ACT V., SCENE 3. P. 123. What is thy name, that in the battle thus Thou crossest me ? — So Hamner. The old copies omit the. P. 124. A fool go with thy soul where're it goes. - So Capell. The old copies have " whither it goes.” Both sense and metre favour the change. P. 124. The King hath many masking in his coats. — The old text has marching instead of masking, which is from Collier's second folio; a very happy correction. P. 125. There's but three of my hundred and fifty left alive. Here, again, the old copies have not instead of but. See note on “There's but a shirt and a half,” &c., page 147. P. 125. Whose deaths as yet are unrevenged: I pr’ythee Lend me thy sword. — Instead of as yet are, the old copies have are yet, and are. Corrected by Dyce. ACT V., SCENE 4. P. 126. I do beseech your Majesty, make up. — So Pope and Collier's second folio. The old copies omit do. P. 128. The spirits Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are in my arm. — The old text has “are in my armes.” Pope reduced the line from an Alexandrine to a regular verse by omitting valiant. P. 129. They wound my thoughts worse than thy sword my flesh : But thoughts the slaves of life, and life Time's fool, Must have a stop. — So the first quarto. The other old copies have “ But thoughts the slave of Life.” Lettsom notes upon the passage thus: “The readings of the second quarto are sophistications by one who did not see that thoughts as well as time were nominative cases before must have, and consequently supposed that the syntax was defective for want of a verb.” I suspect we ought to read thought and slave instead of thoughts and slaves.- See foot-note 6. P. 131. I did; I saw him dead, breathless and bleeding Upon the ground. - Here, again, the old text has On instead of upon, which is Capell's reading. ACT V., SCENE 5. P. 133. Since not to be avoided it falls on me. — I suspect we ought to read, with Collier's second folio, “Which not to be avoided falls on me.” P. 134. Even in the bosom of our adversaries. — After this line, the first four quartos put the following speech into the mouth of Lancaster: I thank your Grace for this high courtesy, Which I shall give away immediately. This comes pretty near being absurd ; for it makes the Prince say he will give away the courtesy. KING HENRY IV. PART SECOND. PERSONS REPRESENTED. KING HENRY THE FOURTH. TRAVERS and MORTON, Retainers HENRY, Prince of Wales, of Northumberland. THOMAS, Duke of Clarence, his FALSTAFF, BARDOLPH, PISTOL, and PRINCE JOHN of Lancaster, Sons. a Page. HUMPHREY, Duke of Gloster, POINTZ and PETO. EARL OF WARWICK, of the SHALLOW and SILENCE. Party. MOULDY, SHADOW, BULLCALF, RUMOUR, the Presenter. SCROOP, Archbp. of York, A Porter. A Dancer. LORD MOWBRAY, against the LADY NORTHUMBERLAND. LORD HASTINGS, King. LADY PERCY. LORD BARDOLPH, Hostess QUICKLY. Sir JOHN COLEVILLE, DOLL TEARSHEET. Ladies, and Attendants; Officers, Soldiers, Messenger, Drawers, Beadles, Grooms, &c. INDUCTION. Warkworth. Before Northumberland's Castle. Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.1 Rum. Open your ears; for which of you The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks? will stop 1 Such was the common way of representing this personage, no unfrequent character in the masques of the Poet's time. In a masque on St. Stephen's Night, 1614, by Thomas Campion, Rumour comes on in a skin I, from the Orient to the drooping West, Why is Rumour here? coat full of winged tongues. Students of Latin will at once recognize the substantial likeness, not to say identity, of Shakespeare's Rumour and Virgil's Fama; one side of whose nature is choicely described in the following from Bacon's Essay of Fame : “The poets make Fame a monster: they describe her in part finely and elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously; they say, Look, how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath underneath, so many tongues, so many voices, she pricks up so many ears.” 2 The stops are the holes in a flute or pipe. 3 What occurs very often, as here, with the exact force of the interrogative why. To speak so true at first? my office is [Exit. L. Bard. Who keeps the gate here, ho? Enter Porter, above. Where is the earl ? Tell thou the earl Port. His lordship is walk'd forth into the orchard : 4 Warkworth Castle, the residence of Northumberland. 5 Here wrongs evidently means harms, hurts, disasters, or discomforts; as " true wrongs" stands in full antithesis to "comforts false." And wrong has the same radical sense as wring and wrest, all being from the same root. So in Julius Cæsar, iii. I: “Cæsar did never wrong but with just cause, nor without cause will he be satisfied." |