SCENE II. A Plain, near St. Edmund's-Bury'. Enter, in arms, Lewis, Salisbury, Melun, PEMBROKE, BIGOT, and Soldiers. LEW. My lord Melun, let this be copied out, And keep it safe for our remembrance: 5 Return the precedent to these lords again; SAL. Upon our sides it never shall be broken. Dr. Johnson is, I believe, mistaken. Faulconbridge means'for all their boasting, I know very well that our party is able to cope with one yet prouder and more confident of its strength than theirs. Faulconbridge would otherwise dispirit the King, whom he means to animate. STEEVENS. Yet I know, is-still I know. BOSWELL. 4 near St. Edmund's-Bury.] I have ventured to fix the place of the scene here, which is specified by none of the editors, on the following authorities. In the preceding Act, where Salisbury has fixed to go over to the Dauphin, he says: 66 Lords, I will meet him at St. Edmund's- -Bury." And Count Melun, in this last Act, says: 66 and many more with me, Upon the altar at St. Edmund's-1 -Bury; "Even on that altar, where we swore to you "Dear amity, and everlasting love." And it appears likewise, from The Troublesome Reign of King John, in two Parts, (the first rough model of this play.) that the interchange of vows betwixt the Dauphin and the English barons was at St. Edmund's-Bury. THEOBALD. 5 the PRECEDENT, &c.] i. e, the rough draught of the original treaty between the Dauphin and the English lords. Thus (adds Mr. M. Mason) in King Richard III. the scrivener employed to engross the indictment of Lord Hastings, says, "that it took him eleven hours to write it, and that the precedent was full as long a doing." STEEVENS. Would bear thee from the knowledge of thyself, To your proceedings; yet, believe me, prince, ; Her enemies' ranks, (I must withdraw and weep Upon the spot of this enforced cause',) To grace the gentry of a land remote, And follow unacquainted colours here? What, here?-O nation, that thou could'st remove! That Neptune's arms, who clippeth thee about 8, after a STRANGER march-] Our author often uses stranger as an adjective. See the last scene, p. 341: "Swearing allegiance, and the love of soul, So, in A Midsummer-Night's Dream, vol. v. p. 190: MALONE. the SPOT of this enforced cause,] Spot probably means, stain or disgrace. M. MASON. So, in a former passage: "To look into the spots and stains of right." MALONE. CLIPPETH thee about,] i. e. embraceth. So, in Corio "Enter the city; clip your wives." STEEVENS. And grapple thee9 unto a pagan shore1; LEW. A noble temper dost thou show in this; O, what a noble combat hast thou fought 3 9 And GRAPPLE thee-] The old copy reads-" And cripple thee," &c. Perhaps our author wrote gripple, a word used by Drayton, in his Polyolbion, Song 1: 66 "That thrusts his gripple hand into her golden maw." Our author, however, in Macbeth, has the verb-grapple : Grapples thee to the heart and love of us—." The emendation (as Mr. Malone observes) was made by Mr. Pope. STEEVENS. I unto a PAGAN shore;] Our author seems to have been thinking on the wars carried on by Christian princes in the holy land against the Saracens, where the united armies of France and England might have laid their mutual animosities aside, and fought in the cause of Christ, instead of fighting against brethren and countrymen, as Salisbury and the other English noblemen who had joined the Dauphin were about to do. MALONE. 2 And not To-spend it so unneighbourly.] Shakspeare employs, in the present instance, a phraseology which he had used before in The Merry Wives of Windsor : "And fairy-like, to-pinch the unclean-knight." To, in composition with verbs, is common enough in ancient language. See Mr. Tyrwhitt's observations on this last passage, and many instances in support of his position, vol. viii. p. 164, n. 9. STEEVENS. 3 - hast THOU fought,] Thou, which appears to have been accidentally omitted by the transcriber or compositor, was inserted by the editor of the fourth folio. MALONE. 4 Between COMPULSION and a brave respect!] This compulsion was the necessity of a reformation in the state; which, according to Salisbury's opinion, (who, in his speech preceding, calls it an enforced cause,) could only be procured by foreign arms: and the brave respect was the love of his country. WARBURton. Being an ordinary inundation; But this effusion of such manly drops, This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul 3, And with a great heart heave away this storm : Into the purse of rich prosperity, As Lewis himself:-so, nobles, shall you all, And even there, methinks, an angel spake : To give us warrant from the hand of heaven; 5 This SHOWER, BLOWN UP BY TEMPEST of the soul,] So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece : 6 "This windy tempest, till it blow up rain, 66 MALONE. an angel SPAKE] Sir T. Hanmer, and, after him, Dr. Warburton, read here- an angel speeds," I think unnecessarily. The Dauphin does not yet hear the legate indeed, nor pretend to hear him; but seeing him advance, and concluding that he comes to animate and authorize him with the power of the church, he cries out, "at the sight of this holy man, I am encouraged as by the voice of an angel.” JOHNSON. Rather, In what I have now said, an angel spake; for see, the holy legate approaches, to give a warrant from heaven, and the name of right to our cause. MALONE. This thought is far from a new one. Thus, in Gower, De Confessione Amantis : "Hem thought it sowned in her ere, "As though that it an angell were." STEEVENS, And on our actions set the name of right, PAND. Hail, noble prince of France! The next is this,-king John hath reconcil'd Himself to Rome; his spirit is come in, That so stood out against the holy church, The great metropolis and see of Rome: Therefore thy threat'ning colours now wind up, And tame the savage spirit of wild war; That, like a lion foster'd up at hand, It may lie gently at the foot of peace, And be no further harmful than in show. LEW. Your grace shall pardon me, I will not back; I am too high-born to be propertied, Or useful serving-man, and instrument, To any sovereign state throughout the world. 7 You taught me how to know the face of right, Acquainted me with interest To this land,] This was the phraseology of Shakspeare's time. So again, in King Henry IV. Part II. : 66 "He hath more worthy interest to the state, Again, in Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, vol. ii. p. 927: in 4. R. 2. he had a release from Rose the daughter and heir of Sir John de Arden before specified, of all her interest to the manor of Pedimore." MALONE. |