472 choke ‘stop [the tongue] by choking’ (OED v. 6a). Cf. 3.137, 12.5, 13.126, 14.2.

  473 breath of falsehood false utterance

  charactered charàctered: written, engraved (in heart’s close book, 471); cf. TGV 2.7.3–4, ‘the table wherein all my thoughts / Are visibly charactered and engraved’, Son 108.1–2, 122.1–2. Cf. also 6.127, 13.76.

  474 of my age that should be due to and expected of my advanced years

  475 owe be under obligation to give or render (OED v. 3a)

  475, 480render … tenders also in proximity at 12.116, 113

  476 Warwick professes himself more disposed to criticize than to flatter the King. This is OED’s earliest citation for cynic (n. 2; see t.n.).

  477–9 Cf. 462–4 (and see 463n. on And that).

  478 lessened lessenèd

  479 i.e. I would lessen your highness’s pain at the expense of my own (proper); for highness’, see 426n. on marriage’, 434n.

  480–5 See LN.

  480 vulgar tenders common (both usual and ordinary) offers; tenders (offers of money) is picked up in the next line with pay (cf. 412–14, 414n.).

  481 pay … words i.e. fulfil their promises. The mercenary language (golden, lead, owe, gold, render, buy, tenders) continues in this line, appropriate to Edward’s real aim of using Warwick as ‘a shamelesse Pandarus’ to his daughter (Painter, sig. 3S1r). See 480–5 LN.

  * * *

  476 cynic] (cyncke) 477 if I] Q2; I if Q 478 lessened] (lesned) 480 SP] Capell; not in Q

  482 stick hesitate (OED v.1 15a)

  483 condition pronounced with four syllables: nature, state (of the grief); prerequisite (for grief’s cure)

  484–5 This … again i.e. you will eat your words; may allude to the proverb ‘The dog returns to his vomit’ (Dent, D455), denoting the backsliding of sinners, and their consequent untrustworthiness.

  484 rash-disgorged disgorgèd: hastily spewed out; cf. R3 4.3.50, ‘rash-levied’, and MV 3.2.109, ‘rash-embraced’.

  485 eat up See 156n. on make up.

  486–7 Cf. Painter, ‘Commaunde, my soueraigne Lord (quod he with wæping teares) what it shall please you to haue me to doe, if it be, euen to bestowe mine owne lyfe for your sake’ (sig. 3R3v).

  488 medicinable trisyllabic (med’c’nable): the apparent sense, ‘medically curable’, is not listed in OED, which defines it primarily as ‘Having healing or curative properties’ (a. 1). Like ‘penetrable’ (penetrating, capable of being penetrated, a. 1, 2a), medicinable presumably could be active and passive. Shakespeare uses medicinable only as defined by OED; collocation with grief occurs also in Cym 3.2.33–4.

  490–1 antithetical, with polyptoton on vantage (= gain; v. then n.; see 103n.): ‘if my loss benefits you, it is also a benefit to me’; cf. Son 88.11–12, ‘The injuries that to myself I do, / Doing thee vantage, double vantage me’. Cf. also vantage(d), 3.64, 12.13; advantage, 4.135, 11.8; disadvantage, 15.4.

  491 *account All editors have accepted Q2’s correction of Q’s ‘accomplish’ (perhaps misreading ‘accompt(e)’).

  492 Cf. 409.

  *unswear Capell’s emendation of Q’s ‘answere’ is clearly correct. OED cites this as its first example: cf. KJ 3.1.171. See 1.76n. on unpolished.

  * * *

  482 Thou] Capell; Kin: Thou Q 483 knowst] (knowest) 484 rash-disgorged] Delius; rash disgorged Q; rash, disgorged Parfitt 488 SP] Q2 (Kin.); not in Q medicinable] med’cinable Capell 491 account] Q2; accomplish Q; accompt Brooketoo] (to) 492 Think’st] Thinkest Q2unswear] Capell; answere Q

  493 Cf. 409–10n.

  nor … not double negative for emphasis (see Abbott, 406)

  496 warrant pledge

  498 faith pledge, promise

  499 excommunicate excommunicated: archaic form of the pa. pple. (OED 1); excommunication was a severe penalty, excluding a Christian permanently (stands implies ‘remaining’) from the church or any religious community.

  500, 502, 503office service; duty

  500 suggest prompt, tempt (OED v. 2a)

  man person: the Countess (who must be persuaded to break her marriage vow); Warwick, who is being persuaded to break the Countess’s vow

  504 or introduces an anaphora, reinforcing the sense by reiteration; equivalent to ‘that is’

  cancel … bonds legal metaphor and a favourite Shakespearean collocation: cf., e.g., R3 4.4.77.

  506–7 if … oath Edward asks Warwick to be the man he appears to be. Cf. Son 94.7, ‘They are the lords and owners of their faces’ (Cam; see Melchiori, Meditations, 45–6 and cf. 617n.). See 100–1n.

  * * *

  496 breaks] Q2; breake Q

  510 secret love Cf. Painter, ‘that the thing may so secretly be done, that the fault be not bruted in the eares of other’ (sig. 3S4r).

  511 In Painter, sig. 3S2v, Edward does stand (= wait; OED stand v. 16a) to hear Warwick’s acceptance; Warwick then leaves ‘without tarying for other replie of the King’. Cf. 3.178–9.

  512 from Painter, ‘my onely and last refuge and assured port of all my miseries, resteth in you, eyther by death to ende my lyfe, or by force to obtayne my desire’ (sig. 3R4r–v)

  Thy oath break imperative: ‘thy oath must break’ (Cam)

  513 SP *Q’s error in attributing this speech to the King may have resulted from carrying ‘King:’ forward from the exit SD at 512.

  513 doting See 106n.

  *2O Q’s ‘or’ is defensible, but Capell clarifies the rhetorical balance of Warwick’s line; cf. 578.

  detestable stressed on the first and third syllables; see 39n.

  514–20 See LN.

  514 See 100–1n., and cf. R3 4.4.418–21, where Queen Elizabeth is compelled to woo her daughter for Richard: ‘QUEEN ELIZABETH Shall I be tempted of the devil thus? … / Shall I forget myself to be myself? / KING RICHARD Ay, if your self’s remembrance wrong yourself.’ See pp. 75–6.

  516 vow i.e. his daughter’s marriage vow

  517–18 What … off The right hand is the side of God on which the righteous sit, and the left the side of the ungodly or sinful (Matthew, 25.33–4). It is the honourable and powerful side (1 Kings, 2.19), the reason why oaths are sworn by it (see Galatians, 2.9). Warwick contemplates cutting off the hand with which he swore an unlawful oath. Cf. Matthew, 18.8, ‘If then thy hande … offende thee, cut [it] of’; and Painter, ‘If the hand which ought to helpe me, be the very same that doth giue me the wound, where shall the hope be of my recouerie?’ (sig. 3S1r). For a more sinister twist, cf. 3H6 2.6.79–84.

  518–19 The … it i.e. it is better to break (profane) an oath to the King (idol) than to destroy (confound) the King himself (cf. 512). See 416n. on profane. Cf. ‘An unlawful oath is better broken than kept’ (Dent, O7).

  * * *

  512 break] breakes Q2 513 SP] Q2 (War.); King: Q 2O] Capell subst.; or Q 518 off] (of) 519 idol] (Idoll); idole, Q2

  523–32 Warwick’s method for recantation (521) or renunciation is to alternate lines offering worldly advice, linked by anaphora on I’ll say, with others, mostly linked by But not, that refute it (cf. 206–9n., 321–9n., 551–74, 598–619n.).

  524 remember For similar collocation of remember, induced by antithesis, with forget, see R3 4.4.420–1 (see 514n.).

  527–8 Chiasmus on charity and love highlights the two senses of charity. Cf. LLL 4.3.124.

  529 bear out endure (OED v.1 15b)

  529–30 shame … sin painful awareness or damage to one’s reputation (specifically, violation of a woman’s honour (cf. Luc 617–18)) … moral transgression, offence against God. The marked contrast here offers one incentive for emending the second shame at 592 to ‘sin’ (see n. and cf. 618–19). Cf. Luc 913–14 and MM 2.3.19–20 (F TLN 973–4).

  530 Cf. 11.28.

  kingdom i.e. all the wealth of his realm

  buy out redeem; remove any liability by payment (OED v. phr. 1)

  532 not her honesty elliptical: ‘it would not be conducive to her chastity’ (honesty = chastity)

  534 embassage message on behalf of the King (OED 2); cf. Painter, ‘And I am … not able to winne her by intreaties, offers, presents, sutes, ambassages’ (sig. 3R4r). Cf. 21.

  536 My mother the play’s only mention of Warwick’s wife and the Countess’s mother. See LN. Cf. the entry SDs in MA 1.1 and 2.1, which include Leonato’s silent wife, Innogen. In either play, an active mother would modify our sense of her beleaguered daughter’s isolation.

  importune impòrtune: urge (frequent in early Shakespeare)

  537 *presence Q2 rejects Q’s ‘promise’. Neither ‘in promise’ nor in presence is found in Shakespeare after keep, but cf. 1H4 3.2.54.

  539 enter in begin (OED v. 6a)

  graceless impious; improper (OED a. 1; 5). See 595n.

  errand Q’s spelling, ‘arrant’, was current in the period, e.g., in Shakespeare, CE 2.1.71 (F TLN 348), Cor 5.2.61 (F TLN 3297). The two forms were virtual homonyms (Kökeritz, 185, 301). Q’s form may hint at a suppressed pun on ‘arrant’ = flagrant, outrageous: cf. Mucedorus, sig. D1v, ‘Se. You haue forgotten the arrant I bid you doe. / Clo. What arrant, an arrant knaue, or arrant whore’.

  544 endamagement injury; first cited by OED from Strange News (1592; see Nashe, 1.309). In Shakespeare only at KJ 2.1.209.

  545 Warwick addresses his daughter.

  546 Cf. 100–1n.

  547–9 As at 405–8, housed refers to the biblical notion of the body as a house, earlier a dwelling for the soul (see 401–8n.), here for a devilish spirit; cf. Luke, 11.24, ‘When the vncleane spirite is gone out of a man, he walketh through drye places, sekyng rest: and when he fyndeth none, he sayth, I wyll returne vnto my house, whence I came out.’

  547 attorney agent (OED n.1 1); court of hell carries further suggestion of professional legal agent, advocate (n.1 3, 4). Cf. R3 4.4.413.

  548 his Warwick’s. Warwick, in his diabolical role, speaks of himself in the third person.

  549 do deliver (OED v. 5c, citing Froissart, 191, ‘they loked among them who shulde do the message’; see 1.129–31 LN)

  550 dotes See 106n.

  * * *

  537 presence] Q2; promise Q 539 SD] Moltke graceless] arrant Moore Smith errand] (arrant) 542‘Wife of Salisbury’] Brooke; wife of salisbury Q Wife] Capell; wife Q 549–50 King. / The] Q2; king: / The Q; King: / ‘The Oxf

  551–74, 598–619 The marshalling of aphorisms and arguments for and against a proposition was a rhetorical technique in debating, with obvious application to the composition of plays: see Altman, esp. 3–6, 31–53, 241–5. Warwick’s method is to alternate ‘wise saws’ in support of the two sides of the argument, no longer in alternate lines (as at 523–32; see n.) but in extended speeches, first of acceptance (551–74) and then of rejection (598–619) of the King’s proposition. For antithetical arguments and maxims (sententiae) in Shakespeare, see, e.g., VA 799–804 (antithetical proverbs = distinctio), Luc 528–9, 610–21. Cf. also Luc 246–9 on Tarquin’s moral ‘disputation’.

  551–5 The antithetical phrasing of 551–2 is extended into 553 by the chiasmus on life and honour (cf. 17.34–5n.). Melchiori compares Son 94.1 (see Melchiori, Meditations, 46–8, and cf. 617n.). Warwick’s conclusion that life is to be preferred to honour implies its own refutation.

  553 pawn thine honour risk your virtue or reputation. Cf. 370–1n.

  554–5 anticipates Falstaff’s reflections on honour on the eve of the battle of Shrewsbury, 1H4 5.1.129–40

  556 separates the proverbially linked hay and grass of Dent2, G413, ‘Grass and hay, we are all mortal’, and Dent2, G415.11, ‘Green grass must turn to dry hay’. The sun’s inevitable withering of grass to hay exposes the speciousness of the argument; implicit is the metaphor of hay or cut grass as lost chastity, equating dishonour with death (cf. H5 3.3.13–14, ‘mowing like grass / Your fresh fair virgins’).

  *hay doth Q2 corrects Q’s ‘heye goth’ (probable ‘foul case’ substitution of ‘g’ for ‘d’) to ‘haye, doth’.

  557 would distain wants to corrupt or dishonour. Cf. 100n.; also Luc 786, 2Tam, 4.1.110.

  advance Cf. 480–5 LN (second quotation from Painter).

  558–9 Achilles’ … made Telephus, wounded by the spear of Achilles, was cured by an application of its rust. The legend appears in Horace, Epodes, 17.8, and became proverbial (see Dent, S731).

  560 proverbial: ‘Might overcomes right’ (Dent, M922)

  561–3 proverbial: ‘The lion spares the suppliant’ (Dent, L316; cf. Dent, L36, L316.1). Cf. King Edward’s offers of leniency towards the French on condition of their surrender, e.g. 6.24–33 (see 24–6n.) and particularly 10.33 (see 33–5n.).

  561 become enhance; cf. 446, 16.8 and nn.

  * * *

  552 thy] thine Q2 556 hay doth] Collier; heye goth Q; haye, doth Q2

  562 grace his foragement spare his intended prey (OED grace v. 2b: show favour to)

  foragement recorded by OED only here, and defined as the ‘act of foraging’, but Alcazar (1594), ll. 538–47, confirms the sense of ‘prey’: ‘This flesh I forced from a lyonesse, / … Who when she sawe her foragement bereft, /… rent the breeding vaultes / Of proudest savages to save her selfe’ (Peele, 2.315–16). Cf. 11.81.

  563 vassal subordinate, servile (OED a. 4a, citing this line and Luc 607–8 as first occurrences); perhaps a reminder of the Countess’s status as vassal to Edward

  564 glory … shame biblical collocation undermining Warwick’s argument: cf. God’s judgements for Israel’s sins, in Hosea, 4.7, where God will ‘change their glorie into shame’ (Geneva); glory = splendour or majesty, as of the sun (e.g. 556), but has obvious religious connotations, as kingship figures the sacred glory of God. Cf. 12.156.

  565–6 proverbial (see 327n.). Cf. Massacre at Paris, 2.102–3, ‘those which do behold, they may become / As men that stand and gaze against the sun’.

  567–9 Cf. 12.52–3. For the familiar Shakespearean metaphor of the diluting sea (that figures the King’s greatness), cf. KJ 5.4.53–7 and Luc 652–8. See 301–3n.

  567 What to what extent (OED adv. 20b); how, in what way (adv. 20a)

  drop of A copy of Q2 (H2) has MS note: ‘Com. Err:’ (cf. CE 1.2.35–8, 2.2.131–5).

  568 hugy huge; not in Shakespeare, but familiar in other plays of the period

  vastures expanses; not recorded elsewhere. OED compares ‘vastness’ (n. 3, immense space), whose first occurrence postdates E3. Collier suggests that vastures could be a misreading of ‘vastnes[s]’; however, Shakespeare’s fondness for nouns ending in -ure renders vastures plausible as a coinage (cf. cleftures, 4.164).

  digest disperse, dissipate (OED v. 1b)

  569 his operation its efficacy (OED operation 3a; cf. AC 4.15.26–7); for his as ‘its’, see Abbott, 228.

  570 temper qualify; mitigate; cure (OED v. 1; 2a; 5). Cf. 6.222; also 17.47.

  *thy Capell’s emendation of Q’s ‘their’ is generally accepted: the plural blurs specific reference to the Countess. See also 257n.

  571 *potion Q2’s emendation of Q’s ‘portion’ (which is not nonsense) fits much better with the metaphor and has been widely adopted; cf. Son 111.9–11, 119.1.

  reproach disgrace; censure (OED n. 2a; 1a)

  * * *

  566, 569 lose] (loose) 568 vastures] vastness (Collier); vasture Parfitt 570 thy] Capell; their Q 571 potion] Q2; portion Q

  572 sugared The ‘commonest’ application of sugared is to ‘words’ (OED a. 2e). For the contrast with bitterness, cf. Luc 890–3, ‘Thy secret pleasure turns to open shame, … / Thy sugared tongue to bitter wormwood taste’.

  delicious taste in Shakespeare often suggesting moral and erotic uncertainty: cf. Luc 699, ‘His taste delicious, in digestion souring’; also Hero and Leander, 1.63–4.

  573–4 it … undone i.e. there’s no harm in fulfilling the King’s request when it would be shameful to disobey him. See 433n. The paradoxical quality of this argument in favour of adultery led Moore Smith to question, ‘Should harm and shame be transposed?’

  574 left undone Cf. ‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us’ (Prayer Book, ‘Morning Prayer’, 50 (Sams)).

  575–7 Warwick defines his previous sentiments as spoken on the King’s behalf (in discharge of his duty to persuade, 531) and therefore requiring an answer from his daughter. His prudential arguments make no attempt to disguise sin as virtue (contrast 278–9). Cf. 3–5.

  576 commonplace metaphor of words as clothes, for disguise (as here) or embellishment

  Apparelled dressed up, allowing for a pun on in his suit, 577

  virtuous sentences moral precepts, openly presented as specious

  577 dwell upon await

  578 Cf. 513.

  Unnatural Cam cites Painter’s use of the adjective: ‘you doe exceede therein the cruelties of beastes, who for all their brutishnesse, be not so vnnaturall to doe wrong to their owne yong ones, or to offer their fruite to the mercy of another, as you haue done yours, to the pleasure of a King’ (sig. 3S4r–v).

  besiege current as a noun in the period (OED), now obsolete; cf. 189n.

  Woe me, unhappy close to the Lat. exclamation of grief, Me miseram

  580 envired hemmed in; this syncopated form of ‘environ’, v., is rare. OED records it up to c. 1533, in Lord Berners’s Arthur of Little Britain (written 1520s, first surviving edn perhaps c. 1560).

  friends kinsfolk, relatives (OED n. 3)

  581 stain defile, pollute; discolour. Cf. 100n. Cf. Luc 1742–3, ‘Some of her blood still pure and red remained, / And some looked black, and that false TARQUIN stained.’

  honest faithful; chaste

  * * *

  572 sugared, sweet] Collier subst.; sugred sweet, Q; sugar’d-sweet Capell 573 harm] shame Parfitt

  574 undone.] Q2; vndone; Q; undone.’ Oxf 580 envired] (inuierd), Capell; environ’d Moltke; iniured WP

  582 author … blood father, as at R2 1.3.69. Cf. Painter, ‘I complaine of you … which am your owne flesh, bloud and bone [1575 = which am deriued of your owne fleshe]’ (sig. 3S4r).