Be satisfied, dear God, with our true bloods, brace: Farewel, until we meet again in heaven. SCENE IV. London. A Room in the Tower. [Exeunt. BUCKINGHAM, STANLEY, HASTINGS, the Bishop of Ely,1 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: 9 Make haste, the hour of death is expiate.] Thus the folio. The quarto furnishes a line that has occurred already : 66 Despatch; the limit of your lives is out." Expiate is used for expiated; so confiscate, contaminate, consummate, &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 expir'd." 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. I do not well understand the reading which Mr. Malone prefers, though I have left it in the text Perhaps we should read: the hour of death is expirate; which accords with Shakspeare's phraseology, and needs no explanation. Thus, in Romeo and Juliet : 1 and expire the term "Of a despised life." Steevens. -Bishop of Ely,] Dr. John Morton; who was elected to that see in 1478. He was advanced to the see of Canterbury in 1486, and appointed Lord Chancellor in 1487. He died in the year 1500. This prelate, Sir Thomas More tells us, first devised In God's name, speak, when is the royal day? Ely. Your grace, we think, should soonest know his mind. 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 Ely. In happy time, here comes the duke himself. Glo. My noble lords and cousins, all, good morrow: I have been long a sleeper; but, I trust, My absence doth neglect no great design, Which by my presence might have been concluded. Buck. Had you not come upon your cue, my lord, William lord Hastings had pronounc'd your part, 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 Edward IV, and was a principal agent in procuring Henry when abroad to enter into a covenant for that purpose. Malone. 2- - and wants but nomination.] i. e. the only thing wanting, is the appointment of a particular day for the ceremony. Steevens. inward —] i. e. intimate, confidential. So, in Measure for Measure: 3 “Sir, I was an inward of his." Steevens. Again, in Much Ado about Nothing: "And though you know, my inwardness and love." Am. Ed. 4 Had you not come upon your cue,] This expression is borrowed 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 proper time. Johnson. I mean, your voice,-for crowning of the king. Glo. Than my lord Hastings, no man might be bolder; I saw good strawberries5 in your garden there; [Exit ELY. Glo. Cousin of Buckingham, a word with you. [Takes him aside. Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business;` 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 GLO. and BUCK. 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. Ely. Where is my lord protector? I have sent 5 I saw good strawberries-] The reason why the Bishop was despatched on this errand, is not clearer in Holinshed, from whom Shakspeare adopted the circumstance, 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 complaisance is likewise recorded by the author of the Latin play on the same subject, in the British Museum: Eliensis antistes venis? senem quies, Juvenem labor decet: ferunt hortum tuum Decora fraga plurimum producere. EPISCOPUS ELIENSIS, Nil tibi claudetur hortus quod meus 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 Gloster affected at the very time when he had determined on the death of Hastings. Steevens. Hast. His grace looks cheerfully and smooth this morn ing; There's some conceit or other likes him well," Hast. Marry, that with no man here he is offended; 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, 8 6 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. 7 likelihood-] Semblance; appearance. Johnson. So, in another of our author's plays: 66 poor likelihoods, and modern seemings." Steevens, Thus the quarto. The folio reads-livelihood. Malone. 8 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 inserted in Hall's Chronicle, from whence it was copied by Holinshed, 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 compasse 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 worthie to be punished for hainous traytors, whatsoever they were; and all the other affirmed the same. That is, quoth he, yonder sorceresse, my brother's wife, and other with her, meaning the queene:ye shall all see in what wise that sorceresse, and that other witch of her counsell, Shore's wife, 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 That do conspire my death with devilish plots Hast. The tender love I bear your grace, my lord, Glo. Then be your eyes the witness of their evil, And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch, was there present, but well knewe his arme was ever such since his birth. Naythelesse the lord Chamberlaine (which from the death of king Edward kept Shore's wife, on whom he 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 certain 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 speede him and shrive him apace, for by S. Paul, quoth he, I will not to dinner 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 Mirrour for 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 history in 1505, tells the story differently. Malone. 9 If! &c.] For this circumstance see Holinshed, Hall, and The Mirrour for Magistrates. Farmer. |