Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteep'd, And cries aloud,-Tarry, dear cousin Suffolk! 8 Upon these words I came, and cheer'd him up: So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck He threw his wounded arm, and kiss'd his lips; The pretty and sweet manner of it forc'd Those waters from me, which I would have stopp'd; But all my mother came into mine eyes, 8 raught- i. e. reached. See vol. iv. p. 355, n. 1. STEEVENS. 9 A TESTAMENT of NOBLE-ending love.] So the folio. The quarto reads: "An argument of never-ending love." MALONE. 1 BUT all my mother came into mine eyes, And gave me up to tears.] Thus the quarto. The folio reads-And all, &c. But has here the force of—But that. MALONE. This thought is apparently copied by Milton, Paradise Lost, book ix. : "compassion quell'd "His best of man, and gave him up to tears." STEEVENS. Dryden also, in Ali for Love, Act I. has the same expression : K. HEN. I blame you not; For, hearing this, I must perforce compound [Alarum. But, hark! what new alarum is this same 3 ?- SCENE VII 5. Another Part of the Field. [Exeunt. Alarums. Enter FLUELLEN and Gower. FLU. Kill the poys and the luggage"! 'tis expressly against the law of arms: 'tis as arrant a 2 With MISTFUL eyes,] The folio-mixtful. The passage is not in the quarto. MALONE. The poet must have wrote-mistful: i. e. just ready to overrun with tears. The word he took from his observation of nature for, just before the bursting out of tears, the eyes grow dim, as if in a mist. WARBURTON. 3 what new alarum is this same ?] The alarum on which Henry ordered the prisoners to be slain, was sounded by the affrighted runaways from his own camp, who brought intelligence that the French had got behind him, and had pillaged it. See a subsequent note. Not knowing the extent of his danger, he gave the order here mentioned, that every soldier should kill his prisoners. After Henry speaks these words, "what new alarum is this same?" Shakspeare probably intended that a messenger should enter, and secretly communicate this intelligence to him; though by some negligence no such marginal direction appears. MALONE. 4 Give the word through.] Here the quartos 1600 and 1608 ridiculously add : "Pist. Couper gorge." STEEVENS. 5 Scene VII.] Here, in the other editions, they begin the fourth Act, very absurdly, since both the place and time evidently continue, and the words of Fluellen immediately follow those of the King just before. POPE. 6 Kill the poys and the luggage!] The baggage, during the piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offered, in the 'orld: In your conscience now, is it not? Gow. "Tis certain, there's not a boy left alive; and the cowardly rascals, that ran from the battle, have done this slaughter: besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the king's tent; wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner's throat. O, 'tis a gallant king! FLU. Ay, he was porn at Monmouth, captain Gower: What call you the town's name, where Alexander the pig was born? Gow. Alexander the great. FLU. Why, I pray you, is not pig, great? The pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations. Gow. I think, Alexander the great was born in Macedon; his father was called-Philip of Macedon, as I take it. battle, (as King Henry had no men to spare,) was guarded only by boys and lackeys; which some French runaways getting notice of, they came down upon the English camp-boys, whom they killed, and plundered, and burned the baggage: in resentment of which villainy it was, that the King, contrary to his wonted lenity, ordered all prisoners' throats to be cut. And to this villainy of the French runaways Fluellen is alluding, when he says, "Kill the poys and the luggage!" The fact is set out both by Hall and Holinshed. THEOBALD. Unhappily the King gives one reason for his order to kill the prisoners, and Gower another. The King killed his prisoners because he expected another battle, and he had not men sufficient to guard one army and fight another. Gower declares that the gallant king has worthily ordered the prisoners to be destroyed, because the luggage was plundered, and the boys were slain. JOHNSON. Our author has here, as in all his historical plays, followed Holinshed; in whose Chronicle both these reasons are assigned for Henry's conduct. Shakspeare therefore has not departed from history; though he has chosen to make Henry himself mention one of the reasons which actuated him, and Gower mention the other. See p. 440, n. 2. MALONE. FLU. I think, it is in Macedon, where Alexander is porn. I tell you, captain,-If you look in the maps of the 'orld, I warrant, you shall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations, look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon; and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye at Monmouth; but it is out of my prains, what is the name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis so like as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both. If you mark Alexander's life well, Harry of Monmouth's life is come after it indifferent well; for there is figures in all things. Alexander (God knows, and you know,) in his rages, and his furies, and his wraths, and his cholers, and his moods, and his displeasures, and his indignations, and also being a little intoxicates in his prains, did, in his ales and his angers, look you, kill his pest friend, Clytus. Gow. Our king is not like him in that; he never killed any of his friends. FLU. It is not well done, mark you now, to take tales out of my mouth, ere it is made an end and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it: As Alexander' is kill his friend Clytus, being in his ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his goot judgments, is turn away the fat knight with the great 8 7 - As Alexander -] I should suspect that Shakspeare, who was well read in Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch, meant these speeches of Fluellen as a ridicule on the parallels of the Greek author; in which, circumstances common to all men are assembled in opposition, and one great action is forced into comparison with another, though as totally different in themselves, as was the behaviour of Harry Monmouth, from that of Alexander the Great. STEEVENS. 8 — the fat knight —] This is the last time that Falstaff can make sport. The poet was loath to part with him, and has continued his memory as long as he could. JOHNSON. pelly-doublet: he was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and mocks; I am forget his name. Gor. Sir John Falstaff. FLU. That is he: I can tell you, there is goot men born at Monmouth. Gow. Here comes his majesty, Alarum. Enter King HENRY, with a Part of the English Forces; WARWICK, Gloster, Exeter, and Others. K. HEN. I was not angry since I came to France. If they will fight with us, bid them come down, Besides, we'll cut the throats of those we have "; 9 Warwick,] Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. He did not, however, obtain that title till 1417, two years after the era of this play. MALONE. 66 And make them SKIRR away,] I meet with this in Ben Jonson's News from the Moon, a masque : -blow him afore him as far as he can see him; or skir over him with his bat's wings," &c. Again, in Arthur Hall's translation of the 4th Iliad, 4to. 1581: "It thee becomes with piersing girde to cause thy arrow skirre "To wound the sturdie Menelau-." The word has already occurred in Macbeth. See vol. xi. p. 254, n. 9. STEEVENS. 2 Besides, we'll cut the throats, &c.] The King is in a very bloody disposition. He has already cut the throats of his prisoners, and threatens now to cut them again. No haste of composition could produce such negligence; neither was this play, which is the second draught of the same design, written in haste. There must be some dislocation of the scenes. If we place these lines at the beginning of the twelfth scene, the absurdity will be removed, and the action will proceed in a regular series. This |