Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father's care; To hazard all our lives in one small boat. 6 'Tis but the short'ning of my life one day o: In thee thy mother dies, our household's name, All these are sav'd, if thou wilt fly away. JOHN. The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart, These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart 7: On that advantage, bought with such a shame, (To save a paltry life, and slay bright fame,) 6 "Tis but the short'ning of my life one day :] The structure of this line very much resembles that of another, in King Henry IV. Part II. : 66 to say, "Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day." STEEVENS. 7 The sword of Orleans hath not made me smart, These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart :] "Are there not poisons, racks, and flames, and swords? "That Emma thus must die by Henry's words?" Prior. MALONE. So, in this play, Part III. : 66 Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words." 8 ON THAT advantage, bought with such a shame, STEEVENS. (To save a paltry life, and slay bright fame,)] This passage seems to lie obscure and disjointed. Neither the grammar is to be justified; nor is the sentiment better. I have ventured at a Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly, The coward horse, that bears me, fall and die! An if I fly, I am not Talbot's son: Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot; slight alteration, which departs so little from the reading which has obtained, but so much raises the sense, as well as takes away the obscurity, that I am willing to think it restores the author's meaning: "Out on that vantage." THEOBALD. Sir T. Hanmer reads: “O what advantage which I have followed, though Mr. Theobald's conjecture may be well enough admitted. JOHNSON. I have no doubt but the old reading is right, and the amendment unnecessary; the passage being better as it stood originally, if pointed thus: "On that advantage, bought with such a shame, "(To save a paltry life, and slay bright fame,) Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly, "The coward horse, that bears me, fall and die! " The dividing the sentence into two distinct parts, occasioned the obscurity of it, which this method of printing removes. M. MASON. The sense is-Before young Talbot fly from his father, (in order to save his life while he destroys his character,) on, or for the sake of, the advantages you mention, namely, preserving our household's name, &c. may my coward horse drop down dead! MALONE. 9 And LIKE me to the peasant boys of France;] To like one to the peasants, is, to compare, to level by comparison; the line is therefore intelligible enough by itself, but in this sense it wants connection. Sir T. Hanmer reads,-And leave me, which makes a clear sense and just consequence. But as change is not to be allowed without necessity, I have suffered like to stand, because I suppose the author meant the same as make like, or reduce to a level with. JOHNSON. So, in King Henry IV. Part II. : " when the Prince broke thy head for liking his father to a singing man," &c. STEEVENS. TAL. Then follow thou thy desperate sire of Crete, Thou Icarus'; thy life to me is sweet: If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father's side; SCENE VII. Another Part of the Same. [Exeunt. Alarum: Excursions. Enter TALBOT wounded, supported by a Servant. TAL. Where is my other life ?-mine own is ; gone ; O, where's young Talbot? where is valiant John ?- Young Talbot's valour makes me smile at thee :- I thy desperate sire of Crete, Thou Icarus ;] So, in the Third Part of this play: Again : "I, Dædalus; my poor boy, Icarus-." STEEVENS. 2 Triumphant death, smear'd with captivity!] That is, death stained and dishonoured with captivity. JOHNSON. Death stained by my being made a captive and dying in captivity. The author, when he first addresses death, and uses the epithet triumphant, considers him as a person who had triumphed over him by plunging his dart in his breast. In the latter part of the line, if Dr. Johnson has rightly explained it, death must have its ordinary signification. "I think light of my death, though rendered disgraceful by captivity," &c. Perhaps, however, the construction intended by the poet was-Young Talbot's valour makes me, smeared with captivity, smile, &c. If so, there should be a comma after captivity. MALone. Tend'ring my ruin 3, and assail'd of none, Enter Soldiers, bearing the Body of JOHN TALBOT*. SERV. O my dear lord! lo, where your son is borne ! TAL. Thou antick death3, which laugh'st us here to scorn, Anon, from thy insulting tyranny, Coupled in bonds of perpetuity, 3 TEND'RING my ruin,] Watching me with tenderness in my fall. JOHNSON. I would rather read Tending my ruin," &c. TYRWHITT. I adhere to the old reading. So, in Hamlet, Polonius says to Ophelia : 66 Tender yourself more dearly." Again, in King Henry VI. Part II. : STEEVENS. "I tender so the safety of my liege." MALONE. -the Body of John Talbot.] This John Talbot was the eldest son of the first Earl by his second wife, and was Viscount Lisle, when he was killed with his father, in endeavouring to relieve Chatillon, after the battle of Bourdeaux, in the year 1453. He was created Viscount Lisle in 1451. John, the Earl's eldest son by his first wife, was slain at the battle of Northampton, in 1460. MALONE. 5 Thou antick death,] The fool, or antick of the play, made sport by mocking the graver personages. JOHNSON. In King Richard II. we have the same image: 66 within the hollow crown "That rounds the mortal temples of a king STEEVENS. It is not improbable that Shakspeare borrowed this idea from one of the cuts to that most exquisite work called Imagines Mortis, commonly ascribed to the pencil of Holbein, but without any authority. See the 7th print. Douce. Two Talbots, winged through the lither sky", O thou whose wounds become hard-favour'd death, Poor boy! he smiles, methinks: as who should say Had death been French, then death had died to day. Come, come, and lay him in his father's arms; 6 winged through the LITHER sky,] Lither is flexible or yielding. In much the same sense Milton says: He with broad sails "Winnow'd the buxom air." That is, the obsequious air. JOHNSON. 66 to breed numbness or litherness." Litherness is limberness, or yielding weakness. Again, in Look About You, 1600: "I'll bring his lither legs in better frame." Milton might have borrowed the expression from Spenser or Gower, who uses it in the Prologue to his Confessio Amantis : "That unto him whiche the head is, "The membres buxom shall bowe." In the old service of matrimony, the wife was enjoined to be buxom both at bed and board. Buxom, therefore, anciently signified obedient or yielding. Stubbs, in his Anatomie of Abuses, 1595, uses the word in the same sense : are so buxome to their shameless desires," &c. STEEVENS. 66 |