Now joy betide thy soul !"
This circumstance appears to me to add considerable support
to my conjecture.
One point only remains. It may be asked, if The First Part
of King Henry VI. was not written by Shakspeare, why did
Heminge and Condell print it with the rest of his works ? The
only way that I can account for their having done so, is by sup-
posing, either that their memory at the end of thirty years was
not accurate concerning our author's pieces, as appears indeed.
KING HENRY VI. 259
evidently from their omitting Troilus and Cressida, which was
not recollected by them, till the whole of the first folio, and
even the table of contents, (which is always the last work of the
press, ) had been printed ; or, that they imagined the insertion
of this historical drama was necessary to understanding the two
pieces that follow it ; or lastly, that Shakspeare, for the advan-
tage of his own theatre, having written a few lines in The First
Part of King Henry VI. after his own Second and Third Part
had been played, they conceived this a sufficient warrant for at-
tributing it, along with the others, to him, in the general col-
lection of his works. If Shakspeare was the author of any part
of this play, perhaps the second and the following scenes of the
fourth Act were his ; which are for the most part written in
rhyme, and appear to me somewhat of a different complexion
from the rest of the play. Nor is this the only instance of their
proceeding on this ground ; for is it possible to conceive that
they could have any other reason for giving Titus Andronicus a
place in their edition of Shakspeare's works, than his having
written twenty or thirty lines in that piece, or having retouched
a few verses of it ; if indeed he did so much ?
Shakspeare's referring in the Epilogue to King Henry V. which
was produced in 1599, to these three parts of King Henry VI.
of which the first, by whom soever it was written, appears from,
the testimony of a contemporary to have been exhibited with
great applause ;* and the two latter having been, as I conceive,
eight years before new-modelled and almost re-written by our
author, we may be confident were performed with the most
brilliant success ; his supplicating the favour of the audience to
his new play of King Henry V. "Jbr the sake" of these old and
popular dramas, which were so closely connected with it, and
m the composition of which, as they had for many years been
exhibited, he had so considerable a share ; the connection be-
tween the last scene of King Henry VI. and the first scene of
King Richard III. the Shakspearian diction, versification, and
figures, by which The Second and Third Part of K. Henry
VI. are distinguished ; " the easiness of expression and the flu-
ency of numbers," which, it is acknowledged, are found here,
and were possessed by no other author of that age ; all these cir-
cumstances are accounted for by the theory now stated, and all
objections f that have been founded upon them, in my appre-
hension, vanish away.
On the other hand, the entry on the Stationers' books of the
* See p. 231 of this Dissertation.
t See these several objections stated by Dr. Johnson in the notes t the end
of The Third Part of King Henry VI.
S2
260 DISSERTATION ON
Old play, entitled The First Part of the Contention of the Two
Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. without the name of the
authdr ; that piece, and The true Tragedie ofRicharde Duke
of Yorke, &c. being printed in 1600, anonymously; their being
founded on the Chronicle of Hall, who was not Shakspeare's
historian, and represented by the servants of Lord Pembroke, by
whom none of his uncontested dramas were represented ; the
colour, diction, and versification of these old plays, the various
circumstances, lines and speeches, that are found in them, and
not in our author's new-modification of them, as published in
folio by his original editors ; the resemblances that have been no-
ticed between his other works and such parts of these dramas as
are only exhibited in their folio edition ; the discordances ( in
matters of fact) between certain parts of the old plays printed in
quarto, arid Shakspeare's undoubted performances ; the transpo-
sitions that he has made in these pieces ; the repetitions ; and the
peculiar Shakspearian inaccuracies, and phraseology, which may
be traced in the folio, and not in the old quarto plays j these and
other circumstances, which have been stated in the foregoing
pages, form, when united, such a body of argument and proofs,
in support of my hypothesis, as appears to me, (though I will
not venture to assert that " the probation bears no hinge or loop
to hang a doubt on,") to lead directly to the door of truth.
It is observable that several portions of the English History
had been dramatized before the time of Shakspeare. Thus, we
have King John in two parts, by an anonymous writer ; Edward I.
by George Peele ; Edward II. by Christopher Marlowe ; Ed-
ward 111. anonymous; Henry IV. containing the deposition of
Richard II. and the accession of Henry to the crown, anony-
mous ;* Henry V. and Richard II I. both by anonymous authors.f
Is it not then highly probable, that the whole of the story of
Henry VI. had also been brought upon the scene ? and that the
first of the plays now in question, formerly ( as I believe ) called
The Historical Play of King Henry VI. and now named The
First Part of King Henry VI. as well as The First Part of the
Contention of the Two Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, &c. and
The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, &c. (which
three pieces comprehend the entire reign of that King from his
birth to his death,) were the composition of some of the authors,
who had produced the historical dramas above enumerated ?
In consequence of an hasty and inconsiderate opinion formed
by Mr. Pope, without any minute examination of the subject,
* See the Prolegomena to King Richard II. Vol. XI.
t Entered on the Sutiousrs' books in 1594.
KING HENRY VI. 261
King John in two parts, printed in 1591, and The old Taming
of the Shrew, which was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1594,
and printed in 1607, passed for half a century for the compo-
sition of Shakspeare. Further inquiries have shown that they
were the productions of earlier writers ; and perhaps a more pro-
found investigation of this subject than I have been able to make,
may hereafter prove decisively, that thejirst of the three Henries
printed in folio, and both the parts of The Whole Contention of
the Two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, as exhibited in
quarto, and printed in 1600, ought to be classed in the same pre-
dicament with the two old plays above mentioned. For my own
part, if it should ever be thought proper to reprint the old dramas
on which Shakspeare founded some of his plays, which were
published in two volumes a few years ago, I have no doubt tha,t
The First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses of Yorke
and Lancaster, &c. and The true Tragedie of the Duke ofYorke t
&c. should be added to the number.
Gildon somewhere says, that "in a conversation between Shak-
speare and Ben Jonson, Ben asked him the reason why he wrote
his historical plays." Our author (we are told) replied, that
** finding the nation generally very ignorant of history, he wrote
them in order to instruct the people in that particular." This
anecdote, like many other traditional stories, stands on a very
weak foundation ; or to speak more justly, it is certainly a fiction.
The malignant Ben does indeed, in his Devil's an Ass, 1616,
sneer at our author's historical pieces, which for twenty years
preceding had been in high reputation, and probably were then the
only historical dramas that had possession of the theatre; but from
the list above given, it is clear that Shakspeare was not thejirst
who dramatized our old chronicles ; and that the principal events
of the English History were familiar to the ears of his audience,
before he commenced a writer forthestage :* though undoubtedly
* This point is established not only by the list referred to, but by a passage
in a pamphlet already quoted, entitled Pierce Pennilesse his Supplication to the
Devil, written by Thomas Nashe, quarto, 1592 : " Whereas the afternoone
being the eldest time of the day, wherein men that are their own masters (as
gentlemen of the Court, the Innes of court, and the number of captaines
and soldiers about London) do wholly bestow themselves upon pleasure, and
that pleasure they divide (how virtuously it skilles not,) into gaming, following
of harlots, drinking, or seeing a play; is it not then better, since of foure
extreames all the world cannot keepe them but they will choose one, that
they should betake them to the last, which is Playes ? Nay, what if I prove
playes to be no extreame, but a rare exercise of vertue ? First, for the subject
of them; for the most part it is borrowed out of our ENGLISH CHRONICLFS ?
wherein our fore-fathers' valiant actes, that have been long buried in rustic
brasse, nd worme eaten bookes, are revived, and they themselves raised from
the grave of oblivion, and brought to plead their aged honours in open presence ;
262 DISSERTATION ON
at. this day, whatever knowledge of our annals is dispersed
among the people, is derived from the frequent exhibition of our
author's historical plays.
He certainly did not consider writing on fables that had al-
ready been formed into dramas, as any derogation from his fame;
if indeed fame was ever an object of his thoughts. We know
that plays on the subjects of Measure for Measure, The Taming
of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, King John, King
Richard II. King Henry IV. King Henry V. King Richard III.
King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and, I strongly suspect, on
those of Hamlet, Timon oj" Athens, and Julius Ctesar,* existed
before he commenced a dramatick author ; and perhaps in pro-
cess of time it may be found, that many of the fables of his other
plays also had been unskilfully treated, and produced upon the
stage, by preceding writers.
Such are the only lights that I am able to throw on this very
dark subject. The arguments which I have stated have entirely
satisfied my own mind ; whether they are entitled to bring con-
viction to the minds of others, I shall not presume to determine.
I produce them, however, with the more confidence, as they
have the approbation of one who has given such decisive proofs
of his taste and knowledge, by ascertaining the extent of Shak-
speare's learning, that I have no doubt his thoughts on the pre-
sent question also, will have that weight with the publick to
than which, what can be a sharper reproofe to these degenerate days of
ours ?"
' After an elogium on the brave Lord Talbot, and on the actor who had per-
sonated him in a popular play of that time, " before ten thousand spectators
at the least ;" (which has already been printed in a former page,) and after
observing "what a glorious thing it is to have King Henry the Fifth represented
on the stage, leading the French king prisoner, and forcing both him and the
Dolphin to swear fealty," the writer adds these words :
" In playes, all cousenages, all cunning drifts, over-guilded with outward
holinesse, all stratagems of warre, all the canker-wormes that breed in the
rust of peace, are most lively anatomised. They show the ill successe of trea-
son, the fall of hasty climbers, the wretched end of usurpers, the miserie of
civil dissention, and how just God is evermore in punishing murder. And
to prove every one of these allegations, could I propound the circumstances of
this play and that, if I meant to handle this theame otherwise than
obiter."
It is highly probable that the words, " the miserie of civil dissention," al-
lude to the very plays which are the subjects of the present disquisition, The
First Part of the Contention of the Two Houses &c. and The True Tragedy of
Richarde Duke of Yorke ; as, by " the wretched end of Usurpers," and the
justice of God in " punishing murder" old plays on the subject of King
Richard III. and that of Hamlet, prior to those of Shakspeare, were, I believe,
alluded to.
* See An Attempt to ascertain the Order of Shakspeare's Plays, Vol. II.
KING HENRY VI. 263
which they are undoubtedly entitled. It is almost unnecessary
to add, that I mean my friend Dr. Farmer ; who many years ago
delivered it as his opinion, that these plays were not written ori-
ginally by Shakspeare.* MA LONE.
* Mr. Theobald's and Dr. Warburton's idea on which the foregoing Disser-
tation is founded, had received countenance, from the opinion of Dr. Farmer.
Mr. Malone, with much labour and ingenuity, has given support to the senti-
ments of these gentlemen ; but, in my judgment, if he proves any thing, it
is a position hazarded by me long ago ; viz. that our author had as much
hand in the present dramas, as in several others that pass under his name ; for,
as I observed in Mr. Malone's Attempt to ascertain &c. (article, Macbeth)" a
time may arrive, in which it will become evident, from books and manuscripts
yet undiscovered and unexamined, that Shakspeare did not attempt a single
play on any subject, till the effect of the same story, or at least the ruling in-
cidents in it, had been tried on the stage, and familiarized to his audience ;"
a conjecture which in some instances has been already confirmed.
Of the first part of these three Histories, however, it is asserted, that in co-
lour of style, &c. it bears no resemblance to the other works of our author.
As I think, among the notes on that piece, I have advanced some proofs to the
contrary, in this place I shall be content to add, that it as strongly resemble*
the latter dramas of Shakspeare, as the Dream of Raphael resembles his Traiis-
Jtguration. Between the first and last performances of great masters, there ii
often but a small, if any, degree of resemblance. Sir Joshua Reynolds studied
under Hudson, and at first imitated his manner ; but is a trace of the almost for-
gotten master discoverable in the mature and applauded works of the pupil ?
STEKVENS.
KING RICHARD III.
* LIFE AND DEATH OF KING RICHARD III.] This tra-
gedy, though it is called the Life and Death of this Prince, com-
prizes, at most, but the last eight years of his time; for it opens
with George Duke of Clarence being clapped up in the Tower,
which happened in the beginning of the year 1477 ; and closes
with the death of Richard at Bosworth field, which battle was
fought on the 22d of August, in the year 14-85. THEOBALD.
It appears that several dramas on the present subject had been
written before Shakspeare attempted it. See the notes at the
conclusion of this play, which was first entered at Stationers*
Hall by Andrew Wise, Oct. 20, 1597, .under the title of The
Tragedie of King Richard the Third, with the Death of the Duke
of Clarence. Before this, viz. Aug. 15th, 1586, was entered, A
tragical Report of Kins Richard the Third, a Ballad. It may
be necessary to remark that the words, song, ballad, enterlude
anAplay, were often synonymously used. STEEVENS.
This play was written, I imagine, in the same year in which
it was iirst printed, 1597. The Legend of King Richard III.
by Francis Seagars, was printed in the first edition of TheMirrour
for Magistrates, 1559, and in that of 1575, and 1587, but Shak-
speare does not appear to be indebted to it. In a subsequent
edition of that book printed in 1610, the old legend was omitted,
and a new one inserted, by Richard Niccols, who has very freely
copied the play before us. In 1597, when this tragedy was pub-
lished, Niccols, as Mr. Warton has observed, was but thirteen
years old. Hist, of Poetry, Vol. III. p. 267.
The real length of time in this piece is fourteen years ; (not
eight years, as Mr. Theobald supposed :) for the second scene
commences with the funeral of King Henry VI. who, accord-
ing to the received account, was murdered on the 21st of
May, 1471. The imprisonment of Clarence, which is repre-
sented previously in the first scene, did not in fact take place
till 14-77-8.
It has been since observed to me by Mr. Elderton, (who is of
opinion that Richard was charged with ,this murder by the Lan-
castrian historians without any foundation,) that " it appears on
the face of the publick accounts allowed in the exchequer for the
maintenance of King Henry and his numerous attendants in the
Tower, that he lived to the 12th of June, which was twenty-two
days after the time assigned for his pretended assassination; was
exposed to the publick view in St. Paul's for some days, and in-
terred at Chertsey with much solemnity, and at no inconsider-
able expence." MALONE.
PERSONS REPRESENTED.
King Edward the Fourth.
Edward, Prince o/Wales, after- ^
wards K. Edward V. >Sons to the King.
Richard, Duke o/*York, J
George, Duke o/tlarence, "I
Richard, Duke ofGloster, of- >BrotfierstotheKing.
terwardsKing Richard III. }
A young Son o/Clarenee.
Henry, l&zr/q/'Richmond, afterwards K. Henry VII.
Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Thomas Rotheram, Archbishop o/'York. John Morr
ton, Bishop of Ely,
Duke ^Buckingham.
Duke o/'Norfolk : Earl of Surrey, his Son.
Earl Rivers, brother to King Edward's Queen:
Marquis of Dorset, and Lord Grey, her Sons.^
Earl of Oxford. Lord Hastings. Lord Stanley.
Lord Lovel.
Sir Thomas Vaughan. Sir Richard Ratcliff.
Sir William Catesby. Sir James Tyrrel.
Sir James Blount. Sir Walter Herbert.
Sir Robert Brakenbury, Lieutenant of the Tower.
Christopher Urswick, a Priest. Another Priest.
Lord Mayor of London. Sheriff of Wiltshire.
Elizabeth, Queen of King Edward IV.
Margaret, Widow of King Henry VI.
Ditchess of York, Mother to King Edward IV. Cla-
rence, and Gloster.
Lady Anne, Widow of Edward Prince of Wales,
Son to King Henry VI. j afterwards married to
the Duke ofGloster.
A young Daughter of Clarence.
Lords, and other Attendants; two Gentlemen, a
Pursuivant, Scrivener, Citizens, Murderers, Mes-
sengers, Ghosts, Soldiers, fyc.
SCENE, England.
LIFE AND DEATH
OF
KING RICHARD 1,11
ACT I. SCENE L
London. A Street.
Enter GLOSTER.
GLO. Now is the winter of our discontent 1
Made glorious summer by this sun of York -,*
1 the winter of our discontent-^ Thus, in Sidney's
Astrophel and Stella :
" Gone in the winter of my miserie." STEEVENS.
* this sun of York;~\ Alluding to the cognizance of
Edward IV. which was a sun, in memory of the three suns, which
are said to have appeared at the battle which he gained over the
Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross.
So, in Drayton's Miseries of Queen Margaret ;
" Three suns were seen that instant to appear,
" Which soon again shut themselves up in one ;
" Ready to buckle as the armies were,
" Which this brave duke took to himself alone :" &c.
Again, in the 22d Song of the Polyolbion :
" And thankful to high heaven, which of his cause had
care^
" Three suns for his device still in his ensign bare."
Such phenomena, if we may believe tradition, were formerly
not uncommon. In the Wrighte's Play in the Chester Collection,
MS. Harl. 1013, the same circumstance is introduced as attending
on a more solemn event :
270 KING RICHARD III. ACTI.
And all the clouds, that lowr'd upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths ;
Our bruised arms 3 hung up for monuments ;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd warhath smooth'dhis wrinkled front ;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds, 4
" That day was seene veramente
" Three sonnes in the firmament,
" And wonderly together went
" And torned into one." STEEVENS.
See p. 48, n. 6. MALONE.
3 Nona are OUT brows bound with victorious wreaths ;
Our bruised arms Sfc."] So, in The Rape ofLucrece:
" Made glorious by his manly chivalry,
," With bruised arms and wreaths of victory" MALONE.
* Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth* a his wrinkled front ;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds, <^rc.] So, in
The tragical Life and Death of King Richard the Third, which
is one of the metrical monologues in a collection entitled, The
Mirrour of Magistrates. The first edition of it appeared in 1559,
but the lines quoted on the present as well as future occasions
throughout this play, are not found in any copy before that of
1610, so that the author was more probably indebted to Shak-
speare, than Shakspeare to him :
" - the battles fought in field before
" Were turn'd to meetings of sweet amitie ;
" The war-god's thund'ring cannons' dreadful rore,
" And rattling drum-sounds' warlike harmonic,
" To sweet-tun'd noise of pleasing minstrelsie.
" God Mars laid by his launce, and tooke his lute,
" And turn'd his rugged frownes to smiling lookes ;
" Instead of crimson fields, warre's fatal fruit,
" He bath'd his limbes in Cypris warbling brookes,
" And set his thoughts upon her wanton lookes."
Shakspeare seems tohave had thefollowingpassagefrom Lyly's
ac. r. KING RICHARD III. 271
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers 5 nimbly in a lady's chamber,
Alexander and Campaspe, 1584, before him, when he wrote
these lines: " Is the warlike sound of drum and trump turn'd to
the soft noise of lyre and lute ? The neighing of barbed steeds,
whose loudness filled the air with terror, and whose breaths
dimned the sun with smoak, converted to delicate tunes and
amorous glances ?" &c. REED.
delightful measures.] A measure was, strictly speaking,
a court dance of a stately turn, though the word is sometimes
employed to express dances in general.
So, in Romeo and Juliet:
" We'll measure them a measure, and be gone."
See Vol. VII. p. 154, n. 9. STEEVENS.
barbed steeds,"] i. e. steeds caparisoned in a warlike man-
ner. I. Haywarde, in his Life and Raigne of King Henry IV.
1599, says, " The duke of Hereford, came to the barriers,
mounted upon a white courser, barbed ivith bleia and green
velvet" &c.
Again, in Jarvis Markham's English Arcadia, 1607 : " armed
in a black armour, curiously damask'd with interwinding wreaths
of cypress and we, his barbe upon his horse, all of black
abrosetta, cut in broken hoopes upon curled cypress."
Again, in The Second Part of King Edward IV. by Heywood,
1626:
" With barbed horse, and valiant armed foot."
Barbed, however, may be no more than a corruption ofbarded.
Equus bardatus, in the Latin of the middle ages, was a horse
adorned with military trappings. I have met with the word
barded many times in our ancient chronicles and romances. An
instance or two may suffice. " They mounted him surely upon
a good and mighty courser, well barded," &c.
Hist. ofHelyas Knight of the Swanne, bl. 1. no date.
Again, in Barrett's Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580:
" Bardes or trappers of horses." Phalerce, Lat.
Again, Holinshed speaking of the preparations for the battle
of Agincourt : " to the intent that if the barded horses ran
fiercely upon them," &c. Again, from p. 802, we learn, that
bards and trappers had the same meaning. STEEVENS.
See " A Barbed horse," and " Bardes," in Minsheu's DICT.
1617, the latter of which he defines " horse-trappings."
MALOBFE.
* He capers ] War capers. This is poetical, though a little
272 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shap'd for sportive tricks*
Nor made tc^court an amorous looking-glass ;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majeity,
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph ;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 6
Deform'd, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them ;
harsh ; if it be York that capers, the antecedent is at such a dis-
tance, that it is almost forgotten. JOHNSON.
6 Cheated of feature by dissembling nature ',] By dissembling
is not meant hypocritical nature, that pretends one thing and
does another : but nature that puts together things of a dissimilar
kind, as a brave soul and a deformed body. WAKBURTON.
Dissembling is here put very licentiously forfraudful, deceitful.
JOHNSON.
Dr. Johnson hath certainly mistaken, and Dr. Warburton
rightly explained the word dissembling; as is evident from the
following extract : " Whyle thinges stoode in this case, and that
the manner of addyng was sometime too short and sometime too
long, els dissembled and let slip together." Arthur Golding's
translation ofJuliics Solinus, 1587. HENLEY.
I once thought that Dr. Johnson's interpretation was the true
one. Dissimilation necessarily in eludes fraud, and this might
have been sufficient to induce Shakspeare to use the two words
as synonymous, though fraud certainly may exist without dis-
simulation. But the following lines in the old King John, 1591,
which our author must have carefully read, were perhaps in his
thoughts, and seem rather in favour of Dr. Warburton's inter-
pretation :
" Can nature so dissemble in her frame,
" To make the one so like as like may be,
" And in the other print no character
" To challenge any mark of true descent?"
Feature is used here, as in other pieces of the same age, for
beauty in general. See note on Antony and Cleopatra, Act II.
sc. v. MALONE.
sc> i. KING RICHARD III. 273
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time ;
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun,
And descant on mine own deformity ; 7
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover^ 8
To entertain these fair well-spoken days, 9
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures 1 of these days*
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, 2
7 And descant on mine own deformity;'] Descant is a term in
musick, signifying in general that kind of harmony wherein one
part is broken and formed into a kind of paraphrase on the other.
The propriety and elegance of the above figure, without such an
idea of the nature of descant, could not be discerned.
SIR J. HAWKINS.
That this is the original meaning of the term, is certain. But
I believe the word is here used in its secondary and colloquial
sense, without any reference to musick* MALONE.
8 And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,"] Shakspeare
very diligently inculcates, that the wickedness of Richard pro-
ceeded from his deformity, from the envy that rose at the com-
parison of his own person with others, and which incited him to
disturb the pleasures that he could not partake. JOHNSON.
9 To entertain these fair well-spoken days,] I am strongly in-
clined to think that the poet wrote these fair well-spoken dames t
and that the word days was caught by the compositor's eye
glancing on a subsequent line. So, in the quarto copy of this
play, printed in 1612, Signat. I:
" I, my lord, but I had rather kill two deep enemies.
" King. Why, there thou hast it ; two deep enemies."
In the original copy, printed in 1597, the first line is right:
" kill two enemies." MALONE..
1 And hate the idle pleasures ] Perhaps we might read :
And bate the idle pleasures . JOHNSON.
* inductions dangerous,^] Preparations for mischief. The
induction is preparatory to the action of the play. JOHNSON.
Marston has put this line, with little variation, into the mouth
of Fame :
** Plots ha' you laid ? inductions dangerous ?"
STEEVBNS.
VOL. XIV. T
274 KING RICHARD III. ACT I.
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence, and the king,
In deadly hate the one against the other :
And, if king Edward be as true and just, 3
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous,
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up j
About a prophecy, which says that G
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul ! here Clarence
comes.
Enter CLARENCE, guarded, and BRAKENBURY,
Brother, good day : What means this armed guard,
That waits upon your grace ?
CLAR. His majesty,
Tendering my person's safety, hath appointed
This conduct to convey me to the Tower.
GLO. Upon what cause ?
CLAR. Because my name is George.
GLO. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours;
He should, for that, commit your godfathers :
O, belike, his majesty hath some intent,
That you shall be new christen'd in the Tower.
But what's the matter, Clarence ? may I know ?
CLAR. Yea, Richard, when I know ; for, I pro-
test,
As yet I do not : But, as I can learn,
He hearkens after prophecies, and dreams ;*
3 Edward be as true and just,] The meaning is, if EcU
ward keeps his word. JOHNSON.
May not this mean If Edward hold his natural disposition
and be true to that ? M. MASON.
* He hearkens after prophecies, and dreams;] From Holin-
sc. i. KING RICHARD III. 275
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G,
And says a wizard told him, that by G
His issue disinherited should be j
And, for my name of George begins with G, 5
It follows in his thought, that I am he :
These, as I learn, and such like toys 6 as these,
Have mov'd his highness to commit me now.
GLO. Why, this it is, when men are rul'd by
women :
J Tis not the king, that sends you to the Tower ;
My lady Grey, his wife, Clarence, 'tis she,
That tempers him to this extremity. 7
shed : " Some have reported that the cause of this nobleman's
death rose of a foolish prophecie, which was, that after king
Edward should raign one whose first letter of his name should be
a G ; wherewith the king and the queene were sore troubled,
and began to conceive a grievous grudge against this duke, and
could not be in quiet till they had brought him to his end."
Philip de Comines, a contemporary historian, says that the Eng-
lish at that time were never unfurnished with some prophecy
or other, by which they accounted for every event. MALONE.
* And, for my name of George begins with G, &c.] So, in
Niccols's Tragical Life and Death of Richard III :
" By that blind riddle of the letter G,
" George lost his life ; it took effect in me."
STEEVENS,
c toys ] Fancies, freaks of imagination. JOHNSON.
So, in Hamlet, Act I. sc. iv :
" The very place puts toys of desperation,
" Without more motive, into every brain." REED.
7 That tempers him to this extremity.'] I have collated the
original quarto published in 1597, verbatim with that of 1598.
In the first copy this line stands thus :
That tempers him to this extremity.
and so undoubtedly we should read. To temper is to mould, to
fashion. So, in Titus Andronicus:
" Now will I to that old Andronicus ;
" And temper him, with all the art I have,
" To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths."
T 2
276 KING RICHARD III. ACT I.
Was it not she, and that good man of worship,
Antony Woodeville, her brother there, 8
That made him send lord Hastings to the Tower j
From whence this present day he is deliver* d ?
We are not safe, Clarence, we are not safe.
CLAR. By heaven, I think, there is no man se-
cure,
But the queen's kindred, and night-walking heralds
That trudge betwixt the king and mistress Shore.
Heard you not, what an humble suppliant
Lord Hastings was to her for his delivery ?
GLO. Humbly complaining 9 to her deity
Got my lord chamberlain his liberty.
I'll tell you what, I think, it is our way,
If we will keep in favour with the king,
To be her men, and wear her livery :
The jealous o'er-worn widow, and herself, 1
Since that our brother dubb'd them gentlewomen,
Are mighty gossips in this monarchy.
BRAK. I beseech your graces both to pardon me;
His majesty hath straitly given in charge,
In the quarto, 1598, tempts was corruptly printed instead of
tempers. The metre being then defective, the editor of the
folio supplied the defect by reading
That tempts him to this harsh extremity. MALONE.
8 her brother there,] There is in this place, according to
our author's usual practice, a dissyllable. MALONE.
Having no faith (as I have too often been obliged to say) in
this dissyllabical pronunciation of the adverb there, it is ne-
cessary I should add that Woodeville is really a trisyllable, and is
still so pronounced by a gentleman of that name. STEEVENS.
9 Humbly complaining &c.] I think these two lines might be
better given to Clarence. JOHNSON.
1 The jealous o'er-worn widow t and her self, ~\ That is,
Queen and Shore. JOHNSON.
sc. /. KING RICHARD III. 277
That no man shall have private conference,
Of what degree so ever, with his brother.
GLO. Even so ? an please your worship, Braken-
bury,
You may partake of any thing we say :
We speak no treason, man ; We say, the king
Is wise, and virtuous ; and his noble queen
Well struck in years ; 2 fair, and not jealous :
We say, that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
At V
cherry lip,
A bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue ;
And the queen's kindred 3 are made gentlefolks :
How say you, sir ? can you deny all this ?
BRAK. With this, my lord, myself have nought
to do.
GLO. Naught to do with mistress Shore ? I tell
thee, fellow,
He that doth naught with her, excepting one,
Were best to do it secretly, alone. 4
* Well struck inyears;~\ This odd expression in our language
was preceded by others as uncouth though of a similar kind.
Thus, in Arthur Hall's translation of the first Book of Homer's
Iliad, 1581 :
" In Grea's forme, the good handmaid, nowe wel ystept
in yeares."
Again :
" Well shot in years he seem'd," &c.
Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. V. c. vi.
The meaning of neither is very obvious ; but as Mr. Warton has
observed in his Essay on The Fairy Queen, by an imperceptible
progression from one kindred sense to another, words at length
obtain a meaning entirely foreign to their original etymology.
STEEVENS.
s And the queen* s kindred ] The old copies harshly and un-
necessarily read
And that the queen's &c. STEEVENS.
* alone.~\ Surely the adjective alone, is an interpolation,
278 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
BRAK. What one, my lord ?
GLO. Her husband, knave : Would* st thou be-
tray me ?
BRAK. I beseech your grace to pardon me ; and,
withal,
Forbear your conference with the noble duke.
CLAR. We know thy charge, Brakenbury, and
will obey.
GLO. We are the queen's abjects, 5 and must obey.
as what the Duke is talking of, is seldom undertaken before
witnesses. Besides, this word deranges the metre, which, with-
out it, would be regular : for instance :
Were best to do it secretly.
What one,
My lord?
Her husband, knave: Would* st thou betray me?
STEEVENS.
* the queen's abjects,] That is, not the queen's subjects,
whom she might protect, but her abjects, whom she drives away.
JOHNSON.
So, in The Case is altered. Hoia? Ask Dalio and Milo,
1604:
" This ougly object, or rather abject of nature."
HENDERSON.
I cannot approve of Johnson's explanation. Gloster forms a
substantive from the adjective abject, and uses it to express a
lower degree of submission than is implied by the word subject,
which otherwise he would naturally have made use of. The
Queen's abjects, means the most servile of her subjects, who must
of course obey all her commands ; which would not be the case
of those whom she had driven away from her.
In a preceding page Gloster had said of Shore's wife
** " I think, it is our way,
" If we will keep in favour with the king,
" To be her men, and wear her livery."
The idea u the same in both places, though the expression
differs. In Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, Puntarvolo
says to Swift :
" I'll make thee stoop, thou abject!" M. MASON.
This substantive was not of Shakspeare's formation. We meet
with it in Psalm xxxv. 15 : " yea the very abjects came toge-
ther against me unawares, making mouths at me, and ceased not."
sc. i. KING RICHARD III. 279
Brother, farewell : I will unto the king ;
And whatsoever you will employ me in,
Were it, to call king Edward's widow sister, 6 -
I will perform it to enfranchise you.
Mean time, this deep disgrace in brotherhood,
Touches me deeper than you can imagine.
CLAR. I know it pleaseth neither of us well.
GLO. Well, your imprisonment shall not be long j
I will deliver you, or else lie for you : 7
Mean time, have patience.
CLAR. I must perforce ; 8 farewell.
[Exeunt CLARENCE, BRAKENBURY, and
Guard.
Again, in Chapman's translation of the 21st Book of Homer's
Odyssey :
" Whither ? rogue ! abject ! wilt thou bear from us
" That bow propos'd?"
Again, in the same author's version of Homer's Hymn to
Venus :
" That thou wilt never let me live to be
" An abject, after so divine degree
" Taken in fortune ; " STEEVENS.
" Were it, to call king Edward's "widow sister,'] This is a very
covert and subtle manner of insinuating treason. The natural
expression would have been, were it to call king Edward's wife,
sister. I will solicit for you, though it should be at the expence
of so much degradation and constraint, as to own the low-born
wife of King Edward for a sister. But by slipping, as it were
casually, widow, into the place of wife, he tempts Clarence
with an oblique proposal to kill the King. JOHNSON.
King Edward's widow is, I believe, only an expression of
contempt, meaning the widow Grey, whom Edward had chosen
for his queen. Gloster has already called her, the jealous o'er-
tvorn widow. STEEVENS.
7 - \\zfor you :~\ He means to be imprisoned in your stead.
To lie was anciently to reside, as appears by many instances in
these volumes. REED.
8 / must per force ;] Alluding to the proverb, " Patience per-
force, is a medicine for a mad dog." STEEVENS.
280 KING RICHARD III, ACT i.
GLO. Go, tread the path that thou shalt ne'er
return,
Simple, plain Clarence ! I do love thee so,
That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,
If heaven will take the present at our hands.
But who comes here ? the new^-deliver'd Hastings?
Enter HASTINGS.
HAST. Good time of day unto my gracious lord!
GLO. As much unto my good lord chamberlain |
Well are you welcome to this open air.
How hath your lordship brook' d imprisonment ?
HAST. With patience, noble lord, as prisoners
must:
But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks,
That were the cause of my imprisonment.
GLO. No doubt, no doubt ; and so shall Clarence
too ;
For they, that were your enemies, are his,
And have prevailed as much on him, as you.
HAST. More pity, that the eagle should be
mew'd, 8
While kites and buzzards prey at liberty.
GLO. What news abroad ?
HAST. No news so bad abroad, as this at home ;-^
The king is sickly, weak, and melancholy,
And his physicians fear him mightily.
* should be mew'd,] A mew was the place of confinement
where a hawk was kept till he had moulted. So, in Albumazar:
" Stand forth, transform'd Antonio, fully mevo'd
" From brown soar feathers of dull yeomanry,
" To the glorious bloom of gentry." STEEVENS.
sc. i. KING RICHARD III. 281
GLO. Now, by Saint Paul, 9 this news is bad in-
deed.
O, he hath kept an evil diet 1 long,
And over-much consumed his royal person ;
'Tis very grievous to be thought upon.
What, is he in his bed ?
HAST. He is. 2
GLO. Go you before, and I will follow you.
[Exit HASTINGS.
He cannot live, I hope ; and must not die,
Till George be pack'd with posthorse up to heaven.
I'll in, to urge his hatred more to Clarence,
With lies well steel'd with weighty arguments ;
And, if I fail not in my deep intent,
Clarence hath not another day to live :
Which done, God take king Edward to his mercy,
And leave the world for me to bustle in !
For then I'll marry Warwick's youngest daughter: 3
What though I kill'd her husband, and her father?
The readiest way to make the wench amends,
Is to become her husband, and her father :
The which will I ; not all so much for love,
As for another secret close intent,
By marrying her, which I must reach unto.
But yet I run before my horse to market :
Clarencestillbreathes;Edwardstilllives,andreigns;
When they are gone, then must I count my gains.
[Exit.
9 Noiv, by Saint Paul,'] The folio reads :
Noiv, by Saint John, . STEEVENS.
1 an evil diet ] i. e. a bad regimen. STEEVENS.
* He is.~\ Sir Thomas Hanmer very properly completes this
broken verse, by reading
He is, my lord. STEEVENS.
3 Warwick's youngest daughter :~] See p. 131, n. 4.
STEEVENS.
282 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
SCENE II.
The same. Another Street.
Enter the Corpse of King HENRY the Sixth, borne
in an open Coffin, Gentlemen bearing Halberds, to
guard it ; and Lady ANNE as mourner.
ANNE. Set down, set down your honourable
load,
If honour may be shrouded in a hearse,
Whilst I a while obsequiously lament 4
The untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.
Poor key-cold 5 figure of a holy king!
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster !
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood !
Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost,
To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,
Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughter' d son,
Stabb'd by the self-same hand that made these
wounds !
* obsequiously lament ] Obsequious, in this instance,
means funereal. So, in Hamlet, Act I. sc. ii :
" To do obsequious sorrow." STEEVENS.
* key-cold ] A key, on account of the coldness of the
metal of which it is composed, was anciently employed to stop
any slight bleeding. The epithet is common to many old
writers; among the rest, it is used by Decker in his Satiromastix,
1602:
" It is best you hide your head, for fear your wise brains
take key-cold."
Again, in The Country Girl, by T. B. 1647 :
" The key-cold figure of a man." STEEVENS.
Again, in our author's Rape iff JLucrece :
" And then in key-cold Lucrece* bleeding stream
" He falls " MALONE.
sc. ii. KING RICHARD III. 283
Lo, in these windows, that let forth thy life,
I pour the helpless balm of my poor eyes :
O, cursed be the hand that made these holes !
Cursed the heart, that had the heart to do it !
Cursed the blood, that let this blood from hence !
More direful hap betide that hated wretch,
That makes us wretched by the death of thee,
Than I can wish to adders, spiders, toads,
Or any creeping venom'd thing that lives !
If ever he have child, abortive be it,
Prodigious, and untimely brought to light,
Whose ugly and unnatural aspect
May fright the hopeful mother at the view ;
And that be heir to his unhappiness ! 6
If ever he have wife, let her be made
More miserable by the death of him,
Than I am made by my young lord, and thee !
Come, now, toward Chertsey with your holy load,
Taken from Paul's to be interred there ;
And, still as you are weary of the weight,
Rest you, whiles I lament king Henry's corse.
[The Bearers take up the Corpse, and advance.
Enter GLOSTER.
GLO. Stay you, that bear the corse, and set it
down.
ANNE. What black magician conjures up this
fiend,
To stop devoted charitable deeds ?
6 to his unhappiness !] i. e. disposition to mischief. So,
in Much Ado about Nothing: " Dreamed of unhappiness, and
waked herself with laughing." STEEVENS.
See Vol. VI. p. 55, n. 2 ; and Comedy of Errors, Act IV.
sc. iv. MALONE.
284 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
GLO. Villains, set down the corse ; or, by Saint
Paul,
I'll make a corse of him that disobeys. 7
1 GENT. My lord, stand back, and let the coffin
pass.
GLO. Unmanner'd dog ! stand thou when I com-
mand:
Advance thy halberd higher than my breast,
Or, by Saint Paul, I'll strike thee to my foot,
And spurn upon thee, beggar, for thy boldness.
[The Bearers set dawn the Coffin.
ANNE. What, do you tremble ? are you all afraid ?
Alas, I blame you not ; for you are mortal,
And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.
Avaunt, thou dreadful minister of hell !
Thou had'st but power over his mortal body,
His soul thou canst not have ; therefore, be gone.
GLO. Sweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.
ANNE. Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and
trouble us not ;
For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,
FilPd it with cursing cries, and deep exclaims.
If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,
Behold this pattern of thy butcheries ; 8
7 ril make a corse of him that disobeys."] So, in Hamlet :
" I'll make a ghost of him that lets me." JOHNSON.
' pattern of thy butcheries :] Pattern is instance, or ex-
ample. JOHNSON.
So, in The Legend of Lord Hastings, Mirrour for Magistrates,
1587:
" By this my pattern, all ye peers, beware." MALONE.
Holinshed says : " The dead corps on the Ascension even was
conveied with billes and glaives pompouslie (if you will call that
a funeral pompe) from the Tower to the church of saint Paule,
and there laid on a beire or coffen bare-faced ; the same in the
sc. n. KING RICHARD III. 285
O, gentlemen, see, see ! dead Henry's wounds
Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh ! 9
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity ;
For 'tis thy presence that exhales this blood
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells;
Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural,
Provokes this deluge most unnatural.
O God, which this blood mad'st, revenge his death!
O earth, which this blood drink'st, revenge his
death !
presence of the beholders did bleed ; where it rested the space
of one whole daie. From thense he was carried to the Black-
friers, and bled there likewise ;" &c. STEEVENS.
9 see ! dead Henry's ivounds
Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh /] It is a tra-
dition very generally received, that the murdered body bleeds
on the touch of the murderer. This was so much believed by
Sir Kenelm Digby, that he has endeavoured to explain the
reason. JOHNSON.
So, in Arden ofFeverskam, 1592:
** The more I sound his name, the more he bleeds ;
" This blood condemns me, and in gushing forth
" Speaks as it falls, and asks me why I did it.'*
Again, in The Widow's Tears, by Chapman, 1612:
** The captain will assay an old conclusion often approved i
that at the murderer's sight the blood revives again and boils
afresh; and every wound has a condemning voice to cry out.
guilty against the murderer."
Again, in the 46th Idea of Drayton :
" If the vile actors of the heinous deed,
" Near the dead body happily be brought,
" Oft 't hath been prov'd the breathless corps will bleed.'*
See also the 7th article in the tenth Booke of Thomas Lupton's
Notable Thinges, 4to. bl. 1. no date, p. 255, &c.
Mr. Toilet observes, that this opinion seems to be derived from
the ancient Swedes, or Northern nations from whom we descend;
for they practised this method of trial in dubious cases, as ap-
pears from Pitt's Atlas, in Sweden, p. 20. STEEVENS,
See also Demonologie, 4to. 1608, p. 79 ; and Goulart's Admi-
rable and Memorable Histories, translated by Grimeston, 4to.
1607, p. 422. REED.
286 KING RICHARD III. ACT I.
Either, heaven, with lightning strike the murderer
dead,
Or, earth, gape open wide, and eat him quick ;
As thou dost swallow up this good king's blood,
Which his hell-govern'd arm hath butchered !
GLO. Lady, you know no rules of charity,
Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.
ANNE. Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor
man;
No beast so fierce, but knows some touch of pity.
GLO. But I know none, and therefore am no
beast.
ANNE. O wonderful, when devils tell the truth !
GLO. More wonderful, when angels are so an-
gry-
Vouchsafe, divine perfection of a woman,
Of these supposed evils, to give me leave,
By circumstance, but to acquit myself.
ANNE. Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man, 1
For these known evils, but to give me leave,
By circumstance, to curse thy cursed self.
GLO. Fairer than tongue can name thee, let me
have
Some patient leisure to excuse myself.
1 Vouchsafe, diffus'd infection of a man,"] I believe, diffus'd
in this place signifies irregular, uncouth ; such is its meaning in
other passages of Shakspeare. JOHNSON.
Diffused infection of a man may mean, thou that art as dan-
gerous as a pestilence, that infects the air by its diffusion. Dif-
jfas'd may, however, mean irregular. So, in The Merry Wives
of Windsor:
" rush at once
" With some diffused song."
Again, in Greene's Farewell to Follie, 1617 :
" I have seen an English gentleman so defused in his sutes ;
his doublet being for the weare of Castile, his hose for Venice,"
&c. STEEVENS.
*c. ii. KING RICHARD III. 287
ANNE. Fouler than heart can think thee, thou
canst make
No excuse current, but to hang thyself.
GLO. By such despair, I should accuse myself.
ANNS. And, by despairing, shalt thou stand
excus'd ;
For doing worthy- vengeance on thyself,
That didst unworthy slaughter upon others.
GLO. Say, that I slew them not ?
ANNE. Why then, they are not dead :*
But dead they are, and, devilish slave, by thee.
GLO. I did not kill your husband
ANNE. Why, then he is alive.
GLO. Nay, he is dead j and slain by Edward's
hand.
ANNE. In thy soul's throat 3 thou liest ; queen
Margaret saw
Thy murderous faulchion smoking in his blood ;
The which thou once didst bend against her breast,
But that thy brothers beat aside the point.
GLO. I was provoked by her sland'rous tongue,
That laid their guilt 4 upon my guiltless shoulders.
ANNE. Thou wast provoked by thy bloody mind,
That never dreamt on aught but butcheries :
Didst thou not kill this king ?
* Why then, they are not dead:"] Thus the quarto. The folia
reads : Then say, they are not slain. MALONE.
thy soul's throat ] The folio ihyfoul throat.
STEEVENS.
4 That laid their guilt ] The crime of my brothers. He
has just charged the murder of Lady Anne's husband upon Ed-
ward. JOHNSON.
288 KING RICHARD IIL ACT&
GLO. I grant ye. 5
ANNE. Dost grant me, hedge-hog ? then, God
grant me too,
Thou may'st be damned for that wicked deed !
O, he was gentle, mild, and virtuous.
GLO. The fitter for the King of heaven that hath
him. 6
ANNE. He is in heaven, where thou shalt never
come.
GLO. Let him thank me, that holp to send him
thither ;
For he was fitter for that place, than earth.
ANNE. And thou unfit for any place but hell.
GLO. Yes, one place else, if you will hear me
name it.
ANNE. Some dungeon. 7
GLO. Your bed-chamber.
ANNE. Ill rest betide the chamber where thou
liest!
GLO. So will it, madam, till I lie with you.
ANNE. I hope so.
* I grant ye.] Read, to perfect the measure:
I grant ye, yea.. RITSON.
One of the quartos, instead of ye, reads yea. STEEVENS.
6 O, he loas gentle, mild, and virtuous.
Glo. The Jitter for the King of heaven &c.] So, in Pericles
Prince of Tyre, 1609 :
" I'll do't : but yet she is a goodly creature.
" Dion. The fitter then the gods should have her."
STEEVENS.
7 Some dungeon.] As most of the measure throughout this
scene is regular, I cannot help suspecting that our author origin-
ally wrote :
Some dungeon, perhaps.
Your bed-chamber. STEEVENS*
sc.n. KING RICHARD III. 289
GLO. I know so. But, gentle lady Anne,
To leave this keen encounter of our wits,
And fall somewhat into a slower method ; 8
Is not the causer of the timeless deaths
Of these Plantagenets, Henry, and Edward,
As blameful as the executioner ?
ANNE. Thou wast the cause, and most accurs'd
effect. 9
GLO. Your beauty was the cause of that effect ;
Your beauty, which did haunt me in my sleep,
To undertake the death of all the world,
So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
8 a slower method;"] As quick was used for spritely, so
slower was put for serious. In the next scene Lord Grey desires
the Queen to
" cheer his grace with quick and merry words."
STEEVENS.
9 Thou wast the cause, and most occurs* d effect. ~\ Effect, for
executioner. He asks, was not the causer as ill as the execu-
tioner ? She answers, Thou wast both. But, for causer, using
the word cause, this led her to the word effect, for execution, or
executioner. But the Oxford editor, troubling himself with
nothing of this, will make a fine oratorical period of it:
Thou wast the cause, and most accurs'd the effect.
WARBURTON.
I cannot but be rather of Sir T. Hanmer's opinion than Dr.
Warburton's, because effect is used immediately in its common
sense, in answer to this line. JOHNSON.
I believe the obvious sense is the true one. So, in The York-
shire Tragedy, 1608 :
" thou art the cause,
" Effect, quality, property ; thou, thou."
Again, in King Henry IV. P. II : "I have read the cause of
his effects in Galen."
Again, in Sidney's Arcadia, Book II :
" Both cause, effect, beginning, and the end,
" Are all in me." STEEVENS.
Our author, I think, in another place uses effect, for efficient
cause. MALONE.
VOL. XIV. U
290 KING RICHARD III. ACT /,
ANNE. If I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,
These nails shouldrend that beauty from my cheeks.
GLO. These eyes could not endure that beauty's
wreck,
You should not blemish it, if I stood by :
As all the world is cheered by the sun,
So I by that ; it is my day, my life.
ANNE. Black night o'ershade thy day, and death
thy life !
GLO. Curse not thyself, fair creature ; thou art
both.
ANNE. I would I were, to be reveng'd on thee.
GLO. It is a quarrel most unnatural,
To be reveng'd on him that loveth thee.
ANNE. It is a quarrel just and reasonable,
To be reveng'd on him that kill'd my husband.
GLO. He that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,
Did it to help thee to a better husband.
ANNE. His better doth not breathe upon th%
earth.
GLO. He lives, that loves you better than he
could.
ANNE. Name him.
GLO. Plantagenet*
ANNE. Why, that was he.
GLO. The self-same nanie^ but. one of better
nature.
ANNE. Where is he ?
GLO. Here : [$fe spits at him."] Why-
dost thou spit at me ?
ANNE. 'Would it were mortal poison, for thy
sake!
sc.rr. KING RICHARD III. 29i
GLO. Never came poison from so sweet a place.
ANNE. Never hung poison on a fouler toad.
Out of my sight ! thou dost infect mine eyes.
GrL0.:Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.
ANNE. 'Would they were basilisks, to strike thee
dead I 1
GLO. I would they were, that I might die at once ;
For now they kill me with a living death. 2
1 'Would they tvere basilisks, to strike thee dead!"] " Among
the serpents the Basiliske doth infecte and kill people with his
looke." Summary of Secret Wonders, &c.bl. 1. by John Alday,
no date. STEEVENS.
So, in The Winter's Tale :
" Make me not sighted like the basilisk;
" I have look'd on thousands, who have sped the better
" By my regard, but kill'd none so."
See also, King Henry VI. P. II. Vol. XIII. p. 281, n. 1.
MALONE.
In Cornucopia, &c. 1596, Sign. B. 4: " The eye of the Basi-
liske is so odious to man, that it sleeth man before he come nere
him, even by looking upon him." REED.
8 they kill me with a living death.] In imitation of this
passage, and, I suppose, of a thousand more, Pope writes :
. a living death I bear,
" Says Dapperwit, and sunk beside his chair."
JOHNSON.
The same conceit occurs in The trimming of Thomas Nash,
1597 : '* How happy the rat, caught in a trap, and there dies a
living death ?"
Again, in Phineas Fletcher's Locusts, or Apollyonists, 4to.
1627 :
" It lives, yet's death : it pleases full of paine ;
" Monster ! ah who, who can thy beeing faigne ?
" Thou shapelesse shape, live death, paine pleasing,
servile raigne." STEEVENS.
So, in Watson's Sonnets, printed about 1580 :
" Love is a sowre delight, a sugred griefe,
*' A living death, an ever-dying life."
We have again the same expression in Venus and Adonis:
U 2
292 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt
tears,
Sham'd their aspects with store of childish drops :
These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear, 3
Not, when my father 4 York and Edward wept,
To hear the piteous moan that Rutland made,
When black-fac'd Clifford shook his sword at him:
Nor when thy warlike father, like a child,
Told the sad story of my father's death ;
And twenty times made pause, to sob, and weep,
That all the standers-by had wet their cheeks,
Like trees bedash'd with rain : in that sad time,
My manly eyes did scorn an humble tear ; 5
And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,
Thybeautyhath,andmadethemblindwith weeping.
I never su'd to friend, nor enemy ;
My tongue could never learn sweet soothing word; 6
" For I have heard it [love] is a life in death,
" That laughs and weeps, and all but with a breath."
MALONE.
3 These eyes, tvhich never &c.] The twelve following beautiful
lines added after the first editions. POPE.
They were added with many more. JOHNSON.
4 Not, tvhen my father ] The old copies read No, when,
&c. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. I am not sure
that it is necessary.
This doubt derives strength from a subsequent passage :
" Duch. I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.
" Q. Eliz. But I hear, no." MALONE.
4 My manly eyes did scorn &c.] Here is an apparent refer-
ence to King Henry VL P. III. Act II. sc. i. See p. 52, n. 5.
.-' STEEVENS.
sweet soothing \uord ;] Thus the quarto, 1598. The
folio has sweet smoothing word. MALONE.
Smooth is, probably, the true reading. So again, p. 301,
line ult :
" Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog."
See also, Pericles, Act I. sc. ii. STEEVENS.
sc. ii. KING RICHARD III. 293
But now thy beauty is proposed my fee,
My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to
speak. \_She looks scornfully at him.
Teach not thy lip such scorn ; for it was made
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,
Lo ! here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword ;
Which if thou please to hide in this true breast,
And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,
I lay it naked to the deadly stroke,
And humbly beg the death upon my knee.
\_He lays his Breast open ; she offers at it with
his Sword.
Nay, do not pause ; for I did kill king Henry ;
But 'twas thy beauty 7 that provoked me.
Nay, now despatch ; 'twas I that stabb'd young Ed-
ward ;
[She again offers at his Breast.
But 'twas thy heavenly face that set me on.
[She lets falls the Sword.
Take up the sword again, or take up me.
ANNE. Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy
death,
I will not be thy executioner.
GLO. Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it.
ANNE. I have already.
GLO. That was in thy rage :
Speak it again, and, even with the word,
This hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,
Shall, for thy love, kill a far truer love ;
To both their deaths shalt thou be accessary.
7 But 'twas thy beauty ] Shakspeare countenances the ob-
servation, that no woman can ever be offended with the mention
of.her beauty. JOHNSON.
29* KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
ANNE. I would, I knew thy heart.
GLO. 'Tis figur'd in
My tongue.
ANNE. I fear me, both are false.
GLO. Then man
Was never true. 8
ANNE. Well, well, put up your sword.
GLO. Say then, my peace is made.
ANNE. That shall you know
Hereafter.
GLO. But shall I live in hope ?
ANNE. All men,
I hope, live so.
GLO. Vouchsafe to wear this ring.
ANNE. To take, is not to give.
\_She puts on the Ring.
GLO. Look, howthis ring encompasseth thy finger,
Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart ;
Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.
And if thy poor devoted servant may
But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,
Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.
ANNE. What is it ?
GLO. That it may please you leave these sad de-
signs
To him that hath more cause 9 to be a mourner,
8 Then man
Was never true."] Old copy
Then never man was true.
For the sake of measure, I have hazarded this slight transposi-
tion. STEEVENS.
9 more cause ] The folio most cause. STEEVENS.
sc. ii. KING RICHARD III. 295
And presently repair to Crosby-place : l
Where after I have solemnly interred,
At Chertsey monastery this noble king,
And wet his grave with my repentant tears,
I will with all expedient duty 2 see you :
For divers unknown reasons, I beseech you,
Grant me this boon.
ANNE. With all my heart; and much it joys me
too,
TLO see you are become so penitent.
Tressel, and Berkley, go along with me.
GLO. Bid me farewell.
ANNE. 'Tis more than you deserve :
But, since you teach me how to flatter you,
Imagine I have said farewell already. 3
\_Exeunt Lady ANNE, TRESSEL, and BERKLEY.
1 Crosby-place .] A house near Bishopsgate Street, be-
longing to the Duke of Gloster. JOHNSON.
Crosby- place is now Crosby-square in Bishopsgate Street;
part of the house is yet remaining, and is a meeting place for a
presbyterian congregation. SIR J. HAWKINS.
This magnificent house was built in the year 1466, by Sir
John Crosby, grocenand woolman. He died in 1475. The an-
cient hall of this fabrick is still remaining, though divided by an
additional floor, and incumbered by modern galleries, having
been converted into a place of worship for Antinomians, &c.
The upper part of it is now the warehouse of an eminent Packer.
Sir J. Crosby's tomb is in the neighbouring church of St.
Helen the Great. STEEVENS.
* tvitk all expedient duty ~] See Vol. XI. p. 41, n. 6.
MALONE.
3 Imagine I have saidfaretvell already.~\ Gibber, who altered
King Richard III. for the stage, was so thoroughly convinced of
the ridiculousness and improbability of this scene, that he
thought himself obliged to make Tressel say :
When future chronicles shall speak of this,
They luill be thought romance, not history.
Thus also, in Twelfth-Night, where Fabian observing the
296 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
GLO. Take up the corse, sirs.
GENT. Towards Chertsey, noble lord ?
GLO. No, to White-Friars ; there attend my
coming.
{Exeunt the rest, with the Corse.
Was ever woman in this humour woo'd ?
Was ever woman in this humour won ?
I'll have her, but I will not keep her long.
What ! I, that kill'd her husband, and his father,
To take her in her heart's extremest hate ;
With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,
The bleeding witness of her hatred by ;
With God, her conscience, and these bars against
me,
And I no friends to back my suit withal,
But the plain devil, and dissembling looks,
And yet to win her, all the world to nothing !
conduct of Malvolio, says : " If this were played upon a stage
now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
From an account of our late unsuccessful embassy to the Em-
peror of China, we learn, indeed, that a scene of equal absur-
dity was represented in a theatre at Tien-sing : " One of the
dramas, particularly, attracted the attention of those who recol-
lected scenes, somewhat similar, upon the English stage. The
piece represented an Emperor of China and his Empress living
in supreme felicity, when, on a sudden, his subjects revolt, a ci-
vil war ensues, battles are fought, and at last the arch-rebel, who
was a general of cavalry, overcomes his sovereign, kills him
with his own hand, and routs the imperial army. The captive
Empress then appears upon the stage in all the agonies of de-
spair, naturally resulting from the loss of her husband and of her
dignity, as well as the apprehension for that of her honour. Whilst
she is tearing her hair, and rending the skies with her complaints,
the conqueror enters, approaches her with respect, addresses her
in a gentle tone, soothes her sorrows with his compassion, talks
of love and adoration, and like Richard the Third, with Lady
Anne in Shakspeare, prevails in less than half an hour, on the
Chinese Princess to dry up her tears, to forget her deceased
consort, and yield to a consoling wooer." STEEVENS.
sc. n. KING RICHARD III. 297
Ha!
Hath she forgot already that brave prince,
Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,
Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury ? 4
A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,
Fram'd in the prodigality of nature, 5
Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal, 6
The spacious world cannot again afford :
And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,
And made her widow to a woful bed ?
* tuhom I, some three months since,
Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury ?"] Here we have
the exact time of this scene ascertained, namely August 1471.
King Edward, however, is in the second Act introduced dying.
That King died in April 1483; so there is an interval between
this and the next Act of almost twelve years. Clarence, who is
represented in the preceding scene as committed to the Tower
before the burial of King Henry VI. was in fact not confined
nor put to death till seven years afterwards, March, 1477-8.
MALONE.
* Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,"] i. e. when nature was
in a prodigal or lavish mood. WARBURTON.
6 and, no doubt, right royal,~\ Of the degree of royalty
belonging to Henry the Sixth there could be no doubt, nor could
Richard have mentioned it with any such hesitation ; he could
not indeed very properly allow him royalty. I believe we should
read :
and, no doubt, right loyal.
That is, true to her bed. He enumerates the reasons for
which she should love him. He was young, 'wise, and valiant ;
these were apparent and indisputable excellencies. He then
mentions another not less likely to endear him to his wife, but
which he had less opportunity of knowing with certainty, and y
no doubt, right loyal. JOHNSON.
Richard is not speaking of King Henry, but of Edward his
son, whom he means to represent asjull of all the noble pro-
perties of a king. No doubt, right royal, may, however, be
ironically spoken, alluding to the incontinence of Margaret, his
mother. STEEVENS.
298 KING RICHARD III. ACT L
On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?
On me, that halt, and am misshapen thus ?
My dukedom to a beggarly denier, 7
I do mistake my person all this while :
Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,
Myself to be a marvellous proper man. 8
I'll be at charges for a looking-glass ;
And entertain a score or two of tailors,
To study fashions to adorn my body :
Since I am crept in favour with myself,
I will maintain it with some little cost.
But, first, I'll turn yon* fellow in his grave j 9
And then return lamenting to my love.
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass. \_Exit.
7 a beggarly denier,] A denier is the twelfth part of* a
French sous, and appears to have been the usual request of a
beggar. So, in The Cunning Northerne Beggar, bl. 1. an aiv
cient ballad :
" For still will I cry, good your worship, good sir,
" Bestow one poor denier, Sir." STEEVENS.
* a marvellous proper man,"] Marvellous is here used
adverbially. Proper in old language was handsome. See Vol.
VII. p. 248, n. 1. MALONE.
9 Pll turn yon' Jello'vo in his grave ; ] In is here used for
into. Thus, in Chapman's version of the 24th Iliad:
" Mercuric shall guide
" His passage, till the prince be neare. And (he gone)
let him ride
" Resolv'd, ev'n in Achilles tent." STEEVENS.
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. 299
SCENE III.
The same. A Room in the Palace.
Enter Queen ELIZABETH, Lord RIVERS, and Lord
GREY.
Riv. Have patience, madam ; there's no doubt,
his majesty
Will soon recover his accustom'd health.
GREY. In that you brook it ill, it makes him
worse :
Therefore, for God's sake, entertain good comfort,
And cheer his grace with quick and merry words.
Q. ELIZ. If he were dead, what would betide of
me ?
GREY. No other harm, but loss of such a lord.
Q. ELIZ. The loss of such a lord includes all
harms.
GREY. The heavens have bless'd you with a
goodly son,
To be your comforter, when he is gone.
Q. ELIZ. Ah, he is young ; and his minority
Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloster,
A man that loves not me, nor none of you.
Riv. Is it concluded, he shall be protector ?
Q. ELIZ. It is determined, not concluded yet ;*
But so it must be, if the king miscarry.
1 It is determin'd, not concluded yet .] Determined signifies
the final conclusion of the will : concluded, what cannot be alter-
ed by reason of some act, consequent on the final judgment.
WARBURTON.
300 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
Enter BUCKINGHAM and STANLEY.
GREY. Here come the lords of Buckingham and
Stanley. 2
BUCK. Good time of day unto your royal grace !
STAN. God make your majesty joyful as you have
been!
Q. ELIZ. The countess Richmond, 3 good my
lord of Stanley,
To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.
Yet, Stanley, notwithstanding she's your wife,
And loves not me, be you, good lord, assur'd,
I hate not you for her proud arrogance.
STAN. I do beseech you, either not believe
The envious slanders of her false accusers j
Or, if she be accus'd on true report,
Bear with her weakness, which, I think, proceeds
From wayward sickness, and no grounded malice.
* Here come the lords of Buckingham and Stanley.'] [Old
copies Derby.~\ This is a blunder of inadvertence, which has
run through the whole chain of impressions. It could not well
be original in Shakspeare, who was most minutely intimate with
his history, and the intermarriages of the nobility. The person
here called Derby, was Thomas Lord Stanley, Lord Steward of
King Edward the Fourth's houshold. But this Thomas Lord
Stanley was not created Earl of Derby till after the accession of
Henry the Seventh ; and accordingly, afterwards, in the fourth
and fifth Acts of this play, before the battle of Bosworth-field,
he is every where called Lord Stanley. This sufficiently justifies
the change I have made in his title. THEOBALD.
3 The countess Richmond,"} Margaret, daughter to John Beau-
fort, first Duke of Somerset. After the death of her first hus-
band, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, half-brother to King
Henry VI. by whom she had only one son, afterwards King
Henry VII. she married first Sir Henry Stafford, uncle to Hum-
phrey Duke of Buckingham. MALONE.
sc. in. KING RICHARD III. 301
Q. ELIZ. Saw you the king to-day, my lord of
Stanley ?
STAN. But now, the duke of Buckingham, and I,
Are come from visiting his majesty.
Q. ELIZ. What likelihood of his amendment,
lords ?
BUCK. Madam, good hope ; his grace speaks
cheerfully.
Q. ELIZ. God grant him health ! Did you con-
fer with him ?
BUCK. Ay, madam : he desires to make atone-
ment
Between the duke of Gloster and your brothers,
And between them and my lord chamberlain ;
And sent to warn them 4 to his royal presence.
Q. ELIZ. 'Would all were well ! But that will
never be ;
I fear, our happiness is at the height.
Enter GLOSTER, HASTINGS, and DORSET.
GLO. They do me wrong, and I will not endure
it:
Who are they, that complain unto the king,
That I, forsooth, am stern, and love them not ?
By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly,
That fill his ears with such dissentious rumours.
Because I cannot flatter, and speak fair,
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog,
4 to warn them ] i. e. to summon. So, ia Julius
Ccesar :
" They mean to "warn us at Phllippi here." STEEYENS.
302 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy, 5
I must be held a rancorous enemy.
Cannot a plain man live, and think no harm,
But thus his simple truth must be abus'd
By silken, sly, insinuating Jacks ? 6
GREY. To whom in all this presence speaks your
grace ?
GLO. To thee, that hast nor honesty, nor grace.
When have I injur'd thee? when done thee
wrong ?
Or thee ? or thee ? or any of your faction ?
A plague upon you all ! His royal grace,
Whom God preserve better than you would wish!
Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,
But you must trouble him with lewd complaints/
Q. ELIZ. Brother of Gloster, you mistake the
matter :
The king, of his own royal disposition,
speak J "air ;
Smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive, and cog.
Duck with French nods and apish courtesy,"} An importation
of artificial manners seems to have afforded our ancient poets a
never failing topick of invective. So, in A tragical Discourse of
the Haplesse Man's Life, by Churchyard, 1593 :
** We make a legge, and kisse the hand withall,
" ( A French deuice, nay sure a Spanish tricke)
" And speake in print, and say loe at your call
" I will remaine your owne both dead and quicke.
** A courtier so can give a lobbe a licke,
** And dress a dolt in motley for a while,
" And so in sleeue at silly woodcocke smile."
STEEVENS.
6 insinuating Jacks ?} See Vol. VL pi 18, n. 8.
MALONE.
7 wit h lewd, complaints."] Lewd, in the present instance,
signifies rude, ignorant; from the Anglo-Saxon Laewede, a
Laick. Chaucer often uses the word lewd, both for a laick and
an ignorant person. See Ruddiman's Glossary to Gawin Doug-
las's translation of the jEneid. STEEVENS.
sc. in. KING RICHARD III. sos
And not provok'd by any suitor else ;
Aiming, belike, at your interior hatred,
That in your outward action shows itself,
Against my children, brothers, and myself,
Makes him to send ; that thereby he may gather
The ground of your ill-will, 8 and so remove it.
GLO. I cannot tell ; The world is grown so bad,
That wrens may prey 9 where eagles dare not perch:
Since every Jack became a gentleman, 1
There's many a gentle person made a Jack.
Q. ELIZ. Come, come, we know your meaning,
brother Gloster ;
You envy my advancement, and my friends ;
God grant, we never may have need of you !
GLO. Meantime, God grants that we have need
of you :
Our brother is imprison'd by your means,
Myself disgrac'd, and the nobility
* of your ill-mill, &c.] This line is restored from the
first edition. POPE.
By the first edition Mr. Pope, as appears from his Table of
EditionSy means the quarto of 1598. But that and the subse-
quent quartos read and to remove. The emendation was made
by Mr. Steevens. The folio has only
" Makes him to send, that he may learn the ground ."
Here clearly a line was omitted : yet had there been no quarto
copy, it would have been thought hardy to supply the omission:
but of all the errors of the press omission is the most frequent;
and it is a great mistake to suppose that these lacunae exist only in
the imagination of editors and commentators. MALONE.
9 may prey ] The quarto 1 598, and the folio read
make prey. The correction, which all the modern editors have
adopted, is taken from the quarto, 1602. MALONE.
1 Since every Jack became a gentleman,"] This proverbial ex-
pression at once demonstrates the origin of the term Jack so often
used by Shakspeare. It means one of the very lowest class of
people, among whom this name is of the most common and
familiar kind. DOUCE.
304 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
Held in contempt ; while great promotions
Are daily given, to enoble those
That scarce, some two days since, were worth a
noble.
Q. ELIZ. By Him, that rais'd me to this careful
height
From that contented hap which I enjoy 'd,
I never did incense his majesty
Against the duke of Clarence, but have been
An earnest advocate to plead for him.
My lord, you do me shameful injury,
Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects.
GLO. You may deny that you were not the cause
Of my lord Hastings' late imprisonment.
Riv. She may, my lord ; for
GLO. She may, lord Rivers ? why, who knows
not so ?
She may do more, sir, than denying that :
She may help you to many fair preferments j
And then deny her aiding hand therein,
And lay those honours on your high desert.
What may she not? She may, ay, marry, may
she,
Riv. What, marry, may she ?
GLO. What, marry, may she ? marry with a king,
A bachelor, a handsome stripling too :
I wis, your grandam had a worser match.
Q. ELIZ. My lord of Gloster, I have too long
borne
Your blunt upbraidings, and your bitter scoffs :
By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty,
Of those gross taunts I often have endur'd.
I had rather be a country servant-maid,
Than a great queen, with this condition
sc. in. KING RICHARD III. 305
To be so baited, scorn'd, and stormed at :
Small joy have I in being England's queen,
Enter Queen MARGARET, behind.
Q. MAR. And lessen'd be that small, God, I
beseech thee !
Thy honour, state, and seat, is due to me.
GLO. What ? threat you me with telling of the
king?
Tell him, and spare not : look, what I have said 2
I will avouch, in presence of the king :
I dare adventure to be sent to the Tower. 3
'Tis time to speak, my pains 4 are quite forgot.
Q. MAR. Out, devil! 5 1 remember them too well:
Thou knTdst my husband Henry in the Tower,
And Edward, my poor son, at Tewksbury.
GLO. Ere you were queen, ay, or your husband
king,
* Tell him, and spare not : look, tohat I have said ^ This
verse I have restored from the old quartos. THEOBALD.
Here we have another proof of a line being passed over by
the transcriber, or the compositor at the press, when the first
folio was printed, for the subsequent line is not sense without
this. MALONE.
3 I dare adventure to le sent to the Toiver.~\ Perhaps our au-
thor elliptically omitted the first to in this line. So, in p. 315 :
** To help thee curse" &c. i. e. to curse.
See also, p. 294, and p. 301. STEEVENS.
4 my pains ] My labours ; my toils. JOHNSON.
5 Out, devil /] Mr. Lambe observes, in his notes on the an-
cient metrical history of The Battle ofFloddcn Field, that out
is an interjection of abhorrence or contempt, most frequent in
the mouths of the common people of the north. It occurs again
in Act IV :
" out on ye, owls !" STEEVENS.
VOL. XIV. X
306 KING RICHARD III; ACT.*.
I was a pack-horse in his great affairs ;
A weeder-out of his proud adversaries,
A liberal rewarder of his friends ;
To royalize 6 his blood, I spilt mine own.
Q. MAR. Ay, and much better blood than his,
or thine.
GLO. In all which time, you, and your husband
Grey,
Were factious for the house of Lancaster ;
And, Rivers, so were you : Was not your husband
In Margaret's battle 7 at Saint Albans slain ?
Let me put in your minds, if you forget,
What you have been ere now, and what you are j
Withal, what I have been, and what I am.
Q. MAR. A murd'rous villain, and so still thou
art.
GLO. Poor Clarence did forsake his father War-
wick,
Ay, and forswore himself, Which Jesu pardon!
Q. MAS. Which God revenge !
GLO. To fight on Edward's party, for the crown ;
6 royalize ] i. e. to make royal. So, in Claudius
Tiberius Nero, 1607 :'
" Who means to-morrow for to royalize
" The triumphs" &c. STEEVENS.
7 Was not your husband
In Margaret's battle fyc.~\ It is said in Henry VI. that he
died in quarrel of the house of York. JOHNSON.
The account here given is the true one. See this inconsist-
ency accounted for in p. 105, and in the Dissertation at the end
of The Third Part of King Henry VI. p. 251. MALONE.
Margaret's battle is-^-Margaret's army. RITSON.
So, in King Henry VI. P. I :
" What may the king's whole battle reach unto ?"
STEEVENS.
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. 307
And, for his meed, poor lord, he is mew'd up:
I would to God, my heart were flint like Edward's,
Or Edward's soft and pitiful, like mine j
I am too childish-foolish for this world.
Q. MAR. Hie thee to hell for shame, and leave
this world,
Thou cacodaemon ! there thy kingdom is.
Riv. My lord of Gloster, in those busy days,
Which here you urge, to prove us enemies,
We followed then our lord, our lawful king ; 8
So should we you, if you should be our king.
GLO. If I should be ? I had rather be a pedlar:
Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof!
Q. ELIZ. As little joy, my lord, as you suppose
You should enjoy, were you this country's king ;
As little joy you may suppose in me,
That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.
Q. MAR. A little joy enjoys the queen thereof j
For I am she, and altogether joyless.
I can no longer hold me patient. \_Advancing.
Hear me, you wrangling pirates, 9 that fall out
8 our lawful king ;~\ So the quarto 1598, and the sub-
sequent quartos. The folio has sovereign king.
In this play the variations between the original copy in quarto,
and the folio, are more numerous than, I believe, in any other
of our author's pieces. The alterations, it is highly probable,
were made, not by Shakspeare, but by the players, many of
them being very injudicious. The text has been formed out of
the two copies, the folio, and the early quarto ; from which the
preceding editors have in every scene selected such readings as
appeared to them fit to be adopted. To enumerate every va-
riation between the copies would encumber the page with little
use. MALONE.
9 Hear me, you -wrangling pirates, &c.] This scene of Mar-
garet's imprecations is fine and artful. She prepares the audi-
ence, like another Cassandra, for the following tragic revolutions,
WARBURTON.
308 KING RICHARD III. ACT t.
In sharing that which you have pill' d from me: 1 "
Which of you trembles not, that looks on me ?
If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects;
Yet that, by you depos'd, you quake like rebels?
Ah, gentle villain, 2 do not turn away !
GLO. Foul wrinkled witch, what mak'st thou in
my sight? 3
Q. MAR. But repetition of what thou hast marr'd;
That will I make, before I let thee go.
Surely, the merits of this scene are insufficient to excuse its
improbability. Margaret bullying the court of England in the
royal palace, is a circumstance as absurd as the courtship of
Gloster in a publick street. STEEVENS.
1 which you have pill'dyrow me :~\ To pill is to pillage.
So, in The Martyr' d Soldier, by Shirley, 1638:
" He has not pill'd the rich, nor flay'd the poor."
STEEVENS.
To pill, is literally, to take off the outside or rind. Thus they
say in Devonshire, to pill an apple, rather than pare it; and
Shirley uses the word precisely in this sense. HENLEY.
8 Ah, gentle villain,'] We should read :
ungentle villain. WARBURTON,
The meaning of gentle is not, as the commentator imagines,
tender or court eous, but high~born. An opposition is meant be-
tween that and villain, which means at once a "wicked and a low-
born turetch. So before :
" Since ev'ry Jack is made a gentleman,
" There's many a gentle person made a Jack.'*
JOHNSON,
Gentle appears to me to be taken in its common acceptation,
but to be used ironically. M. MASON.
3 tahat mak'st thou in my sight?] An obsolete expression
for what dost thou in my sight. So, in Othello :
" Ancient, what makes he here ?"
Margaret in her answer takes the word in its ordinary accep-
tation. MALONE.
So does Orlando, in As you like it :
" Now, sir, what make you here ?
" Nothing : I am not taught to make any thing."
STEEVENS.
So. m. KING RICHARD III. 309
GLO. Wert thou not banished, on pain of death ?*
Q. MAR. I was ; but I do find more pain in ba-
nishment,
Than death can yield me here by my abode.
A husband, and a son, thou ow'st to me,
And thou, a kingdom ; all of you, allegiance :
This sorrow that I have, by right is yours ;
And all the pleasures you usurp, are mine.
GLO. The curse my noble father laid on thee,
When thou didst crown his warlike brows with
paper,
And with thy scorns drew'st rivers from his eyes j
And then, to dry them, gav'st the duke a clout,
Steep'd in the faultless blood of pretty Rutland ;
His curses, then from bitterness of soul
Denounced against thee, are all fallen upon thee;
And God, not we, hath plagu'd thy bloody deed. *
Q. ELIZ. So just is God, to right the innocent. 6
HAST. O, 'twas the foulest deed to slay that babe>
And the most merciless, that e'er was heard of.
4 Wert thou not banished, on pain of death ?] Margaret fled
into France after the battle of Hexham in 1464, and Edward
soon afterwards issued a proclamation, prohibiting any of his
subjects from aiding her to return, or harbouring her, should she
attempt to revisit England. She remained abroad till the 14th
of April 1471, when she landed at Weymouth. After the battle
of Tewksbury, in May 1471, she was confined in the Tower,
where she continued a prisoner till 1475, when she was ran-
somed by her father Reignier, and removed to France, where
she died in 1482. The present scene is in 1477-8. MALONE.
5 hath plagu'd thy bloody deed.~\ So, in King John :
" That he's not only plagued for her sin."
To plague, in ancient language, is to punish. Hence the
scriptural term " the plagues of Egypt." STEEVENS.
So just is God, to right the innocent.^ So, in Thomas Lord
Cromwell, 1602:
" How just is God, to right the innocent !" RITSON.
310 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
Riv. Tyrants themselves wept when it was re-
ported.
DORS. No man but prophecied revenge for it.
BUCK. Northumberland, then present, wept to
see it. 7
Q. MAR. What ! were you snarling all, before I
came,
Ready to catch each other by the throat,
And turn you all your hatred now on me ?
Did York's dread curse prevail so much with hea-
ven,
That Henry's death, my lovely Edward's death,
Their kingdom's loss, my woful banishment,
Could all but answer for that peevish brat ? 8
Can curses pierce the clouds, and enter heaven?
Why, then give way, dull clouds, to my quick
curses !
Though not by war, by surfeit die your king, 9
As ours by murder, to make him a king !
Edward, thy son, that now is prince of Wales,
For Edward, my son, that was prince of Wales,
Die in his youth, by like untimely violence !
Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,
Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!
7 Northumberland, then present, ivept to see it."] Alluding to
a scene in King Henry VI. P. Ill :
" What, weeping ripe, my lord Northumberland ?"
STEEVENS.
8 Could all but ansiuer for that peevish brat?"] This is the
reading of all the editions, yet I have no doubt but we ought to
read
Could all not anstver for that peevish brat ?
The sense seems to require this amendment ; and there are no
words so frequently mistaken for each other as not and but.
M. MASON.
9 by surfeit die your king,] Alluding to his luxurious
life. JOHNSON.
ac. in. KING RICHARD III. 311
Long may'st thou live, to wail thy children's lossj
And see another as I see thee now,
Deck'd in thy rights, as thou art stall* d in mine !
Long die thy happy days before thy death ;
And, after many lengthen'd hours of grief,
Die neither mother, wife, nor England's queen!-
Rivers, and Dorset, you were standers by,
And so wast thou, lord Hastings, when my son
Was stabb'd with bloody daggers j God, I pray
him,
That none of you may live your natural age,
But by some unlook'd accident cut off!
GLO. Have done thy charm, thou hateful withered
hag.
Q. MAR. And leave out thee? stay, dog, for
thou shalt hear me.
If heaven have any grievous plague in store,
Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,
O, let them keep it, till thy sins be ripe,
And then hurl down their indignation
On thee, the troubler of the poor world's peace !
The worm of conscience still be-gnaw thy soul !
Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou liv'st,
And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends !
No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine,
Unless it be while some tormenting dream
Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils !
Thou elvish-mark'd, 1 abortive, rooting hog! 2
1 elvish-mark' ! d,] The common people in Scotland (as I
learn from Kelly's Proverbs, ) have still an aversion to those who
have any natural defect or redundancy, as thinking them mark'd
out for mischief. STEEVENS.
* rooting hog!'] The expression is fine, alluding (in
memory of her young son) to the ravage which hogs make, with
the finest flowers, in gardens ; and intimating that Elizabeth
was to expect no other treatment for her sons. WARBUBTON.
313 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity
She calls him hog, as an appellation more contemptuous than
boar, as he is elsewhere termed from his ensigns armorial.
JOHNSON,
In The Mirror for Magistrates is the following Complaint of
Collingbourne^ who was cruelly executed for making a rime :
" For where I meant the king by name of hog,
" I only alluded to his badge the bore :
" To Level's name 1 added more, our dog ;
" Because most dogs have borne that name of yore.
" These metaphors I us'd with other more,
" As cat and rat, the half-names of the rest,
" To hide the sense that they so wrongly wrest."
That Lovel was once the common name of a dog may be like-
wise known from a passage in The Historic of Jacob and Esau,
an interlude, 1568 :
" Then come on at once, take my quiver and my bowe ;
" Fette lovell my kounde, and my home to blowe."
The rhyme for which Collingbourne suffered, was :
" A cat, a rat, and Lovel the dog,
" Rule all England under a hog." STEEVENS.
The rhyme of Collingbourne is thus preserved in Heywood's
History of Edward IV. P. II :
" The cat, the rat, and Lovell our dog,
" Doe rule all England under a hog.
" The crooke backt boore the way hath found
" To root our roses from our ground.
" Both flower and bud will he confound,
*' Till king of beasts the swine be crownM :
" And then the dog, the cat, and rat,
" Shall in his trough feed and be fat."
The propriety of Dr. Warburton's note, notwithstanding what
Dr. Johnson hath subjoined, is fully confirmed by this satire.
HENLEY.
The persons levelled at by this rhyme were the King, Catesby,
Ratcliff, and Lovel, as appears in The Complaint of Colling-
bourn :
" Catesbye was one whom I called a cat,
" A craftie lawyer catching all he could ;
" The second Ratcliffe, whom I named a rat,
" A cruel beast to gnaw on whom he should :
." Lord Lovel barkt and byt whom Richard would,
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. 313
The slave of nature, 3 and the son of hell !
Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb !
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins !
Thou rag of honour ! 4 thou detested
GLO. Margaret,
Q. MAR. . Richard!
GLO. Ha ?
Q. MAR. I call thee not.
" Whom I therefore did rightly terme our dog,
" Wherewith to ryme I cald the king a hog."
MALONE.
* The slave of nature,"] The expression is strong and noble,
and alludes to the ancient custom of masters branding their pro-
fligate slaves ; by which it is insinuated that his misshapen person
was the mark that nature had set upon him to stigmatize his ill
conditions. Shakspeare expresses the same thought in The
Comedy of Errors:
" He is deformed, crooked, &c.
" Stigmatized in making, ."
But as the speaker rises in her resentment, she expresses this
contemptuous thought much more openly, and condemns him to
a still worse state of slavery :
" Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him."
Only, in the first line, her mention of his moral conditions
insinuates her reflections on his deformity : and, in the last, her
mention of his deformity insinuates her reflections on his moral
condition : And thus he has taught her to scold in all the ele-
gance of figure. WARBURTON.
Part of Dr. Warburton's note is confirm'd by a line in our
author's Rape of Lucrece, from which it appears he was
acquainted with the practice of marking slaves :
" Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot."
MALONE.
* Thou rag of honour! &c.] This word of contempt is used
again in Timon .
" If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,
" Must be the subject."
Again, in this play :
" These over-weening rags of France." . STEEVENS*
314 KING K1CHAKD ill. ACT I.
GLO. I cry thee mercy then ; for I did think,
That thou had'st call'd me all these bitter names.
Q. MAR. Why, so I did ; but look'd for no reply.
O, let me make the period to my curse.
GLO. 'Tis done by me ; and ends in Margaret.
Q. ELIZ. Thus have you breath'd your curse
against yourself.
Q. MAR. Poor painted queen, vain flourish of
my fortune ! 5
Why strew' st thou sugar on that bottled spider, 6
* flourish of my fortune !~\ This expression is likewise
used by Massinger in The Great Duke of Florence:
" 1 allow these
" Asjlourishings of fortune." STEEVENS.
6 bottled spider,"] A spider is called bottled, because,
like other insects, he has a middle slender, and a belly pro-
tuberant. Richard's form and venom, made her liken him to a
spider. JOHNSON.
A critick, who styles himself " Robert Heron, Esquire,"
(though his title to Esquireship is but ill supported by his lan-
guage, " puppy, booby, wise-acre," &c. being the usual distinc-
tions he bestows on authors who are not his favourites,) very
gravely assures us that " a bottled spider is evidently a spider kept
in a bottle long fasting, and of consequence the more spiteful and
venomous." May one ask if the infuriation of our Esquire ori-
ginates from a similar cause ? Hath he newly escaped, like
Asmodeo, from the phial of some Highland sorcerer, under
whose discipline he had experienced the provocations of lenten
imprisonment? Mrs. Raffald disserts on bottled gooseberries, and
George Falkener warns us against bottled children ; but it was
reserved for our Esquire (every one knows who our Esquire is)
to discover that spiders, like ale, grow brisker from being bottled,
and derive additional venom from being starved. It would be the
interest of every writer to wish for an opponent like the Esquire
Heron, did not the general credit of letters oppose the production
of such another critick. So far I am from wishing the lucubra-
tions of our Esquire to be forgotten, that I counsel thee, gentle
reader, (and especially, provided thou art a hypochondriac,) to
peruse, and (if thou canst) to re-peruse them, and finally to
9c.m. KING RICHARD III.
\
Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about ?
Fool, fool ! tnou whet'st a knife to kill thyself.
The day will come, that thou shalt wish for me
To help thee curse this pois'nous bunch-back'd
toad.
HAST. False-boding woman, end thy frantick
curse ;
Lest, to thy harm, thou move our patience.
Q. MAR. Foul shame upon you ! you have all
mov'd mine.
Riv. Were you well serv'd, you would be taught
your duty.
Q. MAR. To serve me well, you all should do me
duty,
Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects:
O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty.
DOR. Dispute not with her, she is lunatick.
Q. MAR. Peace, master marquis, you are mala-
pert:
Your fire-new stamp of honour is scarce current : T
O, that your young nobility could judge,
What 'twere to lose it, and be miserable !
thank me as thy purveyor of a laugh. Every man should court
a fresh onset from an adversary, who, in the act of ridiculing
others, exposes himself to yet more obvious ridicule.
STEEVENS.
A bottled spider is a large, bloated, glossy spider ; supposed to
contain venom proportionate to its size. The expression occurs
again in Act IV :
" That bottled spider, that foul hunch-back'd toad."
RITSON.
' Yourjire-neiv stamp of honour is scarce current.-'] Thomas
Grey was created Marquis of Dorset, A. D. 14-76. PERCY.
The present scene, as has been already observed, is in 1477-8.
MALONE.
S16 KING RICHARD III. ACT I.
They that stand high, have many blasts to shake
them ;
And, if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.
GLO. Good counsel, marry ; learn it, learn it,
marquis.
DOR. It touches you, my lord, as much as me.
GLO. Ay, and much more : But I was born so
high,
Our aiery buildeth in the cedar's top,
And dallies with the wind, and scorns the sun.
Q. MAR. And turns the sun to shade ; alas !
alas !
Witness my son, now in the shade of death ; 8
Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath
Hath in eternal darkness folded up.
Your aiery buildeth in our aiery's nest : 9
O God, that see'st it, do not suffer it ;
As it was won with blood, lost be it so !
BUCK. Peace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.
Q. MAR. Urge neither charity nor shame to me ;
* Witness my son, &c."] Her distress cannot prevent her quib-
bling. It may be here remarked, that the introduction of Mar-
garet in this place, is against all historical evidence. She was
ransomed and sent to France soon after Tewksbury fight, and
there passed the remainder of her wretched life. RITSON.
Witness my son,] Thus the quarto of 1598, and the folio.
The modern editors, after the quarto of 1612, read sun.
MAL ONE.
g Your aiery buildeth in our aiery 's nest .] An aiery is a hawk's
or an eagle's nest. So, in Greene's Card of Fancy, 1608 :
" It is a subtle bird that breeds among the aiery of hawks."
Again, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630:
" His high-built aiery shall be drown'd in blood."
Again, in Massinger's Maid of Honour:
" One aiery, with proportion, ne'er discloses
' The eagle and the wren." STEEVENS.
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. ^J>
Uncharitably with me have you dealt,
And shamefully by you my hopes are butcher'd.
My chanty is outrage, life my shame,
And in my shame still live my sorrow's rage !
BUCK. Have done, have done.
Q. MAR. O princely Buckingham, I kiss thy
hand,
In sign of league and amity with thee :
Now fair befal thee, and thy noble house !
Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,
Nor thou within the compass of my curse.
BUCK. Nor no one here ; for curses never pass
The lips of those that breathe them in the air.
Q. MAR. I'll not believe but they ascend the sky,
And there awake God's gentle-sleeping peace.
O Buckingham, beware of yonder dog ;
Look, when he fawns, he bites ; and, when he
bites,
His venom tooth will rankle to the death :
Have not to do with him, beware of him ;
Sin, death, and hell, 1 have set their marks on him ;
And all their ministers attend on him.
GLO. What doth she say, my lord of Bucking-
ham ?
BUCK. Nothing that I respect, my gracious lord.
Q. MAR. What, dost thou scorn me for my gen-
tle counsel ?
1 Sin, death, and hell,'} Possibly Milton took from hence the
hint of bis famous allegory. BLACKSTONE.
, Milton might as probably catch the hint from the following
passage in Latimer's Sermons, 1584-, fol. 79 : " Here came in
death and hell, sinne "was their mother. Therefore they must
have such animage as their mother sinne would geue them."
HOLT WHITE.
KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
And sooth the devil that I warn thee from ?
O, but remember this another day,
When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow j
And say, poor Margaret was a prophetess.
Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God's ! 2 [ Exit.
HAST. My hair doth stand on end to hear her
curses.
Rir. And so doth mine ; I muse, why she's at
liberty. 3
GLO. I cannot blame her, by God's holy mother;
She hath had too much wrong, and I repent
My part thereof, that I have done to her.
Q. ELIZ. I never did her any, to my knowledge.
GLO. Yet you have all the vantage of her. wrong.
I was too hot to do some body good,
That is too cold in thinking of it now.
Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid ;
He is frank* d up to fatting for his pains ;*
God pardon them that are the cause thereof!
* Live each of you the subjects to his hate,
And he to yours, and all of you to God's /] It is evident
from the conduct of Shakspeare, that the house of Tudor re-
tained all their Lancastrian prejudices, even in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth. In his play of Richard the Third, he seems
to deduce the woes of the house of York from the curses which
Queen Margaret had vented against them; and he could not give
that weight to her curses, without supposing a right in her to
utter them. WALPOLE.
3 / muse, why she's at liberty.'] Thus the folio. The
quarto reads :
" 1 iuonder she's at liberty." STEEVENS.
* He is frank' d up to fatting for his pains;] A frank is an old
English word for a hog-sty. 'Tis possible he uses this metaphor
to Clarence, in allusion to the crest of the family of York, which
was a boar. Whereto relate those famous old verses on
Richard III :
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. 319
Riv. A virtuous and a christian-like conclusion,
To pray for them that have done scath to us. 5
GLO. So do I ever, being well advis'd ;
For had I curs'd now, I had curs'd myself. [Aside.
Enter CATESBY.
GATES. Madam, his majesty doth call for you,
And for your grace, and you, my noble lords.
Q. ELIZ. Catesby, I come : Lords, will you go
with me?
Riv. Madam, we will attend upon your grace.
[Exeunt all but GLOSTER.
" The cat, the rat, and Lovel the dog,
" Rule all England under a hog."
He uses the same metaphor in the last scene of Act IV. POPE.
A. frank was not a common hog-stye, but the pen in which
those hogs were confined of whom brawn was to be made.
STEEVENS.
From the manner in which the word is used in King Henry IV.
SL frank should seem to mean a pen in which any hog is fatted.
" Does the old boar feed in the old frank?" So also, as Mr.
Bowie observes to me, in Holinshed's Description ofBritaine,
B. III. p. 1096 : " The husbandmen and farmers never fraunke
them above three or four months, in which time he is dyeted
with otes and peason, and lodged on the bare planches of an
uneasie coate."
" He feeds like a boar in a frank," as the same gentleman
observes, is one of Ray's proverbial sentences. MALONE.
Mr. Bowie's chief instance will sufficiently countenance my
assertion : for what hogs, except those designed for bravon, are
ever purposely lodged " on the bare planches of an uneasy cote?"
STEEVENS.
* done scath to us.~] Scath is harm, mischief. So, in
Soliman and Perseda;
" Whom now that paltry island keeps from scath"
Again :
" Millions of men opprest with ruin and scath"
STEEVENS.
320 KING RICHARD III. ACTI.
GLO. I do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.
The secret mischiefs that I set abroach,
I lay unto the grievous charge of others.
Clarence, whom I, indeed, havelaidin darkness,
I do beweep to many simple gulls ;
Namely, to Stanley, Hastings, Buckingham ;
And tell them 'tis the queen and her allies,
That stir the king against the duke my brother.
Now they believe it ; and withal whet me
To be reveng'd on Rivers, Vaughan, Grey :
But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil :
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Enter Two Murderers.
But soft, here come my executioners.
How now, my hardy, stout resolved mates ?
Are you now going to despatch this thing ? 6
1 MURD. We are, my lord ; and come to have
the warrant,
That we may be admitted where he is.
GLO. Well thought upon, I have it here about
me : {Gives tfie Warrant.
When you have done, repair to Crosby-place.
But, sirs, be sudden in the execution,
6 to despatch this thing?] Seagars in his Legend of
Richard the Third, speaking of the murder of Gloster's nephews,
makes him say :
. " What though he refused, yet be sure you may,
" That other were as ready to take in hand that thing."
The coincidence was, I believe, merely accidental.
MALONE*
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 321
Withal obdurate, do not hear him plead ;
For Clarence is well spoken, and, perhaps,
May move your hearts to pity, if you mark him.
1 MURD. Tut, tut, my lord, we will not stand
to prate,
Talkers are no good doers ; be assur'd,
We go to use our hands, and not our tongues.
GLO. Your eyes drop mill-stones, when fools' eyes
drop tears : 7
I like you, lads ; about your business straight ;
Go, go, despatch.
l MURD. We will, my noble lord.
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV.
The same. A Room in the Tower.
Enter CLARENCE and BRAKENBURY.
BRAK. Why looks your grace so heavily to-(Jay ?
CLAR. O, I have pass'd a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights, 8
That, as I am a Christian faithful man, 9
I would not spend another such a night,
7 "Your eyes drop mitt-stones, when fools 9 eyes drop tears :"] This,
I believe, is a proverbial expression. It is used again in the tra-
gedy of C&sar and Pompey, 1607 :
" Men's eyes must mill-stones drop, when fools shed tears."
STEEVENS.
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,'} Thus the folio.
The quarto, 1598:
" So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams." MALONE.
9 faithful man,'] Not an infidel. JOHNSON.
VOL. XIV. Y
322 KING RICHARD III. ACT I.
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days ;
So full of dismal terror was the time.
BRAK. What was your dream, my lord ? I pray
you, tell me.
CLAR. Methought, that I had broken from the
Tower,
And was embark* d to cross to Burgundy j 1
And, in my company, my brother Gloster :
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches ; thence we look'd toward Eng-
land,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster
That had befalPn us. As we pac'd along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought, that Gloster stumbled ; and, in falling,
Struck me, that thought to stay him, over-board,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
O Lord ! methought, what pain it was to drown !
What dreadful noise of water in mine ears I 2
1 to Burgundy ; ] Clarence was desirous to assist his sister
Margaret against the French King, who invaded her jointure-
lands after the death of her husband; Charles Duke of Burgundy,
who was killed at the siege of Nancy, in January 1476-7.
Isabel the wife of Clarence being then dead, (taken off by poison,
administered by the Duke of Gioster, as it has been conjectured,)
he wished to have married Mary the daughter and heir of the
Duke of Burgundy; but the match was opposed by Edward,
who hoped to have obtained her for his brother-in-law, Lord
Rivers ; and this circumstance has been suggested as the principal
cause of the breach between Edward and Clarence. Mary of
Burgundy however chose a husband for herself, having married
in August^ 1477, Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick.
MALONE.
* What dreadful noise of water in mine ears!} See Mr.
Warton's note on Milton's Lycidas, r. 157. Milton's Poems,
second edit. 1791. STEEVEHS.
ac. iv. KING RICHARD III. 323
What sights of ugly death 3 within mine eyes!
Methought, I saw a thousand fearful wrecks j
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon ;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, 4
All scattered in the bottom of the sea,
Some lay in dead men's skulls ; and, in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept
(As 'twere in scorn of eyes,) reflecting gems,
That woo'd the slimy bottom 5 of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter J d by.
BRAK. Had you such leisure in the time of death,
To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?
CLAR. Methought, I had ; and often did I strive
To yield the ghost : but still the envious flood
Kept in my soul, 6 and would not let it forth
To seek the empty, vast, and wand'ring air ; 7
3 What sights of ugly death ] Thus the folio. The quarto
has What ugly sights of death. MALONE.
4 Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels, ~\ Unvalued is here used
for invaluable. So, in Lovelace's Posthumous Poems , 1659 :
" the unvaletx'd robe she wore,
" Made infinite lay lovers to adore." MALONE.
Again, in Chapman's version of the first Iliad :
" . to buy,
" For Tpresents*of unvalued price, his daughter's'libertie."
Again, in the 15th Iliad:
" Still shaking Jove's unvalewed shield, " STEEVENS.
* That woo'd the slimy bottom ] By seeming to gaze upon
it ; or, as we now say, to ogle it. JOHNSON.
6 Kept in my soul,~\ Thus the quarto. The folio Stopt in.
MALONE.
7 To seek the empty, vast, and ivand'ring air;~\ Perhaps we
should point thus :
To seek the empty vast, and tuand'ring air.
that is, to seek the immense vacuity. Vast is used by our author
as a substantive in other places. See Vol. IX. p. 214, n. 3.
Y 2
324 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
But smother' d it within my panting bulk, 8
Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.
BRAK. Awak'd you not with this sore agony ?
CLAR. O, no, my dream was lengthen'd after
life;
Q, then began the tempest to my soul I
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman 9 which poets write of,
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my stranger soul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick ;
Who cry'd aloud, What scourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ?
And so he vanish' d : Then came wand'ring by
A shadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood j 1 and he shriek'd out aloud,
Seek is the reading of the quarto, 1598 ; the folio h&sjind.
MALONE.
empty, vast, and wand' ring air ;] Vast, is waste, deso-
late vastum per inane. STEEVENS.
8 within my panting bulk,] Bulk is often used by Shak-
speare and his contemporaries for body. So again, in Hamlet .-
" it did seem to shatter all his bulk,
" And end his being." MALONE.
Bouke is used for the trunk of the body, by Chaucer in the
Knighte's Tale, 2748 :
" The clotered blood, for any leche-craft,
" Corrumpeth, and is in his bouke ylaft."
Bouk (i. e. bulk) is from the Saxon BUCE, venter. STEEVENS.
* grimferryman ] The folio reads sour ferryman.
STBEVENS.
1 with bright hair
Dabbled in blood;'] Lee has transplanted this image into his
Mithridates, Act IV. sc. i :
" I slept ; but oh, a dream so full of terror,
" The pale, the trembling midnight ravisher
" JNe'er saw, when cold Lucretia's mourning shadow
&c. IT. KING RICHARD III. 325
Clarence is come, false, Jleeting, perjured Cla-
rence*
That stabb'd me in iliejield by Tewksbury;
Seize on him,Juries, take him to your torments !
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environed me, 3 and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise,
I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after,
Could not believe but that I was in hell ;
Such terrible impression made my dream.
BRAK. No marvel, lord, though it affrighted
you;
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
Ck4JZ.O,Brakenbury,Ihave done these things,
That now give evidence against my soul,
For Edward's sake; and, see, how he requites
me!
" His curtains drew, and lash'd him in his eyes
" With her bright tresses, dabbled in her blood. 1 *
STEEVENS.
8 - fleeting, perjured Clarence,"] Fleeting is the same as
.changing sides. JOHNSON.
So, in Antony and Cleopatra :
" now \hejleeting moon
" No planet is of mine."
Clarence broke his oath with the Earl of Warwick, and joined
the army of his brother King Edward IV. See p. 178.
STEEVENS.
3 a legion qffouljiends
Environed me, &c.] Milton seems to have thought on this
passage where he is describing the midnight sufferings of Our
Saviour, in the 4th Book of Paradise Regained :
" nor yet stay'd the terror there,
" Infernal ghosts, and hellish furies, round
" Environ'd thee, some howl'd, some yell'd, some
shriek'd ." STEEVENS.
526 KING RICHARD III. ACT I.
God ! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee, 4
But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone :
O, spare my guiltless wife, 5 and my poor children!
1 pray thee, gentle keeper, stay by me ; 6
My soul is heavy, and I fain would sleep.
BRAK. I will, my lord; God give your grace
good rest !
[CLARENCE reposes himself on a Chair.
Sorrow breaks seasons, 7 and reposing hours,
Makes the night morning, and the nopn-tide night.
Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil ;'
4 God. 1 if my deep prayers &c.~] The four following lines
have been added since the" first edition. POPE.
They are found in the folio, but not in the quarto. MAL.ONE.
5 my guiltless wife,'] The wife of Clarence died before
he was apprehended andconfined in the Tower. See p. 322, n. 1.
MALONE.
B I pray thee, gentle keeper, &c.] So the quarto, 1598. The
folio reads :
: " Keeper, I pr'ythee, sit by me a while." MALONE.
7 Sorrow breaks seasons, &c.~] In the common editions, the
Keeper is made to hold the dialogue with Clarence till this line.
And here Brakenbury enters, pronouncing these words ; which
seem to me a reflection naturally resulting from the foregoing
conversation, and therefore continued to be spoken by the same
person, as it is accordingly in the first edition. POPE.
The Keeper introduced in the quarto 1598, was, in fact,
Brakenbury, who was Lieutenant of the Tower. There can be
no doubt therefore that the text, which is regulated according to
the quarto, is right. MALONE.
8 Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil ;] The first line may
be understood in this sense, The glories of princes are nothing
more than empty titles : but it would more impress the purpose
of the speaker, and correspond better with the following lines,
if it were read :
Princes have but their titles for their, troubles. JOHNSON,
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 327
And, for unfelt imaginations,
They often feel a world of restless cares :'
So that, between their titles, and low name,
There's nothing differs but the outward fame.
Enter the Two Murderers.
1 MURD. Ho ! who's here ?
BRAK. What would* st thou, fellow? and how
cam'st thou hither ?
1 MURD. I would speak with Clarence, and I
came hither on my legs.
BRAK. What, so brief?
2 MURD. O, sir, 'tis better to be brief than
tedious :
Let him see our commission ; talk no more. 1
\_A Paper is delivered to BRAKENBURY, who
reads it.
BRAK. I am, in this, commanded to deliver
The noble duke of Clarence to your hands :
I will not reason what is meant hereby,
Because I will be guiltless of the meaning.
Here are the keys j 2 there sits the duke asleep :
9 for unfelt imaginations,
They often feel a 'world of restless cares : ~\ They often suffelr
real miseries for imaginary and unreal gratifications. JOHNSON".
1 Let him see our commission ; &c.] Thus the second folio.
Other copies, with measure equally defective
<* Show him our commission, talk no more."
STEEVENS.
' Here are the keys; &c.] So the quarto, 1598. The folio
reads :
" There lies the duke asleep, and there the keys.
328 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
1*11 to the king ; and signify to him,
That thus I have resigned to you my charge.
1 MURD. You may, sir j 'tis a point of wisdom :
Fare you well. {Exit BRAKENBURY;
2 MURD. What, shall we stab him as he sleeps ?
1 MURD. No ; he'll say, 'twas done cowardly,
when he wakes.
2 MURD. When he wakes ! why, fool, he shall
never wake until the great judgment day.
1 MURD. Why, then he'll say, we stabb'd him
sleeping.
2 MURD. The urging of that word, judgment,
hath bred a kind of remorse in me.
1 MURD. What ? art thou afraid ?
2 MURD. Not to kill him, having a warrant for
it ; but to be damn'd for killing him, from the
which no warrant can defend me.
1 MURD. I thought, thou had'st been resolute.
2 MURD. So I am, to let him live.
1 MURD. I'll back to the duke of Gloster, and
tell him so.
2 MURD. Nay, I pr'ythee, stay a little : I hope,
this holy humour of mine 3 will change ; it was wont
to hold me but while one would tell twenty.
3 this holy humour of mine ] Thus the early quarto.
The folio has this passionate humour of mine, for which the
modern editors have substituted compassionate, unnecessarily.
Passionate, though not so good an epithet as that which is fur-
nished by the quarto, is sufficiently intelligible. See Vol. X.
p. 4-06, n. 4.
The second murderer's next speech proves that holy was the
author's word. The player editors probably changed it, as they
did many others, on account of the Statute, 3 Jac. I. c. 21. A
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 329
1 MURD. How dost thou feel thyself now ?
2 MURD. 'Faith, some certain dregs of conscience
are yet within me.
1 MURD. Rememberourreward,whenthedeed's
done.
2 MURD. Come, he dies j I had forgot the re-
ward.
1 MURD. Where's thy conscience now ?
2 MURD. In the duke of Gloster's purse.
1 MURD. So, when he opens his purse to give us
our reward, thy conscience flies out.
2 MURD. 'Tis no matter ; let it go j there's few,
or none, will entertain it.
1 MURD. What, if it come to thee again ?
2 MURD. I'll not meddle with it, it is a danger-
pus thing, it makes a man a coward ; a man can-
not steal, but it accuseth him ; a man cannot swear,
but it checks him ; a man cannot lie with his neigh-
bour's wife, but it detects him : 'Tis a blushing
shame-faced spirit, that mutinies in a man's bosom;
it fills one full of obstacles : it made me once restore
a purse of gold, that by chance I found ; it beggars
any man that keeps it : it is turned out of all towns
and cities for a dangerous thing ; and every man,
that means to live well, endeavours to trust to him-
self, and live without it.
1 MURD. 'Zounds, it is even now at my elbow,
persuading me not to kill the duke.
2 MURD. Take the devil in thy mind, and believe
little lower, they, from the same apprehension, omitted the word
'faith. MALONE.
S30 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
him not: he would insinuate with thee, but to make
thee sigh. 4
1 MURD. I am strong-fram'd, 5 he cannot pre-
vail with me.
2 MURD. Spoke like a tall fellow, 6 that respects
his reputation. Come, shall we fall to work ?
1 MURD. Take him over the costard 7 with the
hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into the
malmsey-butt, in the next room.
2 MURD. O excellent device ! and make a sop of
him.
4 Take the devil in thy mind, and believe him not : he would in-
sinuate uitfi thee, &c.] > One villain says, Conscience is at his
elbows, persuading him not to kill the duke. The other says,
take the devil into thy nearer acquaintance, into thy mind, who
will be a match for thy conscience, and believe it not, 8fc. It
is plain then, that him in both places in the text should be it t
namely, conscience. WARBURTON.
Shakspeare so frequently uses both these pronouns indiscri-
minately, that no correction is necessary. STEEVENS.
In The Merchant of Venice we have a long dialogue between
Launcelot, his Conscience, and the Devil. But though con-
science were not here personified, Shakspeare would have used
him instead of it. He does so in almost every page of these
plays. MALONE.
6 1 am strong-framed,'] Thus the folio. The quarto reads
I am strong in fraud. MALONE.
6 Spoke like a tallfellotv,'] The meaning of tall, in old Eng-
lish, is stout, daring, fearless, and strong. JOHNSON.
So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor:
" good soldiers, and tall fellows.'* STEEVENS.
7 the costard -] i. e. the head ; a name adopted from
an apple shaped like a man's head. So, in Arden ofFeversham,
1592:
" One and two rounds at his costard."
Hence likewise the term coster-monger. See VoJ. VII.
p. 56, n. 3. STEEVEWS.
ac. iv. KING RICHARD III. 331
1 MURD. Soft ! he wakes.
2 MURD. Strike.
1 MURD. No, we'll reason 8 with him.
CLAR. Where art thou, keeper ? give me a cup
of wine.
1 MURD. You shall have wine enough, my lord,
anon.
CLAR. In God's name, what art thou ?
1 MURD. A man, as you are.
CLAR. But not, as I am, royal.
1 MURD. Nor you, as we are, loyal.
CLAR. Thy voice is thunder, but thy looks are
humble.
1 MURD. My voice is now the king's, my looks
mine own.
CLAR. How darkly, and how deadly dost thou
speak !
Your eyes do menace me : Why look you pale ?
Who sent you hither ? Wherefore do you come ?
BOTH MURD. To, to, to,
CLAR. To murder me?
BOTH MURD. Ay, ay.
CLAR. You scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,
And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.
Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?
] MURD. Offended us you have not, but the
king.
CLAR. I shall be reconcil'd to him again.
' tve'tt reason ] We'll talk. JOHNSON.
So, in The Merchant of Venice:
" I reasoned with a Frenchman yesterday." STEEVENS.
KING RICHARD III. ACT i,
2 MURD. Never, my lord ; therefore prepare to
die.
CLAR. Are you call'd forth from out a world of
men, 9
To slay the innocent ? What is my offence ?
Where is the evidence that doth accuse me ?
What lawful quest 1 have given their verdict up
Unto the frowning judge ? or who pronounced
The bitter sentence of poor Clarence* death ?
Before I be convict by course of law, 2
To threaten me with death is most unlawful.
9 Are you call'd forth from out a world of men,] I think it
may be better read :
Are ye cull'd forth . JOHNSON.
The folio reads :
" Are you draton forth among a world of men."
I adhere to the reading now in the text. So, in Nobody and
Somebody, 1598:
" Art thou called forth amongst a thousand men
" To minister this soveraigne antidote ?" STEEVENS.
The reading of the text is that of the quarto, 1598.
MALONE.
1 What lauful quest ] Quest is inquest or jury.
JOHNSON.
So, in Hamlet:
" crowner's quest law." STEEVENS.
* Before I be convict &c.] Shakspeare has followed the
current tale of his own time, in supposing that Clarence was
imprisoned by Edward, and put to death by order of his brother
Richard, without trial or condemnation. But the truth is, that
he was tried and found guilty by his Peers, and a bill of at-
tainder was afterwards passed against him. According to Sir
Thomas More, his death was commanded by Edtnard; but he
does not assert that the Duke of Gloster was the instrument.
Polydore Virgil says, though he talked with several persons who
lived at the time, he never could get any certain account of the
motives that induced Edward to put his brother to death. See
p. 322, n. 1. MALONE.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III.
I charge you, as you hope for any goodness, 3
By Christ's dear blood sned for our grievous sins,
That you depart, and lay no hands on me ;
The deed you undertake is damnable.
1 MURD. What we will do, we do upon com-
mand.
2 MURD. And he, that hath commanded, is our
king.
CLAR. Erroneous vassal ! the great King of kings
Hath in the table of his law commanded,
That thou shalt do no murder ; Wilt thou then
Spurn at his edict, and fulfil a man's ?
Take heed ; for he holds vengeance in his hand,
To hurl upon their heads that break his law.
2 MURD. And that same vengeance doth he hurl
on thee,
For false forswearing, and for murder too :
Thou didst receive the sacrament, to fight
In quarrel of the house of Lancaster.
1 MURD. And, like a traitor to the name of God,
Didst break that vow ; and, with thy treacherous
blade,
Unrip'dst the bowels of thy sovereign's son.
2 MURD. Whom thou wast sworn to cherish and
defend.
1 MURD. How canst thou urge God's dreadful
law to us,
3 as you hope for any goodness,] The quarto reads :
*' As you hope to have redemption."
I have adopted the former words, for the sake of introducing
variety; the idea of redemption being comprized in the very next;
line. STEEVENS.
This arbitrary alteration was made, and the subsequent line
was omitted, by the editors of the folio, to avoid the penalty of
the Stat. 3. Jac. c. 21. MALONE.
834 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
When thou hast broke it in such dear 4 degree ?
CLAR. Alas ! for whose sake did I that ill deed ?
For Edward, for my brother, for his sake :
He sends you not to murder me for this ;
For in that sin he is as deep as I.
If God will be avenged for the deed,
O, know you, that he doth it publickly ; 5 .
Take not the quarrel from his powerful arm ;
He needs no indirect nor lawless course,
To cut off those that have offended him.
1 MURD. Who made thee then a bloody minister,
When gallant-springing, brave Plantagenet, 6
That princely novice, 7 was struck dead by thee ?
CLAR. My brother's love, the devil, and my rage.
I MURD. Thy brother's love, our duty, and thy
fault,
Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.
4 dear ] This is a word of mere enforcement, and
very frequently occurs, with different shades of meaning, in our
author. So, in Timon of Athens:
" And strain what other means is left unto us,
" In our dear peril." STEEVENS.
* O, knotv you, that 8fc.~] The old copies O, know you
yet, but we should read that instead of yet. In the MS. copy
that would naturally have been written y l . Hence the mistake,
which I have corrected, by the advice of Dr. Farmer.
STEEVENS.
6 springing, Plantagenet, ] Blooming Plantagenet; a
prince in the spring of life. JOHNSON.
So, in Spenser's Shepherd's Calender, 1579 :
" That wouldest me my springing youth to spill."
MALONE.
When gallant, springing,] This should be printed as one word,
I think'; gallant-springing. Shakspeare is fond of these com-
pound epithets, in which the first adjective is to be considered
as an adverb. So, in this play, he uses childish^foolish, senseless-
obstinate, and mortal-staring. TYRWHITT.
7 novice,"] Youth ; one yet new to the world. JOHNSON.
ac. iv. KING RICHARD III. 335
CLAR. If you do love my brother, hate not me ;
I am his brother, and I love him well.
If you are hir'd for meed, 8 go back again,
And I will send you to my brother Gloster ;
Who shall reward you better for my life,
Than Edward will for tidings of my death.
2 MURD. You are deceiv'd,your brother Gloster
hates you. 9
CLAR. O, no ; he loves me, and he holds me
dear:
Go you to him from me.
BOTH MURD. Ay, so we will.
CLAR. Tell him, when that our princely father
York
Bless* d his three sons with his victorious arm,
And charg'd us from his soul to love each other,
He little thought of this divided friendship :
Bid Gloster think on this, and he will weep.
* If you are hir'dfor meed,] Thus the quarto 1597 and the
folio. The quarto 1598, reads If you be hired for need; which
is likewise sense : If it be necessity which induces you to commit
this murder. MALONE.
9 your brother Gloster hates you.~\ Mr. Walpole, somQ
years ago, suggested from the Chronicle of Croyland, that the
true cause of Gloster's hatred to Clarence was, that Clarence
was unwilling to share with his brother that moiety of the estate
of the great Earl of Warwick, to which Gloster became entitled
on his marriage with the younger sister of the Duchess of Cla-
rence, Lady Anne Neville, who had been betrothed to Edward
Prince of Wales. This account of the matter is fully confirmed
by a letter, dated Feb. 14, 147 1-2, which has been lately pub-
lished. Paston Letters, Vol. II. p. 91 : " Yesterday the king,
the queen, my lords of Clarence and Gloucester, went to Shene
to pardon ; men say, not all in charity. The king entreateth
my lord of Clarence for my lord of Gloucester ; and, as it is said,
he answereth, that he may well have my lady his sister-in-law,
but they shall part no livelihood, as he saith ; so, what will fall,
can I not say." MALONE.
336 KING RICHARD lit ACT i.
1 MURD. Ay, mill-stones ; l as he lesson'd us to
weep.
CLAR. O, do not slander him, for he is kind.
1 MURD. Right, as snow in harvest. Come, you
deceive yourself;
'Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.
CLAR. It cannot be ; for he bewept my fortune,
And hugg'd me in his arms, and swore, with sobs,
That he would labour my delivery.
1 MURD. Why, so he doth, when he delivers you
From this earth's thraldom to the joys of heaven.
2 MURD. Make peace with God, for you must
die, my lord.
CLAR. Hast thou that holy feeling in thy soul,
To counsel me to make my peace with God,
And art thou yet to thy own soul so blind,
That thou wilt war with God, by murdering me ?
Ah, sirs, consider, he, that set you on
To do this deed, will hate you for the deed.
2 MURD. What shall we do ?
CLAR. Relent, and save your souls. 2
1 MURD. Relent ! 'tis cowardly, and womanish.
CLAR. Not to relent, is beastly, savage, devilish.
Which of you, if you were a prince's son,
Being pent from liberty, as I am now,
1 he ivill weep.
1 Murd. Ay, mill-stones ;] So,inMassinger's City Madam:
" He, good gentleman,
" Will weep when he hears how we are used.
" Yes, mill-stones.' 1 STEEVENS.
and save your souls. &c.] The six following lines are not
in the old edition, [i. e. the quarto.] POPE.
They are not necessary, but so forced in, that something seems
omitted to which these lines are the answer. JOHNSON.
SC..IT. KING RICHARD III. 337
If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,
.Would not entreat for lire ?
My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks ;
,O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,
Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,
As you would beg, were you in my distress.
A begging prince what beggar pities not ? 3
2 MURD. Look behind you, my lord.
s what beggar pities not?] I cannot but suspect that the
lines, which Mr. rope observed not to be in the old edition, are
now misplaced, and should be inserted here, somewhat after this
manner :
Clar. A begging prince what beggar pities not ?
Vil. A begging prince !
Clar. Which of you, if you were a prince's son, &c.
Upon this provocation, the villain naturally strikes him.
JOHNSON.
Mr. Pope's note is not accurately stated. I believe this pas-
sage should be regulated thus :
Clar. Relent and save your souls.
1 Vil. Relent ! 'tis cowardly and womanish.
Clar. Not to relent is beastly, savage, devilish.
Which of you if you were a prince's son,
Being pent
If two such
Would not entreat for life ?
My friend, I spy
r -f *i
U, it thine eye
Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,
As you would beg, were you in my distress.
A begging prince what beggar pities not. TYRWHITT.
I think with Mr. Tyrwhitt that these lines have been inserted
in a wrong place. MALONE.
I have regulated the text according to Mr. Tyrwhitt's in-
struction. STEEVENS.
A begging prince what beggar pities not?"] To this, in the
quarto, the Murderer replies :
** I, thus and thus : if this will not serve
" I'll chop thee in the malmesey but in the next roome."
and then stabs him. STEEVENS.
VOL. XIV. Z
538 KING RICHARD III. ACT i.
1 MURD. Take that, and that ; if all this will
not do, [Stabs him.
I'll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.
[Exit, with the Body.
2 MURD. A bltiody deed, and desperately de-
spatch'd !
How fain, like Pilate, would I wash my hands
Of this most grievous guilty murder done !
He-enter fast Murderer.
1 MURD. How now ? what mean'st thoii, that
thou help'st me not ?
By heaven, the duke shall know how slack you
have been.
2 MURD. I would he knew, that I had sav'd
his brother !
Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say ;
For I repent me that the duke is slain. [Exit.
1 MURD. So do not I; go, coward, as thou art.
Well, I'll go hide the body in some hole,
Till that the duke give order for his burial :
And when I have my meed, I will away ;
For this will out, and then I must not stay. [Exit.
ACT n. KING RICHARD III. 339
prf j od oi ij.>v 'to >oriii
ACT II. SCENE I.
The same. A Room in the Palace.
' " ' ~
" i
King EDWARD, (led in sick,} Queen ELIZA-
BETH, DORSET, RIVERS, HASTINGS, BUCKING-
RAM, GREY, and Others,
K. EDW. Why, so : now have I done a
day's work ;
You peers, continue this united league :
I every day expect an embassage
From my Redeemer to redeem me hence ;
And more in peace 4 my soul shall part to heaven,
Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.
Rivers, and Hastings, take each other's hand ;
Dissemble not your hatred, 5 swear your love.
Riv. By heaven, my soul is purg'd from grudgr
ing hate ;
And with my hand I seal my true heart's love.
HAST. So thrive I, as I truly swear the like !
K. EDW. Take heed, you dally not before your
king;
JLest he, that is the supreme King of kings,
4 And more in peace ~l The folior-wwre tt> peace. The
quartos-Arid now in peaee . STEEVENS.
5 Dissemble not your Jiatred y ~\ i. e. do not gloss it over.
STEEyENS.
I suppose he means, Divest yourselves of that concealed ha-
tred which you have heretofore secretly borne to each other.
Do not merely, says Edward, conceal and cover over your se-
cret ill wUl to each other by a show of love, but -eradicate .hatred
altogether from your bosoms. MALONE.
Z 2
340 KING RICHARD III. ACT n.
Confound your hidden falsehood, and award
Either of you to be the other's end.
HAST. So prosper I, as I swear perfect love !
Riv. And I, as I love Hastings with my heart !
K. EDW. Madam, yourself are not exempt in
this,
Nor your son Dorset, Buckingham, nor you ;
You have been factious one against the other.
Wife, love lord Hastings, let him kiss your hand ;
And what you do, do it unfeignedly.
Q. ELIZ. There, Hastings j I will never more
remember
Our former hatred, So thrive I, and mine !
K. EDW. Dorset, embrace him, Hastings, love
lord marquis.
DOR. This interchange of love, I here protest,
Upon my part shall be inviolable.
HAST. And so swear I. [Embraces DORSET.
K. EDW. Now, princely Buckingham, seal thou
this league
With thy embracements to my wife's allies,
And make me happy in your unity.
BUCK. Whenever Buckingham doth turn his hate
Upon your grace, [To the Queen.] but with all du-
teous love
Doth cherish you, and yours, God punish me
With hate in those where I expect most love !
When I have most need to employ a friend,
And most assured that he is a friend,
Deep, hollow, treacherous, and full of guile,
Be he unto me ! this do I beg of heaven,
When I am cold in love, to you, or yours.
[Embracing RIVERS, ^r.
sc. i. KING RICHARD III. 341
K. EDW. A pleasing cordial, princely Bucking-
ham, /'..
Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.
There wanteth now our brother Gloster here,
To make the blessed period of this peace.
BUCK. And, in good time, here comes the noble
duke. 6
Enter GLOSTER.
GLO. Good-morrow to my sovereign king, and
queen ;
And, princely peers, a happy time of day !
K. EDW. Happy, indeed, as we have spent the
day I-
Brother, we have done deeds of charity ;
Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,
Between these swelling wrong-incensed peers.
GLO. Ablessed labour, my most sovereign liege.
Among this princely heap, if any here,
By false intelligence, or wrong surmise,
Hold me a foe ;
If I unwittingly, or in my rage, 7
Have aught committed that is hardly borne
here comes the noble duke,'] So the quarto. The folio
reads :
" And in good time
" Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliffe and the duke."
MALONE.
7 If I unwittingly, or in my rage,"] So the quarto. Folio
unwillingly. This line and the preceding hemistick are printed
in the old copies, as one line ; a mistake that has very frequently
happened in the early editions of these plays. Mr. Pope, by
whose licentious alterations our author's text wsts much cor-
rupted, omitted the words or in my rage ; in which he has
been followed by all the subsequent editors. MALONE.
342 KING RICHARD III. ACT n.
By any in this presence, I desire
To reconcile me to his friendly peace :
'Tis death to me, to be at enmity ;
I hate it, and desire all good men's love.-^-
First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,
Which I will purchase with my duteous service ;
Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,
If ever any grudge were lodg'd between us ;
Of you, lord Rivers, and lord Grey, of you,
That all without desert have frown' d on me; 8
Pukes, earls, lords, gentlemen ; indeed, of all.
I do not know 9 that Englishman alive,
With whom my soul is any jot at odds,
More than the infant that is born to-night }
I thank my God for my humility.
* frofjon'd onme ;~] I have followed the original copy
in quarto. The folio adds
" Of you, lord Woodville, and lord Scales, of you; "
The eldest son of Earl Rivers was Lord Scales ; but there was
no such person as Lord Woodville. M ALONE.
9 / do not know &c.] Milton in his EIKONOKAASTE2, has
this observation : " The poets, and some English, have been in
this point so mindful of decorum, as to put never more pious
words in the mouth of any person, than of a tyrant. I shall
not instance an abstruse author, wherein the king might be less
conversant, but one whom we well know was the closet compa-
nion of these his solitudes, William Shakspeare ; who introduced
the person of Richard the Third, speaking in as high a strain of
piety and mortification as is uttered in any passage in this book,
and sometimes to the same sense and purpose with some words
in this place ; / intended, saith he, not only to oblige my friends,
but my enemies; The like saith Richard, Act II. sc. i:
" I do not know that Englishman alive,
" With whom my soul is any jot at odds,
" More than the infant that is born to-night ;
" I thank my God for my humility."
" Other stuff of this sort may be read throughout the tragedy,
wherein the poet used not much licence in departing from the
truth of history, which delivers him a deep dissembler, not of
his affections only, but of religion." STEEVENS.
9* /. KING RICHARD III.
Q. ELIZ. A holy-day shall this be kept here-
after :
I would to God, all strifes were well compounded.
My sovereign lord, I do beseech your highness
To take our brother Clarence to your grace.
GLO. Why, madam, have I offer' d love for this,
To be so flouted in this royal presence ?
Who knows not, that the gentle duke is dead ?
[They all start.
You do him injury, to scorn his corse.
K. EDW. Who knows not, he is dead! who knows
he is ?
Q. ELIZ. All-seeing heaven, what a world is this!
BUCK. Look I so pale, lord Dorset, as the rest ?
DOR. Ay, my good lord ; and no man in the
presence,
But his red colour hath forsook his cheeks.
K. EDW. Is Clarence dead ? the order was re-
vers'd.
GLO. But he, poor man, by your first order 4ied 9
And that a winged Mercury did bear ;
Some tardy cripple bore the countermand, *
That came too lag to see him buried :
God grant, that some, less noble, and less loyal,
Nearer in bloody thoughts, and not in blood, 3
tardy cripple &c.] This is an allusion to a proverbial
expression wliich Drayton has versified in the second cantp of
The Barons' Wars :
" 111 news hath wings, and with the wind doth go ;
" Comfort's a cripple,, and comes ever slow."
STEEVENS.
* Nearer in .bloody thoughts, and not in blood^ ,J
we have the same play on words :
" the near in blood,
" The nearer bloody." STEEVENS.
344 KING RICHARD III. ACT n.
Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,
And yet go current from suspicion !
Enter STANLEY.
STAN. A boon, my sovereign, for my service
done !
K. EDW. I pr'ythee, peace ; my soul is full of
sorrow.
STAN. I will not rise, unless your highness hear
me.
K. EDW. Then say at once, what is it thou re-
quest'st.
STAN, The forfeit, 3 sovereign, of my servant's
life;
Who slew to-day a riotous gentleman,
Lately attendant on the duke of Norfolk.
K. EDW. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's
death, 4
And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave ?
My brother kilPd no man, his fault was thought,
And yet his punishment was bitter death.
Who sued to me for him ? 5 who, in my wrath,
3 The forfeit, ~\ He means the remission of the forfeit.
JOHNSON.
4 Have I a tongue to doom my brother's death,'] This lamen-
tation is very tender and pathetick. The recollection of the
good qualities of the dead is very natural, and no less naturally
does the King endeavour to communicate the crime to others.
JOHNSON.
5 Who sued to me for him ? &c.] This pathetick speech is
founded on this slight hint in Sir Thomas More's History of Ed-
ward V. inserted by Holinshed in his Chronicle : ** Sure it is,
that although king Edward were consenting to his death, yet he
much did both lament his infortunate chance, and repent his
sudden execution. Insomuch that when any person sued to him
st\ t. KING RICHARD III. 345
Kneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advis'd ? 6
Who spoke 01 brotherhood ? who spoke of love ?
Who told me, how the poor soul did forsake
The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me ?
Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury,
When Oxford had me down, he rescu'd me,
And said, Dear brother, live, and be a king?
Who told me, when we both lay in the field,
Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me
Even in his garments ; and did give himself,
All thin and naked, to the numb-cold night ?
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath
Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you
Had so much grace to put it in my mind.
But, when your carters, or your waiting-vassals,
Have done a drunken slaughter, and defac'd
The precious image of our dear Redeemer,
You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon;
And I, unjustly too, must grant it you :
But for my brother, not a man would speak,
Nor I (ungracious) speak unto myself
For him, poor soul. The proudest of you all
Have been beholden to him in his life ;
Yet none of you would once plead for his life.
O God! I fear, thy justice will take hold
On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this.
for the pardon of malefactors condemned to death, he would
accustomablie say, and openly speake, O infortunate brother, for
whose life not one would make suite ! openly and apparently
meaning by suche words that by the means of some of the
nobilitie he was deceived, and brought to his confusion."
MALONE.
6 ' be advis'd?] i.e. deliberate; consider what I was
about to do. So, in The Letters of the Paston Family, Vol. II.
p. 279 : " Written in haste with short advisement" &c. See
also, The Ttvo Gentlemen of Verona, Vol. IV. p. 227, n. 5.
MALON-E.
346 KING RICHARD III. ACT it.
Come, Hastings, help me to my closet.' O,
Poor Clarence !
[Exeunt King, Queen, HASTINGS, RIVERS,
DORSET, and GREY.
GLO. This is the fruit of rashness ! Mark'd you
not,
How that the guilty kindred of the queen
Look'd pale, when they did hear of Clarence*
death ?
O ! they did urge it still unto the king :
God will revenge it. Come, lords ; will you go,
To comfort Edward with our company ?
BUCK. We wait upon your grace. \_Exeunt.
SCENE II.
The same.
Enter the Duchess o/Tork, 8 with a Son and Daugh-
ter of Clarence.
Sow. Goodgrandam, tell us, is our father 4ead?
DUCH. No, boy.
DAUGH. Why do you weep so oft ? and beat your
breast ;
And cry O Clarence, my unhappy son !
r Come, Hastings, help me to my closet."] Hastings was Lord
Chamberlain to King Edward IV. MALONE.
8 Enter the Duchess of York,"] Cecily, daughter of Ralph
Neville first Earl of Westmoreland, and widow of Richard Duke
of York, who was killed at the battle of Wakefield in 1460.
She survived her husband thirty-five years, living till the year
MALONE.
ac. ii. KING RICHARD III. 347
SON. Why do you look on us, and shake your
head,
And call us orphans, wretches, cast-aways,
If that our noble father be alive ?
Ducff. My pretty cousins, 9 you mistake me both;
I do lament the sickness of the king,
As loath to lose him, not your father's death ;
It were lost sorrow, to wail one that's lost.
SON. Then, grandam, you conclude that he is
dead.
The king my uncle is to blame for this :
God will revenge it ; whom I will imp6rtune
With earnest prayers all to that effect.
DAUGH. And so will I.
DUCH. Peace, children, peace! the king doth
love you well :
Incapable and shallow innocents, 1
You cannot guess who caus'd your father's death.
SON. Grandam, we can: for my good uncle Glos-
ter
Told me, the king, provok'd to't by the queen,
Devis'd impeachments to imprison him :
And when my uncle told me so, he wept,
And pitied me, and kindly kiss'd my cheek ;
9 My pretty cousins,'} The Duchess is here addressing her
grand-children, but cousin was the term used in Shakspeare*s
time, by uncles to nephews and nieces, grandfathers to grand-
children, &c. It seems to have been 'used instead of our kins-
man, and kinswoman, and to have supplied .the place of both.
MALONE.
See note on Othello, Act I. sc. i. STEEVENS.
1 Incapable and shallow innocents,'] Incapable is unintelligent.
MALONE.
So, in Hamlet:
" As one incapable of her own distress." STEEVENS.
348 KING RICHARD III. ACT if .
Bade me rely on him, as on my father,
And he would love me dearly as his child.
DUCH. Ah, that deceit should steal such gentle
shapes,
And with a virtuous visor hide deep vice !
He is my son, ay, and therein my shame,
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.
SON. Think you, my uncle did dissemble, 2 gran-
dam?
DUCH. Ay, boy.
SON. I cannot think it. Hark! what noise is
this?
Enter Queen ELIZABETH, distractedly; RIVERS,
and DORSET, following her.
Q. ELIZ. Ah ! who shall hinder me to wail and
weep ?
To chide my fortune, and torment myself?
I'll join with black despair against my soul,
And to myself become an enemy.
DUCH. What means this scene of rude impa-
tience ?
Q. ELIZ. To make an act of tragick violence :
Edward, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.
Why grow the branches, when the root is gone?
Why wither not the leaves, that want their sap ?
If you will live, lament ; if die, be brief;
That our swift-winged souls may catch the king's $
* my uncle did dissemble,] Shakspeare uses dissemble in
the sense of acting fraudulently, feigning what we do not feel or
think ; though strictly it means to conceal our real thoughts or
affections. So also Milton in the passage quoted in p. 34<2, n. 9.
MALONE.
ae. //. KING RICHARD III. 349
Or, like obedient subjects, follow him
To his new kingdom of perpetual rest. 3
DUCH. Ah, so much interest have I in thy sor-
row,
As I had title in thy noble husband !
I have bewept a worthy husband's death,
And liv'd by looking on his images : 4
But now, two mirrors of his princely semblance
Are crack* d in pieces by malignant death ; 5
And I for comfort have but one false glass,
That grieves me when I see my shame in him.
Thou art a widow ; yet thou art a mother,
And hast the comfort of thy children left thee :
But death hath snatch* d my husband from my
arms,
And pluck'd two crutches from my feeble hands,
Clarence, and Edward. O, what cause have I,
(Thine being but a moiety of my grief,)
To over-go thy plaints, and drown thy cries ?
SON. Ah, aunt! you wept not for our father's
death j
3 c/perpetual rest."] So the quarto. The folio reads
of ne'er changing night. MALONE.
4 his images : ] The children by whom he was represented.
JOHNSON.
So, in The Rape qfLucrece, Lucretius says to his daughter :
" O, from thy cheeks my image thou hast torn."
MALONE.
* But now, tiKO mirrors of his princely semblance
Are crack'd in pieces by malignant death ;] So, in our au-
thor's Rape ofLucrece:
" Poor broken glass, I often did behold
" In thy sweet semblance my old age new born ;
" But now, that fair fresh mirror, dim and old,
" Shows me a bare-bon'd death by time out-worn."
Again, in his 3d Sonnet :
" Thou art thy mother's glass," &c. MALONE.
350 KING RICHARD III. ACT IT.
How can we aid you with our kindred tears ?
jDjz/Off.Ourfatherless distress was left unmoan'd,
Your widow-dolour likewise be unwept !
Q. ELIZ. Give me no help in lamentation,
I am not barren to bring forth laments :
All springs reduce their currents to mine eyes,
That I, being governed by the watry moon, 9
May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world!
Ah, for my husband, for my dear lord Edward !
CHIL. Ah, for our father, for our dear lord Cla-
rence !
. DUCH. Alas, for both, both mine, Edward and
Clarence !
Q. ELIZ. What stay had I, but Edward? and he's
gone.
CHIL. What stay had we, but Clarence ? and
he's gone.
DUCH. What stays had I, but they? and they
are gone.
Q. ELIZ. Was never widow, had so dear a loss.
CHIL. Were never orphans, had so dear a loss.
DUCH. Was never mother had so dear a loss.
Alas ! I am the mother of these griefs ;
Their woes are parcelled, mine are general.
She for an Edward weeps, and so do I j
I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she :
* being governed by the txatry moon t ~\ That I may
hereafter under the influence of the moon, which governs the
tides, and by the help of that influence drown the world. The *
introduction of the moon is not very natural. JOHNSON.
The same thought has already occurred in K. Henry I V.P.I:
" being governed, as the sea is, by the moon."
STEEVENS.
sc. ii. KING RICHARD III. 351
These babes for Clarence weep, and so do 1 : 7
I for an Edward weep, so do not they : 8
7 and so do /.] So the quarto. The variation of the
folio is remarkable. It reads so do not they. MALONE.
8 I for an Edward vaeep y so do not they :] The text is here
made out partly from the folio and partly from the quarto. In
the quarto this and the preceding line stand thus :
" These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I ;
" I for an Edward weep, and so do they.'*
The end of the second line is evidently corrupted. In the
MS. from which the folio was printed, or in a corrected quarto
copy, the two lines undoubtedly were right :
" These babes for Clarence weep, [and so do If
" I for an Edward weep,"] so do NOT they.'*
But the compositor's eye passing over two half lines, the pas-
lage was printed thus in the folio, in one line :
" These babes for Clarence weep, so do not they."
I have stated this matter thus particularly, because it confirms
an observation that I have more than once had occasion to make
in revising these plays ; that there is reason to suspect that many
of the difficulties in our author's works have arisen from the
omission of either single words, single lines, or the latter half of
one line with the half of the next : a solution which readers are
Very slow to admit) and generally consider as chimerical. One
week's acquaintance with the business of the press (without those
proofs which a collation of the quartos with each other and with
the first folio affords, ) would soon convince them that my sup-
position is not a mere offspring of imagination. In the plays,
of which there is no authentick copy but the first folio, there is
no means of proving such omissions to have happened ; but the
present and other proofs of their having actually happened in the
other plays, lay surely a reasonable ground for conjecturing that
similar errors have happened ,in those pieces, of which there is
only a single ancient copy extant, and entitle such conjectures to
indulgence.
See Vol. VI. p. 188, n. 3 ; Vol. X. p. 102, n. 9 ; Vol. XL p.
59, n. 2, and p. 376, n. 3 ; Vol. XIII. p. 313, n. 7 ; Coriolanus,
Vol. XVI. Act II. sc. iii. and Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV.
sc. x.
In this note, and throughout this play, where I have spoken
of the quarto, without any specification of the year when printed,
I meant the quarto 1598, the earliest which I had then seen.
The quarto 1597, 1 find, corresponds with the text. MALONE.
352 KING RICHARD III. ACTU.
Alas ! you three, on me, threefold distress' d,
Pour all your tears, I am your sorrow's nurse,
And I will pamper it with lamentations.
DOR. Comfort, dear mother ; God is much dis-
pleas'd, 9
That you take with unthankfulness his doing ;
In common worldly things, 'tis call'd ungrateful,
With dull unwillingness to repay a debt,
Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent ;
Much more to be thus opposite with heaven, 1
For it requires 2 the royal debt it lent you.
Riv. Madam, bethink you, like a careful mo-
ther,
Of the young prince your son : send straight for
him,
Let him be crown'd ; in him your comfort lives :
Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward's grave,
And plant your joys in living Edward's throne.
Enter GLOSTER, BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, HAST-
INGS, RATCLIFF, and Others.
GLO. Sister, have comfort : all of us have catise
To wail the dimming of our shining star ;
But none can cure their harms by w r ailing them.
Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy,
I did not see your grace : Humbly on my knee
I crave your blessing.
9 Comfort, dear mother; &c.~\ This line and the following
eleven lines are found only in the folio. MALONE.
1 to be thus opposite with heaven,"] This was the phrase-
ology of the time. See Vol. V. p. 331, n. 7. MALONE.
8 For it requires "] i. e. because. So, in Othello .*
" Haply ,for 1 am black ." STEEVENS.
sc. it. KING RICHARD III. 353
DUCH. God bless thee ; and put meekness in thy
breast,
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty !
GLQ. Amen ; and make me die a good old man !^
That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing ;
[Aside.
I marvel, that her grace did leave it out.
BUCK. You cloudy princes, and heart sorrowing
peers,
That bear this mutual heavy load of moafl,
Now cheer each other in each other's love :
Though we have spent our harvest of this king,
We are to reap the harvest of his son.
The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts,
But lately splinted, knit, and join'd together,
Must gently be preserv'd, cherish'd, and kept : 3
Me seemeth good, that, with some little train,
Forthwith from Ludlow the young prince be
fetch'd 4
Hither to London, to be crown*d our king.
3 The broken rancour of your high-swoln hearts^
But lately splinted, knit, and joined together,
Must gently be preserv'd, cherish'd, and kept .-] As this
passage stands, it is the rancour of their hearts that is to be pre-
serv'd and cherished. But we must not attempt to amend this
mistake, as it seems to proceed from the inadvertency of Shak-
speare himself. M. MASON.
Their broken rancour recently splinted and knit, the poet con-
siders as a new league of amity and concord ; and this it is that
Buckingham exhorts them to preserve. MALONE.
4 Forthwith from Ludlota the young prince be fetch'd ] Ed-
ward the young prince, in his father's life time, and at his de-
mise, kept his houshold at Ludlow, as Prince of Wales ; under
the governance of Antony Woodville, Earl of Rivers, his uncle
by the mother's side. The intention of his being sent thither
was to see justice done in the Marches ; and, by the authority of
VOL. XIV. 2 A
354 KING RICHARD III. ACT IL
Rir. Why with 5 some little train, my lord of
Buckingham ?
BUCK. Marry, my lord, lest, by a multitude,
The new-heal'd wound of malice should break out;
Which would be so much the more dangerous,
By how much the estate is green, and yet ungo-
vern'd :
Where every horse bears his commanding rein,
And may direct his course as please himself,
As well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,
In my opinion, ought to be prevented.
GLO. I hope, the king made peace with all of
us;
And the compact is firm, and true, in me.
Rir. And so in me ; 6 and so, I think, in all :
Yet, since it is but green, it should be put
To no apparent likelihood of breach,
Which, haply, by much company might be urg'd :
Therefore I say, with noble Buckingham,
That it is meet so few should fetch the prince.
HAST. And so say I,
GLO. Then be it so ; and go we to determine
Who they shall be that straight shall post toLudlow.
Madam, and you my mother, will you go
his presence, to restrain the Welshmen, who were wild, disso-
lute, and ill-disposed, from their accustomed murders and out-
rages. Vid. Hall, Holinshed, &c. THEOBALD.
* Why ivith &c.] This line and the following seventeen lines
are found only in the folio. MALONE.
c Riv. And so in me;~] This speech (as a modern editor has
observed,) seems rather to belong to Hastings, who was of the
Duke of Gloster's party. The next speech might be given to
Stanley. MALONE.
ac. u. KING RICHARD III,. S55
To give your censures 7 in this weighty business ?
[Exeunt all but BUCKINGHAM and GLOSTER.
BUCK. My lord, whoever journeys to the prince,
For God's sake, let not us two stay at home :
For, by the way, I'll sort occasion,
As index to the story 8 we late talk'd of,
To part the queen's proud kindred from the prince.
GLO. My other self, my counsel's consistory,
My oracle, my prophet ! My dear cousin,
I, as a child, will go by thy direction.
Towards Ludlow then, 9 for we'll not stay behind.
[Exeunt,
7 your censures "] To censure formerly meant to deliver
an opinion. So, in Heywood's Golden Age, 1611 :
" yet if I censure freely,
" I needs must think that face and personage
" Was ne'er deriv'd from baseness."
Again, in Marius and Sylla, 1594:
" China affirms the senate's censure just,
" And saith, let Marius lead the legions forth."
Again, in Orlando Furioso, 1594:
" Set each man forth his passions how he can,
" And let her censure make the happiest man.'*
STEEVENS,
8 Pll sort occasion,
As index to the story ] i. e. preparatory by way of pre-
lude. So, in Hamlet :
" That storms so loud and thunders in the index."
See the note on that passage. MALONE.
Again, in Othello : " an index and obscure prologue to
the history of lust and foul thoughts." STEEVENS.
9 Towards Ludlow then,~\ The folio here and a few lines
higher, for Ludlow reads London. Few of our author's plays
stand more in need of the assistance furnished by a collation with
the quartos, than that before us. MALONE.
2 A 21
356 KING RICHARD III. ACTII.
SCENE III.
The same. A Street.
Enter Two Citizens, meeting.
1 CIT. Good morrow, neighbour: Whither
away so fast ?
2 CIT. I promise you, I scarcely know myself:
Hear you the news abroad ?
1 CIT. Yes ; the king's dead. 1
2 CIT. Ill news, by*r lady ; seldom comes the
better: 2
I fear, I fear, 'twill prove a giddy world.
Enter another Citizen.
& CIT. Neighbours, God speed !
1 CIT. Give you good morrow, sir-
3 CIT. Doth the news hold of good king Ed-
ward's death ?
1 Yes; the king's dead."] Thus the second folio. The first,
without regard to measure
Yes, that the king is dead. STEEVENS.
9 seldom comes the better :"] A proverbial saying, taken
notice of in The English Courtier and Country Gentleman, 4to.
bl. 1. 1586, sign. B : " as the proverb sayth, seldome come
the better. Vol. That proverb indeed is auncient, and for the
most part true,'* &c. REED.
The modern editors read a better. The passage quoted above
proves that there is no corruption in the text ; and shows how
very dangerous it is to disturb our author's phraseology, merely
because it is not familiar to our ears at present. MALONE.
K. m. KING RICHARD III. 357
2 CIT. Ay, sir, it is too true j God help, the
while !
3 CIT. Then, masters, look to see a troublous
world.
1 CIT. No, no ; by God's good grace, his son
shall reign.
3 CIT. Woe to that land, that's govern* d by a
child! 3
2 CIT. In him there is a hope of government ;
That, in his nonage, council under him, 4
And, in his full and ripen* d years, himself,
No doubt, shall then, and till then, govern well.
1 CIT. So stood the state, when Henry the sixth
Was crown'd in Paris but at nine months old.
3 CIT. Stood the state so ? no, no, good friends,
God wot ;
For then this land was famously enrich* d
With politick grave counsel ; then the king
Had virtuous uncles to protect his grace.
1 CIT. Why, so hath this, both by his father and
mother.
3 CIT. Better it were, they all came by his fa-
ther;
Or, by his father, there were none at all :
For emulation now, who shall be nearest,
3 Woe to that land, that's govern' d by a child!"}
" Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child."
Ecclesiastesy ch. x. STEEVENS.
4 That, in his nonage, council under him,'] So the quarto.
The folio reads Which in his nonage. Which is frequently
used by our author for who, and is still so used in our Liturgy.
But neither reading affords a very clear sense. Dr. Johnson
thinks a line lost before this. I suspect that one was rather
omitted after it. MALONE.
358 KING RICHARD III. ACT n.
Will touch us all too near, if God prevent not.
O, full of danger is the duke of Gloster ;
And the queen's sons, and brothers, haught and
proud :
And were they to be rul'd, and not to rule,
This sickly land might solace as before.
1 CIT. Come, come, we fear the worst ; all will
be well.
3 CIT. When clouds are seen, wise men put on
their cloaks ;
When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand ;
When the sun sets, who doth not look for night ?
Untimely storms make men expect a dearth :
All may be well ; but, if God sort it so,
J Tis more than we deserve, or I expect.
2 CIT. Truly, the hearts of men are full of fear :
You cannot reason almost with a man 5
That looks not heavily, and full of dread.
3 CIT. Before the days of change, 6 still is it so :
By a divine instinct, men's minds mistrust
a You cannot reason almost tvith a man "] To reason, is to
converse. So, in King John :
" Our griefs, and not our manners, reason now."
See Vol. X. p. 488, n. 9. STEEVENS.
6 Before the days of change, &c.] This is from Holinshed's
Chronicle, Vol. III. p. 721 : '* Before such great things, men's
hearts of a secret instinct of nature misgive them ; as the sea
without wind swelleth of himself some time before a tempest."
TOLLET.
It is evident in this passage, that both Holinshed and Shak-
apeare allude to St. Luke. See ch. xxi. 25, &c. HENLEY.
It is manifest that Shakspeare here followed Holinshed, having
adopted almost his words. Being very conversant with the
sacred writings, he perhaps had the Evangelist in his thoughts
when he wrote, above
" Truly, the hearts of men are full of fear." MALONE.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. S59
Ensuing danger ; as, by proof, we see
The water swell before a boist'rous storm.
But leave it all to God. Whither away ?
2 CIT. Marry, we were sent for to the justices.
3 CIT. And so was I j I'll bear you company.
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV.
The same. A Room in the Palace.
Enter the Archbishop o/*York, the young Duke of
York, Queen ELIZABETH, and the Duchess of
York.
ARCH. Last night, I heard, they lay at Stony-
Stratford ;
And at Northampton they do rest to-night : 7
To-morrow, or next day, they will be here,
T Last night, I heard, they lay at Stony- Strat for d ;
And at Northampton they do rest to-night .] Thus both the
folios. The quartos, as well as the modern editors, read :
Last night, I heard, they lay at Northampton ;
At Stony -Stratford they do rest to-night.
I have followed the folios ; the historical fact being as there
represented. The Prince and his company did, in their way to
London, actually lie at Stony-Stratford one night, and were the
next morning taken back by the Duke of Gloucester to Nor-
thampton, where they lay the following night. See Hall, Ed-
ward V. fol. 6. See also, Remarks &c. on the last edition of
Shakspeare, [that of 1778,] p. 133. REED.
Shakspeare, it is clear, either forgot this circumstance, or did
not think it worth attending to. According to the reading of the
original copy in quarto, at the time the Archbishop is speaking,
the King had not reached Stony- Stratford, and consequently his
being taken back to Northampton on the morning after he had
been at Stratford, could not be in the author's contemplation.
360 KING RICHARD III, ACT u.
DUCH. I long with all my heart to see the prince ;
I hope, he is much grown since last I saw him.
Shakspeare well knew 1 that Stony-Stratford was nearer to London
than Northampton ; therefore in the first copy the young King is
made to sleep on one night at Northampton, and the Archbishop
very naturally supposes that on the next night, that is, on the
night of the day on which he is speaking, the King would reach
Stony-Stratford. It is highly improbable that the editor of the
folio should have been apprized of the historical fact above
stated ; and much more likely that he made the alteration for the
sake of improving the metre, regardless of any other circum-
stance. How little he attended to topography appears from a
preceding scene, in which Gloster, though in London, talks of
sending a messenger to that town, instead of Ludlow. See
p. 355, n. 9.
By neither reading can the truth of history be preserved, and
therefore we may be sure that Shakspeare did not mean in this
instance to adhere to it. According to the present reading, the
scene is on the day on which the King was journeying from
Northampton to Stratford ; and of course the Messenger's ac-
count of the peers being seiz'd, &c. which was on the next day
after the King had lain at Stratford, is inaccurate. If the folio
reading be adopted, the scene is indeed placed on the day on
which the King was seized ; but the Archbishop is supposed to
be apprized of a fact which before the entry of the Messenger he
manifestly does not know, and which Shakspeare did not intend
he should appear to know ; namely, the Duke of Gloster's
coming to Stony- Stratford the morning after the King had lain
there, taking him forcibly back to Northampton, and seizing the
Lords Rivers, Grey, &c. The truth is, that the Queen herself,
the person most materially interested in the welfare of her son,
did riot hear of the King's being carried back from Stony-Strat-
ford to Northampton till about midnight of the day on which
this violence was offered him by his uncle. See Hall, Edward
V. fol. 6. Historical truth being thus deviated from, we have a
right to presume that Shakspeare in this instance did not mean
to pay any attention to it, and that the reading furnished by the
quarto was that which came from his pen : nor is it possible that
he could have made the alteration which the folio exhibits, itbeing
utterly inconsistent with the whole tenour and scope of the pre-
sent scene. If the Archbishop had known that the young King
was carried back to Northampton, he must also have known that
the lords who accompanied him, were sent to prison ; and instead
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 361
Q. ELIZ. But I hear, no ; they say, my son of
York
Hath almost overtaken him in his growth.
YORK. Ay, mother, but I would not have it so.
DUCH. Why, my young cousin ; it is good to
grow.
YORK. Grandam, one night, as we did sit at sup-
per,
My uncle Rivers talk'd how I did grow
More than my brother ; Ay, quoth my uncle Glos-
ter,
Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace :
And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,
^Because sweet flowers are slow, and weeds make
haste.
DUCH. 'Good faith, J goo4 faith, the saying did
not hold
In him that did object the same to thee :
He was the wretched'st thing, 8 when he was young,
of eagerly asking the Messenger in p. 363, " What news?"
might have informed him of the whole transaction.
The truth of history is neglected in another instance also. The
Messenger says, the Lords Rivers, Grey, &c. had been sent by
Gloster to Pomfret, whither they were not sent till some time
afterwards, they being sent at first, according to Sir Thomas
More, (whose relation Hall and Holinshed transcribed,) " into
the North country, into diverse places to prison, and afterwards
all to Pontefract."
The reading of the text is that of the quarto 1597. MALONE.
Shakspeare does not always attend to the propriety of his own
alterations. As historical truth, therefore, which ever reading
be chosen, must be violated, I am content with such an arrange-
ment as renders the versification smoothest. Where sense cannot
claim a preference, a casting vote may be safely given in favour
of sound. STEEVENS.
8 the wretched'st thing,"] Wretched is here used in a
362 KING RICHARD III. ACT n.
So long a growing, and so leisurely,
That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious.
ARCH. And so, no doubt, he is, my gracious ma-
dam.
DUCH. 1 hope, he is; but yet let mothers doubt.
YORK. Now, by my troth, if I had been remem-
ber'd, 9
I could have given my uncle's grace a flout,
To touch his growth, nearer than he touch'd mine.
DUCH. How, my young York ? I pr'ythee, let me
hear it.
YORK. Marry, they say, my uncle grew so fast,
That he could gnaw a crust at two hours old ;
'Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.
Grandam, this would have been a biting jest.
DUCH. I pr'ythee, pretty York, who told thefc
this ?
YORK. Grandam, his nurse.
DUCH. His nurse ! why, she was dead ere thou
wast born.
YORK. If 'twere not she, I cannot tell who told
me.
Q. ELIZ. A parlous boy i l Go to, you are too
shrewd.
senSe yet retained in familiar language, for paltry, pitiful, being
below expectation. JOHNSON.
Rather, the weakest, most puny, least thriving. RITSON.
9 been remember'd,'] To be remembered is, in Shakspeare,
to have one's memory quick, to have one's thoughts about one.
JOHNSON.
1 A parlous boy:"] Parlous is keen, shrewd. So, in Law
Tricks, &c. 1608 :
" A. parlous youth, sharp and satirical." STEEVENS.
. iv. KING RICHARD III. 363
ARCH. Good madam, be not angry with the child.
Q. ELIZ. Pitchers have ears. 2
Enter a Messenger. 3
ARCH. Here comes a messenger :
What news ?
MESS. Such news, my lord,
As grieves me to unfold.
Q. ELIZ. How doth the prince?
MESS. Well, madam, and in health.
DUCH. What is thy news ?
MESS. Lord Rivers, and lord Grey, are sent to
Pomfret,
With them sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.
DUCH. Who hath committed them ?
MESS. The mighty dukes,
Gloster and Buckingham.
Q. ELIZ. For what offence ?*
It is a corruption of perilous* dangerous ; the reading of the
old quartos. The Queen evidently means to chide him.
KITSON.
* Pitchers have ears.~] Shakspeare has not quoted this prover-
bial saying correctly. It appears from A Dialogue both pleasaunt
and pietifull, by William Bulleyn, 1564, that the old proverb is
this : " Small pitchers have great ears." MALONE.
This proverb has already occurred in The Taming of the
Shrew :
" Pitchers have ears, and I have many servants."
RITSON.
3 Enter a Messenger.] The quarto reads Enter Dorset.
STEEVENS.
4 For tvfiat offence?'] This question is given to the Archbishop
in former copies, but the Messenger plainly speaks to the Queen
or Duchess. JOHNSON.
The question is given in the quarto to the Archbishop (or Car-
364 KING RICHARD IIL ACT n.
MESS. The sum of all I can, I have disclos'd ;
Why, or for what, the nobles were committed,
Is all unknown to me, my gracious lady.
Q. ELIZ. Ah me, I see the ruin of my house !
The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind ; 5
Insulting tyranny begins to jut
Upon the innocent and awless 6 throne :
Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre 1
I see, as in a map, the end of all.
DUCH. Accursed and unquiet wrangling days !
How many of you have mine eyes beheld ?
My husband lost his life to get the crown ;
And often up and down my sons were tost,
For me to joy, and weep, their gain, and loss :
And being seated, and domestick broils
Clean over-blown, themselves, the conquerors,
Make war upon themselves ; brother to brother,
Blood to blood, self 'gainst self: O, preposterous
And frantick courage, end thy damned spleen j
Or let me die, to look on death no more ! 7
dinal, as he is there called,) where also we have in the following
speech, my gracious lady. The editor of the folio altered lady
to lord; but it is more probable that the compositor prefixed Car.
(the designation there of the Archbishop,) to the words, " For
what offence ?" instead of Qu. than that lady should have been
printed in the subsequent speech instead of lord. Compositors
always keep the names of the interlocutors in each scene ready-
composed for use ; and hence mistakes sometimes arise.
MALONE.
* The tiger now hath seiz'd the gentle hind ;] So, in our au-
thor's Rape ofLucrecet
" While she, the picture of pure piety,
" Like a white hind under the grype's sharp claws ."
MALONE.
6 auvless ] Not producing awe, not reverenced. To
jut upon is to encroach. JOHNSON.
7 Or let me die, to look on death no more /] Earth is the read-
ing of all the copies, from the first edition put out by the play-
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 365
Q. ELIZ. Come, come, my boy, we will to sanc-
tuary.
Madam, farewell.
DUCH. Stay, I will go with you.
Q. ELIZ. You have no cause.
ARCH. My gracious lady, go,
[To the Queen.
And thither bear your treasure and your goods.
For my part, I'll resign unto your grace
The seal I keep ; And so betide to me,
As well I tender you, and all of yours !
Come, I'll conduct you to the sanctuary. 8
\JExeunt.
ers, downwards. But I have restored the reading of the old
quarto in 1597, which is copied by all the other authentic quartos,
by which the thought is finely and properly improved :
Or let me die, to look on death no more, THEOBALD.
8 I'll resign unto your grace
The seal I keep ; &c.] Afterwards, however, this obsequious
Archbishop \_Rotheram~] to ingratiate himself with King Richard
III. put his majesty's badge, the Hog, upon the gate of the Pub-
lick Library, Cambridge. STEKVENS.
366 KING RICHARD IIL ACT m,
ACT III. SCENE I.
The same. A Street.
The Trumpets sound. Enter the Prince of Wales,
GLOSTER, BUCKINGHAM, Cardinal BouRCHiER, 9
and Others.
BUCK. Welcome, sweet prince, to London, to
your chamber. 1
GLO. Welcome, dear cousin, my thoughts' sove-
reign :
The weary way hath made you melancholy.
PRINCE. No, uncle ; but our crosses on the way
Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy :
I want more uncles here to welcome me.
GLO. Sweet prince, the untainted virtue of your
years
Hath not yet div'd into the world's deceit :
No more can you distinguish of a man,
Than of his outward show ; which, God he knows,
9 Cardinal Bourchier, ~\ Thomas Bourchier was made a Car-
dinal, and elected Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1464. He died
in 14-86. MALONE.
1 to your chamber.] London was anciently called Camera
regis. POPE.
So, in Heywood's If you know not me you know Nobody, 1633,
Part II :
" This city, our great chamber." STEEVENS.
This title it began to have immediately after the Norman con-
quest. See Coke's 4 Inst. 243, where it is styled Camera Regis;
Camden's Britannia, 374; Ben Jonson's Account of King
James's Entertainment in passing to his Coronation, &c. REED.
3c. I. KING RICHARD III. 367
Seldom, or never, jumpeth with the heart. 9
Those uncles, which you want, were dangerous j
Your grace attended to the sugar* d words,
But look'd not on the poison of their hearts :
God keep you from them, and from such false
friends !
PRINCE. God keep me from false friends ! but
they were none.
GLO. My lord, the mayor of London comes to
greet you.
Enter the Lord Mayor, and his Train.
MAT. God bless your grace with health and
happy days !
PRINCE. I thank you, good my lord; and thank
you all. [ Exeunt Mayor, fyc.
I thought my mother, and my brother York,
Would long ere this have met us on the way :
Fye, what a slug is Hastings ! that he comes not
To tell us, whether they will come, or no.
Enter HASTINGS.
BUCK. And in good time, 3 here comes the sweat-
ing lord.
PRINCE. Welcome, my lord: What, will our
mother come ?
HAST. On what occasion, God he knows, not I,
* jumpeth toith the heart."] So, in Soliman and Perseda t
1599:
" Wert thou my friend, thy mind would jump with
mine." STEEVENS.
* ' *n good time t ~\ De bonne heure. Fr. STEEVENS.
368 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
The queen your mother, and your brother York,
Have taken sanctuary : The tender prince
Would fain have come with me to meet your grace,
But by his mother was perforce withheld.
BUCK. Fye ! what an indirect and peevish course
Is this of hers ? Lord cardinal, will your grace
Persuade the queen to send the duke of York
Unto his princely brother presently ?
If she deny, lord Hastings, go with him,
And from her jealous arms pluck him perforce.
CARD. My lord of Buckingham, if my weak
oratory
Can from his mother win the duke of York,
Anon expect him here : 4 But if she be obdurate
To mild entreaties, God in heaven forbid
We should infringe the holy privilege
Of blessed sanctuary ! not for all this land,
Would I be guilty of so deep a sin.
BUCK. You are too senseless-obstinate, my lord,
Too ceremonious, and traditional : 5
Weigh it but with the grossness of this age, 6
4 Anon expect him here : &c.] The word anon, may safely be
omitted. It only serves to vitiate the measure. STEEVENS.
3 Too ceremonious, and traditional :] Ceremonious for super-
stitious ; traditional for adherent to old customs. WARBURTON.
fl Weigh it but tuith the grossness of this age,'] But the more
gross, that is, the more superstitious the age was, the stronger
would be the imputation of violated sanctuary. The question,
we see by what follows, is whether sanctuary could be claimed
by an infant. The speaker resolves it in the negative, because
it could be claimed by those only whose actions necessitated
them to fly thither ; or by those who had an understanding to de-
mand it ; neither of which could be an infant's case : It is plain
then, the first line, which introduces this reasoning, should be
read thus :
Weigh it but ivith the greenness of his age,
i. e. the young Duke of York's, whom his mother had fled with
sc. I. KING RICHARD III. 369
You break not sanctuary in seizing him.
The benefit thereof is always granted
To those whose dealings have deserv'd the place,
And those who have the wit to claim the place :
This prince hath neither claim'd it, nor deserv'd it ;
And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it :
Then, taking him from thence, that is not there,
You break no privilege nor charter there.
Oft have I heard of sanctuary men ;
But sanctuary children, ne'er till now. 7
CARD. My lord, you shall o'er-rule my mind for
once.
Come on, lord Hastings, will you go with me ?
HAST. I go, my lord.
to sanctuary. The corrupted reading of the old quarto is some-
thing nearer the true :
the greatness of his age. WARBURTON.
This emendation is received by Hanmer, and is very plausible;
yet the common reading may stand:
Weigh it but with the grossness of this age,
You break not sanctuary,
That is, compare the act of seizing him with the gross and
licentious practices of these times, it will not be considered as a
violation of sanctuary, for you may give such reasons as men
are now used to admit. JOHNSON.
The truth is, the quarto 1598, and the two subsequent quartos,
as well as the folio, all read grossness. Greatness is the corrupt
reading of a late quarto of no authority, printed in 1622.
MALONE.
7 Oft have I heard of sanctuary men; &c.] These arguments
against the privilege of sanctuary are taken from Sir Thomas
More's Life of King Edward the Fifth, published by Stowe :
" And verily, I have heard of sanctuary men, but I never
heard earst of sanctuary children," &c. STEEVENS.
More's Life of King Edward V. was published also by Hall
and Holinshed, and in the Chronicle of Holihshed Shakspeare
found this argument. MALONE.
VOL. XIV. 2 B
370 KING RICHARD III. ACT in.
PRINCE. Good lords, make all the speedy haste
you may.
{Exeunt Cardinal and HASTINGS.
Say, uncle Gloster, if our brother come,
Where shall we sojourn till our coronation ?
GLO. Where it seems best unto your royal self.
If I may counsel you, some day, or two,
Your highness shall repose you at the Tower :
Then where you please, and shall be thought most
fit
For your best health and recreation.
PRINCE. I do not like the Tower, of anyplace:
Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord ?
GLO. He did, my gracious lord, begin that place;
Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified. 7
PRINCE. Is it upon record ? or else reported
Successively from age to age he built it ?
BUCK. Upon record, my gracious lord.
PRINCE. But say, my lord, it were not register'd j
Methinks, the truth should live from age to age,
As 'twere retailed to all posterity, 8
Even to the general all-ending day.
7 He did, &c.] I suppose, this and the following line, (the
useless epithet gracious, omitted,) should be read thus :
He did, my lord, begin that place; which, since.
Succeeding ages have re-edify'd. STEEVENS.
8 As 'twere retail'd to all posterity,"] And so it is; and, by
that means, like most other retailed things, became adulterated.
We should read :
intail'd to all posterity ;
which is finely and sensibly expressed, as if truth was the natural
inheritance of our children ; which it is impiety to deprive them
of. WAHBURTON.
Retailed may signify diffused, dispersed. JOHNSON.
Retailed means handed down from one to another. Goods
retailed, are those which pass from one purchaser to another.
sc. r. KING RICHARD III. 871
GLO. So wise so young, they say, do ne'er live
long. 9 [Aside,
PRINCE. What say you, uncle ?
GLO. I say, without characters, fame lives long.
Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity, ) As'de
I moralize two meanings in one word. 1 f
Richard uses the word retailed in the same sense in the fourth
Act, where speaking to the Queen of her daughter, he says
" To whom I will retail my conquests won."
M. MASON.
Minsheu in his Dictionary, 1617, besides the verb retail in
the mercantile sense, has the verb " to retaile or retell, G. re-
nombrer, a Lat. renumerare;" and in that sense, I conceive, it
is employed here. MALONE.
9 So wise so young, they say, do ne'er live long.~]
Is cadit ante senem, qui sapit ante diem.
a proverbial line. STEEVENS.
Bright, in his . Treat ise on Melancholy, 1586, p. 52, says .
" I have knowne children languishing of the splene, obstructed
and altered in temper, talke with gravitie and wisdome, surpass-
ing those tender yeares, and their judgement carrying a marvel-
lous imitation of the wisdome of the ancient, having after a sorte
attained that by disease, which other have by course of yeares ;
whereon I take it, the proverbe ariseth, that they le of short life
who are of wit so pregnant." REED.
1 Thus, like the formal vice, Iniquity,
/ moralize two meanings in one iuord.~] By vice, the author
means not a quality, but a person. There was hardly an old play t
till the period of the Reformation, which had not in it a devil,
and a droll character, a jester ; (who was to play upon the devil;)
and this buffoon went by the name of a Vice. This buffoon was
at first accoutred with a long jerkin, a cap with a. pair of ass's
ears, and a wooden dagger, with which (like another Harlequin)
he was to make sport in belabouring the devil* This was the
constant entertainment in the times of popery, whilst spirits, and
witchcraft, and exorcising held their own. When the Reforma-
tion took place, the stage shook offsome grossities, and encreased
in refinements. The master-devil then was soon dismissed from
the scene; and this buffoon was changed into a subordinate fiend,
whose business was to range on earth, and seduce poor mortals
into that personated vicious quality, which he occasionally sup-
2B 2
372 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
PRINCE. That Julius Caesar was a famous man ;
With what his valour did enrich his wit,
ported ; as, iniquity in general, hypocrisy , usury, vanity ', prodi-
gality, gluttony, &c. Now, as the fiend, ( or vice, ) who per-
sonated Iniquity, (or Hypocrisy, for instance) could never hope
to play his game to the purpose but by hiding his cloven foot,
and assuming a semblance quite different from his real charac-
ter; he must certainly put on & formal demeanour, moralize and
prevaricate in his words, and pretend a meaning directly oppo-
site to his genuine and primitive intention* If this does not
explain the passage in question, 'tis all that I can at present
suggest upon it. THEOBALD.
That the buffoon, or jester of the old English farces, was
called the vice, is certain : and that, in their moral representa-
tions, it was common to bring in the deadly sins, is as true. Of
these we have yet several remains. But that the vice used to
assume the personages of those sins, is a fancy of Mr. Theobald's,
who knew nothing of the matter. The truth is, the vice was
always a fool or jester : and, (as the woman, in The Merchant
of Venice, calls the Clown, alluding to the character,) a merry
devil. Whereas these mortal sins were so many sad serious ones.
But what misled our editor was the name, Iniquity, given to this
vice: But it was only on account of his unhappy tricks and
rogueries. That it was given to him, and for the reason I men-
tion, appears from the following passage of Jonson's Staple of
Neuis, second intermeane :
" M. How like you the vice i' the play ?
" T. Here is never a fiend to carry him away. Besides he
has never a wooden dagger.
" M. That was the old way, gossip, when Iniquity came in,
like Hocas Pocas, in a jugler's jerkin, with false skirts, like the
knave of clubs."
And, in The DeviPs an Ass, we see this old vice, Iniquity,
described more at large.
From all this, it may be gathered, that the text, where
Richard compares himself to the formal vice, Iniquity, must be
corrupt : and the interpolation of some foolish player. The vice
or iniquity being not a formal but a merry, buffoon character.
Besides, Shakspeare could never make an exact speaker refer to
this character, because the subject he is upon is tradition and
antiquity, which have no relation to it ; and because it appears
from the turn of the passage, that he is apologizing for his equi-
vocation by a reputable practice. To keep the reader no longer
sc. i. KING RICHARD III. 373
His wit set down to make his valour live :
in suspence, my conjecture is, that Shakspeare wrote and pointed
the lines in this manner :
Thus like the formal-wise Antiquity,
/ moralize : Two meanings in one word.
Alluding to the mythologick learning of the ancients, of whom
they are all here speaking. So that Richard's ironical apology
is to this effect, You men of morals who so much extol your alj-
wise antiquity, in what am I inferior to it ? which was but an
equivocator as I am. And it is remarkable, that the Greeks
themselves called their remote antiquity, A^o'^uSo;, or the equi-
vocator. So far as to the general sense ; as to that which arises
particularly out of the corrected expression, I shall only observe,
that formal-wise is a compound epithet, an extreme fine one, and
admirably fitted to the character of the speaker, who thought all
"wisdom but formality. It must therefore be read for the future
with a hyphen. My other observation is with regard to the
pointing; the common reading
I moralize two meanings
is nonsense: but reformed in this manner, very sensible :
Thus like the formal-wise Antiquity
I moralize: Two meanings in one word.
i. e. I moralize as the ancients did. And how was that ? the
having two meanings to one word. A ridicule on the morality of
the ancients, which he insinuates was no better than equivo-
cating. WARBURTON,
This alteration Mr. Upton very justly censures. Dr. Warbur-
ton has, in my opinion, done nothing but correct the punctua-
tion, if indeed any alteration be really necessary. See the dis-
sertation on the old vice at the end of this play.
To this long collection of notes may be added a question, to
what equivocation Richard refers ? The position immediately
preceding, that fame lives long without characters, that is, with-
out the help of letters, seems to have no ambiguity. He must
allude to the former line :
So young so "wise, they say, do ne'er live long,
in which he conceals under a proverb, his design of hastening
the Prince's death. JOHNSON.
The Prince having caught some part of the former line, asks
Richard what he says, who, in order to deceive him, preserves
in his reply, the latter words of the line, but substitutes other
words at the beginning of it, of a different import from those he
had uttered. This is the equivocation that Gloster really made
374 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror ; 2
For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
use of, though it does not correspond with his own description
of it:
I moralize two meanings in one word.
Word is not here taken in its literal sense, but means a saying,
a short sentence, as motto does in Italian, and bon-mot in French.
So, in Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour, Puntarvolo
says:
*' Let the word be, Not without mustard^ thy crest is
rare." M. MASON.
From the following stage direction, in an old dramatick piece,
entituled, Histriomastix, or The Player Whipt, 1610, it ap-
pears, that the Vice and Iniquity were sometimes distinct per-
sonages :
" Enter a roaring devil, with the Vice on his back, Iniquity
in one hand, and Juventus in the other."
The devil likewise makes the distinction in his first speech :
" Ho, ho, ho ! these babes mine are all,
** The Vice, Iniquitie, and Child Prodigal."
The following part of this note was obligingly communicated
by the Rev. Mr. Bowie, of Idmestone near Salisbury. I know
no writer who gives so complete an account of this obsolete cha-
racter, as Archbishop Harsnet, in his Declaration of Popish Im-
postures^ p. 1 14-, Lond. 1608: " It was a pretty part (he tells us)
in the old church-playes, when the nimble Vice would skip up
nimbly like a jackanapes into the devil's necke, and ride the
devil a course, and belabour him with his wooden dagger, till he
made him roare, whereat the people would laugh to see the devil
so wee-haunted." STEEVENS.
Dr. Warburton has endeavoured to support his capricious and
violent alteration of the text by a very long note, which in my
apprehension carries neither conviction, nor information with it.
The Vice, Iniquity, cannot with propriety, be said to moralize
in general ; but in the old Moralities he, like Richard, did often
*' moralize ttvo meanings in one word."
Our author has again used moralize as a verb active in his
Rape ofLucrece :
" Nor could she moralize his wanton sight,
" More than his eyes were open to the light."
In which passage it means, " to interpret or investigate the
latent meaning of his wanton looks," as in the present passage,
it signifies either to extract the double and latent meaning of one
word or sentence, or to couch two meanings under one word or
sentence. So moral is used by our author in Muck Ado about
7. /. KING RICHARD III. 375
I'll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham.
BUCK. What, my gracious lord ?
PRINCE. An if I live until I be a man,
I'll win our ancient right in France again,
Or die a soldier, as I liv'd a king.
GLO. Short summers lightly 3 have a forward
spring. \_Aslde.
Nothing, for a secret meaning: " There is some moral in this
Benedictus." See Vol. VI. p. 112, n. 1 ; and Vol. XII. p. 522,
n. 9. The word which Richard uses in a double sense is live,
which in his former speech he had used literally, and in the
present is used metaphorically. Mr. Mason conceives, because
what we now call a motto, was formerly denominated the mot
or word, that word may here signify a whole sentence. But the
argument is defective. Though in tournaments the motto on a
knight's shield was formerly called The word, it never at any
period was called " One word."
The Vice of the old moralities was a buffoon character, [See
Cotgrave's Diet. " Badin, A foole or Vice in a play. Mime, A
vice, foole, jester, &c. in a play."] whose chief employment was
to make the audience laugh, and one of the modes by which he
effected his purpose was by double meanings, or playing upon
words. In these moral repi'esentations, Fraud, INIQUITY, Co-
vetousness, Luxury, Gluttony, Vanity, &c. were frequently in-
troduced. Mr. Upton in a dissertation which, on account of its
length, is annexed at the end of the play, has shown, from Ben
Jonson's Staple of News, and The Devil's an Ass, that Iniquity
was sometimes the Vice of the Moralities. Mr. Steevens's note
in the foregoing page, shows, that he was not always so.
The formal Vice perhaps means, the shrewd, the sensible Vice.
In The Comedy of Errors, " a formal man" seems to meanj
one in his senses ; a rational man. Again, in Twelfth- Night,
Vol. V. p. 330, n. 2 : " this is evident to anyformal capacity."
MALONE.
* o/'this conqueror ;] For this reading we are indebted
to Mr. Theobald, who derived it from the original edition in
1597. All the subsequent ancient copies read corruptly -of his
conqueror. MALONE.
3 lightly ] Commonly, in ordinary course. JOHNSON.
So, in the old Proverb : " There's lightning lightly before
thunder." See Ray's Proverbs, p. 130, edit. 3d.
376 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
Enter YORK, HASTINGS, and the Cardinal.
BUCK. Now, in good time, here comes the duke
of York.
PRINCE. Richard of York ! how fares our loving
brother ?
YORK. Well, my dread lord ; 4 so must I call you
now.
PRINCE. Ay, brother ; to our grief, as it is yours :
Too late he died, 5 that might have kept that title,
Which by his death hath lost much majesty.
GLO. How fares our cousin, noble lord of York?
YORK. I thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,
Again, in Penny-ivise and Pound-foolish , &c. " Misfortunes
seldome walke alone ; and so when blessings doe knocke at a
man's dore, they lightly are not without followers and fellowes."
Again, Holinshed, p. 725, concerning one of King Edward's
concubines : " one whom no one could get out of the church
lightly to any place, but it were to his bed."
Again, in Ben Jonson's Cynthia 1 s Revels :
" He is not lightly within to his mercer." STEEVENS.
Short summers lightly have afortxard spring.~\ That is, short
summers are usually preceded by a forward spring ; or in other
words, and more appositely to Gloster's latent meaning, a pre-
mature spring is usually followed by a short summer. MALONE.
* dread lords'] The original of this epithet applied to
kings has been much disputed. In some of our old statutes the
king is called Rex metuendissimus. JOHNSON.
s Too late he died;~] i.e. too lately, the loss is too fresh in our
memory. WARBURTON.
So, in our author's Rape ofLucreces
" 1 did give that life,
" Which she too early, and too late hath spill'd."
Again, in King Henry V:
" The mercy that was quick in us but late" &c.
MALONE.
so. /. KING RICHARD III. 377
You said, that idle weeds are fast in growth :
The prince my brother hath outgrown me far.
GLO. He hath, my lord.
YORK. And therefore is he idle ?
GLO. O, my fair cousin, I must not say so.
YORK. Then is he more beholden to you, than I.
GLO. He may command me, as my sovereign ;
But you have power in me, as in a kinsman.
YORK. I pray you, uncle, then, give me this
dagger. 6
GLO. My dagger, little cousin ? with all my heart.
PRINCE. A beggar, brother ?
YORK. Of my kind uncle, that I know will give ;
And, being but a toy, which is no grief to give. 7
GLO. A greater gift than that I'll give my cousin.
8 / pray you, uncle, then, give me this dagger."] Then was
added by Sir Thomas Hanmer for the sake of metre.
STEEVENS.
7 And, being but a toy, which is no grief to give."] The read-
ing of the quartos is gift. The first folio reads :
And, being but a toy, which is no grief to give.
This reading, made a little more metrical, has been followed,
I think, erroneously, by all the editors. JOHNSON.
The quarto 1612 reads :
no grief STEEVENS.
which is no grief to give."] Which to give, or the gift of
which, induces no regret. Thus the authentick copies, the
quarto, 1598, and the first folio. A quarto of no authority
changed grief to gift, and the editor of the second folio capri-
ciously altered the line thus :
" And being a toy, it is no grief to give." MALONE.
In conformity to our old elliptical mode of speaking and writ-
ing, the words- which is, might be omitted. They hurt the
measure, without advancement of the sense. Perhaps, however,
the correction in the second folio (which was received by Sir
Thomas Hanmer) is preferable. STEEVENS.
378 KING RICHARD III. ACT in.
YORK. A greater gift ! O, that's the sword to it ?
GLO. Ay, gentle cousin, were it light enough.
YORK. O then, I see, you'll part but with light
gifts ;
In weightier things you'll say a beggar, nay.
GLO. It is too weighty for your grace to wear.
YORK. I weigh it lightly, 8 were it heavier.
GLO. What, would you have my weapon, little
lord ?
YORK. I would, that I might thank you as you
call me.
GLO. How?
YORK. Little.
PRINCE. My lord of York will still be cross in
talk ;-
Uncle, your grace knows how to bear with him.
YORK. You mean, to bear me, not to bear with
me:
Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me ;
Because that I am little, like an ape, 9
8 / weigh it lightly, c.] i. e. I should still esteem it but a
trifling gift, were it heavier. But the Oxford editor reads :
I'd tveigh it "
i. e. I could manage it, though it were heavier. WARBURTON.
Dr. Warburton is right. So, in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V.
sc. ii :
" You "weigh me not, O that's you care not for me."
STEEVENS.
9 Because that I am little, like an ape,] The reproach seems
to consist in this : at country shows it was common to set the
monkey on the back of some other animal, as a bear. The
Duke therefore in calling himself ape, calls his uncle bear.
JOHNSON.
To this custom there seems to be an allusion in Ben Jonson's
Masque of Gypsies :
sc. i. KING RICHARD III. 379
He thinks that you should bear me on your shoul-
ders.
BUCK. With what a sharp-provided wit he rea-
sons!
To mitigate the scorn he gives his uncle,
He prettily and aptly taunts himself:
So cunning, and so young, is wonderful.
GLO. My gracious lord, 1 will't please you pass
along ?
Myself, and my good cousin Buckingham,
Will to your mother ; to entreat of her,
To meet you at the Tower, and welcome you.
YORK. What, will you go unto the Tower, my
lord ?
PRINCE. My lord protector needs will have it so.
" A gypsy jn his shape,
" More calls the beholder,
" Than the fellow luith the ape,
" Or the ape on his shoulder."
Again, in The First Part of the Eighth liberal Science., enti-
tuled Ars Adulandi Sfc. devised and compiled by Ulpian Fulwely
1576 : " thou hast an excellent back to carry my lord's ape"
See likewise Hogarth's Humours of an Election, plate IV.
York also alludes to the protuberance on Gloster's back, which
was commodious for carrying burdens, as it supplied the place
of a porter's knot. STEEVENS.
I do not believe that the reproach is what Johnson supposes, or
that York meant to call his uncle a bear. He merely alludes to
Richard's deformity, his high shoulder, or hump-back, as it is
called. That was the scorn he meant to give his uncle. In the
third Act of the Third Part of King Henry VI. the same thought
occurs to Richard himself, where describing his own figure, he
says :
" To make an envious mountain on my back,
" Where sits deformity, to mock my body." M. MASON.
1 My gracious lord,~] For the insertion of the word gracious,
I am answerable. Glosterhas already used the same address. The
defect of the metre shows that a word was omitted at the press.
MALONE.
380 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
YORK. I shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.
GLO. Why, sir, what should you fear ? 2
YORK. Marry, my uncle Clarence* angry ghost ;
My grandam told me, he was murder' d there.
PRINCE. I fear no uncles dead.
GLO. Nor none that live, I hope.
PRINCE. An if they live, I hope, I need not fear.
But come, my lord, and, with a heavy heart,
Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.
\_Exeunt Prince, YORK, HASTINGS, Cardinal,
and Attendants.
BUCK. Think you, my lord, this little prating
York
Was not incensed by his subtle mother, 3
To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously ?
GLO. No doubt, no doubt : O, 'tis a parlous boy ;
Bold, quick, ingenious, forward, capable ; 4
He's all the mother's, from the top to toe.
BUCK. Well, let them rest.
4 Why, sir, #c.] The word sir, was added by Sir Thomas
Hanmer. Without it this half line is harsh, and quite unmetrical.
STEEVENS.
3 Was not incensed by his subtle mother,'] Incensed means
here, incited or suggested. So, in King Henry VIII. Gardiner
says of Cranmer :
" . i I have
" Incens'd the lords, of the council, that he is
"' A most arch heretick."
And in Much Ado about Nothing, Borachio says to Pedro :
" how Don John your brother incensed me to slander the lady
Hero." M. MASON.
4 capable;"] here, as in many other places in these plays,
means intelligent, quick of apprehension. See p. 347, n. 1 .
MALONE.
So again, in Troilus and Cressida : " Let me carry another to
his horse, for that's the more capable creature." RITSON.
sc. i. KING RICHARD III. 381
Come hither, gentle Catesby ; 5 thou art sworn
As deeply to effect what we intend,
As closely to conceal what we impart :
Thou know'st our reasons urg'd upon the way ;
What think'st thou ? is it not an easy matter
To make William lord Hastings of our mind,
For the instalment of this noble duke
In the seat royal of this famous isle ?
CATE. He for his father's sake so loves the
prince,
That he will not be won to aught against him.
BUCK. What think'st thou then of Stanley ? will
not he ?
CATE. He will do all in all as Hastings doth.
BUCK. Well then, no more but this : Go, gentle
Catesby,
And, as it were far off, sound thou lord Hastings,
How he doth stand affected to our purpose ;
And summon him to-morrow to the Tower,
To sit about the coronation.
If thou dost find him tractable to us,
Encourage him, and tell him all our reasons :
If he be leaden, icy, cold, unwilling,
Be thou so too ; and so break off the talk,
And give us notice of his inclination :
For we to-morrow hold divided councils, 6
Wherein thyself shalt highly be employ' d.
4 gentle Catesby ;] I have supplied the epithet gentle,
for the same reasons urged by Mr. Malone in the foregoing page,
n. 1, in defence of a similar insertion. STEEVENS.
5 divided councils,'] That is, a. private consultation, sepa-
rate from the known and publick council. So, in the next
scene, Hastings says :
" Bid him not fear the separated councils." JOHNSON.
This circumstance is conformable to history. Hall, p. 13, says,
382 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
GLO. Commend me to lord William : tell him,
Catesby,
His ancient knot of dangerous adversaries
To-morrow are let blood at Pomfret-castle ;
And bid my friend, for joy of this good news,
Give mistress Shore one gentle kiss the more.
BUCK. Good Catesby, go, effect this business
soundly.
CATE. My good lords both, with all the heed I
can.
GLO. Shall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we
sleep ?
CATE. You shall, my lord.
GLO. At Crosby-place, there shall you find us
both. [Exit CATESBY.
BUCK. Now, my lord, what shall we do, if we
perceive
" When the protectour had both the chyldren in his possession,
yea, and that they were in a sure place, he then began to threst
to se the ende of his enterprise. And, to avoyde all suspicion,
he caused all the lords which he knewe to bee faithfull to the
kynge, to assemble at Baynardes Castle, to comen of the ordre
of the coronacion, whyle he and other of his complices, and of
his affinitee, at Crosbies-place, contrived the contrary, and to
make the protectour kyng : to which counsail there were adhibite
very fewe, and they very secrete." REED.
Mr. Reed has shown from Hall's Chronicle that this circum-
stance is founded on historical fact. But Holinshed, Hall's co-
pyist, was our author's authority : " But the protectoure and the
duke after they had sent to the. lord Cardinal, the lord Stanley
and the lord Hastings then lord Chamberlaine, with many other
noblemen, to commune arid devise about the coronation in one
place, as fast were they In another place, contriving the con-
trarie, and to make the protectour king." " the lord Stanley,
that was after earle of Darby, wisely mistrusted it, and said unto
the lorde Hastings, that he much mislyked these two -several
counsels." MALONB.
sc. ii. KING RICHARD III. 385
Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots ?
GLO. Chop off his head, man ; somewhat we
will do : 7
And, look, when I am king, claim thou of me
The earldom of Hereford, and all the moveables
Whereof the king my brother was possessed.
BUCK. I'll claim that promise at your grace's
hand.
GLO. And look to have it yielded with all kind-
ness.
Come, let us sup betimes ; that afterwards
We may digest our complots in some form.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II. 8
Before Lord Hastings' House.
Enter a Messenger.
MESS. My lord, my lord, [Knocking,
HAST. [Within.'] Who knocks?
MESS. One from lord Stanley.
HAST. [Withm.~] What is't o'clock ?
MESS. Upon the stroke of four.
7 - ixill do :] The folio reads will determine. STEEVENS.
* Scene //.] Every material circumstance in the following
scene is taken from Holinshed's Chronicle, except that it is a
knight with whom Hastings converses, instead of Buckingham.
STEEVENS.
384. KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
Enter HASTINGS.
HAST. Cannot thy master sleep the tedious nights?
MESS. So it should seem by that I have to say.
First, he commends him to your noble lordship.
HAST. And then,
MESS. And then he sends you word, he dreamt
To-night the boar had rased off his helm : 9
Besides, he says, there are two councils held ;
And that may be determined at the one,
Which may make you and him to rue at the other.
Therefore he sends to know your lordship's plea-
sure,
If presently, you will take horse with him,
And with all speed post with him toward the north,
To shun the danger that his soul divines.
9 the boar had rased off his helm :] This term rased or
rashed, is always given to describe the violence inflicted by a
boar.
So, in King Lear, 4to. edit :
" In his anointed flesh rash bearish fangs."
Again, in Warner's Albion's England, 1602, B. VII. ch. xxxvi :
" ha, cur, avaunt, the bore so rase thy hide !"
By the boar, throughout this scene, is meant Gloster, who was
called the boar, or the hog, from his having a boar for his cog-
nizance, and one of the supporters of his coat of arms.
STEEVENS.
So Holinshed, after Hall and Sir Thomas More : " The selfe
night next before his death the lorde Stanley sent a trustie secret
messenger unto him at midnight in all haste, requiring him to
rise and ride away with him, for he was disposed utterlie no
longer to byde, he had so fearful a dreame, in which him thought
that a boare with his tuskes so rased them both by the heades
that the bloud ran about both their shoulders. And forasmuch
as the Protector gave the boare for his cognizance, this dreame
made so fearful an impression in his heart, that he was thoroughly
determined no longer to tarie, but had his horse readie, if the
lord Hastings would go with him," &c. MALONE.
sc. 11. KING RICHARD III. 885
HAST. Go, fellow, go, return unto thy lord ;
Bid him not fear the separated councils :
His honour, 1 and myself, are at the one ;
And, at the other, is my good friend Catesby ; 2
Where nothing can proceed, that toucheth us,
Whereof I shall not have intelligence.
Tell him, his fears are shallow, wanting instance: 3
And for his dreams I wonder, he's so fond 4
To trust the mockery of unquiet slumbers :
To fly the boar, before the boar pursues,
Were to incense the boar to follow us,
And make pursuit, where he did mean no chase.
Go, bid thy master rise and come to me ;
1 His honour,] This was the usual address to noblemen in
Shakspeare's time. MALONE.
See note on Timon of Athens, Act I. sc. i. where the same ad-
dress occurs: " All happiness to your honour!" STEBVENS.
* And, at the other, is my good friend Catesby ; &c.] So, in
the Legend of Lord Hastings, Mirrourfor Magistrates, 1575:
" I fear'd the end; my Catesby being there
" Discharg'd all doubts; him hold I most entyre."
MALONE.
3 wanting instance .] That is, 'wanting some example or
act of malevolence, by which they may be justified : or which,
perhaps, is nearer to the true meaning, wanting any immediate
ground or reason. JOHNSON.
This is the reading of the quarto, except that it has instancie.
MALONE.
The folio reads without instance. STEEVENS.
Instance seems to mean, symptom or prognostic^. We find
the word used in a similar sense, in The Comedy of Errors, where
Egeon, describing his shipwreck, says :
" A league from Epidamnum had we sail'd,
" Before the always wind-obeying deep
" Gave any tragick instance of our harm." M. MASON.
so fond ] i. e. so weak, silly. Thus, in King Lear:
" I am a very foolish,^owrf old man." STEEVENS.
VOL. XIV. 2 C
386 KING RICHARD III, ACT m.
And we will both together to the Tower,
Where, he shall see, the boar will use us kindly.
MESS. I'll go, my lord, and tell him what you
say. [Exit.
Enter CATESBY.
GATE. Many good morrows to my noble lord !
HAST. Good morrow, Catesby j you are early
stirring :
What news, what news, in this our tottering state ?
GATE. It is a reeling world, indeed, my lord 5
And, I believe, will never stand upright,
Till Richard wear the garland of the realm.
HAST. How ! wear the garland ? dost thou mean
the crown ?
GATE. Ay, my good lord,
HAST. I'll have this crown of mine cut from my
shoulders,
Before I'll see the crown so foul misplac'd.
But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it ?
GATE, Ay, on my life j and hopes to find you
forward
Upon his party, for the gain thereof:
And, thereupon, he sends you this good news,
That, this same very day, your enemies,
The kindred of the queen, must die at Pomfret*
HAST. Indeed, I am no mourner for that news,
Because they have been still my adversaries :
But, that I'fl give my voice on Richard's side,
To bar my master's heirs in true descent,
God knows, I will not do it, to the death.
. GATE. God keep your lordship in that gracious
mind!
sc. IT. KING RICHARD III. 38T
'HAST. But I shall laugh at this a twelve-month
hence,
That they, who brought me in my master's hate,
I live to look upon their tragedy.
Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older,
I'll send some packing, that yet think not on't.
. GATE. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,
When men are unprepared, and look not for it.
HAST. O monstrous, monstrous ! and so falls it
out
With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey : and so 'twill do
With some men else, who think themselves as safe
As thou, and 1 ; who, as thou know'st, are dear
To princely Richard, and to Buckingham.
CATE. The princes both make high account of
you,
For they account his head upon the bridge. \_Aside.
HAST. I know, they do j and I have well de*
serv'd it,
Enter STANLEY.
Come on, come on, where is your boar-spear, man ?
Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided ?
STAN. My lord, good morrow ; and good mor-
row, 5 Catesby :-
You may jest on, but, by the holy rood, 6
* : and good morrow,'] And was supplied by Sir Thomas
Hanmer, to assist the measure. STEEVENS.
6 the holy rood,] i. e. the cross. So, in the old mystery
of Candlemas-Day, 1512 :
" Whan hir swete sone shall on a rood deye."
Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. VI. c. v:
2c 2
388 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
I do not like these several councils, 7 I.
HAST. My lord, I hold my life as dear as yours j 8
And never, in my life, I do protest,
Was it more precious to me than 'tis now :
Think you, but that I know our state secure,
I would be so triumphant as I am ?
STAN. The lords at Pomfret, when they rode
from London,
Were jocund, and supposed their states were sure,
And they, indeed, had no cause to mistrust ;
But yet, you see, how soon the day o'er-cast.
This sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt ; 9
Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward !
What, shall we toward the Tower ? the day is spent.
HAST. Come, come, have with you. l Wot you
what, my lord ?
" And nigh thereto a little chapell stoode
" Which being all with yvy overspred,
" Deck'd all the roofe, and shadowing the roode,
" Seem'd like a grove fair branched overhed."
STEEVENS.
7 / do not like these several councils,"] See p. 381, n. 1.
MALONE.
8 My lord, I hold my life as dear as yours;~\ Thus the first
folio. The quartos (profoundly ignorant of our author's ellip-
tical mode of expressing himself, and in contempt of metre,)
as dear as you do yours. STEEVENS.
9 / misdoubt ;] i. e. suspect it of danger. So, in King
Henry VI. P. Ill:
" . the bird
" With trembling wings misdoubteth every bush."
STEEVENS.
' have tw.thyou.'] A familiar phrase in parting, as much
as, take something along with you, or / have something to say to
you. JOHNSON.
This phrase so frequently occurs in Shakspeare, that I wonder
Johnson should, in his fourteenth volume, mistake its meaning.
sc.ii. KING RICHARD III. 389
To-day, the lords you talk of are beheaded.
STAN. They, for their truth, 2 might better wear
their heads,
Than some, that have accus'd them, wear their hats.
But come, my lord, let's away.
Enter a Pursuivant.
HAST. Go on before, I'll talk with this good fel-
low. [Exeunt STAN, and CATESBY.
How now, sirrah ? how goes the world with thee ?
PURS. The better, that your lordship please to
ask.
HAST. I tell thee, man, 'tis better with me now,
Than when thou met'st me last where now we meet:
Then was I going prisoner to the Tower,
By the suggestion of the queen's allies ;
But now, I tell thee, (keep it to thyself,)
This day those enemies are put to death,
And I in better state than ere I was.
It signifies merely " I will go along with you ;" and is an ex-
pression in use at this day.
In The First Part of King Henry VI. when Suffolk is going
out, Somerset says " Have with you;" and then follows him.
In Othello, lago says :
" Captain, will you go ?"
" Oth. Have with you."
In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Mrs. Ford says :
Will you go, Mrs. Page ?"
To which she replies ;
** Have ivith you."
And in the same scene, the Host afterwards says
" Here, boys, shall we wag?"
To which the Page replies " Have iioith you." M. MASON.
8 They, for their truth,] That is, with respect to their honesty.
JOHNSON.
S90 KING RICHARD III. ACT in.
PURS. God hold it, 3 to your honour's good con-
tent 1
HAST. Gramercy, fellow : There, drink that for
me. [ Throwing him his Purse.
Puns. I thank your honour. \JLxit Pursuivant.
Enter a Priest.
PR. Well met, my lord ; I am glad to see your
honour.
HAST. I thank thee, good sir John,* with all my
heart.
I am in your debt for your last exercise ; 5
Come the next Sabbath, and I will content you.
Enter BUCKINGHAM.*
BUCK. What, talking with a priest, lord cham-
berlain ?
3 hold it,] That is, continue it. JOHNSON.
4 good sir John,"] Sir was formerly the usual address to
the inferior clergy. See Vol. V. p. 7, n. 1. MALONE.
4 ' exercise i\ Performance of divine service. JOHNSON.
I rather imagine it meant for attending him in private to
hear his confession. So, in sc. vii :
" To draw him from his holy exercise" MALONE.
Exercise, I believe, means only religious exhortation, or lecture.
So, in Othello:
" Much castigation, exercise devout.'* STEEVENS.
6 Enter Buckingham.] From the Continuation of Harding'e
Chronicle, 1543, where the account given originally by Sir Tho-
mas More is transcribed with some additions, it appears that the
person who held this conversation with Hastings was Sir Tho-
mas Howard, who is introduced in the last Act of this play as
Earl of Surrey :
" The same morning ere he [[Hastings] were up from his bed
sc. n. KING RICHARD 11L
Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest;
Your honour hath no shriving work in hand. 7
HAST. 'Good faith, and when I met thisholy man,
The men you talk of came into my mind.
What, go you toward the Tower ?
BUCK. I do, my lord; but long I cannot stay
there :
I shall return before your lordship thence,
HAST. Nay, like enough, for I stay dinner there.
BUCK. And supper too, although thou know^st
it not. [Aside.
Come, will you go ?
HAST. I'll wait upon your lordship.
\_Exeunt.
where Shore's wife lay with him all night, there came to him
sir Thomas Haward, [Howard] sonne to the lord Haward, as
it were of courtesaie, to accoumpaignie him to the counsaill ; but
forasmuche as the lord Hastings was not ready, he taried a while
for him, and hasted him away. This sir Thomas, while the lord
Hastings stayed a while commonyng with a priest whom he met
in the Tower strete, brake the lordes tale, saying to him merily,
* What, my lorde, I pray you come on ; wherefore talke you
so long with the priest ? You have no nede of a priest yet:* and
laughed upon him, as though he would saye, you shall have nede
of one sone." Fol. 59. MALONE.
7 shriving work in hand.'] Shriving work is confession.
JOHNSON.
So, in Hamlet:
" the bearers put to sudden death,
" Not shriving time allow'd." STEEVENS.
392 KING RICHARD III. ACT ifi.
SCENE III.
Pomfret. Before the Castle.
Enter RATCLIFF, with a Guard, conducting RIVERS,
GREY, and VAUGHAN, to Execution.
RAT. Come, bring forth the prisoners. 9
Rir. Sir Richard RatclifT, let me tell thee this,
To-day, shalt thou behold a subject die, .
For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.
GREY. God keep the prince from all the pack
of you !
A knot you are of damned blood-suckers.
VAUGH. You live, that shall cry woe for this
hereafter.
RAT. Despatch ; the limit 1 of your lives is out.
Riv. O Pomfret, Pomfret ! O thou bloody pri-
son,
Fatal and ominous to noble peers !
8 Grey,~] Queen Elizabeth Grey is deservedly pitied for
losing her two sons; but the royalty of their birth has so en-
grossed the attention of historians, that they never reckon into
the number of her misfortunes the murder of this her second
son, Sir Richard Grey. It is as remarkable how slightly the death
of our Earl Rivers is always mentioned, though a man invested
with such high offices of trust and dignity ; and how much we
dwell on the execution of the Lord Chamberlain Hastings, a
man in every light his inferior. In truth, the generality draw
their ideas of English story, from the tragick rather than the
historick authors. WALPOLE.
9 Come, bring forth the prisoners."] This speech is wanting in
the folio, and might (as it has neither use, nor pretensions to
metre,) be as well omitted as retained. STEEVENS.
1 the limit ] For the limited time. See Vol. XI. p. 184-,
n. 9. MALONE.
ac.iv. KING RICHARD III. 393
Within the guilty closure of thy walls,
Richard the second here was hack'd to death :
And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,
We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.
GREY. Now Margaret's curse is fallen upon our
heads,
When she exclaim'd on Hastings, you, and I,
For standing by when Richard stabb'd her son.
Riv. Then curs' d she Hastings, then curs'd she
Buckingham,
Then curs'd she Richard : O, remember, God,
To hear her prayers for them, as now for us !
And for my sister, and her princely sons,
Be satisfied, dear God, with our true bloods,
Which, as thou know'st, unjustly must be spilt !
RAT. Make haste, the hour of death is expiate. 2
* Make haste, the hour of death is expiate.] Thus the folio.
The quarto furnishes a line that has occurred already :
" Despatch; the limit of your lives is out."
Expiate is used for expiated; so confiscate, contaminate, con-
summate, &c. &c. It seems to mean, fully completed, and ended.
Shakspeare has again used the word in the same sense in his 22d
Sonnet :
" Then look I death my days should expiate."
So, in Locrine, 1595:
" Lives Sabren yet, to expiate my wrath."
The editor of the second folio, who altered whatever he did not
understand, reads arbitrarily
" Despatch ; the hour of death is now expired"
and he has been followed by all the modern editors. MALONE.
the hour of death is expiate.] As I cannot make sense
of this, I should certainly read, with the second folio :
" the hour of death is now expired,''
meaning the hour appointed for his death. The passage quoted
by Mr. Malone from Locrine, is nothing to the purpose, for there,
to expiate means to atone for, or satisfy. M. MASON.
J do not well understand the reading which Mr. Malone pre-
394 KING RICHARD III. ACT Hi,
Riv. Come, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us here
embrace :
Farewell, until we meet again in heaven. \_Exeunt.
SCENE IV.
London. A Room in the Tower.
BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, HASTINGS, the Bishop of
Ely, 3 CATESBY, LOVEL, and Others, sitting at
a Table : Officers of the Council attending.
HAST. Now, noble peers, the cause why we are
met
Is to determine of the coronation :
In God's name, speak, when is the royal day ?
BUCK. Are all things ready for that royal time?
STAN. They are ; and wants but nomination. 4
fers, though I have left it in the text. Perhaps we should
read:
" the hour of death is expirate."
trhich accords with Shakspeare's phraseology, and needs no ex-
planation. Thus, in Romeo and Juliet :
" and expire the term
" Of a despised life ." STEEVENS.
3 Bishop of Ely, ~} Dr. John Morton ; who was elected to
that see in 1478. He was advanced to the see of Canterbury in
I486, and appointed Lord Chancellor in 1487. He died in the
year 1500. This prelate, Sir Thomas More tells us, first devised
the scheme of putting an end to the long contest between the
houses of York and Lancaster, by a marriage between Henry
Earl of Richmond, and Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Ed-
ward IV. and was a principal agent in procuring Henry when
abroad to enter into a covenant for that purpose. MALONE.
4 and taunts but nomination."] i. e. the only thing want-
ing, is appointment of a particular day for the ceremony.
STEEVENS.
sc. ir. KING RICHARD III. 395
ELY. To-morrow then I judge a happy day.
BUCK. Who knows the lord protector's mind
herein ?
Who is most inward 5 with the noble duke ?
ELY. Your grace, we think, should soonest know
his mind.
k
BUCK. We know each other's faces: for our
hearts,
He knows no more of mine, than I of yours ;
Nor I, of his, my lord, than you of mine :
Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.
HAST. I thank his grace, I know he loves me
well ;
But, for his purpose in the coronation,
I have not sounded him, nor he deliver' d
His gracious pleasure any way therein :
But you, my noble lord, may name the time ;
And in the duke's behalf I'll give my voice,
Which, I presume, he'll take in gentle part.
Enter GLOSTER.
ELY. In happy time, here comes the duke him-
self.
GLO. My noble lords and cousins, all, good mor-
row:
I have been long a sleeper ; but, I trust,
My absence doth neglect no great design,
Which by my presence might have been concluded.
5 inward ] i. e. intimate, confidential. So, in Mea-
surefor Measure :
" Sir, I was an inward of his" STEEVENS.
396 KING RICHARD III. ACT im
BUCK. Had you not come upon your cue, 6 my
lord,
William lord Hastings had pronounced your part,
I mean, your voice, for crowning of the king.
GLO. Than my lord Hastings, no man might be
bolder ;
His lordship knows me well, and loves me well.
My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,
I saw good strawberries 7 in your garden there ;
I do beseech you, send for some of them.
ELY. Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.
[Exit ELY..
6 Had you not come upon your cue,] This expression is bor-
rowed from the theatre. The cue, queue, or tail of a speech,
consists of the last words, which are the token for an entrance
or answer. To come on the cue, therefore, is to come at the pro-
per time. JOHNSON.
So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, Quince says to Flute
" You speak all your part at once, cues and all." STEEVENS.
7 / saw good strawberries ] The reason why the Bishop was
despatched on this errand, is not clearer in Holinshed,from whom
Shakspeare adopted the circumstances, than in this scene, where
it is introduced. Nothing seems to have happened which might
not have been transacted with equal security in the presence of
the reverend cultivator of these strawberries, whose complai-
sance is likewise recorded by the author of the Latin play on the
same subject, in the British Museum :
Eliensis antistes vents ? senem quies,
Juvenem labor decet : Jerunt hortum tuum
Decora fraga plurimum producers.
EPISCOPUS ELIENSIS,
Nil tibi claudetur hortus quod meus
Producit ; esset lautius vellem mihi,
Quo sim tibi gratus.
This circumstance of asking for the strawberries, however,
may have been mentioned by the historians merely to show the
unusual affability and good humour which the dissembling Glos-
ter affected at the very time when he had determined on the
death of Hastings. STEEVENS.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 397
GLO. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you.
[Takes him aside.
Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business j
And finds the testy gentleman so hot,
That he will lose his head, ere give consent,
His master's child, as worshipfully he terms it,
Shall lose the royalty of England's throne.
BUCK. Withdraw yourself awhile, I'll go with
you.
[Exeunt GLQSTER and BUCKINGHAM.
STAN. We have not yet set down this day of
triumph.
To-morrow, in my judgment, is too sudden ;
For I myself am not so well provided,
As else I would be, were the day prolong'd.
Re-enter Bishop o/'Ely.
ELY. Where is my lord protector ? I have sent
For these strawberries.
HAST. His grace looks cheerfully and smooth this
morning ;
There's some conceit or other likes him well, 8
When he doth bid good morrow with such spirit.
I think, there's ne'er a man in Christendom,
Can lesser hide his love, or hate, than he ;
For by his face straight shall you know his heart.
* There's some conceit or other likes him well,'] Conceit is
thought. So, in Pericles, Prince of Tyre, 1609 :
" Here is a thing too young for such a place,
" Who, if it had conceit, would die." MALONE.
Conceit, as used by Hastings, I believe signifies pleasant idea
or fancy. So Falstaff, speaking of Poins, " He a good wit ?
there is no more conceit in him, than is in a mallet."
STEEVENS.
398 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
STAN. What of his heart perceive you in his face,
By any likelihood 9 he show'd to-day ?
HAST. Marry, that with no man here he is of-
fended ;
For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.
Re-enter GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM.
GLO. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve, 1
That do conspire my death with devilish plots
9 likelihood ] Semblance; appearance. JOHNSON,
So, in another of our author's plays :
" poor likelihoods^ and modern seemings."
STEEVENS.
Thus the quarto. The folio reads livelihood. M ALONE.
1 I pray you all, tell me what they deserve, &c.] This story
was originally told by Sir Thomas More, who wrote about thirty
years after the time. His History of King Richard III. was in-
serted in Hair's Chronicle, from whence it was copied by Holin-
shed, who was Shakspeare's authority :
" Between ten and eleven he returned into the chamber among
them with a wonderful soure, angrie, countenance, knitting the
browes, frowning and fretting, and gnawing on his lippes, and
so sette him downe in his place. Then when he had sitten still
awhile, thus he began : What were they worthie to have that
corapasse and imagine the destruction of me, being so neere of
bloud unto the king, and protectour of his royal person and his
realme ? Then the lord Chamberlaine, as he that for the love
betweene them thought he might be boldest with him, answered
and sayd, that they were worthy to be punished for humous
traytors, whatsoever they were ; and all the other affirmed the
same. That is, quoth he, yonder sorceresse, my brother's wife,
and other with' Tier, meaning the queene: ye shall all see in
what wise that sorceresse, and that other witch of her counsell,
Shore's wifej with their affinitie, have by their sorcerie and
witchcraft wasted my body. And therewith he plucked up his
doublet slieve to his elbow upon the left arme, where he shewed
a werish withered arme and small, as it was never other. No
man but was there present, but well knewe his arme was ever
such since his birth. Naythelesse the lord Chamberlaine (which
ac, ir. KING RICHARD III. 399
Of damned witchcraft ; and that have prevailed
Upon my body with their hellish charms ?
HAST. The tender love I bear your grace, my
lord,
Makes me most forward in this noble presence
To doom the offenders : Whosoe'er they be,
I say, my lord, they have deserved death.
GLO. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil,
Look how I am bewitch' d ; behold mine arm
Is, like a blasted sapling, wither' d up :
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch,
Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore,
from the death of king Edward kept Shore's wife, on whom h
somewhat doted in the king's life, saving, as it is saide, he that
while forbare her of reverence toward the king, or else of a cer-
tain kind of fidelity to his friend) aunswered and said, Certainly ?
my lord, if they have so heinously done, they be worthy heinous
punishment. What, quoth the protectour, thou servest me I
wene with ifs and with ands: I tell thee they have so done ; and
that I will make good on thy bodie, traitour ; and therewith, as
in great anger, he clapped his fist upon the boord a great rap.
At which token given, one cried, traison, without the chamber.
Therewith a dore clapped, and in came there rushing men in
harnesse, as many as the chamber might holde. And anone the
protectour sayd to the lord Hastings, I arrest thee traitor Then
were they all quickely bestowed in diverse chambers, except the
lord Chamberlaine, whom the protectour bade speeds him and
shrive him apace, for by S. Paul, quoth he, I uiill not to din*
ner till I see thy head off. So was he brought forth into the
greene beside the chappell within the Tower, and his head laid
downe upon a long log of timber, and there stricken off; and
afterward his body with the head enterred at Windsor, beside
the body of king Edward."
M. D. i. e. Maister John Dolman, the author of the Legend
of Lord Hastings, in The Mirrourfor Magistrates, 1575, has
thrown the same circumstances into verse.
Morton, Bishop of Ely, was present at this council, and from
him Sir Thomas More, who was born in 1480, is supposed to
have had his information. Polydore Virgil, who began his his-
tory in 1505, tells the story differently. M ALONE.
400 KING RICHARD III. ACT in.
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me.
HAST. If they have done this deed, my noble
lord,
GLO. If! 2 thou protector of this damned strum-
pet,
Talk'st thou to me of ifs ? Thou art a traitor :
Off with his head : now, by Saint Paul I swear,
I will not dine until I see the same.
Lovel, and Catesby, look, that it be done ; 3
* If! &c.~] For this circumstance see I. lo Hashed, Hall, and
The Mirrourfor Magistrates. FARMER.
3 Lovel, and Catesby, look, that it be done /] In former co-
pies:
Lovel, and Ratcliff, look, that it be done.
The scene is here in the Tower ; and Lord Hastings was cut
off on that very day, when Rivers, Grey, and Vaughan suffered
at Pomfret. How then could Ratcliff be both in Yorkshire and
the Tower ? In the scene preceding this, we find him conduct-
ing those gentlemen to the block. In the old quarto, we find it,
Exeunt : Manet Catesby ivith Hastings. And in the next scene,
before the Tower walls, we find Lovel and Catesby come back
from the execution, bringing the head of Hastings.
THEOBALD.
Mr. Theobald should have added, that, in the old quarto, no
names are mentioned in Richard's speech. He only says
" some see it done." Nor, in that edition, does Lovel appear
in the next scene ; but only Catesby, bringing the head of Hast-
ings. The confusion seems to have arisen, when it was thought
necessary that Catesby should be employed to fetch the Mayor,
who, in the quarto, is made to come without having been sent
for. As some other person was then wanted to bring the head
of Hastings, the poet, or the players, appointed Lovel and Rat-
cliffto that office, without reflecting that the latter was engaged
in another service on the same day at Pomfret. TYRWHITT.
I have adopted the emendation, because in one scene at least it
grevents the glaring impropriety mentioned by Mr. Theobald,
ut unfortunately, as Mr. Tyrwhitt has observed, this very im-
propriety is found in the next scene, where Ratcliff is intro-
duced, and where it cannot be corrected without taking greater
liberties than perhaps are justifiable. For there, in consequence
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 4O1
The rest, that love me, rise, and follow me.*
[Exeunt Council^ with GLOSTER and BUCK-
INGHAM.
HAST. Woe, woe, for England ! not a whit for
me;
For I, too fond, might have prevented this :
Stanley did dream, the boar did rase his helm ;
But I disdain* d it, and did scorn to fly.
Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble, 5
of the injudicious alteration made, I think, by the players, in-
stead of " Here comes the Mayor," the reading of the quarto,
we find in the folio
" Rich. But what, is Catesby gone ?
" He is, and see he brings the Mayor along.'*
Catesby being thus employed, he cannot bring in the head of
Hastings ; nor can that office be assigned to Lovel only ; because
Gloster in the folio mentions two persons :
" Be patient, they are friends ; Ratcliff, and Lovel."
MALONE.
4 The rest, that love me, rise, and follow me.~] So, in The
Battle of Alcazar, 1594 :
*' And they that love my honour, follow me.'*
MALONE.
4 Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble, Sfc.~]
So, in The Legend of Lord Hastings, by M. D. 1563. [Master
Dolman.]
" My palfrey, in the playnest paved streete,
" Thryse bow'd his boanes, thryse kneled on the flower,
" Thryse shonnd (as Balams asse) the dreaded tower."
To stumble was anciently esteem'd a bad omen. So, in The
Honest Lawyer : " And just at the threshold Master Bromley
stumbled. Signs ! signs !"
The housings of a horse, and sometimes a horse himself, were
anciently denominated a foot-cloth. So, in Ben Jonson's play
called The Case is Altered.'
" I'll go on my foot-cloth, I'll turn gentleman."
Again, in A fair Quarrel, by Middleton, 1617 :
" thou shalt have a physician,
" The best that gold can fetch upon his foot-cloth.**
Again, in Ram Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1610 :
VOL. XIV. 2 D
402 KING RICHARD III. ACT in.
And startled, when he look'd upon the Tower,
As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.
O, now I want the priest that spake to me :
I now repent I told the pursuivant,
As too triumphing, how mine enemies,
To-day at Pomfret bloodily were butcher'd,
And I myself secure in grace and favour.
O, Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse
Is lighted on poor Hastings' wretched head.
CATE. Despatch, my lord, the duke would be at
dinner ;
Make a short shrift, he longs to see your head,
HAST. O momentary grace of mortal men,
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God !
Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks, 6
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast ;
Ready, with every nod, to tumble down
Into the fatal bowels of the deep.
" nor shall I need to try
" Whether my well-greas'd tumbling foot-cloth nag
" Be able to out-run a well-breath'd catchpole."
STEEVENS.
Stanley, did dream, the boar did rase his helm ;
Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble, ~\ So Ho-
linshed, after Sir Thomas More : " A marvellous case it is
to heare, either the warnings of that he should have voided, or
the tokens of that he could not voide, for the selfe night next
before his death the L. Stanley sent a trustie secret messenger
unto him at midnight, in all the haste, &c. [See p. 384, n. 9.J
Certain it is also, that in riding towards the Tower the same
Jnorning in which he [Hastings] was beheaded, his horse twise
or thrise stumbled with him, almost to the falling : which thing,
albeit each man wot well daily happerxeth to them to whome no
such mischance is' toward : yet hath it beene of an old rite and
custome observed as a token oftentimes notablie foregoing some
great misfortune.'* MALONE.
* Who builds &c.] So, Horace :
JOHNSON.
K. r. KING RICHARD III. 4OS
Lov. Come, come, despatch ; 'tis bootless to ex-
claim.
HAST. O, bloody Richard ! miserable England !
I prophecy the fearful' st time to thee,
That ever wretched age hath look'd upon.
Come, lead me to the block, 7 bear him my head ;
They smile at me, who shortly shall be dead. 8
[Exeunt.
SCENE V.
The same. The Tower Walls.
Enter GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM, in rusty ar-
mour, 9 marvellous ill-favoured.
GLO. Come, cousin, canst thou quake, and
change thy colour ?
Murder thy breath in middle of a word,
7 Come, lead me to the block,"] William Lord Hastings was
beheaded on the 13th of June, 1483. His eldest son by
Catharine Neville, daughter of Richard Neville Earl of Salisbury,
and widow of William Lord Bonville, was restored to his honours
and estate by King Henry VII. in the first year of his reign.
The daughter of Lady Hastings by her first husband was married
to the Marquis of Dorset, who appears in the present play.
MALONE.
8 They smile at me, taho shortly shall be dead.~] i. e. those who
now smile at me, shall be shortly dead themselves. MALONE.
9 in rusty armour, &c.] Thus Holinshed : " The pro-
tector immediately after dinner, intending to set some colour upon
the matter, sent in all haste for many substantial men out of the
citie into the Tower ; and at their coming, himselfe with the
duke of Buckingham, stood harnessed in old ill-faring briganders,
such as no man should weene that they would vouchsafe to have
put upon their backes, except that some sudden necessitie had
constrained them." STEEVENS.
2 D 2
404 KING RICHARD III. ACT-MI.
And then again begin, and stop again,
As if thou wert distraught, and mad with terror ?
BUCK. Tut, I can counterfeit the deep tragedian ;
Speak, and look back, and pry on every side,
Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
Intending deep suspicion r 1 ghastly looks
Are at my service, like enforced smiles ;
And both are ready in their offices,
At any time, to grace my stratagems.
But what, is Catesby gone ?
GLO. He is; and, see, he brings the mayor along.
Enter the Lord Mayor and CATESBY.
BUCK. Let me alone to entertain him. Lord
mayor,
GLO. Look to the draw-bridge there.
BUCK. Hark, hark ! a drum. 2
GLO. Catesby, o'erlook the walls.
BUCK. Lord mayor, the reason we have sent for
you,
GLO. Look back, defend thee, here are enemies.
BUCK. God and our innocence defend and guard
us!
1 Intending deep suspicion ;"] i. e. pretending. So, in Muck
Ado about Nothing :
" Intend a kind of zeal both to the Prince and Claudio."
STEEVENS.
See Vol. IX. p. 136, n. 6. M ALONE.
* Hark, hark ! a drum."] I have repeated the interjection
nark, for the sake of metre. STEEVENS.
sc. r. KING RICHARD III. 405
Enter LOVEL and RATCLiFF, 3 with HASTINGS'S
Head.
GLO. Be patient, they are friends j Ratcliff, and
Lovel.
Lov. Here is the head of that ignoble traitor,
The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.
GLO. So dear I lov'd the man, that I must weep.
I took him for the plainest harmless't creature, 4
That breath'd upon the earth a Christian ; 5
Made him my book, wherein my soul recorded
The history of all her secret thoughts :
So smooth he daub'd his vice with show of virtue,
That, his apparent open guilt omitted,
I mean, his conversation 6 with Shore's wife,
3 Enter Lovel and Ratcliff,] The quarto has " Enter Catesby,
with Hastings' head," and Gloster, on his entry, says" O, O,
be quiet, it is Catesby." For this absurd alteration, by which
Ratcliff is represented at Pomfret and in London at the same
time, I have no doubt that the player-editors are answerable.
MALONE.
4 harmless' 't creature,] The old copies read harmless ;
but grammar requires harmless't, (i. e. harmlessest, ) a common
contraction, as I am assured, both in Leicestershire and Warwick-
shire. So afterwards, p. 406, we have covert'^ for covertest.
STEEVENS.
the earth a Christian ;] Here the quarto adds ;
Look you, my lord mayor.
This hemistich I have inserted in the following speech of
Buckingham, to which I believe it originally belonged ; as with-
out it we meet with an imperfect verse :
" Well, well he was the covert'st shelter'd traitor
" That ever liv'd.
" Would you imagine," &c.
I have since observed, that Mr. Capell has the same trans-
position. STEEVENS.
6 his conversation ] i. e. familiar intercourse. The
phrase crimi n al conversation^ is yet in daily use. MALONE.
406 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
He liv'd from all attainder of suspect.
BUCK. Well, well, he was the covert' st sheltered
traitor
That ever liv'd. Look you, my lord mayor,
Would you imagine, or almost believe,
(Were't not, that by great preservation
We live to tell it you,) the subtle traitor
This day had plotted, in the council-house,
To murder me, and my good lord of Gloster ?
MAY. What ! had he so ?
GLO. What! think you we are Turks, or infidels?
Or that we would, against the form of law,
Proceed thus rashly in the villain's death ;
But that the extreme peril of the case,
The peace of England, and our persons' safety,
Enforc'd us to this execution?
MAY. Now, fair befal you! he deserved his death ;
And your good graces both have well proceeded,
To warn false traitors from the like attempts.
I never look'd for better at his hands,
After he once fell in with mistress Shore.
BUCK. Yet had we not determin'd he should die,
Until your lordship came to see his end ;
Which now the loving haste of these our friends,
Somewhat against our meaning, hath prevented :
Because, my lord, we would have had you heard
The traitor speak, and timorously confess
The manner and the purpose of his treasons ;
That you might well have signified the same
Unto the citizens, who, haply, may
Misconstrue us in him, and wail his death.
MAY. But, my good lord, your grace's word
shall serve,
As well as I had seen, and heard him speak :
sc. r. KING RICHARD III. 407
And do not doubt, right noble princes both,
But I'll acquaint our duteous citizens
With all your just proceedings in this case.
GLO. And to that end we wish'd your lordship
here,
To avoid the censures of the carping world.
BUCK. But since you came too late of our intent, 7
Yet witness what you hear we did intend :
And so, my good lord mayor, we bid farewell.
\_Exit Lord Mayor.
GLO. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham.
The mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post:
There, at your meetest vantage of the time,
Infer the bastardy of Edward's children :
Tell them, how Edward put to death a citizen, 8
Only for saying he would make his son
Heir to the crown ; meaning, indeed, his house,
Which, by the sign thereof, was termed so.
Moreover, urge his hateful luxury,
And bestial appetite in change of lust ;
Which stretch' d unto their servants, daughters,
wives,
Even where his raging eye, or savage heart,
Without controul, listed 9 to make his prey.
7 But since you came too late of our intent,"] Perhaps we
should read " too \atejbr our intent" M. MASON.
The old reading I suppose to be the true one. We still say
" to come short of ,1 thing," and why not " come late of an in-
tent ?" STEEVENS.
8 put to death a citizen,'] This person was one Walker, a
substantial citizen and grocer at the Croivn in Cheapside.
GREY.
9 his raging eye, listed ] The former is the reading
of the folio, the latter of the quarto. The quarto has lustful
eye, and the folio lusted instead of listed. Modern editors
without authority ranging eye. STEEVENS.
408 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
Nay, for a need, thus far come near my person :
Tell them, 1 when that my mother went with child
Of that insatiate Edward, noble York,
My princely father, then had wars in France ;
And, by just computation of the time,
Found, that the issue was not his begot ;
Which well appeared in his lineaments,
Being nothing like the noble duke my father :
Yet touch this sparingly, as 'twere far off ;
Because, my lord, you know, my mother lives.
BUCK. Doubt not, my lord ; I'll play the orator,
As if the golden fee, for which I plead,
Were for myself: and so, my lord, adieu.
GLO. If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's
castle ; 2
Where you shall find me well accompanied,
With reverend fathers, and well-learned bishops,
BUCK. I go ; and, towards three or four o'clock,
Look for the news that the Guild-hall affords.
[Exit BUCKINGHAM,
GLO. Go, Lovel, with all speed to doctor Shaw, 3
1 Tell them, &c.~] Whatever reason W. Wyrcester might have
for being so very particular, he expressly tells us that Edward was
conceived in the chamber next to the chapel of the palace of Hat-
Jield. York was regent of France at that time, and had come
over, it would seem, to visit his lady. RJTSON,
s to Baynard's castle ;3 It was originally built by
Baynard, a nobleman who (according to Stowe's account) came,
in with the conqueror.
This edifice which stood in Thames Street, has long been
pulled down, though parts of its strong foundations are still
visible at low water. The site of it is now a timber-yard.
STEEVENS.
3 to doctor Shaw, ] This and the two following lines
are not in the quarto. Shaw and Penker were two popular
preachers. Instead of a pamphlet being published by the Secre-
tary of the Treasury, to furnish the advocates for the administra-
sc. v. KING RICHARD III. 409
Go thou [To CAT.] to friar Penker;* bid them
" both
Meet me, within this hour, at Baynard's castle.
[Exeunt LOVEL and CATESBY.
Now will I in, to take some privy order
To draw the brats of Clarence 5 out of sight j
tion of the day, with plausible topicks of argument on great poli-
tical measures, (the established mode of the present time) for-
merly it was customary to publish the court creed from the pulpit
at Saint Paul's Cross. As Richard now employed Doctor Shaw
to support his claim to the crown, so, about fifteen years before v
the great Earl of Warwick employed his chaplain Doctor God-
dard to convince the people that Henry VI. ought to be restored,
and that Edward IV. was an usurper. MALONE.
4 This Pinker or Penker was provincial of the Augustine friars.
See Speed. STEEVENS.
4 the brats of Clarence ] Edward Earl of Warwick,
who the day after the battle of Bosworth, was sent by Richmond
from Sherif-hutton Castle (where Gloster had confined him,) to
the Tower, without even the shadow of an allegation against him,
and executed with equal injustice on Tower-hill on the 21st of
November, 1499 ; and Margaret, afterwards married to Sir
Richard de la Pole, the last Princess of the house of Lancaster ;
who was created by King Henry VIII. Countess of Salisbury,
and in the 31st year of his reign, (1540) at the age of seventy,
was put to death by the sanguinary king then on the throne, as
her unfortunate and innocent brother had before fallen a victim
to the jealous policy of that crafty tyrant Henry VII.
The immediate cause of his being put to death was, that Fer-
dinand King of Spain was unwilling to consent to the marriage
of his daughter Katharine to Arthur Prince of Wales, while the
Earl of Warwick lived, there being during his life-time (as Fer-
dinand conceived) no assurance of the Prince's succession to the
crown.
The murder of the Earl of Warwick (for it deserves no other
*ame ) made such an impression on Katharine, that when she was
first informed of Henry the Eighth's intention to repudiate her,
she exclaimed, " I have not offended, but it is a just judgment
of GOD, for my former marriage was made in blood."
MALONE.
410 KING RICHARD III. ACT us.
And to give notice, that no manner of person 6
Have, any time, recourse unto the princes. \JExit.
SCENE VI.
A Street.
Enter a Scrivener.
SCRIV. Here is the indictment of the good lord
Hastings ;
Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd,
That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's. 7
And mark how well the sequel hangs together :
Eleven hours I have spent to write it over,
For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me ;
The precedent 8 was full as long a doing :
6 no manner of person ] The folio reads no manner
person, which is nonsense. I suppose the true reading is no
man, or person ; as in the latter term females are included.
STEEVENS.
7 read o'er in Paul's."] The substance of this speech is
from Hall's Chronicle, p. 16 : " Nowe was thys proclamation
made within twoo houres after he was beheaded, and it was so
curiously endy ted, and so fayre writen in parchement, in a fayre
sette hande, and therewith of itselfe so long a processe, that
every chyld might perceyve that it was prepared and studyed be-
fore, (and as some men thought, by Catesby,) for all thetyme
betwene his death and the proclamacion coulde scant have suf-
fyced unto the bare writyng alone, albeit that it had bene in
paper scribeled furthe in haste at adventure. And a marchaunte
that stoode by sayed that it was wrytten by inspiracyon and
prophesye."
Mr. Malone adds " So Holinshed, after Sir Thomas More;"
and then repeats the same quotation. STEEVENS.
8 The precedent ] The original draft from which the engross-
ment was made. MALONE.
ac. vii. KING RICHARD III. 41 1
And yet within these five hours Hastings liv'd,
Untainted, unexamin'd, free, at liberty.
Here's a good world the while ! Who is so gross,
That cannot see this palpable device ?
Yet who so bold, but says he sees it not ?
Bad is the world ; and all will come to nought,
When such bad dealing must be seen in thought. 9
[Exit,
SCENE VII.
The same. Court o/*Baynard's Castle. 1
, Enter GLOSTER and BUCKINGHAM, meeting.
GLO. How now, how now ? what say the citizens?
BUCK. Now by the holy mother of our Lord,
The citizens are mum, say not a word.
GLO. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's chil-
dren ?
BUCK. I did; with his contract with Lady Lucy, 2
seen in thought.'] That is, seen in silence, without no-
tice or detection. JOHNSON.
1 BaynarcPs Castle.'] A castle in Thames Street, which had
belonged to Richard Duke of York, and at this time was the pro-
perty of his grandson King Edward V. MALONE.
8 tvith his contract with Lady Lucy,~] The King had
been familiarwith this lady before his marriage, to obstruct which
his mother alledgeda pre-contract between them : " Whereupon,
says the historian, dame Elizabeth Lucye was sente for, and al-
beit she was by the kyng hys mother, and many other, put in
good comfort to affirme that she was assured to the kynge, yet
when she was solempnly sworne to save y e truth, she confessed
she was never ensured. Howbeit, she sayd his grace spake suche
loving wordes to her, that she verily hoped that he would have
412 KING RICHARD III. ACT in.
And his contract by deputy in France :
The insatiate greediness of his desires,
And his enforcement of the city wives ;
His tyranny for trifles ; his own bastardy,
As being got, your father then in France ; 3
marled her ; and that yf such kinde woordes had not bene, she
woulde never have showed such kindnesse to him to lette hym so
kyndely gette her wyth chylde." Hall, Edward V. fo. 19.
RITSON.
This objection to King Edward's marriage with Lady Grey, is
said by Sir Thomas More to have been made by the Duchess
Dowager of York, Edward's mother, who was averse to the
match, before he espoused that Jady. But Elizabeth Lucy, the
daughter of one Wyat, and the wife of one Lucy, being sworn
to speak the truth, declared that the King had not been affianced
to her, though she owned she had been his concubine. Philip
deComines, a contemporary historian, says that Edward, previous
to his marriage with Lady Grey, was married to an English lady
by the Bishop of Bath, who revealed the secret ; and according
to the Chronicle of Croyland this Lady was Lady Eleanor Butler,
widow of Lord Butler of Sudley, and daughter to the great
Earl of Shrewsbury. On this ground the children of Edward
were declared illegitimate by the only parliament assembled by
King Richard III. ; but no mention was made of Elizabeth Lucy.
Shakspeare followed Holinshed, who copied Hall, as Hall tran-
scribed the account given by Sir Thomas More. MALONE.
3 . his o'wn bastardy,
As being got, your father then in France ;] This tale is sup-
posed to have been first propagated by the Duke of Clarence,
soon after he, in conjunction with his father-in-law the Earl of
Warwick, restored King Henry VI. to the throne ; at which
time he obtained a settlement of the crown on himself and his
issue, after the death of Henry and his heirs male. Sir Thomas
More says, that the Duke of Glocester soon after Edward's death
revived this tale ; but Mr. Walpole very justly observes, that it
is highly improbable that Richard should have urged such a topick
to the people ; that he should " start doubts concerning his own
legitimacy, which was too much connected with that of his bro-
thers to be tossed and bandied about before the multitude." The
game ingenious writer has also shown, that Richard " lived in
perfect harmony with his mother, and lodged with her in her
palace at this very time." Historick Doubts, quarto, 1768.
MALONE.
W. vn. KING K1CHARD 111. 413
And his resemblance, being not like the duke.
Withal, I did infer your lineaments,
Being the right idea of your father,
Both in your form and nobleness of mind :
Laid open all your victories in Scotland,
Your discipline in war, wisdom in peace,
Your bounty, virtue, fair humility ;
Indeed, left nothing, fitting for your purpose,
Untouch'd, or slightly handled, in discourse.
And, when my oratory grew to an end,
I bade them, that did love their country's good,
Cry God save Richard, England's royal king !
GLO. And did they so ?
BUCK. No, so God help me, they spake not a
word ;
But, like dumb statuas, or breathless stones, 4
Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale.
Which when I saw, I reprehended them ;
And ask'dthemayor, what meant this wilful silence :
His answer was, the people were not us'd
To be spoke to, but by the recorder.
Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again ;
Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferred /
But nothing spoke in warrant from himself.
When he had done, some followers of mine own,
At lower end o'the hall, hurl'd up their caps,
And some ten voices cried, God save king Richard!
And thus I took the vantage of those few,
Thanks, gentle citizens, and friends, quoth I j
4 But, like dumb statuas, or breathless stones,"] See Mr. Reed's
very decisive account of the word statua, in.anote on The Two
Gentlemen of Verona, Vol. IV. p. 290, n. 6.
The eldest quartos, 1597 and 1598, together with the first
folio, read breathing. The modern editors, with Mr. Rowe,
unbreathing. Breathless is the reading of the quarto 1612.
STEEVENS.
414 KING RICHARD IIL ACT m.
This general applause, and cheerful shout,
Argues your wisdom, and your love to Richard :
And even here brake off, and came away.
GLO. What tongueless blocks were they ; Would
they not speak ?
Will not the mayor then, and his brethren, come ?
BUCK. The mayor is here at hand ; intend some
fear ; 5
Be not you spoke with, but by mighty suit :
And look ypu get a prayer-book in your hand,
And stand between two churchmen, good my lord j
For on that ground 1*11 make a holy descant :
And be not easily won to our requests ;
Play the maid's part, still answer nay, and take it.
GLO. I go ; And if you plead as well for them,
As I can say nay to thee 6 for myself,
No doubt we'll bring it to a happy issue.
BUCK. Go, go, up to the leads ; the lord mayor
knocks. [Exit GLOSTER.
intend some fear ;~\ Perhaps, pretend; though intend
will stand in the sense of giving attention. JOHNSON.
One of the ancient senses of to intend was certainly to pre-
tend. So, in sc. v. of this Act :
" Tremble and start at wagging of a straw,
" Intending deep suspicion." STEEVENS.
6 As I can say nay to thee ] I think it must be read :
ify ou pleud as "well for them
As I-must say, nay to them^r myself. JOHNSON.
Perhaps the change is not necessary. Buckingham is to plead
for the citizens; and if '(says Richard) you speak for them as
plausibly as I in my own person, or far my otvw purposes, shall
seem to deny your suit, there is no doubt but we shall bring all to
a happy issue. STEKVENS.
x. vii. KING RICHARD III. 415
Enter the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens.
Welcome, my lord : I dance attendance here ;
I think, the duke will not be spoke withal.
Enter, from the Castle, CATESBY.
Now, Catesby ! what says your lord to my request ?
GATE. He doth entreat your grace, my noble
lord,
To visit him to-morrow, or next day :
He is within, with two right reverend fathers,
Divinely bent to meditation ;
And in no worldly suit would he be mov'd,
To draw him from his holy exercise.
BUCK. Return, good Catesby, to the gracious
duke ;
Tell him, myself, the mayor and aldermen,.
In deep designs, in matter of great moment,
No less importing than our general good,
Are come to have some conference with his grace.
GATE. I'll signify so much unto him straight.
{Exit.
BUCK. Ah, ha, my lord, this prince is not an
Edward !
He is not lolling on a lewd day-bed, 7
But on his knees at meditation j
Not dallying with a brace of courtezans,
But meditating with two deep divines j
Not sleeping, to engross 8 his idle body,
But praying, to enrich his watchful soul :
7 day-bed,] i. e. a couch, or sofa. See Vol. V. p. 323,
n. 9. STEEVENS.
* to engross ] To fatten ; to pamper. JOHNSON.
416 KING RICHARD III. 4cr.ni.
Happy were England, would this virtuous prince
Take on himself the sovereignty thereof:
But, sure, I fear, we shall ne'er win him to it.
MAY. Marry, God defend, his grace should say
us nay ! 9
BUCK. I fear, he will : Here Catesby comes
again j
Re-enter CATESBY.
Now, Catesby, what says his grace ?
GATE. He wonders to what end you have assem-
bled
Such troops of citizens to come to him,
His grace not being warn'd thereof before,
He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.
BUCK. Sorry I am, my noble cousin should
Suspect me, that I mean no good to him :
By heaven, we come to him in perfect love ;
And so once more return and tell his grace.
[Exit CATESBY,
When holy and devout religious men
Are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence j
So sweet is zealous contemplation.
9 God defend, his grace should say us nay !"] This pious
and courtly Mayor was Edmund Shaw, brother to Doctor Shaw,
whom Richard had employed to prove his title to the crown,
from the pulpit at Saint Paul's Cross. MALONE.
sc. vii. KING RICHARD III. 417
Enter GLOSTER, in a Gallery above, between Two
Bishops. 1 CATESBY returns.
MAY. See, where his grace stands 'tween two
clergymen !
BUCK. Two props of virtue for a Christian prince,
To stay him from the fall of vanity :
And, see, a book of prayer in his hand ;
True ornaments to know a holy man. 2
Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,
Lend favourable ear to our requests ;
And pardon us the interruption
Of thy devotion, and right-christian zeal.
GLO. My lord, there needs no such apology ;
I rather do beseech you pardon me,
Who, earnest in the service of my God,
Neglect the visitation of my friends.
But, leaving this, what is your grace's pleasure ?
BUCK. Even that, I hope, which pleaseth God
above,
1 between Two Bishops.'] " At the last he came out of
his chamber, and yet not downe to theim, but in a galary over
theim, with a bishop on every hande of hym, where thei beneth
might see hym and speake to hym, as though he woulde not yet
come nere theim, til he wist what they meant," &c. Hall's
Chronicle. FARMER.
So also Holinshed after him. The words " with a bishop on
every hande ofhym" are an interpolation by Hall, or rather by
Grafton, (See his Continuation of Harding' s Chronicle, 1543,
fol. 75,) not being found in Sir Thomas More's History of King
Richard III. folio, 1557, from whom the rest of the sentence is
transcribed. MALONE.
4 to know a holy man.'] i. e. to know a holy man by.
See Vol. XV. p. 196, n. 4, and a note on Coriolanus, Act IH.
sc. ii. where several instances of a similar phraseology are given.
MALONB.
VOL. XIV. 2 E
418 KING RICHARD III. ACT in.
And all good men of this ungovern'd isle.
GLO. I do suspect, I have done some offence,
That seems disgracious in the city's eye ;
And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.
BUCK. You have, my lord; Would it might
please your grace,
On our entreaties to amend your fault !
GLO. Else wherefore breathe I in a Christian
land?
BUCK. Know, then, it is your fault, that you re-
sign
The supreme seat, the throne majestical,
The scepter' d office of your ancestors,
Your state of fortune, and your due of birth,
The lineal glory of your royal house,
To the corruption of a blemish' d stock :
Whilst, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,
(Which here we waken to our country's good,)
The noble isle doth want her proper limbs ; 3
Her face defac'd with scars of infamv,
Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants, 4
And almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulf
Of dark forgetfulness 5 and deep oblivion.
3 her proper limls ;~\ Thus the quarto 1598. The folio
has his limbs ; an error which I should not mention, but that
it justifies corrections that I have made in other places, where,
for want of more ancient copies than one, conjectural emenda-
tion became necessary. See Vol. VIII. p. 184, n. 4. MALONE.
4 Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants,"] Shakspeare seems
to have recollected the text on which Dr. Shaw preached his
remarkable Sermon at Saint Paul's Cross : " Bastard slips shall
never take deep root." MALONE.
5 And almost shoulder'd in the swallowing gulph
Of dark forgetfulness ] What it is to be shoulder'd in a
gulph, Hanmer is the only editor who seems not to have known ;
for the rest let it pass without observation. He reads :
sc. vn. KING RICHARD III. 419
Which to recure, 6 we heartily solicit
Your gracious self to take on you the charge
Almost shouldered into th' swallowing gulph.
I believe we should read :
And almost smoulder'd in the siuallotuing gulph.
That is, almost smother' d, covered and lost. JOHNSON.
I suppose the old reading to be the true one. So, in Thf
Barons' Wars, by Drayton, canto i :
" Stoutly t' affront and shoulder in debate."
In is used for into. So before in this play :
" But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave."
Again, ibid :
" Falsely to draw me in these vile suspects."
Shouldered has the same meaning as rudely thrust into.
So, in a curious ancient paper quoted by Mr. Lysons in hi*
Environs of London, Vol. III. p. 80, n. 1 : " lyke tyraunts
and lyke madde men helpynge to shulderynge other of the sayd
bannermen ynto the dyche," &c. Again, in Arthur Hall's
translation of the second Iliad, 1581:
" He preaseth him, him he again, shouldring ech one
his feere." STEEVENS.
Shouldered is, I believe, the true reading ; not, thrust in by
the shoulders, but, immersed up to the shoulders. So, in Othello :
" Steeped me in poverty to the very lips."
" This passage in Othello," says Mr. M. Mason, " is nothing
to the purpose. Had Othello used the word lipp'd, to signify
immersed up to the lips, that indeed would justify our supposing
that shouldered might mean immersed up to the shoulders." But
the critick mistook the purpose for which the passage was ad-
duced. It was quoted, not to support the word, " shouldered"
but to show that the same idea had been elsewhere introduced
by Shakspeare ; that, as in Othello he had spoken of being
plunged in poverty to the lips, so here he might have intended
to describe the royal stock as immerged up to the shoulders in
oblivion.
The word shouldered, in the following lines of Spenser's Ruins
of Rome, 1591, may certainly only have been used in its more
ordinary signification ; but I am not sure that the author did
not employ it as it is here used by Shakspeare :
*' Like as ye see the wrathful sea from farre,
" In a great mountaine heapt with hideous noise,
" Eftsoones of thousand billows shouldered narre,
" Against a rock to break with dreadful poyse. "
2 E 2
420 KING RICHARD IIL ACT m.
And kingly government of this your land :
Not as protector, steward, substitute,
Or lowly factor for another's gain :
But as successively, from blood to blood,
Your right of birth, your empery, your own.
For this, consorted with the citizens,
Your very worshipful and loving friends,
And by their vehement instigation,
In this just suit come I to move your grace.
GLO. I cannot tell, if to depart in silence,
Or bitterly to speak in your reproof,
Best fitteth my degree, or your condition :
If, not to answer, 7 you might haply think,
Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded
To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,
Which fondly you would here impose on me ;
If to reprove you for this suit of yours,
So season'd with your faithful love to me,
Then, on the other side, I check'd my friends.
Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first ;
And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,
Definitively thus I answer you.
Your love deserves my thanks ; but my desert
Unmeritable, shuns your high request.
First, if all obstacles were cut away,
However the word may have been employed in the foregoing
passage, its existence in our author's time is ascertained by it.
MALONE.
6 Which to recure,] To recur e is to recover. This word is
frequently used by Spenser ; and both as a verb and a substan-
tive in Lyly's Endymion, 1591. STEEVENS.
7 If, not to .answer,'] If I should take the former course, and
depart in silence, &c. So below : " If, to reprove," &c. The
editor of the second folio reads For not to answer; and his
capricious alteration of the text has been adopted by all the sub-
sequent editors. This and the nine following lines are not in
the quarto. MALONE.
sc. vn. KING RICHARD III. 421
And that my path were even to the crown,
As the ripe revenue and due of birth j 8
Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,
So mighty, and so many, my defects,
That 1 would rather hide me from my greatness,
Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, -
Than in my greatness covet to be hid,
And in the vapour of my glory smothered.
But, God be thank'd, there is no need of me ;
(And much I need to help you, 9 if need were;)
The royal tree hath left us royal fruit,
Which, mellow* d by the stealing hours of time,
Will well become the seat of majesty,
And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.
On him I lay what you would lay on me,
The right and fortune of his happy stars,
Which, God defend, that I should wring from him!
BUCK. My lord, this argues conscience in your
grace ;
But the respects thereof are nice and trivial, 1
All circumstances well considered.
You say, that Edward is your brother's son ;
8 As the ripe revenue and due of birth;"] So the folio. The
quarto 1598 thus:
" As my right, revenue, and due by birth."
A preceding line seems rather to favour the original reading :
" Your right of birth, your empery, your own."
The first quarto, [1597,] I find, reads :
" As my ripe revenew, and due by birth." MALONE.
9 And much I need to help you,~] And I want much of the
ability requisite to give you help, if help were needed.
JOHNSON.
1 are nice and trivial,"] Nice is generally used by Shak-
speare in the sense of minute, trifling, of petty import. So, in
Romeo and Juliet :
" The letter was not nice, but full of charge."
MALONE.
422 KING RICHARD III. ACT m.
So say we too, but not by Edward's wife :
For first he was contract to lady Lucy,
Your mother lives a witness to his vow ;
And afterwards by substitute betroth* d
To Bona, sister to the king of France. 2
These both put by, a poor petitioner, 3
A care-craz'd mother to a many sons,
A beauty-waning and distressed widow,
Even in the afternoon of her best days,
Made prize and purchase of his wanton eye,
Seduc'd the pitch and height of all his thoughts
To base declension and loath'd bigamy: 4
By her, in his unlawful bed, he got
This Edward, whom our manners call the prince.
More bitterly could I expostulate,
Save that, for reverence to some alive, 5
* To Bona, sister to the king of France.'] See K. Henry VI.
P. III. Act III. sc. iii. Bona was daughter to the Duke of Savoy,
and sister to Charlotte, wife to Lewis XI. King of France.
MALONE.
3 a poor petitioner, ~] See King Henry VI. P. III. Act III.
p. 105. MALONE.
4 loath' d bigamy:] Bigamy, by a canon of the council
of Lyons, A. D. 1274, (adopted in England by a statute in
4 1 Edw. I. ) was made unlawful and infamous. It differed from
polygamy, or having two wives at once ; as it consisted in either
marrying two virgins successively, or once marrying a widow.
BLACKSTONE.
loath'd bigamy :] So Sir T. More, copied by Hall and
Holinshed : " the only ividoiuhead of Elizabeth Grey, though
she were in all other things convenient for you, should yet suf-
fice, as me seemeth, to restraine you from her marriage, sith it
is an unfitting thing, and a verie blemish and high disparagement
to the sacred majestic of a prince, (that ought as nigh to ap-
proach priesthood in cleanness, as he doth in dignity,) to be
defouled with bigamie in his first marriage." MALONE.
3 More bitterly could I expostulate,
Save that, for reverence to some alive,'] The Duke here hints
at a topick which he had touched upon in his address to the citi-
sc. vn. KING RICHARD III. 425
I give a sparing limit to my tongue.
Then, good my lord, take to your royal self
This proffer'd benefit of dignity:
If not to bless us and the land withal,
Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry
From the corruption of abusing time,
Unto a lineal true-derived course.
MAY. Do, good my lord j your citizens entreat
you.
BUCK. Refuse not, mighty lord, this proffer'd
love.
GATE. O, make them joyful, grant their lawful
suit.
GLO. Alas, why would you heap those cares on
me ?
I am unfit for state and majesty:
I do beseech you, take it not amiss ;
I cannot, nor I will not, yield to you.
BUCK. If you refuse it, as in love and zeal,
Loath to depose the child, your brother's son ;
As well we know your tenderness of heart,
And gentle, kind, effeminate remorse, 6
Which we have noted in you to your kindred,
And equally, indeed, to all estates,
Yet know, whe'r you accept our suit or no,
Your brother's son shall never reign our king j
zens, the pretended bastardy of Edward and Clarence. By
" some alive," is meant the Duchess of York, the mother of
Edward and Richard. MALONE.
6 effeminate remorse,] i. e. pity. See our author, passim^
Thus also, in The Miseries of enforced Marriage, 1607 :
" Be all his days, like winter, comfortless ;
" Restless his nights, his wants remorseless."
i. e. unpitied. STEEVENS.
424 KING RICHARD III. ACT in.
But we will plant some other in your throne,
To the disgrace and downfal of your house.
And, in this resolution, here we leave you ;
Come, citizens, we will entreat no more.
\_Exeunt BUCKINGHAM and Citizens.
GATE. Call them again, sweet prince, accept
their suit ;
If you deny them, all the land will rue it.
GLO. Will you enforce me to a world of cares ?
Well, call them again ; I am not made of stone, 7
But penetrable to your kind entreaties,
\_Exit CATESBY.
Albeit against my conscience and my soul.
Re-enter BUCKINGHAM, and the Rest.
Cousin of Buckingham, and sage, grave men,
Since you will buckle fortune on my back,
To bear her burden, whe'r I will, or no,
I must have patience to endure the load :
But if black scandal, or foul-fac'd reproach,
Attend the sequel of your imposition,
Your mere enforcement shall acquittance me
From all the impure blots and stains thereof;
For God he knows, and you may partly see,
How far I am from the desire of this.
MAY. God bless your grace ! we see it, and will
say it.
GLO. In saying so, you shall but say the truth,
BUCK. Then I salute you with this royal title,
Long live king Richard, England's worthy king !
ALL. Amen.
7 / am not made of stone,] The quarto and folio have
stones. Mr. Pope made the emendation. M ALONE.
ACT iv. KING RICHARD III. 425
BUCK. To-morrow may it please you to be
crown'd ?
GLO. Even when you please, since you will have
it so.
BUCK. To-morrow then we will attend your
grace ;
And so, most joyfully, we take our leave.
GLO. Come, let us to our holy work again :
[To the Bishops.
Farewell, good cousin ; farewell, gentle friends. 8
\ExeunU
ACT IV. SCENE L
*
Before tlie Tower.
Enter, on one side, Queen ELIZABETH, Duchess of
YORK, and Marquis of DORSET ; on the other,
ANNE, Duchess of Gloster, 9 leading Lady MAR-
GARET PLANTAGENET, Clarence's young Daugh-
ter.
DUCH. Who meets us here? my niece Planta-
genet
Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloster P 1
* Farewell, good cousin ; farewell, gentle friends. ,] To this
Act should, perhaps, be added the next scene, so will the coro-
nation pass between the Acts; and there will not only be a
proper interval of action, but the conclusion will be more
forcible. JOHNSON.
9 Anne, Dtichess of Gloster,] We have not seen this lady
since the second scene of the first Act, in which she promised to
meet Richard at Crosby-place. She was married about the year
1472. MALONE.
426 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Now, for my life, she's wand'ring to the Tower,
On pure heart's love, to greet the tender prince.
Daughter, well met.
ANNE. God give your graces both
A happy and a joyful time of day !
Q. ELIZ. As much to you, good sister ! Whither
away?
ANNE. No further than the Tower ; and, as I
guess,
Upon the like devotion as yourselves,
To gratulate the gentle princes there.
Q. ELIZ. Kind sister, thanks ; we'll enter all
V together :
Enter BRAKENBURY.
And, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.
Master lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,
How doth the prince, and my young son of York?
BRAK. Right well, dear madam : By your pa-
tience,
I may not suffer you to visit them ;
The king hath strictly charg'd the contrary.
1 Who meets us here ? my niece Plantagenet
Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Glosterf] Here is a ma-
nifest intimation, that the Duchess 01 Gloster leads in somebody
in her hand ; but there is no direction marked in any of the
copies, from which we can learn who it is. I have ventured to
guess it must be Clarence's young daughter. The old Duchess
of York calls her niece, i. e. grand-daughter ; as grand-children
are frequently called nephews. THEOBALD.
So, in Othello, nephews for grand-children: " you'll have
your daughter covered with a Barbary horse, you'll have your
nephews neigh to you." MALONE.
See note on Othello, Act I. sc. i. STEEVENS.
sc. i. KING RICHARD III. 427
Q. ELIZ. The king! who's that?
BRAK. I mean, the lord protector.
Q. ELIZ. The Lord protect him from that kingly
title !
Hath he set bounds between their love, and me ?
I am their mother, who shall bar me from them ?
DUCH. I am their father's mother, I will see
them.
ANNE. Their aunt I am in law, in love their
mother :
Then bring me to their sights ; I'll bear thy blame,
And take thy office from thee, on my peril.
BRAK. No, madam, no, I may not leave it so; 2
I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.
[Exit BRAKENBURY.
Enter STANLEY.
STAN. Let me but meet you, ladies, one hour
hence,
And I'll salute your grace of York as mother,
And reverend looker-on of two fair queens.
Come, madam, you must straight to Westminster.
[To the Duchess o/Gloster.
There to be crowned Richard's royal queen,
Q. ELIZ. Ah, cut my lace asunder 1
That my pent heart may have some scope to beat,
Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news.
ANNE. Despiteful tidings ! O unpleasing news !
4 / may not leave it so; ] That is, / may not so resign
my office, which you offer to take on you at your peril.
JOHNSON.
428 KING RICHARD III. ACT ir.
DOR. Be of good cheer : Mother, how fares
your grace ?
Q. ELIZ. O Dorset, speak not to me, get thee
gone,
Death and destruction dog thee at the heels ;
Thy mother's name is ominous to children :
If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,
And live with Richmond, from the reach of hell.
Go, hie thee, hie thee, from this slaughter-house,
Lest thou increase the number of the dead ;
And make me die the thrall of Margaret's curse,
Nor mother, wife, 3 nor England's counted queen.
STAN. Full of wise care is this your counsel, ma-
dam :
Take all the swift advantage of the hours ;
You shall have letters from me to my son
In your behalf, to meet you on the way :
Be not ta'en tardy by unwise delay.
DUCH. O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
O my accursed womb, the bed of death ;
A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous! 4
STAN. Come, madam, come ; I in all haste was
sent.
ANNE. And I with all unwillingness will go.
O, would to God, that the inclusive verge
Of golden metal, that must round my brow,
3 Nor mother , tvife, &c.] See p. 311. STEEVENS.
* A cockatrice
Whose unavoided eye -is murderous!'] So, in Romeo and
Juliet :
" the death-darting eye of cockatrice."
The cockatrice is a serpent supposed to originate from a cock's
egg. STEEVENS.
ac. i. KING RICHARD III. 429
Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain ! 5
* Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brain /] She seems to
allude to the ancient mode of punishing a regicide, or any other
egregious criminal, viz. by placing a crown of iron, heated red-
hot, upon his head. See Respublica Sf Status Hungarice, ex
Offic. Elziv. 1634, p. 136. In the tragedy of Hoffman, 1631,
this punishment is also introduced :
" Fix on thy master's head my burning crown."
Again:
" And wear his crown made hot tuithjlamingjire.
" Bring forth the burning crown there."
Again :
" was adjudg'd
" To have his head sear'd with a burning crown."
Thus also, in A. Wyntown's Cronykil, B. VIII. ch. xliiii.
v. 40:
" Til this Jak Bonhowme he mad a crown
" Of a brandreth all red hate
" And set it swa on his hevyd,
" That it fra hym the lyf thare revyd."
Again, in Looke about you, a comedy, 1600:
" Ere on thy head I set a burning crowne,
" Of red hot yron, that shall seare thy braines"
In some of the monkish accounts of a place of future torment,
a burning crown is likewise appropriated to those who deprived
any lawful monarch of his kingdom. STEEVENS.
So Marlowe, in his King Edward II :
" if proud Mortimer do wear this crown,
" Heaven turn it to a blaze of quenchless fire.'*
MALONE.
Marlowe's allusion is to the fatal crown which Creusa received,
as a nuptial gift, from Medea :
" XpucrouV fx,gy a,y.q>} Kg a,r\ xsi{j,svo$ ifXwof ,
" a^aatrrox 1u v&pa, itaptpayou irvgos"
Euripidis Medea, v. 1195. STEEVENS.
John, the son of Vaivode Stephen, having defeated the army
of Hungarian peasants, called Croisadoes, in 1514, caused their
general, " called George, to be stript naked, upon whose head
the executioner set a crown of hot burning iron." Goulart's
Admirable and memorable Histories, 1607. This is the fact to
which Goldsmith alludes:
" Luke's iron crown, and Damien's bed of steel."
Though it was George, and not his brother Luke, who was so
430 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Anointed let me be with deadly venom ;
And die, ere men can say God save the queen!
Q. ELIZ. Go, go, poor soul, I envy not thy
glory ;
To feed my humour, wish thyself no harm.
ANNE. No ! why ? When he, that is my hus-
band now,
Came to me, as I followed Henry's corse ;
When scarce the blood was well wash'd from his
hands,
Which issu'd from my other angel husband,
And that dead saint which then I weeping follow* d$
O, when, I say, I look'd on Richard's face,
This was my wish, Be thou, quoth I, occurs* d,
For making me, so young, so old a widow !
And, when thou wed'st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;
And be thy wife (if any be so mad)
More miserable by the life ofthee,
Than thou hast made me by my dear lord's death I
Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,
Even in so short a space, my woman's heart
Grossly grew captive to his honey words,
And prov'd the subject of mine own soul's curse :
Which ever since hath held mine eyes from rest;
For never yet one hour in his bed 6
Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,
But with his timorous dreams 7 was still awak'd.
punished : but George's would not suit the poet's metre. The
Earl of Atholl, who was executed on account of the murder of
James I. King of Scots, was, previous to his death, " crowned
with a hot iron.'* See Holinshed. RITSON.
6 For never yet one hour in his bed ] Hour is here, as in
many other places, used by Shakspeare as a dissyllable.
MALONE.
7 But with his timorous dreams ] 'Tis recorded by Polydore
sc. i. KING RICHARD III. 431
Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick j
And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.
Q. ELIZ. Poor heart, adieu ; I pity thy com-
plaining.
ANNE. No more than with my soul I mourn for
yours.
DOR. Farewell, thou woful welcomer of glory!
ANNE. Adieu, poor soul, that tak'st thy leave
of it!
DUCH. Go thou to Richmond, and good fortune
guide thee! [To DORSET.
Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend thee !
[To ANNE.
Go thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts possess
thee ! [To Q. ELIZABETH.
I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me !
Eighty odd years 8 of sorrow have I seen,
And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen. 9
Virgil, that Richard was frequently disturbed by terrible dreams :
this is therefore no fiction. JOHNSON.
Perhaps the narratives of Polydore Virgil, like those of Hector
Boethius, are of slight authority. Such at least, respecting the
former of these writers, was the opinion of Owen, our epigram-
matist:
" Virgilii duo sunt ; alter Maro ; tu, Polydore,
" Alter ; tu mendax y ille poeta fuit." STEEVENS.
8 Eighty odd years &c.] Shakspeare has here, I believe,
spoken at random. The present scene is in 1483. Richard,
Duke of York, the husband of this lady, had he been then liv-
ing, would have been but seventy-three years old, and we may
reasonably suppose that his Duchess was younger than he was.
Nor did she go speedily to her grave. She lived till 1495.
MALONE.
9 And each hour's joy wreck'd with a week of teen.] Teen is
sorrow. So, in Romeo and Juliet:
" And yet to my teen be it spoken," &c.
432 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Q. ELIZ. Stay yet ; l look back, with me, unto
the Tower.
Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes,
Whom envy hath immur'd within your walls !
Rough cradle for such little pretty ones !
Rude ragged nurse ! old sullen play-fellow 2
For tender princes, use my babies well !
So foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell. 3
[Exeunt.
Again, in The Return from Parnassus, 1606 :
" Flies have their spleen, each silly ant his teens."
STEEVENS.
So, in The Rape qfLucrece :
" Who buys a minute's mirth, to taail a week ?"
-" Short pleasure, long lament," is one of Ray's proverbial
sentences. MALONE.
1 Stay yet; &c.] This speech is not in the quarto. MALONE.
* Rude ragged nurse ! old sullen play-fellow ] To call the
Tower nurse and play-fellow is very harsh : perhaps part of this
speeqh is addressed to the Tower, and part to the Lieutenant.
JOHNSON;
*
The last line of this speech
So foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell,
E roves that the whole of it is addressed to the Tower, and apo-
)gizes for the absurdity of that address, by attributing it to
sorrow. M. MASON.
3 So foolish sorrow bids your stones farewell.'] Hither the third
Act should be extended, and here it very properly ends with a
pause of action. JOHNSON.
The folio has sorrows. Corrected by Mr. Rowe. MALONE.
sc. ii. KING RICHARD III. 433
SCENE II.
A Room of State in the Palace.
Flourish of Trumpets. RICHARD, as King upon
his Throne; BUCKINGHAM, CATESBY, a Page,
and Others.
K. RICH. Stand all apart. Cousin of Bucking-
ham,
BUCK. My gracious sovereign.
K. RICH. Give me thy hand. Thus high, by thy
advice,
And thy assistance, is king Richard seated :
But shall we wear these glories for a day ?
Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them ?
BUCK. Still live they, and for ever let them last !
K. RICH. Ah, Buckingham, now do I play the
touch, 4
To try if thou be current gold, indeed :
Young Edward lives ; Think now what I would
speak.
BUCK. Say on, my loving lord.
^
4 notv do I play the touch,] To play the touch is to re-
present the touchstone.
So, in the 16th Song of Dray ton's Polyolbion:
" With alabaster, tuch, and porphyry adorn'd."
Again, in the epistle of Mary the French Queen to Charles
Brandon, by Dray ton :
" Before niine eye, like touch, thy shape did prove."
Again, in Spenser's Fairy Queen, B. I. c. iii :
" Though true as touch, though daughter of a king."
STEEVENS.
VOL. XIV. 2 F
434 KING RICHARD III. ACTIV.
K. RICH. Why, Buckingham, I say, I would be
king.
BUCK. Why,soyou are,my thrice-renownedliege.
K.RiCH. Ha! am I king? 'Tisso: but Edward
lives.
BUCK. True, noble prince.
K. RICH. O bitter consequence,
That Edward still should live, true,nobleprince!
Cousin, thou wast not wont to be so dull :
Shall I be plain ? I wish the bastards dead ;
And I would have it suddenly performed.
What say'st thou now ? speak suddenly, be brief.
BUCK. Your grace may do your pleasure.
K. RICH. Tut, tut, thou art all ice, thy kindness
freezes :
Say, have I thy consent, that they shall die ?
BUCK, Give me some breath, some little pause,
dear lord,
Before I positively speak in this :
I will resolve your grace immediately.
[Exit BUCKINGHAM.
GATE. The king is angry ; see, he gnaws his lip. 5
[Aside.
K. RICH. I will converse with iron-witted fools,
[Descends from his Throne.
And unrespective boys ; 6 none are for me,
5 see, he gnaws his lip."] Several of our ancient historians
observe, that this was an accustomed action of Richard, whether
he was pensive or angry. STEEVENS.
6 And unrespective boys;~\ Unrespective is inattentive to con-
sequences, inconsiderate.
So, in Daniel's Cleopatra, 1599:
" When dissolute impiety possess'd
" The nnrespeetive naiads of prince and people."
STEEVEKS.
K. 11. KING RICHARD III. 435
That look into me with considerate eyes ;
High-reaching Buckingham grows circumspect.
Boy,
PAGE. My lord.
K. RrcH. Know'st thou not any, whom corrupt-
ing gold
Would tempt unto a close exploit 7 of death ?
PAGE. I know a discontented gentleman,
Whose humble means match not his haughty mind:
Gold were as good as twenty orators,
And will, no doubt, tempt him to any thing.
K. RICH. What is his name ?
PAGE. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel.
K. RICH. I partly know the man ; Go, call him
hither, boy. \JExit Page.
The deep-revolving witty 8 Buckingham
No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels :
Hath he so long held out with me untir'd,
And stops he now for breath ? well, be it so.
Unrespective is, devoid of cautious and prudential considera-
tion. MALONE.
See note on the following passage in the Rape ofLucrece, edit.
1790, p. 102:
** Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age." STEE YENS.
7 close exploit ] Is secret act. JOHNSON.
8 witty ] In this place signifies judicious or cunning.
A mt was not at this time employed to signify a man of fancy,
but was used for ivisdom or judgment. So, in Daniel's CleO'
patra, 1599:
" Although unwise to live, had wit to die."
Again, in one of Ben Jonson's Masques :
" And at her feet do witty serpents move.'* STKEVBNS.
2 F 2
436 KING RICHARD III. ACT ur.
Enter STANLEY.
How now, lord Stanley ? what's the news ?
STAN. Know, my loving lord,'
The marquis Dorset, as I hear, is fled
To Richmond, in the parts where he abides.
K. RICH. Come hither, Catesby : rumour it abroad,
That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick ;
I will take order for her keeping close. 1
Inquire me out some mean-born gentleman,
Whom Iwill marry straight toClarence* daughter :
The boy is foolish, 2 and I fear not him.
Look, how thou dream'st! I say again, give out,
9 Know, my loving lord,'} Surely we should adopt Sir Thomas
Hanmer's regulation, and give the passage thus :
How noiv, lord Stanley ? what's the nevus ?
My lord, &c.
Are the omitted words know and loving, of so much value,
that measure must continue to be sacrificed for their preservation?
STEEVENS.
1 / will take order for her keeping close.] i. e. I will take
measures that shall oblige her to keep close. So, in Marlowe's
and Nashe's Dido, 1594, Jupiter says :
" I will take order for that presently."
The same phrase occurs in Othello, Act V. sc. ii. STEEVENS.
* The boy is foolish,'] Shakspeare has here perhaps anticipated
the folty of his youth. He was, at this time, I believe, about
ten years old, arid we are not told by any historian that he had
then exhibited any symptoms of folly. Being confined by King
Henry VII. immediately after the battle of Bosworth, and his
education being consequently entirely neglected, he is described
by Polydore Virgil at the time of his death (in 1499) as an idiot;
and his account (which was copied by Hall and Holinshed,) was
certainly a sufficient authority for Shakspeare's representation :
" Edouardus Varvici comes in carcere ab incunabulis extra homi-
num ferarumque conspectum nutritus, qui gallinam ab ansere non
facile internosceret, cum nullo suo delicto suppliciura quaererc
posset, alieno ad id tractus est." MALONE.
ac. IT. KING RICHARD IIL 437
That Anne my queen is sick, and like to die :
About it ; for it stands me much upon, 3
To stop all hopes, whose growth may damage me.
[Exit CATESBY.
I must be married to my brother's daughter,
Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass :
Murder her brothers, and then marry her !
Uncertain way of gain ! But I am in
So far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin. 4
Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.
Re-enter Page, with TYRREL.
Is thy name Tyrrel ? 5
TYR. James Tyrrel, and your most obedient sub-
ject.
3 it stands me much upon,~\ i. e. it is of the utmost con-
sequence to my designs. The same phrase occurs in The Comedy
of Errors :
* l Consider how it stands upon my credit."
See also Antony and Cleopatra, Act II. sc. i. STEEVENS.
4 But I am in
So far in blood, that sin ivill pluck on sin."] The same re-
flections occur in Macbeth :
" 1 am in blood
" Step'd in so far, that should I wade no more,
" Returning were as tedious," &c.
Again :
" Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill."
STEEVENS.
* Is thy name Tyrrel?~] It seems, that a late editor (who
boasts much of his fidelity in " marking the places of action,
both general and particular, and supplying scenical directions,")
throughout this scene, has left King Richard on his throne;
whereas he might have learnt from the following passage in Sir
John Harrington's Metamorphosis of Ajax, 1596, that the mo-
narch appeared, during the present interview with Tyrrel, on an
elevation of much less dignity. " The best part (says Sir John)
of our chronicles, in all men's opinions, is that of Richard the
43S KING RICHARD III. ACT IT.
K. RICH. Art thou, indeed ?
TYR. Prove me, my gracious lord,
K, RICH. Dar'st thou resolve to kill a friend of
mine ?
TYR. Please you ; but I had rather kill two ene-
mies.
K. RICH. Why, then thou hast it ; two deep ene-
mies,
Foes to my rest, and my sweet sleep's disturbers,
Are they that I would have thee deal upon : 6
Tyrrel, I mean those bastards in the Tower.
TYR. Let me have open means to come to them,
And soon I'll rid you from the fear of them.
K.RiCH. Thou sing'st sweet musick. Hark, come
hither, Tyrrel j
third, written as I have heard by Moorton, but as most suppose,
by that worthy and incorrupt magistrate Sir Thomas More, some-
time lord chancellor of England, where it is said, how the king
was devising with Teril to have his nephews privily murdred ;
and it is added, he tx>as then sitting on a draught ; a fit carpet
for such a counsel/* See likewise Holinshed, Vol. II. p. 735.
STEEVENTS.
For Richard's mode of proceeding on this occasion, there are,
it appears, many ancient and dignified precedents: " Maximilian
the emperor," says old Montaigne, " with other customes of his
had this one, most contrary to other princes, (who, to dispatch
their weightiest affaires, make often their c e s 1 their regal
throne or council-chamber, ) which was," &c. Florio's translation,
1603. MALONE.
deal upon ;~\ So, in Have ivith you to Saffron Walden,
<&c. by Nashe, 1596: " At Wolfe's he's billeted, sweating and
dealing upon it most intentively." See also my note on Antony
and Cleopatra, Act III. sc. ix. STEEVENS,
deal upon .] i. e. act upon. We should norr say deal
szr. //. KING RICHARD III. 439
Go, by this token : Rise, and lend thine ear :
[ Whispers.
There is no more but so : Say, it is done,
And I will love thee, and prefer thee for it.
TYR. I will despatch it straight, [Exit.
Re-enter BUCKINGHAM.
BUCK. My lord, I have considered in my mind
The late demand that you did sound me in.
K. RICH. Well, let that rest. Dorset is fled to
Richmond.
BUCK. I hear the news, my lord.
K. RICH. Stanley, he is your wife's son : Well,
look to it.
BUCK. My lord, I claim the gift, my due by pror
mise,
For which your honour and your faith is pawn'd;
The earldom of Hereford, 7 and the moveables,
7 The earldom of Hereford, &c.] Thomas Duke of Gloster,
the fifth son of Edward the Third, married one of the daughters
and coheirs of Humphrey de Bohun Earl of Hereford. The
Duke of Gloster's nephew, Henry Earl of Derby, (the eldest
son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the fourth son of Ed-
ward the Third,) who was afterwards King Henry IV. married
the other daughter of the Earl of Hereford. The moiety of the
Hereford estate, which had been possessed by that King, was
seized on by Edward IV. as legally devolved to the crown, on
its being transferred from the house of Lancaster to that of York.
Henry Stafford Duke of Buckingham was lineally descended
from Thomas Duke of Gloster, his only daughter Anne having
married Edmund Earl of Stafford, and Henry being the jgreat
grandson of Edmund and Anne. In this right he and his an-
cestors had possessed one half of the Hereford estate ; and he
claimed and actually obtained from Richard III. after he usurped
the throne, the restitution of the other half, which had been
seized on by Edward; and also the earldom of Hereford, and the
440 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Which you have promised I shall possess.
K. RICH. Stanley, look to your wife j if she con-
vey
Letters to Richmond, you shall answer it.
BUCK. What says your highness to my just re-
quest ?
K. RICH. I do remember me, Henry the sixth
Did prophecy, that Richmond should be king,
When Richmond was a little peevish boy.
A king! perhaps 8
BUCK. My lord,
K. RICH. How chance, the prophet could not at
that time,
Have told me, I being by, 9 that I should kill him?
office of Constable of England, which had long been annexed by
inheritance to that earldom. See Dugdale's Baronage, Vol. I.
p. 168 169. Many of our historians, however, ascribe the
breach between him and Richard to Richard's refusing to restore
the moiety of the Hereford estate ; and Shakspeare has followed
them.
Thomas Duke of Gloster was created Earl of Hereford in 1386,
by King Richard II. on which ground the Duke of Buckingham
had some pretensions to claim a new grant of the title ; but with
respect to the moiety of the estate, he had not a shadow of right
to it j for supposing that it devolved to Edward IV. with the
crown, it became, after the murder of his sons, the joint pro-
perty of his daughters. If it did not devolve to King Edward IV.
it belonged to the right heirs of King Henry IV. MALONE.
8 A king! ^perhaps ] From hence to the words, Thou
troublest me, I am not in the vein have been left out ever since
the first editions ; but I like them well enough to replace them.
POPE.
The allusions to the plays of Henry VI. are no weak proofs of
the authenticity of these disputed pieces. JOHNSON.
These allusions, I trust, have been sufficiently accounted for in
the Dissertation annexed to the preceding play. MALONE.
9 / being by,~\ The Duke of Gloster was not by when
sc. ii. KING RICHARD III. 441
BUCK. My lord, your promise for the earldom,
K. RICH. Richmond! When last I was at Exeter,
The mayor in courtesy show'd me the castle,
And call'd it Rouge-mont : l at which name, I
started ;
Because a bard of Ireland told me once,
I should not live long after I saw Richmond.
BUCK. My lord,
K. RICH. Ay, what's o'clock ?
BUCK. I am thus bold
To put your grace in mind of what you promis'd
me.
K. RICH. Well, but what is't o'clock ?
BUCK. Upon the stroke
Often.
K. RICH. Well, let it strike. 2
BUCK. Why, let it strike ?
K.RiCH. Because that, like a Jack, 3 thou keep'st
the stroke
Henry uttered the prophecy. See p. 158. Our author seldom
took the trouble to turn to the plays to which he referred.
MALONE.
1 Rouge-mont:'] Hooker, who wrote in Queen Eliza-
beth's time, in his description of Exeter mentions this as a
" very old and antient castle, named Rugemont ; that is to say,
the Red Hill, taking that name of the red soil or earth where-
upon it is situated." It was first built, he adds, as some think,
by Julius Caesar, but rather, and in truth, by the Romans after
him. REED.
8 Well, let it strike.'] This seems to have been a proverbial
sentence. So, in Pierce's Supererogation, &c. by Gabriel Har-
vey, 4to. 1593 : " Let the clock strike: I have lost more howers,
and lose nothing if I find equity." MALONE.
3 Because that, like a Jack, &c.] An image, like those at St.
Dunstan's church in Fleet Street, and at the market-houses at
several towns in this kingdom, was usually called a Jack of the
KING RICHARD III. ACTIT.
Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.
I am not in the giving vein to-day.
clock-house. See Cowley's Discourse on the Government of Oliver
Cromwell. [Vol. II. p. 650, edit. 1710.] Richard resembles
Buckingham to one of those automatons, and bids him not sus-
pend the stroke on the clock-bell, but strike, that the hour may
be past, and himself be at liberty to pursue his meditations.
SIR J. HAWKINS.
So, in The Fleire, a comedy, 1610 : " their tongues are, like
Jack 6* the clock, still in labour."
Again, in The Coxcomb, by Beaumont and Fletcher :
" Is this your Jack o' the clock-house ?
" Will you strike, sir ?"
Again, in a pamphlet by Deckar, called the Guls Hornbook,
1609 : " but howsoever, if Powles Jacks be once up with their
elbowes, and quarrelling to strike eleven, as soon as ever the
clock has parted them, and ended the fray with his hammer, let
not the duke's gallery conteyne you any longer."
Perhaps these figures are called Jacks, because the engines of
that name which turn the spit were anciently ornamented with,
such a puppet. In The Gentleman Usher, a comedy, by Chap-
man, 1606, they are alluding to a roasting Jack, and a man says:
" as in that quaint engine you have seen
" A little man in shreds stand at the winder,
" And seem to put all things in act about him,
" Lifting and pulling with a mighty stir,
" Yet adds no force to it, nor nothing does."
In Lantern and Candle-light, or The Bellman's Second Night-
ivalk, &c. by Deckar, is a passage " of a new and cunning
drawing of money from gentlemen," which may tend to a some-
what different explanation of the word strike: " There is ano-
ther fraternitie of wandring pilgrims, who merrily call themselves
Jackes of the clock-house. The jacke of a clock-house goes upon
screws, and his office is to do nothing but strike: so does this
noise (for they walke up and down like fidters) travaile with
motions, and whatever their motions get them, is called striking."
STEEVENS.
A Jack with such a figure as Chapman hath described, was for
many years exhibited, as a sign, at the door of a White-Smith'*
shop in the narrowest part of the Strand. HENLEY.
These automatons were called Jacks of the clock-house, be-
cause Jack in our author's time was a common appellation for a
mean, contemptible fellow, employed by others in servile offices.
See Vol. VI. p. 18, n. 8. M ALONE.
ac. ni. KING RICHARD III. 443
BUCK. Why, then resolve me whe'r you will, or
no.
K. RICH. Thou troublest me ; I am not in the
vein.
\_JLxeunt King RICHARD and Train.
BUCK. And is it thus ? repays he my deep service
With such contempt ? made I him king for this ?
O, let me think on Hastings ; and be gone
To Brecknock, 4 while my fearful head is on.
{Exit.
SCENE III.
The same.
Enter TTRREL.
TYR. The tyrannous and bloody act is done ;
The most arch deed of piteous massacre,
That ever yet this land was guilty of.
Dighton, and Forrest, whom I did suborn
To do this piece of ruthless butchery,
Albeit they were flesh'd villains, bloody dogs,
Melting with tenderness and mfld compassion,
Wept like two children, in their death's sad story.
O thus, quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes,
Xhus, thus, quoth Forrest, girdfing one another
Within their alabaster innocent arms:
Their lips were Jour red rvses on a stalk,
Which, in their summer beauty, kiss'd each other.
4 To Brecknock,'] To the Castle of Brecknock in Wades, where
the Duke of Buckingham's estate lay. MAJUMTE.
444 .KING RICHARD III. ACT jr.
A book of prayers on their pillow lay; 5
Which once, quoth Forrest, almost chang'dmy mind;
But, O, the devil- there the villain stopp'd ;
When Dighton thus told on, we smothered
The most replenished sweet work of nature,
That, from the prime creation, e'er she framed.
Hence both are gone with conscience and remorse,
They could not speak ; and so I left them both,
To bear this tidings to the bloody king.
Enter King RICHARD.
And here he comes : All health, my sovereign
lord!
K. RICH. Kind Tyrrel ! am I happy in thy news ?
TYR. If to have done the thing you gave in charge
Beget your happiness, be happy then,
For it is done.
K. RICH. But didst thou see them dead ?
TYR. I did, my lord.
K. RICH. And buried, gentle Tyrrel ?
* thus, quoth Dighton, lay the gentle babes,
Thus, thus, quoth Forrest, girdling one another
Within their alabaster innocent arms :
A book of prayers on their pilloiu lay ;] These circumstances
were probably adopted from the old song of The most cruel Murther
of Edward V. &c. in The Golden Garland of Princely Delight.
The thirteenth edition of this collection was published in 1690:
" When these sweet children thus were laid in bed,
" And to the Lord their hearty prayers had said,
" Sweet slumbring sleep then closing up their eyes,
" Each folded in the other's arms then lies."
It must be owned, however, that there is nothing to assist us
in ascertaining the exact date of this and many other of our an-
cient ballads. STEEVENS.
sc. in. KING RICHARD III. 445
TYR. The chaplain of the Tower hath buried
them ;
But where, to say the truth, I do not know.
K. RICH. Come to me, Tyrrel, soon, at after
supper,
When thou shalt tell the process of their death.
Mean time, but think how I may do thee good,
And be inheritor of thy desire.
Farewell, till then.
TYR, I humbly take my leave. [Exit.
K. RICH. The son of Clarence have I pen'd
up close ; 6 (
His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage j 7
The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham's bosom,
And Anne my wife hath bid the world good night.
Now, for I know the Bretagne Richmond 8 aims
The son of Clarence have I pen'd up close ;] In Sheriff
Hutton Castle, Yorkshire ; where he remained till the coming
of Henry VII. who immediately after the battle of Bosworth sent
him to the Tower, and some few years after, most treacherously
and barbarously put him to death ; being, from a total want of
education and commerce with mankind, so ignorant, that he
could not, according to Hall, discern a goose from a capon.
With this unfortunate young nobleman ended the male line of
the illustrious house of Plantagenet. RITSON.
7 His daughter meanly have I match'd in marriage;"] To Sir
Richard Pole, Knt. This lady, at seventy years of age, with-
out any legal process, and for no crime but her relation to the
crown, was beheaded in the Tower by that sanguinary tyrant
Henry VIII. Her son, Lord Montague, had been put to death
a few years before, in the same manner, and for the same crime ;
and the famous Cardinal Pole, another of her children, only
escaped the fate of his mother and brother, by keeping out of
the butcher's reach. RITSON.
s the Bretagne Richmond ] He thus denominates Rich-
mond, because after the battle of Tewksbury he had taken re-
fuge in the court of Francis II. Duke of Bretagne, where by the
procurement of King Edward IV. he was kept a long time in a
kind of honourable custody. See note on sc. iv. MALOXE.
446
At young Elizabeth, my brother's daughter,
And, by that knot, looks proudly on the crown,
To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.
CATS. My lord,-
K. RICH. Good news or bad, that thou com'st
in so bluntly ?
CATS. Bad news, my lord : Morton is fled to
Richmond ;
And Buckingham, back'd with the hardy Welsh-
men,
Is in the field, and still his power encreaseth.
K. RICH. Ely with Richmond troubles me more
near,
Than Buckingham and his rash-levied strength.
Come, I have learn'd, that fearful commenting
Is leaden servitor 9 to dull delay ;
Delay leads impotent and snail-pac'd beggary :
Then fiery expedition 1 be my wing,
Jove's Mercury, and herald for a king !
Go, muster men : My counsel is my shield ;
We must be brief, when traitors brave the field.
\Exeunt.
9 -fearful commenting^
Is leaden servitor ] Timorous thought and cautious dis-
quisition are the dull attendants on delay. JOHNSON.
1 -fary expedition ] So, in Hamlet t
" must send thee hence
" Withjiery quickness." STBEVENS.
sc. ir. KING RICHARD III. 447
SCENE IV.
The same. Before the Palace.
Enter Queen MARGARET.
Q. MAR. So, now prosperity begins to mellow, 2
And drop into the rotten mouth of death.
Here in these confines slily have I lurk'd,
To watch the waning of mine enemies.
A dire induction 3 am I witness to,
And will to France ; hoping, the consequence
Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.
Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret ! who come*
here ?
Enter Queen ELIZABETH and the Duchess O/'YORK.
Q. ELIZ. Ah, my poor princes ! ah, my tender
babes !
My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets !
If yet your gentle souls fly in the air,
And be not fix'd in doom perpetual,
Hover about me with your airy wings,
And hear your mother's lamentation !
2 begins to mellow, &c.] The same thought occurs in
Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1602 :
** now is his fate grown melloio,
" Instant to fall into the rotten jaws
" Of chap-fall'n death." STEEVENS.
3 dire induction ] Induction is preface, introduction,
first part. It is so used by Sackville in our author's time.
JOHNSOK.
448 KING RICHARD III. ACT ir.
Q. MAR. Hover about her ; say, that right for
right 4
Hath dimm'd your infant morn to aged night.
DUCH. So many miseries have craz'd my voice,
That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute,
Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead ?
Q. MAR. Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet,
Edward for Edward pays a dying debt.
Q. ELIZ. Wilt thou, O God, fly from such gen-
tle lambs,
And throw them in the entrails of the wolf?
When didst thou sleep, 5 when such a deed was done ?
4 say, that right for right ] This is one of those con-
ceits which our author may be suspected of loving better than
propriety. Right for right injustice answering to the claims of
justice. So, in this play :
" That forehead
" Where should be branded, if that right were right ."
JOHNSON.
In the third scene of the first Act, Margaret was reproached
with the murder of young Rutland, and the death of her husband
and son were imputed to the divine vengeance roused by that
wicked act : " So just is God to right the innocent." Marga-
ret now perhaps means to say, The right of me, an injured
mother, whose son was slain at Tewksbury, has now operated
as powerfully as that right which the death of Rutland gave you
to divine justice, and has destroyed your children in their turn.
MALONE.
5 When didst thou sleep, &c.] That is, When, before the pre-
sent occasion, didst thou ever sleep during the commission of
such an action ? Thus the only authentick copies now extant ;
the quarto, 1598, and the first folio. The editor of the second
folio changed When to Why, which has been adopted by all the
subsequent editors ; though Margaret's answer evidently refers
to the word found in the original copy. MALONE.
I have admitted this reading, though I am not quite certain of
its authenticity. The reply of Margaret might have been de-
signed as an interrogatory echo to the last words of the Queen.
STEEVENS.
sc. ir+ KING RICHARD III, 449
Q. MAR. When holy Harry died, and my sweet
son.
DUCH. Dead life, blind sight, poor mortal-living
ghost,
Woe's scene, world's shame, grave's due by life
usurp' d,
Brief abstract and record of tedious days,
Rest thy unrest on England's lawful earth,
[Sitting down.
Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood !
Q. ELIZ. Ah, that thou would'st as soon afford a
grave,
As thou canst yield a melancholy seat ;
Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here!
Ah, who hath any cause to mourn, but we ?
[Sitting down by her.
Q. MAR. If ancient sorrow be most reverent,
Give mine the benefit of seniory, 6
And let my griefs frown on the upper hand. 7
This appears to be the true reading, as Margaret's next speech
is an answer to that question that was not addressed to her.
M. MASON.
' seniory t ] For seniority. JOHNSON.
So in Stowe's Chronicle, edit. 1615, p. 149:
" the son of Edmund, the son of Edward the seignior, the
son of Alured," &c. STEEVENS.
The word in the quarto is signorie, in the folio signeury, and
it has been printed signiory in the late editions : but as in general
modern spelling has been adopted, I know not why the ancient
mode should be adhered to in this particular instance. In The
Comedy of Errors, Act I. sc. the last, senior has been properly
printed by all the modern editors, though the words in the old
copy are " We'll draw cuts for the signior." The substantive
in the text is evidently formed by our author from hence.
MALONE.
7 And let my griefs frown on the upper hand."] So, in our au-
thor's Rape of Lucrece .-
VOL. XIV. 2 G
450 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
If sorrow can admit society,
[Sitting doim with them.
Tell o'er your woes again by viewing mine :
I had an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him ;
I had a husband, 8 till a Richard kilPd him :
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard kill'd him ;
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard kilFd him.
DUCH. I had a Richard too, and thou didst kill
him ;
I had a Rutland too, thou holp'st to kill him.
Q. MAR. Thou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard
kffl'd him.
From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept
A hell-hound, that doth hunt us all to death :
That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
To worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood ;
That foul defacer of God's handy-work ;
That excellent grand tyrant of the earth,
That reigns 9 in galled eyes of weeping souls,
Thy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.
O upright, just, and true-disposing God,
' By this starts Collatine as from a dream,
" And bids Lucretius give his sorrows place."
MALONE,
* I had a husband,"] The quarto has a. Richard, which the
editor of the folio corrected by substituting a husband. I be-
lieve Shakspeare wrote / had a Henry. In a subsequent speech
in this scene, p. 472, 1. 2 : " my brother" being printed in the
quarto by mistake, instead of " thy brother, 5 * the editor of the
folio corrected the wrong word, and printed my husband.
MALONE.
9 That reigns &c.~] This and the preceding line have been
omitted by afl the modern editors, Rowe excepted. STEEVENS.
These two lines are found only in the folio, and are there
transposed. They were rightly arranged by Mr. Steevens.
MALONE*
to. iv. KING RICHARD III. 451
How do I thank thee, that this carnal ' cur
Preys on the issue of his mother's body,
And makes her pew-fellow 2 with others' moan !
DUCH. O, Harry's wife, triumph not in my
woes;
God witness with me, I have wept for thine.
Q. MAR. Bear with me ; I am hungry for re-
venge,
And now I cloy me with beholding it.
Thy Edward he is dead, that kill'd my Edward ;
Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward ;
Young York he is but boot, 3 because both they
Match not the high perfection of my loss.
1 carnal ] This word, in the present instance, may
signify carnivorous, though in Hamlet it is used for slaughterous :
" Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts." STEEVENS.
8 And makes her pew-fellow ] Pew-felloe seems to be com-
panion. We have now a new phrase, nearly equivalent, by
which we say of persons in the same difficulties, that they are in
the same box. JOHNSON.
Pew-fellow is a word yet in use. SIR J. HAWKINS.
I find this compound word in Northward Hoe, a comedy, by
Decker and Webster, 1607 : " He would make him puefettoio
with a lord's steward at least.'*
Again, in Westward-Hoe, by the same authors, 1606 :
" being both my scholars, and your honest puff"
fellows."
I remember to have seen in ancient Flemish prints represent-
ing Schools, certain inclosures holding different classes of boys,
who, probably, from this circumstance, were styled pew-fellows.
In our places of worship perhaps pews in general are modern
conveniences, compared with the age of the buildings that con-
tain them. Our hardy ancestors chiefly sat on open benches,
such are still remaining in the Pit at Great Saint Mary's, Cam-
bridge. STEEVENS.
3 Young York he is but boot,] Boot is that which is thrown in
to mend a purchase. JOHNSON.
2 G 2
452 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Thy Clarence he is dead, that stabb'd my Edward;
And the beholders of this tragick play,
The adulterate Hastings, 4 Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,
Untimely smothered in their dusky graves.
Richard yet lives, hell's black intelligencer ;
Only reserved their factor, to buy souls,
And send them thither : But at hand, at hand,
Ensues his piteous and unpitied end :
Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray, 5
To have him suddenly convey* d from hence :
Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,
That I may live to say, The dog is dead !
Q. ELIZ. O, thou didst prophecy, the time would
come,
That I should wish for thee to help me curse
That bottled spider, that foul bunch-back'd toad.
Q. MAR. I call'd thee then, vain flourish of my
fortune ;
I call'd thee then, poor shadow, painted queen ;
The presentation of but what I was,
4 The adulterate Hastings,"] I believe Shakspeare wrote :
The adulterer Hastings, . WARBURTON.
Adulterate is right. We say metals are adulterate; and adul-
terate sometimes means the same as adulterer. In either sense,
on this occasion, the epithet will suit. Hastings was adulterate,
as Margaret has tried his friendship and found it faithless ; he
was an adulterer, as he cohabited with Jane Shore during the
life of her husband. So, the Ghost in Hamlet, speaking of the
King, says :
" " that incestuous, that adulterate beast."
STEEVENS.
3 Earth gapes t hell burns, Jiends roar, saints pray,"] This
imperfect line is not injudiciously completed by some former
editor :
Earth gapes, hell burns,Jiends roar for him ; saints pray,
To have &c. STEEVENS.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 453
The flattering index of a direful pageant, 6
One heav'd a high, to be hurl'd down below :
A mother only mock'd with two fair babes ;
A dream of what thou wast ; a garish flag,
To be the aim of every dangerous shot ; 7
A sign of dignity, a breath, a bubble ;
A queen in jest, only to fill the scene.
Where is thy husband now? where be thy brothers ?
Where be thy two sons ? wherein dost thou joy ?
Who sues, and kneels, and says God save the
queen ?
Where be the bending peers that flatter J d thee ? 8
Where be the thronging troops that followed thee?
Decline all this, 9 and see what now thou art.
For happy wife, a most distressed widow ,
For joyful mother, one that wails the name ;
For one being sued to, one that humbly sues ;
The Jlattcring index of a direful pageant,] Pageants are
dumb shows, and the poet meant to allude to one of these, the
index of which promised a happier conclusion. The pageants
then displayed on publick occasions were generally preceded by a
brief account of the order in which the characters were to walk.
These indexes were distributed among the spectators, that they
might understand the meaning of such allegorical stuff as was
usually exhibited. The index of every book was anciently placed
before the beginning of it. STEEVENS.
7 a garish flag,
To be the aim of every dangerous shot;"] Alluding to the
dangerous situation of those persons to whose care the standards
of armies were entrusted. STEEVENS.
8 Where be the bending peers that flatter* d thee f] Mr. Rowe
has transferred this question to Alicia in Jane Shore:
" where is the king
" And all the smiling cringing train of courtiers,
" That bent the knee before thee?" STEEVENS.
9 Decline all this,"] i. e. run through all this from first to last.
So, in Troilus and Cressida: " I'll decline the whole question."
This phrase the poet borrowed from his grammar. MALONE.
4.54. KING RICHARD III. ACT ir*
For queen, a very caitiff crown' d with care :
For one that scorn'd at me, now scorn' d of me ;
For one being fear'd of all, now fearing one ;
For one commanding all, obey'd of none.
Thus hath the course of justice wheel'd about, 1
And left thee but a very prey to time ;
Having no more but thought of what thou wert,
To torture thee the more, being what thou art.
Thou didst usurp my place, And dost thou not
Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow ?
Now thy proud neck bears half my burden'd yoke ;
From which even here I slip my wearied head,
And leave the burden of it all on thee.
Farewell, York's wife, and queen of sad mis-
chance,
These English woes shall make me smile in France.
Q.ELiz.O thou well skill'd in curses, stay awhile,
And teach me how to curse mine enemies.
Q. MAR. Forbear to sleep the night, and fast 2
the day ;
Compare dead happiness with living woe ;
Think that thy babes were fairer 3 than they were,
And he, that slew them, fouler than he is :
Bettering thy loss makes the bad-causer worse j*
Revolving this will teach thee how to curse.
1 -, -wheel' d about,"] Thus the quartos. The folio tvhirl'd
about. STEEVENS.
* Forbear to sleep and fast ] Fast has no connection with
the preceding wordjbrbear ; the meaning being, Sleep not at
night, and fast during the day. The quarto reads to sleep the
nightSy and fast the days. MALONE.
3 laere fairer } So the quarto. The folio reads
sweeter. MALONE.
4 Bettering thy loss makes the bad-causer worse;] We must
either read this line thus :
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 455
Q. ELIZ. My words are dull, O, quicken them
with thine !
Q. MAR. Thy woes will make them sharp, and
pierce like mine.
\J&xit Q. MARGARET.
DUCH. Why should calamity be full of words ?
Q. ELIZ. Windy attorneys to their client woes, 5
Airy succeeders of intestate joys, 6
Poor breathing orators of miseries !
Let them have scope : though what they do impart
Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart. 7
Bettering thy loss, make the bad-causer worse;
which I believe to be the true reading, or include it in a paren-
thesis. M. MASON.
' Duch. Why should calamity be full of words?
Q. Eliz. Windy attorneys to their client woes,] So, in our
author's Venus and Adonis :
" So of concealed sorrow may be said :
" Free vent of words love's fire doth assuage ;
" But when the heart's attorney once is mute,
" The client breaks as desperate of his suit."
The quarto reads your client woes. The folio their clients
woes. MALONE.
6 Airy succeeders of intestate joys,~\ As I cannot understand
the reading of the folio intestine, I have adopted another from
the quarto in 1597 :
Airy succeeders of intestate joys :
i. e. words, tun'd to complaints, succeed joys that are dead ; and
unbequeathed to them, to whom they should properly descend.
THEOBALD.
The metaphor is extremely harsh. The joys already possessed
being all consumed and passed away, are supposed to have died
intestate, that is, to have made no will, having nothing to be-
queath ; and more verbal complaints are their successors, but
inherit nothing but misery. MALONE.
7 though what they do impart
Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.'} So, in Mao
kth ,-
456 KING RICHARD III, ACT ir,
DUCH. If so, then be not tongue-ty'd: go with me,
And in the breath of bitter words let's smother
My damned son, that thy two sweet sons sniother'd,
[Drum, within,
I hear his drum* be copious in exclaims.
JZnter King RICHARD, and his Train, marching.
K. RICH. Who intercepts me in my expedition ?
DUCH. O, she, that might have intercepted thee,
By strangling thee in her accursed womb,
From all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done,
Q.ELiz. Hid'st thou that forehead with a golden
crown,
Where should be branded, if that right were right,
The slaughter of the prince that ow'd that crown, 8
And the dire death of my poor sons, and brothers?
Tell me, thou villain-slave, where are my children?
DUCH. Thou toad, thou toad, where is thy bro-
ther Clarence ?
And little Ned Plantagenet, his son ?
Q. ELIZ. Where is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan,
Grey ?
DUCH. Where is kind Hastings ?
K. RICH. A flourish, trumpets ! strike alarum,
drums !
" Give sorrow words ; the grief that does not speak,
" Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break."
The quarto reads Help not at all, . MALONE.
8 that ow'd that crown,"] i. e. that possessed it. So, in
King John :
" Which o*ve the crown that thou o'ermasterest.**
STEEVENS,
gc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 457
Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale women
Rail on the Lord's anointed : Strike, I say.
[Flourish. Alarums.
Either be patient, and entreat me fair,
Or with the clamorous report of war
Thus will I drown your exclamations.
DUCH. Art thou my son ?
K. RICH. Ay ; I thank God, my father, and your-
self.
DUCH. Then patiently hear my impatience.
K. RICH. Madam, I have a touch of your con-
dition, 9
That cannot brook the accent of reproof.
DUCH. O, let me speak.
K. RICH. Do, then ; but I'll not hear.
DUCH. I will be mild and gentle in my words.
K. RICH. And brief, good mother ; for I am in
haste.
DUCH. Art thou so hasty ? I have staid for thee,
God knows, in torment and in agony.
K. RICH. And came I not at last to comfort you?
DUCH. No, by the holy rood, thou know'st it
well,
Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell.
A grievous burden was thy birth to me j
9 a touch of your condition,] A spice or particle of your
temper or disposition. JOHNSON.
So, in Chapman's translation of the 24th Iliad :
" his cold blood embrac'd a fiery touch
" Of anger," &c.
Again, in the thirteenth Iliad :
" if any touch appear
" Of glory in thee : " STEEVENS.
458 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Tetchy 1 and wayward was thy infancy;
Thy school-days, frightful, desperate, wild, and
furious ;
Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold, and ventu-
rous;
Thy age confirm' d, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody,
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred :
What comfortable hour canst thou name,
That ever grac'd me 2 in thy company ?
K. RICH. 'Faith, none, but Humphrey Hour, 3
that call'd your grace
1 Tetchy ] Is touchy, peevish, fretful, ill-temper'd.
RITSON.
So, in Romeo and Juliet :
" To see it tetchy, and fall out with the dug ."
STEEVENS.
* That ever grac'd me ] To grace seems here to mean the
same as to bless, to make happy. So, gracious is kind, and graces
are favours. JOHNSON.
We find the same expression in Macbeth ;
" Please it your highness
" To grace us with your royal company.'* STEEVENS.
3 Humphrey Hour,'] This may probably be an allusion
to some affair of gallantry of which the Duchess had been sus-
pected. I cannot find the name in Holinshed. Surely the poet's
fondness for a quibble has not induced him at once to personify
and christen that hour of the day which summon'd his mother
to breakfast.
So, in The Wit of a Woman, 1604< : " Gentlemen, time makes
us brief: our old mistress, Houre, is at hand."
Shakspeare might indeed by this strange phrase ( Humphrey
Hour) have designed to mark the hour at which the good
Duchess was as hungry as the followers of Duke Humphrey.
The common cant phrase of dining tvith Duke Humphrey, I
have never yet heard satisfactorily explained. It appears, how-
ever, from a satirical pamphlet called The Guts Horn-booke, 1609,
written by T. Deckar, that in the ancient church of St. Paul,
one of the aisles was called Duke Humphrey's Walk; in which
those who had no means of procuring a dinner, affected to loiter.
Deckar concludes his fourth chapter thus : " By this, I imagine
you have walked your bellyful, and thereupon being weary, or
SG. iv. KING RICHARD III. 459
To breakfast once, forth of my company.
If I be so disgracious in your sight,
(which is rather, I beleeve,) being most gentleman-like hungry,
it is fit that as I brought you unto the duke, so (because he fol-
lowes the fashion of great men in keeping no house, and that
therefore you must go seeke your dinner, ) suffer me to take you
by the hand and leade you into an ordinary." The title of
this chapter is, " How a gallant should behave himself in Ponies
Wattes."
Hall, in the 7th Satire, B. III. seems to confirm this inter-
pretation :
" 'Tis Ruffio: Trow'st thou where he din'd to-day?
" In sooth I saw him sit with duke Hwnfray :
" Manie good welcoms, and much gratis cheere,
" Keeps he for everie stragling cavaliere ;
" An open house haunted with greate resort,
" Long service mixt with musicall disport," &c.
Hall's Satires, edit. 1602, p. 60.
See likewise Foure Letters and certain Sonnets, by Gabriel
Harvey, 1592:
" to seeke his dinner in Poules with duke Humphrey: to
licke dishes, to be a beggar."
Again, in The Return of the Knight of the Post, &c.by Nash,
1606 : " in the end comming into Poules, to behold the old
duke and his guests," &c.
Again, in A wonderful, strange and miraculous Prognostica-
tion, for this Year, &c. 1591, by Nash : " sundry fellowes in
their silkes shall be appointed to keepe duke Humfrye company
in Poules, because they know not where to get their dinners
abroad."
If it be objected that duke Humphrey was buried at St. Albans,
let it likewise be remembered that cenotaphs were not uncom-
mon. STEEVENS.
It appears from Stowe's Survey, 1598, that Sir John Beto-
campe, son to Guy, and brother to Thomas, Earls of Warwick,
who died in 1358, had " a faire monument" on the south side of
the body of St. Paul's Church. " He," says Stowe, " is by ig-
norant people misnamed to be Humphrey Duke ofGloster, who
lyeth honourably buried at Saint Albans, twentie miles from
London: And therefore such as merily professe themselues to
serue Duke Humphrey in Powles, are to bee punished here, and
sent to Saint Albons, there to be punished againe, for theyr ab-
sence from theyr maister, as they call him." RITSON.
Humphrey Hour,~\ I believe nothing more than a quibble was
460 KING RICHARD III. ACT-IT.
Let me march on, and not offend you, madam.
Strike up the drum.
DUCH. I pr'ythee, hear me speak.
K. RICH. You speak too bitterly.
DUCH. Hear me a word ;
For I shall never speak to thee again.
K.RiCH. So.
DUCH. Either thou wilt die, by God's just ordi-
nance,
Ere from this war thou turn a conqueror ;
Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish,
And never look upon thy face again.
Therefore, take with thee my most heavy curse ;
Which, in the day of battle, tire thee more,
Than all the complete armour that thou wear'st !
My prayers on the adverse party fight ;
And there the little souls or Edward's children
Whisper the spirits of thine enemies,
And promise them success and victory.
Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end ;
Shame serves thy life, 4 and doth thy death attend.
[Exit.
Q. ELIZ. Though far more cause, yet much less
spirit to curse
Abides in me ; I say amen to her. [Going.
K. RICH. Stay, madam, 5 I must speak a word
with you.
meant. In our poet's twentieth Sonnet we find a similar con-
ceit; a quibble between hues (colours) and Hughes, (formerly
spelt Helves) the person addressed. MALONE.
4 Shame serves thy life,"] To serve is to accompany, servants
being near the persons of their masters. JOHNSON.
* Stay, madam,"] On this dialogue 'tis not necessary to bestow
much criticism, part of it is ridiculous, and the whole improba-
ble. JOHNSON.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 461
Q. ELIZ. I have no more sons of the royal blood,
For thee to murder: for my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens;
And therefore level not to hit their lives.
K. RICH. You have a daughter call'd Elizabeth,
Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.
Q. ELIZ. And must she die for this ? O, let her
live,
And I'll corrupt her manners, stain her beauty j
Slander myself, as false to Edward's bed ;
Throw over her the veil of infamy :
So she may live unscarr'd of bleeding slaughter,
I will confess she was not Edward's daughter.
K. RICH. Wrong not her birth, she is of royal
blood. 6
Q. ELIZ. To save her life, I'll say she is not so.
K. RICH. Her life is safest only in her birth,,
Q. ELIZ. And only in that safety died her bro-
thers.
K. RICH. Lo, at their births 7 good stars were
opposite.
Q. ELIZ. No, to their lives bad friends were
contrary.
I cannot agree with Dr. Johnson's opinion. I see nothing ri-
diculous in any part of this dialogue ; and with respect to pro-
bability, it was not unnatural that Richard, who by his art and
wheedling tongue, had prevailed on Lady Anne to marry him in
her heart's extremest grief, should hope to persuade an ambi-
tious, and, as he thought her, a wicked woman, to consent to his
marriage with her daughter, which would make her a queen,
and aggrandize her family. M. MASON.
6 she is of royal blood."] The folio reads she is a royal
princess. STEEVENS.
7 Lo, at their births ] Perhaps we should read No, at
their births TYRWHITT.
462 KING RICHARD III. ACT ir.
K. RICH. All unavoided 8 is the doom of destiny.
Q. ELIZ. True, when avoided grace makes des-
tiny :
My babes were destin'd to a fairer death,
If grace had bless'd thee with a fairer life.
K. RICH. You speak, as if that I had slain my
cousins.
Q. ELIZ. Cousins, indeed ; and by their uncle
cozen'd
Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.
Whose hands soever lanc'd their tender hearts,
Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction : 9
No doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt,
Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart, 1
To revel in the entrails of my lambs.
But that still use 2 of grief makes wild grief tame,
My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys,
Till that my nails were anchor* d in thine eyes j
And I, in such a desperate bay of death,
8 All unavoided 8fc.~] i. e. unavoidable. So, before :
" Whose unavoided eye is dangerous." MALONE.
9 Thy head, all indirectly, gave direction :] This is a jingle
hi which Shakspeare perhaps found more delight than his read-
ers. So, in Hamlet:
" By indirections find directions out."
The same opposition of words occurs also in King John.
STEEVENS.
. 1 Till it teas uhetted on thy stone-hard heart,~\ This conceit
seems also to have been a great favourite of our author. We
meet with it more than once. So, in King Henry IV. P. II :
" Thou hid'st a thousand daggers m thy thoughts,
" Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,
" To stab," &c.
.Again, in The Merchant of Venice :
" Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,
" Thou mak'st thy knife keen ." STEEVENS.
* still use ] i. e. constant use. So, in K. Richard II:
" A generation of still breeding thoughts." STEEVENS.
v. /r. KING RICHARD III. 463
Like a poor bark, of sails and tackling reft,
Rush all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.
K. RICH. Madam, so thrive I in my enterprize.
And dangerous success of bloody wars,
As I intend more good to you and yours,
Than ever you or yours by me were harm'd !
Q. ELIZ. What good is cover'd with the face of
heaven,
To be discovered, that can do me good ?
K. RICH. The advancement of your children,
gentle lady.
Q. ELIZ. Up to some scaffold, there to lose their
heads ?
K. RICH. No, to the dignity and height of for-
tune,
The high imperial type 3 of this earth's glory.
Q. ELIZ. Flatter my sorrows with report of it ;
Tell me, what state, what dignity, what honour,
Canst thou demise 4 to any child of mine ?
* The high imperial type ] Type is exhibition, show, dis-
play. JOHNSON.
I think it means emblem, one of its usual significations. By
the imperial type of glory, Richard means a crotvn. M. MASON,
The canopy placed over a pulpit is still called by architects a
type. It is, I apprehend, in a similar sense that the word is here
used. HENLEY.
Bullokar, in his Expositor, 1616, defines Type " A figure,
form, or likeness of any thing." Cawdrey, in his Alphabetical
Table, &c. 1604-, calls it " figure, example, or shadowe of any,
thing." The word is used in King Henry VI. P. III. as here : \
' Thy father bears the type of king of Naples."
MALONE.
4 Canst thou demise ] To demise is to grant, from demittere,
to devolve a right from one to another. STEEVENS.
The constant language of leases is, " demised, granted,
and to farm let." But I believe the word is used by no poet but
KING RICHARD III. ACT if,
K.RiCH. Even all I have; ay, and myself and all,
Will I withal endow a child of thine ;
So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drown the sad remembrance of those wrongs, 5
Which, thou supposest, I have done to thee.
Q. ELIZ. Be brief, lest that the process of thy
kindness
Last longer telling than thy kindness* date.
K. RICH. Then know, that from my soul, I love
thy daughter.
Q. ELIZ. My daughter's mother thinks it with
her soul.
K. RICH. What do you think ?
Q. ELIZ. That thou dost love my daughter, from
thy soul :
So, from thy soul's love, didst thou love her bro-
thers ;
And, from my heart's love, I do thank thee for it*
K. RICH. Be not so hasty to confound my mean-
ing:
I mean, that with my soul I love thy daughter,
And do intend to make her queen of England.
Q. ELIZ. Well then, who dost thou mean shall
be her king ?
K. RICH. Even he, that makes her queen: Who
else should be ?
Shakspeare. For demise, the reading of the quarto, and first
folio, the editor of the second folio arbitrarily substituted devise.
MALONE.
5 So in the Lethe of thy angry soul
Thou drawn the sad remembrance of those tvrongs,^ So, in
King Henry IV. P. II:
" May this be wash'd in Lethe and for gotten?"
STBEVENS.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 465
Q. ELIZ. What, thou ?
K. RICH. Even soc What think you
of it, madam ? 6
Q. ELIZ. How canst thou woo her ?
K. RICH. That I would learn of you,
As one being best acquainted with her humour.
Q. ELIZ. And wilt thou learn of me ?
K. RICH. Madam, with all my heart. 7
Q. ELIZ. Send to her, by the man that slew her
brothers,
A pair of bleeding hearts , thereon engrave,
Edward, and York ; then, haply, will she weep :
Therefore present to her, as sometime Margaret 8
Did to thy father, steep'd in Rutland's blood,
A handkerchief; which, say to her, did drain
The purple sap from her sweet brother's body,
And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.
If this inducement move her not to love,
Send her a letter of thy noble deeds ;
Tell her, thou mad'st away her uncle Clarence,
Her uncle Rivers ; ay, and, for her sake,
Mad'st quick conveyance with her good aunt Anne.
K. RICH. You mock me, madam j this is not the
way
To win your daughter.
Even so: What think you of it, madam?'] Thus the folio, ex-
cept that it reads hom instead of what. The quarto, without
attention to the broken verse preceding :
I, even I : what think you of it, madam ?
" I am not (says Mr. Malone,) sure whether it should not be
printed, Ay, even I." STEEVENS.
7 Madam, tvith all my heart.~] I suppose the word Madam,
may be safely omitted, as it violates the measure. STEEVENS.
8 as sometime Margaret ; ] Here is another reference
to the plays of Henry VI. JOHNSON.
VOL. XIV. 2 H
466 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Q. ELIZ. There is no other way ;
Unless thou could'st put on some other shape,
And not be Richard that hath done all this.
K. RICH. Say, that I did* all this for love of her ?
Q. ELIZ. Nay, then indeed, she cannot choose
but have thee, 1
Having bought love with such a bloody spoil. 2
K. RICH. Look, what is done cannot be now
amended :
Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes,
Which after-hours give leisure to repent.
If I did take the kingdom from your sons,
To make amends, I'll give it to your daughter.
If I have kill'd the issue of your womb,
To quicken your increase, I will beget
Mine issue of your blood upon your daughter.
A grandam's name is little less in love,
Than is the doting title of a mother ; .
They are as children, but one step below,
9 Say, that I did &c.] This and the following fifty-four
lines, ending with the words tender years, in p. 469, are found
only in the folio. MALONE.
1 Nay, then indeed, she cannot choose but have thee,~] [Old
copy Jiate.~] The sense seems to require that we should read :
but love thee,
ironically. TYRWHITT.
As this is evidently spoken ironically, I agree with Tyrwhitt,
that the present reading is corrupt, but should rather amend it
by reading " have you," than " love you ;" as the word have is
more likely to have been mistaken for hate, the traces of the
letters being nearly the same. M. MASON.
As this conjecture is, in my opinion, at once fortunate and
judicious, I have placed it in the text. A somewhat correspond-
ing error had happened in Coriolanus, last speech of scene iv.
Act IV. where have was apparently given instead of hate.
SXEEVENS,
* bloody spoil.'] Spoil is waste, havock. JOHNSON.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 467
Even of your mettle, of your very blood ; 3
Of all one pain, save for a night of groans
Endur'd or her, 4 for whom you bid like sorrow. 5
Your children were vexation to your youth,
But mine shall be a comfort to your age.
The loss, you have, is but a son being king,
And, by that loss, your daughter is made queen.
I cannot make you what amends I would,
Therefore accept such kindness as I can.
Dorset, your son, that, with a fearful soul,
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,
This fair alliance quickly shall call home
To high promotions and great dignity :
The king, that calls your beauteous daughter,
wife,
Familiarly shall call thy Dorset brother ;
Again shall you be mother to a king,
And all the ruins of distressful times
3 Even of your mettle, of your very blood ;] The folio has
mettal. The two words are frequently confounded in the old
copies. That mettle was the word intended here, appears from
various other passages. So, in Macbeth :
" Thy undaunted mettle should compose
" Nothing but males."
Again, in King Richard II:
" that bed, that womb,
" That mettle, that self-mould that fashion'd thee,
" Made him a man.'*
Again, in Timon of Athens:
" Common mother, thou,
" Whose womb unmeasurable, and infinite breast,
" Teems and feeds all, whose self-same mettle
" Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puff'd,
" Engenders the black toad," &c. MALONE.
4 Endur'd of her,] Of in the language of Shakspeare's age
was frequently used for by. MALONE.
5 bid like sorrow.] Bid is in the past tense from bide.
JOHNSOX.
2 H 2
468 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Repair' d with double riches of content.
What ! we have many goodly days to see :
The liquid drops of tears that you have shed,
Shall come again, transformed to orient pearl ;
Advantaging their loan, with interest
Of ten-times-double gain of happiness. 6
Go then, my mother, to thy daughter go ;
Make bold her bashful years with your experience ;
Prepare her ears to hear a wooer's tale ;
Put in her tender heart the aspiring flame
Of golden sovereignty ; acquaint the princess
With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys :
And when this arm of mine hath chastised
The petty rebel, dull-brain'd Buckingham,
Bound with triumphant garlands will I come,
And lead thy daughter to a conqueror's bed ;
To whom I will retail my conquest won, 7
And she shall be sole victress, Caesar's Caesar.
Q. ELIZ. What were I best to say ? her father's
brother
Would be her lord ? Or shall I say, her uncle I
6 Advantaging their loan, tvith interest
Often-times-double gain of happiness.] [The folio love.~\
My easy emendation will convince every reader that love and
lone are made out of one another only by a letter turned upside
down. The tears that you have lent to your afflictions, shall be
turned into gems; and requite you by ivay of interest, &c.
THEOBALD.
How often the letters u and n are confounded in these copies,
has been shown in various places. See Vol. V. p. 191, n. 3 ;
and note on Timon of Athens, Act IV. sc. iii. Vol. XIX.
MALONE
7 To 'whom I 'will retail my conquest won,'] To retail (as Mr.
M. Mason has observed in a note on Act III. sc. i.p. 370, n. 8,)
is to hand down from one to another. Richard, in the present
instance, means to say he will transmit the benefit of his victo-
ries to Elizabeth. STEEVENS.
K. iv. KING RICHARD III. 469
Or, he that slew her brothers, and her uncles ?
Under what title shall I woo for thee,
That God, the law, my honour, and her love,
Can make seem pleasing to her tender years ?
K. RICH. Infer fair England's peace by this alli-
ance.
Q. ELIZ. Which she shall purchase with still
lasting war.
K. RICH. Tell her, the king, that may command,
entreats.
Q. ELIZ. That at her hands, which the king's
King forbids. 8
K. RICH. Say, she shall be a high and mighty
queen.
Q. ELIZ. To wail the title, as her mother doth.
K. RICH. Say, I will love her everlastingly.
Q. ELIZ. But how long shall that title, ever, last?'
K. RICH. Sweetly in force unto her fair life's end.
Q. ELIZ. But how long fairly shall her sweet life
last?
K. RICH. As long as heaven, and nature, length-
ens it.
Q. ELIZ. As long as hell, and Richard, likes of it,
K.RiCH. Say, I, her sovereign, am her subjectlow. 1
which the king's King forbids."] Alluding to the pro-
hibition in the Levitical law. See Levitictis, xviii. 14. GREY.
9 But hoiv long shall that title, ever, last P] Young has bor-
rowed this thought in his Universal Passion :
" But say, my all, my mistress, and my friend,
" What day next week th* eternity shall end ?"
STEEVENS.
' am her subject low.] Thus the folio. The quarto reads:
her subject love. STEEVENS.
470 KING RICHARD III. ACT ir.
Q. ELIZ. But she,yoursubject, loaths such sov'-
reignty.
K. RICH. Be eloquent in my behalf to her.
Q. ELIZ. An honest tale speeds best, being plain-
ly told.
/ *
K. RICH. Then, in plain terms tell her my loving
tale. 2
Q. ELIZ. Plain, and not honest, is tooharsh a style.
K. RICH. Your reasons are too shallow and too
quick.
Q. ELIZ. O, no, my reasons are too deep and
dead ;
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.
K RICH. Harp not 3 on that string, madam ; that
is past.
* J7e, m. plain tevms tell her my loving tale.~] So the quarto.
The folio reads :
" Then plainly to her tell ray loving tale." MALONE.
* Hatrp not Scc.J In the regulation of these short speeches I
have followed the quarto 1597. STEEVENS-.
K. Rich. Harp not on that string, madam ; that is past.
Q. EKz. Harp on it still shall I, &c.] In the quarto, 1598,
the first of these two lines is wanting. The passage stands thus:
" Qw. O,, no, ray reasons, &c.
" Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.
" King. Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings break.
" Now by my george," &c.
The printer of the next quarto saw that the line " Harp on
it still shall I," &c. could not belong to Richard, and therefore
annexed it to the Queen's former speech, but did not insert the
omitted line.
The editor of the folio supplied the line that was wanting, but
absurdly misplaced it, and exhibited the passage thus:
** Qu. O, no,, my reasons are too deep and dead ;
*' Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.
" Harp it still shall I, till heart-strings break.
" King. Harp not on that string, madam, that is past.
" Now by my george," &c.
The text is formed from the quarto, and the folio. MALONE.
ac. /r. KING RICHARD III. 471
Q. ELIZ. Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings
break.
K. RICH. Now, by my George, my garter, and
my crown,
Q. ELIZ. Profan'd, dishonoured, and the third
usurp'd.
K. RICH. I swear.
Q. ELIZ. By nothing ; for this is no oath.
Thy George, profan'd, hath lost his holy honour ;
Thy garter, 4 blemish'd, pawn'd his knightly virtue;
Thy crown, usurp'd, disgraced his kingly glory :
If something thou would* st swear to be believ'd,
Swear then by something that thou hast not wrong'd.
K. RICH. Now by the world,
Q. ELIZ. 'Tis full of thy foul wrongs.
K. RICH. My father's death,
Q. ELIZ. Thy life hath that dishonour'd.
K. RICH. Then, by myself,
Q. ELIZ. Thyself is self-mis-us'd.
K. RICH. Why then, by God,
Q. ELIZ. God's wrong is most of all.
If thou had'st fear'd to break an oath by him, 5
The unity, the king thy brother made,
4 Thy George, prqfan'd, hath lost his holy honour;
Thy garter, &c.] The quarto reads The George, &c. The
folio Thy George ; &c. and, afterwards, lordly instead of
lioty. STEEVENS.
5 God's "wrong is most of all.
If thou had'st fear'd to break an oath by him, Sfc.~] I have
followed the quarto, except that it reads in the preceding speech,
Why then, by God . The editors of the folio, from the ap-
prehension of the penalty of the Statute, 3 Jac. I. c. 21. printed
" Why then by heaven," and the whole they absurdly exhibited
thus:
472 KING RICHARD III. ACT IF.
Had not been broken, nor my brother slain. 6
If thou had'st fear'd to break an oath by him,
The imperial metal, circling now thy head,
Had grac'd the tender temples of my child ;
And both the princes had been breathing here,
Which now, two tender bed-fellows for dust, 7
Thy broken faith hath made a prey for worms. 8
What canst thou swear by now ?
K. RICH. By the time to come. 9
Q. ELIZ. That thou hast wronged in the time
o'er-past j
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past, wrong'd by thee.
The children live, whose parents thou hast
slaughter* d,
" Rich. Why then, by heaven.
" Qu. Heaven's wrong is most of all.
" If thou didst fear to break an oath ivith him,
" The unity," &c.
" If thou hadst fear'd to break an oath by him,
" The imperial metal," &c.
By their alteration in the first line of the Queen's speech, they
made all that follows ungrammatical. The change in the prece-
ding speech, not having that consequence, I have adopted it.
MALONE.
6 the king thy brother made,
Had not been 'broken, nor my brother slain.] The quarto,
by an error of the press, has my brother, which the editor of
the folio corrected thus :
The unity the king, my husband, made,
Thou hadst not broken, nor my brothers died. MALONE.
7 Which noiK, two tender bed-fellows &c.] Mr. Roderick
observes, thatthewordtt>ois without any force, and would read:
Which noiK too tender &c. STE EVENS.
Thus the folio. The quarto two tender play-fellows.
MALONE.
8 a prey for ivorms.~\ So the quarto. Folio the prey.
MALONE.
9 By the time to come.~\ So the quarto. By is not in the
folio. MALONE.
K. iv. KING RICHARD III. 473
Ungovern'd youth, to wail it in their age : l
The parents live, whose children thou hast butch-
er'd,
Old barren plants, to wail it with their age.
Swear not by time to come ; for that thou hast
Misus'd ere used, by times ill-US* d o'er-past.
K. RICH. As I intend to prosper, and repent !
So thrive I in my dangerous attempt 2
Of hostile arms ! myself myself confound !
Heaven, and fortune, bar me happy hours! 3 -
Day, yield me not thy light ; nor, night, thy rest !
Be opposite all planets of good luck
To my proceeding, if, with pure heart's love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,
I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter !
In her consists my happiness, and thine ;
Without her, follows to myself, and thee,
Herself, the land, and many a Christian soul,
Death, desolation, ruin, and decay :
It cannot be avoided, but by this ;
It will not be avoided, but by this.
Therefore, dear mother, (I must call you so,)
Be the attorney of my love to her.
Plead what I will be, not what I have been ;
Not my deserts, but what I will deserve :
Urge the necessity and state of times,
And be not peevish 4 found in great designs.
1 to wail it in their age :~\ So the quarto, 1598. The
quarto, 1602, &c. and the folio, read with their age.
MALONE.
* in my dangerous attempt ] So the quarto. Folio
dangerous affairs. MALONE.
3 Heaven, and fortune, bar me happy hours /] This line is
found only in the folio. MALONE.
4 And be not peevishfound ] Thus the folio Peevish in our
474 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Q. ELIZ. Shall I be tempted of the devil thus ?
K. RICH. Ay, if the devil tempt thee to do good.
Q. ELIZ. Shall I forget myself, to be myself?
K. RICH. Ay, if your self's remembrance wrong
yourself.
Q. ELIZ. But thou didst kill my children.
K. RICH. But in your daughter's womb I bury
them :
Where, in that nest of spicery, they shall breed 5
Selves of themselves, to your recomforture,
Q. ELIZ. Shall I go win my daughter to thy will?
K. RICH. And be a happy mother by the deed.
Q. ELIZ. I go. Write to me very shortly, 6
And you shall understand from me her mind.
K. RICH. Bear her my true love's kiss, and so
farewell.
[Kissing her. Exit Q. ELIZABETH.
author's time signified foolish. So, in the second scene of this
Act:
" When Richmond was a little peevish boy, ."
See also Minsheu's DICT. in v. The quarto reads peevish
y and I am not sure that it is not right. A compound epi-
thet might have been intended, peevish-fond. So childish-foolish <,
senseless-obstinate, foolish-ivitty, &c. MALONE.
I believe the present reading is the true one. So, in King
Henry VIII:
" have great care
" I be not found a talker." STEEVEKS.
4 in that nest of spicery, they shall breed'] Alluding
to the phoenix. STEEVENS.
So the quarto. The folio reads they will breed.
MALON-E.
8 shortly,] This adverb, in the present instance, is em-
ployed as a trisyllable. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, Vol. IV. p. 202.
STEEVENS.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 475
Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman ! T
How now ? what news ?
Enter RATCLIFF ; CATESBY following.
RAT. Mostmighty sovereign, on the western coast
Rideth a puissant navy ; to the shore
Throng many doubtful hollow-hearted friends,
Unarm'd, and unresolv'd to beat them back :
"Tis thought, that Richmond is their admiral - f
And there they hull, expecting but the aid
Of Buckingham, to welcome them ashore.
K. RICH. Some light-foot friend post to the
duke 8 of Norfolk :
Ratcliff, thyself, or Catesby ; where is he ?
CATE. Here, my good lord.
K. RICH. Catesby, fly to the duke.
CATE. I will, my lord, with all convenient haste.
K. RICH. Ratcliff, come hither : 9 Post to Salis-
bury;
When thou com'st thither, Dull unmindful vil-
lain, \_To CATESBY.
Why stay'st thou here, and go'st not to the duke ?
7 Relenting foot, and shallow, changing woman f] Such
was the real character of this Queen dowager,, who woaild have
married her daughter to King Richard, and. did all in her power
to alienate the Marquis of Dorset, her son, from the Earl of
Richmond. STEEVENS.
8 Swne ligkt-js>ot friend post to the duke J Richard's pre-
cipitation and confusion is in this scene very happily represented
by inconsistent orders, and sudden variations of opinion.
JOHNSON.
9 Ratcliff', come hither :~] The folio has Catesby, come hither.
The words are not in the quarto. It is obvious that they are
addressed to RatcKff. The correction was made by Mr. Rove.
MALONE.
476 KING RICHARD III. ACT ir.
CATE. First, mighty liege, tell me your highness*
pleasure,
What frpm your grace I shall deliver to him.
K. RICH. O, true, good Catesby ; Bid him levy
straight
The greatest strength and power he can make,
And meet me suddenly at Salisbury.
CATE. I go. \_Exit.
RAT. What, may it please you, shall I do at Sa-
lisbury ?
K. RICH. Why, what would* st thou do there, be-
fore I go ?
RAT. Your highness told me, I should post be-
fore.
Enter STANLEY.
K. RICH. My mind is chang'd. Stanley, what
news with you ?
STAN. None good, my liege, to please you with
the hearing ;
Nor none so bad, but well may be reported.
K. RICH. Heyday, a riddle ! neither good nor
bad!
What need'st thou run so many miles about,
When thou may'st tell thy tale the nearest way ?
Once more, what news ?
STAN. Richmond is on the seas.
K. RICH. There let him sink, and be the seas on
him!
White-liver 'd runagate, 1 what doth he there ?
1 White-liver'd runagate,] This epithet, descriptive of coward-
ice, is not peculiar to Shakspeare. Stephen Gosson in his
School of Abuse, 1579, speaking of the Helots, says:
" Leave those precepts to the "white-livered Hylotes."
STEEVENS.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 477
STAN. I know not, mighty sovereign, but by
guess.
K. RICH. Well, as you guess ?
STAN. Stirr'd up by Dorset, Buckingham, and
Morton,
He makes for England, here to claim the crown.
K. RICH. Is the chair empty ? is the sword un-
sway'd ?
Is the king dead ? the empire unpossessed ?
What heir of York 2 is there alive, but we ?
And who is England's king, but great York's heir ?
Then, tell me, what makes he upon the seas ?
STAN. Unless for that, my liege, I cannot guess.
K. RICH. Unless for that he comes to be your
liege,
You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman comes.
Thou wilt revolt, and fly to him, I fear.
STAN. No, mighty liege ; 3 therefore mistrust me
not.
3 What heir of York ] i. e. What son of Richard Duke of
York ? RITSON.
- Richard asks this question in the plenitude of power, and no
one dares to answer him. But they whom he addresses,had they
notbeen intimidated, might have told him, that there was a male
heir of the house of York alive, who had a better claim to the
throne than he ; Edward Earl of Warwick, the only son of the
Usurper's elder brother, George Duke of Clarence ; and Eliza-
beth, the eldest daughter of Edward IV. and all her sisters, had
a better title than either of them. MALONE.
The issue of King Edward had been pronounced illegitimate,
the Duke of Clarence attainted of high treason, and the usurper
declared " the undoubted heir of Richard duke of York," by
act of parliament : so that, as far as such a proceeding can alter
the constitution, and legalize usurpation and murder, he is per-
fectly correct and unanswerable. RITSON.
3 No, mighty liege ;] So the quarto. Folio No, my good
lord. MALONE.
478 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
K. RICH. Where is thy power then, to beat him
back ?
Where be thy tenants, and thy followers ?
Are they not now upon the western shore,
Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships ?
STAN. No, my good lord, my friends are in the
north.
K. RICH. Cold friends to me : What do they in
the north,
When they should serve their sovereign in the west?
STAN. They have not been commanded, mighty
king:
Pleaseth your majesty to give me leave,
I'll muster up my friends ; and meet your grace,
Where, and what time, your majesty shall please.
K. RICH. Ay, ay, thou wouldst be gone to join
with Richmond :
I will not trust you, sir. 4
STAN. Most mighty sovereign,
You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful j
I never was, nor never will be false.
K. RICH. Well, go, muster men. But, hear you
leave behind
. Your son, George Stanley ; look your heart be firm,
Or else his head's assurance is but frail.
STAN. So deal with him, as I prove true to you.
[Exit STANLEY.
Enter a Messenger.
MESS. My gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,
As I by friends am well advertised,
4 / mil not trust you, sir.'] So the quarto. Folio But I'll
not trust thee. MALONE.
sc. TV. KING RICHARD III. 479
Sir Edward Courtney, and the haughty prelate,
Bishop of Exeter, his elder brother,
With many more confederates, are in arms.
Enter another Messenger.
2 MESS. In Kent, my liege, the Guildfords are
in arms ;
And every hour more competitors 5
Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong.
Enter another Messenger.
3 MESS. My lord, the army of great Bucking.
ham
K. RICH. Out on ye, owls ! nothing but songs of
death ? " [He strikes him.
There, take thou that, till thou bring better news.
3 MESS. The news I have 6 to tell your majesty,
Is, that, by sudden floods and fall of waters,
Buckingham's army is dispers'd and scattered ;
And he himself wander' d away alone,
No man knows whither.
K. RICH. O, I cry you mercy :
There is my purse, to cure that blow of thine.
5 more competitors ~] That is, more opponents.
JoHNSOJf.
Competitors do not here mean opponents, but associates. See
a note on this subject in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, where
Sir Proteus, speaking of Valentine, says :
" Myself in council his competitor."
That is, his associate. M. MASON.
See Vol. IV. p. 233, n. 6. STEEVENS.
6 The news I have &c.] So the folio. The quarto reads :
" Your grace mistakes ; the news I bring is good ;
" My news is," &c. MALONE.
480 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Hath any well-advised friend proclaimed
Reward to him that brings the traitor in ?
3 MESS. Such proclamation hath been made, my
liege.
Enter another Messenger.
4 MESS. Sir Thomas Lovel, and lord marquis
Dorset,
'Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.
But this good comfort bring I to your highness,
The Bretagne navy is dispersed by tempest :
Richmond, in Dorsetshire, sent out a boat
Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks,
If they were his assistants, yea, or no ;
Who answer* d him, they came from Buckingham
Upon his party : he, mistrusting them,
Hois'd sail, and made his course again for Bretagne. 7
7 and made his course again for Bretagne.^ Henry
Tudor Earl of Richmond, the eldest son of Edmund of Hadham
Earl of Richmond, (who was half-brother to King Henry VI.)
by Margaret, the only daughter of John the first Duke of So-
merset, who was grandson to John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster,
was carried by his uncle Jasper Earl of Pembroke immediately
after the battle of Tewksbury into Britany, where he was kept
in a kind of honourable custody by the Duke of Bretagne, and
where he remained till the year 1484, when he made his escape
and fled for protection to the French court. Being considered at
that time as nearest in blood to King Henry VI. all the Lancastrian
party looked up to him even in the life-time of King Edward IV.
who was extremely jealous of him ; and after Richard usurped
the throne, they with more confidence supported Richmond's
claim. The claim of Henry Duke of Buckingham was in some
respects inferior to that of Richmond ; for he was descended by
his mother from Edmund the second Duke of Somerset, the
younger brother of Duke John ; by his father from Thomas Duke
of Gloster, the younger brother of John of Gaunt : but what-
ever priority the Earl of Richmond might claim by his mother,
he could not plead any title through his father, who in fact had
sc. iv. KING RICHARD JIL . 481
K. RICH. March on, march on, since we are up
in arms ;
If not to fight with foreign enemies,
Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.
Enter CATESBY.
CATE. My liege, the duke of Buckingham is
taken,
That is the best news ; That the earl of Richmond
Is with a mighty power landed at Milford, 8
Is colder news, but yet they must be told. 9
K. RICH. Away towards Salisbury ; while we rea-
son here, 1
A royal battle might be won and lost : 2
no Lancastrian blood whatsoever ; nor was his maternal title of
the purest kind, for John the first Earl of Somerset was an ille-
gitimate son of John of Gaunt. MALONE.
landed at Milford,~\ The Earl of Richmond embarked
L.>>i. Clf\f\f\ _ A. TT H * XT J A ... .4. t f.4-
with about 2000 men at Harfleur in Normandy, August 1st,
1485, and landed at Milford Haven on the 7th. He directed his
course to Wales, hoping the Welsh would receive him cordially,
as their countryman, he having been born at Pembroke, and his
grand-father being Owen Tudor, who married Katharine of
France, the widow of King Henry V. MALONE.
9 they must be told.~\ This was the language of Shak-
speare's time, when the word news was often considered as plural.
See note on Antony and Cleopatra, Act I. sc. i. Vol. XVII.
All the modern editors, however, read it must be told.
MALONE.
1 "while tue reason here,~\ i.e. while we talk here. See
Vol. VII. p. 294, n. 8. MALONE.
* A royal battle might be won and lost:] So, in Macbeth:
" When the battle's lost and u>ow."
This antithetical phrase is found in several of our ancient
writers. STEEVENS.
VOL. XIV. 2 I
482 KING RICHARD III. ACT iv.
Some one take order, Buckingham be brought
To Salisbury ; the rest march on with me.
[Exeunt.
SCENE V.
A Room in Lord Stanley's House.
Enter STANLEY and Sir CHRISTOPHER URSWICK.
STAN. Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from
me : 3
That, in the sty of this most bloody boar,
3 Sir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me :~\ The person,
who is called Sir Christopher here, and who has been styled so
in the Dramatis Persona; of all the impressions, I find by the
Chronicles to have been Christopher Urswick, a bachelor in divi-
nity ; and chaplain to the Countess of Richmond, who had in-
termarried wth the Lord Stanley. This priest, the history tells
us, frequently went backwards and forwards, unsuspected, on
messages betwixt the Countess of Richmond, and her husband,
and the young Earl of Richmond, whilst he was preparing to
make his descent on England. THEOBALD.
This Christopher Urswick was afterwards Almoner to King
Henry VII. and retired to Hackney, where he died in 1521. On
his tomb, still to be seen in that church, it is said " Ad exteros
reges undecies pro patria Legatus ; Deconatum Eboracensem,
Archidia conatum Richmundie, Decanatum Windesoriae, habitos
yivens reliquit. Episcopatum Norwicensem oblatum recusavit."
Weaver, who has printed this inscription, concludes his eulogium
thus : " here let him rest as an example for all our great prelates
to admire, and for few or none to imitate." REED.
This circumstance is also recorded by Burton in his Anatomy
of Melancholy, 4th edit. p. 187 : " But most part they are very
shamefast ; and that makes them with Pet. Blesensis, Christopher
Urswick, and many such, to refuse honours, offices, and pre-
ferment."
: Dr. Johnson has observed, that Sir was anciently a title assumed
by graduates. This the late Mr. Guthrie disputes ; and says, it
7. r. KING RICHARD III. 483
My son George Stanley is frank' d up in hold j
If I revolt, off goes young George's head;
The fear of that withholds my present aid.*
But, tell me, where is princely Richmond now ?
CHRIS. At Pembroke, or at Ha'rford-west, in
Wales.
STAN. What men of name resort to him ?
CHRIS. Sir Walter Herbert, a renowned soldier ;
Sir Gilbert Talbot, sir William Stanley ;
Oxford, redoubted Pembroke, sir James Blunt,
And Rice ap Thomas, with a valiant crew; 5
was a title sold by the pope's legates, &c. that his holiness might
be on the same footing with the king. STEEVENS.
In The Scornful Lady of Beaumont and Fletcher, Welford
says to Sir Roger, the curate, " I acknowledge you to be your
art's master." " I am but a bachelor of art, sir," replies Sir
Roger. Mr. Guthrie would have done well to have informed us,
how Sir Roger could possibly have bought his title of the pope's
nuncio ; when, as Abigail tells us, he had only " twenty nobles
de claro, besides his pigges in posse" FARMER.
See Vol. V. p. 7, n. 1. STEEVENS.
The title of Sir is still appropriated to Bachelors of Arts in the
University of Dublin ; and the word Bachelor evidently derived
from the French has Chevalier, that is, a lower kind of Knight.
This accounts for the title of Sir being given to Bachelors.
M. MASON.
4 my present aid. ] Thus the quarto. After these words
three lines are added in the folio, in substance the same as the
first three lines of Stanley's concluding speech. Instead of the
concluding speech of the quarto, which is here followed, the
folio reads thus :
" Well, hie to thy lord ; I kiss his hand ;
** My letter will resolve him of my mind,
" Farewell." MALONE.
* valiant crew;"] This expression (which sounds but
meanly in modern ears) has been transplanted by Dryden into
his Alexander's Feast :
" Give the vengeance due
" To the valiant crew." STEEVENS.
2 I 2
484 KING RICHARD III. ACT v.
And many other of great fame and worth :
And towards London do they bend their course,
If by the way they be not fought withal.
STAN. Well, hie thee to thy lord ; commend me
to him ;
Tell him, the queen hath heartily consented
He shall espouse Elizabeth her daughter.
These letters will resolve him of my mind.
Farewell. [Gives Papers to Sir CHRISTOPHER.
[Exeunt.
ACT V. SCENE I.
Salisbury. An open Place.
Enter the Sheriff, and Guard, with BUCKINGHAM,
led to Execution.
BUCK. Will not king Richard let me speak with
him? 6
SHER. No, my good lord j therefore be patient.
BUCK. Hastings, and Edward's children, Rivers,
Grey,
6 Will not Icing Richard let me speak with him ?"] The reason
why the Duke of Buckingham solicited an interview with the
King, is explained in King Henry VIII. Act I :
" 1 would have play'd
" The part my father meant to act upon
" The usurper Richard ; who, being at Salisbury,
" Made suit to come in his presence; which, if granted,
" As he made semblance of his duty, would
" Have put his knife into him." STEEVENS.
See also Hall's Chronicle., Richard III. fo. 16. REEI>.
so. 2. KING RICHARD III. 485
Holy king Henry, and thy fair son Edward,
Vaughan, and all that have miscarried
By underhand corrupted foul injustice ;
If that your moody discontented souls
Do through the clouds behold this present hour,
Even for revenge mock my destruction !
This is All-Souls' day, fellows, is it not ?
SHER. It is, my lord.
BUCK. Why, then All-Souls' day is my body's
doomsday.
This is the day, which, in king Edward's time,
I wish'd might fall on me, when I was found
False to his children, or his wife's allies :
This is the day, wherein J wish'd to fall
By the false faith of him whom most I trusted ;
This, this All-Souls' day to my fearful soul,
Is the determin'd respite of my wrongs. 7
That high All-seer which I dallied with,
Hath turned my feigned prayer on my head,
And given in earnest what I begg'd in jest.
Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men
To turn their own points on their masters' bosoms :
Thus Margaret's curse falls heavy on my neck,
When he, quoth she, shall split thy heart with sor-
row,
Remember Margaret was a prophetess.
Come, sirs, convey me to the block of shame ;
Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of
blame. 8
[Exeunt BUCKINGHAM, 8$c.
7 Is the determin'd respite of my 'wrongs.'} Hanmer has rightly
explained it, the time to which the punishment of his wrongs
was respited.
Wrongs in this line means wrongs done, or injurious practices.
JOHNSON.
9 blame the due of blame.'] This scene should, in my
486 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
SCENE II.
Plain near Tamworth.
Enter, with Drum and Colours, RICHMOND, Ox-
FORD, 9 Sir JAMES BLUNT, 1 Sir WALTER HERBERT,
and Others, with Forces, marching.
RICHM. Fellows in arms, and my most loving
friends,
Bruis'd underneath the yoke of tyranny,
Thus far into the bowels of the land
Have we march'd on without impediment ;
And here receive we from our father Stanley
Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.
The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,
That spoil' d your summer fields, and fruitful vines,
opinion, be added to the foregoing Act, so the fourth Act will
have a more full and striking conclusion, and the fifth Act will
comprise the business of the important day, which put an end to
the competition of York and Lancaster. Some of the quarto
editions are not divided into Acts, and it is probable, that this
and many other plays were left by the author in one unbroken
continuity, and afterwards distributed by chance, or what seems
to have been a guide very little better, by the judgment or caprice
of the first editors. JOHNSON.
9 Oxford,"} John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, a zealous Lan-
castrian, who after along confinement in Hames Castle in Picardy,
escaped from thence in 14-84-, and joined the Earl of Richmond
at Paris. He commanded the Archers at the battle of Bosworth.
MALONE.
1 Sir James Blunt,"] He had been captain of the Castle
of Hames, and assisted the Earl of Oxford in his escape.
MALONE.
sc. n. KING RICHARD III. 487
Swills your warm blood 2 like wash, and makes his
trough
In your embowelFd bosoms, 3 this foul swine
Lies now 4 even in the center of this isle,
Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn :
From Tamworth thither, is but one day's march.
In God's name, cheerly on, courageous friends,
To reap the harvest of perpetual peace
By this one bloody trial of sharp war.
* That spoil'd your surtiiner fields, and fruitful vines,
Swills your ivarm blood &c.] This sudden change from the
past time to the present, and vice versa, is common to Shakspeare.
So, in the argument prefixed to his Rape of Lucrece : " The
same night he treacherously stealeth into her chamber, violently
ravished her," &c. MALONE.
3 embowell'd bosoms,'] Exenterated; ripped up : alluding,
perhaps, to the Promethean vulture ; or, more probably, to the
sentence pronounced in the English courts against traitors, by
which they are condemned to be hanged, drawn, that is, em-
bowelled, and quartered. JOHNSON.
Drawn, in the sentence pronounced upon traitors only, signi-
fies to be drawn by the heels or on a hurdle from the prison to
the place of execution. So, Dr. Johnson has properly expounded
it in Measure for Measure, Act II. So, Holinshed, in the year
1569, and Stowe's Chronicle, edit. 1614, p. 162, 171, 418,
763, 766. Sometimes our historians use a colloquial inaccuracy
of expression in writing, hanged, drawn, and quartered ; but
they often express it drawn, hanged, and quartered ; and
sometimes they add bowelled, or his bowels taken out, which
would be tautology, if the same thing was implied in the word
drawn. TOLLET.
Drawn in the sense of embowelled, is never used but in speak-
ing of a fowl. It is true, embowelling is also part of the sen-
tence in high treason, but in order of time it comes after draw-
ing and hanging. BLACKSTONE.
4 Lies now ] ue. sojourns. See Vol. XII. p. 144, n. 5.
For lies, the reading of the quarto, the editors of the folio, pro-
bably not understanding the term, substituted Is. See p. 490,
n. 1. MALONE.
488 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
OXF. Every man's conscience is a thousand
swords, 5
To fight against that bloody homicide.
HERB. I doubt not, but his friends will turn to
us.
BLUNT. He hath no friends, but who are friends
for fear ;
Which, in his dearest need, will fly from him.
RICHM. All for our vantage. Then, in God's
name, march :
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings, 6
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
\JLxeunt*
SCENE III.
Bosworth Field,
Enter King RICHARD, and Forces ; the Duke of
NORFOLK, Earl of SURREY, and Others.
K. RICH. Here pitch our tents, even here in Bos-
worth field.
My lord of Surrey, why look you so sad ?
SUB. My heart is ten times lighter than my looks.
K. RICH. My lord of Norfolk,-
NOR. Here, most gracious liege.
5 conscience is a thousand swords,"] Alluding to the old
adage, " Conscientia mille testes." BLACKSTONE.
Thus the quarto. The folio reads a thousand men.
MALONE.
8 andjlies tvith swallow's wings,] Drayton calls joy :
" the sivallow-'winged joy." STEEVENS.
9C. m. KING RICHARD III. 489
K. RICH. Norfolk, we must have knocks ; Ha !
must we not ?
NOR. We must both give and take, my loving
lord.
K. RICH. Up with my tent : Here will I lie to-
night; 7
[Soldiers begin to set up the King's Tent.
But where, to-morrow ? Well, all's one for that.
Who hath descried the number of the traitors ?
NOR. Six or seven thousand is their utmost
power,
K. RICH. Why, our battalia trebles that ac-
count : 8
Besides, the king's name is a tower of strength,
Which they upon the adverse faction want.
Up with the tent. Come, noble gentlemen,
Let us survey the vantage of the ground ;
Call for some men of sound direction : 9
Let's want no discipline, make no delay ;
For, lords, to-morrow is a busy day. \JExeunt.
7 Up tvith my tent : Here toill I lie to-night ;] Richard is re-
ported not to have slept in his tent on the night before the bat-?
tie, but in the town of Leicester. STEEVENS.
8 our battalia trebles that account:"] Richmond's forces
are said to have been only five thousand ; and Richard's army
consisted of about twelve thousand men. But Lord Stanley lay
at a small distance with three thousand men, and Richard may
be supposed to have reckoned on them as his friends, though
the event proved otherwise. MALONE.
9 sound direction:'] True judgment ; tried military skill.
JOHNSON.
490 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
Enter, on the other side of the Field, RICHMOND,
Sir WILLIAM BRANDON, OXFORD, and other
Lords. * Some of Hie Soldiers pitch RICHMOND'S
Tent.
RICHM. The weary sun hath made a golden set,
And, by the bright track of his fiery car,
Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.
Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.
Give me some ink and paper 2 in my tent ;
I'll draw the form and model of our battle,
Limit 3 each leader to his several charge,
1 Oxford, and other Lords."] The direction in the folio is
" Enter Richmond and Sir William Brandon, Oxford and
Dorset" In the quarto only, " Enter Richmond, with the
lordes." This is one of numerous proofs that many of the alter-
ations in the folio edition of this play were made by the players,
and not by Shakspeare ; for Shakspeare had been informed by
Holinshed that Dorset was not at the battle of Bosworth ; Rich-
mond before his leaving Paris having borrowed a sum of money
from the French King, Charles the Eighth, and having left the
Marquis of Dorset and Sir John Bouchier as hostages for the
payment. MALONE.
* Give me some ink and paper ~\ I have placed these lines
as they stand in the first editions: the rest place them three
speeches before, after the words Sir William Brandon, you shall
bear my standard ; interrupting what there follows ; The Earl of
Pembroke, &c. I think them more naturally introduced here,
when he is retiring to his tent ; and considering what he has to
do that night. POPE.
I have followed the folio, which, of this play, is by far the
most correct copy. I do not find myself much influenced by
Mr. Pope's remark. STEEVENS.
In the quarto, this and the three following lines are intro-
duced immediately before the words " Come, gentlemen, let
us consult," &c. MALONE.
3 Limit ] i. e. appoint. So, in Macbeth :
" I'll make so bold to call,
" For 'tis my limited service." STEEVENS.
sc. in. KING RICHARD III. 491
And part in just proportion our small power.
My lord of Oxford,-you, sir William Brandon,
And you, sir Walter Herbert, stay with me :
The earl of Pembroke keeps his regiment ; *
Good captain Blunt, bear my good night to him,
And by the second hour in the morning
Desire the earl to see me in my tent :
Yet one thing more, good captain, do for me ;
Where is lord Stanley quarter'd, do you know ?
BLUNT. Unless I have mista'en his colours much,
(Which, well I am assur'd, I have not done,)
His regiment lies half a mile at least
South from the mighty power of the king.
RICHM. If without peril it be possible,
Sweet Blunt, make some good means 5 to speak
with him,
And give him from me this most needful note.
BLUNT. Upon my life, my lord, I'll undertake it;
And so, God give you quiet rest to-night !
RICHM. Good night, good captain Blunt. Come,
gentlemen,
Let us consult upon to-morrow's business ;
In to my tent, the air is raw 6 and cold.
\_They withdraw into the Tent.
4 keeps his regiment ;~\ i. e. remains with it. Thus we
say of a person confined by illness he keeps his chamber, or
his bed. STEEVENS.
5 make some good means ] i. e. adopt some conve-
nient measure. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :
" To make such means for her as thou hast done.'*
STEEVENS.
c the air is raix> ] So the quarto. Folio the dew.
MALONE.
492 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
Enter, to his Tent, King RICHARD, NORFOLK,
RATCLIFF, and CATESBY.
K. RICH. What is't o'clock ?
GATE. It's supper time, my lord ;
It's nine o'clock. 7
K. RICH. I will not sup to-night.
Give me some ink and paper.
What, is my beaver easier than it was ?
And all my armour laid into my tent ?
GATE. It is, my liege j and all things are in rea-
diness.
K. RICH. Good Norfolk, hie thee to thy charge;
Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.
NOR. I go, my lord.
K. RICH. Stir with the lark to-morrow, gentle
Norfolk.
NOR. I warrant you, my lord. [Exit.
K. RICH. Ratcliff,
R AT. My lord ?
K. RICH. Send out a pursuivant at arms
To Stanley's regiment ; bid him bring his power
Before sun-rising, lest his son George fall
Into the blind cave of eternal night.
Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch : 8
[To CATESBY.
7 It's nine o'clock.'] So the folio. The quarto reads It is six
of the clock ; full supper time. MALONE.
I think, we ought to read six instead of nine. A supper at
so late an hour as nine o'clock, in the year 1485, would have
been a prodigy. STEEVENS.
8 Give me a watch :] A tvatch has many significations,
but I should believe that it means in this place not a sentinel,
ac. m. KING RICHARD III. 493
Saddle white Surrey for the field to-morrow. 9
Look that my staves be sound, 1 and not too heavy.
Ratcliff,
which would be regularly placed at the king's tent ; nor an in-
strument to measure time, which was not used in that age ; but
a watch-light, a candle to burn by him ; the light that after-
wards burnt blue ; yet a few lines after, he says :
Bid my guard 'watch,
which leaves it doubtful whether watch is not here a sentinel.
JOHNSON.
A watch, i. e. guard, would certainly be placed about a royal
tent, without any request of the King concerning it.
I believe, therefore, that particular kind of candle is here
meant, which was anciently called a watch, because, being
marked out into sections, each of which was a certain portion
of time in burning, it supplied the place of the more modern
instrument by which we measure the hours. I have seen these
candles represented with great nicety in some of the pictures of
Albert Durer.
Barrett, in his Alvearie, 1580, mentions watching lamps or
candles. So, in Love in a Maze, 1632 :
" slept always with a watching candle."
Again, in The Noble Soldier, 1634 :
" Beauty was turn'd into a watching-candle that went
out stinking."
Again, in The Return from Parnassus, 1606:
" Sit now immur'd within their private cells,
" And drink a long lank watching candle's smoke."
Again, in Albumazar, 1610:
" Sit up all night like a watching candle." STEEVENS.
Lord Bacon mentions a species of light called an all-night,
which is a wick set in the middle of a large cake of wax.
JOHNSON.
The word give shows, I think, that a watch-light was in-
tended. Cole has in his Dictionary, 1679, Watch-candle.
MALONE.
9 Saddle white Surrey for the Jield to-morrow.~\ So, in Ho-
linshed's Chronicle, (copied from Hall's, Sig. Il.iiii. b.) " Then
he (inuironed with his gard) with a frowning countenance and
cruell visage, mounted on a great white courser, and followed
with his footmen," &c. p. 754. STEEVENS.
1 Look that my staves be sound,'} Staves are the wood of the
lances. JOHNSON.
494 KING RICHARD III. ACT V.
RAT. My lord ?
K. RICH. Saw'st thou the melancholy lord Nor-
thumberland? 2
RAT. Thomas the earl of Surrey, and himself,
Much about cock-shut time, 3 from troop to troop,
As it was usual to carry more lances than one into the field,
the lightness of them was an object of consequence. Hall in-
forms us, that at the justs in honour of the marriage of Mary,
the younger sister of King Henry VIII. with the King of France,
that " a gentleman called Anthony Bownarme came into the feld
all armed, and on his body brought in sight x speres, that is to
wyt, iii speres set in every styroppe forward, and under every
thigh ii speres upwarde, and under his left arme was one spere
backward, and the 10th in his hand," &c. STEEVENS.
* the melancholy lord Northumberland?] Richard calls
him melancholy, because he did not join heartily in his cause.
" Henry the tourth earle of Northumberland," says Holinshed,
" whether it was by the commandement of King Richarde put-
ting diffidence in him, or he did it for the love and favour he
bare unto the earle [of Richmond], stood still with a great com-
pany, and intermixed not in the battaile ; which was [after the
battle] incontinently received into favour, and made of the
counsayle." MALONE.
3 Much about cock-shut time,"] Ben Jonson uses the same ex-
pression in one of his entertainments :
" For you would not yesternight,
'* Kiss him in the cock-shut light."
Again, in The Widow, by Ben Jonson, Fletcher, and Mid-
dleton, 1652:
" Come away then : a fine cockshut evening."
Again, in Arden of Fever sham, 1592:
" In the twilight, cock-shut light."
In The Treaty se qfFishynge with the Angle, by dame Julyan^
Bernes, 1496, among the directions to make a fishing rod is the
following : " Take thenne and frette him faste with a cockeshote
corde," &c. but I cannot interpret the word. STEEVENS.
Cock-shut time,~] i. e. twilight. In Mr. Whalley's note upon*
Ben Jonson, Vol. V. p. 204 : " A Cockshut is said to be a net
to catch woodcocks ; and as the time of taking them in this
manner is in the twilight, either after sun-set or before its rising,
cock-shut light may very properly express the evening or the
morning twilight." The particular form of such a net, and the
sc. in. KING RICHARD III. 495
Went through the army, cheering up the soldiers.
K. RICH. I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine:
manner of using it, is delineated and described in Dictionarium
Rusticum, 2 Vols. 8vo. 3d edit. 1726, under the word cock-roads.
It is the custom of the woodcock to lie close all day, and to-
wards evening he takes wing, which act of flight might anciently
be termed his shoot or shot. So, the ballast of a ship is said to
shoot, when it runs from one side to the other. This etymology
gives us, perhaps, the original signification of the word, without
any recourse for it to the name of a net, which might receive its
denomination from the time of the day, or from the occasion on
which it was used; for I believe there was a net which was called
a cock-shot. Holinshed's Description of Britain, p. 110, calls
a stone which naturally has a hole in it, " an apt cocke-shot for
the devil to run through ;" which, I apprehend, alludes to the
resemblance of the hole in the stone to the meshes of a net.
TOLLET.
Mr. Toilet's opinion may be supported by the following pas-
sage in a little metrical performance, called, No Whipping nor
Trippinge : but a kinde friendly Snippinge, 1601 :
" A silly honest creature may do well
" To watch a cocke-shoote, or a limed bush."
STEEVENS.
I must support my interpretation against Mr. Toilet. He in
part admits, and then proceeds to overthrow it. And I will
support it by the very instance Mr. Steevens adduced in his fa-
vour. The ballast of a ship may be said to shoot ; as we now
say, to shoot coals, or corn out of a sack ; but it was never yet
said that a woodcock shoots, when he takes his evening flight.
Cocke-shoote, in the passage Mr. Steevens cites, is certainly a
substantive, and the accusative case after the verb watch, which
is confirmed by what follows, or a limed bush. And when the
cock-shut net is fixed, a person always stands by to watch and
manage it. A similar expression is in Hall's Satires :
" To "watch a sinking cock, upon the shore. -"
WH ALLEY.
The passage from Hall is misquoted. He alludes to Fishing,
and says
" Or watch a sinking corke upon tiie shore.'* Edit. 1602,
Virgidemiarum, Lib. IV. p. 33. STEEVENS.
That cockshut time meant twilight, is ascertained by Minsheu's
Dictionary, 1617. See the latter word. MALONE.
Ogilby, in his Paraphrase ofJEsop's Fables, 4to. 1651, p. 6,
496 KING RICHARD III.
I have not that alacrity of spirit, 4
Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have.
So, set it down. 5 Is ink and paper ready ?
HAT. It is, my lord.
K. RICH. Bid my guard watch ; leave me 1 .
About the mid of night, come to my tent
And help to arm me. Leave me, I say.
[_King RICHARD retires into his Tent. Exeunt
RATCLIFF and CATESBY.
RICHMOND'S Tent opens, and discovers him and his
Officers, $c_
Enter STANLEY.
STAN. Fortune and victory sit on thy helm !
RICHM. All comfort that the dark night can
afford,
introduces this expression in a way which perhaps strengthens
Mr. Toilet's opinion that cock-shoot was taken from the flight of
the woodcock. He makes the pine boast :
" when loud winds make cock-shoots thro* the wood,
" Rending down mighty okes, I firme have stood."
Here, I apprehend, Ogilby means to describe hurricanes
which, by blowing down the trees, made glades or partial open-
ings in the woods. HOLT WHITE.
4 I have not that alacrity of sprit, &c.] So, in Holinshed,
p. 775 : " not using the alacntie of mirth and mind and coun-
tenance as he was accustomed to doo before he came toward the
battell." STEEVENS.
* So, set it down.'] The word So in the old copies stands at
the beginning of the first line of this speech, caught perhaps by
the compositor's eye glancing on the line below. Mr. Steevens
made the emendation. In Richard's next speech the word Rat-
cliff' is prefixed to the second line, but the metre shows that it
was placed there by the negligence of the compositor. MALONE.
ac.nt. KING RICHARD III. 497
Be to thy person, 6 noble father-in-law !
Tell me, how fares our loving mother ?
STAN. I, by attorney, 7 bless thee from thy mo-
ther,
Who prays continually for Richmond's good :
So much for that. The silent hours steal on,
And flaky darkness breaks within the east.
In brief, for so the season bids us be,
Prepare thy battle early in the morning ;
And put thy fortune to the arbitrement
Of bloody strokes, and mortal-staring war, 8
I, as I may, (that which I would, I cannot,)
With best advantage will deceive the time, 9
And aid thee in this doubtful shock of arms :
But on thy side I may not be too forward,
Lest, being seen, thy brother tender George
Be executed 1 in his father's sight.
6 All comfort that the dark night can afford,
Be to thy person,"] So, in Measure for Measure :
" The best and wholesomest spirits of the night
" Envellop you, ." STEEVENS.
7 by attorney,'] By deputation. JOHNSON.
8 mortal-staring 'war,'} Thus the old copies. I suppose,
by mortal-staring war is meant war that looks big, or stares
fatally on its victims. STEEVENS.
I suspect the poet wrote mortal-scaring war. MALONE.
I adhere to the old reading. So, in Antony and Cleopatra,
Enobarbus says of Antony, who is issuing out to battle
" Now he'll out-stare the lightning."
Again, in The Tempest :
" why stand you
" In this strange stare ?" STEEVENS.
5 I, as I may,
With best advantage will deceive the time,"] I will take the
best opportunity to elude the dangers of this conjuncture.
JOHNSON.
1 Lest, being seen, thy brother tender George
Be executed ] So Holinshed after Hall : " When the said
VOL. XIV. 2 K
498 KING RICHARD III. ACT v.
Farewell : The leisure and the fearful time
Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love, 2
And ample interchange of sweet discourse,
Which so long sunder* d friends should dwell upon ;
God give us leisure for these rites of love !
Once more, adieu : Be valiant, and speed well !
RICHM. Good lords, conduct him to his regi-
ment:
I'll strive, with troubled thoughts, to take a nap ;
Lest leaden slumber 3 peise me down to-morrow,*
lord Stanley would have departed into his country to risit his
familie, and to recreate and refreshe his spirits, as he openly said,
(but the truth was to the intent to be in a perfite readinesse to
join the earle of Richmonde at his first arrival in Englande, ) the
king in no wise would suffer him to depart before he had left as
an hostage in the court, George Stanley, lord Strange, his first
begotten son and heir."
" The lord Stanley lodged in the same town, [Stafford] and
hearing that the earle of Richmond was marching thitherward,
gave to him place, dislodging him and his, to avoid all suspicion,
being afraide least if he should be seen openly to be a factor or
ayder to the earle, his son-in-law, before the day of battayle,
that king Richard, which yet not utterly put him in diffidence
and mistrust, would put to some evil death his son and heir ap-
parent."
The young nobleman whom the poet calls George Stanley,
was created Baron Strange, in right of his wife, by King Ed-
ward IV. in 1482. MALONE.
* The leisure and the fearful time
Gifts qffihe ceremonious votvs oflove,~] We have still a phraser
equivalent to this, however harsh it may seem, I would do this,
if leisure loould permit, where leisure, as in this passage, stands
for ivant of leisure. So again:
'* More than I have said,
" The leisure and enforcement of the time
" Forbids to dwell upon." JOHNSON.
That is, the small degree of leisure we have. M. MASON.
3 Lest leaden slumber ] So, in our author's Rape of Lu-
crece :
" Now leaden slumber with life's strength doth fight."
MAIONE.
sc. in. KING RICHARD III. 499
When I should mount with wings of victory :
Once more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.
\JKxeunt Lords, $c. with STANLEY.
O Thou ! whose captain I account myself,
Look on my forces with a gracious eye ;
Put in their hands thy bruising irons 5 of wrath^
That they may crush down with a heavy fall
The usurping helmets of our adversaries !
Make us thy ministers of chastisement,
That we may praise thee in thy victory !
To thee I do commend my watchful soul,
Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes ; 6
Sleeping, and waking, O, defend me still ! [Sleeps*
4 peise me down to-morrow,'] Thus the old copies. The
modern editions read -poize. To peize, i. e. to weigh down,
from peser, French.
I meet with this word in the old play of The Raigne of King
Edward the Third, 1596:
" And peize their deeds with heavy weight of lead."
Again, in All for Money, 1574-:
" Then if you counterpeaze me learning with money.*'
Again, in Christopher Middleton's Legend of Humphrey Duke
ofGloster, 1600:
" Nor was her schoolespeis'd down with golden waights."
See notes on The Merchant of Venice, Vol. VII. p. 310.
STEEVENS.
3 bruising irons ] The allusion is to the ancient mace.
, HENLEY,
c Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes ; ] So, in Romeo and
Juliet :
" thy eyes 1 windows Jail
" Like death ." STEEVENS.
2 K 2
500 KING RICHARD III. ACT v.
The Ghost 7 of Prince EDWARD, Son to HENRY the
Sixth, rises between the two Tents.
GHOST. Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow ! 8
[To King RICHARD.
7 The Ghost &c.] This circumstance is likewise found in Ni-
chols's Legend of King Richard III. (inserted in The Mirrour
for Magistrates, edit. 1610.) and was apparently imitated from
Shakspeare :
" As in my tent on slumbring bed I lie,
" Horrid aspects appear'd unto mine eye :
" I thought that all those murder'd ghosts, whom I
'* By death had sent to their untimely grave,
" With baleful noise about my tent did crye,
" And of the heavens, with sad complaint, did crave
" That they on guilty wretch might vengeance have."
His terror on waking is likewise very forcibly described.
Drayton, in the 22d Song of his Polyolbion, may likewise
have borrowed from our author :
" Where to the guilty king, the black forerunning night,
" Appear the dreadful ghosts of Henry and his son, .
" Of his own brother George, and his two nephews, done
" Most cruelly to death ; and of his wife, and friend
" Lord Hastings, with pale hands prepar'd as they would
rend
" Him piece-meal ; at which oft he roareth in his sleep."
STEEVENS.
The account given by Polydore Virgil, which was copied by
Hall and Holinshed, is as follows : " The fame went, that he
had the same night [the night before the battle of Bosworth] a
dreadful and a terrible dream ; for it seemed to him being aslepe,
that he saw diverse ymages lylce terrible devilles, which pulled
and haled him, not sufferynge him to take any quiet or reste.'
The which straunge vision not so sodaynly strake his heart with a
sodayne feare, but it stuffed his head and troubled his mind with
many busy and dreadful imaginations. And least that it might
be suspected that- he was abashed for fear of his enemies, and
for that cause looked so piteously, he recited and declared to his
familiar friends, of the morning, his vaonderfull vysion, and
fearfull dreame." I quote from Holinshed, because he was
Shakspeare's authority.
sc. in. KING RICHARD III. 501
Think, how thou stab'dst me in my prime of youth
At Tewksbury ; Despair therefore, and die !
Be cheerful, Richmond ; for the wronged souls
Of butcher'd princes fight in thy behalf:
King Henry's issue, Richmond, comforts thee.
The Ghost of King HENRY the Sixth rises.
GHOST. When I was mortal, my anointed body
[To King RICHARD.
By thee was punched full of deadly holes : 9
Think on the Tower, and me ; Despair, and die ;
Harry the sixth bids thee despair and die.
Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror !
[To RICHMOND.
Harry, that prophecy'd thou should' st be king, 1
Doth comfort thee in thy sleep ; Live, and flourish! 2
Polydore Virgil, as I have already observed, began to write
his history about twenty years after Richard's death. MALONE.
See p. 430, n. 7. STEEVENS.
8 Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrotv f] So, in King
Richard II :
" Be Mowbray's sins so heavy in his bosom."
STEEVENS.
9 By thee "was punched full of deadly holes :] The word,
punched, which sounds but meanly to our ears, is also employed
by Chapman in his version of the sixth Iliad :
" with a goad he punch'd each furious dame."
STEEVENS.
1 Harry, that prophecy'd thou should'st be king,"] The pro-
phecy, to which this allusion is made, was uttered in one of the
parts of Henry the Sixth. JOHNSON.
See Vol. XIV. p. 158, n. 3. MALONE.
- Doth comfort thee in thy sleep ; Live, and flourish /] Surely,
we should read, with Sir Thomas Hanmer :
Doth comfort thee in sleep ; Live thou and flourish !
STEEVENS.
502 KING RICHARD III. ACT 7.
The Ghost of CLARENCE rises.
GHOST. Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!
[To King RICHARD.
I, that was wash'd to death with fulsome wine, 3
Poor Clarence, by thy guile betray'd to death !
To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword ; 4 Despair, and die !
Thou offspring of the house of Lancaster,
[To RICHMOND.
The wronged heirs of York do pray for thee ;
Good angels guard thy battle ! Live, and flourish!
The Ghosts of RIVERS, GREY, and VAUGHAN,
rise.
Rir. Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow,
[To King RICHARD.
Rivers, that died at Pomfret ! Despair, and die !
GREY. Think upon Grey and let thy soul despair!
[To King RICHARD.
3 lunik fulsome tuine,'] Fulsome, was sometimes used, I
think, in the sense of unctuous. The wine in which the body of
Clarence was thrown, was Malmsey. MALONE.
If Clarence had been choked by this wine, he might fairly
enough have employed the epithet fulsome in its vulgar and ac-
cepted sense. Shakspeare, however, seems to have forgot him-
self. The Duke (as appears from Act I. sc. ult.) was killed be-
fore he was thrown into the Malmsey butt, and consequently
could not be washed to death. STEEVENS.
4 And fall thy edgeless stvord ,] Fall, in the present instance,
is a verb active, signifying to drop, or let fall. So, in Othello :
" If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
" Each drop she Jails would prove a crocodile."
STEEVENS.
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. 50S
VAUGH. Think upon Vaughan ; and, with guilty
fear,
Let fall thy lance ! Despair, and die !
[To King RICHARD.
ALL. Awake ! and think, our wrongs in Richard's
bosom [To RICHMOND.
Will conquer him ; awake, and win the day !
TJie Ghost of HASTINGS rises.
GHOST. Bloody and guilty, guiltily awake ;
[To King RICHARD.
And in a bloody battle end thy days !
Think on lord Hastings ; and despair, and die !
Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake !
[To RICHMOND.
Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England's sake !
The Ghosts of the Two young Princes rise.
GHOSTS. Dream on thy cousins smother'd in the
Tower ;
Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard, 5
And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death \
Thy nephews' souls bid thee despair, and die.
Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace, and wake in
Good angels guard thee from the boar's annoy !
* Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard,"] [The first folio
<Src. laid.~\ This is a poor feeble reading. I have restored from
the elder quarto, published in 1597, which Mr. Pope does not
pretend to have seen :
" Let us be lead within thy bosom, Richard."
This corresponds with what is said in the line immediately
following :
" And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death."
THEOBALD.
504 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
Live, and beget a happy race of kings !
Edward's unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.
The Ghost of Queen ANNE rises.
GHOST. Richard, thy wife, that wretched Anne
thy wife,
That never slept a quiet hour with thee, 6
Now fills thy sleep with perturbations :
To-morrow in the battle think on me,
And fall thy edgeless sword ; Despair, and die ! -
Thou, quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep.;
[To RICHMOND.
Dream of success and happy victory j
Thy adversary's wife doth pray for thee.
The Ghost of BUCKINGHAM rises,
GHOST. The first was I, that help'd thee to the
crown ; [To King RICHARD.
6 That never slept a quiet hour with thee,~] Shakspeare was
probably here thinking of Sir Thomas More's animated descrip-
tion of Richard, which Holinshed transcribed : " I have heard
(says Sir Thomas) by credible report of such as were secret with
his chamberlaine, that after this abominable deed done [the mur-
der of his nephews] he never had quiet in his mind. He never
thought himself sure where he went abroad ; his eyes whirled
about ; his body privily fenced ; his hand ever upon his dagger ;
his countenance and manner like one always readie to strike
againe. He tooke ill rest a-nights ; lay long waking and musing,
sore wearied with care and watch ; rather slumbered than slept,
troubled 'with Jearfull dreames ; ' sodainely sometime start up,
leapt out of bed, and ran about the chamber ; so was his restless
heart continually tost and tumbled with the tedious impression
and stormy remembrances of his abominable deede."
With such a companion well might Anne say, that she never
slept one quiet hour. MALONE.
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. 505
The last was I that felt thy tyranny :
O, in the battle think on Buckingham,
And die in terror of thy guiltiness !
Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death ;
Fainting, despair ; despairing, yield thy breath !
I died for hope, 7 ere I could lend thee aid :
[To RICHMOND.
But cheer thy heart, and be thou not dismay'd :
God, and good angels fight on Richmond's side ;
And Richard falls in height of all his pride.
\_The Ghosts vanish. King RICHARD starts
out of his dream.
7 I died for hope,] i. e. I died for wishing well to you. But
Mr. Theobald, with great sagacity, conjectured holpe or aid;
which gave the line this fine sense, I died for giving thee aid be-
fore I could give thee aid. WARBURTON,
Sir Thomas Hanmer reads :
/ died forsook, -
and supports his conjecture, as follows :
" This, as appears from history, was the case of the Duke of
Buckingham : that being stopped with his army upon the banks
of Severn by great deluges of rain, he was deserted by his sol-
diers, who, being in great distress, half famished for want of
victuals, and destitute of pay, disbanded themselves and fled."
Sir Thomas Hanmer's emendation is very plausible ; but may
not the meaning of the expression be, / died for only having
hoped to give you that assistance, which I never had it in my
power to afford you in reality ?
It may, however, be observed, that fore, or for, when joined
to a verb, had anciently a negative signification. So, in Macbeth :
" - He shall live a
As to bid was to pray, so toyorbid had the meaning directly
opposite, i. e. to curse. In Antony and Cleopatra, to^orspeak is
to speak against. In Hamlet, and The Midsummer-Night's
Dream, to fordo is the very reverse of to do. Holpen or holp is
the old participle passive of help, and is used in Macbeth :
" - his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp him
" To his home before us."
Instead of for hope, we may therefore readforholpe, which
would mean unaided, abandoned, deserted, unhelped, which was
506 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
K. RICH. Give me another horse, 8 bind up my
wounds,
Have mercy, Jesu ! Soft j I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me !
The lights burn blue. 9 It is now dead midnight. 1
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
the real misfortune of the Duke of Buckingham. The word holp
has occurred likewise in this play :
" Let him thank me that holp to send him thither.'*
Again, in Coriolanus:
" Have holp to make this rescue." STEEVENS.
Perhaps we should read :
/ died fore-done, # c.
So, in Hamlet, Act V:
" Fore-do its own life." TYRWHITT.
8 Give me another horse, ~] There is in this, as in many of our
author's speeches of passion, something very trifling, and some-
thing very striking. Richard's debate, whether he should quarrel
with himself, is too long continued, but the subsequent exagge-
ration of his crimes is truly tragical. JOHNSON.
9 The lights burn blue.'] So, in Lyly's Galathea, 1592: " I
thought there was some spirit in it because it burnt so blue; for
my mother would often tell me when the candle burnt blue, there
was some ill spirit in the house." It was anciently supposed
that fire was a preservative against evil spirits ; " because," says
Nash, in Pierce Penniless* 's Supplication to the Devil, 1595,
" when any spirit appeareth, the lights by little and little goe
out as it were of their own accord, and the takers are by degrees
extinguished." The takers are the spirits who blast or take. So,
in King Lear :
" strike her young bones
* Ye taking airs, with lameness !" STEEVENS.
1 It is now dead midnight."] So reads the quarto, 1597.
The next quarto corruptly reads " It is not dead midnight ;"
for which the editor of the folio, to obtain some sense, substi-
tuted, " Is it not dead midnight ?" MALONE.
The reading of the quarto, 1597, could it be supposed to need
support, might meet with it in the following observation of
Hamlet :
" ' Tis noto the very witching time of night."
STEEVENS.
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. 507
What do I fear ? myself? there's none else by :
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I. 2
Is there a murderer here ? No ; Yes ; I am :
Then fly, What, from myself? Great reason :
Why?
Lest I revenge. What ? Myself on myself?
I love myself. 3 Wherefore? for any good,
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no : alas, I rather hate myself,
For hateful deeds committed by myself.
I am a villain : Yet I lie, I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well: Fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree ;
Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree ;
All several sins, all us'd in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty ! guilty !
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me ;
And, if I die, no soul will pity me :
Nay, wherefore should they ? since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself.
Methought, the souls of all that I had murder'd 4
that is, I am /.] Thus the quarto, 1598, and the folio.
The quarto, 1597, reads 7 and /. I am not sure that it is not
right. MALONE.
3 / love myself.'] The old copies redundantly read Alack, I
love, &c. STEEVENS.
4 Methought, the souls &c.] These lines stand with so little
propriety at the end of this speech, that I cannot but suspect
them to be misplaced. Where then shall they be inserted ? Per-
haps after these words :
" Fool, do not flatter.'* JOHNSON.
I agree with Johnson in supposing that this and the two fol-
lowing lines have been misplaced, but I differ from him with
respect to their just situation. The place, in my opinion, 'in
508 KING RICHARD III. ACT v.
Came to my tent : and every one did threat
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.
Enter RATCLIFF.
RAT. My lord,
K. RICH. Who's there ?
RAT. Ratcliff, my lord ; 'tis I, 5 The early village
cock
which they might be introduced with the most propriety, is just
ten lines further on, after the words
" Ratcliff, I fear, I fear,
Methought," Sfc.
And then RatclifPs reply
" Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows."
would be natural ; whereas as the text is now regulated, Rat-
cliff bids him not to be afraid of shadows, without knowing that
he had been haunted by them ; unless we suppose that the idea
ofshadows is included in what Richard calls a. frightful dream.
M. MASON.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling fash,
What do I fear? 8fc.
Methought, the souls of all that I had murder'd ] Either
the two and twenty intermediate lines are not Shakspeare's, or
are so unworthy of him, that it were to be wished they could
with propriety be degraded to the margin. I wonder that Dr.
Johnson, who thought the subsequent lines misplaced, did not
perceive that their connection with the preceding part of the
speech, ending at trembling flesh, was interrupted solely by this
apparent interpolation, which is in the highest degree childish
and unnatural. RITSON.
I rather suppose these lines (though genuine) to have been
crossed out of the stage manuscript by Shakspeare himself, and
afterwards restored by the original but tasteless editor of his play.
Burbage, the first performer of Richard, might, for obvious
reasons, have requested their dismission ; or the poet discovering
how aukwardly they stood, might, " without a prompter," have
discarded them. STEEVENS,
4 'tis /.] Surely, these two syllables, serving only to de-
range the metre, should be omitted; or we ought to read:
" My lord, 'tis I. The early milage-cock ." STEEVENS.
?. ///. KING RICHARD III. 509
Hath twice done salutation to the morn ;
Your friends are up, and buckle on their armour.
K. RICH. O Ratcliff, 6 I have dream'd a fearful
dream !
What thinkest thou ? will our friends prove all true?
RAT. No doubt, my lord.
K. RICH. Ratcliff, I fear, I fear,
RAT. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of sha-
dows.
K. RICH. By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard,
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers,
Armed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond.
It is not yet near day. Come, go with me ;
Under our tents I'll play the eaves-dropper,
To hear, if any mean to shrink from me.
\Exeunt King RICHARD and RATCLIFF.
RICHMOND wakes. Enter OXFORD and Others.
LORDS. Good morrow, Richmond.
RICHM. 'Cry mercy, lords, and watchful gentle-
men,
That you have ta'en a tardy sluggard here.
LORDS. How have you slept, my lord ?
RICHM. The sweetest sleep", and fairest-boding
dreams,
That ever enter' d in a drowsy head,
6 0, Ratcliff', &c.] This and the two following lines are
omitted in the folio. Yet Ratcliff is there permitted to say
" be not afraid of shadows," though Richard's dream lias not
been mentioned: an additional proof of what has been already
suggested in p. 490, n. 1. MALONE.
510 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
Have I since your departure had, my lords.
Methought, their souls, whose bodies Richard
murder'd,
Came to my tent, and cried On ! victory !
I promise you, my heart is very jocund
In the remembrance of so fair a dream.
How far into the morning is it, lords ?
LORDS. Upon the stroke of four.
RICHM. Why, then 'tis time to arm, and give
direction.
[ He advances to the Troops.
More than I have said, loving countrymen,
The leisure and enforcement of the time
Forbids to dwell on : Yet remember this,
God, and our good cause, fight upon our side ;
The prayers of holy saints, and wronged souls,
Like high-rear' d bulwarks, stand before our faces;
Richard except, those, whom we fight against,
Had rather have us win, than him they follow.
For what is he they follow ? truly, gentlemen,
A bloody tyrant, and a homicide ;
One rais'd in blood, and one in blood established ;
One that made means 7 to come by what he hath,
And slaughter'd those that were the means to help
him ;
A base foul stone, made precious by the foil
Of England's chair, 8 where he is falsely set j
7 One that made means ] To make means was, in Shak-
speare's time, often used in an unfavourable sense, and signified
-to come at any thing by indirect practices* STEEVENS.
8 by the foil
Of England's chair,'] It is plain that foil cannot here mean
that of which the obscurity recommends the brightness of the
diamond. It must mean the leaf (feuille) or thin plate of metal
in which the stone is set. JOHNSON.
Nothing has been, or is still more common, than to put a
sc.m. KING RICHARD III. 511
One that hath ever been God's enemy :
Then, if you fight against God's enemy,
God will, in justice, ward you as his soldiers ;
If you do sweat to put a tyrant down,
You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain ;
If you do fight against your country's foes,
Your country's fat shall pay your pains the hire ;
If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,
Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors j
If you do free your children from the sword,
Your children's children quit 9 it in your age.
Then, in the name of God, and all these rights,
Advance your standards, draw your willing swords:
For me, the ransom of my bold attempt 1
Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face $
But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt
The least of you shall share his part thereof.
Sound, drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully;
God, and Saint George ! 2 Richmond, and victory !
\JExeunt.
bright-coloured foil under a cloudy or low-prized stone. The
same allusion is common to many writers. So, in a Song pub-
lished in England's Helicon, 1614 :
" False stones byfoiles have many one abus'd."
STEEVENS*
England's chair means England's throne. Set is used equivo-
cally. MALONE.
9 quit 3 i. e. requite. So, in Antony and Cleopatra:
" To let a fellow who will take rewards,
" And say, God quit you ! " STEEVENS.
the ransom of my bold attempt J Thejine paid by
me in atonement for my rashness shall be my dead corse.
JOHNSON.
* Got/, and Saint George /] Saint George was the common
cry of the English soldiers when they charged the enemy. The
author of the old Arte of Warre, printed in the latter end of
Queen Elizabeth's reign, formally enjoins the use of this cry
among his military laws, p. 84- :
" Item, that all souldiers entring into battaile, assault, skirmish,
or other faction of armes, shall have for their common cry and
512 KING RICHARD III. ACT v.
Re-enter King RICHARD, RATCLIFF, Attendants,
and Forces.
K. RICH. What said Northumberland, as touch-
ing Richmond ?
RAT. That he was never trained up in arms.
K. RICH. He said the truth : And what said Sur-
rey then ?
RAT. He simTd and said, the better for our pur-
pose.
K. RICH. He was i'the right ; and so, indeed, it
is. [Clock strikes.
Tell the clock there. Give me a calendar.
Who saw the sun to-day ?
RAT. Not I, my lord.
word, Saint George, forward, or upon them, saint George, where-
by the souldiour is much comforted, and the enemy dismaied by
calling to minde the ancient valour of England, which with that
name has so often been victorious ; and therefore he, who upon
any sinister zeale, shall maliciously omit so fortunate a name,
shall be severely punished for his obstinate erroneous heart, and
perverse mind."
Hence too the humour of the following lines in Marston's
nervous but neglected satires, entitled The Scourge of Villanie,
printed in 1599, Lib. III. Sat. viii:
" A pox upon't that Bacchis* name should be
" The watch-word given to the souldierie.
" Goe troupe to field, mount thy obscured fame,
" Cry out Saint George, invoke thy mistresse' name ;
" Thy Mistresse and Saint George," &c.
In Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle, that
admirable and early ridicule of romance-writing, where the
champion Ralph is going to attack the Barber, or the huge giant
Barboroso, the burlesque is heightened, when, with much so-
lemnity, and as if a real heroick encounter had been going for-
ward, he cries out, " Saint George! set on before, march squire
and page." Act III. sc. i. And afterwards, when the engage-
ment begins, Ralph says, " St. George for me;" and Barbaroso,
" Garagantua for me." T, WARTON.
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. 518
K. RICH. Then he disdains to shine ; for, by the
book,
He should have brav'd the east 3 an hour ago :
A black day will it be to somebody.
Ratcliff,
RAT. My lord ?
K. RICH. The sun will not be seen to-day ;
The sky doth frown and lour upon our army.
I would, these dewy tears were from the ground.
Not shine to-day ! Why, what is that to me,
More than to Richmond ? for the self-same heaven,
That frowns on me, looks sadly upon him.
Enter NORFOLK.
NOR. Arm, arm, my lord ; the foe vaunts in the
field.
K. RICH. Come, bustle, bustle ; Caparison my
horse ;
Call up lord Stanley, bid him bring his power :
I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,
And thus my battle shall be ordered.
My foreward shall be drawn out all in length, 4
3 brav'd the east ] i. e. made it splendid. So, Petru-
chio in The Taming of the Shreiv, says to the Tailor : " thou
hast braved many men [i. e. invested them with finery] brave not
me." The common signification of the verb to brave, will, in
my apprehension, hardly suit the passage before us ; for with
what propriety can the sun be said to challenge or set the East at
defiance? STEEVENS.
4 Myforeiuard shall be drawn out all in length,"] So Holin-
shed : " King Richard havyng all things in a readiness went
forth with the army out of his tentes, and began to set his men
in array: first the forward set forth a marvellous length, both of
horsemen and also ofjootemen, and to the formost part of aU
VOL. XIV. 2 L
514 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
Consisting equally of horse and foot ;
Our archers shall be placed in the midst :
John duke of Norfolk, Thomas earl of Surrey,
Shall have the leading of this foot and horse.
They thus directed, we ourself will follow 5
In the main battle ; whose puissance on either side
Shall be well winged with our chiefest horse.
This, and Saint George to boot ! 6 What think'st
thou, Norfolk ?
NOR. A good direction, warlike sovereign.
This found I on my tent this morning. 7
[Giving a Scrawl.
K. RICH. Jocky of Norfolk, be not too bold*
[Reads.
For Dickon thy master* is bought and
sold.
the bowmen as a strong fortresse for them that came after ; and
over this John duke of Norfolk was head captain. After him
followed the king with a mighty sort of men." MALONE.
5 lae ourself will follotx ~\ The word ourself , was
judiciously supplied by Sir Thomas Hanmer, to complete the
verse. STEEVENS.
6 This, and Saint George to boot .'] That is, this is the order
of our battle, which promises success ; and over and above this,
is the protection of our patron saint. JOHNSON.
To boot is (as I conceive) to help, and not over and above.
HAWKINS.
Mr. Hawkins is certainly right. So, in King Richard II :
" Mine innocence, and Saint George to thrive"
The old English phrase was, Saint George to borrow. So, in
A Dialogue, &c. by Dr. William Bulleyne, 1564- : " Maister
and maistres, come into this vallie, untill this storme be past :
Saincte George to borrotue, mercifull God, who did ever see tha
like ?" Signat. K. 7. b. MALONE.
7 This found I on my tent this morning."} Sir Thomas Hanmer
supplies the deficiency in the metre of this line, by reading :
This paper^/bwwG? / &c. STEEVENS.
be not too bold,"} The quarto, 1598, and the folio, read
sc. m. KING RICHARD III. 515
A thing devised by the enemy.
Go, gentlemen, every man unto his charge :
Let not our babbling dreams 1 affright our souls j
Conscience is but a word 2 that cowards use,
Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe ;
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
so bold. But it was certainly an error of the press : for in both
Hall and Holinshed, the words are given as in the text.
MALONE.
9 Dickon thy master &c.] Dickon is the ancient vulgar
familiarization of Richard. In Gammer Gurton's Needle, 1575,
Diccon is the name of the Bedlam. In the words bought and
sold, I believe, there is somewhat proverbial. So, in The Comedy
of Errors : " It would make a man as mad as a buck, to be so
bought and sold." Again, in King John :
" Fly, noble English, you are bought and sold."
Again, in Troilus and Cressida, with an addition that throws
more light on the phrase : " Thou art bought and sold among
those of any wit, like a Barbarian slave." STEEVENS.
Again, in Mortimeriados, a poem, by Michael Drayton, no
date:
" Is this the kindnes that thou offerest me ?
" And in thy country am I bought and sold?"
Again, in Skelton's Colin Clout, 1568 :
" How prelacy is sold and bought,
" And come up of nought."
Again, in Bacon's History of King Henry VII ; " all the
news ran upon the duke of Yorke, that he had been entertained
in Ireland, bought and sold in France," &c. The expression
seems to have signified that some foul play has been used. The
foul play alluded to here, was Stanley's desertion. MALONE.
1 Let not our babbling dreams &c.] I suspect these six lines
to be an interpolation ; but if Shakspeare was really guilty of
them in his first draught, he probably intended to leave them out
when he substituted the much more proper harangue that follows.
TYRWHITT.
1 Conscience is but a word ] So the quarto, 1598. But
being accidentally omitted in a later quarto, the editor of the
folio supplied the omission by reading For conscience is a word,
&c. MALONE.
2L2
516 KING RICHARD III. ACT v.
March on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell ;
If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell. 3 -
What shall I say more than I have infer J d ?
Remember whom you are to cope withal ;
A sort of vagabonds, 4 rascals, and run-aways,
A scum of Bretagnes, and base lackey peasants,
Whom their o'er-cloyed country vomits forth
To desperate ventures 5 and assur'd destruction.
You sleeping safe, they bring you to unrest ;
You having lands, and bless'd with beauteous wives,
They would restrain the one, 6 distain the other.
And who doth lead them, but a paltry fellow,
Long kept in Bretagne at our mother's cost ? 7
s If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.] So, in Macbeth :
" That summons thee to heaven, or to hell."
Again, in King Henry VI. P. II :
" If not in heaven, you'll surely sup in hell."
STEEVENS.
* A sort of vagabonds,"] A sort, that is, a company, a collec-
tion. See note on A Midsummer-Night's Dream, vol. IV. p.
408, n. 2. JOHNSON.
5 ventures ] Old copies adventures. STEEVENS.
6 They would restrain the one,] i. e. they would lay restrictions
on the possession of your lands ; impose conditions on the pro-
prietors of them. Dr. Warburton for restrain substituted dis-
train, which has been adopted by all the subsequent editors.
" To distrain," says he, " is to seize upon ;" but to distrain is
not to seize generally, but to seize goods, cattle, &c. for non-
payment of rent, or for the purpose of enforcing the process of
courts. The restrictions likely to be imposed by a conquering
enemy on lands, are imposts, contributions, &c. or absolute con-
fiscation. " And if he [Henry Earl of Richmond] should at-
chieve his false intent and purpose," (says Richard in his cir-
cular letter sent to the Sheriffs of the several counties in En-
gland on this occasion ; Paston Letters, II. 321,) " every man's
life, livelihood, and goods, shall be in his hands, liberty, and dis-
position." MALONE.
I Long kept in Bretagne at our mother's cost f] This is spo-
ken by Richard, of Henry Earl of Richmond ; but they were
sc. in. KING RICHARD III. 517
A milk-sop, 8 one that never in his life
Felt so much cold as over shoes in snow ?
far from having any common mother, but England: and the
Earl of Richmond was not subsisted abroad at the nation's pub-
lie charge. During the greatest part of his residence abroad,
he was watched and restrained almost like a captive ', and subsist-
ed by supplies conveyed from the Countess of Richmond, his
mother. It seems probable, therefore, that we must read :
Long kept in Bretagneat his mother 1 s cost. THEOBALD.
Our mother's cost f] Mr. Theobald perceives to be wrong : he
reads, therefore, and all the editors after him :
Long kept in Bretagne at his mother's cost.
But give me leave to transcribe a few more lines from Holin-
shed, and you will find at once, that Shakspeare had been there
before me :
" You see further, how a company of traitors, theeves, out
laws and runagates be aiders and partakers of this feate and en-
terprize.T And to begin with the erle of Richmond, captaine of
this rebellion, he is a Welch milksop brought up by my
moother's meanes and mine, like a captive in a close cage in the
court of Francis Duke of Britaine." P. 756.
Holinshed copies this verbatim from his brother chronicler,
Hall, edit. 154-8, fol. 54, but his printer has given us by accident
the word moot her instead of brother; as it is in the original, and
ought to be in Shakspeare. FARMER.
See a Letter of King Richard III. persuading his subjects to
resist Henry Tydder, &c. in Sir John Fenn's Collection of the
Paston Letters, Vol. II. p. 318. HENLEY.
Henry Earl of Richmond was long confined in the court of the
Duke of Britaine, and supported there by Charles Duke of Bur-
gundy, who was brother-in-law to King Richard. Hence Mr.
Theobald justly observed that mother in the text was not con-
formable to the fact. But Shakspeare, as Dr. Farmer has ob-
served, was led into this error by Holinshed, where he found the
preceding passage in an oration which Hall, in imitation of the
ancient historians, invented, and exhibited as having been spo-
ken by the King to his soldiers before the battle of Bosworth.
If, says a Remarker, [Mr. Ritson,] it ought to be so in Shak-
speare, why stop at this correction, and why not in K. Henry V.
print prcecarissimus instead of prceclarissimus ? [See Vol. XII.
p. 524-, n. 4-.] And indeed if brother is to be substituted for
tnother here, there can be no reason why all other similar errors
should not be corrected in like manner. But the Remarker imV
518 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
Let's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again ;
Lash hence these over- weening rags of France,
These famish'd beggars, weary of their lives j
Understood Dr. Farmer's words, which only mean as it is in the
original, and as Shakspeare ought to have written. Dr. Farmer
did not say " as it ought to be printed in Shakspeare."
In all the other places where Shakspeare had been led into er-
rors by mistakes of the press, or by false translations, his text
has been very properly exhibited as he wrote it ; for it is not the
business of an editor to new-write his author's works. Thus, in
Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV. sc. i. we have " Let the old
ruffian know, /have many other ways to die ;" though we know
the sense of the passage in Plutarch there copied is, that " he
[the old ruffian] hath many other ways to die." Again, in
Julius Ccesar, Antony is still permitted to say, that Csesar had
left the Roman people his arbours and orchards " on this side
Tyber," though it ought to be " on that side Tyber :" both
which mistakes Shakspeare was led into by the ambiguity and in-
accuracy of the old translation of Plutarch.
In like manner in King Henry V. praclarissimus is exhibited
as it was written by Shakspeare, instead of prcecarissimus ; and
in the same play I have followed our author in printing in Vol.
XII. p. 292, Lewis the tenth, though Lewis the ninth was the
person meant : an error into which he was led, as in the present
instance, by a mistake of the press.
For all such inaccuracies the poet, and not his editor, is re-
sponsible : and in the passage now under our consideration more
particularly the text ought not to be disturbed, because it ascer-
tains a point of some moment ; namely that Holinshed, and not
Hall, was the historian that Shakspeare followed. Of how much
consequence this is, the reader may ascertain by turning to the
Dissertation on the Plays of King Henry VI. where this circum-
stance, if I do not deceive myself, contributes not a little in ad-
dition to the other proofs there adduced, to settle a long-agitated
question, and to show that those plays were re-ivritten by Shak-
*peare, and not his original composition. MALONE.
8 A milk-sop, &c.] So, in The Mirrourjbr Magistrates, al-
ready quoted:
** First with our foe-mens captaine to begin,
" A weake Welch milksop, ."
Alluding perhaps to goat's milk, of which anciently the Welsh
were fonder than they are at present. STEEVENS.
so. m. KING RICHARD III. 519
Who, but for dreaming on this fond exploit,
For want of means, poor rats, had hang'd them-
selves :
If we be conquer'd, let men conquer us,
And not these bastard Bretagnes; whom ourfatherd
Have intheirownlandbeaten, bobb'd, andthump'd,
And, on record, left them the heirs of shame.
Shall these enjoy our lands ? lie with our wives ?
Ravish our daughters ? Hark, I hear their drum.
\I)rum afar off.
Fight, gentlemen of England ! fight, bold yeomen !
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head 1
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood ;
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves I 9
Enter a Messenger.
What says lord Stanley ? will he bring his power ?
MESS. My lord, he doth deny to come.
K. RICH. Off instantly with his son George's
head. 1
9 Amaze the welkin with your broken staves !~] That is, fright
the skies luith the shivers of your lances. JOHNSON.
So, in Soliman and Perseda :
" Now by the marble face of the welkin."
A similar idea is more tamely expressed in W. Smith's
Palsgrave, 1613 :
" Spears flew in splinters half the way to heaven."
The same imagery is justified by the following passage in
Froissart's Chronicle, Vol. II. cap. Ixxviii : " Syr Raynolde du
Roy brake his spere in iiii peces, and the shevers flewe a grete
hyght in to the ayre." STEEVENS.
1 Off instantly fyc.~] The word instantly, was supplied by
Sir Thomas Hanmer. Without it, this line has no pretension!
to metre. STEEVENS.
520 KING RICHARD III. ACT v.
NOR. My lord, the enemy is pass'd the marsh j 2
After the battle let George Stanley die.
K. RICH. A thousand hearts are great within my
bosom: >
Advance our standards, 3 set upon our foes ;
Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George,
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons !
Upon them ! Victory sits on our helms. [Exeunt.
8 the enemy is pass'd the marsh ;] There was a large
marsh in Bosworth plain between the two armies. Henry passed
it, and made such a disposition of his forces that it served to pro-
tect his right wing. By this movement he gained also another
point, that his men should engage with the sun behind them,
and in the faces of his enemies : a matter of great consequence
when bows and arrows were in use. MALONE.
3 Advance our standards, &c.~] So again, in The Mirrour of
Magistrates ; and apparently borrowed from Shakspeare :
" Advance then captaines, forward to the fight,
** Draw forth your swords, each man address his sheeld ;
" Hence faint conceites, die thoughts of coward flight,
" To heaven your hearts, to fight your valours yeeld :
" Behold our foes do brave us in the field.
" Upon them, friends ; the cause is yours and mine ;
" Saint George and conquest on our helmes doth shine."
STEEVENS.
So Holinshed after Hall : " like valiant champions advance
forth your standardes, and assay whether your enemies can de-
cide and try the title of battaile by dint of sword ; avaunce, J
say again, forward, my captaines Now Saint George to borrow,
let us set forward." MALONE.
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 521
SCENE IV.
Another Part of the Field.
Alarum : Excursions. Enter NORFOLK, and
Forces ; to him CATESBY.
CATE. Rescue, my lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!
The king enacts more wonders than a man,
Daring an opposite to every danger ;*
His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death :
Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost !
4 Daring an opposite to every danger ;] Perhaps the poet
wrote :
Daring and opposite to every danger. TYRWHITT.
Perhaps the following passage in Chapman's version of the
eighth Book of Homer's Odyssey may countenance the old
reading :
" a most dreadful fight
" Daring against him." STEEVENS.
The old reading is perhaps right. An opposite is frequently
used by Shakspeare and the contemporary writers, for adversary.
So, in Twelfth-Night : " your opposite hath in him what
youth, strength, skill, and wrath, can furnish man withal."
Again : " and his opposite the youth, bears in his visage no
presage of cruelty." So, in Blurt Mr. Constable, a comedy, by
Middleton, 1602: " to strengthen us against all opposites."
Again, more appositely, in Marston's Antonio and Mellida t
1602:
" Myself, myself, will dare all opposites.'*
The sense then should seem to be, that King Richard enacts
wonders, daring the adversary he meets with to every danger at-
tending single combat. MALONE.
To dare a single opposite to every danger, is no very wonder-
ful exploit. I should therefore adopt Tyrwhitt's amendment,
which infers that he flew to oppose every danger, wherever it
was to be found, and read with him, " and opposite."
M. MASON.
522 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
Alarum. Enter King RICHARD.
K. RICH. A horse ! a horse ! 5 my kingdom for a
horse !
GATE. Withdraw, my lord, I'll help you to a
horse.
K. RICH. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die :
I think, there be six Richmonds in the field ;
Five have I slain to-day, instead of him : 6
* A horse! ahorse!"] In The Battle of Alcazar, 1594, the
Moor calls out in the same manner :
" A horse, a horse, villain a horse!
** That I may take the river straight, and fly !
" Here is a horse, my lord,
" As swiftly pac'd as Pegasus."
This passage in Shakspeare appears to have been imitated by
several of the old writers, if not stolen. So, Heywood, in the
Second Part of his Iron Age, 1632 :
" a horse, a horse !
" Ten kingdoms for a horse to enter Troy." STEEVENS.
Marston seems to have imitated this line in his Satires, 1599 :
" A man, a man, a kingdom for a man !" MALONE.
This line is introduced into Marston's What you will, Act II.
*c. i. 4to. 1607:
" Ha ! he mounts Chirall on the wings of fame.
" A horse ! a horse ! my kingdomefor a horse !
" Looke thee, I speake play scraps," &c. REED.
6 Five have I slain to-day, instead of him .] Shakspeare had
employed this incident with historical propriety in The First
Part of King Henry IF. STEEVENS.
Shakspeare had good ground for this poetical exaggeration ;
Richard, according to Polydore Virgil, was determined, if possi-
ble, to engage with Richmond insingle combat. [See p.521, 1.5.]
For this purpose he rode furiously to that quarter of the field
where the Earl was ; attacked his standard-bearer, Sir William
Brandon, and killed him ; then assaulted Sir John Cheny, whom
he overthrew : having thus at length cleared his way to his an-
ac. iv. KING RICHARD III. 523
A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! 7
\_Exeunt.
Alarums. Enter King RICHARD and RICHMOND;
and exeunt, Jighting. Retreat, and flourish.
Then enter RICHMOND, STANLEY, bearing the
Crown, with divers other Lords, and Forces.
RICHM. God, and your arms, be prais'd, victo-
rious friends ;
The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.
STAN. Courageous Richmond, well hast thou ac-
quit thee !
Lo, here, this long-usurped royalty,
From the dead temples of this bloody wretch 8
Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal ;
Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.
tagonist, he engaged in single combat with him, and probably
would have been victorious, but that at that instant Sir William
Stanley with three thousand men joined Richmond's army, and
the royal forces fled with great precipitation. Richard was soon
afterwards overpowered by numbers, and fell, fighting bravely
to the last moment. MALONE.
7 A horse ! a horse !~] Some inquiry hath been made for the
first performers of the capital characters of Shakspeare.
We learn, that Burbage, the alter Roscius of Camden, was
the original Richard, from a passage in the poems of Bishop
Corbet ; who introduced his host at Bpsworth describing the
battle :
" But when he would have said king Richard died,
" And call'd a horse, a horse, he Burbage cried.'*
FARMER.
* offals bloody wretch ] It is not necessary to suppose
that Richmond points to the dead body of Richard, when he
speaks of him. According to an ancient idiom in our language,
the demonstrative pronoun is often used instead of the prepositive
article. So, in King Henry IV. P.I:
" but for these vile guns
" He would himself have been a soldier." STEEVENS.
524 KING RICHARD III. ACT r.
RICHM. Great God of heaven, say, amen, to
all!
'But, tell me first, 9 is young George Stanley living ?
STAN. He is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town;
Whither, if it please you, we may now withdraw us.
RICHM. What men of name are slain on either
side?
STAN. John duke of Norfolk, Walter lord Fer-
rers,
Sir Robert Brakenbury, and sir William Brandon.
RICHM. Inter their bodies as becomes their
births.
Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled,
That in submission will return to us ;
And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament, 1
We will unite the white rose with the red :
Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,
That long hath frown'd upon their enmity !
What traitor hears me, and says not, amen ?
England hath long been mad, and scarr'd herself;
The brother blindly shed the brother's blood,
The father rashly slaughter' d his own son,
The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire ;
All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided, in their dire division. 2 -*-
9 But, tell me first, #c.] The word -first, was introduced by
Sir Thomas Hanmer, to complete the verse. STEEVENS.
1 as ixe have ta'en the sacrament,'] So, in Holinshed,
p. 745 : " The earle himselfe first tooke a corporall oth on his
honor, promising that incontinent after he shuld be possessed of
the crowne and dignitie of the realme of England, he would be
conjoined in matrimonie with the ladie Elizabeth, daughter to
king Edward the fourth." STEEVENS.
* All this divided York and Lancaster,
Divided, in their dire division.] I think the passage will be
somewhat improved by a slight alteration :
sc. iv. KING RICHARD III. 525
O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together !
And let their heirs, (God, if thy will be so,)
Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac'd peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days !
Abate the edge 3 of traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce 4 these bloody days again,
And make poor England weep in streams of blood. 1
Let them not live to taste this land's increase,
That would with treason wound this fair land's
peace !
Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again ;
That she may long live here, God say Amen !
[Exeunt. 5
All that divided York and Lancaster,
Divided in their dire division,
O now let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God's Jair ordinance conjoin together !
Let them unite all that York and Lancaster divided.
JOHNSON.
3 Abate the edge ] To abate, is to lower, depress, subdue.
So, in Coriolanus :
" deliver you, as most
" Abated captives, ." STEEVENS.
reduce ] i. e. bring back ; an obsolete sense of the
word. So, in The goodly History of the moste noble and beau-
tiful Ladye Lucres of Scene in Tuskan, and of her louer
Eurialus &c. 1560: " The mornynge forsakyng the golden bed
of Titan, reduced the desyred day ." STEEVENS.
4 This is one of the most celebrated of our author's perform-
ances ; yet I know not whether it has not happened to him as to
others, to be praised most, when praise is not most deserved.
That this play has scenes noble in themselves, and very well con-
trived to strike in the exhibition, cannot be denied. But some
parts are trifling, others shocking, and some improbable.
JOHNSON.
I agree entirely with Dr. Johnson in thinking that this play
526 KING RICHARD III.
from its first exhibition to the present hour has been estimated
greatly beyond its merit. From the many allusions to it in
books of that age, and the great number of editions it passed
through, I suspect it was more often represented and more ad-
mired than any of our author's tragedies. Its popularity per-
haps in some measure arose from the detestation in which Ri-
chard's character was justly held, which must have operated
more strongly on those whose grand-fathers might have lived
near his time ; and from its being patronized by the Queen on
the throne, who probably was not a little pleased at seeing King
Henry VII. placed in the only favourable light in which he
could have been exhibited on the scene. MALONE.
I most cordially join with Dr. Johnson and Mr. Malone in
their opinions ; and yet perhaps they have overlooked one cause
of the success of this tragedy. The part of Richard is, perhaps,
beyond all others variegated, and consequently favourable to a
judicious performer. It comprehends, indeed, a trait of almost
every species of character on the stage. The hero, the lover,
the statesman, the buffoon, the hypocrite, the hardened and re-
penting sinner, &c. are to be found within its compass. No
wonder, therefore, that the discriminating powers of a Burbage,
a Garrick, and a Henderson, should at different periods have
given it a popularity beyond other dramas of the same author.
Yet the favour with which this tragedy is now received, must
also in some measure be imputed to Mr. Gibber's reformation of
it, which, generally considered, is judicious : for what modern
audience would patiently listen to the narrative of Clarence's
dream, his subsequent expostulation with the Murderers, the
prattle of his children, the soliloquy of the Scrivener, the tedious
dialogue of the Citizens, the ravings of Margaret, the gross
terms thrown out by the Duchess of York on Richard, the re-
peated progress to execution, the superfluous train of spectres,
and other undramatick incumbrances, which must have prevented
the more valuable parts of the play from rising into their present
effect and consequence ? The expulsion of languor, therefore,
must atone for such remaining want of probability as is insepa-
rable from an historical drama into which the events of fourteen
years are irregularly compressed. STEEVENS.
The Life and Death of King Richard the Third."] The oldest
known edition of this tragedy is printed for Andrew Wise, 1597 :
but Harrington, in his Apologie for Poetrie, written in 1590,
and prefixed to the translation ofAriosto, says, that a tragedy of
Richard the Third had been acted at Cambridge. His words
are, " For tragedies, to omit other famous tragedies, that which
was played at St. John's in Cambridge, of Richard the Third t
KING RICHARD III. 527
Would move, I think, Phalaris the tyrant, and terrifie all
tyrannous minded men," &c. He most probably means Shak-
epeare's ; and if so, we may argue, that there is some more an-
cient edition of this play than what I have mentioned ; at least
this shows how early Shakspeare's play appeared ; or if some
other Richard the Third is here alluded to by Harrington, that
a play on this subject preceded our author's. T. WARTON.
It appears from the following passage in the preface to Nashe's
Have "with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt
is up, 1596, that a Latin tragedy of King Richard III. had
been acted at Trinity College, Cambridge : " or his fellow
codshead, that in the Latine tragedie of King Richard, cried Ad
urbs, ad urbs, ad urbs, when his whole part was no more than
Urbs, urbs, ad arma, ad arma." STEEVENS.
The play on this subject mentioned by Sir John Harrington
in his Apologie for Poetrie, 1591, and sometimes mistaken for
Shakspeare's, was a Latin one, written by Dr. Legge ; and acted
at St. John's in our university, some years before 1588, the
date of the copy in the Museum. This appears from a better
MS. in our library at Emmanuel, with the names of the original
performers.
A childish imitation of Dr. Legge's play was written by one
Lacy, 1583; which had not been worth mentioning, were they
not confounded by Mr. Capell. FARMER.
The Latin play of King Richard HI. (MSS. Harl. n. 6926,)
has the author's name, -Henry Lacey, and is dated 1586.
TYRWHITT.
Heywood, in his Actor's Vindication, mentions the play of
King Richard III. " acted in St. John's Cambridge,so essentially,
that had the tyrant Phalaris beheld his bloody proceedings, it
had mollified his heart, and made him relent at sight of his in-
human massacres." And in the books of the Stationers' Com-
pany June 19, 1594, Thomas Creede made the following
entry : " An enterlude, intitled the tragedie of Richard the
Third, wherein is shown the deathe of Edward the Fourthe,
with the smotheringe of the two princes in the Tower, with the
lamentable ende of Shore's wife, and the contention of the two
houses of Lancaster and Yorke," This could not have been the
work of Shakspeare, unless he afterwards dismissed the death of
Jane Shore, as an unnecessary incident, when he revised the
play. Perhaps, however, it might be some translation of Lacey's
play, at the end of the first Act of which is, " The showe of the
procession. 1. Tipstaffe. 2. Shore's toife in her petticote, having
a taper burning in her hande. 3. The Verger. 4. Queristers.
5. Singing-men. 6. Prebendary. 7. Bishoppe of London. 8. Citi-
528 KING RICHARD III.
zens." There is likewise a Latin song sung on this occasion, in
MS. F'arl. 2412. STEEVENS.
The English King Richard III. which was entered on the
Stationers' books in 1594, and which, it may be presumed, had
been exhibited some years before, was probably written by the
author of The Contention of the Ttao Houses of Yorke and Lan-
caster. MALONE.
I shall here subjoin two Dissertations, one by Dr. Warburton,
and one by Mr. Upton, upon the Vice.
ACT III. SCENE I.
Thus like the formal vice, Iniquity, #c.] As this corrupt
reading in the common books hath occasioned our saying some-
thing of the barbarities of theatrical representations amongst us
before the time of Shakspeare, it may not be improper, for a
better apprehension of this whole, to give the reader some general
account of the rise and progress of the modern stage.
The first form in which the drama appeared in the west of Eu-
rope, after the destruction of learned Greece and Rome, and
that a calm of dulness had finished upon letters what the rage of
barbarism had begun, was that of the Mysteries. These were
the fashionable and favourite diversions of all ranks of people both
in France, Spain, and England. In which last place, as we learn
by Stow, they were in use about the time of Richard the second
and Henry the fourth. As to Italy, by what I can find, the first
rudiments of their stage, with regard to the matter, were pro-
phane subjects, and, with regard to the form, a corruption of
the ancient mimes and attettanes : by which means they got
sooner into the right road than their neighbours ; having had re-
gular plays amongst them wrote as early as the fifteenth century.
As to these mysteries, they were, as their name speaks them,
a representation of some scripture-story, to the life : as may be
seen from the following passage in an old French history, intitled,
La Chronique de Metz composee par le cure de St. Euchaire ;
which will give the reader no bad idea of the surprising absurdity
of these strange representations : " L'an 1437 le 3 Juillet (says
the honest Chronicler,} fut fait le Jeu de la Passion de N. S. en la
plaine de Veximiel. Et fut Dieu un sire appelll Seigneur Nicolle
Dom Neufchastel, lequel etoit Cure" de St. Victour de Metz,
lequel fut presque mort en la Croix, s'il ne fut et6 secourus ; &
convient qu'un autre Pretre fut mis en la Croix pour parfaire le
Personnage du Crucifiment pour ce jour ; & le lendemain le dit
Cure de St. Victour parfit la Resurrection, et fit trqs hautement
KING RICHARD III. 529
son personage ; & dura le (lit Jeu Et autre Pretre qui s* ap-
pelloit Mre. Jean de Nicey, qui estoit Chapelain de Metrange,
tut Judas : lequel fut presque mort en pendent, car le cuer li
faillit, et fut bien hativement dependu & porte en Voye. Et
etoit la bouche d'Enfer tresbien faite ; car elle ouvroit & clooit,
quand les Diables y vouloient entrer & isser ; & avoit deux gross
Culs d'Acier," &c. Alluding to this kind of representations
Archbishop Harsnet, in his Declaration of Popish Impostures,
p: 71, says : " The little children were never so afraid of Hell-
mouth in the old plays, painted with great gang teeth, staring
eyes, and foul bottle nose." Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall,
gives a fuller description of them in these words, " The Guary
Miracle, in English a Miracle Play, is a kind of interlude com-
piled in Cornish out of some scripture history. For representing
it, they raise an earthen amphitheatre in some open field, having
the diameter of an inclosed playne, some 40 or 50 foot. The
country people flock from all sides many miles off, to hear and
see it. For they have therein devils and devices, to delight as
well the eye as the ear. The players conne not their parts with-
out book, but are prompted by one called the ordinary, who
followeth at their back with the book in his hand," &c. &c.
There was always a droll or buffoon in these mysteries, to make
the people mirth with his sufferings or absurdities: and they
could think of no better a personage to sustain this part than the
devil himself. Even in the mystery of the Passion mentioned
above, it was contrived to make him ridiculous. Which circum-
stance is hinted at by Shakspeare (who had frequent allusions to
these things) in The Taming of the Shrew, where one of the
players asks for a little vinegar, (as & property} to make the devil
roar.* For after the sponge with the gall and vinegar had been
employed in the representation, they used to clap it to the nose
of the devil ; which making him roar, as if it had been holy-
water, afforded infinite diversion to the people. So that vinegar
in the old farces, was always afterwards in use to torment their
devil. We have divers old English proverbs, in which the devil
is represented as acting or suffering ridiculously and absurdly,
which all arose from the part he bore in these mysteries, as in
that, for instance, of Great Cry and little Wool, as the Devil
said when he sheered his Hogs. For the sheep-shearing of Nabal
being represented in the mystery of David and Abigail, and the
devil always attending Nabal, was made to imitate it by shearing
a hog. This kind of absurdity, as it is the properest to create
laughter, was the subject of the ridiculous in the ancient mimes,
* This is not in Shakspeare's play, but in the old play entitled ITie Taming
ef a Shrew. MALONE.
VOL. XIV. 2 M
530 KING RICHARD III.
as we learn from these words of Saint Austin: Ne Jaciamus ut
mimi sclent, Sf optemus a libero aquam, a lymphis vinum.*
These mysteries, we see, were given in France at first, as well
as in England, sub dio, and only in the provinces. Afterwards
we find them got into Paris, and a company established in the
Hotel de Bourgogne to represent them. But good letters and
religion beginning to make their way in the latter end of the
reign of Francis the first, the stupidity and prophaneness of the
mysteries made the courtiers and clergy join their interest for
their suppression. Accordingly, .in the year 1541, the procu-
reur-general, in the name of the king, presented a request against
the company to the parliament. The three principal branches
of his charge against them were, that the representation of the
Old Testament stories inclined the people to Judaism ; that the
New Testament stories encouraged libertinism and infidelity ;
and that both of them lessened the charities to the poor. It
seems that this prosecution succeeded; for, in 1548, the parlia-
ment of Paris confirmed the company in the possession of the
Hotel de Bourgogne, but interdicted the representation of the
mysteries. But in Spain, we find by Cervantes, that they con-
tinued much longer ; and held their own, even after good co-
medy came in amongst them : as appears from the excellent
critique of the canon, in the fourth book, where he shows how
the old extravagant romances might be made the foundation of
a regular epic (which, he says, tambien puede escriverse en prosa
como en verso ;f) as the mystery-plays might be improved into
artful comedy. His words are, Pues que si venimos a las comedias
divinas, que de milagros jalsos Jingen en ellas, que de cosas apo-
crifas, y mal entendidas, attribueyendo a un santo los milagros de
otro;\ which made them so fond of miracles that they intro-
duced them into las comedias humanas, as he calls them. To
return:
Upon this prohibition, the French poets turned themselves from
religious to moral farces. And in this we soon followed them :
the publick taste not suffering any great alteration at first, though
the Italians at this time afforded many just compositions for bet-
ter models. These farces they called moralities. Pierre Grin-
gore, one of their old poets, printed one of these moralities, inti-
tled La Moralite de I' Homme Obstine. The persons of the drama
are I' Homme Obstine Pugnition Divine Simonie Hypocrisie
and Demerites-Communes. The Homme Obstine is the atheist,
and comes in blaspheming, and determined to persist in his im-
pieties. Then Pugnition Divine appears, sitting on a throne in
the air, and menacing the atheist with punishment. After this
Scene, Simonie, Hypocrisie, and Demerites-Communes appear
* Civ. D. L. IV. t B. IV. c. 20. J Ibid. 21.
KING RICHARD III. 531
and play their parts. In conclusion, Pugnition Divine returns,
preaches to them, upbraids them with their crimes, and, in short,
draws them all to repentance, all but the Homme Olstine, who
persists in his impiety, and is destroyed for an example. To this
sad serious subject they added, though in a separate representa-
tion, a merry kind of farce called Sottie, in which there was un
Paysan [the Clown] under the name of Sot-Commun [or Fool],
But we, who borrowed all these delicacies from the French,
blended the Moralite and Sottie together : So that the Paysan
or Sot-Commun, the Clown or Fool, got a place in our serious
moralities : Whose business we may understand in the frequent
allusions our Shakspeare makes to them : as in that fine speech
in the beginning of the third Act of Measure for Measure,
where we have this obscure passage :
" merely thou art Death's Fool,
" For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,
" And yet runn'st tow'rd him still."
For, in these moralities, the Fool of the piece, in order to
show the inevitable approaches of Death, ( another of the Dra-
matis Personte,) is made to employ all his stratagems to avoid
him ; which, as the matter is ordered, bring the Fool, at every
turn, into the very jaws of his enemy : So that a representation
of these scenes would afford a great deal of good mirth and
morals mixed together. The very same thing is again alluded
to in these lines of Love's Labour's Lost :
" So Portent-like I would o'er-rule his state,
" That he should be my Fool, and I his Fate."
Act IV. sc. ii.
But the French, as we say, keeping these two sorts of farces
distinct, they became, in time, the parents of tragedy and
comedy; while we, by jumbling them together, begot in an evil
hour, that mongrel species, unknown to nature and antiquity,
called tragi-comedy. WARBURTON.
TO this, when Mr. Upton's Dissertation is subjoined, there
will, perhaps, be no need of any other account of the Vice.
Like the old Vice.] The allusion here* is to the Vice, a droll
character in our old plays, accoutred with a long coat, a cap
with a pair of ass's ears, and a dagger of lath. Shakspeare al-
ludes to his buffoon appearance in Twelfth-Night, Act IV :
" In a trice, like to the old Vice ;
" Who with dagger of lath, in his rage and his wrath,
" Cries, ah, ha ! to the Devil."
In The Second Part of King Henry IV. Act III. Falstaff com-
* i. e. p. 3, of Mr. Upton's book, where the words like the old Vice-
occur, MA LONE.
2 M 2
532 KING RICHARD III.
pares Shallow to a Vice's dagger of lath. In Hamlet, Act III.
Hamlet calls his uncle :
" A vice of kings."
i. e. a ridiculous representation of majesty. These passages the
editors have very rightly expounded. I will now mention some
others, which seem to have escaped their notice, the allusions
being not quite so obvious.
The iniquity was often the Vice in our moralities ; and is in-
troduced in Ben Jonson's play called The Devil's an Ass : and
likewise mentioned in his Epigr. cxv :
" Being no vitious person, but the Vice
" About the town,
" Acts old Iniquity, and in the fit
" Of miming, gets th' opinion of a wit."
But a passage cited from his play will make the following ob-
servations more plain. Act I. Pug asks the devil " to lend him
a Vice:"
" Satan. What Vice?
ft What kind would thou have it of?
" Pug. Why, any Fraud,
" Or Covetousness, or lady Vanity,
" Or old Iniquity: I'll call him hither."
Thus the passage should be ordered :
" Pug. Why any : Fraud,
t( Or Covetousness, or lady Vanity,
" Or old Iniquity.
" Pug. I'll call him hither."
" Enter Iniquity the Vice.
" Ini. What is he calls upon me, and would seem to
lack a Vice ?
<< Ere his words be half spoken, I am with him in a trice."
And in his Staple of News, Act II :
" Mirth. How like you the Vice i' th' play ?
" Expectation. Which is he ?
" Mirth. Three or four ; old Covetousness, the sordid Penny?
Boy, the Money-Bawd, who is a flesh-bawd too, they say.
" Tattle. But here is never a Fiend to carry him away. Be-
sides, he has never a wooden dagger ! I'd not give a rush for a
Fzce,that has not a wooden dagger to snap at everybody he meets.
" Mirth. That was the old way, gossip, when Iniquity came
in, like hokos pokos, in a jugler's jerkin," &c.
He alludes to the Vice in The Alchymist, Act I. sc. iii :
" Sub. And, on your stall, a puppet, with a Vice.*"
* - a puppet, with a Vice.] Mr. Upton has misinterpreted this passage.
A vice in the present instance means a device, clock-work. Coryat, p. 254,
speaks of a picture whose eyes were moved by a vice. FARMER.
KING RICHARD III. 533
Some places of Shakspeare will from hence appear more easy,
as in The First Part of King Henry IV. Act II. where Hal hu-
morously characterizing Falstaff, calls him, That reverend Vice,
that grey Iniquity, that father Ruffian, that Vanity in years, in
allusion to this buffoon character. In King Richard III. Act III :
" Thus like the formal Vice, Iniquity,
*' I moralize two meanings in one word.'*
Iniquity is the formal Vice. Some correct the passage :
" Thus like formal-wise antiquity,
" I moralize: Two meanings in one word."
Which correction is out of all rule of criticism. In Hamlet,
Act I. there is an allusion, still more distant, to the Vice ; which
will not be obvious at first, and therefore is to be introduced
with a short explanation. This buffoon character was used to
make fun with .the Devil ; and he had several trite expressions,
as, I'll be lunik you in a trice: Ah, ha, boy, are you there? &c.
And this was great entertainment to the audience, to see their
old enemy so belaboured in effigy. In King Henry V. Act IV.
a boy characterizing Pistol, says, Bardolph and Nym had ten
times more valour, than this roaring Devil i* the old play : every
one may pare his nails with a wooden dagger. Now, Hamlet,
having been instructed by his father's ghost, is resolved to break
the subject of the discourse to none but Horatio ; and to all
others his intention is to appear as a sort of madman ; when
therefore the oath of secrecy is given to the centinels, and the
Ghost unseen calls out, swear; Hamlet speaks to it as the Vice
does to the Devil. Ah, ha, boy, say'st thou so ? Art thou there,
Truepenny ? Hamlet had a mind that the centinels should ima-
gine this was a shape that the devil had put on ; and in Act III.
he is somewhat of this opinion himself:
" The spirit that I have seen
" May be the devil."
The manner of speech therefore to the Devil was what all the
audience were well acquainted with : and it takes off, in some
measure, from the horror of the scene. Perhaps too the poet
was willing to inculcate, that good humour is the best weapon
to deal with the Devil. Truepenny, either by way of irony, or
literally from the Greek, Touiravov, veterator. Which word the
Scholiast on Aristophanes' Clouds, ver. 447, explains, rpvfj,r it
c TfeptTSTptppsvos kv TOI$ Tfoxy&oiffiv Iv r/u,7$ TPTITA.NON xa-
AoiJaev. Several have tried to find a derivation of the Vice: if
I should not hit on the right, I should only err with others.
The Vice is either a quality personalized, as BIH and KAP'I OS
in Hesiod and ^Eschylus ; Sin and Death in Milton ; and indeed
Vice itself is a person, B. XI. 517:
" And took his image whom they serv'd, a brutish Vice."
534 KING RICHARD III.
his image, i. e. a brutish Vice's image: the Vice, Gluttony; not
without some allusion to the Vice of the plays : but rather, I
think, 'tis an abbreviation of vice-devil, as vice-roy, vice-doges,
&c. and therefore properly called the Vice. He makes very free
with his master, like most other vice-roys, or prime ministers.
So that he is the Devil's Vice, and prime minister ; and 'tis this
that makes him so saucy. UPTON.
Mr. Upton's learning only supplies him with absurdities. His
derivation of vice is too ridiculous to be answered.
I have nothing to add to the observations of these learned
criticks, but that some traces of this antiquated exhibition are
still retained in the rustick puppet-plays, in which I have seen
the Devil very lustily belaboured by Punch, whom I hold to be
the legitimate successor of the old Vice. JOHNSON.
END OF VOL. XIV.
Printed by S. Hamilton, Weybrulce.
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