NOTES.

INDUCTION.

AN INDUCTION, or prologue, was not infrequently prefixed to a play to inform the audience of such facts as they would not gather from the play itself, as, for instance, in The Taming of the Shrew. Here it serves merely to link together the two parts of the play.

STAGE DIRECTION. Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues. Such a presentation of Rumour was not uncommon. Among others, Farmer refers to Hawes's Pastime of Pleasure, where she is spoken of as A goodly lady, envyroned about With tongues of fire"; to one of Sir Thomas More's Pageants, Fame, I am called, mervayle you nothing Thoughe with tonges I am compassed all round"; and to Chaucer's elaborate portrait of her in The Booke of Fame.

1. for which stop, I say open your ears, for I know that none of you will wish to stop them.

2. vent, an opening for air or smoke, an air hole, flue ..... F. fente, a cleft, rift, chinke, slit, cranny'; Cotgrave. A participial substantive from the verb fendre, to cleave. Lat. findere, to cleave "... (Skeat, Ety. Dict.). To be distinguished from vent, sale, to vent, to sell, from F. vente, a sale, from Lat. vendere, to sell; and from vent, to snuff up air, breathe, puff out, from F. rent, wind, from Lat. ventum, accusative of ventus, wind. In regard to this last, Skeat says, "If we had a large collection of quotations illustrative of the use of vent as a verb, I suspect it would appear that the connection with the F. vent, wind, was due solely to a misunderstanding and misuse of the word, and that it is etymologically due to Vent (1) [ = flue] or Vent (2) [ = sale], or to confusion of both

3. the drooping west, the idea is that of flowers hanging down their heads as the sun sets. Malone illustrates by Macb. iii. 2. 52. 3, "Good things of day begin to droop and drowse, Whiles night's black agents to their preys do rouse.

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4. post-horse, " post originally signified a fixed place, as a military post; then, a fixed place on a line of road where horses are kept for travelling, a stage, or station; thence it was transferred to the person who travelled in this way, using relays of horses, and finally to any quick traveller (Eastwood and Wright, Bible Wordbook, quoted by Skeat, Ety. Dict.): still, continually, ever.

7. The which, see note on i. 1. 164.

,,

10. Under... safety, appearing all the while in such harmless and pleasant guise.

12. Make... defence, exhibit the alarmed mustering of troops in preparation against attack; the converse of the "covert enmity" which is preparing to "wound the world"; musters, from O. F. mostre, for monstre, a pattern, view, sight, display, from Lat. monstrare, to show.

13. Whiles, the old genitive of while, time, used adverbially: swoln grief, in reality pregnant with some other grievance, cause of anxiety.

15. And no such matter, though in reality nothing of the kind, nothing to do with war, ails the time.

17. And of... stop, and so easy of management: the stop is the hole in the pipe on which the finger is placed to stop or to let out the air blown into it. Cp. Haml. iii. 2. 76, "Whose blood and judgement are so well commingled, That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger To sound what stop she please"; iii. 2. 373, govern these ventages with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.”

18. the blunt... heads, the dull-witted monster with innumerable heads; "the many-headed multitude," as they are called in Cor. ii. 3. 18.

20. what need I. It is doubtful whether this is equivalent to why need I,' or 'what need is there that I,' i.e. whether what is an adverb and need a verb, or what an adjective and need a noun; cp. M. A. i. 1. 318, "What need the bridge much broader than the flood?", and see Abb. § 297.

22. my household, those who belong to the same family as myself, the audience of the theatre who like him disseminate reports.

27, 8. But what... first? But if I acted up to my character, I should not tell the truth at first, but should scatter abroad a number of false reports.

33. the peasant towns, is generally taken to mean the rural towns. Dyce, with Collier's MS. Corrector, reads "pleasant towns," and remarks "one may wonder why Rumour should men

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tion only the peasant towns' (a most strange expression), as if so busy a personage, in the long journey from Shrewsbury to Warkworth, had failed to 'call in' at the more important places."

35. this worm-eaten hold ... stone, this time-decayed fortress : in its literal sense worm-eaten is now applied to wood only; ragged perhaps indicates not merely the rough, rugged stones of which the castle was built, but the worn appearance given them by time.

37. crafty-sick, pretending illness, in order to move the pity of the King: come tiring on, come on exhausted by their wearisome journeys.

40. They bring ... wrongs, they bring reassuring news which is false, and so more dangerous than news of evil that was true.

ACT I. SCENE I.

STAGE DIRECTION. Lord Bardolph. "This person was Thomas Bardolph, fifth Baron ... [who] joining in the archbishop's insurrection against Henry IV., was defeated at Bramham Moor, where he was taken but sore wounded, so that he shortly after died of his hurts.' Holinshed"... (French, S. G.).

2. What, more indefinite than who, as including the rank, profession, etc., as well as the personality.

3. attend, waits for, wishes to speak with.

4. is walk'd. Here is expresses the present state, whereas has would express the activity necessary to cause the present state. 5. Please it, if it please.

S. Should be, may be expected to be, is likely to be: stratagem, appalling or disastrous circumstance; cp. R. J. iii. 5. 211, Álack, alack, that heaven should practise stratagems Upon so soft a subject as myself ! "

15. in the fortune

upon your son.

son, by the good fortune which attended

19. Harry Monmouth's brawn, that mass of flesh that waited on the Prince: hulk, properly a clumsy, heavy, ship; from Gk. óλkás, a ship which is towed, a ship of burden, Gk. kev, to draw, drag.

22. to dignify the times, to give lustre to the age.

23. How is this derived? Whence did you obtain your information?

27. That freely... true, who in all honesty assured me of this news being trustworthy; for freely, cp. Oth. ii. 3. 335, “Iago.

I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness. Cas. I think it freely.

29. to listen after, to inquire for with all diligence; cp. to hearken after,” R. III. i. l. 54, "He hearkens after prophecies and dreams.'

30. over-rode, caught up and passed on the way.

...

32. More than me, except perhaps such as he received from me and may hand on to you.

34. turn'd me back, met me and sent me back to you.

37. forspent, utterly exhausted; for- is intensive as in forgo, forlorn, forswear, etc.

38. to breathe, to give breath to, to rest; so intransitively i. H. IV. i. 3. 102, ii. 4. 275, v. 3. 46.

...

42. And that young cold, cp. below, 1. 51. The meaning of course is that Hotspur was cold in death.

43. With that... head, with those words he gave the rein to his powerful horse. Though two lines lower the horse is called a 'poor jade" there is no contradiction, the meaning being that the horse was a powerful one, but that having been ridden so far and so fast it had become jaded, and was now panting with exhaustion.

44. bending forward, as a rider does when vigorously applying the spur.

46. Up to the rowel-head, so as to force the rowel right into the sides of the animal; the 'rowel' is a little wheel armed with sharp points at the end of the spur; through F. rouelle, from Low Lat. rotella, a little wheel: starting so, with a sudden start, his horse answering his application of the spur.

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47. to devour the way. So Catullus, xxxv. 7, “viam vorabit. Steevens compares Job, xxxix. 24, He [the horse] swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage." Jonson, Sejanus, v. 10, has, But with that speed... With which they greedily devour the way."

48. Staying... question, not waiting to be questioned by me any further on the matter: Again, repeat to me what he said.

50. Of Hotspur Coldspur? did he say that from being Hotspur my son had become Coldspur?

52. have not the day, has not been victorious in the battle; day, for day of battle, combat, and, as here, for victory, is frequent in Shakespeare.

53. a silken point, a tag or lace for tying parts of the dress, especially the breeches, and so for something of little value.

54. my barony, the property which goes with my title: never talk of it, do not for a moment believe that it is otherwise.

56. instances, particulars, as of Hotspur's death.

57. hilding, according to Skeat, short for hilderling, M. E. hinderling, base, degenerate, from A.S. hinder, behind, with suffix -ling.

59. Spoke at a venture, merely made a guess, spoke at random. 60. like to a title leaf. Steevens points out that title-pages to elegies, as well as the intermediate leaves, were formerly totally black, and most commentators see here an allusion to this practice. But it seems hardly necessary to suppose anything more than a title-page announcing the nature of the volume's contents. 62. strond, an older spelling of 'strand.'

63. a witness'd usurpation, evidence of its inroads; witness'd is here not a participle but an adjective formed from the noun witness, and the phrase is equivalent to 'an usurpation of which there is a witness.'

65. I ran, not merely 'I came,' but I was obliged to come at full speed, to take to flight in consequence of our defeat.'

67. doth, probably here not a case of the third person plural in -th, but of the inflection of the third person singular of a verb preceding the subject in the plural, more common with the inflection in -s.

69. Is apter, shows greater readiness.

71. dead in look, looking more dead than alive woe-begone, the past participle of 'bego' in the sense of 'beset as by an environment, affected by an influence, good or evil,' is now used only in the phrase 'woe-begone,' though Murray, Engl. Dict., quotes need-begone' from Barbour, St. Alexis, also 'well,' 'evil,'' sore,' begone, and points out that the phrase originally was 'him was wo begone,' i.e. to him woe had closed round.

74. But Priam... tongue, but Priam became aware of the fire before the messenger could bring himself to deliver his message; 'to find one's tongue' is a common phrase for bringing oneself to speak after continuing silent, as though the person suddenly became aware that he had a tongue and some cause to use that organ.

78. greedy ear, ear eager to drink in your news.

79. to stop indeed, as though to prevent my ever listening to words again.

80. a sigh... praise, a sigh which is sufficient to dissipate, undo, all your commendations of their valour.

84. See what ... hath! See how quickly suspicion finds its tongue; said in reference to his own prompt exclamation "Why, he is dead.

85. but fears, has no other prompting than his fears.