323 Dyed … dying a clear pun on the verbs ‘dye’ and ‘die’

  325 SP *F gives the SP ‘Hub.’ (Hubert), a denomination which this edition believes is an error that resulted from the doubling of the parts of the Citizen and Hubert by one actor, a doubling that led to a momentary authorial confusion of sequential roles. See 200.1n.

  325–8we might … censured Paraphrased, the Citizen is saying that the citizens of Angiers had a good view of the battles from beginning to end (onset and retire), battles which were so evenly matched (in equality) that they cannot say who won.

  * * *

  327 your] F2; yonr F

  329 Blood … blood See 1.1.19n.

  333.1–2 It is clear from the ensuing dialogue that Constance and Arthur are not part of the onstage group; see 540–4.

  335–40 John defines his authority by the running image of an overflowing body of water forcing its way to the ocean, a conventional image frequently found in Shakespeare: cf. TGV 2.7.25–32; MM 3.1.241–2; also Cor 3.1.250–2, Luc 645–6, 1118–19, VA 331–2. See also Dent, S29, ‘The stream (current, tide) stopped swells the higher’ (varied from 1563). Similar images of a flowing river are repeated at 441–4, 3.1.23, 5.4.53–7 and 5.7.38. The subsequent reference in this scene to the mutines of Jerusalem (378) suggests the possible influence here of Nashe’s description in Christ’s Tears of the River Jordan during a time of violence: ‘The channel of Jordan was so over-burdened and charged with dead carkesses, that the waters … leapt over theyr banckes’ (Works, 2.68).

  336 vexed subjected to physical force or strain (OED ppl. a. 3)

  impediment obstruction, obstacle, but anticipating how this problem is to be resolved, through the marriage of Blanche and the Dauphin. BCP refers to the need to avoid impediment to a lawful marriage, a word echoed in Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments’ (1–2).

  338 confining bounding, limiting (OED ppl. a. 2, citing this line)

  340 progress journey, but with the particular association of a royal journey; John reinforces his regal right by using the word.

  * * *

  335 run] F2; rome F

  343 this hand Directors have chosen here to have King Philip raise his own hand or that of Arthur (Oxf1).

  344 sways … overlooks rules the land (i.e. France) beneath the sky above

  climate part of the sky; editors refer to Randle Cotgrave’s Dictionary of 1611: ‘climate; a division in the skie’. The space between the equator and each of the polar circles was divided into 24 ‘climates’, each corresponding to an increase of half an hour in the length of the longest day (see OED n. 1a).

  346 put … down both (1) crush, destroy, and (2) write down (on the list of enemy dead)

  348 scroll … loss After battle the number and names of the dead were recorded; see H5 4.7.116–17, ‘Bring me just notice of the numbers dead / On both our parts’; when the English Herald returns with the ‘paper’, King Henry asks, ‘Now, herald, are the dead numbered?’; the Herald replies, ‘Here is the number of the slaughtered French’ (4.8.74–5).

  351 rich blood … fire While there is no doubt that this is a common enough image in sixteenth-century literature, it is significant that it is spoken by the Bastard, who has already referred to Hercules (144), and it may indicate an allusion to the myth of Hercules and the shirt of Nessus, often interpreted as meaning that the desire of glory is poisonous.

  351–3 set … fangs Ard2 compares Psalms, 57.4, ‘the children of men, that are set on fyre: whose teeth [are] speares and arrows, and their tongue a sharpe sworde’.

  352 chaps Personified Death has jaws of steel.

  *dread Oxf1 rightly notes the redundant flatness of F ‘dead’ and accepts the nineteenth-century conjecture of Mull, who argues for a dropped r.

  354 mousing tearing (as a cat does a mouse). OED v. 2a o§bs. cites this line.

  * * *

  352 dread] Cam1 (Mull); dead F

  355 undetermined differences unresolved conflicts (Riv2)

  356 amazed amazèd

  357 Cry havoc ‘Shout devastation, destruction.’ OED havoc n. 1 points out: ‘the phrase cry havoc, orig. to give to an army the order havoc! as the signal for the seizure of spoil, and so of general spoliation or pillage’. Cf. 220n.

  stained stainèd

  359 confusion defeat, overthrow

  part party, side

  365 our … deputy i.e. we are in our present person the king; we need no vicarious representative. John is his own representative of his sovereignty, unlike King Philip, who claims that the citizens may know the English king (i.e. Arthur) in Philip’s person. The term deputy was applied to kings as God’s vicegerent: see 3.1.136, ‘Hail, you anointed deputies of God’; cf. R2 1.2.37–8, ‘God’s substitute, / His deputy’, and 4.1.126–7, ‘the figure of God’s majesty, / His captain, steward, deputy’.

  367 Lord … presence See 1.1.137n.

  368 this this argument of John (and the argument of Philip)

  369 undoubted put beyond doubt in respect of fact (OED ppl. a. 1), qualifying scruple (370)

  * * *

  368 SP] Rowe; Fra. F; Hub. Ard2

  371–2 The syntax is somewhat intricate but could be paraphrased, along the lines of Oxf1, thus: ‘We are forced to be our own kings by (of, see Abbott, 168) our doubtful apprehensions (fear), until our dispelled (resolved) doubtful apprehensions be, by the undisputed monarch (certain king), removed (purged) and dethroned (deposed).’

  373 scroyles scoundrels, wretches (OED n. obs., citing this line)

  flout insult, express disdain for

  376 industrious skilful, clever. OED 1 cites this line. The citizens of Angiers have excellent seats from which to watch the action of the English and French players.

  377 presences persons, embodied selves (OED n. 4, citing this line)

  378 mutines of Jerusalem mutines = mutineers; a reference to the joining of disparate Jewish leaders and their followers against the Romans (led by Titus) in 70 AD. This episode in Roman/Jewish history was frequently referred to in sixteenth—century writing, including Troublesome Reign, where in Part 1 Essex refers to the heavenly signs prophetic of destruction: ‘Before the ruines of Jerusalem, / Such meteors were the Ensignes of his wrath / That hastened to destroy the faultfull Towne’ (13.1601–3), and in Part 2 King John asks Pandulph, ‘How now, Lord Cardinale, whats your best advise? / These mutinies must be allayd in time / By pollicy or headstrong rage at least’ (2.333–5). Nashe’s Christ’s Tears contains a suggestive page dealing with factious elements in Jerusalem during the Roman occupation. Nashe writes of contingent loyalties and outright deception, both stemming from religious apostasy. He puts into the mouth of Christ, ‘the bloode of my Prophets and the hundred-vocy’t clamor of her multiplied mutines against Heaven, are farre louder before my Father then I … mee would not Jerusalem heare’ (Works, 2.57). Hamlet uses the same form of the word in ‘Worse than the mutines in the bilboes’ (Ham 5.2.6).

  380 malice See 251n.

  381–2 By east … cannon This seems a self-destructive strategy analogous in large to the episode in Der bestrafte Brudermord (Fratricide Punished), the later version of a Hamlet performed by English actors in Germany, where the agents of the King, aiming to kill Hamlet by shooting him from opposite sides, kill each other when Hamlet ducks to avoid their fire. See Bullough, 7.150.

  382 charged chargèd

  383 soul-fearing terrifying, soul-frightening

  brawled down driven or forced down by clamouring noise (OED brawl v.1 4, citing this line)

  385 play fire at or discharge the guns upon (OED v. 6c, citing this line)

  jades worthless, ill-tempered horses (OED n. 1), a term of contempt when applied to persons (OED n. 2c)

  386 scanning with monosyllablic Even, unfenced as three syllables and desolation as five syllables

  388 dissever disunite

  390 point to point sword point to sword point; Macbeth confronted his predecessor as Thane of Cawdor ‘Point against point’ (Mac 1.2.57), and cf. RJ 3.1.162, where Mercutio, ‘all as hot, turns deadly point to point’.

  391 Fortune personification of chance as a fickle woman. Cf. Hamlet’s observation, ‘In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true – she is a strumpet’ (Ham 2.2.230–1).

  cull forth pick out, select, choose, with a possible shading of cull = hug (OED v.2)

  392 minion favourite, darling. Both Hotspur and Macbeth are the darlings of Fortune for a while: ‘sweet Fortune’s minion’ (1H4 1.1.82) and ‘Like Valour’s minion’ (Mac 1.2.19).

  395 states the persons who rule the states, the king, rulers (OED state n. III 26a, a collective singular)

  396 the policy In Shakespeare’s day policy was a charged word connoting the political cunning of Machiavellian statecraft; its notoriety seems to be addressed by the use of the (see Abbott, 92, for the use of the article preceding ‘any word when referred to as being defined and well known’). The practice of policy by most of the characters is a prevailing theme in the play. See Oxf1

  399–400 The logic of the place guarantees that the audience will perceive how ego rather than material advantage is the driving force here – ‘honour’s at the stake’ (Ham 4.4.55).

  399 even with as flat as

  401 mettle substance, spirit, courage. Cf. Hal’s telling how he is viewed by the bartenders of the taverns, ‘no proud jack, like Falstaff, but a Corinthian, a lad of mettle, a good boy’ (1H4 2.4.11–12). See Dent, M908.1.

  406 pell-mell headlong (OED adv. 3) but with the military sense of without keeping ranks; hence, at close quarters, hand to hand (OED adv. 1c)

  407 heaven or hell Macbeth will use this expression when anticipating the killing of Duncan: ‘Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven, or to hell’ (Mac 2.1.63–4).

  412 drift shower

  bullets cannon balls

  413 O prudent discipline! a sarcastic observation on the absurdity of the King’s proposed battle strategy which shows (at the least) rank military incompetence

  discipline military skill

  414 mouth the mouths both of men and of the cannon, with an obscene secondary meaning (= ejaculate; Williams, ‘shoot’)

  * * *

  401 SD] Oxf1 413 SD] Capell

  417 fair-faced league attractive union. Cf. the old-faced walls of Angiers (259) and the half-face of Robert Faulconbridge (1.1.92). This is a play with a good deal of tension between what appears on the surface, face, and what is truly operative within.

  424–5 look … maid i.e. consider how appropriately young the Dauphin and Blanche are.

  427–9 fairer … purer Blanche’s ideal attractiveness is both physical and moral. Her purity is important not only personally but politically, as it is a guarantee of proper succession, the issue regarding Eleanor and Constance, as seen earlier in this scene (122ff.). The importance and difficulty of finding the pairing of these two qualities, beauty and purity, is illustrated in Hamlet’s indictment of Ophelia: ‘Are you honest? … Are you fair? … if you be honest and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty’ (Ham 3.1.102ff).

  428 zealous love spiritual desire, as opposed to physical. Note Austria’s zealous kiss at 19.

  431 veins It is possible that Shakespeare knew of the classical notion that our veins are the nets that the gods weave for our destiny.

  bound enclose, confine, contain (OED v.1 2b, citing this line)

  433 complete perfect, but perhaps with the thought of ‘complementary’ carried through in half part (437), finished (438), fullness (440)

  * * *

  424 niece] Smallwood (Collier); neere F 425 Dauphin] Smallwood; Dolphin F

  434 ‘only in that he is not joined with her’. Freely paraphrased: ‘If he is not perfect in these qualities one could say it is only because he is not Blanche’, even as Blanche at 435–6 lacks nothing unless it is that she is not Lewis (Oxf1).

  of used adverbially, meaning ‘thereof’ or ‘therein’

  437–8blessed … finished blessèd … finishèd

  439–40 Behind this statement lies the Platonic image of the sphere divided in half and each half seeking to be reunited with the other in a perfect whole. See Plato, Symposium, 190c.

  439 divided incomplete, imperfect (Blanche is a half part, like Lewis). OED a. 1a cites this line. For Shakespeare’s most extended treatment of the vanity of perfect loving unity, see PT, esp. ‘So they loved as love in twain / Had the essence but in one, / Two distincts, division none: / Number there in love was slain’ (25–8).

  441–4 silver … kings The Citizen reverses the imagery of the raging river at 335–40: by uniting the two lovers the kings jointly will control Blanche and Lewis (Beaurline). The political motive of securing peace between France and England through dynastic marriages is given extended dramatic treatment in 1H6 (see 5.1.1–20, 5.4) and H5 (5.2.352–68).

  444 you Philip and John

  447 match betrothal, with a pun on the match that lights the powder in 448

  448 spleen impetuosity, eagerness (OED n. 5b, citing this line and 5.7.50), but also with the sense of hot temper

  450 entrance There is a not too subtle parallel of political and sexual surrender.

  451 proverbial collocation; see Dent, S169.2, ‘As deaf as the sea’; cf. R2 1.1.19, ‘In rage, deaf as the sea’.

  454 peremptory resolute; resolved, determined (OED a. 3)

  455–67Here’s … Dad This speech is probably directed to the audience as an aside, but may be a commentary to the English group since the French party seem to be on their own (apparently discussing the Citizen’s offer in whispers: see 475). noted by Oxf1

  455 a stay The Bastard’s entire ensuing speech (456–65) is about the Citizen, suggesting that this phrase is also. A stay was a cessation of hostility or dissension; also a means of reconciliation (see OED n.3 3b, citing Homilies, 2.12: a ‘mediatour, … which shoulde make intercession, and put himselfe as a staye betwene both partes, to pacifie the wrath and indignation’). Readings suggested by editors (stay = pause, check) do not satisfy the context.

  456–7 rotten … rags The image of death as a skeleton in rags was a commonplace, and personified Death is usually thus depicted. His carcass reminds us not only of the external/internal theme operative in the play, but also of the dead lion whose beard was pulled with impunity and the lion’s skin that is at issue between Austria and the Bastard.

  460 puppy-dogs a common expression for the trivial. Cf. Fluellen’s comment on Captain Macmorris: ‘He has no more directions in the true disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines, than is a puppy-dog’ (H5 3.2.71–4).

  462 ‘His speech resembles the firing of a cannon: it’s all smoke and noise’; cf. 1H6 3.3.78–9, ‘these haughty words of hers / Have battered me like roaring cannon-shot’. This judgement is ironic considering the alliterative quality of the Bastard’s own language in this speech which makes him sound more like a firing cannon than the Citizen does.

  smoke See 229n.

  bounce loud burst of noise produced by an explosion (OED n.1 2); impudent self-assertion, swagger (OED n.1 4a)

  463 the bastinado a cudgelling, a beating with a stick, with a play on ‘bastard’. OED 2 fig. cites this line. See Falstaff’s ironic description of Owen Glendower, who ‘gave Amaimon [a devil] the bastinado and made Lucifer cuckold’ (1H4 2.4.327–8).

  * * *

  455 SD] this edn

  466–7 Typically with the Bastard, two meanings are implied: that the Citizen’s speech is the worst verbal thrashing he has received ‘since he was a child, or that old Sir Robert did not like his illegitimate son to address him as Dad’ (Oxf1).

  Zounds oath contracted from ‘God’s wounds’

  470–1 Eleanor recognizes the political sagacity of a marriage alliance which will secure John’s doubtful claim to the throne; for a similar political insight compare 3H6 3.3.69–70, ‘For how can tyrants safely govern home / Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?’

  surely … unsured assurance Eleanor shows herself a skilled, if artificial, rhetorician with her play on ‘sure’.

  471 unsured lacking in security; unsafe, liable to yield or give way (OED unsure a. 1b); subject to doubt or uncertainty (OED a. 4); OED cites only this line for ppl. a. unsured.

  472–3 Eleanor makes the point that the alliance will provide conditions which will deny the kingship not only to Arthur but also to his offspring. Ard2 notes another Soliman and Perseda parallel (cf. 1.1.244): ‘ “Sol. The Prince of Cipris to is likewise slaine. / Erast. Faire blossome, likely to have proued good fruite” (Kyd, p. 206)’.

  472 yon indicates that Arthur is nearby (but not onstage); perhaps the actor motions offstage.

  sun bright star in the heavens, i.e. royal support, but also punning on ‘son’

  475 Mark … whisper The implication is that the French and English parties have withdrawn into separate discussion groups.

  476 capable of susceptible to; see 3.1.12, ‘For I am sick, and capable of fears’.

  477–9 i.e. lest King Philip’s zeal to help Arthur, now softened (melted) by the Citizen’s petitions for peace, the feelings of pity and compassion (remorse), cool and harden against you as before (Ard2)

  477 zeal the commitment Philip has shown to the cause of Arthur, with the strong association of moral commitment; in the biblical sense of fervour (OED n. 1) rather than intense ardour in favour of a person or cause (OED n. 4)

  * * *

  468 SP] Elea. Ard2 ; Old Qu. F match.] F2; match F

  478 soft petitions … remorse by and towards the citizens of Angiers.

  485 Ard2 cites T.W. Baldwin’s gloss, ‘ “The book is Lily’s Grammar ‘amo, I love’; the beauty is Blanch” ’ (Latine, 1.569). For a parallel expression, see Lady Capulet’s description of Paris, ‘This precious book of love, this unbound lover’ (RJ 1.3.88).