My learned lord, we pray you to proceed: And justly and religiously unfold, Why the law Salique, that they have in France, That you should fashion, wrest, or bow your reading, Of what your reverence shall incite us to: Without much fall of blood; whose guiltless drops Are every one a woe, a sore complaint, 'Gainst him whose wrongs give edge unto the swords That make such waste in brief mortality. Under this conjuration, speak, my lord: For we will hear, note, and believe in heart, CANT. Then hear me, gracious sovereign; and you peers, 99 Miscreate-spurious. Impawn. A pawn and a gage are the same. In 'Richard II.' we have "Take up mine honour's pawn." To "impawn our person" is equivalent, therefore, to engage our person. • Gloze. The verb to gloze, to gloss (whence glossary), is derived from the Anglo-Saxon glesan, to explain. We have this expression in Hall's 'Chronicle:' "This land Salique the deceitful glosers named to be the realm of France." Holinshed, who abridges Hall, simply says, French glossers expound to be the realm of France." "The To be the realm of France, and Pharamond The founder of this law and female bar. Where Charles the great, having subdued the Saxons, Who died within the year of our redemption Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say, Of Blithild, which was daughter to king Clothair, To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son Of Charles the great: Also king Lewis the tenth, • Dishonest. So the folio and quartos. Capell has introduced the word unhonest into his text, because that word occurs in the original edition of Holinshed, 1577. In the edition of 1586 the word is changed to dishonest. Shakspere used the language nearest his time. To find his title. The quarto reads to fine his title; which has been adopted by the modern editors. Warburton says, to fine is to refine. Steevens would read to line. The reading of the folio, find, requires little defence. We have an analogous expression, to find a bill. Hugh Capet, to deduce a title, conveyed himself, &c. • This Lewis was the ninth, as Hall correctly states. Shakspere found the mistake in Holinshed. Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet, Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Loraine : So that, as clear as is the summer's sun, To hold in right and title of the female; So do the kings of France unto this day: To bar your highness claiming from the female; And rather choose to hide them in a net, Usurp'd from you and your progenitors. K. HEN. May I, with right and conscience, make this claim? For in the book of Numbers is it writ, b When the man dies, let the inheritance O noble English, that could entertain Imbar. The folio gives this word imbarre, which modern editors, upon the authority of Theobald, have changed into imbare. Rowe, somewhat more boldly, reads make bare. Imbar may be taken as placed in opposition to bar. To bar is to obstruct; to imbar is to bar in, to secure. They would hold up the Salique law, "to bar your highness;" hiding "their crooked titles" in a net, rather than amply defending them. But it has been suggested to us that imbar is here used for "to set at the bar"-to place their crooked titles before a proper tribunal. This is ingenious and plausible. Man. So the folio; the quarto, son. This reading is perhaps the better. The passage in the book of Numbers, as quoted by Hall and Holinshed, is-"When a man dieth without a son, let the inheritance descend to his daughter." Scripture was quoted on the other side of the controversy:-" Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin,”was held to apply to the arms of France, the lilies. Voltaire, with a sly solemnity, proves, with reference to this, that the arms of France never had any affinity with lilies, but were spear-heads. 426 With half their forces the full pride of France; As did the former lions of your blood. WEST. They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might: Had nobles richer, and more loyal subjects; Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England, And lie pavilion'd in the fields of France. CANT. O, let their bodies follow, my dear liege, With blood, and sword, and fire, to win your right: In aid whereof, we of the spiritualty Will raise your highness such a mighty sum, Bring in to any of your ancestors c. K. HEN. We must not only arm to invade the French, Against the Scot, who will make road upon us CANT. They of those marches, gracious sovereign, Our inland from the pilfering borderers. K. HEN. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only, But fear the main intendment of the Scot, • Cold for action. Malone says, "cold for want of action." This, we think, is to interpret too literally. The unemployed forces, seeing the work done to their hands, stood laughing by and indifferent for action-unmoved to action. It is the converse of "hot for action." b They know, &c. Coleridge's emphatic reading of this passage is, we think, the true one; and it involves no change in the original, even of punctuation:: They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might: So hath your highness-never king of England Had nobles richer." What the "monarchs of the earth" know, Westmoreland confirms. This is much better than Monck Mason's interpretation of so for also, making his grace have cause, and his highness means and might. It has been proposed to us by a correspondent to read, They know your cause hath grace, and means, and might." • The twenty-one lines here ending have no parallel lines in the quartos. d a Marches-the boundaries of England and Scotland-the borders. Who hath been still a giddy neighbour to us; That England, being empty of defence, Hath shook and trembled at th' ill neighbourhood *. CANT. She hath been then more fear'd than harm'd, my liege : When all her chivalry hath been in France, But taken, and impounded as a stray, The king of Scots; whom she did send to France, With sunken wrack and sumless treasuries. WEST. But there's a saying, very old and true,— "If that you will France win, Then with Scotland first begin;" For once the eagle England being in prey, Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries, The advised head defends itself at home: • Your chronicles. The folio reads their chronicles; the quarto, your chronicle. The folio was, without doubt, printed from a written copy, without reference to the previous quarto;—and in old manuscripts your and their were contracted alike-yr. Taint. The folio, tame; the quarto, spoil. To tame is to subdue-to subject by fear. But the mouse does not tame, neither does she spoil, in the sense in which that word was formerly used. Theobald suggested that tame was a misprint for taint; so spoil may be for soil. • Crush'd necessity. So the folio; the quarto, curs'd necessity, which modern editors follow. Warburton would read s'cus'd (excus'd). Coleridge thinks it may be crash, for "crass," from crassus, clumsy; or curt. A friend suggests to us cur's necessity. After all, is the word crush'd so full of difficulty? The necessity alleged by Westmoreland is overpowered, crushed, by the argument that we have "locks" and "pretty traps;" so that it does not follow that "the cat must stay at home." |