* YORK. Ay, with my sword. What! think'st thou, that we fear them?'Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me ;'My brother Montague shall post to London: * Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest, * Whom we have left protectors of the king, * With powerful policy strengthen themselves, * And trust not simple Henry, nor his oaths. * MONT. Brother, I go; I'll win them, fear it not: * And thus most humbly I do take my leave. [Exit. Enter Sir JOHN and Sir HUGH MORTIMER. YORK. Sir John, and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles! You are come to Sandal in a happy hour; The army of the queen mean to besiege us. SIR JOHN. She shall not need, we'll meet her in the field. 'YORK. What, with five thousand men? RICH. Ay, with five hundred, father, for a need. A woman's general; What should we fear? [A March afar off. EDW. I hear their drums; let's set our men in order; And issue forth, and bid them battle straight. 'YORK. Five men to twenty!"-though the odds be great, 7 Five men to twenty! &c.] Thus, in the old play: "In Normandy, whereas the enemy "Come, let us go. I am resolv'd. "Edw. Let us march away. I hear their drums." MALONE. * I doubt not, uncle, of our victory. 'Many a battle have I won in France, • When as the enemy hath been ten to one; • Why should I not now have the like success? 3 [Alarum. Exeunt. SCENE III. Plains near Sandal Castle. Alarums: Excursions. Enter RUTLAND, and his Tutor.8 'RUT. Ah, whither shall I fly to 'scape their hands!9 Ah, tutor! look, where bloody Clifford comes! Enter CLIFFORD, and Soldiers. CLIF. Chaplain, away! thy priesthood saves thy life. As for the brat of this accursed duke, Whose father1 slew my father, he shall die. TUT. And I, my lord, will bear him company. CLIF. Soldiers, away with him. his Tutor.] Henry VI. fol. 99. 9 Ah, whither &c.] these lines: 1 A priest called Sir Robert Aspall, Hall, RITSON. This scene in the old play opens with "Tutor. Oh, fly my lord, let's leave the castle, "And fly to Wakefield straight." MALONE. Whose father-] i. e. the father of which brat, namely the Duke of York. MALONE. 'TUT. Ah, Clifford! murder not this innocent child, 'Lest thou be hated both of God and man. [Exit, forced off by Soldiers. CLIF. How now! is he dead already? Or, is it fear, That makes him close his eyes?"-I'll open them. is he dead already? Or, is it fear, ১ That makes him closé his eyes?] This circumstance is taken from Hall: "Whilst this battail was in fighting, a prieste called Sir Robbert Aspall, chappelaine and schole-master to the yong erle of Rutlande, ii sonne to the above named duke of Yorke, scarce of the age of xii yeres, a faire gentleman, and a maydenlike person, perceyving that flight was more safe-gard than tarrying, bothe for hym and his master, secretly conveyd therle out of the felde, by the lord Cliffordes bande, toward the towne; but or he could entre into a house, he was by the sayd Lord Clifford espied, folowed, and taken, and by reson of his apparell, demaunded what he was. The yong gentleman dismayed, had not a word to speake, but kneled on his knees, imploring mercy, and desiring grace, both with holding up his handes, and making dolorous countenance, for his speache was gone for feare." MALONE. 3 So looks the pent-up lion] That is, The lion that hath been long confined without food, and is let out to devour a man condemned. 4 JOHNSON. devouring parus:] Surely the epithet devouring, which might well have characterised the whole animal, is oddly bestowed on his paws. STEEVENS. CLIF. In vain thou speak'st, poor boy; my fa ther's blood Hath stopp'd the passage where thy words should enter. RUT. Then let my father's blood open it again; He is a man, and, Clifford, cope with him. CLIF. Had I thy brethren here, their lives, and thine, Were not revenge sufficient for me; And till I root out their accursed line, 'And leave not one alive, I live in hell. Therefore [Lifting his Hand. Rur. O, let me pray before I take my death :To thee I pray; Sweet Clifford, pity me! CLIF. Such pity as my rapier's point affords. 'RUT. I never did thee harm; Why wilt thou slay me? CLIF. Thy father hath. RUT. But 'twas ere I was born. * The sight of any of the house of York' Is as a fury &c.] In Romeo and Juliet the same idea is expressed in humbler language: "A dog of the house of Montague moves me." STEEVENS. But 'twas ere I was born.] Rutland is under a mistake. The battle of St. Albans, in which old Clifford was slain, happened in 1455; that of Wakefield in 1460. He appears to have been at this time about seventeen years old. RITSON. The author of the original play appears to have been as incorrect in his chronology as Shakspeare. Rutland was born, I believe, in 1448; according to Hall, in 1448; and Clifford's t Thou hast one son, for his sake pity me; Ah, let me live in prison all my days; And when I give occasion of offence, Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause. CLIF. No cause? Thy father slew my father; therefore, die. [CLIFFORD stabs him. RUT. Dii faciant, laudis summa sit ista tuæ! [Dies. CLIF. Plantagenet! I come, Plantagenet! And this thy son's blood cleaving to my blade, Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood, Congeal'd with this, do make me wipe off both. [Exit. father was killed at the battle of St. Albans, in 1455. Consequently Rutland was then at least seven years old; more probably twelve. The same observation has been made by an anonymous writer. MALONE. 7 sith-] i. e. since. So, in The Merry Wives of Windsor: "-sith you yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender." STEEVENS. * Dii faciant, &c.] This line is in Ovid's Epistle from Phillis to Demophoon. I find the same quotation in Have with you to Saffron Walden, or Gabriel Harvey's Hunt is up, &c. 1596. STEEVENS. |