Greg, W. W. Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931.

  Greg itemizes and briefly describes almost all the play manuscripts that survive from the period 1590 to around 1660, including, among other things, players’ parts. His second volume offers facsimiles of selected manuscripts.

  Harbage, Alfred. Shakespeare’s Audience. New York: Columbia University Press, 1941.

  Harbage investigates the fragmentary surviving evidence to interpret the size, composition, and behavior of Shakespeare’s audience.

  Keenan, Siobhan. Acting Companies and Their Plays in Shakespeare’s London. London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2014.

  Keenan “explores how the needs, practices, resources and pressures on acting companies and playwrights informed not only the performance and publication of contemporary dramas but playwrights’ writing practices.” Each chapter focuses on one important factor that influenced Renaissance playwrights and players. The initial focus is on how “the nature and composition of the acting companies” influenced the playwrights who wrote for them. Then, using “the Diary of theatre manager Philip Henslowe and manuscript playbooks showing signs of theatrical use,” Keenan examines the relations between acting companies and playwrights. Other influences include “the physical design and facilities of London’s outdoor and indoor theatrical spaces” and the diverse audiences for plays, including royal and noble patrons.

  Shapiro, Michael. Children of the Revels: The Boy Companies of Shakespeare’s Time and Their Plays. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.

  Shapiro chronicles the history of the amateur and quasi-professional child companies that flourished in London at the end of Elizabeth’s reign and the beginning of James’s.

  The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays

  Blayney, Peter W. M. The First Folio of Shakespeare. Hanover, Md.: Folger, 1991.

  Blayney’s accessible account of the printing and later life of the First Folio—an amply illustrated catalogue to a 1991 Folger Shakespeare Library exhibition—analyzes the mechanical production of the First Folio, describing how the Folio was made, by whom and for whom, how much it cost, and its ups and downs (or, rather, downs and ups) since its printing in 1623.

  Hinman, Charlton. The Norton Facsimile: The First Folio of Shakespeare. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1996.

  This facsimile presents a photographic reproduction of an “ideal” copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare; Hinman attempts to represent each page in its most fully corrected state. This second edition includes an important new introduction by Peter W. M. Blayney.

  Hinman, Charlton. The Printing and Proof-Reading of the First Folio of Shakespeare. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.

  In the most arduous study of a single book ever undertaken, Hinman attempts to reconstruct how the Shakespeare First Folio of 1623 was set into type and run off the press, sheet by sheet. He also provides almost all the known variations in readings from copy to copy.

  Werstine, Paul. Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

  Werstine examines in detail nearly two dozen texts associated with the playhouses in and around Shakespeare’s time, conducting the examination against the background of the two idealized forms of manuscript that have governed the editing of Shakespeare from the twentieth into the twenty-first century—Shakespeare’s so-called foul papers and the so-called promptbooks of his plays. By comparing the two extant texts of John Fletcher’s Bonduca, one in manuscript and the other printed in 1647, Werstine shows that the term “foul papers” that is found in a note in the Bonduca manuscript does not refer, as editors have believed, to a species of messy authorial manuscript but is instead simply a designation for a manuscript, whatever its features, that has served as the copy from which another manuscript has been made. By surveying twenty-one texts with theatrical markup, he demonstrates that the playhouses used a wide variety of different kinds of manuscripts and printed texts but did not use the highly regularized promptbooks of the eighteenth-century theaters and later. His presentation of the peculiarities of playhouse texts provides an empirical basis for inferring the nature of the manuscripts that lie behind printed Shakespeare plays.

  Key to Famous Lines and Phrases

  Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!

  [Bedford—1.1.1]

  These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.

  [Gloucester—1.1.68–69]

  Fight till the last gasp.

  [Pucelle—1.2.130]

  Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyons’ days. . . .

  [Pucelle—1.2.134]

  Glory is like a circle in the water,

  Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself

  Till by broad spreading it disperse to naught.

  [Pucelle—1.2.136–38]

  See the coast cleared, and then we will depart.

  [Mayor—1.3.89]

  Let him that is a trueborn gentleman

  And stands upon the honor of his birth,

  If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,

  From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.

  [Plantagenet—2.4.27–30]

  I’ll note you in my book of memory. . . .

  [Plantagenet—2.4.102]

  Here dies the dusky torch of Mortimer,

  Choked with ambition of the meaner sort.

  [Plantagenet—2.5.122–23]

  For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.

  [King Henry—3.1.194]

  Defer no time; delays have dangerous ends.

  [Reignier—3.2.33]

  Care is no cure, but rather corrosive. . . .

  [Pucelle—3.3.3]

  How are we parked and bounded in a pale,

  A little herd of England’s timorous deer. . . .

  [Talbot—4.2.45–46]

  She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed;

  She is a woman, therefore to be won.

  [Suffolk—5.3.78–79]

  Commentary

  * * *

  ACT 1

  * * *

  Scene 1

  1.1  The funeral procession for Henry V is interrupted first by a quarrel between Gloucester and Winchester and then by messengers from France. The messengers report the loss of England’s lands in France and the French capture of Talbot, the English military commander.

  0 SD. Dead March: somber music played for a funeral procession; funeral: i.e., coffin (and its bearers)

  1. the heavens: (1) the sky; (2) the ceiling of the roof over the stage (See Shakespeare’s Theater.)

  2. importing: (1) signifying; (2) portending; (3) bringing in; states: (1) governments; (2) conditions

  3. Brandish: scatter; crystal: i.e., bright (See picture of comet.)

  4. revolting: rebelling (Stars and planets were thought to influence the fates of people, particularly the great.)

  9. Virtue: moral excellence; physical force; courage

  10. his beams: i.e., its (reflected) rays of light

  14. fierce bent: fiercely turned

  16. lift: i.e., lifted

  19. wooden: lifeless, insensitive

  22. car: chariot (Lines 20–22 allude to the Roman custom of honoring a victorious warrior with a triumphal procession in which his captives were tied to his chariot; here it is as if the nobles are celebrating Death as the victor.) See picture.

  “Death’s dishonorable victory.” (1.1.20)

  From Todten-Tantz . . . (1696).

  23. planets of mishap: i.e., planets exercising an evil influence

  25. subtle-witted: crafty, treacherous

  26. Conjurers: magicians who call up spirits; sorcerers: practitioners of witchcraft (See picture.)

  A conjuror. (1.1.26–27; 2.1.16)

  From Christopher Marlowe, The tragicall historie of . . . Doctor Faustus . . . (1631).

  27. magic verses: i.e., charms, spells

  28. of: i.e., by; King of kings: “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19.16)

  29. Judgment Day: i.e., Doomsday, the day the dead will arise and be judged (in Christian theology) See picture.

  Judgment Day. (1.1.29)

  From Thomas Fisher’s etching of the wall painting of Doomsday in the Guild Chapel at Stratford-upon-Avon (1807).

  30. his sight: the sight of Henry V

  31. Lord of Hosts: “The Lord of Hosts numbreth the host of the battle” (Isaiah 13.4).

  32. Church’s: i.e., Roman Catholic Church’s

  33. prayed: with wordplay on preyed

  34. thread of life: duration of life (as, in mythology, determined by the three Fates: Clotho, who spun the thread of life; Lachesis, who measured it out; and Atropos, who cut it) See picture.

  The Fates and the “thread of life.” (1.1.34)

  From Vincenzo Cartari, Imagines deorum . . . (1581).

  35. do you: i.e., do you churchmen (line 33); effeminate: Boys were considered comparable to women in their lack of physical strength and of autonomy. (Henry VI’s youth is stressed throughout the play.)

  38. lookest to command: i.e., expect to command; anticipate or look forward to commanding

  39. holdeth thee in awe: controls you through fear

  44. jars: quarrels

  45. wait on: attend on, accompany

  46. arms: armor, weapons

  48. await for: expect

  51. Our . . . tears: i.e., (instead of milk) England will produce nothing to sustain its children but tears  nourish: wet nurse

  53. invocate: invoke, summon in prayer

  54. Prosper: promote the success of; broils: turmoil

  55. adverse planets: i.e., planets influencing England’s fate adversely (See note to 1.1.4.)

  57. Julius Caesar: Roman statesman and general (100–44 B.C.E.), whose soul is imagined as transformed into a star in Ovid’s Metamorphoses 15.843–51

  60. discomfiture: defeat in battle

  61. Guyen: For discussion of the relation of events in the play to history as it was recorded in Shakespeare’s time, see note to Saccio’s essay in Further Reading. Roan, Orleance: i.e., Rouen, Orléans (For this edition’s use of the Folio spellings, see longer note.)

  A view of Roan, or Rouen. (1.1.61; 3.2.1)

  From John Speed, A prospect of the most famous parts of the world . . . (1631).

  65. lead: See longer note.

  66.

  A view of Paris. (1.1.66; 3.4; 4.1)

  From John Speed, A prospect of the most famous parts of the world . . . (1631).

  68–69. yield the ghost: i.e., die, give up the spirit (Henry V had reconquered much of France and had been made heir to the French throne, a title that passed to Henry VI on his father’s death.)

  71. want: lack

  73. several: separate, private

  74. field . . . fought: i.e., armed force should be dispatched and battle should be fought (wordplay on field, which means both “army” and “battle”)

  75. of: i.e., about

  76. would: wishes to, wants to

  77. wanteth: lacks (Proverbial: “He would fain [gladly] fly but he wants [lacks] feathers.”)

  79. fair: specious, flattering

  81. begot: begotten, acquired

  82. Cropped: picked, plucked; flower-de-luces: fleurs-de-lis, heraldic lilies borne on the French royal coat of arms and, beginning with Edward III, also on the English coat of arms (along with the English lion) to indicate England’s conquest over the French (See pictures of the shields carried by Henry V, and Henry VI.)

  83. coat: coat of arms

  84. wanting to: i.e., lacking at

  85. her: i.e., England’s (line 83)

  86. Me they concern: i.e., these tidings (line 85) are my concern

  87. steelèd coat: i.e., coat of steel, armor; for France: to win back France

  88. wailing: i.e., funeral

  89. lend: give, deal

  90. intermissive: intermittent (here, resuming after an intermission)

  91. mischance: disaster, calamity

  94. Dauphin: accent throughout on first syllable (See longer note to 1.1.61, and picture.)

  “The Dauphin Charles.” (1.1.94).

  From Bernardo Giunti, Cronica breve de i fatti illustri de re di Francia . . . (1588).

  97. flieth: rushes (In lines 98–100, the word fly means, alternately, “rush” and “flee”; in line 100, it also has the sense of “fly at” or attack violently.)

  99. reproach: disgrace, shame

  102. forwardness: promptness, zeal

  106. hearse: (1) coffin; (2) corpse

  107. dismal: disastrous, calamitous

  111. circumstance: details

  114. full scarce: i.e., barely (Full is an intensive.)

  117. enrank his men: i.e., draw up his men in order of battle

  118. wanted: lacked

  123. above: beyond

  125. stand him: face him without retreating or flinching

  128. agazed on: terrified by; astounded or amazed at

  130. À Talbot: to Talbot (a rallying cry); amain: with all their might

  131. bowels: center

  132. sealed up: secured

  133. Sir John Fastolf: See longer note.

  134. vaward: vanguard, the foremost division of the army; placed behind: perhaps, placed behind those in the first ranks of the vanguard

  135. them: i.e., the soldiers in the first ranks of the vanguard

  137. wrack: wreck, disaster

  138. with their: i.e., by their

  139. base Walloon: lowborn soldier from southeast Belgium; grace: favor, good opinion

  146. wanting: lacking

  147. dastard: cowardly

  148. took: i.e., taken

  151. there . . . I: i.e., only I

  152. hale: pull, haul

  154. change: exchange

  155. will I: i.e., I will go

  157. Saint George’s feast: the feast day (April 23) of the patron saint of England; withal: with (See picture of Saint George.)

  Saint George. (1.1.157; 4.2.55; 4.6.1)

  From [Jacobus de Voragine,] Here begynneth the legende named in latyn legenda aurea . . . [1493].

  160. ’fore Orleance besieged: before besieged Orléans

  162. supply: reinforcements of troops

  163. hardly: with difficulty

  165. your . . . sworn: i.e., the oath that each of you swore to Henry V (on his deathbed)

  166. quell: crush, destroy

  170. Tower: Tower of London, a fortress, prison, and armory (See pictures.)

  The Tower of London. (1.1.170; 1.3.1)

  From John Seller, A book of the prospects of the remarkable places in . . . London . . . [c. 1700?].

  The Tower of London. (1.1.170; 1.3.1)

  From Claes Jansz Visscher, Londinum florentissima Britanniae urbs . . . [c. 1625].

  173. Eltham: royal palace nine miles southeast of London (in what is now a London suburb)

  174. ordained: appointed; governor: one in charge of a young man’s education; tutor to a prince or young noble

  176. place: office, duty; attend: look after, apply himself to

  178. Jack-out-of-office: a proverbial term for one who has been dismissed from his office

  180. sit . . . weal: i.e., occupy the chief seat in the government of the state  stern: rudder (of the ship of state)

  ACT 1

  * * *

 

  1.2  Charles the Dauphin, leader of the French, is defeated by a small English force that is besieging Orleance. He is then introduced to Pucelle, who declares herself chosen by the Virgin Mary to free France from the English. Charles challenges her to single combat, loses, and grants her authority as a military leader.

  0 SD. flourish: fanfare of trumpets; Drum: drummer

  1. Mars his: Mars’s (Mars, the Roman god of war, is here imagined to control the outcome of battle.) See longer note, and picture.