CLIF. Ay, and old York, and yet not satisfied. RICH. For God's sake, lords, give signal to the fight. WAR. What say'st thou, Henry, wilt thou yield the crown? Q. MAR. Why, how now, long-tongu'd War- When you and I met at Saint Alban's last, 3 WAR. Then 'twas my turn to fly, and now 'tis thine. CLIF. You said so much before, and yet you fled. WAR. 'Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence. *NORTH. No, nor your manhood, that durst make you stay. RICH. Northumberland, I hold thee rever ently; Break off the parle; for scarce I can refrain CLIF. I slew thy father: Call'st thou him a child? coward, As thou didst kill our tender brother Rutland; But, ere sun-set, I'll make thee curse the deed. K. HEN. Have done with words, my lords, and hear me speak. 3 Your legs did better service than your hands.] An allusion to the proverb: "One pair of heels is worth two pair of hands." STEEVENS. Q. MAR. Defy them then, or else hold close thy lips. K. HEN. I pr'ythee, give no limits to my tongue; I am a king, and privileg'd to speak. CLIF. My liege, the wound, that bred this meet- Cannot be cur'd by words; therefore be still. EDW. Say, Henry, shall I have my right, or no? A thousand men have broke their fasts to-day, That ne'er shall dine, unless thou yield the crown. WAR. If thou deny, their blood upon thy head; For York in justice puts his armour on. 'PRINCE. If that be right, which Warwick says is right, There is no wrong, but every thing is right. RICH. Whoever got thee, there thy mother stands; For, well I wot, thou hast thy mother's tongue. Q. MAR. But thou art neither like thy sire, nor dam; But like a foul misshapen stigmatick, 4 I am resolv'd,] It is my firm persuasion; I am no longer in doubt. JOHNSON. Rich. Whoever got thee, &c.] In the folio this speech is erroneously assigned to Warwick. The answer shows that it belongs to Richard, to whom it is attributed in the old play. MALONE. 6-misshapen stigmatick,] "A stigmatic," says J. Bullokar in his English Expositor, 1616, " is a notorious lewd fellow, which hath been burnt with a hot iron, or beareth other marks about him as a token of his punishment." Mark'd by the destinies to be avoided, The word is likewise used in Drayton's Epistle from Q. Margaret to W. de la Poole : "That foul, ill favour'd, crook-back'd stigmatick." Again, in Drayton's Epistle from King John to Matilda : " These for the crook'd, the halt, the stigmatick." 7 STEEVENS. lizards' dreadful stings.] Thus the folio. The quartos have this variation: 66 or lizards' fainting looks." This is the second time that Shakspeare has armed the lizard (which in reality has no such defence) with a sting; but great powers seem to have been imputed to its looks. So, in Noah's Flood, by Drayton : "The lizard shuts up his sharp-sighted eyes, STEEVENS Shakspeare is here answerable for the introduction of the lizard's sting; but in a preceding passage, Vol. XIII. p. 298, the author of the old play has fallen into the same mistake. 8 * gilt, Gilt is a superficial covering of gold. So, in King Henry V: " Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd." 66 MALONE. STEEVENS. 9 (As if a channel should be call'd the sea,)] A channel, in our author's time, signified what we now call a kennel. So, in Stowe's Chronicle, quarto, 1605, p. 1148 : such a storme of raine happened at London, as the like of long time could not be remembered; where-through, the channels of the citie suddenly rising," &c. Again, in King Henry IV. P. II: "-quoit him into the channel." MALONE. Kennel is still pronounced channel in the North. So, in Marlowe's Edward II: "Throw off his golden mitre, rend his stole, 'Sham'st thou not, knowing whence thou art ex traught, 'To let thy tongue detect1 thy base-born heart ? EDW. A wisp of straw were worth a thousand crowns, Again: Again: "Here's channel water, as our charge is given." To let thy tongue detect-] To show thy meanness of birth by the indecency of language with which thou railest at my deformity. JOHNSON. To let thy tongue detect thy base-born heart?] So the folio. The quartos: " To parly thus with England's lawful heirs." STEEVENS. * A wisp of straw-] I suppose, for an instrument of correction that might disgrace, but not hurt her. JOHNSON. I believe that a wisp signified some instrument of correction used in the time of Shakspeare. The following instance seems to favour the supposition. See A Woman never Vexed, a comedy by Rowley, 1632: 66 "Nay, worse; I'll stain thy ruff; nay, worse than that, dost wisp me thou tatterdemallion ?" Again, in Marston's Dutch Courtezan, 1604: "Thou little more than a dwarf, and something less than a woman! "Cris. A wispe! a wispe! a wispe!" Barrett, in his Alvearie, or Quadruple Dictionary, 1580, interprets the word wispe by peniculus or σπονγος, which signify any thing to wipe or cleanse with; a cook's linen apron, &c. Pewter is still scoured by a wispe of straw, or hay. Perhaps Edward means one of these wisps, as the denotement of a menial servant. Barrett adds, that, like a wase, it signifies " a wreath to be laied under the vessel that is borne upon the head, as women use." If this be its true sense, the Prince may think that such a wisp would better become the head of Margaret, than a crown. It appears, however, from the following passage in Thomas Drant's translation of the seventh satire of Horace, 1567, that a wispe was the punishment of a scold: To make this shameless callet know herself. * Helen of Greece was fairer far than thou, * Although thy husband may be Menelaus;* * And ne'er was Agamemnon's brother wrong'd " So perfyte and exacte a scoulde that women mighte geve place " Whose tatling tongues had won a wispe," &c. STEEVENS. See also, Nashe's Apology of Pierce Pennilesse, 1593: “Why, thou errant butter-whore, thou cotquean and scrattop of scolds, wilt thou never leave afflicting a dead carcasse? continually read the rhetorick lecture of Ramme-Alley? a wispe, a wispe, you kitchen-stuffe wrangler." Again, in A Dialogue between John and Jone, striving who shall wear the Breeches, PLEASURES OF POETRY, bl. 1. no date: " Good gentle Jone, with-holde thy hands, " And make me promise, never more "That thou shalt mind to beat me; " For feare thou weare the wispe, good wife, " And make our neighbours ride-." MALONE. * To make this shameless callet know herself.] Shakspeare uses the word callet likewise in The Winter's Tale, Act II. sc. iii: " A callat " Of boundless tongue; who late hath beat her husband, "And now baits me." Callet, a lewd woman, a drab, perhaps so called from the French calote, which was a sort of head-dress worn by country girls. See Glossary to Urry's Chaucer. So, in Chaucer's Remedy of Love, v. 307 : "A cold old knave cuckolde himself wenyng, So, Skelton, in his Elinour Rumming, Works, p. 133: " Then Elinour said, ye callettes, Again, in Ben Jonson's Volpone : "Why the callet you told me of here, * Menelaus;] i. e. a cuckold. So, in Troilus and Cressida, Thersites, speaking of Menelaus, calls him "-the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, the primitive statue and oblique memorial of cuckolds." STEEVENS. |