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And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He call'd them untaught knaves, unmannerly,
To bring a slovenly unhandsome corse
Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

45

With many holiday and lady terms

He question'd me; amongst the rest, demanded
My prisoners in your majesty's behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,
To be so pester'd with a popinjay,

50

Out of my grief and my impatience,

rest.

Answer'd neglectingly I know not what,

He should, or he should not; for he made me mad
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

42. bore] bare Ff. 46. terms] tearme F. 47. amongst] Qq 1, 2; among the 49. I then,] I, then Pope. all smarting] hyphened Ff. 50. pester'd] Pope; pestred Qq 1-3; pestered the rest. popinjay] Qq 7, 8; Popingay the rest. 53. or he] or Ff.

Howes, Stowes Annales, ed. 1615, p. 948). For "to take in snuff,” to take offence at, cf. Jonson, The Poetaster, II. i: "I take it highly in snuff," and J. Phillips, Maronides, 1672.

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46. holiday] choice, not of the common work-a-day kind. Cf. Lyly, Pappe with an Hatchet (Bond, iii. 401): "Put on your holie day English, and the best wit you have for high daies"; Lodge and Greene, A Looking-Glass for London and England, 1594 (Dyce's Greene and Peele, p. 125): "she will call me rascal, rogue, runagate, varlet, vagabond, slave and knave; and these be but holiday-terms, but if you heard her working-day words, in faith, sir, they be rattlers like thunder"; and Nashe, A Prognostication (Grosart, ii. 157): "Knave and slave shal be but holyday words to their husbands." Cf. "his holyday hose and his best jacket" in Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia, 1588 (Collier, Shakespeare's Library, i. 45). See also Merry Wives of Windsor, III. ii. 69.

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46. lady] ladylike, effeminate. Antony and Cleopatra, v. ii. 165: some lady trifles," and Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, iv. ii:— "Mistriss Knavesby. Thou art a beast, an horned beast, an ox! Are these ladies

Knavesby.

terms?

-

47. question'd] Perhaps "talked to," as sometimes elsewhere.

49. smarting cold] Malone quotes from Drayton, Mortimeriados,

1596: "As when the blood is cold, we feel the wound,' and Tollet from Barnes's History of Edward III. p. 786: "the wounds began with loss of blood to cool and smart."

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50, 51. Following a suggestion made by Edwards, Capell transposed these lines. The order of lines 49 and 50, however, corresponds with the order of ideas in line 51, "grief" being the pain caused by the wounds, "impatience the annoyance given by the popinjay. "To be popinjay" bracketed in F, is, in fact, parenthetical; it does not depend upon "smarting" in line 49 as some commentators construe.

50. pester'd with] pestered by, as in Troilus and Cressida, v. i. 38.

50. popinjay] a parrot, whence, as here, a prating coxcomb. Fáck Juggler (Hazlitt's Dodsley, ii. 117) :—

"she chatteth like a pie all day, And speaketh like a parrot popin

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jay. Cotgrave has "Papegay; m. a Parrot, or Popingay."

51. grief pain, as in Shelton, Don Quixote, Part II. lx: "the grief of his wounds would not suffer him to go any farther."

52. neglectingly]negligently, thoughtlessly. Schmidt explains as "slightingly."

54. shine so brisk] Cf. Chapman, Jonson and Marston, Eastward Ho, III. ii: "Good Lord, how he shines! and Donne, Satires, i. 19: a brisk, perfum'd pert Courtier,'

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And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

55

Of guns and drums and wounds,-God save the
mark!-

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58. parmaceti] Parmacitie

55. talk
"To laugh like a waiting Gentle
"" is said to be one of the "ac-
coutrements" of a gallant in Dekker's
Patient Grissill, 11. i. Cf. Middleton,
More Dissemblers Besides Women, 1.
iv: "a pretty foolish waiting-woman."
56. God save the mark !] An excla-
mation used generally by way of depre-
cation or apology, but here (cf. Othello,
I. i. 33) as an expression of scorn.
Originally perhaps a form of words in-
voking a blessing upon the sign or mark
of the cross made by way of averting an
evil omen. Cf. Romeo and Juliet, 11.
ii. 53, and Merchant of Venice, II. ii. 25.
See also Beaumont and Fletcher, The
Coxcomb, v: "this honest weaver, God
bless the mark, sprung his neck just in
this place," and Middleton, The Family
of Love, III. ii :—
"Lipsalve.
mark indeed.
Shrimp. God save it!"
where there is a play on the word
"mark." For "mark" sign of the
cross, see Tarlton's Newes out of Pur-
gatorie (ed. Hall, p. 86): "I will come
downe and marke you all with the holy
relique of Saint Lawrence. So he
stept downe out of the pulpit, and crost
them all"; and The Battle of Otter-
bourne:-

waiting-gentlewoman] to be "the most sovereign and precious
weed that ever the earth tendered to
the use of man.' ""
A specific was
formerly called a sovereign remedy or
cure (cf. Sonnets, cliii).

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I hope to hit the

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'Every man thynke on hys trewe love

And marke hym to the Trenite." 57, 58. the sovereign'st . . . bruise] that spermaceti was the most efficacious remedy for an internal injury or bruise. Sovereign'st, supremely excellent, most efficacious; Lyly, Mother Bombie, II. v: "it [sack] is the soueraigntest drinke in the world," and Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, III. ii, where Bobadil affirms tobacco

58. parmaceti] a corruption of " spermaceti," the spelling "Parmacitie

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or

Parmacity" (Qq, F) being apparently due to a fanciful etymology from Parma City. Thus Minshew: "Parmacetie, confectio optima à Civitate Parmae ita dicta, aut à ducibus Parmae usitata." Reed quotes from Sir R. Hawkins's Voyage into the South Sea (Hakluyt Soc. ed., p. 73): "his [the whale's] spawne wee corruptly call parmacettie; of the Latine word Sperma-ceti." Bucknill (Shakespeare's Medical Knowledge, p. 145) shows that spermaceti was believed to be an anodyne and to resolve coagulated blood, whence, he observes, its supposed efficacy on an inward bruise. Mizaldus (Lupton, A Thousand Notable Things, ed. 1660, p. 104) affirms that there is " a marvellous strength" in it, and that it will "penetrate and go through the boxes or things wherein it is kept, with a certain moisture, or sweating drops." Bullokar (Expositor, 1617) says that it "is used in Physicke against bruisings of the bodie." See also The True Travels of Captaine John Smith, 1629 (Arber, Scholar's Library, p. 889); Middleton, Anything for a Quiet Life, v. ii; Overbury, Characters, An ordinarie Fencer: "for an inward bruise, lambstones and sweet-breads are his onely spermaceti." For "inward,” internal, cf. IV. i. 31 post, and Drayton, The Man in the Moon:

"The well . . . hath the pain appeas'd

Of th' inward griev'd, and outwardly diseas'd."

Which many a good tall fellow had destroy'd
So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.
This bald unjointed chat of his, my lord,
I answer'd indirectly, as I said;

And I beseech you, let not his report

65

Come current for an accusation

Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

Blunt. The circumstance consider'd, good my lord,
Whate'er Lord Harry Percy then had said
To such a person and in such a place,
At such a time, with all the rest re-told,
May reasonably die and never rise
To do him wrong, or any way impeach
What then he said, so he unsay it now.

King. Why, yet he doth deny his prisoners,

But with proviso and exception,

That we at our own charge shall ransom straight
His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer;

Who, on my soul, hath wilfully betray'd
The lives of those that he did lead to fight

64. himself have been] haue been himselfe Qq 4-8.
I answered Qq; Made me to answer Ff.
Whate'er Lord] Cambridge; What ere
What euer Ff. 77. he] omitted F.

62. tall] in the obsolete sense of
brave, valiant. Armin, A Nest of
Ninnies (Shak. Soc. ed., p. 21): "Jemy,
who was
a tall low man; " and
Overbury, Characters, Of Valour: "it
[valour] makes a little fellow to be
called a Tall man."

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64. soldier] a trisyllable, as in Hazlitt's Dodsley, ix. 36.

65. bald unjointed] trivial and disconnected, trashy and inconsequent. Comedy of Errors, II. ii. 110: "a bald conclusion."

66. indirectly] not to the point, with out direct reference to his questions or demands. See line 52 ante, and cf. II. iii. gr post.

68. Come current] be received as true or valid. Cf. Richard II. 1. iii. 231, and Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller (McKerrow, ii. 297): "their oaths went for currant; I was quit by proclamation."

71. Whate'er Lord] F reads What euer for Whate'er, the extra syllable supplying the loss of Lord, which

70

75

80

66. I answer'd] Pope; 67. his] Q 1; this the rest. 71. Lord Q1; What e're (or er'e) Qq 2-8; 81. on] Qq 1, 2; in the rest. dropped out of the text in the second and subsequent Qq.

71-76. The subject of "impeach" is, I think, lines 71-73, Whate'er Lord.. and its object "him," understood from the preceding clause: "May whatever he then said be forgotten and never again be cited to injure him or in any way discredit him-provided that he unsay now what then he said." "What then he said" is in apposition to and defines "it," the object of unsay.' The obscurity of the whole passage is removed by putting a dash after "impeach." Johnson regarded "what then he said" as the subject of "may rise," interpreting: "Let what he then said never rise to impeach him, so he unsay it now." So Elton, who puts a semicolon after "die." Wright explains "To do him said" as "to injure him or in any way put such a construction upon his words as to make them the foundation of a criminal charge.” 77. yet he doth] he doth yet. For the transposition, Rolfe compares line

...

Against that great magician, damn'd Glendower,
Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March
Hath lately married. Shall our coffers, then,
Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?
Shall we buy treason? and indent with fears,
When they have lost and forfeited themselves?
No, on the barren mountains let him starve ;
For I shall never hold that man my friend
Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost
To ransom home revolted Mortimer.

Hot. Revolted Mortimer!

He never did fall off, my sovereign liege,
But by the chance of war: to prove that true
Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,
Those mouthed wounds, which valiantly he took,
When on the gentle Severn's sedgy bank,

84. the] that Q I.

85

90

95

89. mountains] F 4; 94, 95. liege... to] 96. tongue for] Hanmer; tongue, 98. sedgy] sedgie F 4; siedgie

83. that] Qq 1, 2; the the rest. mountaines Q1; mountaine (mountain Q 3, F 3) the rest. liege. But. .. war To Upton conj. for Rowe; tongue: for Qq; tongue. For Ff. the rest.

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She should employ it."
87. fears] cravens, cowards. Cf.
Antony and Cleopatra, 11. lii. 22, and
Beaumont and Fletcher, The Island
Princess, II:

"I would not have her forc'd;
For things compell'd and frighted,
of soft natures,

Turn into fears, and fly from their
own wishes."

It seems clear from the words
that immediately follow, and from
Hotspur's answer, that "fears" refers to
Mortimer, and that the King accuses
him of betraying his men through
cowardice. Cf. lines 113-117 post.
"Fear," however, is frequently found in
the sense of a terrible object or of that
which is the cause of fear, and "fears"
is here so interpreted by some com-
mentators. Cf. Hamlet, III. iii. 25

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and 2 Henry IV. IV. v. 196, where "all these bold fears are the King's disaffected and turbulent nobles whom he has cause to fear. Daniel (Civil Wars, iv) describes Mortimer as "A man the King much fear'd," but it is improbable that so astute a politician as Henry would publicly and in the presence of the Percys have proclaimed his fear of a rival. Hanmer reads foes, Knight feres, i.e. vassals; Johnson conjectured peers.

94. fall off] revolt, go over to the enemy; as in King John, v. v. II,

and often.

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95-97. to prove mouthed wounds] A similar figure occurs in Julius Cæsar, III. i. 259-261:— "thy wounds

Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,

To beg the voice and utterance of
my tongue."

Cf. also Coriolanus, 11. iii. 6-8; and
Julius Cæsar, III. ii. 232, 233.
Mouthed, gaping, open like mouths;
cf. Sonnets, lxxvii. 6, and Richard III.
I. ii. 55, 56:-

"dead Henry's wounds Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!"

In single opposition, hand to hand,

He did confound the best part of an hour

100

In changing hardiment with great Glendower:

Three times they breathed and three times did they drink,

Upon agreement, of swift Severn's flood;

Who then, affrighted with their bloody looks,
Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,

And hid his crisp head in the hollow bank
Bloodstained with these valiant combatants.
Never did bare and rotten policy

Colour her working with such deadly wounds;
Nor never could the noble Mortimer
Receive so many, and all willingly:

Then let not him be slander'd with revolt.

105

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106. crisp head] crispe-head Qq, F; crisped-head Ff 2-4. the] a Ff 2-4. 108. bare] Qq; base Ff. 112. not him] him not Qq 6-8, Ff. slander'd] Ff 3, 4; sland'red Ff 1, 2; slandered Qq.

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"the Volga trembled.

And hid his seven curl'd heads": Dekker, Londons Tempe (Pearson, iv. 120):—

"swift Volga... whose curld head lies

On Seauen rich pillowes." 108. bare] I retain the bare of Qq, explaining it, with Johnson, as "lying open to detection." Cf. Milton, Samson Agonistes, 901, 902:—

"These false pretexts and varnish'd colours failing,

Bare in thy guilt, how foul must thou appear."

We meet in Hooker, Eccles. Pol., many such expressions as "bare and naked " (ii. 7), and "bare and unbuilded" (ii. 7). Some editors prefer the base of F.

108. policy] craft, cunning, as elsewhere in Shakespeare. Cf. 3 Henry VI. II. vi. 65.

109. Colour her working] disguise its proceedings, or render them specious. Shelton, Don Quixote, Part IV. vii; "Leonela . . stanched her lady's blood, which was just as much as might serve to colour her invention" and Munday, Drayton, Wilson and Hathaway, Life of Sir John Oldcastle, IV. ii :

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