O, ten times more, than tigers of Hyrcania.5 Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this: [He gives back the Handkerchief. 6 And, if thou tell'st the heavy story right, curse;" And, in thy need, such comfort come to thee, NORTH. Had he been slaughter-man to all my kin, ' I should not for my life but weep with him, To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul. 5 8 of Hyrcania.] So the folio. The quartos read-of Arcadia. STEEVENS. • And, if thou tell'st the heavy story right, Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears;] So, in King Richard II: "Tell thou the lamentable tale of me, " And send the hearers weeping to their beds." STEEVENS. There, take the crown, and, with the crown, my curse ;] Rowe has transferred this execration to his dying Hengist in The Royal Convert: 66 wear my crown; "Take it, and be as curs'd with it as I was.” • I should not for my life but weep with him, STEEVENS. To see how inly sorrow gripes his soul.] So the folio. The quartos as follows: " I could not choose but weep with him, to see "How inward anger gripes his heart." STEEVENS. Q. MAR. What, weeping-ripe, my lord North umberland? Think but upon the wrong he did us all, CLIF. Here's for my oath, here's for my father's death. [Stabbing him. king.9 [Stabbing him. Q. MAR. And here's to right our gentle-hearted YORK. Open thy gate of mercy, gracious God! 'My soul flies through these wounds to seek out thee. [Dies. Q. MAR. Off with his head, and set it on York gates; So York may overlook the town of York.1 [Exeunt. 9 And here's to right our gentle-hearted king.] So the folio. The quarto thus: " And there's to right our gentle harted kind." Of these variations there are many, but it is useless labour to enumerate them all. STEEVENS. 1 So York may overlook &c.] This gallant nobleman fell by his own imprudence, in consequence of leading an army of only five thousand men to engage with twenty thousand, and not waiting for the arrival of his son the Earl of March, with a large body of Welshmen. He and Cicely his wife, with his son Edmond Earl of Rutland, were originally buried in the chancel of Foderingay church; and (as Peacham informs us in his Complete Gentleman, 4to. 1627,) "when the chancel in that furie of knocking churches and sacred monuments in the head, was also felled to the ground," they were removed into the churchyard; and afterwards "lapped in lead they were buried in the church by the commandment of Queen Elizabeth; and a mean monument of plaister wrought with the trowel erected over them, very homely, and far unfitting so noble princes." "I remember, (adds the same writer,) Master Creuse, a gentleman and my worthy friend, who dwelt in the college at the same time, told me, that their coffins being opened, their bodies appeared very plainly to be discerned, and withal that the dutchess ACT II. SCENE I. A Plain near Mortimer's Cross in Herefordshire. Drums. Enter EDWARD, and RICHARD, with their Forces, marching. * EDW. I wonder, how our princely father 'scap'd; * Or whether he be 'scap'd away, or no, * From Clifford's and Northumberland's pursuit; * Had he been ta'en, we should have heard the news; Had he been slain, we should have heard the news; * Or, had he 'scap'd, methinks, we should have heard * The happy tidings of his good escape.- Cicely had about her necke, hanging in a silke ribband, a pardon from Rome, which, penned in a very fine Roman hand, was as faire and fresh to be read, as it had been written yesterday." This pardon was probably a dispensation which the Duke procured, from the oath of allegiance that he had sworn to Henry in St. Paul's church on the 10th of March, 1452. MALONE. * How fares my brother?] This scene in the old quartos begins thus: "After this dangerous fight and hapless war, "How doth my noble brother Richard fare?" Had the author taken the trouble to revise his play, he hardly would have begun the first Act and the second with almost the same exclamation, expressed in almost the same words. Warwick opens the scene with " I wonder, how the king escap'd our hands." STEEVENS. ' I saw him in the battle range about; 'And watch'd him, how he singled Clifford forth. 'Methought, he bore him3 in the thickest troop, As doth a lion in a herd of neat : * Or as a bear, encompass'd round with dogs; * Who having pinch'd a few, and made them cry, * The rest stand all aloof, and bark at him. * So far'd our father with his enemies; • So fled his enemies my warlike father; Methinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son.4 See, how the morning opes her golden gates, And takes her farewell of the glorious sun !5 * How well resembles it the prime of youth, * Trimm'd like a younker, prancing to his love! 3 EDW. Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?" RICH. Three glorious suns, each one a perfectsun; Methought, he bore him] i. e. he demeaned himself. So, in Measure for Measure: "How I may formally in person bear me." MALONE. * Methinks, 'tis prize enough to be his son.] The old quarto reads-pride, which is right, for ambition, i. e. We need not aim at any higher glory than this. WARBURTON. I believe prize is the right word. Richard's sense is, though we have missed the prize for which we fought, we have yet an honour left that may content us. JOHNSON. Prize, if it be the true reading, I believe, here means privilege. So, in the former Act: " It is war's prize to take all 'vantages." MALONE. Aurora takes * And takes her farewell of the glorious sun!] for a time her farewell of the sun, when she dismisses him to his diurnal course. JOHNSON. 6 - do I see three suns? This circumstance is mentioned both by Hall and Holinshed: " at which tyme the son (as some write) appeared to the earle of March like three sunnes, and sodainely joyned altogither in one, uppon whiche sight hee tooke such courage, that he fiercely setting on his enemyes put them to flight; and for this cause menne ymagined that he gave the sun in his full bryghtnesse for his badge or cognisance." These are the words of Holinshed. MALONE. Not separated with the racking clouds," * EDW. 'Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of. 8 I think, it cites us, brother, to the field; * RICH. Nay, bear three daughters; -by your leave I speak it, * You love the breeder better than the male. 7-the racking clouds,] i.e. the clouds in rapid tumultuary motion. So, in The Raigne of King Edward III. 1596: 66 like inconstant clouds " That, rack'd upon the carriage of the winds, Again, in our author's 32d Sonnet: "Anon permit the basest clouds to ride * blazing by our meeds,] Illustrious and shining by the armorial ensigns granted us as meeds of our great exploits. Meed likewise is merit. It might be plausibly read: blazing by our deeds. JOHNSON. Johnson's first explanation of this passage is not right. Meed here means merit. So, in the fourth Act, the King says: "My meed hath got me fame." And in Timon of Athens the word is used in the same sense: No meed but he repays "Sevenfold above itself." M. MASON. |