From whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit, Ely. Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises. Exe. Your brother kings and monarchs of the earth Do all expect that you should rouse yourself, As did the former lions of your blood. West. They know your grace hath cause, and means, and might; 2 So hath your highness; never king of England Whose hearts have left their bodies here in England, 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 spirituality Will raise your highness such a mighty sum, As never did the clergy at one time Bring in to any of your ancestors. K. Hen. We must not only arm to invade the French, But lay down our proportions to defend 1 This alludes to the battle of Cressy, as described by Holinshed, vol. ii. p. 372. 2 i. e. your highness hath indeed what they think and know you have. Against the Scot, who will make road upon us Cant. They of those marches,' gracious sovereign, Shall be a wall sufficient to defend Our inland from the pilfering borderers. K. Hen. We do not mean the coursing snatchers only, But fear the main intendment 2 of the Scot, Hath shook and trembled at the ill neighborhood.3 Cant. She hath been then more feared than harmed, my liege. For hear her but exampled by herself, When all her chivalry hath been in France, The king of Scots; whom she did send to France, As is the ooze and bottom of the sea With sunken wreck 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, 1 The marches are the borders. 2 The main intendment is the principal purpose, that he will bend his whole force against us; the Bellum in aliquem intendere of Livy. 3 The quarto reads, "at the bruit thereof." Comes sneaking, and so sucks her princely eggs; To spoil and havock more than she can eat. Exe. It follows, then, the cat must stay at home. Yet that is but a crushed necessity;1 Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries, Like music. Cant. True; therefore doth Heaven divide 4 Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 1 "Yet that is but a crushed necessity." This is the reading of the folio. The editors of late editions have adopted the reading of the quarto copy, "cursed necessity." 2 Concent is connected harmony in general, and not confined to any specific consonance. Concentio and concentus are both used by Cicero for the union of voices or instruments, in what we should now call a chorus or concert. 3 "The act of order" is the statute or law of order; as appears from the reading of the quarto. "Creatures that by awe ordain an act of order to a peopled kingdom." 4 i. e. of different degrees: if it be not an error of the press for sort, i. e. rank. 5 "The civil citizens kneading up the honey." Civil is grave. See The poor mechanic porters crowding in The lazy, yawning drone. I this infer,- 2 As many several ways meet in one town; K. Hen. Call in the messengers sent from the dauphin. [Exit an Attendant. The King ascends Now are we well resolved; and by God's help, O'er France, and all her almost kingly dukedoms; Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 4. Johnson observes, to knead the honey is not physically true. The bees do, in fact, knead the wax more than the honey. 1 "Executors," for executioners. Thus also Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 38, ed. 1632: "Tremble at an executor, and yet not feare hell-fire." 2 "Without defeat." The quartos read, "Without defect." 3 "Empery." This word, which signifies dominion, is now obsolete. Tombless, with no remembrance over them. Enter Ambassadors of France. Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure K. Hen. We are no tyrant, but a Christian king; Amb. Thus, then, in few:Your highness, lately sending into France, Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right Of your great predecessor, king Edward the Third. 1 The quartos read, "- with a paper epitaph." Either a paper or a waxen epitaph is an epitaph easily destroyed; one that can confer no lasting honor on the dead. Steevens thinks that the allusion is to waren tablets, as any thing written upon them was easily effaced. Mr. Gifford says, that a waren epitaph was an epitaph affixed to the hearse or grave with wax. But the expression may be merely metaphorical, and not allu sive to either. 2 A galliard was an ancient sprightly dance, as its name implies. |